Uplifting break

Wow! I just found this through the church's website. It's the church's official YouTube channel and the little videos are so great! I just finished watching a few of them and they left me in tears! Definitely a wonderful way to spend a few minutes (either alone or with family... MM loved Pres. Hinckley's Lessons... one) and a great spiritual pick-me-up!

Follow My Blog...

Laura mentioned a few months ago, that I have a blog that is geared toward sharing the gospel with my non-member friends.  I talk about our religion and bear testimony using examples from my own life.  I would love to increase traffic to my site and have added a "Follow My Blog" gadget.  I would love it if you would choose to either subscribe to or follow my blog.  (You can do this by clicking on those words on the right side of my blog:  http://beinglds.blogspot.com)  I am hoping that you will read a post here and there and share these messages with your friends when the spirit moves you.

Family Home Evening Resource

You may already know that there is a new Nursery manual out. A friend of mine uses it for Family Home Evening and I thought that was a great idea. I tried it out tonight with our two year old and it went really well. I recommend it!

Ensign article for moms

In this month's Ensign there is an article called "The Joy of Nurturing Children". I have only read the first mom's account ("The Gift of Memories"), but was touched by it. I like to enrich my child's life with outings and activities (I'm better at it some days than others). This article gave me extra motivation to fill her life with fun and uplifting experiences. It also made me feel like my efforts were not in vain. I know she is too young to remember the fun things we do right now, but it's great to be in the habit of doing it and to think that it will positively influence her entire life. To paraphrase one quote, Don't think about the messes, think about the memories.

Thankful for Motherhood

I loved this article, and thought I'd share.

Getting to your roots

During the summer of 2003 I had THE strangest dream. I was playing on a playground with a boy would was about 14-years-old. We must have been playing alone for hours when the boy said to me, "I wish I could go play over there," as he pointed across a long patch of grass. When I turned to look at the spot where he was pointing I saw thousands of people, none of which I could make out because they were far away, and they too were playing on what looked like an enormous playground. I turned back to the young man and found that he was standing next to a very old gentleman. The boy didn't say anything else to me, but the older man said, "Don't you know who this is? This is your great-great-great uncle, and I am your great-great-great grandpa." Then I woke up.

I definitely don't consider myself an "expert" but I'd like to share one of my secret passions with you: family history and genealogy. The morning after I had my strange dream I talked to my mom about what had been said to me. (I thought she would laugh at it because she is the QUEEN of family history...after all, how could there be someone missing from my family tree when my mom was spending 8 hours a week doing genealogy?) Instead she told me I did have a missing g-g-g-uncle. He had run away from home when he was about 14 years old and was never heard from again.


To make a very long story shorter, George Brown (my missing uncle) was found during the spring of 2006 when England released their 1880 London census to the Church's family history center. Can you believe it?!? He was married and had children of his own.

Family History seems like a daunting task, especially if you don't know much about it. I thought maybe I could share some things that might help.

1. If you're starting from scratch you'll need to start with your own, personal 4-generation chart (the chart linked here requires Adobe). Get as much information as you can: full names, birth dates and places, and death dates and places.

*FYI: When you write a woman's full name in any kind of family history you only use their MAIDEN name.

*Dates also have a universal way of being written: Day/Month (in a 3-letter abbreviation)/Full year. For example today is 01 AUG 2007, and Christmas will be 25 DEC 2007.

Some of you might still have church leaders who tell you to submit a 4-generation chart to the Salt Lake Family History center (FHC). Although the FHC wouldn't turn your sheet away, this form of information is obsolete now. The church would actually rather have you submit a PAF file, which will be discussed below.

2. The LDS Church has one of the best family history search engines out there. But don't try to search for someone who is living...they're not in there! Start by searching for the most recent death in your family. This would most likely be a grandparent. All you need is their first and last name, any other information will help narrow your search. Familysearch.org is great because the search results will include different spellings or the name you're searching for. Your search results will come from a few different places: Information other people have submitted, census records, Social Security death index, international information gathered by the church, and personal websites that include the person you're searching for.

