Family Home Evening: Lessons Learned from President Hinckley
Preparation: Put objects that go with each story into a grab-bag (or pillowcase): a black sock, orange sign, “letter from father”, new bar of soap (or picture of soap), penny (or any coin), necktie, brown lunch bag, piece of string, and pictures of a train, old car, shovel, airplane, & star.
Ask 2 people to be ready to say the prayers. Make sure you know the songs you’ll be singing, or pick other songs. Prepare a treat if you want to, maybe cookies with WALNUTS because President Hinckley loved his walnut tree.
Opening song: “Follow the Prophet” (Children’s Songbook, page 110), last verse
“Now we have a world where people are confused, if you don’t believe it, go and watch the news, we can get direction, all along the way, if we heed the prophets, follow what they say. Follow the prophet…”
Before singing, pick 2 helpers: the first person hides the little photo of President Hinckley, while the second person leaves the room. Once the picture is hidden, the second person enters the room and the family begins singing. Sing quietly when the “searcher” is far away from the picture’s hiding place, then sing louder when the person is closer to the picture.
Opening prayer
Quote: “It is not enough just to be good. We must be good for something.” -- President Hinckley
Lesson: Ask a family member to reach into the grab-bag (or pillowcase) and take out an object that represents a story from President Hinckley’s life. Each story teaches a lesson (and some history!). Read (or tell) the story that goes with that object. Continue asking family members to pull something out of the grab-bag, until every object has been used (or until out of time). Tell everyone to pay attention because there will be a Review Game afterwards!
SHOVEL: “In my early childhood, we had a stove in the kitchen and a stove in the dining room. A furnace was later installed, and what a wonderful thing that was. But it had a voracious appetite for coal, and there was no automatic stoker. The coal had to be shoveled into the furnace and carefully banked each night. I learned a great lesson from that monster of a furnace: if you wanted to keep warm, you had to work the shovel.”
ORANGE SIGN: “We got sick then just as people get sick now. In fact, I think we did more so. In those early years, the milk we drank was not pasteurized. We, of course, did not have an automatic dishwasher, except that it was our automatic duty to wash the dishes. When we were diagnosed as having chicken pox or measles, the doctor would advise the city health department, and a man would be sent to put a sign in the front window. This was a warning to any who might wish to come to our house that they did so at their own peril. If the disease was smallpox or diphtheria, the sign was bright orange with black letters. It said, in effect, “Stay away from this place.” I learned something I have always remembered—to watch for signs of danger and evil and stay away.”
SOCK: “We dressed neatly for school, and no unkempt appearance was tolerated. The boys wore a shirt and a tie and short trousers. We wore long black stockings that reached from the foot to above the knee. They were made of cotton, and wore out quickly, so they had to be darned frequently. We learned how to darn because it was unthinkable to go to school with a hole in your stocking. We learned a lesson on the importance of personal neatness and tidiness, and that has blessed my life ever since.”
SOAP: When President Hinckley was in the first grade, he came home after the first day and threw his books on the table and took the name of the Lord in vain. His mother heard him and was horrified. Without uttering a word, she took him by the hand and led him to the bathroom, pulled out a clean washcloth and a bar of soap, told him to open his mouth and proceeded to wash his mouth out. When she was finished she said, “Don’t let me ever hear such words from your lips again.” After that, President Hinckley always remembered the importance of clean language.
PENNY: President Hinckley’s father told him this story at a family home evening more than 80 years ago, and he remembered it throughout his whole life. It reminded him of the importance of being kind:
An older boy and his young companion were walking along a road that led through a field. They saw an old coat and a badly worn pair of men’s shoes by the roadside, and in the distance, they saw the owner working in the field. The younger suggested that they hind the shoes, conceal themselves, and watch the perplexity on the owner’s face when he returned. The older boy, a benevolent lad, thought that would not be so good. He said the owner must be a very poor man. After discussing the matter, they concluded to try another experiment. Instead of hiding the shoes, they would put a silver dollar in each one and, concealing themselves, see what the owner did when he discovered the money.
Soon the man returned from the field, put on his coat and slipped one foot into a shoe, felt something hard, took it out, and found a silver dollar. Wonder and surprise showed in his face. He looked at the dollar again and again, turned around and could see nobody, then proceeded to put on the other shoe where, to his great surprise, he found another dollar. His feelings overcame him and he knelt down and offered aloud a prayer of thanksgiving, in which he spoke of his wife being sick and helpless and his children without bread. Then he fervently thanked the Lord for this bounty from unknown hands and evoked a blessing of heaven upon those who had given him this needed help. The boys remained concealed until he had gone. Then they quietly walked along the lane and one said to the other, “Don’t you have a good feeling? Aren’t you glad we didn’t try to deceive him?”
NECKTIE: “The bane of my first-grade teacher’s life was my friend Louie. He had what psychologists today might call some kind of an obsessive fixation. He would sit in class and chew his tie until it became wet and stringy. The teacher would scold him. Louie eventually became a man of substance, and I have learned never to underestimate the potential of a boy to make something of his life, even if he chews his tie.”
BROWN LUNCH BAG: “One of my friends was Lynn. He was always in trouble. Lynn seemed to have a hard time concentrating on what was going on, particularly when spring came and things looked better outside than they did in. Miss Spooner, our teacher, seemed to have it in for Lynn. One day at about eleven o’clock, Lynn disturbed the class, and Miss Spooner told him to go shut himself in the closet until she let him out. Lynn obediently went to the closet and closed the door behind him. When the bell rang at twelve o’clock, Lynn came out chewing the last bite of Miss Spooner’s lunch. We couldn’t help laughing, all but Miss Spooner, and that made matters worse. Lynn went on clowning throughout his life. He never learned until it was too late that life is a serious thing in which serious choices are to be made with much of care and prayer.”
