“What could you do better for your children
and your children’s children
than to record the story of your life,
your triumphs over adversity,
your recovery after a fall,
your progress when all seemed black,
your rejoicing when you had finally achieved?”
“Begin today and write in it your goings and comings,
your deepest thoughts,
your achievements and your failures,
your associations and your triumphs,
your impressions and
your testimonies”
President Spencer W. Kimball 1975
Personal and Family Histories are a big deal to us. Those who have the family stories or even know snippets about their ancestors cherish them. Those who don't have them, wish. Wish that there was something that they knew about the people they came from. Wish they could have a connection. Wish their ancestors left something. Sometimes it's not easy to leave that record. We're busy. Or just don't think about it. Or we don't know what to write. Or, or, or. Well, here's one little help to try to get over your 'or'. It's a journaling ebook - A Little Bird Told Me. It has a topic prompt for each page and there's 70 prompts. Just make your list. It may not be perfect, but it'll be something. Here's a little extra motivational thought from Pres. Kimball -
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If you're looking for a tabletop or buffet table decoration for your YWIE or NB then here's a DIY Lighted Torch that just might do the trick. I made 2 of them and I've used them several times. I enlarged the YW Torch image to about 15". Then I used a carbon sheet to trace the pattern onto the masonite board. I used a drill to make holes into each section to be cut out. Then I used my handheld jigsaw to cut out the design. These are painted white, though they could be painted the value colors if there're 8 of them. Next, I bought small battery operated lights (very handy so I don't have to mess with finding a plug and having an extension cord), and hot glued (low melt) them onto the back of the board. I made sure the lights were visible from the front side and that the placement was staggered. And lastly, I took a tie wrap and tied all the loose wires from view. The masonite torch slides in and out of the approximately 1" x 3" base board. Using a table saw, cut a channel the same thickness as the masonite board. With this base, no glue is needed and it pulls apart so it stores away nicely. The little holes seen at the end of the boards are for dowels to slide into. Flags, bandanas, buntings or anything can be put on a dowel and slid into the holes. This makes it versatile. Good luck on your upcoming Young Women In Excellence and New Beginnings.
I took this idea from one my mom had forever ago...like in 1991...whoa. Anyway, she made puppets with faces on them and I gave a primary talk where I showed each face and said, "I can pray when I am happy [shows happy face on a stick]." "I can pray when I am sad [shows sad face on a stick]." You get the idea. Here I am about to give my first primary talk...let's just not talk about how much I look like a creepy horror movie child: I'm working on a curriculum outline for Caeden and each morning I have a devotional outlined from the Sunbeams Primary Manual. One of the lessons is about prayer. I thought to myself, "Self! Why not bring back those little face puppets?" So I made some for Caeden. And he loves them! And I want to share them with you! Just click here to download this! You'll get a color version as well as black and white versions that your kids can color on. Or you can print them out on color card stock like I did...it just means that you'll have extras!
Instructions are in the download, but basically they go like this: download, print, color, cut out, laminate, and hot glue to a Popsicle stick. Easy peasy! You can download these for free for a limited time! Pin this to share it with all your friends! I love General Conference. Like, LOVE. conference. The top conference topic was Jesus Christ, which is not really a surprise. We are the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints and all... Prayer, service, testimony, agency, and the atonement all tied for second place. Truth, love, family, prophets, and Heavenly Father were the third most talked about. I love Christ. I don't know if I say it enough, or if my actions prove it. I had a friend post on Facebook after conference asking what everyone's goals were, how they were going to let conference change them. And I thought to myself, "Self, that is an excellent question." So here are my goals: Do better with family history. Like, way better. Like, actually do it at all. Starting with writing down my stories and stories from Leila's life. I think I've got some questions in the works that I will post later :) Attend the temple once a month. Because I need to go more, and I don't. Am I the only one that gets anxiety before I go, or is that just me? *awkward silence* Stop being afraid of man. I'm always super worried about offending someone with how much I care about the gospel and Jesus Christ and then after watching conference I realized that is a completely and utterly ridiculous fear. If my friends are really friends then they will respect how I live my life and the love I have for Christ. It doesn't mean I'm preaching to them when I talk about something. I'm just sharing. Become more Christlike by studying His life more in depth. This is actually my number one, on-going goal. Because really. I just need to. And this month's Come Follow Me is perfect because it is all about becoming more Christlike. It was meant to be! So I'm going to ask you the same thing my Facebook friend asked all of us; "What are your goals? How will you let conference change you?" Share! Comment your little hearts out!
