This is a darling, meaningful Easter picture book that celebrates family history, Black American history, and Christianity. Along the way it also honors creativity and ingenuity and shows something most little boys don’t see: a fellow boy using a sewing machine.
In this story, a little boy, Elijah, wants to come up with the perfect Easter outfit to wear for Easter Sunday when he attends church. His church has a tradition of everyone wearing a fancy new outfit, with the pastor awarding a prize to the best one. Elijah searches and searches until he comes up with the best idea. It involves his family history and his faith. I love it! I also love the back matter, the pages at the end of the book after the story is over, where the author, Brentom Jackson, shares the inspiration and backstory of the book. Reading that can open up a discussion about slavery, segregation, the history of civil rights for Blacks, and more. In general, the book can spark discussion of family traditions, honoring ancestors, wearing new clothes for Easter, and what’s really important about Easter. I love the illustrations by Emmaneul Boateng. His soft luminous digital art makes the book glow like an Easter sunrise. It’s a lovely book, one I want to make a tradition of reading aloud every year to somebody, especially my grandchildren.
Want more Easter picture books? Go here and here for more.
In the video below, Lani Hilton talks about her “Good Friday” bag. Lani is the wife of John Hilton III, author, BYU professor of religion, and second cousin to my children. Sister Hilton has collected some items she keeps in a bag to pull out so her family can talk about the people involved with Good Friday, like a sword and a crown of thorns.
The sword goes with the centurion who stood at the foot of the cross and said, “Surely this was the Son of God.” (Did you know that the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible changes the verb tense of that last sentence to “Surely this is the Son of God?” I learned that today by watching Jared Halverson’s YouTube Easter video here.)
I just love the way Sister Lani explained the centurion’s testimony, how she has told her children that the centurion saw the signs of Jesus that caused him to recognize that Jesus is the Son of God. He then testified of Jesus as the son of God. Then she has asked them what signs they have seen that shows them that Jesus is the Son of God. This then opens up the space for a mini-family testimony meeting.
Good Friday is a week from today! It’s not too late to watch the video and get the bag assembled to share with your family and friends for a Good Friday observance.
I agree with the quote that the Hiltons share from Elder Gary E. Stevenson, who quotes N.T. Wright:
“We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts. … This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity.” Elder Gary E. Stevenson, Liahona, May 2023
Yes!!! I love it!! So if you want more…here you go:
Go here to learn about a book on activities, including games and crafts, for the Holy Week.
Go here for a free beautiful banner that says “He is Risen Indeed.”
Go here to my family read-alouds and traditions site for spring, and scroll down under “April” to see even more picture books and family traditions for Easter.
Go here for my list of poetry, songs, and stories for your Family Devotionals to use this spring, even after Easter! It includes the song below, “He is Risen,” by Steven Kapp Perry. It’s under the heading, “Music from the New Era.”
Image Credit: instagram account of BYUTV’s Relative Race
It was hard to squeeze in watching the latest episode of Relative Race last Sunday night, because of General Conference and an Easter concert practice for church. (Go here if you want to learn what Relative Race is all about. Also, here’s a mini recap of our April 2025 General Conference.) So I watched it without my husband and son on my own, after they went to bed. I’ll watch it again soon with them. Once again, it was soooo good! The episode is here, and the recap is below. Thanks again to Cheri Hudson Passey and her GenFriends for creating the debrief/recap.
Go here if you want more recaps and go here if you want even more about Relative Race.
Thanks to Montserrat Wadman, homeschooling mom of 11, from agospelcenteredhome.com for creating a Jeopardy! game after each General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love Jeopardy! so much, and I love the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, so to have this combination just makes life so exquisite! Go here to get it, in either Powerpoint format or a simpler PDF. We played it with my BYU son’s Family Home Evening group last Monday. It was a lot of fun! I’m so grateful and impressed that Monteserrat gets it done within 24 hours every time.
Here’s more about it from when we’ve played it in the past, in zoom, with family members living hundreds of miles away.
I absolutely loved General Conference this past weekend! If you want to skip my recounting of it, and get to the Fun Facts game, go down a few paragraphs to get the directions and questions for Fun Facts April 2025 General Conference. If you want to read my memories of this past weekend, read on, the next few paragraphs.
