Sourdough Pizza Using Breadmachine Kneaded Bread Dough

Posted on February 9, 2019 by treeoflifemama

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This makes two large pans of pizza, using cookie sheets or jelly roll  pans. Only use this recipe if you like the taste of sourdough crust. Sourdough crust is better for you because the phytic acid in the grain is neutralized, therefore making the wheat much more digestible.

First, use the bread dough recipe over here. Put the bread loaf pan in the bread machine and set it for the whole wheat dough cycle. Be sure to set it for the dough cycle, otherwise you will get a loaf of bread instead of pizza dough.

After the pizza dough has risen for however long you want it to rise, take it out, divide in half, and roll out onto two greased cookie sheets or jelly roll pans. Ideally you let it rise for several hours but sometimes I forget to plan for that. Sometimes I take it out as soon as the kneading is done. Anyway one time I rolled out the dough on an upside-down pan to see if that made it easier to cut with a pizza cutter. I wanted the pizza cutter to roll all the way past the edge, instead of an inch away from the edge, which happens when you are using a pan with an edge. It’s easier as long as I have some cutting board or something similar close to the edge to run onto. A pizza stone with no raised edge is on my wishlist!

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Cover each pizza with tomato paste using a rubber scraper. Tomato sauce is too soupy.

Sprinkle on onion powder, mineral salt, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and pepper. Fresh basil if you have it and ground rosemary too. It’s really  important to add salt because the tomato paste tastes too sweet without salt, and the other seasonings enhance the tomato flavor.

Cover pizza with desired toppings. I like the following:

  • grated cheese
  • sliced olives
  • artichoke hearts, with the leaves separated
  • sliced bell peppers and onions (to save time I use a bag of sliced frozen peppers and onion mix found in the frozen veggie section at the store) which I set to thaw in a bowl of hot water at the beginning of using the recipe
  • pepperoni
  • ground beef
  • mushrooms

Sprinkle on more of the same seasonings as mentioned above.

Bake at 500 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until crust is golden brown and crisp. After baking, add sliced fresh avocado for topping. So delicious!

Enjoy! Serve with salad greens topped with vinaigrette then chocolate for dessert. Yum! The top picture shows pepperoni and no ground beef in our pizza, the bottom has ground beef and no pepperoni. I’m sorry the picture is blurry. Either one tastes great! I make this about once a week for dinner. Life is so much better with pizza!

 

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Mr. Rogers Meets Swing

Posted on February 7, 2019 by treeoflifemama

So I’ve been falling in love with Mr. Rogers. My son’s Mastering Knighthood group studied him as a hero for January. Hence, we’ve been reading a book about him written by a Texan journalist, Tim Madigan, appearing in the video below. (He wrote the book for adults, so I’m paraphrasing some parts before I read them aloud to my son and my other kids.)

Tim kept up an email/mail/occasional in-person relationship with him. The relationship healed the journalist’s broken relationship with his own father. This book is so tender! I have found myself tearing up in a few parts.

As a kid I sometimes cringed at Mr. Rogers’ slowness, his emotional vulnerability, and occasional geekiness. His awkwardness, however, has faded away and he is now considered awesome. Not just by me, but countless others. He really was a cool guy. He wrote all the songs for his show and was just so kind. The world needs more Mr. Rogers. I have to say, I think he was cool because he really got who Jesus was and modeled his life after the Savior. He was an ordained minister, so I’m sure that helped him know Jesus.

I have a hunch that his mother also had a huge role in his life as a Christian, but I don’t know. Mr. Rogers treated everyone as a child of God and honored everyone’s feelings.

While I’m on the topic of his show, I will just vent that I also did not like the ugly curtains in his living room or the Lady Elaine puppet. She absolutely terrified me, with her harshly painted face and abrupt ways. I know she would not pass the Waldorf Education test for gentle-looking toys. I was afraid she was going to appear in my nightmares, call me Toots, and snatch me away to endlessly trap me for a ride on her merry-go-round museum.

