Once a month we have a family home evening where all of us– the married kids, grandkids, college students, and parents– get together. Recently, it was my turn to be in charge and I decided to have a dinner activity. This activity entailed creating a dinner plan out of the different sections of the Plan of Salvation. Family members were assigned a different part of the Plan of Salvation that could be represented in either a side dish or dessert. I provided the main dish. As well, each family had to explain how their assignment was represented in their item.

My brother and sister-in-law were given Pre-Mortal Life.  They brought homemade bread.  Every time my sister-in-law makes bread, she is reminded that home is a heaven on earth–all fluffy, like a cloud. (And yes, her bread is definitely fluffy, like a cloud. Yummmm!)

My sister, and her family, brought meatballs to symbolize our Earth-Life.  She   explained that the meatballs represented the flesh and bones that live on the earth. Someone else commented that we are all really just meatballs.

I provided the main dish, making Fettucine Alfredo with chicken.  White Alfredo sauce represented the whiteness of the place.  Some of the chicken was wrapped up in the noodles, designating those caught in Spirit Prison, while other pieces of chicken were laying free amidst the noodles, representing Spirit Paradise.

My mom made the dessert by cutting puff pastry into stars, moon, and sun shapes, layering them with cream and strawberries, in order of the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial Kingdoms.

My college age brothers forgot to bring anything, so they claimed to represent Judgment–on how good everything was. Luckily, we had ingredients to throw together a salad.

I had everyone put their dishes randomly on the counter so my nieces and nephew could arrange the dishes in the order of the Plan of Salvation.

After eating our delicious meal, I began a discussion of the Atonement, and what it means to everyone.

“It was a Friday that the Savior of mankind was humiliated and bruised, abused and reviled. It was a Friday filled with devastating, consuming sorrow that gnawed at the souls of those who loved and honored the Son of God…but the doom of that day did not endure. The despair did not linger because on Sunday, the resurrected Lord burst the bonds of death.  He ascended from the grave and appeared gloriously triumphant as the Savior of all mankind.”

It will be a special family memory, we can all look back on, testifying to one another, sharing thoughts and feelings, and enjoying the essence of the gospel together. All of us, including my immature brothers (our forgetful judges) gave powerful testimony of the Plan of Salvation, the purpose of Life, and the Savior of the World.

“Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again.  We will all have our Fridays. But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.”

Because of the Atonement, Sunday came and Sunday will always come.

(Both quotes come from “Sunday Will Come”, Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, Oct. 2006)