FHE book

Several months ago when I was in the blogger brawl (remember that?!), I met someone named Janna McFerson, who was also in it. She told me that she had written a book and needed people to review it. I was pretty excited about doing it and eagerly awaited the arrival of my copy in the mail.

The book is called "There's No Place Like Home... Evening." For those of you who aren't LDS, Family Home Evening is a program that encourages families to devote one night per week to spending time together as a family. There could be a spiritual lesson shared, or maybe just a fun outing or a game night. Whatever the agenda is, the point is to spend an evening together.

This book is dedicated to single people who don't have FHE as a family unit, but instead have it with other singles. It's written as a guide book for planning FHE nights for singles and I have to say, it far exceeded my expectations. Like most single LDS people, I have been in the position of being made co-chair of an activities committee and thinking, "ok...where do I go from here?"

This book is like finding the answer key to a hard test and being told you're allowed to just go ahead and reference it the whole time you're taking the test.

Janna laid it out perfectly - she talks about what the point of FHE is, what troubles you might come across as you're planning activities, and then she just goes ahead and gives you a whole years worth of ideas! But she doesn't just list them, she gives ideas for hand outs, refreshments, and ways to get people excited about attending your activity. The book even comes with a CD full of hand out and flier ideas.

The illustrations in the book are very fun, and to be honest, when it arrived I just couldn't stop flipping through it to look at the fun pictures and fonts. But even more important than the fun lay out is the content. If you are put in charge of FHE or really, any activities committee, I would highly recommend ordering a copy of this book. I knew it was going to be good, but I didn't know it was going to be this good.

I know this review is very gushing but trust me, I don't owe Janna any favors and she didn't pay me to write this - it's just a great book! Thanks for letting me be one of the first to see it, Janna.