It Is Better to Look Up

I love it when I can apply General Conference talks into our every day life....Elder Carl B. Cook gave a talk entitled 'It Is Better to Look Up'...it was really inspiring and was great for our Family Home Evening (FHE).

We started FHE by singing 'I Am a Child of God' (but 'The Lord Is my Light' would be perfect if your family know it).  For the lesson we shared Elder Cooks story of feeling weighed down and meeting the prophet in the elevator.  We then talked about how trials, burdens etc can weigh us down and sometimes make us feel sad, but how if we look to the Lord we will be happy and our burdens will become light.  We then gave the children a little piece of card with the title of the talk on...followed by this quote that's near the end of his talk-

We must look up and step up.  And as we do, I know we will cheer up, for God wants us to be happy.

We all wrote on the back what burden we were going to 'release' and then attached it to the helium balloons.  Shoes and coats were hurriedly put on so that we could drive to a nearby hill to let them go, there was alot of excited squealing on the way.....and then crying, might I add, as my five year old daughter suddenly realised that she was going to have to say goodbye to her new pretty pink balloon.....

It was lovely to watch the balloons float away only to watch four of them get stuck in a tree!!...not quite the picture I had imagined, but then is any FHE, haha.  For treat we had '7up,' get it?!?? and my attempt at balloon fairy cakes....I know they're terrible because even my kids didn't know what they were, haha.....hey, it's the thought that counts.

So my suggestions if you were to repeat this for FHE are...put a backpack on somebody and load it up with objects symbolising trials/burdens that we could be carrying...don't be near any trees...get double amount of balloons to prevent tears....don't attempt a balloon cake topping unless fully qualified :)....but most of all, when the FHE gets tough....It Is Better to Look Up.