Tree of Life Mothering

My wonderful friend Tammy Ward is hosting the Whole Person Preparedness Conference this Saturday! 

Whole Person Preparedness Conference

When: Saturday, March 14, 8-4:00 

Location: Weber State University

Discount code for $9 off the event or live streaming: prepareyourself 

Discount code for $20 for all recordings ($650 value!):  friendsnfamily 

It will feature some fanstastic speakers, like Kirk Duncan and Roger Young, and my dear friend Becky Edwards.

Becky, in the photo below, is only one of many speakers. There are a variety of topics covered.  Here are Becky’s topics:

“ Eight Tips for Organizing your Food Storage,” Part One   1) Overcoming excuses with the word of God. 2) Creating a simple meal plan to build and rotate your year’s supply.  3) Finding more storage space in your home. 4) Finding more money for food storage.  Eight Tips for Organizing your Food Storage, Part Two 5) Organizing an inventory of what you have, what you need, and where it’s stored.  6) Prioritizing where to start. 7) How canning jars can boost your food storage from blah to beautiful. How to use a Food Saver or other methods to store bulk spices, chocolate chips, and even complete meals in a jar, and 8) Why she believes spiritual preparation matters the most. Becky is awesome! We have been friends since our oldest kids were toddlers, in fact, she is one of my “Veggie Gals.”. That’s a group of women who have met since 1995 over lunch every month or so, on the Wasatch Front. She gave me permission to upload her EightSystemsforanOrganizedHomeschool.pdf Becky will be speaking at a couple other conferences coming up also. Click here for details.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

I love all of the ideas that genealogy blogger Valerie Elkins shares in the above video. She gives so many reasons why journals are important and easy journal writing tips and lots of tech ideas. Did you know you can get an app that will transfer your handwriting into a digital copy? She tells about it in the video. You can get her free ebook “30 Days to Becoming Unforgettable” right here, (it’s on the right hand side of the page) as well as other cool techie resources for journal writing and time management. Also, here’s her syllabus in pdf from the presentation.

This photo shows my 2nd great grandmother, Sarah Alydia Terry Winsor. She’s the mom. She looks like a sturdy, good-looking pioneer woman doesn’t she? She was born in Salt Lake City in 1857, the daughter of Thomas Searles Terry and Mary Ann Pulsipher. Thomas was born in 1825 in Pennsylvania. He heard about the Mormons and got baptized, and as a single young man in his early 20s he came across the plains as a pioneer in the Daniel Spencer/Perregrine Sessions company that arrived in Salt Lake City in September 1847. He settled in the Fort Union area of the Salt Lake Valley and married Mary Ann Pulsipher, daughter of Zera Pulsipher.

Sarah Alydia Terry was their fourth daughter. Brigham Young called her father to go help settle southern Utah, and to this day the Terry Ranch in Enterprise Utah still stands. At only 16 years of age, she was a telegraph operator at the Winsor Castle in Pipe Springs, AZ. where she met Anson Perry Winsor Jr. (the dad in the photo). They courted in the red rocks of the deserts, riding horses together, and they married in St. George. I got to  visit Winsor Castle two summers ago, it is now a national monument. It’s such an amazing place!

Sarah Alydia named the baby on her lap in the photo above Joseph Smith Winsor. Sadly, he died a year or so later. But the cute little girl in the photo is my great grandmother, Ethel Winsor Simkins. The other two little boys in the photo are Anson Perry Winsor III and Luther Murkins Winsor. I found out last summer that one of my friends shares this great-grandmother, Ethel Winsor Simkins. I’ve known my friend for 9 years or so through homeschooling, but it wasn’t until last summer that I found out that our grandmothers are sisters! Now that I know that this friend is my second cousin, I feel a “cousin-y” feeling towards her. How does a “cousiny” feeling feel? It’s this blood connection, like, hey, we can rely on each other a little more and watch out for each other more than if we were just friends or even sisters in spirit.

The LDS Church is asking us to find our cousins! Why? I can’t speak officially for the Church, but I like to think that it’s so we can create that cousin-y feeling among all of us, to give us a network of support for these perilous last days. I’ve had various road trips in my life, and it always feel so awesome to realize I have a cousin in whatever destination of my trip whom I can call up and say, “Hey cousin, is it OK if we stay at your place for a night or two while we attend such and such event?” Knowing you have a cousin expands your resources! 

