Week 2: Family History

Morning Meeting - Read (or summarize) the lineage of Jesus found in Matthew 1:2-16. Afterward, I showed my boys a printed picture of our family tree (I found mine on familysearch.org) and we talked about the chart and our ancestors.

FAMILY HOME EVENING:

1) Family Tree. Have the kids teach dad about our morning meeting. Then, explain that we're going to learn a few stories about our ancestors.

2) Tell Stories of our Ancestors: If you're on familysearch.org you can click on an ancestor and sometimes their picture or a brief history is available. I remember hearing the first story from my mom. I told two stories from my side and my husband told two stories from his side. We talked about our ancestors and we talked about what we can learn from them.

• John Duke: He lived at the time of the prophet, Joseph Smith. He and his family were forced to leave Nauvoo and suffered greatly across the plains. One night in particular everyone, including John Duke, were starving for food. They prayed and quail came down from the sky. They were so tame, the pioneers could pick them up in their hands. (We talked about how God provides miracles in our lives and how our prayers can be answered, too.)

• John Fairbanks: He was an amazing artist and helped paint the walls inside the Salt Lake Temple. His signature is to the right of the stairs in this room below:

• Avard Fairbanks: He was an amazing sculptor! He studied in Europe and sculpted multiple LDS sculptures, including this one below of when Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the Aaronic priesthood.

3) Make Grandpa Clarence's Chocolate Chip Cookies. We also talked about some not so distant ancestors, including my Great Grandpa Clarence. He passed away about ten years ago and left behind the most amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe. He toiled with the recipe and came up with the "perfect recipe". If you're interested, you can find the recipe here. We made these cookies and ate them together for our treat tonight.