Friday, January 30, 2015

Lessons from Hebrews today



Wanted to share two scriptures I found in the temple this week.

The first will be going on my wall to remind me of my one word  Contentment. This website will explain the idea of choosing one word for the year to focus on.

Hebrews 13:5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

Been thinking about how covetousness is the opposite of contentment?? Working on that idea still. 
Some I have mentioned my new word to have said "It is human nature to be seeking something new and better" And I guess the natural man is human nature. And I wouldn't want to become so content that I don't try to progress or make things better.  But it is covetous to always seek for things that are better.  Seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness we are commanded to do so that is correct seeking.

Second made me smile.  My son, serving in Mexico as a Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints, was transferred several months ago to a new area.  They had basically no investigators when he got there and has gone from 10-15 lessons to about 40 in the time he has been there. This scripture made me think of him

Hebrews 11:2 For by it (Faith) the elders obtained a good report.

He was so happy about his "report" of 40 lessons and I know it was by Faith that him and his companion were able to obtain a "good report".

Highly recommend Hebrews 11 and the discussion on Faith. It was a joy to read and taught me a lot about the examples of faith in the scriptures.

Found this great study guide today and loved what it is teaching me

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Influence

  Who am I, and who can I become?

We are beloved spirit daughters of heavenly parents, and, as such, we have a divine nature and destiny. By divine design, we have unique gifts and talents that will help us fulfill our destiny as daughters of God. Knowing who we are gives our lives purpose and helps us make the right decisions.

President Gordon B. Hinckley: “The whole design of the gospel is to lead us onward and upward to greater achievement, even, eventually, to godhood” (“Don’t Drop the Ball,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 1994, 48).

 

How can we overcome negative influences on womanhood and cultivate our divine gifts?

 What does it mean to you to be a daughter of God? 

How does knowing you are a daughter of God bless you and influence the decisions you make?

 




Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Puzzilla step by step tutorial

Today I was asked for more step by step instructions for teaching the Puzzilla program to find your family history.  I have been having some great success with my family names and haven't sat down to do family history on Puzzilla without feeling great success. I think it is a huge way to access your family that has been untapped.

To start with you need to watch this amazing 4 minute video with Elder Anderson and his grandson telling about finding your cousins



Then I think it would be helpful to give you a step by step instructions so you can refer to them again and again.

1. Login with your LDS.org or Family Search User name and Password
(This connects you to the work that is already done.)
2. Puzzilla it will automatically create a fan chart with you at the bottom of the fan and your ancestors fanning out from the middle

It looks like this:


3. Choose one of the ancestors at the the top of the fan.




4. click on the Descendants button

Puzzilla will generate a descendant chart for the family member you chose.

It looks like this:


5. Look for ancestors that have no descendants.

  • A Yellow box next to a red or blue box means that ancestor died before the age of 16
  •  Any ancestor that has a Grey box means they are less then 110 years old and might still be alive. 

Avoid either of these. But anyone else needs to be researched to find if they have descendants that are not on family search yet. Click on the red or blue box and it will show you their information. 

6. Choose View in Family tree button

Puzzilla will take you to their Family tree person page



7. On the Right hand side of the page you will look for the button that says Search Records

Family search will take you to the indexing records,  Census or birth or death records with this persons name or similar names.

8. This is where the fun begins because if you can find this ancestor in a census or on a birth certificate as a parent you have found children for this person that were not there before. This is how to start finding your family to do their work for them.  SO FUN!!

This video talks about what you can find when you search the records and what to do to refine your search to find what you are looking for.

More fun and challenges for 40 days:
 http://www.brightlystreet.com/40-day-temple-challenge/

New Beginnings - Be You tiful

For our new beginnings program we choose the theme "Be-You-tiful" and created wall hangings for each of the girls rooms with this saying on them. They worked on them the week before and then will get them the night of  New beginnings to take home.


Love this mormonad and printed it at Costco as a 20x30 poster to hang up in our decorations.

 Then on the #embark website they have 12 new songs created by Youth to share the theme. I used the one “Inside Out” by Aaliyah Rose to create a video we will be showing while the girls change into values colored dresses to talk about how each value helps us create beauty.



Friday, January 9, 2015

#Embark in saving souls


My children and I are taking this challenge and so far have found about 50 names since Jan 12,2015 using a program called Puzzilla. I am working on a step by step how to so that we can all start using Puzzilla more

There are so many promises for protection and spiritual strength for doing family history work. I loved this short video by Elder Scott promising protection.

 

I love this quote by the Prophet Joseph and am so excited to watch this promise unfold. I love being part of the fulfilling of this promise in my day.




More promises from Elder Andersen-

1. You will have a greater testimony of the Savior
2. Increased knowledge of life beyond the veil.





Promises from Elder Bednar:
1. Your hearts will turn to your fathers,
2. The promises made to Abraham, Issac and Jacob will be implanted in your hearts,
3. Your patriarchal blessing esp your declaration of lineage will be more meaningful to you
4. Your love and gratitude for your ancestors will increase,
5. Your conversion to the Savior will become deep and abiding
6. You will be protected from the intensifying influence of the adversary
7. Safeguarded in your youth and throughout your life

I had a precious Relief Society president who mentored me in a very hard time. When I complained that family home evening was hard and my kids weren't behaving during it she said, " I read the promises for having family home evening and determined that nothing was going to get in my way of getting those blessings for my family."

These blessings are too great for us to let anything get in our way of receiving them

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Temple Punch Cards for Embark Theme


Super excited about these punch cards to encourage our youth to add a Temple goal to their goal to #Embark

Adapted from  http://preparednotscared.blogspot.com/2015/01/2015-temple-punch-cards.html  

These are 4 on a 4x6 and will fit better with recommends. so they are 2x3 instead of 3x4 which was too big to go in the recommend holders.

That is my next project

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Oh Ye that embark in the service of God


For our first activity for the new year we are going to introduce the new Young Men Young women's theme

#Embark


We will be using these images from the Jan 2015 New Era to memorize the scripture Doctrine and Covenants 4:2






We will be displaying this amazing Mormon ad from the Jan 2015 New Era and watching this trailer from the Voyage of the Dawn treader to discuss Embarking and getting on the boat for the adventure of serving the Lord. This ship totally reminded me of the painting in the Voyage of the Dawn treader that comes to life and becomes a portal to Narnia. I love the idea of the kids seeing themselves going on a grand adventure because serving the Lord always takes me out of my comfort zone and helps me develop qualities of heroism and strength that I never knew I had.






We will be having 3 booths and splitting the kids into 3 groups that rotate 20 minutes per booth.

1. The Young men are in charge of the Boat racing booth here are some ideas I found online



http://www.instructables.com/id/Alka-Seltzer-Powered-Bathtub-Boat/

http://www.ehow.com/how_7463116_build-rubber-band-boats.html

2. We will be learning the song "Faith in Every Footstep" that has the words from the theme in it.

 https://www.lds.org/new-era/1997/04/faith-in-every-footstep?lang=eng 

3. Then we will do a photo of each youth with a card stating how they will #Embark that they can use on their social media if they would like. (Like the #Share the Gift campaign)

We will watch this video at the booth first to discuss ways we can serve God

https://www.lds.org/youth/activities/service/serving-our-families/seven-days-of-service?lang=eng



Then we will finish up singing the "Faith in Every Footstep" together as group and watching this closing video by Elder Eyring "Oh Ye that embark"
 
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/10/o-ye-that-embark?lang=eng#d

Oh and the darling food by our Laurel's Advisor. I said "the theme is boats and she came up with this"