We started with a family prayer circle. There are a couple of variations that we do but our favorite is to join hands in a circle.
Someone starts the prayer and when they are finished they squeeze the hand of the person to their right and so on until everyone in the circle has had an opportunity to pray; the last person closes the prayer.
The feeling of unity is strong and even the youngest children are focused and involved; we pray as one.
For the sacrament, we used homemade bread fresh out of the oven which was prepared by my wife and daughters.
Dividing the bread from a whole loaf instead of a slice was a unique experience and felt meaningful to me. Also, no we didn’t use the whole loaf, but we did use about half of it.
The first time I offered the sacrament prayer for the bread at my inlaws last week I totally butchered the words which was frustrating because I’ve always felt like I knew the words in my mind really well.
This time I decided to make absolutely sure I got it right and color-coded the sections of the prayers on my phone in the Library app. This made it easier to follow and I could simply swipe right to get to the blessing on the water.
We had a short testimony meeting, my wife shared an experience from her journal where, as a youth, she visited the sacred grove, and we had a lesson on the restoration.
We also did a group video chat with the extended family (Zoom, Facetime) for a Sunday School lesson and discussion.