Ooh this is so fun, especially for you naturally crunchy Christian moms who want to get your 1000 hours outside in 2026 plus instill a love of Bible stories in your children’s hearts.
My fun, darling, amazingly creative and smart Veggie Gal pal Patti Rokus, shown above, is one of my dearest friends. She writes gorgeous picture books illustrated with her rock art.
Watch her below tell the story of Sarah and Abraham. This story is what we are studying this week for my church’s Come Follow Christ scripture study.
Want more of Patti? Watch her below telling the story of Adam and Eve.
Go to her playlist here to see her telling even more Old Testament stories. You can use them this whole year as you do Come Follow Christ with your children.
Did you know the LDS Gospel Library App has a section full of her resources for teaching the Old Testament this year? Watch the video above to learn how to find it.
Patti is also featured in the video below in a Friend to Friend broadcast for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 2021. Catch her at the 28 minute mark teaching children how to make rock art.
You can buy her books here on amazon. (I receive a small commission if you buy the books through that link.) She also has a miracles of Jesus book in the works!
Then here is her website so you can get even more resources from Patti!
Below is her story of how she came to find rocks as part of her walk with Jesus Christ.
I hope all this motivates you to find the beauty, wonder, opportunities for play and other blessings from God in the everyday, as you walk with Jesus too.
I love Patti’s idea of using rocks for art for three reasons:
Almost anybody has fairly reasonable access to rocks.
Looking for rocks gets you outside to enjoy nature, all of God’s creations, all for free!
Rocks remind us of Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate rock for us to base our lives on, as it says in The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ: “And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.” (Helaman 5:12)
May we all feel inspired to learn of God in the ordinary, even rocks, and and feel joy! Rejoice!
Is it true that you can catch a cold? Can you get sick by touching the body fluids of a sick person? Do germs in the body fluids case the sickness? Do things besides body fluids transmit germs? What scientific experiments show that germs cause illness?
I have had different experiences with what I thought was catching illness. In one example, I heard that a friend had children with chicken pox. My oldest two children had had the pox when they were 2 and 4. My youngest at the time was a few months old. He never got the pox, and I assume it was because he was being exclusively breasted at the time. I assume he did not get the pox because he had received my immunity to it through my milk. I had chicken pox, an intense case, when I was 12.
When that child was 13 I sent him to my friend’s home so he could get the pox. I had heard that the older you are when you get chicken pox, the worse the case is. I certainly had a terrible case of it at age 12. We are talking about having pox inside my ears and eyelids. I didn’t want anyone I love to suffer the same fate at that age or older. So I had my ears open to hear when people got it so I could expose my son. Finally we discovered some people in our circle of friends had the chicken pox! I had my friend’s daughter breathe on my son and sit very close to him. We spent about 30 minutes there in the same room as the sick girl in hopes he would “catch” it. My son never got sick with the pox.
Two years later, when he was 15, I heard that another family who are friends with my family had the pox. My son spent about ten minutes upstairs in that home, with all the sick people in the basement, while he was waiting to be picked up after a play. He was never in the same room as the sick people, just the same home. He ended up coming down with it that time. So ever since then I have wondered how contagion works. Why did my son get sick by supposedly breathing the same air as the sick people who had the chicken pox and not by being breathed on by a sick girl who had the chicken pox?
The author of Can You Catch a Cold?, Daniel Roytas, addresses lots of questions regarding contagion in the book of that same title. You can watch his interview with Dr. Kelly Brogan MD about the book below.
Below is the summary of the book, copied and pasted from amazon.com with endorsements of the book by several people, including a few medical doctors, such as Dr. Brogan, and others. It all sounds so interesting! Get the book here so you can dive into the topic!
(FTC Disclosure: all links in this post are affiliate links. I receive a small commission from amazon if you buy the book from that link.)
The idea that the common cold and influenza are spread via coughing, sneezing, and physical contact has been firmly implanted in our minds since childhood. However, the results of human experiments cast doubt on this theory. Researchers have failed to consistently demonstrate contagion by exposing healthy people directly to sick people or their bodily fluids. These findings suggest that our understanding of infectious disease is incomplete and challenges the long-held belief that a cold or flu can be ‘caught’.
So, what might be causing these seasonal afflictions, and why do they appear to spread from person-to-person? Can You Catch A Cold? Untold History & Human Experiments answers these questions by delving into the historical records, investigating past pandemics, exploring human psychology, and reviewing more than 200 contagion studies. With over 1,000 citations, no stone has been left unturned in the pursuit of unravelling this age-old mystery.
“A contagion-free world restores trust in the human body, ease in relations, and meaning where there was random risk. Daniel’s work represents the definitive text on the subject for anyone who is ready to break one of the deepest spells ever cast. He leaves no stone unturned, and his conclusions are based on the evidence so few have bothered to read. I am so grateful this book exists!“ – Dr Kelly Brogan NY Times Best Selling Author
“Occasionally in life a new book or lecture comes along that effectively changes the world. Such is the case with “Can you Catch a Cold”. We all grew up under the delusion that colds and flu are something we catch, something caused by invisible demons for which we have no ability to sense or detect. As a result we live in fear, avoid our loved ones and basically just live in a kind of make-believe world. If you are tired of living in a make believe world read Daniel’s book, you’ll never see the world the same again“. – Dr Tom Cowan Author of The Contagion Myth
“Daniel has done it! He unearthed the buried research which gives the most definitive results available on contagion and germ theory. This may be the most important work on infectious disease since the microscope was first used to visualize microorganisms in diseased tissue. His impeccable reasoning and neutral approach to the subject puts the reader at ease as their understanding of health is turned upside down. I highly recommend this book and made it required reading for my home educated children“. – Dr Andrew Kaufman Forensic Psychiatrist
“The claim that colds and flu are contagious may be one of the greatest ever blunders of medical science. Prepare to be shocked as this book brilliantly brings to life the buried data that can no longer be ignored”. – Dr Mark Bailey Co-author of The Final Pandemic
“An incredible, thorough exploration of history that will make you question everything you thought you knew about infectious diseases, health, and the human condition. This well-researched book, with over 1,000 references, provides valuable insights to help piece together the intricate puzzle of why we experience illness. A paradigm-shattering, must-read for those trying to determine the truth and acquire a healthier and happier life!” – Roman Bystrianyk Co-author of Dissolving Illusions
“How many of us go through life claiming we know something without having ever given it any critical thought? Proverbs 18:3 says, ‘If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame’.Daniel set aside his ‘common knowledge’ to truly explore the premises and history surrounding contagion, and came out with a completely new outlook on the subject. Anyone interested in developing a richer understanding of this topic owes it to themselves to read this book”. – Dr Jordan Grant Physician & Educator
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day this past weekend, I will share a combination of things I’ve been loving lately and some recent miracles. When I reflect on these blessings, gifts, and miracles I feel God’s hand in my life and His love for me.
