Your Future is as Bright as your Faith

Conference weekend was amazing. A true spiritual feast. It feels like it has been a long time since my soul was so touched, so stirred, so moved for so many talks. The task of teaching children reverence doesn't always provide me with lots of opportunities to feast. I am so grateful that this was one of those rare occasions.

The theme (that the spirit was telling me) was about preparedness. Times are hard and they are going to get harder. Now is the time to be prepared. But most importantly our spiritual preparation. That preparation can be found in the temple.

You cannot leave conference without a stirring of character to "try a little harder to be a little better" as President Hinckley so often encouraged us.
I am going to focus on:

~ To have more FUN with my children (I actually decided this the day before conference but it is still very valid.) Not to merely go through life but have FUN going through life (I'm talking chores, homework, baths, beautiful days in the park, everything. I don't have these sweet spirits in my home very long so the time needs to count, we need to be happy and have FUN together. The spirit will want to be around us so much more when we are happy, cheerful and FUN!)
~ To serve my husband daily (beyond the daily chores) and vocalize my love for him.
~ To stay diligent with our daily devotionals (prayer, song and mini lesson before school & work. We've been at it 2 weeks and we're loving it.)
~ Be 100% daily (challenge from the General YW presidency: 1. read scriptures 5 minutes daily 2. pray morning and night 3. Smile :)
~ Attend the temple each month.
~ Forget myself in service.

We had a wonderful FHE tonight (even though Kurt was gone - day trip to Nevada for work of course. We missed you, honey!) My mom gave me this fabulous book called, "A Christ Centered Easter" by Janet and Joe Hales. There are a bunch of wonderful ideas on how to make Easter more meaningful. One is studying the biblical Easter week day by day. So you start the week before Easter and each day learn more about what the Savior was doing his last week on earth. It is going to be very effective for us. Thanks again mom for a fabulous resource!

Tonight we did Palm Sunday and Cleansing the Temple. After reviewing the story of Jesus coming back to Jerusalem riding on the donkey we made palm leaves and then acted out the story. Explaining why they laid down their clothes on the road and waved palm leaves. Austin and I took turns being the donkey and giving rides into Jerusalem. I asked the kids how they could feel if Jesus came to visit their town and what would they do to welcome him. Austin said he would be so excited with 1,500,000 exclamation marks after it. :)







We went on an Easter walk to find things that had to do with Easter. We found a branch (palm leaf), thorn (crown on Jesus' head), cross (I cheated and made it out of 2 sticks) and a rock (covered the tomb.)



And during scripture study we read about Jesus' cleansing the temple and the importance of cleansing our body from sin. Austin asked, "How do we get bad things out of our mind?" Which led to another good discussion. I'll continue to share with you our Christ centered Easter week. Join us.