We celebrated Conference time by spending both Saturday and Sunday at my parents’ home. I have a son who is doing home MTC at my brother’s home just around the corner from my parents. So we were able to have my son join us to watch General Conference. It is so great to see him in his white shirt, wearing his nametag bearing the name of Jesus Christ with his name underneath it, along with his tie and clean-shaven haircut. For a long time, I had huge reason to doubt that this day would ever come. Miracles happen! Hearts change! Soon he will enter the Provo MTC for two more weeks of training and then be off on his mission. I’m so happy about this! It is a mama’s dream come true! He is my fourth son to leave on a mission. Nothing beats the moment when I welcome a missionary child home after two years, knowing the hero journey we’ve both been on. I’m so looking forward to that, two years from now! Cue the music, “We’ll Bring the World His Truth”!
I’m basking in the glow of all of that, and also in the glow of knowing that two of my inlaws’ relatives spoke in Conference, back-to-back. They both spoke in the Sunday AM session: Elder Shumway and Sister Runia. Elder Steven Shumway’s grandfather is my father-in-law’s first cousin. Right after Elder Shumway spoke, Sister Tamara Runia spoke. She is on the other side of my husband’s family tree. Her mother is my mother-in-law’s first cousin. My inlaws have both passed on, but they were probably watching from heaven and smiling, rejoicing in their kinfolk who are testifying of Christ and valiantly serving to help teach and gather Israel. Both of them gave such fabulous talks!
After all 5 sessions were over (whew! it always feels like a bit of a marathon, definitely more so in the days when I had little children at home), we played General Conference Wits and Wagers, with two of my sons, a nephew, and my mom and dad on a team. It elicited some laughter, connection and smiles, so I was glad we played it. Grandpa was winning so the boys decided they shouldn’t vote for his answer anymore. I’m not sure their strategy was successful, as it’s hard to win if you’re not voting for the right answer. You also have to get people to vote for your answer, and they never colluded about that. Anyway, we all had fun and learned a little Church history along the way. In the course of it I had a memory of my nephew’s grandma on his other side (his dad’s side) speaking in Conference over 20 years ago. I felt the Holy Spirit as I shared about that memory. So, I just loved this activity we shared. Now I can say that the last game I played with my missionary son before he went on his mission was about General Conference. You can get the directions and questions for that game over here.
Photo Credit: I took this photo
I also have another General Conference themed game, called Fun Facts General Conference. I tell all about it over here, where I first introduced it. Every six months, with a new General Conference, I will make new questions to use with this game. It’s based on a commercially produced game, Fun Facts, but if you read about it here, you can get the directions and come up with a homemade version using the questions below.
OK, drumroll please…here are the NEW questions for the Fun Facts April 2025 General Conference game. I have questions that involve numbers given in the Conference talks plus numbers based on people’s opinions/values.
Elder Ronald A. Rasband spoke about the growth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in fulfillment of Joseph Smith’s prophecy, given in 1834. At the time Joseph said that the church met in a little schoolhouse with only a handful of priesthood holders. Now the Church is filling the globe, with the fulfillment of Joseph’s prophecy “right before our eyes.” As evidence of this, Elder Rasband gave some statistics about the Church’s growth. How many temples did Elder Rasband say the Church has in total, in various stages of development? (367)
2. How many missionaries of the Church did Elder Rasband say were serving in 2024? (80,000)
3. How many missionaries can you name by name with what mission each one is serving in right now?
3. How many missions did Elder Rasband say were in the church in 2024? (450)
4. How many new missions were created in 2024, according to Elder Rasband? (36)
5. How many missions of the Church are just in Lima, Peru, according to Elder Rasband’s talk? (7)
6. How many students are in the BYU-Pathway program, according to Elder Rasband? (75,000)
7. Over what fraction of the BYU-Pathway students live in Africa, according to Elder Rasband’s talk? (1/3)
I took a photo of our world puzzle. It’s tradition to do this puzzle every time we watch General Conference, twice a year, to remember that Jesus is the Light of the World, and that His gospel is for the whole world, and his Kingdom is spreading over the world through missionary work.