I have been wanting to have have a Galentine’s Day party for years and a Jane Austen board/card game party. I combined the two desires and finally made it happen! I had a Jane Austen-themed Galentine’s Party the week before Valentine’s Day. It was so much fun!!!!! Details coming soon on how to do it. I had five guests, including my married daughter. She came, toting her baby boy, even though she had spent the day moving. So we had 5 adults, including me, one mature 11-year-old young woman, and a 5-month-old baby. My married daughter lent me the decorations shown in the top photo above. We played the Pride and Prejudice board game and Marrying Mr. Darcy. We didn’t get to the Jane Game, which we will do another time. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that we have so many games and so little time.
OK, here’s the mini-miracle involved. I was stressing about what to wear for the party. I invited everyone to dress up with corsets optional. I don’t own any light-colored high waisted empire dresses. I do have a maroon one from the wedding of one of my sons with long sleeves. It just seemed not Regency Era-looking enough. I texted my married daughter and asked her if she had some kind of fabric I could use as a sash to tie under my breasts to make a high waist out of a lace dress that I have. She texted back the picture of a perfect dress she owns asking if I wanted to wear it. She can’t wear it right now because of her nursing mother’s larger bustline. It was perfect for me! See below! I love the embroidery on the yoke. Can you believe that she found it at the Provo Deseret Industries for only $6? It’s so beautiful! I had to wear a white shirt underneath because it was too low-cut for me and I had a small rose necklace that was perfect to go with it.
2. I have been wanting to do a couples Valentine’s Day party with my Veggie Gal girlfriends for years, in person. We as girlfriends get together 3-6 times a year for a potluck lunch, never with husbands. I wanted to have a dinner date night with husbands or a friend (two of them are single). We did a zoom Valentine night a few years ago, not in person, so I wanted an in person one. Well I finally got my wish! One of my Veggie Gals saw that I put out a Valentine’s Day party invitation in our group chat with the location on the invitation as “TBD.” So she texted me back right away and asked if I was ok with her hosting. Yes, yes, yes! She has a large lovely home so of course I was thrilled. (I live in a small home with a table that seats only 8.)
We had the party on Valentine’s Day night. It was so completely delightful! 10 couples, meaning 20 people, attended. The host, Becky, had three tables with place settings for 20 people, actually 22 because one couple canceled at the last minute. She was liberal with the chocolate, putting tons in the center of each table. She even had some keto chocolate. It was all so marvelous!
It was a potluck dinner and games for whoever wanted to participate. Many chose to keep talking when we started the games, which I was totally OK with. Hostess Becky also fixed this super yummy keto chicken and my sister-in-law/fellow VG brought steak bites. I brought beef and bacon soup. It was all so delicious!
We also had a family Valentine party on Friday the 13th. We had pizza, veggies, root beer and cookies, and then played Valentine pictionary with the grandboys. Then they played with their uncle downstairs while the two couples (my husband and I, my married daughter and son-in-law) played the game Let’s Get Deep. Fun! It’s basically the Newlywed Game. I always love conversing with my daughter and son-in-law. They are such great conversationalists. We kept the questions PG rated. I found this game thrifting for around $3. So worth it!
Images Credit: amazon.com
All three of these events fulfilled my desire for wholesome recreation, which is a necessary ingredient for a happy, Christlike life. It’s always so good to get with friends and visit and play games. Ah, the simple life!
3. I have had a personal trial going on for a few months. It’s been soooo hard to bear, causing many tears and heartache. I came to a breaking point, thinking, “I need help with this problem or I am going to run away!” So I reached out and asked for help. Things are gradually improving. Part of the help was getting a priesthood blessing from my bishop, the leader of my church congregation. In the blessing, I was told that angels surround me and accompany me in my daily business. That felt very good to hear. Another thing I was told was the importance of me exercising patience for things to change.
4. My Favorite Things lately:
-winter and Valentine picture books and my pom-pom and Valentine garlands, decorating my front room, which also doubles as my dining room/library.
-Jane Austen fan fiction. I read the book above in January and loved it. Now I’m listening to the audiobook below. So much Jane fan-fiction exists I could always be reading one for the rest of my life. It’s just hard though to find the gems among the duds. So far the one below is a gem but I have yet to finish it so we shall see.
-the Our Thrifty Homeschool YouTube Channel, just to hear about the thrifting hauls of the homeshool mom on the channel, Toni. I haven’t been thrifting since January 3, and I’ve actually donated stuff to the thrift store, so I’m living the thrifting life vicariously, at least for now.
-which leads me to one of my favorite victories lately: I got our office/game room cleared out. I forgot to take a “before” photo, but this is the “after” below: (just imagine board games piled high in stacks of ten or more on top of that table). Now to finish getting the matching Ikea fabric bins to replace the ugly cardboard boxes on the shelves. Those bins hold the smaller games, for younger children. I got the matching black shelves last summer. After moving two springs ago, it’s taken me this long to find the right shelves at used prices that fit the room, then finally organize the room and decide what games to give away since they don’t all fit. I also want to switch out the dresser in the lower right with more black shelves, and switch out the table for a black table.
-the book Tranquility by Tuesday, a book by Laura Vanderkam. After hearing the summary in the video below with Laura and Sarah Mackenzie, I got the audiobook in Libby and listened to it. It’s soooo good! The best time management book for mothers! I want to listen to it again! It has so many gold nuggets of truth! I’m still working on the guideline from the book that “Going to bed early is like sleeping in for adults.” Some habits are hard to break! My favorite guideline in the book is to take one night off a week for yourself. The second favorite guideline is to have one “big adventure” (a fun activity that takes over one hour) and one “little adventure” (a fun activity that takes less than an hour) to look forward to with your family every week.
