consistency

A few years ago, my blog was listed in some online list of good LDS blogs and the writer wrote some disclaimer that the blogs listed could go out of activity at any time. I thought that was a weird thing to write and it kind of annoyed me, frankly. Like, I don't need self-fulfilling prophesies like that, friend!

My life priorities got shifted real quick soon after that and I moved and had a couple more kids, and things that I always did such as blogging went to the bottom of my to-do list.

Isn't that just life sometimes?  I find my life feeling really hard these last few years. I find I'm in the part of my life that my Patriarchal blessing so frequently and ominously refers to as "difficult times."

When I get in the fog of life I find it hard to study and keep up Family study, but I rededicate myself as I can and today was one of those moments.  We bought new notebooks and markers and I sat with the kids making a page beautiful.

I added a scripture from section 1: "And in as much as they were humble, they might be made strong and blessed from on high and received knowledge from time to time."

I need to receive knowledge from on high to navigate the difficult times.  I am hoping that being more dedicated to scripture study this year will help me do this.

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Seek, Feel, Act, Know

Is there a formula that leads to testimony? 

I've been thinking a lot about this as I prepared for my talk on the topic of "receiving in faith." 

I believe there is a basic pathway. 

First we seek for truth, then we feel it is right, then we must act in faith on that principle, and THEN comes the witness of that truth, the evidence or the testimony. 

Many people make the mistake of thinking that they need to know first, but in my experience knowing and understanding fully comes last. 

It comes after seeking, feeling, and acting in faith...acting being the key. Another mistake we can sometimes make when trying to build a testimony is trying to understand things only academically or logically and not giving room for our feelings or spiritual promptings to teach us.   Other ways we trip up is placing caveats or time limits on the step of "act in faith".

What do you guys think? Is my theory correct? Have you experienced this yourself? 

It's definitely been taught to us in scripture and by living prophets, but how diligently do we put this into practice? 

I'm going to try harder to actively do this in my life and to teach my children to do this for themselves! 

I hope you're having a great day! 

And no I didn't get to give my talk because we got snowed it but we talked about it on Sunday for #ComeFollowMe.

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Let Them Teach

One of my favorite principles that helps me teach my family is "Let them Teach".

My children get so excited when I asked them to teach a lesson.

Scarlett taught our #ComeFollowMe lesson today. She chose to use a storybook we have called "Oskar and the Eight Blessings" to help us think of ways we can make our scripture study more meaningful. The child in the book, a recent immigrant, has a goal to get to his family before the first candle is lit on Hanukkah. Along the way he experiences 8 blessings that help him meet that goal. Scarlett drew the parallel that if we have a goal to make our scripture study more meaningful, and we work diligently towards that, the Lord will bless us in unexpected ways like the boy in the story.

Scarlett had us each draw a picture of a menorah in our journals and write things we each will do to help our scripture study be more meaningful.

It was a really unique idea and opened up a discussion about Christ being Jewish, about ancient Israel, about the Law of Moses pointing people to the Messiah, about covenants and the way Christ has dealt with man through each dispensation, about how Jesus Christ is "Jehovah" of the Old Testament, and how one of the main purposes of the Book of Mormon is to convince both Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the whole world.

Autumn especially enjoyed and seemed to want to know more about this, which helped me to know that I need to give my kids a reference point and some more historical and religious background as we move forward so that the scriptures we read can be better understood and put in context for them.

But for now, we'll focus on doing the things we listed to help our study be more meaningful moving forward. And those things will take dedication and practice.

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Early to bed, Early to Rise

Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man (or Mom) healthy, wealthy, and wise. 

I have always known this is true but in recent years have struggled to get up early enough to be really at my best in the early morning. 

Today I planned to wake up at 5am but the Spirit woke me up at 4:45, so I got up, got dressed, studied, journaled and was ready and alert for scripture study with my husband and son at 6am, then scripture study with the three girls at 7:30am with breakfast, packing lunches, and getting clothes laid out/kids dressed in between. 

