Happy Easter tomorrow everyone! Today’s Countdown to Easter feature is in honor of the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is happening today and tomorrow. You can go here to watch, at 10 AM and 2 PM Utah time on Saturday March 31 and Sunday April 1. Also on Saturday the Church is holding the General Priesthood session for men and young men at 6 PM Utah time. This is an exciting time when we get to listen to prophets who live on the earth today, who are just as connected to God as the prophets in the Bible. I promise that if you listen to this conference, having prayed before you watch, and listen thoughtfully, taking notes (as much as you can with children–I know it’s hard if you have super little ones) you will get some ideas about what to do next in your life.
The above video depicts a poem that Elder Boyd K. Packer wrote. He included it at the end of a true story he told in General Conference. This story is from his life when he served in WWII. It illustrates our need for Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Here’s the poem again in song form below.
He told this story in the April 1997 General Conference. A simplified version of the story for children appears in the April 1999 Friend here. You can watch the whole talk below. The text of the poem is here at the end of the talk.
(This story and the stories from previous days of my Countdown to Easter are all compiled in my upcoming ebook, The Celestial Guide to Family Devotionals. Watch for it to be published in April!)
Today’s Countdown to Easter feature is a full-length movie to watch with the whole family for your next movie night. The trailer is above. I have the full-length version below, but in case the video gets pulled, just do an Internet seach for “Watch The Climb movie online” to find it.
With this movie, I continue the rescue theme I introduced yesterday. This is a fun movie that shows a dramatic rescue. (It does mention pregnancy out of wedlock, so just be forewarned if you watch this with young kids, they might ask you questions about that.) Use this movie as a springboard to discuss the Savior’s role as rescuer.
Today’s Countdown to Easter story is about being rescued. This picture comes from a day when my kids and I ventured up the canyon just 10 minutes from my home on a rare snowy day here in southern AZ. Our minivan got stuck in the snow but some kind souls stopped to help pull us out so we could go home. Each of us at some time in our life, no matter how smart, famous, beautiful, rich, fashionable or cute we are, will get stuck and depend on someone else to rescue us. Ultimately, each of us are stuck in death and sin and depend on our Savior Jesus Christ, who is sinless, to rescue us. At Easter time we celebrate our Savior’s rescuing grace.
I love this story from the New Era, the youth magazine for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, about some youth who got stuck in a snowy canyon and then were rescued. Rescue situations are very real and scary. I rejoice whenever I hear of someone being rescued. It just serves to remind me of how precarious our mortal situation is and that we are dependent on Jesus Christ for everything we have and can be. This is great news because Jesus wants us to have everything He and the Father have, and we can, if we follow Jesus and do what He asks us to do. See Romans 8:16-17.
Countdown to Easter Day #4 involves a resource to help you memorize the document written by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church called “The Living Christ.” My younger kids and I memorized this for Christmas a few years ago, and at least once a year at Christmas or Easter I like to review it during our poetry memorization time as part of our homeschool morning devotional.
I also like to review it in my mind during the passing of the sacrament every Sunday. Just go here to get pdfs of pictures and fill-in-the blank sheets. I like to keep the pdf on my iPad and pull it up at Christmas and Easter. I like that the creator has sections with all the words and pictures, and then just the pictures without the words. I like to use the pictures without words as memory prompts as I zoom in on the picture to show the kids and then recite the words together.
I love that these families in the videos above and below memorized the document together. The two above put the words to a song. If you Google it, you can different tunes people have created to go with the words. Here is one that I found from Jenny Richards.
The second family, the Okleberrys, memorized it to present it to their Mom for a Christmas gift. Then the family of Sister Neill F. Marriott memorized it at Christmas time. LaDawn Jacob would approve!
Today’s Countdown to Easter feature is a story from the Friend, the children’s magazine for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is one of my favorites! I absolutely looooove this story because it is the story of a miracle. It is also about peaches, which are my favorite fruit. Easter is a time to talk about miracles because the greatest miracle of all is the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is so amazing to know that Jesus, once dead and lifeless, came back to life in all His glory, power, majesty, and love. He lives today and has a church on the earth today, the LDS Church, linked to above. Because He lives he brings all of us back to life after our death and offers to let us be joint heirs with him in the kingdom of God.
This story is true and it’s by Ana Nelson Shaw. It took place in the desert of Rush Valley Utah. Go read the story here.