-the You and Me and 23 YouTube channel about a family with 23 children! I used to fantasize about having 24 children when I was in the 4th grade. I ended up with 7 which is is wonderful, and now I get to live the life, in the remote way that the Internet allows, of a much bigger family, by watching this YouTube Channel. The husband and wife of the family, Colby and Autumn, just announced their 24th child! Amazing!
-the Our Life Homeschooling Channel. I just love hearing the soothing voice of host, homeschooling mom of ten, Sheri. So much of what she says resonates with the way I homeschool. It just makes me feel happy even though I’m not in the thick of homeschooling lots of children any more. I also love watching the different scenes of her family reading aloud, playing with classic toys, baking, eating meals together, playing outside, etc. Yes, I find homeschooling the gentle way (not duplicating public school at home) as entertainment!
-the Homeschool Made Simple podcast found here. It also resonates with me so much! This podcast most succinctly captures the organic education/Thomas Jefferson Education philosophy that I follow.
-Marcie Holladay and her Single Mom on Farm YouTube Channel. She lives on a 36 acre farm in Virginia, homeschooling the five youngest of her ten children. It’s been interesting to watch her weather, LOL, pun intended, two storms that left her with two weeks of snow and ice while Utah is having such incredibly balmy weather.
-homeopathy! I’ve used it in the past month to heal me of my plantar fasciitis and my son’s congestion, fever, headache, and sore throat. I continue to feel empowered knowing I’ve saved our family lots of time and money visiting the doctor. See all my homeopathy healing stories and tips here. It’s every crunchy mom’s dream healing modality! It’s so inexpensive, powerful, and no side effects!
–Morning Basket time. It just makes so happy to have this time to share good, beautiful, and true things with my son as part of our homeschooling day. We’ve been reading a page or two from the book above. I’m loving hearing Dinesh D’souza’s backstory. I’ve always admired him. I never knew he was an exchange student from India, going to high school in AZ, and that he then attended Dartmouth. Another of the books we have been reading from is this book below. I feel like I’m finally understanding all of Dickens stories. I got the book on a thrifting trip last summer for less than $4 at the Draper UT Savers.
-the book Sarah by Orson Scott Card, which I finished this past week as an audiobook in Libby. It’s so interesting to hear the supposition of one man, a master storyteller, on how the life of Sarah played out with her husband Abraham. This book really makes her come alive. Her interaction with Abraham, the story of how she came to have Hagar and her decision to offer up Hagar to Abraham is all so interesting to think about. Now I want to read the other books in this series.
5. I had a series of mini-miracles involving thrifting in December and early January which I detail over here.
6. I lost my Air Pods and then found them the next morning, just under the edge of my bed. I have lost and found them so many times, enough to put me into permanent cardiac arrest because of the cost of replacing them. I told my husband that I keep losing them, and he offered to let me use the trackable tag (Tile brand) that he has had sitting in his drawer that our daughter gave to him. I didn’t know he had one so this was very good news. May I never lose them again!
7. We prayed for rain and snow the first Sunday of February, Fast Sunday, and we’ve had three rainy days since then!
8. After waiting for almost two years, our family got into a homeschooling co-op that we’ve been waiting to get into for almost two years! We as as a family signed up for a different homeschool co-op after leaving the one we had been in for four years, in the spring of 2024. We signed up for this new one two years ago in March. The co-op takes December and January off (I’m all for that!) so we just started classes with them the first week of February. This will be a great way for my 16-year-old to finish up his last year and a half of high school. This new co-op has tons of choices for scholar classes, much more than the previous co-op, which was centered more for the children under 12, and a new set of friends to get to know. More friends for me too! I’m excited!
9. My 16-year-old, the youngest of my seven, just got his driver’s license! It has been a bittersweet time not to have to drive him to soooo many activities but also I miss our time in the car together listening to audiobooks. An era has ended!! Ever since the fall of 1997, for a Kindermusik class for my firstborn when he was 4, until this Winter of 2026 (almost 30 years!), I have been driving my seven children to various classes outside the home as part of of our family homeschooling. It has been a wonderful blessed time. Sometime I will have to blog about all the audiobooks and music we listened to in the car for those three decades!
10. My blue light blocking glasses that I bought last November, just simple ones in amazon for less than $20, are giving me better sleep! I remember to put them on sometime after sunset and wear them until I shut my eyes for sleep between 11 and midnight. Many nights I don’t wake up at all until 6-7 AM to go to the bathroom. If any of you 40+ moms are out there you know all about those middle in the night potty visits, and how much we wish they happened not in the middle of the night.
11. For Fast Sunday in January, we prayed and fasted that we would have some miracle regarding our minivan. It has been out of commission since August. So we’ve been down to one car. With three of us driving now sometimes it gets tricky to share one car. So we fasted and prayed that we’d either get the minivan fixed or replaced by some miracle. My husband has been working on it and taken it into the shop. The repair shop quoted a bill to fix it for over $6K to which we politely said no to because that’s more than it’s worth. We’re hoping my husband can fix it for much cheaper on his own. That same day that we fasted and prayed for a miracle, at church, a man in our congregation spoke to my husband, Brother G. He offered our family a car!!! A silver Dodge Caravan minivan. We got an answer the same day!!! He told my husband he had felt inspired in his Sunday morning prayer to offer our family a car. There’s a little story behind this car. Brother G wasn’t the original owner. Our congregation (ward) used money contributed by members to buy this car for a handicapped couple in our ward, who each use a wheelchair. The couple had used this car for a few years, and then sadly they both got sick and had to go into assisted living homes. So they couldn’t use the car any more. So this man in our ward, who actually lives across the street from us, has been the steward of the car ever since and he gave it to us. We hadn’t said a word about our need for a car to anyone. I know he was inspired by the Holy Ghost to give us this car. Only God could know how much we needed one. So now we have two working cars again, which is so useful, especially with our newly minted teen driver.
12. Daffodils are already springing up in my yard! It’s the winter of no winter when we have often hit 50 to 60 degrees in January and February. I’m still praying for rain in the valley and snow in the mountains.
Despite some trials, I’m feeling so grateful for all of these gifts. It’s amazing to stop and think of all these things and realize that God truly is in the details of my life.