8. Elder Sardinio Roman told a story of teaching his friend how to swim. During the swim lesson, the friend started drowning. In his effort to get help, the friend gave Elder Roman a chokehold and started bringing Elder Roman down too. Fortunately, they were both rescued. On a scale of 1-100, how much do you like to swim?
9. Elder Gary Stevenson told the story of taking an overseas red-eye flight with his wife. The customs agent who checked their passports showed no emotion until she saw something that Sister Stevenson had left in her passport. This object caused the customs agent to smile and connect with Sister Stevenson. It was a small picture of an artist’s rendition of the Savior.
9a. How many different renditions of the Savior’s portrait do you have in your home (paintings on the wall and pictures used as bookmarks, etc.)
9b. On a scale of 1-100 how much do you like to take airplane trips?
9c. On a scale of 1-100, how much do you like to take overnight red-eye flights?
10. Elder Stevenson spoke about the increased emphasis in the Church on having Christ-centered Easter traditions. He shared about his family Easter play. How many Christ-centered Easter traditions does your family have? Alternate question (use this alternate question if you think the previous question won’t generate much of a range of answers): How many Christ-centered Easter traditions would you like to implement this year? (Go here for some ideas.)
11. Sister Tamara Runia spoke about reading a book while on a trip in Florida, about getting to heaven. A woman saw her reading it and asked her a question about it. Here are several questions regarding that situation. Use any or all of them.
11a. How many books have you read so far this year?
11b. On a scale of 1-100, how much do you want to take a trip to Florida?
11c. On a scale of 1-100, how much do you like to read books?
11d. How many different things do you want to see or visit in Florida?
11e. How many books that you’ve read have been the subject of a discussion you’ve had with at least one other person this year?
11f. How many books (or movies) have you read (or watched) in your lifetime about heaven (including the scriptures)?
11f. How many books have you started but not finished yet this year?
12. Sister Runia also spoke of participating in diving competitions when young, and what divers are judged on. On a scale of 1-100, how much do you want to watch a diving competition?
13. Sister Runia also spoke of serving as a mission leader in Australia with her husband.
13a. How many people do you know personally who have visited or lived in Australia?
13b. On a scale of 1-100, how much do you desire to live in Australia?
13c. How many missions are in Australia? (answer is here)
13d. How many people do you know who have served a mission in Australia?
13e. How many temples are in Australia? (answer is here)
14. Sister Runia was wearing a pink dress for her talk. How many articles of pink clothing do you own?
12. Elder Steven Shumway spoke of getting to know the woman who is now his wife by serving ice cream at a church activity.
12a. On a scale of 1-100 how much do you like ice cream?
12b. How many flavors of ice cream do you enjoy eating?
13. Elder Gerrit W. Gong spoke of taking an early morning Bible class where he memorized Bible verses. How many Bible verses have you memorized?
14. Elder Gong mentioned the shortest verse in the Bible, which he memorized.
14a. What chapter in John contains this scripture? (11)
14b. What is the number for this verse in that chapter? (35)
15. Elder Gong spoke of a beautiful bride and handsome groom whom we witnessed getting sealed in the temple for marriage.
15a. How old did he say the bride was? (70)
15b. How old did he say the groom was? (70)
16. Elder Gong spoke of an Egyptian man who told him that in the Qu’ran, it says that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus sought refuge in Egypt. On a scale of 1-100, how much do you desire to read the Qu’ran?
17. Elder John A. McCune spoke of a woman in Mongolia who noticed the mission leader of Mongolia after he entered her workplace. He radiated a light. She asked this man if she could attend church with him so she could learn more about the source of this man’s light. This woman took the missionary lessons and got baptized. Elder McCune mentioned this woman is part of the great gathering of Israel happening over the whole world.
17a. On a scale of 1-100, how much do you desire to visit Mongolia?
17b. How many members of the Church are in Mongolia? (answer is here.)
18. Elder McCune spoke of the Japanese character for “disciple.” He said that it is made of two parts that mean “younger brother” and “child.”
18a. How many people do you know who have studied the Japanese language? Alternate question, On a scale of 1-100, how much do you desire to speak Japanese?