This story shows that sometimes, God grants miracles as tender mercies, because He loves us, and for whatever reason, knows that the miracle will help us grow. God certainly moves in mysterious ways. Sometimes we get to experience these mysteries in the form of miracles. Of course we can each experience another miracle, which is the change of heart that comes from Jesus. I know this is true! I have seen it happen in my own life and in the lives of my family and friends.
This story is referenced in my upcoming ebook, The Celestial Guide to Family Devotionals, which will be available soon! This ebook will guide you in picking seasonal songs, scriptures, stories, and poetry to warm your hearts alongside your family and bring the Holy Spirit into your life every day.
Today’s feature for my Countdown to Easter Day #2 is the song “Gethsemane” by the talented composer Melanie Hoffman of Utah. Sweet Claire Ryann sings it so adorably above.
I was so excited to see a simplified version of the song’s sheet music in the March 2018 issue of the Friend, the magazine for children published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Find it here.
Melanie and Roger Hoffman. Photo Credit: Deseret News
I love the words Melanie uses in this song and the order she put them in. For example, the song has this triplet combination of phrases describing the Atonement:
“the hardest thing that ever was done,
the greatest pain that ever was known,
the biggest battle that ever was won.”
I just love that combination of words! It perfectly describes what I imagine Jesus experienced for us in the Garden of Gethsemane. This song is such a wonderful expression of the love and victory that Jesus expressed for us. What agony, what love, what triumph, all rolled into one. I just love the song! I have memorized it, I sing it, and I encourage you all to do so well and sing it when life feels hard! It will help ease whatever longing or pain you are feeling. I know it sounds silly, but I sang it once just inside my head a week or so ago when I wanted to eat more dessert but knew that would be overeating. It was a THM dessert but still, I knew I had had enough. The song helped me exercise self-control.
Here is an article from the Deseret News giving the back story for the song. The article basically says that Melanie and her husband Roger, also a talented composer and lyricist, decided to write a collection of sacred songs about Jesus for children. From what they share, I am 100% confident that Melanie was inspired by God through the Holy Ghost to write these words and music. The author of the article, Lottie Peterson, wrote:
Because writing about such a sacred subject for a young audience was a difficult task, the couple initially thought they would just rearrange a sacrament hymn. But later on, the words “Gethsemane, Jesus loves me” came unexpectedly and strongly to Melanie Hoffman’s mind, and it wasn’t long after that point that she ended up writing the entire song.
“I just kept writing so fast,” she said. “It was building up to this big thing.”
In reflecting on how effortlessly “Gethsemane” came to his wife, Roger Hoffman added that “(The song) was a gift; it was given.”
Happy spring to you all! My ebook is almost done and ready to be released! I have been working on this since June! We are adding the art and then it will be released digitally. This ebook will give you songs, scriptures, poems, and stories to share with your family every day of the year to bring the Spirit into your heart and home. It is called The Celestial Guide to Family Devotionals. I am so excited for its release as well as the fact that Easter is a week away! So every day I am going to share a story or talk relating to Easter that is listed in my ebook.
Today’s story is called, “The Cactus, the Cross, and Easter.” It is a story from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland from when he was a young boy. You can find the whole story in the April 1980 Friend magazine. He tells of falling into the clutches of a cactus as a five year old boy when he lived in southern Utah. Oh how painful that must have been! We have some cactus on our property here in AZ and it looks nasty!
I won’t touch it after hearing from people how the cactus practically leaps out at people to poke them! Well, back to Elder Holland’s predicament. After much effort, his older brother got him out and heroically pulled him down the mountainside to the help of his mother at home. She pulled out all the barbs that pierced his skin, making him bleed and look like a pincushion. Elder Holland shares that our human situation here on earth is much worse than having fallen into the painful prickly barbs of a cactus plant. We have fallen into the clutches of Satan because of sin.
But Jesus, our elder Brother, did not allow himself to be captured by Satan. He was still safely outside the prison gates. In a way that we may not fully understand, even when we are very old, Jesus set us free. It was as though He had the only key to the prison door and that only He had the strength to swing it open. In doing so, He saved our lives so our families can be kept together and so we can someday return to our heavenly home. But He paid a terrible price to do this for us, a price for which we must give Him honor and reverence by keeping His commandments. He suffered a horrible death on a cross. In that anguish of physical and spiritual pain Jesus, too, momentarily thought He was all alone and without help, and yet He did not turn away from helping us.
I know this is true! Praise God for giving us the gift of His Son Jesus Christ. I celebrate that gift this Easter season and every day all year!
