Day 1 of our Family Proclamation Week

This week is National Family Week. Our stake (church in the local area) is having a 'Family Proclamation Week' to coincide with it to celebrate 'The Family: A Proclamation to the World'. They have asked that we 'unplug' from the world and 'plug' into our families. This is their plan: A Plan to 'Turn From': Families would turn away from the myriad of distractions that keep us from building family. They would turn off (unplug) TV, movies, Internet, MP3 players, cell phones, outside commitments, play dates, clubs, activities, meeting, classes, sports, work, etc. and dedicate the time to family dinners, family activities, family lessons, family scriptures, family prayer, and family togetherness from 5:00 to bedtime. A Plan to 'Turn To': Families initiate a plan to turn to their family and “devote their best efforts to the teaching and rearing of their children…” (Dallin H. Oaks, Conference Oct. 2007) by planning 7 nights of strictly family time. Family participants would commit to eat dinner together, participate in a family night of their choice, read scriptures, and kneel in prayer as a family each night of the week.

We are excited to participate in this so I thought I would journal our week. The first night we turned off the phones and computers at 5:00. We made cookies together for neighbors and gave them information on the Family Proclamation Week with a copy of the Family Proclamation and a card where they could receive a copy of '3 Steps to a Happier Family'. We came home had scriptures and discussed part of the Family Proclamation. Bruce was on home call but did not receive a call to go in until we were just about done - we just had calendaring left. It was a fun night. Stay tuned to see what the week brings for us!