We had a very nice time together talking about and drawing our testimonies as plants (inspired by the Friend this month!), and as I watched the girls dance their way to the bus stop taking their lovely lights with them I might have cried a little. 

What a blessing they are and how much work it is to maintain a family, and yet that hard work and sacrifice is what makes them precious to us. 

I'm grateful for this "new" plan which, if we let it will transform both how our days look and how we are. #ComeFollowMe.

I normally have a few different Come Follow Me Lessons each day depending on who is awake and which ages are around to teach. I love that it's so easy to adapt lessons to all ages.  This is the way I adapted our lesson on testimony for my 2 and 1 year olds.  I started with singing a Primary song and I was amazed at how excited they both got at hearing me sing to them.  They were wide awake and attentive and smiling at me to see what I would do next!  I grabbed a poinsettia and Val and I talked about what it takes for us to help the plant grow.  I invited him to water the plant while we talked.

At one point, he said, "Jesus will come back one day?" Following his lead, I said yes, "would you like to see a picture of Jesus?"  We looked at this picture of the Savior in Come Follow Me manual and he immediately started pointing out Christ's facial features (eyes, nose, ears, lips, etc.) and point to his own.  This was so sweet and made it easy to talk about and help my son relate to His Savior.

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Being Prepared to Teach at Home #ComeFollowMe

I have loved the Come Follow Me way of teaching for a very long time now...ever since the Church came out with it for the Youth.  It has truly blessed our family.  The children have grown up with this style of teaching in our home, so you'd think I'd be off to the races!  However when the new at-home curriculum was announced, I was definitely worried.  Why?  Because I know how much of a commitment it is to teach and to teach in the right way.  

Teaching in the home is such a living and breathing thing, at least for me.  For instance, bringing teaching in to the home really brings my actions at all times of the day under a microscope.  It's a lot harder for me to watch an inappropriate show, to respond with harshness to the kids, or laugh at an off-color joke, when I know I'm going to have to turn around and teach the children the next morning about the Gospel.  Conversely, it's much easier for me to do those things if I am not currently doing a lot of gospel teaching at home.  There is a real cause and effect relationship there.  And although that means more work on my part, I have a testimony that this truly is a good thing.  It is a relationship that I work at every day...and I'm not perfect at it, but I'm getting better over time.

During the month of December, I spent a LOT of time thinking about this new curriculum, praying about it, reading up on it, thinking about how I could center my time and my home on this effort to make it go more smoothly.  I wrote a lot of things down.

Here is one page that I wrote down to remind myself of my thoughts...sort of to be used as a guide for me in Teaching in the Home:

1.  Personal Worthiness:  Your teaching of any principle is more powerful when you are living that principle.  Children can usually sense when we are not, even if we aren't doing it out in the open, there is more weight to our words when we are actually living that principle.

I remember this was a bit of a sticking point when I was teaching my children "My Gospel Standards" (it's like For the Strength of Youth for Primary children!)  We were memorizing it.  And we got to the part that says, "I will only listen to music that is pleasing to Heavenly Father."  I felt myself flinch inside when saying those words to my kids, and I felt the spirit telling me I could do better.  I did do better.  I committed to living this principle more exactly.  So in the process of teaching my children, we both grew.

As an important side-note, don't put off teaching because you feel unworthy, either.  Start now.  Act in faith.  We can acknowledge our own short-comings and grow in the gospel right along with our children.  

2.  Personal Preparation:  Go the extra mile to prepare yourself.  I loved Pres. Eyring's talk "Women and Gospel Learning" from the Women's session of General Conference.  He gives a very extensive tutorial for what we will need to do to be prepared.  I found this talk to be intimidating and inspiring at the same time!  But when I went back and read it, I still feel it holds a lot of keys to unlocking gospel teaching in the home.  Read it.  Listen to it.  Again and again and do what he says.