3. If you're really interested down load the church's PAF program. (Scroll down on this page and click on the "Free PAF Program link). This is a fantastic computer program...and it's free! A PAF is a "Personal Ancestry File" that you use on the computer. It has taken the place of the church's infamous "4-generation chart." At any time you wish you may upload your PAF online to the Church's Family History head-quarters, where it will later be made available online to the entire world.

4. Once you are able to record all of the information you can based on what you and your family members know you start researching. It's not nearly as boring as it sounds. Although, I won't bother you with it now.

I hope this was informative or interesting, or at least a good way to kill some time...any questions?

Scripture Study

I have really been struggling ever since I had the baby, to follow through with any kind of regular scripture study. If I end up with some free time, I'll reach for the Ensign or my scriptures, but it definitely hasn't been on a daily basis. I know it's not an excuse, but I can hardly keep my own eyes open once she goes down for the night! Anyway, I have really been noticing the spiritual void in my life, and I was wondering what works for you guys? Any ideas to inspire and motivate me???

Holiday Traditions

I've been thinking about holiday traditions ever since this weekend, and specifically, traditions centered around the religious meaning of the holiday. I was sitting in Church on Sunday, and it hit me quite hard that I had hardly devoted any time or thought to Christ and His Atonement this Easter. However, I found time to get my daughter an Easter basket, Easter dress, etc. She's too young to know the difference now, but I want to make sure that doesn't happen again, especially when she's old enough to understand. I would like to start some traditions for Easter and Christmas that help children focus on the true meaning of the holiday. Any ideas? What kinds of things do you do with your children, or did as a child yourself? Anything you plan on starting in the future???

Conference Notes

I also love being able to watch/listen to General Conference. This year watching conference was a new experience for me with a baby. Although she did wonderfully and she napped at the beginning of both sessions, I still feel like I was a bit distracted when she was awake. I was able to really listen carefully to some of the talks, but I missed parts of other talks. I thought it would be helpful to hear what some of your favorite talks were, and why they stuck out to you. Sometimes it really helps me to have a deeper understanding when I hear what other people learned. So if you feel like sharing your thoughts and feelings from conference today or tomorrow (or both), please do so!

Enjoying/Surviving Conference

I love General Conference! I always look forward to it and I feel like it comes just in time! Now that our little one is a year though, I'm discovering that I have to renegotiate my conference going and expectations, like most other things we've had to re-evaluate since we entered parenthood. I don't get to sit and enjoy and take notes anymore. In fact, we were at home this morning, struggling to listen to halted internet feed because the little one is sick and it doesn't come on tv to the poor in Minnesota! But I actually like going to watch at the chapel. Don't get me wrong, I liked watching in my pajamas at home when we lived in Orem, but I also feel like I get more out of it when I'm dressed and at the church! Anyway, any survival tips? How do you pay attention and enjoy it when you have to compromise staying at home or watching at the church? (let's face it eight hours is too much at church time for any kids!) I do enjoy reading the Ensign the next month, but I'm not good at going back and listening to sessions...but maybe I should be!

Ensign article

I really enjoyed an article I read in the Ensign this morning and just wanted to recommend it. It's in the April issue, pg. 9 by Shauna Bird Dunn. The article talks about following the Spirit, doing what works for your family, and motherhood. I especially liked how she talked about following the Holy Ghost through decisions in life.

Faith

Have you all heard about this story that happened here in Utah? My heart has been aching for this man and his poor baby girl. I think my sensitivity has been heightened since I had Baby "I" and we've been a family. Tears welled up instantly when I heard about the situation.
I can't imagine what it's like to go through something like this. I like to think that I would have sufficient faith in Heavenly Father to get through a trying time like this and have the strength to care for my child and move forward. I've had small experiences in my life that have left me saddened, frustrated and feeling very desperate and low, but fortunately with the Lord's help and the prayers and well-wishes of others, I was able to get through it. What about something as monumental and significant as this? How does one move on?

FHE

My husband and I have always been terrible about having FHE on a regular basis. We really want to be better about it, so that it's a habit by the time our daughter is old enough to participate. The problem is, I have lots of ideas for things to do with children, but I struggle with preparing lessons for just my husband and I. What did you guys do before children, or if you're children are still really young? I would love to hear some of your favorite ideas, or things that worked really well.