Back in July we had Youth Conference. In that post I mentioned that we did service videos but couldn't share them because they weren't edited yet. Well, now they are! Our Stake had a premiere night to show them to the youth. We did a red "carpet", awards, paparazzi, and dressed up. Here are photos from that night.
Here are the videos.
This video project was out of a lot of youth and leader's comfort zones. It's hard to say how things you've never done will turn out. The uncertainty adds anxiety. Hopefully these steps will help keep the stress level low. This is a project that I would do again. I think this is a new face for service. It's not the traditional shovels and rags but a lot of work nonetheless. Which translated into 15,000 Facebook views for about the first week. Not bad for a bunch of mostly amateurs. One last thing - CELEBRATE at a Premiere Night.
We posted a General Conference FHE last conference here. Here it is as a reminder. Included is a memory game that can use this conference's talks. It can be used anytime, maybe even become a family tradition. Maybe even include root beer floats. Yay! Click on the images for the download. Even if you don't have bottle caps we've got you covered. Included are paper caps. Just
Print • Cut • Write • Play If you're looking for a last minute something for your kids to do doing General Conference here are some FREE cute coloring pages! There is also room for them to draw their own pictures of what they learn or to take notes if they are a little older. The images are 8x10 and you can download them for FREE here. A .pdf is included!
When serving in the Stake YW we focus our efforts to help Ward YW leaders. They have so much to do and that's not an exaggeration. Last year for our Ward leaders we presented them with a planner. It was given to help them ease their burden in planning then in turn they could focus more on their young women. Many of them liked what we had. Here's a version for this year in our Etsy Shop. We tried to think of how each month would look for a ward leader and then incorporated it into a calendar. It helps that we've been ward leaders so we know what it's like to plan and carry out. Here's an example of one month. Some choices are already matched and made. For example - • Come Follow Me principles are listed on each month (CFM = Come Follow Me) • Sunday Lessons section to list who and what will be taught • Personal Progress Values are assigned to a month (coordinates with Come Follow Me) • Strength of Youth standards are assigned monthly (use for mutual opening exercises, talks, etc) • Leadership Lesson Topics from Church Handbook are assigned monthly (optional topics too) • Bishopric Interviews space is listed each month to track YW interviews • PP Project Evaluation times are scheduled into certain months • Presidency Meetings purpose summaries are listed and space for notes • Conducting for Sunday and Mutual (space for names is included) • Mutual Activities space is provided for organizing • List Lines for extra dates, notes, needs, info, or other reminders • Infographic summaries for Class Presidencies, Agendas, and Personal Progress • Reminders of things to do are put throughout the year (Camp, Conferences, etc) • Notes pages that are blank are included • Newsletter template to send out to parents is included too Compact and concise. So much information in so simple a format. But there's more too. • Front Notebook Binder Cover • YW Leaders Contact Info • YW Contact Info • Stake Activities Calendar • Ward Activites Calendar • Yearly Budget • Leadership Lessons Outline • Personal Progress by Month Outline • Jan - Dec Calendaring Pages • Infographic • Class Presidency • Infographic • Agendas • Infographic • Personal Progress • 2015 Calender At A Glance • YW Newsletter Template (2) • Notes Pages • Back Notebook Binder Cover Everything's here to get you started and make your life easier in 2015. (It may even help you with the rest of 2014) Go to our Etsy Shop if you're interested.
Guys! September is National Preparedness month. Are you checking up on your 72-hour kits? Do you have an emergency car kit? If not, get that stuff out! I've started a personal blog that you can find here, and you can read my posts about emergency preparedness here and here and here. Because meteorologists are predicting a hard winter, solar flares, and because I'd rather be over-prepared than under-prepared.
Reading an article this month in BYU Magazine made me think of this little kit I did for some of my fam. It's the Compliment Kit and it's been downloaded over 4000 times between the 2 files. It seems we all want to write random compliments. They call them "praise notes" in this article. Call them whatever you like just write them. That's the important thing. Read this if you need more convincing.