Just as a reminder to myself, I'm including the notes I took on ten things pointers he gives to help us implement the "new" home-centered gospel learning:
 a. Jesus Christ is our perfect example.  Look to him and his life
b. Bring charity to the changes...charity for yourself and those you are teaching.
c. Seek spiritual gifts of love for others.  Ask for it in prayer.
d. Prepare yourself by reading, praying, and seeking the spirit first.
e. Plan
f. Put forth the effort and the time. (take more time to ponder on spiritual matters)
g. Your contribution will be unique.
h. Pray, study, and ponder to know what your contribution will be.
i. NEVER STOP LOVING those you teach even if they aren't interested in listening
j. Obey in order to grow as a nurturer....because this is what we are really talking about...BEING A NURTURER.

3.  What you DO to SUPPORT gospel learning in the home really matters:
at least it does for me.  Many of us make special meals over General Conference weekend.  We clean the house extra-well in order to facilitate feeling the spirit together and gospel learning without distractions that disorder brings.  In order to teach the gospel more in my home I knew that probably MOST of my work at the front-end at least would be work that seemed unrelated to gospel study.  Meals need to be planned, groceries need to be bought, brought home, and put away, laundry needs to be done, people need to be getting good rest to be able to get up and study well together.  All of those household tasks take on new importance when we realize that they are there to support gospel-learning in the home.  For me, this is probably one of the biggest changes the new curriculum has brought me...taking my housekeeping duties more seriously, doing it in more of an orderly and prompt way and seeing these duties as a means to a very good end.

4.  The Gospel needs no ketchup: In the words of Millie from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the gospel can stand on its own two feet.  We don't need to over-complicate it, but teaching in the home does make limits of teaching in a church building obsolete.  Whatever activities we think will reach our children and help us to teach, we are free to do them.  The sky is the limit, EVERY moment can be a teaching opportunity, and that is exciting.  With that said, simple is usually best...and for me at least speaking aloud the words of living prophets brings the spirit quicker than any gimmick!

5.  Ponder, Immerse Ourselves, Ponder, Write, Go!:  This is my process.  I think a lot about whatever lesson I want to teach my kids.  I listen to talks about the topic while I'm doing my regular work at home.  I think about it more.  I pray.  I write things down. And somewhere in the middle of writing things down...something comes to me that is the "just right" thing to share with them.  I often keep a calendar just for my lessons with my kids.  And I save crafts and things on Pinterest that are totally not related to my lesson and at the right moment those things I saved might come in to play...or not.  But I am always planning!

6.  Let the Holy Ghost Bring It to Life:  I didn't originally have this point written down, but I know that it is true.  There are lots of times when I am not as prepared as I'd like to be, but I know that as I try my best the Holy Ghost is there for me.  Sometimes I crack the books open in the morning and I think, "I'm not really sure where I'm supposed to take this" and the spirit comes in and says, "I'll lead!"  Let the spirit lead and each lesson will have something magical about it.  As with the loaves and the fishes...we, the disciples of Christ, His army of Mothers and gospel teachers bring our small contribution.  He accepts our offering as imperfect as it might be...and then He brings the rest and makes our offering enough.

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Take No Thought

When we returned from our Labor Day weekend trip to Palmyra, we were greeted by a sweet gesture. Someone had "heart-attacked" us.  Paper heart cut-outs containing encouraging words and scripture references were taped all over our front door and windows.

It was really sweet.

There were a LOT of scripture references, so I decided to sit down at the table and look them all up, and then copy them in to my scripture journal.

Remember our Scripture Study Plan we embarked on a few months ago?  (I outlined it in this post.)  It has been a great way to go deeper and to have personalized time in the scriptures.  We're still doing it, but intermittently.  As we get used to new school schedules, we're figuring out how family scripture study will look now that Guy, our 7th grader, leaves for the bus two hours before the rest of the crew!

One day this week, something funny happened. I knew Guy had slept in and after hurriedly getting dressed and packing his lunch only had a minute before he had to leave for the bus. I also knew he hadn't had any breakfast (which he didn't seem to mind too much.)  I promised Guy that if he stayed one minute more and let me read scriptures to him, he'd read something amazing. So he stayed.