Anyway, if you like jazz and Mr. Rogers, you will like the versions of these songs. Here’s the whole playlist. Enjoy! I’ve been reliving my childhood by singing the songs. My  mom bought the songbook before I was even born so the book was a permanent fixture around our house. I feel so nostalgic as I sing these. You can see all the lyrics to Mr. Rogers’ songs here. 

Here’s a bio of the singer, Holly Yarbrough. I love her voice singing these songs! She sings beautifully!

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What I’m Learning from Come, Follow Me: Week #5

Posted on February 4, 2019 by treeoflifemama

What are you all learning as you study the New Testament this year using the Come, Follow Me Study Guide?

For last week, I studied Matthew 3, Mark 1, and Luke 3, which was Week #5 in the Study Guide. My biggest gem/nugget of truth that I found this week was that Jesus arose a “great while before day” and departed into a “solitary place” to pray (Mark 1:35). This was just what I needed to hear! We read about John the Baptist calling people to create fruits of repentance. This is my fruit for repentance God is calling me to give. For me, it’s a watermelon, and not a grape, as one of my Sunday School classmates said yesterday, because I love to sleep. “Before day” means before daylight, and solitary means alone. I have felt Jesus inviting me to follow him in that way.

I used to be a lot better at praying before the family woke up, in the darkness of the early morning. I had let that habit slide, so that I was saying a short prayer with the family right before our family Power Actions (devotional, i.e. family scripture study and prayer) and then waiting until midday to have my long, meaningful personal prayer. I found the day was getting away from me, and then I realized that was why. As much as I love to sleep in, I have been getting up earlier to pray, since reading that, and the results are marvelous.I have a lot of other insights to go with this scripture but that’s all I want to say for now.

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Out of the Best Books, Classics We Studied: Jan. 2019

Posted on February 2, 2019 by treeoflifemama

Can we celebrate?! January is over!!! I’ve decided the best thing about January (beside it being the anniversary month that I had a home birth, of my second daughter) is that it’s a great month for reading. Not much else is going on, so reading is much easier to do during this seemingly dreary time. I’ve been making about one night a week a time we just gather around the table or in the family or living room to read instead of watching a movie.

Here’s what we read/learned from this month. I’m listing the books we’ve been learning from for our homeschool. These are the books we either finished, or we started reading and are still reading from. The big long ones I didn’t necessarily read every single word cover to cover, but I am gleaning from.

The one above, about Mr. Rogers, is for my son’s Mastering Knighthood group. Every month the boys read about a heroic man. January’s theme is Mr. Rogers. So I found this book It’s the story of a newspaper reporter’s relationship, mostly by phone and mail, with Mr. Rogers. I read it aloud to the younger kids during kitchen cleaning. Some of the parts are a little boring for the kids so then I skip a bit and summarize. I’ve learned that Mr. Rogers was great friends with Henri Nouwen, a minister and writer, and Van Cliburn. It’s really cool that the headings for each chapter use a font made from Mr. Roger’s handwriting. I love the different scenes of human nature that play out. I’m liking it a lot more than the kids, probably because it was written for adults.

Come Follow Me– we are reading this study guide at church and for “homechurching.” See my posts here for what I’m learning.

We finished the Book of Mormon as a family and now we started it over. I love the peace and protection that comes from applying its principles.

I read most of this in December, but I’m still copying my favorite quotes into my reading journal. It has so many gems!

 

Reading a book about cooking every so often keeps me inspired to be in the kitchen. This is an amazing book by a chef who worked at Chez Panisse. So interesting! I love the illustrations!

Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews

This is for Quest, a class for homeschool teens, to help my teen son and me understand worldviews. It’s very biased towards Biblical Christianity but I suppose it’s the best book out there to represent so many worldviews at once.

