Happy or Sad—Facing Our Choices

You can give a family home evening lesson on how to be happy. For each person, you will need: scissors, a magazine, two paper plates, glue, and two paint-stirring sticks. You will also need yarn, crayons (optional), and tape.

Have each person make a happy face and a sad face by cutting eyes, noses, ears, and mouths out of the magazine and gluing them onto the fronts of the paper plates; use yarn for hair. Or they can draw the faces or parts of the faces on the plates. (See illustrations for other ideas.) Have a grown-up glue or tape a paint-stirring stick to the back of each plate.

When each person has a sad face and a happy face, ask someone to read these two scriptures: Mosiah 2:41 and Alma 41:10. Point out that keeping the commandments leads to happiness. Breaking them leads to sadness. Explain that you will tell several brief stories about people who obeyed or disobeyed Heavenly Father’s commandments. You might want to ask another family member to help you think of stories. Each person will vote, by holding up the happy or sad face, whether the choices in each story lead to happiness or sadness. For example, you might say, “John smoked a cigarette,” or “Mary helped her mother.” Or you can make the stories harder.

After each story and face-vote, talk about why the choice made would lead to happiness or sadness. If you wish, you can let another family member take a turn telling a story while you take a turn voting.

Photo by Kelly Larsen