Amara's Family Night: Opening Our Hearts to God

 Last Monday was Amara's turn for family night.  She planned it out, wrote out what she was going to say, and presented it with such joy.  We had a great time.  She did an object lesson with a toy zebra (representing God) and a bird cage with a paper heart cut out and taped to the inside (representing each of our hearts).

"Everyone that lives on this earth can choose to open their hearts for god.  It might seem weird, but this zebra is God.  See this birdcage?  It's your heart.  Through hard times, it's hard to open this door for god.  Why can't he open this door?  He can't.  He has hooves. So you need to open your hearts to god.  If your family is opening their hearts, you should too./ Find all the hidden hearts, they will have a number o the back, find the Jesus with the matching number. / After, I will read a scripture, D&C (section 52) verse 15"

 After her object lesson, she gave us all a chance to go on a search around the room for hidden hearts and hidden Jesus faces that she drew and taped in obscure places.  We each had to find a heart, look on the back for a number, then find a Jesus face with a matching number.  It took us about 5 minutes for everyone to complete the activity.  Then we all got to take turns opening the cage (our hearts) and putting our Jesus face on the heart, and moving God (the zebra) into our heart as well.

We got to let god (zebra) into our hearts (cage).

 Amara ended with giving us all a bookmark and reading us a scripture from Doctrine and Covenants 52:15, "Wherefore he that prayeth, whose spirit is contrite, the same is accepted of me if he obey mine ordinances."  A contrite spirit is one who has opened their hearts to receiving God.

The bookmark she made for each of us.

I loved our activity and the scripture actually served as my next day's scripture study because the verses all around it seemed so applicable to today. 

Amara is a very creative person and knows how to make things fun and inspirational!