I skimmed this one after watching the movie it was based on last month. I will check it out again next year and finish it for Christmas. I was hoping it would show Dickens’ sources of inspiration for A Christmas Carol. So far I haven’t found where the author mentions that.

Many homeschool mornings we listen to a chapter of this to help my teen boys who are studying the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for seminary this year. I love learning these stories! I haven’t been super consistent though so when we finish I’m going to start over.

 

This one is for Quest again. I had never read anything about the Dalai Lama. It’s fascinating to read about his life and teachings.

 

The Giver (Graphic Novel) (Giver Quartet)

For Quest. I blogged about it here, with the simulation we did for it.

 

The Chosen: A Novel

Again, for Quest. I had read it years ago so I reviewed the plot for our discussion. It has so many themes to discuss: father/son relationships, tradition vs. current times, scholar phase, healing, eyesight, Judaism, the study of psychology, friendship, how to parent. It’s not a “fun” read, just like the Giver isn’t fun, but it’s a must-read for everyone, for sure!

A friend reached out to me when I was venting to her about something and she felt prompted to tell me about the above book. I already owned it, having taken the class that goes with it over 14 years ago, so I unearthed it.  I’m also listening to the audios. My friend and I are doing one thought pattern a week. The author, James Cox, has a gift for connecting the dots of how to actually be Christlike. So, so, good, grand, and great!!!

It took only 2 car rides to our homeschool group (commonwealth) day to listen to the above book on CD. Then the sequel took another 2 car rides. (We drive 90 min. each way to meet with our homeschool peeps. It’s totally worth it!) I got the whole collection of Narnia stories on CD by Focus on the Family for Christmas. It is dramatized, with different voices and lots of beautiful music. This has been such a great follow-up to reading Lewis’ Mere Christianity.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Radio Theatre)

This one is for my book club. I’m excited that someone besides me picked a book I like. I am skimming it and capturing what nuggets I can. I started reading it years ago and mentioned it here on the blog but never finished so I’m excited to go more into it and discuss it with other women in person!

The World According to Narnia: Christian Meaning in C. S. Lewis's Beloved Chronicles by [Rogers, Jonathan]

I love studying the symbolism of the Narnia books. I’m reading the corresponding chapters that go with the Narnia stories we listen to in the car on Thursday nights when I’m snuggled in bed after our commonwealth day.

I’m bribing my two practice scholars to read the two Uncle Eric WW books for their Hero Project LEMI class. So far they haven’t felt motivated to read it so I’m reading the first one aloud. I’m hoping they pick it up on their own soon. It’s so important to learn about the non-glorified side of war from a Vietnam War vet himself. The two practice scholars also read Children of the Dust Bowl, All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Dream Giver for their Hero class.

This one is for the parents’ meeting of the commonwealth. I couldn’t attend that night and didn’t find the book on YouTube until after the fact anyway so I’m catching up by listening and reading. So amazing!

Now for the picture books I read, mostly to the 9 year old. I’ve resolved to read more picture books to the older kids too, a picture book a day. These are the ones I remember for January:

Beautiful art and poetry. Ahh, makes me want to go to the beach.

My husband came home late one night and read the whole thing. My daughter pored over it one morning. Fun!

No Small Potatoes: Junius G. Groves and His Kingdom in Kansas

This is the true story of Junius G. Groves, a Kansas potato farmer. So inspiring, a true rags to riches story.

The above book is amazing! So much to pore over on every page, for older kids, 9 and up. Recently published, so it includes inventions from 2017. Some things I learned from reading The Seventh Sense by Joshua Cooper Ramos were in here, like Sophia, of AI fame.

I love the above story, even though I’m not Jewish and it’s about Hanukkah. It shows the power of family tradition, remembering what happened, and honoring our elders. I read it and the one below because I love letting the holidays of December linger into January. The one below is a sweet story of healing that comes from the friendship of a child.

