Last week was my lesson on "Creating a spiritual Environment in the Home" I started out by saying that I always thought in life I would sit in my tower comb my long hair and wait for my prince/knight to fight the dragons of the world and come save me. We would then ride off into the sunset. I said how sometimes he may fall of his horse and we may trip on those glass slippers (Cinderella syndrome I made up...) That we can't wait for someone else to slay our dragons. We must do it ourselves. For our learning. For us to keep the spirit with us always. Women are not allowed on the front lines of the U.S war, but we are on the front lines of a spiritual war, where we can't raise the flag of surrender. We are protecting our homes. I then had some great quotes from President Thomas S. Monson on "Heavenly Homes." It's an awesome, blunt article. I said we will have many types of homes. The one they are in with their siblings, roommates, newlywed, with children and so on. What we do on the outside reflects what the spirit feels like on the inside. Just like we need a temple recommend because our actions can bring the spirit, our home needs to feel like a place of refuge. We then talked about cleanliness, learning, good smells and so on that makes a house nice. You can't forget laughter, and love. I told them that when they are moms, sometimes all we have to do to let the spirit leave is turn the tv on, the computer on and filfth can filter in. I talked about the harms of pornography. I had just gone to a fireside on it, the people there were very blunt and are directors of SALIFELINE. I'm sure you have seen it, it was on in between conference last October. My friends ward does stake dates and invited us to one. That happened to be it. It said that it isn't unheard of of 6 year olds being addicted. Crazy. I told them how they will be fighting for things that we don't know even exist right now. I then did the Wizard of Oz handout and wanted to show the video of a girl that lets darkness into her home. People come in and put dark handprints on white furniture. I saw it in seminary. I then that morning woke up with an idea. I made a Wizard of Oz path of life. What we do outside reflects the home, so we are Dorothy. Glenda is parents guiding, leaders, and good examples telling us which path to follow. The ruby red slippers is the spirit, trying to lead us back "home" , Like the scarecrow, We need a healthy brain so we must be careful of bad movies, music, tv, and computer use. We need compassion like the Tin Man wanted. We need to watch out for gossip, envy, jealousy. We then need courage like the Lion in order to go down the path. The wizard is the knowledge of the gospel. The wicked Witch is satan and he sends his fiery darts of monkeys at us. The lesson turned out good, in this day and age you have to be open, honest, and not to set them up for failure. I told them we are giving them the armor to protect them and their future families. I told of the story of pearl harbor, how a man by the name of McDonald heard on the radio of a bunch of planes coming in. He told the private in charge, and the Private said it was probably just their own u.s planes and not to worry about it. He asked him again but once again was told "Don't worry about it." We all know what happened next. Japan planes destroyed Pearl Harbor. We are having warnings about the dangers in society, we say don't worry about it. It's only a little bad... and before we know it one day we are going to wake up and ask How did we get bombed?!