When to Start

When my first child was born, I had so many ideas of things that would be important for me to do with him when he was born to ensure his success in life. As an elementary education major I had so many things that I had been taught were important; However, this quote from President Joseph Fielding Smith had the greatest impact in helping me decide what was most important. He stated, “Do you, my good brethren and sisters, want your families, your children; do you want to be sealed to your fathers and your mothers before you? … If so, then you must begin by teaching at the cradle-side. You are to teach by example as well as precept.”

It was at this time that I made the decision that I would begin to have personal scripture study and prayers with my son at his crib-side. It has since then become a part of our nightly routine with each of our young children. As they get older we will turn the responsibility over completely to them but while they are young we have chosen to do it with them.

In a talk given by Elder L. Tom Perry in 1983 he further emphasized the point of starting to teach our children early as he stated, “I read recently an article in a magazine designed especially for Latter-day Saints about a study that was made of the benefits of reading to children. It stated that when a mother or a father consistently reads to a child, the child enters school at a much higher level and excels in reading during these early grades. If there is a direct correlation between the early training a child receives from parents and the rapidity with which a child learns, how important would it be, then, for us to spend time reading the gospel of Jesus Christ to our children, to imbue and instill in them, in their tender and early years, faith in the gospel of our Lord and Savior?”

Here is a list of some of the methods we have used over the years for our children’s personal scripture study:

• ·        Watch a Bible Video from LDS.org 
• ·        Watch Scripture Stories videos found on LDS.org 
• ·        Read Scripture Stories found in the gospel library app
• ·        Picture Method 
• ·        Repeat after Me Method

The Repeat after Me Method is what we are using currently. We read a small section of the scripture and then have our children say it back to us, then we move on and read another small section and have them repeat. It is really simple and works well for us. Even our not quite two year has caught on to this method after watching her brother and sister. She will repeat back the words in her toddler gibberish and I must say it is one of the cutest things I have ever heard.

*Both of these quotes came from a conference talk given by Elder L. Tom Perry in April of 1983 entitled, Train Up a Child. You Can find this talk here. 

  

The Sacrament

Preparation: Read Elder Claudio D. Zivic’s talk from the April 2018 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints entitled, He That Shall Endure unto the End, the Same Shall Be Saved.

Materials:

• ·      Gospel Art Picture of Christ Administering the Sacrament (Found in Gospel Art Book) 
• ·      Gospel Art Picture of Priests Blessing theSacrament 

Opening Song: The Sacrament 

Opening Prayer:

Gain Attention:

Place the picture of the Savior Administering the Sacrament and the picture of the priests blessing the sacrament on the floor in front of the children. Have them identify things that are the same about the pictures.

Instruction:

Ask children what things they would want to do today if they only had a few more days on earth. Listen to their answers and share some of your own. Talk about how we would choose to do those things that are most important to us before we die then explain that just before the Savior died he taught his apostles about the sacrament.

Read this quote from Elder Claudio D. Zivic’s talk:

“Attendance at sacrament meetings is one of the key ways we can evaluate our determination to serve Him, our spiritual fortitude, and the growth of our faith in Jesus Christ.

Partaking of the sacrament is the most important thing we do on the Sabbath day. The Lord explained this ordinance to His Apostles just before He died. He did the same on the American continent. He tells us that if we participate in this ordinance, it will be a testimony to the Father that we always remember Him, and He promises that, accordingly, we will have His Spirit to be with us.”

As a family think of ways you can make your sacrament experience more meaningful each week. Choose something you will work on as a family or individually this coming week to make sacrament meeting a specifically partaking of the sacrament more meaningful.

Activity Ideas:

• ·      Make homemade bread together to be used for the sacrament at church this coming Sunday.
• ·    Go to a local splash pad together.
• ·     Play a board game together.

Treat Idea:

Make root beer floats.

Scripture Study Word Game

With three children five and under, family scripture study can get a bit crazy. We figured that the best way to help our children be better behaved is to involve them more in the actual process. That is when we started incorporating this idea into our scripture study.

First, we scan through the section we are reading and find a word that appears multiple times throughout the section. Sometimes we use one word, other times we assign each child a word, or have everyone say two words. The following would all be great options most of the time: and, the, we, it, behold. We used the same word for a while when we first started using this method and switch it up almost daily now.