Not knowing what the amazing thing would be, I opened my app and started reading right where we had left off.  I read Alma 31:37-38: 

"37 And after that they did separate themselves one from another, taking no thought for themselves what they should eat, or what they should drink, or what they should put on.

38 And the Lord provided for them that they should hunger not, neither should they thirst; yea, and he also gave them strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ. Now this was according to the prayer of Alma; and this because he prayed in faith."

Both of us found this pretty fun...So, after that Guy "separated" himself from us to go to the bus stop, taking "no thought for what he should eat" (a.k.a. he grabbed an apple).  I told him on his way out that he should follow the example of Alma and pray in faith that he should not hunger and that his afflictions would be swallowed up in the joy of Christ!  (Good thing he had a packed lunch to look forward to!) 

The Scriptures never cease to amaze me!  Even when we only put in the absolute smallest effort to read them, the Lord still shows forth great grace in answering us.  Our tired, human efforts can result in hearing His voice each morning.  And His voice that day said to us "I see you.  I know you. And you just might have more in common with the people in scripture than you might think!"  

I'm humbled by the way the Lord is always making efforts to reach out to us, wherever we are and whatever we're doing.  I want to be more like that...

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Sharing Some Scripture Study Pages

May Madness is upon us. This is the month where school is winding down, but first it speeds up to lightening pace with end-of-the-year concerts and art shows, etc.

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Good thing we've got our new family scripture study plan to keep us grounded...at least for a few minutes each morning!

Today, I thought I'd share a few more fruits of our study time together.  As you know, one step in our study plan is to ask questions regarding the principles taught in each scripture.  The photo above shows the creative way that my daughter Autumn (age 9) put together a few of her questions.

I love how keeping individual notebooks for studying allows me to meet each child where they are and help them in their studying.  I read Autumn's questions with her and it gave me an idea. I suggested that she think of three people she knows who are really happy.  She wrote down their names.  Then together we came up with three questions to ask each of them.  (What life decisions and daily choices have brought you joy?  Have you ever found it hard to keep a commandment?  How did you find a way to keep that commandment even though it was difficult for you at first?)

We emailed these questions to the three people she identified as being really happy: Her Primary President, her Activity Days leader, her piano teacher.

The same day, Autumn received the nicest testimonies back from all three women who kindly shared very real and honest personal stories and advice.  It was so wonderful.  I printed off their responses and glued them into her study journal to read the next day.  This was just such a cool outcome from our scripture study that I could not have foreseen.

I have also really enjoyed witnessing the creativity of my five year old's take on interpreting the scriptures and making them come alive.  The picture below is her illustration of 2 Nephi 2:27 which she worked on today.  I summed up the scripture in simple terms that she could understand, and she made up a game that would help us internalize the principle.

In her drawing she is in the middle.  To the right of her are two people who chose liberty (or chose to follow Christ) and on the left are two people choosing to follow Satan by making wrong choices.  In her "game" we came up with scenarios where a choice was to be made.  Depending on how we answered we then decided if that choice was a choice leading the person to liberty or to death/captivity.

It was such a creative and fun way to interpret the verse, which, again, I didn't anticipate.

And here is the page I worked on this week where I ended up listing some of the similarities I saw between President Nelson and Nephi.

Someone asked if we are still doing just one scripture per week.  We change to a new scripture when we feel we've exhausted our study of that verse, and that means we changed scriptures more often than a week.

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Family Scripture Study Plan

As you know, our family has been going through a lot of changes: new job, new house, new city, new baby, new schools.

With all of those changes and with the older half of our children entering tweenhood, we noticed our spiritual needs changing.  We also noticed that despite our ok-efforts our scripture study sessions were leaving something to be desired.

We followed President Monson's counsel to read the Book of Mormon every day, but the results still seemed lack-luster.

It became clear to me that what we were doing was no longer working for us...but I wasn't sure what to do next.