If you would like to see the hand of God in your life, I encourage you to pray to God and ask for help in seeing His hand. Then spend time reading the Bible to see His hand in ancient times. Spend time reading the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ to see His hand in ancient America times. Spend time reading stories in my Celestial Family Devotionals Ebook as well to see His hand in modern people’s lives. I am confident that no matter how miserable your life may seem, if you spend time reading or listening to sacred texts and personalized godly stories, pondering, praying and writing, you will see His hand in your life.
Now just for fun, here’s a fun video of the Happy Caravan/De La Mott’s family Valentine’s Day celebration.
Here are my top 10 Valentine’s Day picture books. These are books about friendship, love, and kindness, which are all themes for Valentine’s Day. The one above is my absolutely favorite because it shows a whole family celebrating Valentine’s Day together in their cozy home. So far, it’s the only picture book I’ve found that features such a thing.
This one is super cute, but it doesn’t tell a story like the first one. Each page shows an image from a Little Golden Book with a pithy saying that goes with the image. If you especially love vintage art from old-fashioned LGBs you will love this! I found it thrifting, which made me giddy! It’s more for adults than young kiddos, since it’s not a story. If I read it to under 8s I will skip over some of the pages and words and focus on the more hilarious illustrations. I happened to find it on a thrifting jaunt for $1.
This book is such a delight! It shows the power of how one simple anonymous gift and note can change someone’s life. Read it then encourage your children to write kind anonymous notes to others.
Sugar Cookies is all about how to define some words relating to love in terms of cookies. So cute!!! Once I read this aloud to some of my friends at a couple’s Valentine’s game night, then we played the game I made based on it. See my game over here that I made to go with it. I originally made it go with the author’s Christmas cookies book, but you could play it with this book too.
This book is a story that links celebrating Valentine’s Day with forgiveness, set in a historical setting of 1960s Alabama. A beautiful story.
Here’s my favorite picture book about love between a mom and dad. The fact that the mom and dad are bears waking up from hibernation during winter makes it extra interesting for children. It can give you different themes to talk about after reading it aloud to your kiddos.
Sylvester is not a Valentine’s Day-theme book but I am putting it here because it’s all about being grateful for your family and the love you share. I feel happy every time I read it! It reminds me to appreciate my family, not take them for granted, and to cultivate the love and time we have together while we are together.
This is the only one on the list from my childhood. It’s a sweet story about friendship between classmates and Valentine’s Day.
I love all the illustrations and graphics in this book that gives a basic history of Valentine’s Day.
I just love the Cranberry books. They take me back to my 70s childhood. The books just make me happy!
Want more Valentine’s Day books?
See below to get my free ebook full of lots more titles about love, friendship, kindness and Valentine’s. Just click on the “Download” button.
A few weeks ago I discovered the story behind the image below.
It involves Brazilian Olympic surfer Gabriel Medina, who scored a record 9.9 out of 10 surfing in the Olympics. Watch John Hilton III in the video below tell the story, it’s at about the 31:27 mark.
What a great example of giving the glory of a superb athletic moment to God!
It reminds me recently when one of my organist friends was complimented on her musical ability at church. She is amazing! She sings in a community choir, she leads our congregation choir, she plays the piano and the organ for our congregation singing, and maybe she plays other instruments I don’t know about. She’s always ready at a moment’s notice to sing or play or lead, without hesitation, even if she hasn’t practiced the song. After the compliment, she said, “Thank you! I’m so grateful for a mother who paid for my musical lessons.” In a way, Medina was saying the same thing: “Thank you! I’m so grateful for Christ who gave me everything, my body, my talents, my redemption from sin, and my opportunity to be here.” You can read a story about Medina here. Below is a screenshot of what he wrote about the photo on his Instagram page.
In case you can’t read it, it says, “I can do everything through him who strengthens me.” Philipians 4:13
I love this all so much! When we know that we are Christ’s because we have entered into a baptismal covenant relationship with Him, we know not just who we are, children of God, but we start to also know “whose we are,” meaning that we belong to Christ, because of covenants we have made in His name. Then we step into a whole new level of living. We can feel spiritual momentum helping us do things we didn’t know was possible, because truly we can do all things in His name. We start dying as to things of the flesh and become born again in Christ as His children of the covenant.
As the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ says in Mosiah 5:7:
“And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.”
Being a covenant child of Christ doesn’t mean we are perfect. It doesn’t mean we will have a perfect life. We will still make mistakes and bad things will still happen, but because of this covenant, we will have increased help getting through these mistakes and bad things. We will have more joy. My friend Joyce talks about this whole new level of living over here. She calls living the covenant life “living the high life.”
President Nelson encouraged members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to think of themselves as 1. Children of God, 2. Children of the covenant, and 3. Disciples of Christ, in this talk over here, called “Choices for Eternity.”
Brother Hilton in the same video above shares a new song his neighbor April Hemphill wrote to help us remember these three core identities. It’s called “Child of God, Child of the Covenant, Disciple of Jesus Christ.”
You can get it here from Brother Hilton’s website. He says his brother sings this song every day with his family after family prayer. As he says, “What would that be like to grow up singing this song every day with your family?” I love to ponder that question. I’m sharing this song with my family to encourage us all to sing this every day.
I didn’t thrift this, my married daughter did. I enjoyed seeing it hanging in her home during this past Christmas season. I love sweet tender expression on Joseph’s face.
It’s not just the first, but the second Friday in February! Time keeps flying! In Utah, it’s the year of no winter. All of January felt like spring. It’s really weird. I feel like I’m back in southeastern AZ where I used to live and could go outside in the winter with just long-sleeves and no coat. We haven’t had any snow since Thanksgiving weekend. So we’re praying for snow and rain, to which I add the little condition: mostly just in the mountains please. I do love not having to shovel the driveway but I also want to avoid a drought this summer.
I haven’t blogged in a while about thrifting so let’s do it…it’s Frugal Friday since I missed blogging yesterday about thrifting, to call my post Thrifting Thursday. Let’s work backwards and recap January 2026 and then December 2025. Then I’ll be caught up as I blogged about the November 2025 thrifting here.