We have played this game two different ways. One way is to tell the children to raise their hand or do some other action each time they hear the chosen word or words. One night we decided to have the action be a somersault. As you can imagine things got a bit crazy but the children loved it! 

The other way we play is to have the children say the chosen word when we raise our hand or finger. This is the version of the game we have found works best for our children. Even our almost two year old has started to say the word with the other children, which I must say it beyond cute.

Just adapt the game based on what will work best that day for your family depending on attention spans and your patience. We have loved this method and would love to hear how it works for your family.

To the Temple by Chance

This lesson is based off of a talked given by Elder Dale G. Renlund in the April 2018 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints entitled Family History and Temple Work: Sealing and Healing. I would recommend reading through this talk in preparation for this family home evening lesson.

Objective: Children will demonstrate an understanding that we cannot be worthy and attend temple simply by chance. They will also be able to verbally identify two or more ways we can prepare to be ready to attend the temple.

Materials:

•  1 or more Dice
•  A Car or Temple Maze 

Opening Song: I Love to See the Temple 

Opening Prayer:

Gain Attention:

If doing today’s activity in the car, split everyone up into teams and see whose team can have their shoes on and be in the car first.

If doing the maze for today’s activity, hide the puzzle somewhere in the room and play hot and cold to find the puzzle.

Instruction:

Start of by playing, To the Temple by Chance, with everyone.

To the Temple by Chance Directions (Car Version):

Each time you come to a stop sign or stop light roll the dice.

If you roll an even number you turn right, if you roll an odd number you turn left.

If you roll a 1 or a 6 you go straight if that is an option otherwise refer to the even odd rule.

If you reach a dead end, no longer have the ability to progress forward, or have spent enough time to get the point across the game is over.

*Feel free to adjust the rules to best fit you family situation. You may even want to increase the opportunities to role by changing the rules so that you role every time there is an option to turn.

*You can play the car version of this game even if the nearest temple to you is not in your town.

(Spoiler Alert: You can’t get to the temple by chance.)

To the Temple by Chance Directions (Maze Version):

Print of a temple maze.

Use something to mark where you are on the board.

Each time there is an intersection have someone roll the dice.

If an even number is rolled turn right, if an odd number is rolled turn left.

If a 1 or 6 is rolled, go straight or refer to the even and odd rule if there is not the option to go straight.

If you reach a dead end, no longer have the ability to progress forward, or have spent enough time to get the point across the game is over.

*Feel free to adjust the rules to your needs.

At the end of the game ask your children, “Can we get to the temple by chance?”

Answer, “NO!”

Read this quote from Elder Renlund’s talk,

“President Russell M. Nelson cautioned, ‘We can be inspired all day long about temple and family history experiences others have had. But we must do something to actually experience the joy ourselves.” He continued, “I invite you to prayerfully consider what kind of sacrifice—preferable a sacrifice of time—you can make [to] do more temple and family history work.’ As you accept President Nelson’s invitation, you will discover, gather, and connect your family. Additionally, blessings will flow to you and your family like the river spoken of by Exekiel. You will find healing for that which needs healing.”

Explain to your children that we have to decide that we are going to go to the temple and attend it frequently and then make plans for how that is going to happen. It will not just simply happen.

Discuss with younger children how they can be preparing now to attend the temple as a youth for baptisms for the dead and then as an adult.

Discuss with your teenagers what they could sacrifice on a regular basis and replace with temple attendance.

Have each member of the family, mom and dad included, discuss their plan to stop leaving temple attendance and worthiness to chance and instead make it happen.

*If you have a temple close to you, you could discuss these things as you driving to the temple grounds, not by chance. The gates will possibly be locked if it is a Monday but you can still walk around the outside and take a picture of everyone in front of the temple. Feel free to share your pictures with us using the hashtag #motheringamidangels

Activity Ideas:

Play at the park

Make temples our of rice crispy treats or ice cream or graham crackers

Go for a drive

Treat Idea:

Caramel MarshmallowPopcorn from Lil’ Luna

Facebook and Family History

Throughout my formal education I was given assignments to make all sorts of webs explaining details about objects or people. A while back I decided to use those skills in “real life” and make a web depicting the good that can be done using my phone. My web included texting a spiritual thought to a friend, scheduling visiting teaching appointments (Yes, this was before April’s general conference), reading a conference talk, and keeping a list of spiritual promptings. The page quickly became filled up. 