I attended a Relief Society meeting the other night dedicated to personal, couples, and family scripture study.  I arrived late, but heard lots of suggestions and resources.  Some we'd done in the past, others we hadn't.  But I still felt like there were a lot of obstacles in our way, until friend of mine related a personal story of a time when she was having trouble finding time for her own personal scripture study.  She sincerely prayed about her situation and Heavenly Father helped her accomplish her goals for personal study time.  She encouraged me to do the same, to take my problem to the Lord in prayer.

So, I did.  And he quickly answered me by putting into my mind a plan that would resolve a lot of the issues we were having, which included:

1. lack of focus and attention during family scripture study

2. trying to keep the interest and meet the needs of children who are a range of ages

3. encouraging, teaching and creating a habit of individual scripture study

4. learning, internalizing, and applying gospel principles

5. having a lively gospel discussion as a family

I mentioned on social media that we were making changes to our scripture study and received questions from members and friends not of our faith alike asking me to share what we are doing, so I'm sharing that now for anyone looking to change up their regular routine.

First of all, like I said, we've got children in varying age groups ranging from baby to tween (5 months, 2, 5, 9, almost 11, and 12 years of age)

Here's what you'll need for each person:

- a simple composition notebook (or for younger a composition notebook with handwriting lines like the journal on the left in the photo above.)  

- a pen or pencil

- crayons or coloring pencils, etc. (optional)

- scriptures and/or access to the Gospel Library App

Very simple.

Here are the 10 steps that came to my mind that I've written down and glued into the front of each notebook:

(Allot 10-12 minutes each day for this study.)

1. Always start with a prayer.

2. Look up & read the scripture reference.

3. Copy the scripture into your journal. Draw a picture if you'd like. (Especially for a younger child.)

4. Write down the principles being taught. (*Define any terms that you don't understand.)

5. Write two sentences explaining how these principles apply to your life now and/or in the future.

6.  Write down any questions that come to your mind.

7.  Search for answers to your questions using: scriptures, General Conference talks, and prayer.

8.  Write down any answers that you find/thoughts that come to your mind.

9.  Close with a personal prayer.

10.  Be prepared to share your thoughts with the family before bed or during family scripture study.

We are currently taking our scripture references from Seminary's Doctrinal Mastery Lists beginning with the Book of Mormon.

The plan is to study the same scripture or set of verses for the entire week.  A personal using this plan would follow steps 1-10 during the week.  So each day you could potentially be doing different steps, therefore different things with the same scripture, so long as you get through all ten steps at some point during the week.

Additionally, one might choose to also memorize the scripture, listen to talks that are found during the researching steps, ask their questions of others in the family to consider or help with, etc.

So here's a little bit of how this looks broken down by age.  As you can see in the photo above, my two year-old is scribbling in his notebook as we talk, my 5 year-old is drawing a picture, and my almost 11 year-old is writing down principles.

Here is a page that my five year old is working on (with the addition of scribbles from her two year old brother!)  I copied part of the verse for her with lines between that she can now carefully copy in her own hand-writing.  She can also draw what she sees in her minds-eye as we discuss and add her own two-cents of testimony.  Above is a drawing of a Book of Mormon with the words "believe" written on it.

Today as we got on the topic of God creating the entire world, she drew some flowers and told me that this is what God created.  I then wrote her words for her as a "caption" to her artwork.

My 9 year-old took right to this idea as I think it mirrors some writing processes she is doing in school.  When I asked her if she understood what the word comprehend meant, she was quick to look it up on my phone and write the definition with a star at the top of the page before moving on to write down the principles in her own words and thinking of ways that the principles applied to her.  And, of course, she did a little doodling on the side.

Now these are some of my pages of study based on the same scripture. I found that writing really is helping me to focus and to make new connections and to slow down and hear the spirit teaching me as I search more proactively for answers to my questions about what is being taught.

I had only written down two questions: Will we someday comprehend what God comprehends?  And How are we to treat God's creations?

But once I got going, I found so much to enrich my understanding of this scripture.  I searched terms like "man's progression", "perfection", and "wisdom", and although I was only searching for a short period of time, I found so much great stuff!  It was way more effective than just reading has been for me for a while now.

