Morning Devotional

 Early this year our family began doing a morning devotional. It is one of those small and simple things that I can't believe we didn't start sooner.

What we do (and don't do) during morning devotional

Our "real" family scripture study takes place in the evenings. This is where we read (or attempt to read) a chapter from the weekly Come, Follow Me. We do it in the evening because that is when the entire family is home. 

In the morning I wake the late-sleepers and invite them into devotional. If the 5-year-old doesn't pop out of bed by himself, I will carry him into the living room where he will snuggle on the couch with a blanket. Most of my children are teenagers. Sometimes they refuse to get out of bed and come in. I finally got to the point where I would hold devotional with whoever came in, even if it wasn't everyone. Most mornings we get four out of five children. If my husband is working from home, he will typically come up and join us.

Morning Devotional

We invite the family to kneel for prayer. A boy wrapped in a blanket kneels beside the couch and buries his face in his arms. The youngest cuddles on my lap. Good enough. We pray.

I open up to the next page in Don't Miss This in the Book of Mormon. There is a scripture quote featured at the top of the page that goes along with our Come, Follow Me study for the week, then a short story or deeper thoughts related to the scripture that only take a couple minutes to read.

Some weeks we work on memorizing. For example, I printed several quarter-sheet size copies of the new Aaronic Priesthood Theme. My boys read the theme together once a morning for a couple weeks. Then we tried the same thing with the new Restoration Proclamation, using just one paragraph at a time. I've kept the old memory cards, and some weeks we pick one to review (instead of doing something new).

For about a month we tried including a hymn we were learning, but our early morning voices don't do them justice, so we haven't done that in a few months. 

Recently, I began including my 5-year-old's weekly scripture story at the end of devotional (the older ones usually are helping themselves to cereal by this point). These illustrated stories have been published in the Friend magazine. I have compiled them in a 1" binder with sheet protectors. The stories are available in the Gospel Library app under Scripture Stories for Young Readers. We might read the same story for two or three days in a row, until the next morning he can tell me the name of the main character and what happened in the story. Sometimes the stories line-up with what the family is reading for Come, Follow Me. But we don't limit ourselves to that. At his age, he still needs to hear a couple of times a year about Noah's ark, David and Goliath, etc. That means we are focusing more on breadth than depth for him at this time. 

"By small and simple things are great things brought to pass," (Alma 37:6). It only takes a few minutes to do morning devotional, but over time, the little things make a difference.