Family Home Evening: The Good Samaritan

We had a great lesson on serving others.  We started off by reading and then acting out the story of the Good Samaritan.  Then we thought of a few ways to show Christ-like love to family or friends.  We decided on writing letters to great-grandparents; I'm thinking we'll expand it to Grandmothers to help the children remember their importance as we celebrate Mother's Day.

For our activity I put together a round of family history trivia.  Earlier in the week one of my kiddos was working on a family history project and didn't know some simple things like grandparents' first names.  So I put together questions that might be challenging for those not working on family history regularly. 

• What year was Grandpa born in?  
• What is Grandma's maiden name?  
• What day was Dad baptized?  (Even he didn't know the exact date!)  
• What is Uncle's birth date?  
• What is Aunt's middle name?  
• Who was Mom named after?  (That was a trick question since there was more than one person.)  

There was a moment when one of my kiddos was feeling bad for not knowing very many answers, but feelings turned around when I explained it was more of a fun way to learn about our family history, rather than a contest.

We finished off the evening with cheesecake - the real Jell-o kind (according to my family).  I still think of the cheesecake that has to be baked as the real kind - to each his own!