On the first Friday in January, I attended my girlfriend/Veggie Gals’ post-Christmas party. This is the third year in a row where I’ve asked that we each bring a used book to exchange to accompany our potluck lunch. So with this book exchange I call it my girlfriends’ Jolabokaflod party. (Learn about what Jolabokaflod is here. It’s the Icelandic word for Christmas Book Flood.) I love doing this every year as something to look forward to in January. I wanted to get to the thrift store between Christmas Day and the day of the party but didn’t make it. So I just found some books around my home to give away and brought more than one in case some of the guests forgot. I was thrilled to get a book from one of our new Veggie Gals who happens to be one of my homeschooling mom friends from my Layton UT days. It’s about her parents’ escape from Estonia during post World War 2, written by her sister-in-law. Sounds so good! The photo above shows some of the books involved in our book exchange. Great reads! Below is the book I gave away. Not the God’s Free Harvest, but the other one, with the blue cover, Tissue Cleansing Through Bowel Management by Bernard Jensen. It’s been sitting on my shelf for decades and I thought it would be worth giving away for some laughs. I got the intended result! One of the Veggie Gals actually stole it from the original recipient, so that was fun.
I didn’t have time to go thrifting before this party, what with getting sick on Boxing Day but on the way home I did! I stopped at the American Fork Deseret Industries and got the above books. Oh my goodness, this was such a great haul! I got 17 books for only $13! This was probably my best thrifting-for-books day ever! Among the bunch:
-a book by Dinesh D’Souza which I’ll use for Morning Basket with my 16 year old son for homeschooling, called Letters to a Young Conservative.
-Christmas chapter books I’ll save to give next year to friends and family, including my “ministeree sisters” for my church congregation. (The women in my ward/congregation whom I am assigned to watch over as a ministering sister. So not my ministering sisters, as those are the ones assigned to me, but the ones I’m assigned to. I wish there was a quicker way to say that. “Ministeree sister” is the best thing I can come up with.)
-Christmas picture books to add to my collection, and to give some away. I already gave The Last Straw to my married daughter for our family’s post Christmas Jolabokaflod party. I only have one Jan Brett book so I was thrilled to find her gorgeous version of Twas the Night Before Christmas. I already have two versions of the storybook of that poem but how can I turn down Jan Brett for only $1?
–The Message, which I went looking for so I can give it away to friends and family. God provided and gave me three in two days! I gave a copy to one of my ministeree sisters and my ministering partner. Then I’ll give the third to my mom. It’s just such a great book to read every January and be reminded of what’s truly important. The story starts on Christmas Day so that also makes it fun to read in January.
-A Christmas Carols countdown book which I had been desiring in the previous weeks as a something to use for a music aspect in our December Morning Basket. It was as if God was saying, “Your wish has been granted. I sent your thrifting angels to bring this to you! Merry post-Christmas!” The author has a website here.
-The sequel to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, as shown above! Yay!!! We watched the Dallas Jenkins’ produced movie based on this book last year and again this year. (See my review of it here.) Ever since then, for a year, I had been thinking, I’d love to find the sequel to that story, and just like the book I mentioned in the point above, this book too fell into my lap. We’ll be reading this for Morning Basket time.
-an L.M. Montgomery book I haven’t heard of! Along the Shore. To add to my other Lucy Maud books with the the title in the swoopy font from the 1980s. I’m saving these for my granddaughters.
-a book about how the Jewish people have affected us. It looks so interesting!
-a Louisa May Alcott Christmas story I hadn’t heard of.
-an abridged version of The Forgotten Carols. I have the regular book of it including the sheet music with the bright red cover, and then the picture book, and now this abridged version above. I have been wishing for this too, just to have a condensed version, since the picture book is not really the same story, and I don’t usually have time to read the whole thing that is the red cover book. God came through for me again!
-a copy of The Secret Santa book by Anne Osborn Poelman, which I was so thrilled to find! I found it in December and gave to to one of my ministeree sisters in a gift basket. I was hoping I’d find a copy sometime so I could have my own copy and read it too and I did! God provided for me again!
I enjoyed taking the slightly worn slip cover off the book before I gave it to her to give a an old-fashioned classic book vibe to it. Then I tied it up with a bow. It looked so festive in the basket of goodies I gave to her, as shown below. I started reading the copy I found for me, and after one chapter decided to tuck it way with my Christmas books to get out after Thanksgiving 2026. I’m looking forward to finishing it! I also gave her a cookbook since she told me likes trying new recipes, it’s the book wrapped up in the back of the basket. Then a copy of The Giver of Holy Gifts and the Life of Our Lord by Dickens. Plus some new hot pads from the dollar store, a new candle from the dollar store, a slightly used Christmas-y mug that I already had, and some candy and nuts.
–
OK, back to my January thrift hauls.
On Saturday January 3 I went to the Provo Deseret Industries and found the goodies above.
–Cranberry Thanksgiving! I have been wanting this for years!!, to add to my Thanksgiving picture book collection. Hooray!
-more Christmas books! I was wanting one more Nativity themed book to fill the space above and I found one! Plus a patriot-themed book for my Independence Day collection. Then I got the Little Golden Book with a vintage Santa Claus. I had just seen this book in a YouTuber’s video of a thrift haul, resulting in a tinge of thrifting envy, so finding it for myself was a super nice surprise! Christmas With the Prophets I checked out from the public library over ten years ago and have thought it would be nice to get. So again, a nice surpise!
–Bathroom Book Volume I to replace the one I bought years ago for my husband for Father’s Day which somehow got lost in the past three moves. I got Volume II after moving back to Utah. So now balance is restored for that set! Yay! I have them both on a bookshelf in my bedroom now, LOL, not the bathroom. They are books that condense the world’s greatest books into one page summaries. So awesome!
–Salt Sugar Fat which I started listening to last fall and want to finish this year! It is the book to read if you want to know the dark side of the conspiring minds in the food manufacturing industry in the last days. This book is required reading at many universities, for good reason.
-the Eyres’ book for having “The Talk” about the birds and the bees with your children. We’ve always checked it out from the library. It’s about time we had our own copy, even though we’ve had the Talk with all seven of them by now. But now we can have it to remind us to do the follow-up talks with the youngest and whoever else of the unmarried children will listen to us :-).
–Grandfather’s Gold Watch, which is a picture book that goes with Pioneer Day in July! I blogged about it here. Now I have a picture book to read to my grandsons about pioneers when I see them close to Pioneer Day.
-One of my adult sons told me, just the Sunday before this thrifting trip, that he is in a point in an exclusive relationship with a girl that he’s never been in before. He wants to figure out if she is really the one to marry, and at the same time, he wasn’t sure what to talk about with her. He was asking what kinds of conversations to have with her. So God guided me to this book above. Another thrifting angel moment! He was happy to receive it!