What did you read in January or are continuing to read in February? I would love to hear! Please comment below.

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What I’m Learning from Come, Follow Me: Week #4

Posted on January 28, 2019 by treeoflifemama

“All things were made by Him, and there was not anything made that was not made by Him.” John 1:3

The past week’s lesson of Come, Follow Me Week #4 involves the study of  John 1.

Here’s what I learned and pondered over:

  1. I love that the lesson refers to John 1, including the scripture above, which is the first scripture cited in the Living Christ document. Jesus is indeed the Creator of the world. I love to ponder over how much He must delight to see us explore and uncover the many beauties and joys this world holds, with its sunsets, oceans, trees, mountains, rocks, waterfalls, rainbows, lakes, gorges, and canyons. He created all these things to delight us! The song in the video above by John Rutter, with the beautiful Smith Family Ensemble singing it, perfectly captures this beauty and love. I remember standing on a beach in Florida years ago. As I looked over the pure turquoise ocean meeting the powder blue sky at the horizon, I felt such a love welling up in me. The artistry, the beauty of the moment was so exquisite.  In that instant, I knew without a doubt that God loves me as my heavenly father, and that He gave His son, Jesus Christ, to redeem me from my sins. The world’s beautiful creations allow us to feel this love. Whenever we feel stuck, getting out in nature, touching the earth, beholding the beauty, can help us get answers from God, through the power of Jesus Christ.  Immersion in nature can give us downloads from heaven.
  2. As it says in the lesson, we can come to know, “as Nathanael did, that the Savior knows us and loves us and wants to prepare us to receive ‘greater things’ (John 1:50).” What are these “greater things”? They are angels, miracles, signs, wonders, prophets, apostles, prophecies, revelations, temples, spiritual gifts, promises, covenants, and the riches of eternity with eternal families, eternal joy and eternal life, all found in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. These “greater things” include the words of the Book of Mormon. The phrase “greater things” is also found in the Book of Mormon, with a corresponding promise:

    “And when they shall have received this, which is expedient that they should have first, to try their faith, and if it shall so be that they shall believe these things then shall the greater things be made manifest unto them. And if it so be that they will not believe these things, then shall the greater things be withheld from them, unto their condemnation.” 3 Nephi 22:9-10

    It’s really true that those who receive the the words in the Book of Mormon qualify to receive “greater things.”

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Why Video Games are Bad: They are a Poor Imitation of Real, Best Things

Posted on January 28, 2019 by treeoflifemama

Maurice Harker published this video a few months ago about why video games are bad. Are they bad? It’s not so much that they are inherently evil, it’s that they substitute for the better and best activities that the users, especially boys and young men, could be doing with their time instead. They simulate the roles of providing, protecting, and presiding. What activities can boys and young men engage in instead where they provide, protect, and preside in real-life situations?

Maurice is the founder of Life Changing Services, a counseling company dedicated to changing people’s lives by giving them the tools and knowledge to break free of addiction and destructive behaviors and thought patterns. Watch his video below for an explanation and then the other videos on “Breaking the Chains” of addictions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have taken the Eternal Warriors course Karen talks about in the above video. I still use the principles I learned in that class every day to maintain my 70 lb. weight loss. I highly recommend the class! You can learn more here.

 

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Best Book for New Goals

Posted on January 26, 2019 by treeoflifemama

I am listening/reading to this book for my homeschool group (commonwealth school). It is amazing! I love learning about the differences between a fixed mindset and growth mindset. The author, Carol Dweck, uses a ton of sports stories, so if you don’t like sports, brace yourself. The book has a whole chapter on those. It also features stories from business, relationships, education, and the author’s personal life.

Here are some fabulous quotes from the book:

“Did I win? Did I lose? Those are the wrong questions. The correct question is: Did I make my best effort?” If so, he says, “You may be outscored but you will never lose.”

“We like to think of our champions and idols as superheroes who were born different from us. We don’t like to think of them as relatively ordinary people who made themselves extraordinary.”

