(the retelling of a story I shared last Easter as well) In the Mormon church we believe, as all Christians do, that Christ was crucified, resurrected, and ascended into Heaven. We know He yet lives, and we center our hope and testimonies on this knowledge.  This is perhaps why we do not carry or display any [...]

Twice a year our church region (called a Stake in our church…maybe it’s like a Diocese in the Catholic church?…a Stake is a larger organization comprised of smaller congregational units, or Wards) gathers for what’s called a Stake Conference.  It’s our chance to hear directly from region leaders on matters of greatest spiritual interest to us [...]

At church I serve a leadership calling with the young children ages 3-11, and every so often it’s my responsibility to spend a month of Sundays teaching the group a lesson on basic gospel principles. January is my month, and the principle we’ll be studying is:  We Believe in God, the Eternal Father and in [...]

In my church – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – children are baptized at 8 years old.  The later date means they’ve had a chance for some religious instruction before they make the conscious decision about this important spiritual commitment. My older son, Isaac, turned 8 years old on Thursday, and this morning he was [...]

I managed to get all 5 kids looking reasonably happy for this Easter Morning picture.  It only took 20 tries, but that’s alright! I wanted to share briefly with you my testimony of Easter, of the sacrifice of Christ, and what it means to me.  I’ll share this testimony with you through a story I [...]

I recently joined a wonderful group of Mormon women online at the website Modern Molly Mormon.  They are a perfect mix (for me) of thoughtful, striving, faithful women in the gospel.  No snarkyness or cattiness here – but plenty of excellent food for thought and encouragement to strengthen your testimony. I’ve become a regular contributor, [...]

I just wanted to share how proud I am of my two oldest girls today. My husband has a leadership calling in our church which requires that he sometimes travel to other congregations and speak in their Sunday meeting.  Today he traveled to a Spanish congregation, which I’m sure he volunteered for, since he is [...]

My husband has taken the rest of this week off for the Thanksgiving break, and today we were able to go to the temple for a few hours together.  It was a very peaceful, restful experience, and HUGE THANKS go to our friend Melissa for watching Eli.  It was his first time being watched in [...]

Tonight, being Monday, was Family Home Evening in our house.  We didn’t have a set plan for tonight’s lessons and festivities, but our son I7 quickly came up with something.  Sitting quietly by himself in the den, he wrote out 6 index cards with a different set of scripture verses on each.  His choices, as [...]

I stumbled upon such a fun website today!  It’s called Wordle, and you need to check it out.  You can give it your blog address, or plug in a bunch of text, and it will create a graphic “word cloud” based on your (or your blog’s) input. For Family Home Evening tonight, we sat down [...]