Lego FHE

My boys love Legos.  Mr. One and Mr. Two can sit and build for hours and hours.  Mr. Three likes to unbuild what his older brothers create :).  He likes making things with his Duplo blocks as well.  Mr. Four loves to chew on Legos.  We have to be very vigilant about keeping the little pieces out of his reach.  When they are not building, they are often discussing various Lego adventures.

I hope that the language of faith and the Gospel come as easily for them as talking about their favorite playthings.  As I was pondering this, I had a light-bulb moment.  I could use Legos to help my children better understand the gospel.  Here's how Mike and I did just that.

I purchased two identical small Lego sets and placed the pieces only (minus the mini figure) in two small boxes.  We told the boys that we had a gift for them.  (We gave Mr. Three a Hot Wheel to open just to be fair because he is too young for the little Lego sets.)  We let them open the boxes and dump out the pieces.  Then we simply said, "OK, now build it."  They were a little confused and asked us what they were building.  We just told them to figure it out.  They started examining the pieces and experimenting with putting them together.  Mr. One kind of enjoyed this, although you could see he was confused about what he was supposed to do, but it was clearly frustrating to Mr. Two.  Mr. Two quickly said, "We need instructions!"  We asked them if just a picture would help, and we showed them.  That gave them a better idea, but still was difficult to know how to put everything together.  Then, we gave them the instructions.  They were both able to put their model together fairly quickly.

We asked them to explain why they needed the instructions.  They said that they told them what to do, that they made building easier, that they helped them understand how to fit all the pieces together the right way.  We then asked them if they knew of anything that they had that might be like their Lego instructions to help them in their own lives.  Perhaps a book of instructions to help them know how to live.  We were impressed when they quickly connected the instructions to the scriptures.  Bingo!  We were able to have a good, short and sweet talk about how the scriptures are a guidebook for our own lives.  They can provide answers to our problems.  They can give examples of righteous people to follow.  They can be an answer to our prayers.  They tell us how to live so that we can return to our Heavenly Father.  Just like the Lego instructions, that they can go back to to help them rebuild a model, the scriptures help us build our testimonies, and we can learn from them each time we read.

We shared our testimonies about the power that comes in reading the scriptures.  How they have blessed our own lives and answered our own questions and prayers.  We expressed our desire to have them love the word of God, to be eager to read and study them individually, to have their own testimonies.

I am grateful that inspiration can come through the most everyday items, and that even Legos can be a springboard for a meaningful gospel discussion.