19. Elder McCune spoke of his mother who is still alive.
19a. How old did he say she is? (94)
19b. Over how many descendants did he say that she has? (200)
20. Elder Christopher H. Kim spoke about the joy of repentance. He spoke of Laman and Lemuel in the Book of Mormon being hardhearted. He said that in the Korean translation of the Book of Mormon, the word for “hardhearted” combines the words for “stubborn” and “wickedness.”
20a. On a scale of 1-100 how many people do you know how have studied the Korean language?
20b. Elder Kim was wearing a purple, gold, and brown striped tie. How many gold-colored items of clothing do you own? (or purple, or brown?)
20c. How many items of striped clothing do you own?
21. How many helps did President Dallin H. Oaks say that God has provided to help us in our plan of salvation journey? (4)
21. Elder Michael B. Strong shared a story of a rice farmer and his wife in the Philippines who waited for a long time to save money to take a trip to the temple to be sealed as a family. A typhoon delayed the time they normally would have planted rice seedlings for planting time. By the time the family could plant the seedlings, it was the appointed time to leave for their temple trip. A missionary couple spearheaded a team effort with service missionaries to plant the seedlings for the family so they family could leave at the appointed time.
19a. How many temples are in the Philippines? (answer is here)
19b.How many missions are in the Philippines? (answer is here)
19c. How many service projects have you been involved in?
19d. On a scale of 1-100 how much do you enjoy eating rice?
20a. How many temples did President Nelson announce in the very last talk in the very last session of the April 2025 conference? (15. The list is here.)
20b. How many temples on that list are not in the U.S.? (9)
21. Based on the answer in Question #1, how many total temples will now be in various phases of planning, construction, and use for the Church? (382)
22. How many total temples has President Nelson announced as president of the Church? (200, source is here.)
General Conference is tomorrow and Sunday! You can learn more about it and watch it here. When I watch it I feel inspiration to be a better disciple of Jesus Christ. That’s because I get to hear from people who Jesus has chosen to lead His church today. Here’s a song to learn the names of the apostles who will be speaking to us over the next two days. Thanks to Marcie Holladay for sharing this on her YouTube Channel, Single Mom on a Farm.
After posting this recap of Relative Race Season 15 Episode 3 I will be all caught up on sharing these wonderful debriefs that CarolinaGirlGenealogy Cheri Passey does with her GenFriends bunch every week in YouTube. RR Season 15 Episode 3 aired just last Sunday. So now I’m looking forward to Episode 4, which will premiere this Sunday April 6th on byutv.org. (If this is your first time hearing about Relative Race, go here to learn more about it.) I’ll keep posting the recaps for this season as each one comes out each week.
This episode 3 was so wonderfully tearjerking. Especially with one of the contestants, Dan of Team Red, being able to meet his mother. Can you imagine, not knowing who your biological mother is, and then being able to meet her after 50+ years? I’m so happy for Dan that this happened for him!
Credit for Image Above: Relative Race Live Facebook page
Watch Relative Race Season 15 Episode 3 here, and then the recap below.
Want more Relative Race? Read all the stuff I’ve blogged about it here.
Here’s a recap video, down below, of Season 15 Episode 2 with Ashlee, of Team Black, Season 13.
If you want to know why I love Relative Race so much, go here.
What’s extra special about Ashlee being in this recap is that her relatives are in Season 15! She got to meet her cousin, and her cousin’s daughter, Kayli, in Season 13. Now Kayli is back with her uncle, Dan, for this season as Team Red!
I got to meet Ashlee last summer as a God-orchestrated moment on the side of the road at a parade in Spanish Fork Utah. We had such a fun conversation! She wasn’t freaked out by me, a complete stranger, telling her, “Hey, I know you, I know all about you! You were on Relative Race! Team Black!” She is just as delightful in person as she is on TV.
I hope you enjoy this!
Go here for more about Relative Race. I just love it so much! It lets me feel the Holy Ghost reminding me of the Godly origin of family, motivating me to treat my family members better. I hope it does the same for you. When we make family a place we all want to be, it is an early taste of heaven.