In speaking of this time of technological advancements Elder David A. Bednarstated, “The Lord is hastening His work, and it is no coincidence that these powerful communication innovations and inventions are occurring in the dispensation of the fullness of times. Social media channels are global tools that can personally and positively impact large numbers of individuals and families. And I believe the time has come for us as disciples of Christ to use these inspired tools appropriately and more effectively to testify of God the Eternal Father, His plan of happiness for His children, and His Son, Jesus Christ, as the Savior of the world; to proclaim the reality of the Restoration of the gospel in the latter days; and to accomplish the Lord’s work.”

Let’s start putting all of these “communication innovations” to good use and take the time to really reflect on how they can be used for good. A suggestion I have today is to use your Facebook account to help with your family history. This will take little time and has the potential to draw you closer to your family on both sides of the veil.

Take a few minutes, today, to create a Facebook group in memory of one of your ancestors. My group is entitled, Memories of Junior Allen. Add your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins and ask them to share a memory they have of your ancestor or a story they have heard. My Grandpa passed away when I was six so I do not remember a great deal about him. As my cousins began to post stories and pictures, I was reminded of things I had forgotten and learned a great deal as well.

Keeping Young Children Engaged

When given free rein of the local library a toddler or young child is not likely to gravitate towards the chapter book section. They are much more likely to spend their time with a pile of picture books sporadically spread around them as they flip through the pages and admire the bright and engaging pictures. This is what led me to this gospel art method of scripture study with my children.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a media library over flowing with exquisite art depicting a majority of the events contained in the scriptures. They are free, easy to access and have great potential to capture a child’s attention as they assist in describing special moments contained in the scriptures. These pictures can be displayed on your phone, another electronic device, or printed off and placed in a book or binder for your child to flip through whenever he wants.

When using these pictures for family or a child’s personal scripture study we pick out one picture that we will talk about. To make things even easier, the scriptures that the picture is portraying are listed on the church website next to the picture. We read through these scriptures and talk about things that happened in those scriptures as well as different things that we can see in the pictures. Frequently during family home evening we will ask our children about a certain event in the scriptures and they will start to describe it using details they remember from one of the media library pictures.

Family History and Temple Work

Preparation: Read Elder Renlund’s talk, Family History and Temple Work 

Materials:

·        Scriptrues

·        Supplies for Activity

Opening Song: Family History: I Am Doing It #94

Opening Prayer:

Gain Attention: (Pick One)

Play Guess Who with you children. Tell them facts about one of their ancestors and see if they can guess who you are talking about.

Show children pictures of their ancestors and see how many of them they know the names of.

Instruction:

Read Malachi 4:6:

“And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the world with a curse.” 

Discuss with your children what this scripture means and how it teaches us that we need to do family history.

Read this quote from Elder Renlund’s talk:

When God directs us to do one thing, He of has many purposes in mind. Family history and temple work is not only for the dead but blesses the living as well.

Discuss how family history blesses our ancestors’ lives. Next discuss how it blesses our lives. Here are a few of the blessing we can enjoy from family history that Elder Renlund mentioned. Refer to his talk for more:

·        Increased understanding of the Savior and His atoning sacrifice;

·        Increased influence of the Holy Ghost to feel strength and direction for our own lives;

·        Increased faith, so that conversion to the Savior becomes deep and abiding;

To close, share your testimony of family history work.

Activity Ideas:

·        Look up a story about one of your ancestors and act it out.

·        Visit the grave of one of your ancestors and talk about memories you have of them.

Closing Prayer:

Treat: Easy Peanut Butter Fudge Bars from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe

Precious Gifts from God (Follow the Prophet)

Preparation: 

Read President Ballard's Talk from April 2018 General Conference. 

Materials Needed:

• Picture of President Nelson
• Needed materials for activity 

Opening Song: Follow the Prophet

Prayer:

Gain Attention: (Choose one of the following) 

• Show children pictures of a few of the apostles and have them tell you which is the prophet.
• Have a picture of the prophet hid somewhere in the room and play hot and cold while the children try to find it. 