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

Let’s find out if we are cousins! I have created a group called “Tree of Life Moms” at BYU’s Relative Finder. What is the Relative Finder? It’s a cool website where you can go and find out what famous people, in and out of the church, that you are related to, like signers of the Declaration of Independence, the prophets, apostles, scientists, and movie stars. You can create Relative Finder Groups to help you see if you and your friends share a common ancestor. A high school classmate of mine created a group for our high school, and I have found out that I am distant cousins to about 80 of my classmates (out of the ones who have joined the group, there are probably more out there). Watch the video below to see more how it works. You can create a group for your ward or stake or whatever you want. It’s a great way to get people around you who aren’t that interested in family history a lot more interested. The information is only as good as the sources, so you can’t take it as absolute truth, but it is a great launch into learning more about your ancestry so you can discover the absolute truth about your family tree.

Please login to Relative Finder,

I am doing a long-overdue book review of Fascinating Womanhood and giving away a copy of the book as well. It’s an older edition I picked up at a thrift store, like the one pictured above, a white hardback, only it also has a bright pink dust jacket that is slightly torn. (I will tape it with clear packing tape to patch it up so it looks like new). You can get a similar used copy of this edition online or get the latest edition. It is not out of print, but the older edition is fun to get too. If you would like to know how to enjoy being feminine, how to improve the quality of your marriage and even save your marriage, please read this book. If you know that you nag or criticize your husband, please read this book. If you know that you have tons of negative feelings about your husband and they sometimes spill over to others’ ears, please read this book.

I agree with about 90% of it. Some of it seems corny, I admit, like the parts about acting childlike and stomping your feet and tossing your curls when angry.This book is rather polarizing. People seem to either love it or hate it, including at least two of my friends, which I wrote about here. If you hate it, I suggest you read it again and look for the underlying principles for whatever bugs you about it. Like the part about stomping your feet and tossing your curls in a childlike way if you are angry. That’s a specific behavior Mrs. Andelin suggests, but the principle behind it is to break up tension in a charming way or a way that puts your husband off guard. Step back and look at it this way: the author is suggesting you find something that will ease the tension of the moment when you/and your husband are angry and fighting, something to ease the tension and preserve the dignity of both of you. If acting like a little girl makes you want to burst out laughing then maybe something else will work. It could be even something simple and direct, for instance, just stating clearly how you feel when your husband does such and such. Then drop it and move on.

I really like Helen Andelin’s model of the ideal female called Angela Human. Angela Human inspires celestial love. Whoever doesn’t like this book or even scorns it most likely is not enjoying this deep satisfying celestial love. I learned from the book that celestial love involves not just romantic love, and love that involves admiration, but it also involves a desire to protect, worship, and sacrifice anything for. Do you feel that kind of love from your husband?  Do you want to? Andelin says you wake up that aspect of love by working on the human side of Angela Human. It was fun to read all of the references to classical literature, like from Dickens’ David Copperfield. 

Overall, I think the book is a great guide to increasing happiness in marriage, because it teaches that men and women are different, and how important it is to just accept your husband and make him number 1. Before you implement giving your husband praise, compliments, and sympathy, practice doing it out loud so it doesn’t sound fake, or he will be on to you.

If you scoff at the book, I invite you to take a serious look at your marriage. Are you experiencing “Celestial Love,” the love that Mrs. Andelin describes in the book? If you are, then you are probably practicing the principles of the book. If you are not, then don’t scoff, swallow your pride, and learn from the book. Mrs. Andelin takes her description of Celestial Love from Victor Hugo. Here is what he says about it:

Do I exist for my own personal happiness? No, my whole existence is devoted to her, even in spite of her. And by what right should I have dared to aspire to her love? What does it matter, so that it does not injure her happiness? My duty is to keep close to her steps, to surround her existence with mine, to serve her as a barrier against all dangers; to offer my head as a stepping stone, to place myself unceasingly between her and all sorrows, without claiming reward, without expecting recompense…Alas! If she only allow me to give my life to anticipating her every desire, all her caprices; if she but permit me to kiss with respect her adored footprints; if she but consent to lean upon me at times amidst the difficulties of life.