That’s it for January’s thrift hauls! I haven’t done any thrifting since that first Saturday in January. I’ve decided I need to get rid of a bunch of stuff before I do any more thrifting, and I have and will continue to do so before I go thrifting again.
Now here are pics of December thrift haul items.
My son-in-law was thrilled to get the Celebrity Chef game. I was so thrilled to find it! I immediately thought of him when I saw it, as he is a foodie. He loves food and he loves to cook, especially for an audience. (My daughter is so lucky! and I’m so lucky as his mother-in-law! I love asking him to bring food to family dinners.) Anyway, it was $4 at the Provo D.I. I had so much fun opening it up and fixing it up before I wrapped it for one of his tree gifts. It needed a bit of erasing of pencil marks, and throwing away some of the pages in the paper pad that were written on. Then one of the little bags of the tokens was torn so I replaced that. I have a stash of mini-ziploc type bags for such a time as this. I gave the Sarah Palin book to my mom for her birthday. Then a few more books to help with homeschooling and family life.
Here is a little peek into what the Celebrity Chef game looks like.
I just love the tokens that are miniature kitchen gadgets! They are so cute!
Here is what some of the cards look like. The cards below show my favorite category: one of your opponents draws the card for you. Reading the card, the opponent tells you what type of dish it is, and the ingredients involved. Then you have to guess what the dish is.
At one of our Sunday dinners in January, my son-in-law said that he took my oldest grandson, his firstborn, out on a dinner date to Tucano’s, a restaurant that specializes in grilled meat. He took the deck of cards from this game with him for them to play with while dining. When we had our January family birthday party he still had the cards in the car so he brought them and quizzed me on a few things. That was fun! I plan on doing a lot more with him. I’m delighted that’s he’s already had fun just using the cards so far.
My second daughter asked for pajama pants for Christmas. I really wanted to find her some that don’t have a drawstring waist. I hate drawstrings in pants and figured she probably does too. Do you know how hard it is to find those? Even on amazon. I went thrifting with the intention of finding some and I did! as shown above. Along with a picture book for January (Snow Angels), a Little Golden Book about a classic tale to read to my grandchildren (Three Billy Goats Gruff, it’s nostalgic since my first grade class acted out that story) and a chapter book of short Christmas stories. I already had it and I love it so I got this one knowing I would give it to someone. I finally decided to give it to my married daughter. I love the vintage 60s cover.
Above is my next to the last thrifting trip of December. The photo shows a combo of two thrift hauls back to back from the Provo DI and the Orem Savers. My BYU-attending son was in a local production of the Nutcracker, starring as the Russian prince. I had just seen him perform in that role the night before and then the very next day I was thrilled to find a Nutcracker shirt that was only $3 to give to him! I was going to roll it up for his stocking but then I decided it would be a tree gift. The secret recipes cookbook, the Secret Santa book, the Dickens’ Life Of Our Lord, and the Giver of the Holy Gifts book all went to one of my ministeree sisters, as I mentioned above. I loved finding another Reader’s Digest songbook, that’s the lime green book in the upper right. It’s the Family Songbook. I was going to give the Food Lover’s Companion to my foodie son-in-law but then I decided to give it to my ballet-dancing son. I had just learned because of his gift wishlist that he likes cooking food and wanted food prep items. Maybe it’s because he now cooks regularly with his girlfriend? Fun fact: she played Clara in the same Nutcracker production that he was in.
I went into those trips hoping to find the following items and I did:
-a big basket to put the presents in that I gave my grandsons, mentioned in last month’s blog about my November thrifting here, it’s shown below with the books and other stuff I got them, wrapped up. I also got a black box for the same purpose. I found the black box first and got it in case I couldn’t find a basket big enough. I decided to let my daughter choose which one she wanted to store the gifts in. I want these items to stay in the same place at their home so they don’t get lost. I was going to make a sign that said, “Boys’ Adventure Box” but ran out of steam. Anyway, she took the box, which I do think is better to store all the gifts in, because it has a lid and takes up less space. I kept the basket so now I’m going to use it either for my Morning Basket or to store books, my laptop, and my iPad.
Here’s what the basket looked like with the grandsons’ gifts on Christmas morning.
-a pretty basket for the gifts I gave my ministeree sister, it’s the green thing on the right
-another Christmas picture book, illustrated by the guy, Mark Kimball Moulton, who illustrated The Visit, the backstory of “A Visit from St. Nicholas/’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” which I mentioned over here. This one that I found on this trip is A Cricket’s Carol, which is a sweet story about an orphan boy who finds a family for Christmas. I enjoyed reading it to my grandsons.
-some little Christmas boxes
-some Christ-centered paper to cover just-mentioned boxes, in a pad that was less than half-used. One of the sheets is below. I also used some of the paper to cut into tags for gifts.
I had bought some knock-off Lego sets of a Santa, a Christmas tree, and a snowman for the grandsons to play with on Christmas Eve while we discussed the names on the Immanuel Wreath. I wanted some pretty Christ-centered Christmas boxes to put them in. I also found a cute little basket to put all the boxes in. God came through for me again with the boxes and the paper to cover the boxes with. Praise God!
Remember my haul at the end of November? I blogged about it here. Below are the photos of the gifts making their appearance on Christmas Day. My son was thrilled with the Disney Songbook I found for $2 and the Food Lover’s book. Yay!
One of the sweetest things I got that day was a praise/compliment from my married daughter, as we ate our Christmas Day brunch after the gifts were unwrapped. She said, “You’ve done it again Mom! Thanks for orchestrating a great Christmas!” Dear, appreciative words spoken from one mother to another. Last year, after Christmas, I decided I wanted to thrift through the year to find Christmas gifts that fit my people’s personalities.
I found this one in June at the Draper Savers and decided to give it to my married daughter. She had a lot of fun flipping through it on Christmas morning.
I feel so satisfied with what I found, and look forward to thrifting for Christmas gifts this year too! Not every thing was thrifted but what I found complemented super well with what I bought new. I saved a lot of money so I’m thrilled with that. I hope you join me thrifting this year! Feel free to share any thrifted treasure you’ve found lately in the comments below.
One of the gifts I gave my dad. We assembled it at our New Year’s Eve cabin party.