And I was so impressed with the Gospel Library's search function.  I found it hard before but this time, it was so easy and quickly took me from scriptures in various books to quotes in General Conference talks that directly related to my questions, and back again.  

(For my friends of other faiths reading this: You can download the LDS Gospel Library App and use it on your phone.  It's a powerful tool for searching the scriptures and saving notes on, etc.  And I believe you don't have to be a member to utilize this tool. You can sign in as a "guest" and it's totally free. It includes the KJV of the Bible in addition to the talks I mentioned.)

So this is how we are implementing this in our family.  Right now we are working together on this to help us all grow in our ability to search the scriptures.  With the hope that these skills and experiences will become a life-long habit of personal scripture study, and that they will know how to find answers to their questions when they need it most!

I hope this inspires you to customize to your own family or change things up in a way that helps you meet your spiritual goals!  Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions in the comments below!

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Reading the Book of Mormon Together as a Family (Round 3)

As you know, our family has been working hard to read the Book of Mormon together EVERY day as President Monson admonished in the previous General Conference. With our multiple moves and me being pregnant, we hadn't been doing as well as we could have with daily reading, so we redoubled our efforts.

Well, this morning, we finished reading the Book of Mormon together as a family for the third time!

We enjoyed the ending of the book a lot more this time, I think because over the last week or so--with the end in sight--we started reading longer stretches of material, instead of just pecking at it.

This morning, I was awake a lot earlier than usual, so I made lunches, made breakfast, and made a cozy atmosphere for us to eat breakfast in and lounge around the fireplace a bit while I read the final three chapters of the Book of Mormon with my kids.

We talked about how we can know that the Book of Mormon is true and who we will see at the judgment bar of God.  We pondered what spiritual gifts might be found within each of us, and we talked about what blessings are ours as a family as the words of the Book of Mormon are passed down from one generation to another.

We also talked about when we might go celebrate together our latest reading accomplishment.  The first time we finished the book together, we had a Book of Mormon party.  The second time, we went on an awesome family trip to see the Hill Cumorah pageant and tour a temple.  This time, we're going to jump at a trampoline place, because, well you all know what I'm going to say here...Mommy's pregnant and due in two weeks~!  The kids are A-ok with this plan to celebrate together!  (And no I will not be jumping!)

Tomorrow...we'll start at the very beginning...a very good place to start.

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The Power of Reading the Book of Mormon Daily

Well, it's September already!  And General Conference is just four short weeks away!  It's one of those years when the Saturday session falls in September, so it's sneaking right up on us!

With President Monson's brief remarks ringing in my ears, we've been working hard as a family to get back on track with family scripture study this summer.  With our move and my husband not being around quite as much as we are used to, it was hard to get back on a good schedule. 

I didn't want to be hit or miss on scripture study anymore, so we decided to set a goal of reading the scriptures together every day without missing for the entire school year...starting September 1st (although we don't go back to school until Sept 5th!)

Here is the scripture reading chart that we made, ready to be filled right up with little stickers each day that we read together.

We made the chart on a large poster board so we wouldn't be tempted to forget the most important part of our day!

Do you remember the promises that President Monson made to us during his talk last General Conference?

Let's refresh:

Speaking of The Power of the Book of Mormon, President Monson said, "It is essential for you to have your own testimony in these difficult times, for the testimonies of others will carry you only so far. However, once obtained, a testimony needs to be kept vital and alive through continued obedience to the commandments of God and through daily prayer and scripture study.

"My dear associates in the work of the Lord, I implore each of us to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day. As we do so, we will be in a position to hear the voice of the Spirit, to resist temptation, to overcome doubt and fear, and to receive heaven’s help in our lives. I so testify with all my heart in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Who of us doesn't need these promised blessings?:

When we study and ponder the scriputures daily, we in a position to:

1. hear the voice of the Spirit

2. resist temptation

3. overcome doubt and fear

4. receive heaven's help in our lives.

We've got 28 days to prove the Prophet by trying out his words.  Are there other principles taught last General Conference that you'd like to employ in your life?  I'd love to hear about it!

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