PICTURE OF OLD CAR (OR A TOY CAR): “My father had a horse and buggy when I was a boy. Then one summer day in 1916, a wonderful thing happened. It was an unforgettable thing. When he came home that evening he arrived in a shining black brand-new Model T Ford. From that car I learned a few simple things about making preparation to save trouble. A little canvas over the cowl would keep the coils dry. A little care in retarding the spark would make it possible to crank without breaking your hand. But the most interesting thing was the lights. The car had no storage battery. The only electricity came from what was called a magneto. The output of the magneto was determined by the speed of the engine. If the engine was running fast, the lights were bright. If the engine slowed, the lights became a sickly yellow. I learned that if you wanted to see ahead as you were going down the road, you had to keep the engine running at a fast clip. So, just as I’d discovered, it is with our lives. Industry, enthusiasm, and hard work lead to enlightened progress. You have to stay on your feet and keep moving if you are going to have light in your life.”
STAR: ‘On clear, clean summer nights, we would lie on our backs in that old wagon box and look at the myriads of stars in the heavens. We could identify some of the constellations,…but our favorite was the North Star. Each night we would trace the Big Dipper, down the handle and out past the cup, to find the North Star. We came to know of the constancy of that star. … As the earth turned, the others appeared to move through the night. But the North Star held its position in line with the axis of the earth. Because of those boyhood musings, the polar star came to mean something to me. I recognized it as a constant in the midst of change. It was something that could always be counted on, something that was dependable, an anchor in what otherwise appeared to me a moving and unstable firmament’ ” In his youth, Gordon B. Hinckley patterned his life after the constancy of the North Star. He wanted to be a young man that the Lord and others could depend on.
LETTER FROM FATHER: As a missionary in England he faced some very challenging times. He was concerned about the money being spent to support him on his mission. Somewhat discouraged, Gordon wrote a letter to his father, saying: ‘I am wasting my time and your money. I don’t see any point in my staying here.’ In due course a gentle but terse reply came from his father. That letter read: ‘Dear Gordon. I have your letter...I have only one suggestion. Forget yourself and go to work. With love, Your Father.’ President Hinckley says of that moment, “I pondered his response and then the next morning in our scripture class we read that great statement of the Lord: ‘For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it’ (Mark 8:35) That simple statement, that promise, touched me. I got on my knees and made a covenant with the Lord that I would try to forget myself and go to work. I count that as the day of decision in my life. Everything good that has happened to me since then I can trace back to the decision I made at that time.”
TRAIN: Many years ago President Hinckley worked in a Denver railroad office where he was in charge of the baggage and express traffic carried in passenger trains. One day he received a telephone call from another railroad in New Jersey who said that a passenger train had arrived without its baggage car. Three hundred passengers were angry because they had no luggage. They discovered that the train had left California and traveled to Utah and then to Denver and St. Louis with no problems. However, in St. Louis a switchman had mistakenly moved a piece of metal just three inches. That piece of steel was a switch point and the baggage car that should have been in New Jersey was in Louisiana, fourteen hundred miles away. So it is with our lives. A careless poor decision can wreak havoc with consequences that reach further than you could ever imagine.
PIECE OF STRING: Pres. Hinckley told this French story to remind us to forgive and to not hold a grudge:
Once upon a time there was a peasant named Hauchecome who came to the village on market day. While walking through the public square, his eye caught sight of a piece of string lying on some cobblestones. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. The village harness maker, who had been in a fight with him once, saw him do this. Later in the day, the loss of a purse was reported. The harness maker accused Hauchecome who was promptly arrested. He was taken to the mayor, where he pleaded innocent and showed him the piece of string he had picked up. But no one believed him and instead laughed at him. The next day, the purse was found and Hauchecome was set free. But he was very angry and could not forgive and talked of nothing else. He didn’t take care of his farm. Everywhere he went he told everyone he met about what had happened. Day and night he worried about it. He finally became very ill and died. His last words were “A piece of string, a piece of string.”
It may be difficult to forgive those who have hurt us, but if we don’t, we cannot find peace. We need forgiveness and mercy in our homes so tiny molehills of misunderstandings won’t grow into mountains of arguments.
AIRPLANE: Some years ago, President Hinckley and his wife were on a plane flying between Hawaii and California. At that time, only propeller driven planes were available. About halfway across the ocean, one of the motors stopped. The plane slowed down and began dropping. Everyone became afraid. The airplane had lost of its power and without that power it could not fly high, fast or safely. Thankfully they were able to arrive safely in
California. This is like life. If we try to fly alone without the Lord’s guidance, we are flying with partial power. We simply cannot do as much alone as we can when we team our efforts with Heavenly Father.
REVIEW GAME: Divide into 2 teams, Team X and Team O. Draw a tic-tac-toe square. Show Team X an object from the grab bag, then someone on that team tells what President Hinckley was teaching us from the story that goes with that object. If the team answers correctly, they may put an X on the tic-tac-toe square. Then it’s Team O’s turn. Continue until one team wins, or until you run out of objects.
Variation: Play Connect Four, letting each team place a checker after answering a question. (You may also play Connect Four on graph paper, drawing X’s and O’s in the squares instead of using checkers.)
Closing Song: “Stand for the Right” (Children’s Songbook, page 159) or “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet” (Hymns, no. 19)
Closing Prayer
Main source: Gordon B. Hinckley, “Some Lessons I Learned as a Boy,” Ensign, May 1993