I got the idea to do this a long time ago but my life has been so full with finishing up my new ebook and doing all my wife, mom, and homeschool stuff that I am just now announcing this. It’s an online discussion club to talk about great marriages as depicted in movies!
All dates and times are tentative and subject to change. If you join the discussion you will get emails on changes in the times.
Meeting time will be 5 to 6:30 PM Monday afternoon Utah time/4 to 5:30 PM AZ time once a month. I know this is an odd time, with FHE (Family Home Evening) usually on Monday. It is to accommodate a friend who lives in Japan. It is Tuesday morning for her, and that is a good time for her to squeeze into her college study schedule. It is only once a month. If you plan ahead you can have a crockpot dinner going that morning, prime your kids and hubby to get all FHE parts prepared, pop in a movie for them to watch while you then relax with us for a discussion, all before you head out into the eye of the storm of normal family life. Comment below if you want to join the discussion so I can send you a link to join the video classroom if I can tell you are a real sincere female adult who wants to discuss being a great wife.
Now, on to the movies….
I picked these movies because they all depict marriages. The movies can be found on Amazon for purchase or rent, or often at your local public library as DVDs. A few are free on YouTube, like the one about the Osmonds below, and some are on YouTube to rent. We will discuss the marriage featured in each movie and decide if it is a “Grand Marriage” as described by Ramona Zabriskie in her book Wife for Life. You can buy the book here. Don’t worry if you don’t have the book yet, or haven’t read it yet, just get it when you can. In the meantime you can go to Ramona’s website and sign up for her free webinars to get a glimpse of the principles she teaches.
So please get the book Wife for Life and read it as soon as you can. It will help you know what principles to catch and ponder when you watch the movies. When we see the principles in action we are more likely to apply them. Then come to the discussion with at least one question or comment based on one of the principles from the Wife for Life book like the 10 As of Attraction. If you don’t have the book yet you can still come and discuss, because you can watch Ramona’s webinar and get the 10 A’s Laws of Attraction.
The first movie we will discuss is this made for TV movie above about the Osmonds from the early ’80s. See interesting footnote below about this movie after the * at the very bottom of this post.
Part 2 of the Osmond story, Inside the Osmondshere
Monday, April 30: Using Prayer to Fight for a Marriage as seen in War Room
This whole series is like 5 hours, you will have to have a marathon day of watching or watch it for several date nights in a row. It’s worth it though! John and Abigail were such a great couple. She really helped refine and polish his weaknesses. He would not have been the man he was without her, that’s for sure!
Monday, July 30: The parents of Gene Stratton Porter as featured in Laddie. Watch here, Read the book for extra joy! It is free here.
Monday, August 27: Peter and Catherine Marshall as shown in A Man Called Peter. Read book here.
Monday, Sept 17: Frank and Lillian Gilbreth as seen in Cheaper By the Dozen (the original, not the Steve Martin movie)
Read the book for extra joy! It has a sequel too, called Belles on Their Toes. Maybe we will discuss it next year!
Monday, Oct 15: Washington and Emily Roebling, the masterminds behind the Brooklyn Bridge. Watch or read something about them and come prepared to discuss. The movie Roebling’s Bridge is hard to find, watch if you can.
Monday, Nov 12: Joseph and Emma Smith as portrayed in Emma Smith: My Story. Buy or rent it here, orwatch free with Amazon Prime,
Happy movie watching, reading, discussing, and wifing! Watch these movies for your date night at home with your husband. Then come discuss with us! I already have ideas for the following year, like George and Maria Von Trapp, Gordon and Marjorie Hinckley, and Paul and Julia Child.
This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
*My husband is an extra in the Osmond movie, for reals! So he got to share the dance floor in a scene with Marie at the old Apollo Dance Hall in American Fork Utah. I could pick him out, he has great dance form! (He was on the world championship BYU Ballroom Dance team back in his youthful days.) In this movie, Marie plays the role of her mother Olive being courted by her future husband George, and then they get married and have kids and get motivated by a dream. In the scene my husband is in, George and Olive go dancing while courting. Then my hubby was in another scene washing windows at the old Brigham Young Academy building (now the Provo City Library), which was supposed to be a building on Hill Air Force Base. I remember hearing about this movie on TV but was it was the same night as a church activity so I missed it and felt this huge hole in my life. I finally watched it on YouTube, so now balance is restored in the universe, haha! I no longer feel that I missed out!