As an interesting aside, I am great friends with Mrs. Andelin’s great-niece, Leah, who is in my homeschooling circles. I always laugh out loud a ton when Leah is near. She told me a lot about how the book got started and what it was like to be around “Great Aunt Helen.” She said that G.A. Helen practiced what she preached. She would dress femininely. Even when camping, she would have some dainty feminine touches to her clothes, like pretty sandals. Leah said she used to ask Helen, “What do you do about all these people (feminists who were angry about the book) who write mean and nasty stuff about you?” Helen responded with, “I just feel sorry for them that they will never feel the joy that I am feeling.” That joy is Celestial Love. 

Another interesting aside: Mrs. Andelin wrote a sequel to the book, called The Fascinating Girl. I actually read that book when I was 17 or 18 and I thought it was cheesy and rather unrealistic for the modern feminist world. Maybe if I had applied the principles, I would have had more fun with guys, in a wholesome way, in high school. That’s when I thought they were all silly and immature. Then in college, at least the first year, I was just not interested in guys. I really didn’t know anything about flirting and looking back, I feel like I missed out! I found a copy of FG at the same thrift store and gave it to my daughter when she was 16 or so. She has devoured it! She took it with her to college, and she has actually applied the principles and has had no problem getting dates. So apparently it is not unrealistic advice for a single girl in this post modern world. She loves knowing these “secrets” and has been sharing them with her roommates.

Some people have created a documentary about Mrs. Andelin, which you can get the details about here. For $22 you can get viewing rights to see it on youtube.com. Sounds fascinating, ha-ha! Here is more about Leah shared with me and other tidbits I found from researching the book.

I am giving away the copy of the Fascinating Womanhood book, copyright 1963, that I picked up at the thrift store. Please comment below if you are interested in entering for a chance of winning the random drawing. I will announce the winner on Monday March 9, 2015.

Last fall, I was sitting by my accident-prone child at the physical therapist’s office. This is the son who loves taking physical risks and lives for body slams in football. This is the son who thinks that skiing is for wimps and that the only worthy snow sport is snowboarding. Oh, and did I mention, this is the son who in utero was so active that I could hardly sit still during the last two months because of his constant gyrations. During my labor for his birth, he was so eager to come out that the contractions came back to back. Thank goodness I was at home for his birth. I could do whatever I wanted to deal with them during labor. I vividly remember getting on all fours in my living room, singing hymns in a very low guttural voice (I’m sure nobody could tell I was actually singing hymns) while I spread all my limbs outwards and sank into the floor. Eventually I got into a birthing tub and gave birth to him.  He was a bouncing baby boy at 9 lbs. plus and he hasn’t stopped bouncing since. My husband and I have been to the doctor’s office more often for his injured body than all of the other six children combined.

Anyway, while said son was getting treatments, a fellow patient who was sitting nearby at the physical therapist’s office mentioned to another fellow patient that he had recently attended  a center on Temple Square that involved iPads, stations, family history, and the youth group from his ward (neighborhood congregation). I was totally intrigued by his description. He said that each youth was given an iPad to use for the activity. Then they went from station to station, docking the iPad on a stand, and then they would instantly see totally interesting family history stuff on the screen, like what their name means, how many people share their first and last names in the U.S., or the different migration patterns of their ancestors. Ever since this news I have been Googling on and off to find out more about this and how I could experience it.

The marvelous news is that my wait is over! Dennis Brimhall announced at Roots Tech 2015 that the Familysearch Discovery Center is open. I am thinking that perhaps the youth group I heard about was part of the beta testing? I was so excited to hear that it is officially open to the public. You can bet that as soon as I could, I hotfooted it over there to try it out. I used a date with my husband as an excuse to get there. I have to say, it was a perfect date night. It was free, fun, and we learned a little more about each other, in terms of each other’s family history. What more can you ask?

You get to do different stations involving the following:

• see how many people in America have your first and last names

• see what your ancestry ethnicity is (I am 37% U.S. American, 33% Scandinavian, 29% English, and 1% German, at least for my 8 generations back)

• see what you would look like if you wore traditional costumes of my ancestors countries, or other nonancestral countries

(I don’t know why it says 32% Scandinavian when in the other picture if you add up the Sweden and Denmark percentages it comes to 33%)

• create a digital recording of an interview with a virtual interviewer

• see what was going on the year you were born

• see photos of your ancestors (as long as their pictures are in Familysearch) and see where your ancestors lived on a map of the world, back to eight generations. Mine generally lived in the western U.S., New England, Canada, England, Denmark and Sweden. We were surprised to discover that one of my dh’s ancestors was born on the island of St. Helena. I got to read a story about one of my ancestors who, while in Winter Quarters, loaned his team of oxen to another pioneer family so they could cross the plains to Utah, with the promise that the father of the family would bring the oxen back. He never did, so my ancestor’s family prayed and prayed, asking God to give them a new set of oxen. Guess what? They woke up one morning, and they found a team of oxen and a wagon in front of their house! God provided for them! They made the trek to Utah and lived happily ever after. 

