Family Home Evening - Obedience (Starring Jonah & the Whale)

Tonight we had our Family Home Evening (FHE).  We discussed the importance of obedience, listening & obeying.  We shared the Bible story of Jonah and the Whale (Jonah 1:1-3).  In this story Heavenly Father tells Jonah to go to Nineveh to teach the gospel and Jonah doesn't listen and obey.  Because he was disobedient and didn't listen and obey Heavenly Father he was swallowed by the whale.  Just like Jonah, when we don't listen and obey we will get into trouble.  But when we do what we're supposed to do things will go well.  

I thought it was a great story with a wonderful point but somehow I don't think my boys got the same message I was trying to share.  While I'm trying to make the point about being obedient, David is jumping on the couch and I have to keep asking him to stop jumping and sit down.  Michael was to busy running back and forth between the couch and my amazing picture of Jonah that he didn't even know we were talking to him.  Donovan was so tired that he just sat there, so lethargic that he didn't make a sound the entire evening!  Aleky was the only child who seemed interested in what I was say but I suspect he was secretly thinking about eating my scripture pages.

This is the second FHE in a row that we've been able to hold the gathering together by sheer will-power.  I'm not sure what happened but our children have gone wild; pure, raw uncontrollable energy oozing from these poor children.  Maybe it's the cooler weather (and not playing outside) that has caused this explosion of fitfulness.  Whatever the cause, we need to find a way to harness this energy or find a way to drain it because neither our house nor our sanity will survive an entire winter of this commotion!