I’m on a kick, bingeing on this YouTube influencer named Jacob Hansen of @thoughtfulfaith2020. (It’s coincidental, one of my sons grew up with a best friend of the same name. This is a different Jacob Hansen.)
It all started at a girlfriends’ lunch a week ago. My friend Aneladee was in town. Years ago she moved to Kentucky right after I had moved back to UT from AZ, fall of 2020. With her in town, a bunch of us homeschooling mom girlfriends, mostly all from Davis County UT, gathered for a potluck breakfast so we could catch up. It’s been five years since I’ve seen her in person. It was so wonderful! I loved basking in each other’s company and rejoicing that we are still faithful in the faith and sisters in the Lord, just like when the sons of Mosiah met up with each other 14 years after their missions started, in the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ. “Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord” (See Alma 17:2-4)
Aneladee said she had recently gone on a cruise with her husband where they got to hear from a bunch of YT influencers/podcasters who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am so envious! Thankfully, the presentations from the cruise are on YouTube! Praise Jesus! It will take me six months to go through all these along with my other stuff. A joyful burden, yay!
So I came home and started watching them. I had listened to this guy, Jacob Hansen, before. It was fun to hear his backstory by watching this video below, from the cruise.
My son who is serving a mission for The Church had told me about Jacob before he left to serve. I had already watched something by him before my son told me about him, but knowing that my missionary had listened to him motivated me to keep watching stuff by Jacob. That gives me more talking points for when I email him and Zoom with him once a week.
Jacob recently debated a Catholic man Joe Heschmeyer from @shamelesspopery about whether or not there was a Great Apostasy. Here it is below.
I love that Jacob ends with a quote, in his closing statement, from President Gordon B. Hinckley:
“This [divine authority] must be our great and singular message to the world. We do not offer it with boasting. We testify in humility but with gravity and absolute sincerity. We invite all, the whole earth, to listen to this account [the first vision] and take measure of its truth. God bless us as those who believe in His divine manifestations and help us to extend knowledge of these great and marvelous occurrences to all who will listen. To these we say in a spirit of love, bring with you all that you have of good and truth which you have received from whatever source, and come and let us see if we may add to it. This invitation I extend to men and women everywhere with my solemn testimony that this work is true, for I know the truth of it by the power of the Holy Ghost. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.” (the quote comes from this talk here and below)
Here is Jacob’s initial debrief of the debate.
It’s so interesting that he shares a ChatGPT analysis of the debate. Watch it above at about the 4 minute mark. It shows that Jacob held a stronger position in the debate.
Below is a debrief with Jacob, Joe and the moderator, Cameron.
Then here is reaction to the debate with Jacob and his friends from Ward Radio, who were also on the cruise.
Here is the General Conference talk referred to in the image above at the very top of this post, with the picture of Elder LeGrand Richards. The talk is also the video below. It’s also in his book The Marvelous Work and a Wonder. I had actually thought of that very quote from Elder LeGrand Richards while watching the debate. I remember hearing a teenage boy tell that story with the quote in a sacrament meeting talk years ago. It struck me very powerfully and I’ve always remembered it and believed it, much as I admire Martin Luther and all the Reformers.
I bear my testimony that there was a Great Apostasy. I have felt a witness from the Holy Spirit that Joseph Smith restored Jesus Christ’s church in the latter-days. The book he translated, the Book of Mormon, is another testament of Jesus Christ. I’m interested to share this debate with my bishop, the leader of my ward (congregation) to see his reaction to the debate. He converted from Catholicism to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a college student.
Want to learn more about Jesus? Read the Book of Mormon here. Reading this book and following the principles you find therein will bring you closer to Jesus Christ than any other book. You can also read a scholar’s commentary of it in The Authentic Book of Mormon found here.
Do you love Relative Race from byutv.org as much as I do? If you don’t know what Relative Race is, go read this. If you already know about it, go to the Relative Race YouTube page to relive some of the many tearjerking, heartwarming moments showing lost biological relatives being united for the first time. Oh my, these times make me so happy!
Here are a bunch of videos below featuring Den Debenham, the congenial, wonderful host of Relative Race, shown above. Dan is the Man! He is the best at acknowledging all the tender, joyful, and sometimes hard and tragic moments that these episodes reveal.
You can learn all about Dan’s story, how he came to Relative Race, and his view of the show from the driver’s seat. So many fun, juicy pieces are here!
This one below is my absolute favorite. It shows Dan Debenham with Rebecca of Season 3 Team Black at a fireside for a congregation of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Texas. Rebecca was a contestant and then became an employee to help create the show. Her story is amazing!
I hope you enjoy all of these! Remember, whoever you are, you are a part of a family on earth, and the family of God, started in heaven. I’m so grateful for this!
Whatever family you are in, you can do something to build up your family roles (daughter, son, parent, aunt, uncle, cousin, niece, nephew, grandchild, grandparent, etc.) and strengthen your family bonds to increase your joy. Truly the family is of God, and is meant to be eternal. Praise Jesus for this!
Remember my Wondrous Winter Mother’s Curriculum post earlier this month? I mentioned in that post that I planned on going to a mock Caldecott Award night. This is my fourth year of going, so I now consider it a personal tradition of mine, as part of making January jolly. I love that it fits with what I had already decided as a fabulous theme for January, that of books, reading, and reading aloud.
This all started when I heard a fellow homeschooling mom, Shauna Bird Dunn, say at a homeschooling conference that she has a personal tradition of reading The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease every January.
“What a great idea!” I remember thinking at the time.
The more I’ve thought of that as a personal tradition for a homeschooling mama the more I love it.
It fits right along with hygge, that of being cozy in winter with books, family, and friends. This hygge reading theme for January makes me look forward every year to a new year and January after the excitement of December is over. It also fits in with doing two Christmas Book Floods, aka Jolabokaflods, in January, one with my girlfriends and one with my family. (It’s just too hard to fit those into December.)
The past few years I’ve also loved going to my local public library for a mock Caldecott night. It’s such a fun night to focus on picture books and discover all the amazing new ones published in the past year.
I just love picture books! I love reading them aloud to my grandchildren and to my last child in the nest for our homeschooling Morning Basket. You are never too old for picture books! Sarah Mackenzie of readaloudrevival.com says the same thing.
At the event, the other attendees and I got to look at 44 picture books published in 2025 which the organizer of the event considers as contenders for the award. Some of those books are shown in this post.
