Family Home Evening

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the one evening per week, usually Monday, that  families are encouraged to spend together in study,  prayer and other activities. According to the LDS Church, the purpose of FHE is to help families strengthen bonds of  love with each other as well as provide an atmosphere where parents can teach their  children principles of the  gospel. In the University Ward context,  FHE is supposed to be a weekly forum for ward members to socialize in a more relaxed setting, whether through playing games,learning new skills, or expanding their spiritual knowledge.

Opening Exercises
FHE always begins with an opening song/hymn, prayer, and then a spiritual thought. Spiritual thoughts can be anything from sharing a short scripture, a labored analogy, reading from a general conference talk, or whatever the person decides to do. Length is therefore variable.

Main Activity
Some examples of noteworthy FHE activities:
 * Dodgeball
 * Game nights
 * Spelling/Geography Bees
 * Game shows
 * Election Year Presentations on CA Propositions
 * Teenage Angst Night
 * Sub4Santa Gift Shopping & Wrapping
 * Murder in the Dark
 * Karaoke
 * Stagefighting Class

Refreshments
Light refreshments always conclude FHE. Though traditional to offer a prayer to bless the refreshments in Mormon culture, the Berkeley ward tends to just jump into eating refreshments. Liquid nitrogen ice cream parties are the upper echelon of refreshments; cookies and milk are more standard fare. Ward members are responsible and always always help clean up afterwards.

Start Time Controversy
While FHE had traditionally started at 7:30pm (to accomodate working people arriving from work), one FHE mom successfully shifted the start time to 7pm, to get home at a reasonable hour due to post-FHE socializing. While there were worries that working professionals' FHE attendance would fall, there has been minimal shift in their attendance; FHE attendance is often not correlated with concerns about start times.

FHE Parents
The co-chairs of the FHE committee are traditionally called the FHE mom & dad.