Here’s a great non-starchy salad that is so versatile! I got inspired to make it from the Trim Healthy Mama (THM) recipe called “Freshy Bowl” which is on p. 265 in the THMTrim Healthy Table cookbook. (You can read my preview of the book here.)
The recipe is basically chopped up bell peppers mixed with finely chopped cilantro and a jalapeno/ginger/garlic citrus dressing. I simplified the recipe to use ground ginger and garlic powder, since I have a hard time keeping whole ginger root fresh. It always goes moldy because I don’t use it fast enough. I’ve tried all the tricks! Also, after years of using garlic cloves in a garlic press, and cleaning the thing out, I started using garlic powder as well. I guess part of me is becoming less whole foodsy in my old age, haha, and a “Drive Thru Sue,” like one of the THM authors, Pearl. I just want things to go faster, and not bother about grating ginger and crushing garlic! I also used lime and grapefruit juice because I was out of lemons to make lemon juice.
If you don’t have enough bell peppers you could use some other hardy non-starchy veggie like cabbage, shredded up. That makes the salad a lot more budget friendly, especially when bell peppers are closer to $2 each instead of $1 each or less. The idea behind the original recipe, according to Serene Allison, the creator, is to have a ready-made salad of raw food that lasts a long time in your fridge and still looks fresh when you pull it out. She says she makes this recipe once a week so she has an instant side salad for any meal. That way she doesn’t have to make a new salad every mealtime. Bell peppers and cabbage are sturdy enough that they don’t wilt right away, even with a dressing on them. Serene says she likes to put this down as a bed on her plate for whatever main dish she is having.
I made this for dinner at a recent overnight retreat with other moms. My friend Heidi made the fancy main dish, something caprese, with basil leaves and mozzarella cheese made from raw milk. She amazingly whipped up that cheese from scratch while some of us were gabbing and I was chopping up the peppers. Since I still watch my sugar intake I ditched the French bread that was part of the caprese ensemble and put chunks of cheese on my salad, with the chicken. The cheese tasted heavenly with this! Sorry I didn’t get a picture of the salad with the cheese, I was too greedy and ate it before I remembered to snap a pic. If you do eat it with cheese count the recipe as a THM-S.
Anyway, here is my variation of the recipe:
9 bell peppers, mostly red, orange, and yellow (maybe have one green one but that’s it as the green ones have such a bite to them)
juice of three citrus fruits (I used 2 grapefruit since we recently went grapefruit picking and 1 lime, but the official THM recipe calls for strictly lemon)
1 large jalapeno cut very finely, with seeds removed, unless you like the heat
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 c olive oil or MCT oil (cut back to 1/8 cup, which is 2 T, for an FP dish)
3 T apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 tsp mineral salt
1 bunch finely chopped cilantro, after you remove the stems
Chop up the peppers, in slivers or cubes, mix the dressing, and then toss all together!
Like I mentioned, you can jazz up the salad to be a main dish with cheese, cubed or shredded chicken breasts, shredded beef, beans (black would look so pretty!), or some other protein. If you have it with brown rice or quinoa it would be a THM E meal. Adding avocado would make it a THM S meal. Yum! The possibilities are endless! You could also use it in a wrap! Or add to an omelet or egg scram for breakfast in the morning. Go experiment and enjoy your taste buds chowing down on this flavorful dish!
I know it’s hard to believe, but the above product can be considered as “wrinkle cream.” One of my Veggie Gal friends asked recently what to use that is inexpensive and non-toxic. The product she usually uses is almost gone and she doesn’t want to shell out the big bucks to get the same expensive stuff again.
So, before you think that only French fries can benefit from using beef tallow (McDonalds used to think so), hear me out. These two sources recommend none other than tallow for skin:
First, Heather of mommypotamus.com, here, in her ” The ‘Naughty’ Skin Care Ingredient You Absolutely Must Try!” post . She says that it has nourishing ingredients for skin cells that you can’t find in plant ingredients. She says it works for her! The first time she tried it she felt like 3 months of exhausted living had been scrubbed off her face overnight.
Then this guy did an interview on the Wise Traditions podcast here. He lists all sorts of benefits of beef tallow, including using it as face moisturizer/wrinkle cream. Listen and enjoy! Make those Mickey-D fries envious that you can bathe in it and they can’t! (For added pleasure, you can hear the story behind the McDonalds fries/beef tallow break-up here, by one of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell.)
Tree of Life Mothering 