There were some stations I didn’t get to because I spent so much time on the map of migration station, because I wanted to read the stories. The stories are on familysearch.org so I can read the rest there. I am going back to the Familysearch Discovery Center and taking my kids! I highly recommend everyone going! I love seeing all of this amazing technology! This is what technology is for, to bind families together! The Center even emails you all the information that you see on the screens at each station so you can have your own copy when you get home. 

Here are some tips for going:

• Make reservations if your group is more than 2 or 3 people. Their capacity is 24 people at a time. If your group is only 2 or 3, you can probably just walk in. We went on a Friday night and it was not crowded. Go here to make reservations, just scroll down to the bottom of the page to do so.

• Bring a USB drive if you want to record the interview from one of the stations

• Know what your Familysearch login credentials are, or what your LDS church membership number is so you can create a Familysearch account when you get there, or better yet, beforehand. (Just remember what the credentials are or write them down to bring with you). You log in to the iPad with those credentials and then it pulls all your data from whatever you have on Familysearch

• Give yourself at least two hours, even if there’s just two of you. We arrived at 7 and when we left at closing (ten minutes to 9) I still had not completed all of the stations.

So what are you waiting for, go meet your ancestors! If you can’t go there in person, check the info about your family at familysearch.org.

My friend Katie and I are each presenting a webinar this week on homeschooling. If you feel like homeschooling isn’t working for you, or you feel disillusioned by it, or you want to know of how to make it more fun, godly-based (Judeo-Christian tradition) organic, and not a chore to “get through,” I hope you will join us!

We did these webinars in the past few weeks on a join.me platform and miss the video conferencing aspect of Zoom, where we can see people face to face. So, for this last week of February, we going to do them on Zoom. The only drawback is that the Zoom meeting rooms are limited to 25 people. So first come, first served. We will record them though and put them on our respective blogs so if you don’t get in, you can watch it later.

So here are the updated details:

Coming to a Place of Healing and Wholeness through the Hebrew Way

by Katie Hansen

Tues. Feb. 24 2015

2 PM MT

3 PM CT

4 PM ET

1 PM PT

If you want to get the back story of these two presentations, please go here. 

After seeing and hearing Shannon Hale a few weeks ago, where I heard her talk about the above book, I decided it would be perfect for my 9 yog. I got Princess Academy, also by Shannon, in anticipation of the event and gave it to her. She read it, and she said it was OK. Just OK? I loved that book! Maybe it was a bit over her head. So I decided that the Storybook of Legends, would appeal to her more. Shannon said that the character Maddie in this book is her favorite of all the characters she has created, because she can hear the narrator. So far we are loving it. It is the story of the daughters of Snow White and the Evil Queen, who are destined to live out their mother’s stories. Delightful!

I love, love, love picture books that tell historical events. The above book is the real story of Henry Knox, the amazing guy who got cannons from Fort Ticonderoga in the dead of winter to help George Washington beat the troops in Boston, so they would retreat.  A wonderful story! 5 out of 5 stars.

This is another great picture book that tells a true story from history. I have been fascinated by Tesla for a while when I heard that he was the pioneer of wireless communication. I was saddened to learn from this book that Edison treated Tesla quite rudely. It’s probably because of Edison that we haven’t heard much about Tesla, because Edison campaigned against Tesla’s idea of using AC as an everyday form of electricity. It’s too bad that not more Americans know about Tesla, he was a genius. I was inspired by Tesla’s driving vision to keep him working hard and not give up. I read this to the boys at our homeschool boys club and they enjoyed it. I did too! 5 out of 5 stars.

Another great picture book about a real person. I love finding books in the oversized collection in the children’s non-fiction section of my public library. I had never heard about Helen Keller’s dog so this was fun to read about. 5 out of 5 stars.