The one above is one of my favorites from the night. I just adore picture book biographies. This one is about Clara Driscoll, who made Tiffany lamps. (See a whole list of them here.)
The book above is my pick for 2026! It’s Cat Nap by Brian Lies.
The reason I picked it is because the illustrations are the most distinguished illustrations of what I saw of the books that night. In this book, the illustrator/author totally pushes the boundaries of illustrations of a picture book. The story involves a cat-and-mouse chase through an art museum. The illustrations of the animals changes according to what piece of art is in the background. So when they are chasing across a bas-relief piece of art from ancient Egyptian times, the cat looks 3-Dish. Then when the chase is across a stained-glass window, the cat blends in with the stained glass figures. I just love this! If you want to read an amazon review of this book and see how many rave reviews it has, go here.
Here’s another picture book biography! A pioneering female photographer, Imogen Cunningham.
Then here’s another picture book biography, about a man who was Peru’s potato expert.
Go here to see what the Caldecott Award committee members are looking for when they award the book.
After the participants of the event got to see the books, we voted for our top three. Whatever book didn’t get more than one vote from the around 20 people there that night, got kicked out.
Then we talked about why we voted for the ones that were still in the running, and we voted again, narrowing down the selection. After 4-5 rounds of this, these books below were the top three.
Nunu and the Sea was first, then Cat Nap, then Moon Song. I voted for all three at some point during the rounds.
I was thrilled that my original first pick was still in the top three. This happened last year as well.
Guess what? You can watch the Caldecott Award ceremony this coming Monday January 26 at 11 AM ET. It’s part of the Youth Media Awards of the American Library Association. It will be live-streamed over here. I’m excited to watch this and see which book wins!!!
What book do you think will win? Or should have won? if you are reading this after the award is given. Please comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Now you have a bunch of titles to go put on hold at your local public library. Happy picture book reading! As Sarah Mackenize says, reading a beautiful picture book is like going to an art museum in your lap. Enjoy!
I just love learning all about Eve from the Old Testament. For the Come Follow Christ study this current week, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are studying the Fall of Adam and Eve. I prefer to call the Fall “the Leap.” That’s because it was a leap of faith/knowledge on Adam and Eve’s part. They were not being sucked blind into deceit by the enemy. This leap of faith was to partake of the “forbidden fruit.” That act changed their life from being immortal to mortal, so that they could then have children and start the chain of the human race being born.
Eve gets such a bad rap! The mainstream Christian culture thinks of her as being duped and dumb. She is despised and shamed for bringing about fallen life. This shaming is interwoven in Western Christian culture such to the point of causing some men to look down on women and treat them scornfully. The subconsciously have inherited this incorrect belief that Eve is responsible for the mortal mess of a world we live in. But guess what? Eve is to be celebrated, not scorned or shamed.
I firmly believe that Eve studied her situation and talked to God about what was going on. After all, in the Garden of Eden she and Adam could walk and talk with God. Then she decided that her best choice was to eat the fruit. She knew as a consequence of this she would die, meaning leave God’s presence in the Garden of Eden, and eventually physically die. On the other hand, she knew that by partaking of the fruit, she would be able to have children and move the plan of salvation forward, in other words, have joy, and receive knowledge of good and evil, so that she could ultimately choose to act righteously and receive all that the Father has to give her and Adam.
First, go here if you haven’t already and read my Part I about Eve. In that post, you will read the truths about why Adam and Eve couldn’t have children while in the Garden of Eden. You will also learn about two words in the Genesis account of the Eve/Adam and the forbidden fruit story. The Hebrew meanings behind these two words, command, and beguile, show that Eve was not duped by satan. By contrast, she was an agent who acted in the best way for all humans.
Then this video below features Jared Lambert, who is completing a PhD in linguistics. He has seven degrees and speaks eight languages. This video is so amazing! If you don’t watch this, you will be missing out on crucial knowledge about Eve and Adam! It will blow your socks off and open your mind! Please watch it! The video harmonizes with what Sister Campbell says. Brother Lambert says the word “beguile” comes from a proto-Hebrew word that comes from an accounting term that basically means weighing the pros and cons of the choices. Weighing all your choices can definitely cause one to have an “intense multilevel experience which evokes great emotional, psychological and/or spiritual trauma.” That’s the meaning of “beguile” in the words of the Hebrew scholar who Sister Campbell quotes in her book, Eve and the Choice Made in Eden, mentioned in my Part I, over here.
So that’s one concept to put Eve in a positive light. Ready for more? Here we go:
In the video below, Jared Lambert also explains that in the Hebrew language that Genesis was translated from, the words that “helpmeet” comes from is “ezer kenegdo,” He says that ezer means “helper” on the level of “savior,” not just a “little helper” and “kenegdo” means “equal.” Adam was in a static situation, and Eve decided it was time for a change. So she ate the fruit and saved Adam from a static neutral life that allowed for no joy. So she is/was his savior in that way.
Jared also explains that it was after the Fall that God asked Adam what Eve’s name is. Her name isn’t mentioned before that. It was because of Adam’s eyes being opened after the Fall that Adam recognized that her name is Eve. The name “Eve” means she is the mother of all living. She couldn’t have that name before the Fall because she wasn’t in a position to have children yet. He recognized by calling her Eve that she was now truly the mother of all living, which is a most noble, magnificent position for her to choose and now fulfill with him as her husband and equal partner as parents of the whole human race.
He also explains that when it says that Lucifer came to Eve in the form of a serpent, it doesn’t mean that he was a literal snake, crawling on the floor. Go watch at the 50:30 minute mark to find out what Jared says. If you want a brief synopsis, watch below.
This is all so life-changing! Please watch all these videos with Brother Jared and share the good news as to why we are to look upon our first parents “with joy and not with sorrow,” as it says in Jacob 4:3 of the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
In this verse, Jacob is writing about why he and his forefathers have been writing records/their journals/inspiration from God + keeping the scriptures they got from Laban (same stories as the Genesis stories in the Bible) on plates and passing down the records to their posterity. He says it’s because he wants his posterity to do the following with the records:
“that our beloved brethren and our children will receive them with thankful hearts, and look upon them that they may learn with joy and not with sorrow, neither with contempt, concerning their first parents.”
“Their first parents” are Adam and Eve. May we all know the truth about Adam and Eve and look upon them with joy and not with sorrow. Amen!
Tree of Life Mothering 