“So what should we say when children complete a task—say, math problems—quickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, “Whoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let’s do something you can really learn from!”

“Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”

“I believe ability can get you to the top,” says coach John Wooden, “but it takes character to keep you there.… It’s so easy to … begin thinking you can just ‘turn it on’ automatically, without proper preparation. It takes real character to keep working as hard or even harder once you’re there. When you read about an athlete or team that wins over and over and over, remind yourself, ‘More than ability, they have character.’ ”

“This is something I know for a fact: You have to work hardest for the things you love most.”

“In the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome. If you fail—or if you’re not the best—it’s all been wasted. The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome. They’re tackling problems, charting new courses, working on important issues. Maybe they haven’t found the cure for cancer, but the search was deeply meaningful.”

It’s a wonderful book for seeing yourself in a new paradigm and getting a clearer picture for how to solve problems. I highly recommend it! Watch the summary below if you want a snapshot of the book.

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Simulations Based on The Giver and Discussion Questions

Posted on January 24, 2019 by treeoflifemama

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I finally read The Giver by Lois Lowry last week. Can we throw a party?! Whew! This has been one of those books lurking in my mind, breathing down my neck, telling me I should read it, because it would be good for my character and education. My older daughter and son both read it about 10 years ago for a homeschool group. My husband did too at the same time. They all loved it.

I remember them talking about it over lunch once. I thought it sounded weird so I avoided it. But the book was begging me to read it all these years, and it finally resurfaced in my life because of Quest, which my 17 year old son and I are involved in. (Quest is one of LEMI’s Scholar Projects listed over here.)

For Quest, a class for homeschooled teens which I’m mentoring, the youth were asked to read this book and discuss it. So I bit the bullet and “read” it too. Meaning I actually put my eyes on the pages and comprehended the words in textual form (a wee bit), then listened to part of it on CDs from the public library while driving, and YouTubed the bulk of it on my phone around the house while doing chores or crafts because that honestly was the easiest way to get ‘er done. The above video, from the “Ms. Lynn Reads” YouTube channel was the one I used the most, but this one over here was the same, professionally produced one from the library. I discovered it late in the game, like the next to the last chapter.

So…what do I think about the book? I still think it’s weird, yet it is a whole book.  Good is portrayed as good, evil as evil, and good wins. It is a great book for showing how horrible communism/socialism/statism can be. I don’t know if that was the author, Lois Lowry’s intent. I love that it shows what happens when government attempts to eliminate chaos, problems, vulnerability, and inequality. In Quest, as we study worldviews, like communism, Biblical Christianity, secular humanism, etc. we are reading a novel or autobiography to go with each one to see these worldviews in story form. So this book was perfect to go with communism/socialism/statism.

That’s because in this book, the characters all have to be the same. Sameness rules. They aren’t allowed to make any real choices. Hormonal feelings are subdued with pills. The citizens are assigned who can give birth. Women who do give birth can only do it three times. Marriage partners are assigned as well. Each married couple can only have two children. Sounds communistic to me. The people move through society in age groups and are assigned jobs for the whole society at age 12.  The whole thing was just creepy! I guess that’s the author’s point. As I read the book, I kept wondering, “What on earth ever possessed Lois Lowry to write this book?!”

So I did some searching and found that she had pondered, after her own father suffered memory loss and was in a nursing home, what life would be like if memory was controlled. In the video below, she talks about that. It’s so interesting that in it she basically says the principle in 2 Nephi 2:25, that there must be opposition in all things. We have to experience bad things to appreciate the good. To have good memories we have to also have bad memories.