I read SFR to my older kids. I remember many a night sitting in the hallway between their bedrooms reading it aloud. Now I am reading it to the littles (ages 10, 9, and 5). I had forgotten about the unreal and unlikely descriptions and situations the family gets into, which make me roll my eyes. But at that same that’s what makes the book fun! This time around I found out that the author, Johann Wyss, was a minister. He wanted to delight his children with a tale involving their family living the Robinson Crusoe story, because his boys loved that story so much. The author’s son, a librarian, helped him write it. No wonder it has so much detail! Only a librarian could be so thorough in descriptions of the flora and fauna of a faraway place. Sometimes I wish some of the wordiness was cut out to make it a better read aloud. I just may cut the wordy parts out myself. I do like all the references to God and His providence. 

My way of “stealthy homeschooling” is to use all the Story of the World books at once. I finally have all four volumes now, both the books, and books on CD, and almost all of the activity books. We listen to the CDs while they are doing dishes, whatever ones they want, yes even if they are listening “out of order.” They love them! The 9 and 10 year olds know a lot more about world history than I ever did at that age because of these CDs. Then over mealtime, I use the review questions in the corresponding book (pictured below) to test their retention. We sometimes listen in the car as well.Teaching and learning history was never so painless!  

I am in the middle of Emotional Intelligence, something I am reading as a mom to improve my mentoring and mothering abilities. In other words, I am not reading it to the kids. I found the whole thing as an audiobook on Youtube, so that is helping me “get through it.” I never realized before how majorly important emotions are, and that being aware of my emotions, and teaching my kids to be aware of theirs, really is more important than IQ.

I love this picture book about a righteous father of an Amish family who leads out his family in returning good for evil. I read it to the boys in my boys’ club and the “turn the other cheek” concept in the story made Jesus’ teaching really come alive for them. We had a great discussion about when it’s right to fight back and when it’s OK to turn the other cheek. One of the boys has parents who are probably NRA members, based on the bumper stickers I see on their car every week, so the wheels were definitely turning in his head as we talked. 5 out of 5 stars!

I love the story of William Tell. The relationship that he and his son have is so beautiful The father is confident he will not hurt him, and the son completely trusts the father not to hurt him. Another great read aloud! 5 out of 5 stars!

This is me with my dear circle of friends that started in the mid 1990s, when my two oldest kids were babies. Our group is called Veggie Gals and we have the best food and conversations while our kids play.

It’s time for another session of Mothers Who Know! 

Mothers Who Know

A Book of Mormon-based Addiction Prevention Mentoring Course for LDS Moms

over the phone and online in a Zoom classroom

(you can use the phone or the Internet to participate)

Friday afternoons

classes are recorded

March 20 to May 8 2015

1 to 3 PM MT

12 noon to 2 PM PT

2 to 4 PM CT

3 to 5 PM ET

for LDS Mothers Who Want to Mentor their Families to Be Addiction Proof

The Book of Mormon-based principles used in this course, when applied, will help any mother to minimize self-betrayal tendencies, so she can succeed at daily habits and goals. She can also then mentor her children to be self-disciplined, which is necessary for staying away from addictions. The Book of Mormon, as Pres. Benson said, was written for our day, for so many reasons. I am convinced that one reason was to teach us how to fight battles against satan, not just physical battles, but the battles he starts in our heads.

Cost is $199

That is $149 for the tuition and $50 for the materials kit (includes Like Dragons Did They Fight book, link to Maurice Harker’s recordings, DVD, and Girl Power Journal).

If you register by Friday March 6 midnight MT you can get the early bird price of only $99!

Please go over here to get all of the details so you can register!

If you would like to enter for a chance to win a free registration (free tuition, you still pay for materials), please comment below and tell me why you would like to win. A random drawing will take place on Wed. March 4 around 7 PM MT.

Here is a testimonial from a mom who took the class last summer:

“This note will be hugely inadequate to express my gratitude for your Mothers Who Know Class, yet it will have to suffice. Your class has changed my life because I have learned to recognize in myself the process that happens before I succumb to temptation. And if can identify what happens before I sin, then I can take action before I ‘lose control’ and win my battles against the prince of darkness, this is invaluable! You can’t put a price on that! And not only that, it will be something I can teach to my children which will affect them eternally as well. This class will give them tools to combat satan and prevent heart-wrenching addiction. This class has been eternally impactful for good! Thank you so much!

God bless you!

With love,

L.N.”

mom from Oregon