1998
Our Home Evening History
February 1998


“Our Home Evening History,” Ensign, Feb. 1998, 72

Our Home Evening History

While our children were growing up, we had them take turns keeping minutes of our family home evenings. Not long ago I decided to preserve their comments by typing them into the computer to add to our family history. What a fun project it turned out to be!

As I read through our minutes, I found myself laughing aloud at the funny things our children wrote down, such as our telling a daughter not to be silly when company dropped in and a four-year-old son’s counsel not to jump on anyone’s furniture when we went visiting. I also found myself wondering if singing “I Hope They Call Me on a Mission” (Children’s Songbook, p. 169) every other week or so had anything to do with the fact that four of our children served missions.

Our minutes showed the goals we set as a family at the beginning of every year, and as I typed those goals into the computer, I felt again a sense of satisfaction that we accomplished many of them. Now, as adults, I see my children still setting goals.

The minutes also tell another story. They reveal the changes in a child’s handwriting over the years—from drawing simple pictures to printing to writing in cursive; from scribbling along the side of the page in boredom to drawing recognizable scenes and objects as they listened to the lesson.

Keeping minutes of our family home evenings captured on paper some of our best memories of our family growing up.—Shirley M. Oakes, Gridley, Illinois

Illustrated by Sheleena Hamblin