After watching Relative Race every time, I always want to talk to people about it. I watch it on Sunday nights with my husband and youngest child who is 15. After the show, I talk about it with them, and then I text my friend Mindy with a few comments. She watches it on Sunday nights with her family too. Then I watch the video recap done by Cheri Hudson Passey of GenFriends YouTube Channel that come out in the following week. If you are a Relative Race fan like I am, you will love watching this! This particular season seems extra special with two mother/daughter teams and two uncle/niece teams. That’s the first time we’ve had such a combination, and I believe the first time we’ve had so much estrogen with 6 out of the 8 contestants being females.
Here’s a recap of Season 15 Episode 1. Thanks to Cheri Passey and her family history buff gals for getting together for this. If you don’t know what Relative Race is, go watch it here and get all the feels of family reunion love. It’s basically a reality TV show of teams racing to find relatives they never knew existed, mostly because of adoption issues.
Want more Relative Race?
Go here for a recent video interview with Dan, the host, from RootsTech 2025.
Go here for some firesides with Dan and Rebecca of Team Black, Season 3. (Did you know she works for the show now behind the scenes?), and then Jen and J.D. Barnes, Team Black of Season 6.
Here are some fun excerpts of the show so you can know how wonderful it is.
I’m always sad when a season ends and then we have to wait 6 months or so for the new season. I’m glad we can watch old episodes in the meantime. I often watch the old ones on Sundays after my church meetings while I work a jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle theme of finding missing pieces matches the theme of finding missing family members. I love all of it!
Easter is less than 3 weeks away! In the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some ideas for a Christ-centered Easter.
Let’s start off with getting ready for Parables Charades or Sculpturades!
For charades, just act out the clues with no talking of course. For a twist on that classic game, use play doh instead, to create a 3-D representation of the clue in sculpted form. What does this have to do with Easter? Jesus is what Easter is really about of course, and Jesus told His parables to teach important truths. The author of the book shown below suggests in the book to make playing this activity as part of your family’s Easter celebration to keep the focus on Christ. She suggests playing the game on Tuesday of Holy Week, calling it Parable Tuesday, since nobody knows for sure what exactly happened on the Tuesday of the last week. You don’t have to do it on Tuesday of Holy Week of course.
Go here to read the directions for Parables Charades. The article there is written by the same author as that of the book above, Wendee Rosborough. (My review of the book is here.) Just click on that link and scroll down in the article to the heading “Parable Tuesday, Teaching the Disciples” so you can learn all about how to do the activity and get the clues for the parables. Last year we did the sculpturades version. We had my husband, two of our sons, ages 14 and 23, and me involved. I was skeptical that it would be a hit but wanted to try it anyway. It produced many laughs, making me wish I had started this tradition years ago when all my kiddos were home.
I’m looking forward to making it an annual holiday staple tradition, especially among the grandchildren. I find it wonderful that in addition to focusing on the Savior’s atonement and resurrection in Holy Week, which are absolutely wonderful and essential to the Easter story, we also talk about His matchless teachings. The parables are perfect for this because they are little stories that are easily remembered.
You can read the parables directly from the scirptures or use one of the books below to read them as people correctly guess the parable from the clues.
For older people, I recommend this book with the amazing illustrations by James Christensen. I feel blessed to have found this book when thrifting for only $1!
Credit for Book Cover Photos Above and Below: amazon.com
For the younger set, Tomie de Paola’s books have simpler words and shorter summaries. You can probably find them at your local public library.
Want more Christ-centered Easter ideas?
My children’s second cousin, John Hilton III, and his wife Lani Hilton, have the idea for a Good Friday bag and other Christ-centered Easter activities over here. This takes some prep so start now!
Go here for all of Emily Belle Freeman’s Christ-centered Easter traditions to count down the days of Holy Week.
Go here for books for you to read as a mother to prepare for Easter.
Here are my favorite Easter picture books. Get these from your local public library and read one a day! Easiest, cheapest Easter family tradition ever!
Here are my favorite family traditions for Easter, under the April heading.
Here is a huge collection of Easter poems, stories, scriptures, and songs, excerpted from my Celestial Family Devotionals Ebook.
Over here and here I have some recent memories of our family’s Easter celebrations, including the Immanuel Wreath.
Last of all, for adults and teens who want to dive deep into the meaning of the atonement and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, go here.
Tree of Life Mothering 