Instruction:
Read this quote from Elder Ballard:

 "My brothers and sisters, we have just participated in a solemn assembly, a practice that can be traced back to the Bible when ancient Israel gathered to feel the Lord's presence and celebrate His blessings. We are privileged to live in a time when this ancient practice has been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I urge you to record in your personal journal what you felt regarding this most sacred occasion in which you have taken part."

Discuss the feelings each of you had during the solemn assembly. You may even want to watch if one more. You can find a video of the solemn assembly here. Encourage your family to follow President Ballard's counsel to record these feelings. You may even want to take the time to do so at the end of FHE.

Next read this quote from Elder Ballard's talk:

"The Lord has said, 'Thou shalt give heed unto all his [meaning the President of the Church] words and commandments which he shall give unto you as he receiveth them ...;

'For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.'"

Discuss this scripture with your children and in closing share your experience of how you have gained a testimony that President Nelson is the prophet. You could also invite other family members to share their testimonies. 

Activity Ideas: 

• Play follow the leader. Have the leader hold a picture of the prophet and sing Follow the Prophet. 
• Make a treat together. 
• Go for a walk.
• Play Sardines. 

Treat Idea: Homemade Creamy Vanilla Ice Cream from Salt and Baker

(This ice cream is seriously the best homemade ice cream I have ever had!)

My witness that President Nelson is the current prophet came as I was watching the first presidency's broadcast. My little girl was sitting on my lap watching with me. I pointed at President Nelson and said to her, "That is the new Prophet." A warm feeling came over me as I spoke those words testifying to me that what I had just said is true. I am so grateful for our prophet! 

Family Home Evening: With One Accord

This talk was given by Reyna I. Aburto in the April 2018 General Conference. I encourage you to read or listen to her talk before giving this lesson. Her talk can be found here.

Objective: Children will be able to identify a special gift they have been blessed with and describe how it can bless our family.

Materials:

• Picture of Monarch Butterfly (There are really good pictures on LDS.org with Sister Aburto’s talk)
• A world map
• Picture or Drawing of the Sun
• Butterfly Cutouts
• Supplies for family activity if needed.

Opening Song: Families Can Be Together Forever (Hymn 300)

Prayer:

Lesson: Show children a picture of a monarch butterfly and ask them if they know what it is.

Explain how monarch butterflies travel from Mexico to Canada in the spring and from Canada to Mexico in the fall. (It may be beneficial to show children a map and point out where they live. Next show them somewhere that they travel regularly on the map, grandma’s house for example. Then compare the distance between these two places with the distance between Mexico and Canada.)

Next ask the children, “How do you think the monarch butterflies know which way to fly?” Listen to the children’s answers and then explain that the monarchs use the suns position to direct them

Read this quote from Sister Aburto’s talk, “[The monarch butterflies] do this year after year, one tiny wing flap at a time. During their journey, they cluster together at night on trees to protect themselves from the cold and from predators.”

(At this point, depending on the ages of you children or how restless they are, you may to have the children pretend to be butterflies and follow someone pretending to be the sun or holding a picture of a sun. At the end of the game have the leader bring your little butterflies back to where you are having your lesson to “settle in for the night.”)

Explain to the children, once they have settle back down if they played the game, that a group of butterflies is called a Kaleidoscope. Ask the children to say Kaleidoscope three times with you then show the picture of the kaleidoscope included in sister Aburto’s talk. Explain to the children that each butterfly in this kaleidoscope is different but they still work together to make help pollinate flowers and plants and make our world more beautiful.

Read this quote from Sister Aburto’s talk,

"Like the monarch butterflies, we are on a journey back to our heavenly home, where we will reunite with our Heavenly Parents. Like the butterflies, we have been given divine attributes that allow us to navigate through life, in order to "[fill] the measure of [our] creation. Like them, if we knit our hearts together, the Lord will protect us "as a hen [gathers] her chickens under her wings" and will make us into a beautiful kaleidoscope."

Now take time to talk with the family about a divine attribute that each has and write them on a butterfly cutout. (Examples: being kind to others, helping others feel happy when they are sad, being happy, being a good leader, being honest.)

Read this quote from Sister Aburto’s:

"Girls and boys, young women and young men, sisters and brothers, we are on this journey together. In order to reach our sublime destiny, we need each other, and we need to be unified. The Lord has commanded us, ‘Be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.’”