Just a quick post. I have to do flyers periodically for activities. A flyer is just a little more eye catching if an image added. You can download these blank flyers by clicking the images below. It'll take you to our download page. Then add your own content. Another way we make your life a little easier. Here's a link to the previous post about our DIY blank flyers.
It's Leila's 29th birthday today. If you're new and don't know who Leila is you can read about her here and here. Even though she's gone we are still celebrating her life and her motto, "I choose to be happy".
I've launched a limited edition tee in celebration of her birthday. 50% of the proceeds from this shirt will go to the Preeclampsia Foundation. The other 50% will be used to keep What the HELLP? up and running so women who survived HELLP Syndrome can keep sharing their stories. You can pre-order a shirt here: http://teespring.com/beautifulhappy. The campaign ends in 11 days so make sure you order before then! We are halfway to our goal of 30 shirts already just this morning. Thank you for all of the support you've given us throughout the year. I'm glad we are nesties! Hello, Lovely people! So I've been busy with school stuff--I had to write down instructions for proper hand-washing and diaper-changing. Seems a little boring and tedious because, like, as moms we do this all the time. Anyway, I decided to make my instructions cute and you can download them for free here. I'm trying out a new download place since our previous downloader has been super sketch. Just enter $0 in the payment option.
These can spruce up your bathroom or changing table area. They would also be great for early childhood educators or in day-care centers. Enjoy! Here are a couple of photos from our Stake's Youth Conference the last couple of days. This first one is of Wade (son and brother) and his t-shirt design. He did it himself and you can read more about it here. Love this kid. Second is a photo from one of our service projects. I don't know about your stake but our youth are super fast at service projects and we often have a hard time finding something that will fit our 3 hour time frame that involves our 200 youth. (If you have any good ideas, share them with us below.) This year our stake decided to broaden our service project vision. We did the filming for 4 Service Message Videos at youth conference. One of the videos involves this 24' x 8' chalkboard near our stake center and Kansas City Temple. I think this video (#ldsmakeyourmark) had about 75 youth with scriptures that inspired them and their testimonies. The other videos involve music (#ldsmakeyourmark), beauty (#ldstruebeauty) and manhood (#ldsrealmen). I'm not going to say much more about it. Except I'm very excited about them (though there was a lot of uncertainty in the project until we did it) and to share them with you. You'll have to watch for the videos in September. What do you think of our Service Message Videos idea? PS You might even see one of Alisha's boys - my grandson - in one of them.
There's a lot of talk about women, priesthood, and excommunication lately. Plenty of commentary on it as well. Some of it good, some not so much. Since the recent issues deal with Latter-day Saints directly we at LDS NEST had to think about what to say. Or not say in the discussion. Personally, I always have plenty to say. Very opinionated in fact. But, I have a little motto - Just because you can, doesn't mean you should Having lots of opinions I've realized that it's likely not all of them are good. So, I like to think about things a little before I venture opening my mouth. What should LDS NEST share? What's the message out of recent events? What discussions really help people? How does one help people stay on spiritual track? My thinking lead me to the scriptures and Alma sums it up for me. Alma 31:5 And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God. I feel for the families who are struggling with these issues and I think of my own. Any one of us can, and often does, error. But what keeps bringing us back around is the word of God. Plain and simple. So... Do we read it? Do we know it? Do we teach it? In answer to how we should approach current events I came to the conclusion that the best use of my time and effort for my family and LDS NEST would be to make sure we share pure doctrine (Something that is "more powerful on minds than anything else".) With that idea we had a FHE lesson about the Priesthood - Priesthood Power. I thought I'd share what I came up with, with you. I read through Elder Oaks recent talk, Keys and Authority of the Priesthood, other talks and scripture. The information can be tricky to understand and I wanted it to be clear to my kids so I summarized it all out in a way that made sense to me. It made sense to them. Maybe it will make sense to you too. There is a free download Ring Thing here. Besides the Ring Thing Lesson there is a Lesson Outline to go with it and Power Bar wrappers. It's just a little added bonus for fun that you can purchase here (it includes all the Priesthood Power handouts.) Next on my mind to teach my kids about is Apostasy. What do you think about the subject?
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