In another interview I listened to, Lowry said that she also remembers growing up, living on an army base, where all the homes were the same and the residents had to obey strict rules, like getting the laundry hanging on the line off the line by 5 PM. As a result of these musings, voila, we have The Giver. Despite its creepiness, I have to give her credit, she is a great writer. I prefer her historical fiction a whole lot more, like the book Number the Stars. Personal preference aside (I don’t like fantasy/sci-fi, utopian or dystopian novels much), I have to say that nevertheless, The Giver is a whole book just like Number the Stars is. I absolutely love that book!

Anyway, back to The Giver, I got to facilitate a discussion and do two simulations based on the book for Quest. For the first simulation, I read aloud part of Lowry’s acceptance speech for receiving the Newbery Medal for the book. In this speech, she says that many people have written to her, telling her they didn’t like the ending of the book. So I had my students pretend to be the author and write their own ending, based on their own worldview, since we are studying worldviews at the same time. Then whoever wanted to read their ending shared it by reading it aloud to the whole class. I loooved the ending that the only person who wanted to share shared. It just occurred to me today as I was talking to my sister on the phone about the book, that maybe Lowry was giving a subtle endorsement of Christianity in writing The Giver.

The whole society seems hopeless, but then the main character experiences a memory/scene where he sees a family celebrating Christmas. That’s the only happy scene in the whole book! So I wonder if she is promoting Christianity as a source of happiness? That gives me better feelings about the whole book. See what happens when you discuss a book more than once?  Also, see what happens when you read a classic? You discover layers of meaning.

My sister got the amazing treat of hosting Lowry in her home for a book club discussion about one of Lowry’s other books, Gossamer. So of course we had to talk about that now that I’ve read The Giver. My sister said that she, my sister, asked Lois Lowry why she wrote the book as well. She said Lowry dodged the question and changed the subject. Sis also said that this is one of the few times when the movie, The Giver, is better than the book it is based on. (I haven’t seen it so I can’t say for myself. I won’t be seeing it. It looks too creepy!)

Did you know The Giver has been asked by parents to be banned from public school libraries? So for the second simulation, I divided the students into two sides to argue for or against the book being banned. This was perfect practice for their upcoming supreme court simulation. I thought about doing the “age 12 ceremony” simulation that you easily find when you Google but we had done a similar simulation to that already so I picked a different one.

I found Lowry’s acceptance speech here, in this PDF as well as some other activities and discussion questions. It is definitely a whole book. I can see easily how it can be a healing book as well. Go here for more about broken, bent, whole, and healing stories.

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What I’m Learning,Week #1 of Come Follow Me

Posted on January 21, 2019 by treeoflifemama

So I am so enamored with the new Come, Follow Me curriculum for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that I want to blog about it every week! This is what we are studying for the adult and youth Sunday School classes, for the children’s classes at church, and then together at home. We have been studying the Nativity story the past few weeks in the New Testament. I am gaining new insights even though I had just been pondering this story before and during Christmas. I love that I get to study the story more and continue to bask in its glory. It’s like we are having a “reverse Adent” around here.

Week #1 was about how “I am responsible for my own learning.” I love the above Studio C sketch for humorously illustrating this doctrine. Sometimes we just have to say “no” to distractions, push ahead, and study!  The rewards are immense, I promise! I love uncovering these treasures of wisdom, tailored for me by the Holy Spirit.

Before Come, Follow Me came along, we had already been doing family scripture study every morning, even on Sundays before church. Now, during that time I study the Come, Follow Me scriptures for the upcoming lesson in adult Sunday School. We all read for five minutes, then we write in our journals for five minutes. That’s when I write the discussion questions in my journal and answer them in writing. Then on Sunday for our third hour of church, after our midday meal, we do the family reading. I call it “homechurching.” Whatever is left that we haven’t read and discussed can be used for Family Home Evening or dinner table discussions. I love the questions! I started a Google sheet that has all the scripture readings, the doctrines highlighted in those passages, the discussion questions, and the additional resources suggested to be used, like General Conference talks, Hymns and Primary songs. I don’t know if you noticed, but each of those items is a bit different for Sunday School, families and individuals, and Primary. But they all weave together into a beautiful whole. You can view it here, it’s a work in progress! Go to the tabs at the bottom to see the different sheets for Sunday School, families and individuals and Primary.