Now take the time to talk about how the divine attributes that each family member possesses can help to bless our family unit. Have each family member write the answer on their butterfly or draw a picture of it.

Conclude with this quote from Sister Aburto:

“Like the monarch butterflies, let us continue on our journey together in purpose, each of us with our own attributes and contributions, working to make this a more beautiful and fruitful world—one small step at a time and in harmony with God’s commandments.”

Close with your Testimony.

Activity Ideas:

Go for a walk or bike ride together and look for butterflies as you go.

Learn to make origami butterflies together. 

Decorate butterfly shapes with paint, markers, crayons, paper or whatever else you have on hand. 

Notes: Remember that this is just an outline on how your lesson could go. Remember to follow the Spirit and adapt as necessary for the needs of your family.

Welcome to Mothering Amid Angels!

I am so excited to start this journey with all of you. I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend. I love my Savior, Jesus Christ, and want to create a home where my children can feel of His love. A recent speaking assignment in sacrament meeting caused me to really contemplate on what things need to be happening in our home to help our children develop a strong relationship with and testimony of our Savior. I felt guided to six things. 

Weekly family home evening. A night once a week where we can gather our children together and learn about our Savior and his teachings. Over the past almost seven years of our marriage we have done our very best to not miss this weekly tradition. The habit has been there but the quality of the experience has been lacking often times.

In this most recent general conference, President Nelson stated, "I exhort you to study the messages of this conference frequently -even repeatedly- during the next six months. Conscientiously look for ways to incorporate these messages in your family home evenings, your gospel teaching, your conversations with family and friends, and even your discussions with those not of our faith. Many good people will respond to the truths taught in this conference when offered in love. And your desire to obey will be enhanced as you remember and reflect upon what you have felt these past two days." (President Russel M. Nelson, Let Us All Press On, April 2018) As a result I have decided to create lesson plans each week that are focused around one of the talks from the most recent general conference and plan to post them here. 

Daily personal and family prayers and scripture study. Family prayers and scripture study can be a little crazy around here most days. I imagine that this will always be the case as we have young children. Just the same, my desire is to find ways to make scripture study with my little one more engaging and my own personal prayers and scripture study more meaningful. I will share what is and is not working for us and hope you will do the same so we can all learn together. 

Participate in Family History. Some of the angels I am referring to when I say mothering amid angels are our ancestors. There is so much power that comes as we learn about and serve our ancestors through temple work. My goal is to come up with ideas to help my children become enthusiastic about family history while they are young so they will continue to do it throughout their lives. 

Incorporate the teaching found in The Family: A Proclamation to the World. In a talk given by President Dallin H. Oaks in the October 2017 general conference entitle, The Plan and the Proclamation, he stated, "The gospel plan each family should follow to prepare for eternal life and exaltation is outline in the Church's 1995 proclamation, "The Family: A Proclamation to the World." Parent are often saying that they wish children came with an instruction manual. Well, I think this is it. Here at Mothering Amid Angels we will be focusing on incorporating this great document into our family little pieces at a time. 

                                                                      

Establish righteous traditions. Most of my memories as a child are centered around a traditions we had. They are something that united us as a family then and even now as we are older. Some were centered around holidays and many were around the kitchen table. I look forward to establishing traditions for my own little family and I cannot wait to hear what traditions you all have. 

Finding joy in the day to day. Life can get kind of monotonous as times as we get wrapped up in routine of the day. Often time, I admit, this causes me to become a bit short tempered and grumpy. This lead me to the idea of doing something each week that is a little bit out of the ordinary to mix things ups. Let's call it the Finding Joy in the Journey Challenge.

I created this blog has been created to share my ideas of how we are currently, how we are planning to, and how others have incorporated these six things into our families lives. Joseph Smith stated, "If you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates." Let us join together in our efforts to be mothering amid angels!

*Disclaimer: I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not perfect and I am so far from being the perfect mother that it can be quite discouraging at times. I have been contemplating starting this blog for quite some time but my realization of my shortcoming has held me back, until now. I realize that I have been blessed with talents for creating activities and ideas that can bless my family's lives as well as others. I figured if I was going to put the effort into coming up with the ideas anyway I may as well share them so other might be able to benefit as well.