The following video by Al Fox Carraway shows how she uses the new curriculum in her home. I hope you are enjoying it too! I would love to hear how you are using it in your own home.

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What I’m Learning from the New Testament with Come Follow Me, Week #3

Posted on January 20, 2019 by treeoflifemama

I am loving this new curriculum for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called Come, Follow Me. Here’s what I learned for Week #3, when I studied Matthew 2 and Luke 2. I love reading the word of God, finding the doctrines and looking for how they apply to my life by asking the questions in the Come, Follow Me manual as well as my own questions I think of.

I copy the following from the manual, with the doctrine that we find in that scriptural passage in bold:

Luke 2:8–38; Matthew 2:1–12

There are many witnesses of the birth of Christ.

The birth and infancy of Christ were marked by witnesses and worshippers from many walks of life—humble shepherds who visited the stable, wealthy Wise Men who brought gifts to His home, a widow who served in the temple, and a faithful disciple who anxiously anticipated the coming Messiah. As you explore their stories, what do you learn about ways to worship and witness Christ?

Here is the accompanying question to go with the doctrine, “What do I learn about witnessing and worshiping Christ from the following examples?”

The Shepherds: Be willing to receive revelation when it comes, leave your work, and go immediately to see, and then spread the word. I learned from some dear friends the past year that sometimes revelation comes early, early in the morning. Both friends have said that when they can’t sleep in the middle of the night/early in the morning, they get up and pray and then listen for answers. I realized that I can be like the shepherds in doing this. I can leave my work (sleep) and go do a kneeling prayer on my prayer rug (a bathroom rug in front of my vanity in the bathroom). I’ve been getting some great answers when I do this. I take a notebook with me and write the answers down. I’m still kind of sleepy so I sometimes have a hard time reading my writing the next day but the answers are always amazing! Even more amazing when I actually act on them. Writing them down helps ensure that that happens. 🙂

Simeon: Do things to keep the Spirit with me, we see this in Simeon for, “The Holy Ghost was upon him.” That  means safeguarding what I listen to, watch, and read. Then be willing to receive promises from the Holy Ghost as given in revelation and priesthood blessings. Be watching for them to be fulfilled and rejoice when they are.

The Wise Men: They studied the stars and the signs given in prophecy to know when the Savior would come. They watched for these signs. The believed when the sign of the star came that a Savior had been born. Then they searched for Him. I am doing the same thing to watch for the Savior’s second coming.

Anna: Serve God with fasting and prayer. Give thanks unto the Lord. Speak unto all who are looking for a Savior, and tell them He came.

Matthew 2:13–23

Parents can receive revelation to protect their families.

Ponder experiences when you have felt God’s guidance in protecting you and your family or loved ones. Consider sharing these experiences with others. What can you do to receive such guidance in the future?

One of my awesome homeschooling mom friends, Cyndi, shared on Facebook today the experience she has had of feeling revelation to stop letting her children have sleepovers.  I received the same prompting early on in my mothering career. I think it was prompted in part by a speaker in General Conference. So my kids have never been on sleepovers, except for cousin sleepovers/family reunions, Scout camp, and Girls’ Camp. (I won’t get started on Scout camp overnighters and the anxiety I felt about those, let’s just say I’m rejoicing and practically dancing on my roof that the Church is ending the relationship with BSA in 2020). As a result of this rule, my children have been greatly blessed. One of my sons wrote home to me when he was on his mission, thanking me for having that rule. He had seen a lot of problems in his missionary peers that started from sleepovers.

So I’m grateful to be having this opportunity with Come, Follow Me to see the doctrines the New Testament in a new light and how they apply to my life. I can’t wait to see what treasures I discover in the coming year!

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