I’m super excited that the people at the Dice Tower YouTube Channel just released a video called “Top Ten Games for Every Home.” Guess what made #1 on Tom Vasel’s list? The game featured above, Just One! Just One is one of my favorite games. See my review here! Some of the other games that made the list of the three people who did the Top Ten are:
My game of the week is Just One by Repos. This game is soooo simple, yet soooo fun! We played it with my parents last fall at a family vacation in the mountains. I’ve played it with other different groups too and it’s always a hit. You will enjoy it if you love word games! My parents love word games so I figured they would have a great time with it. They did! Instead of involving spelling words like in Bananagrams (my mom’s favorite game) or Scrabble, Just One involves definitions of words and synonyms.
The components are simple: a stack of cards, a set of different colored dry erase pens (I love that the pens have erasers on the caps! So smart! Then the eraser is always right there and you don’t have to hunt for a tissue or rag or an eraser across the table) and then a set of little easels. The easels double as a holder for the cards as well as a place to write on.
This is a co-operative game. You as a team are trying to get each person, when it’s that person’s turn, to guess a word based on your teammates’ clues in one guess. You choose the word randomly by picking a number from 1-6. The other teammates look at the card, without you looking, and pick the word based on its numbered row on the card. Each teammate gets to write down “just one” word as a clue. If people write down duplicate clues, then those words are cancelled out. Then the guesser has fewer clues to go by. Here is a video that explains more.
It’s just so fun to see what words you can think of that you are guessing other people won’t think of. For example, when we played with my parents, my dad picked the word “series” randomly. I didn’t want to say “baseball” because I figured someone else would say that, as in the world series. So I wrote down “episodes” and my mom wrote down something else, I can’t remember, and my dad took a few minutes but figured it out. It’s just so satisfying when that happens. I love, love this game. I highly recommend it! It’s for ages 8 and up. It’s a great gameschooling game that counts towards building language arts skills. It also builds teamwork and creative thinking.
I am continually amazed by the videos produced by the Latter-day Media YouTube channel, featuring Rhonda and Farrell Pickering. The Pickerings have such beautiful, organized graphics that communicate so much truth from the scriptures. They go into such depth. With unfailing insight, they uncover so much beauty of the symbolism found in the holy words, going into layers of meaning. Here’s the latest video from the Pickerings below.
Below, I have copied and pasted from the YouTube page the questions answered in the video.
Questions This Episode:
1 – 4:50 Will the Gentiles still hear the Lord’s voice the same time as the “other sheep?” 3 Ne. 15:22-23
2 – 10:40 What is significant about how many times Naomi tries to dissuade Ruth from coming with her after they were widowed?
3 – 18:00 Who does Naomi represent symbolically, and who does Oprah represent?
4 – 40:00 What does “Sheol” mean and what did Joseph Smith say in his diary about it?
5 – 44:00 What were the 2 stages of Healing for the blind man?
6 – 51:00 Did the Apostles understand when Jesus foretold his death and resurrection? Why or why not?
7 – 1:30: 18 What place gave Rhonda the creeps in Israel? Why?
8 – 1:48: 00 Who bears the full responsibility traditionally for the tasks which brought about the atonement for Israel ?
Then here is a presentation of a timeline relating to the last days and Easter in two parts. You will learn “what you never knew about the ‘first fruits’ (Easter) and holidays hijacked.” Farrell interprets Daniel 7:3-8. He says the “lion” is Great Britain and the “eagle” is the United States. Not the original US started by the Founding Fathers, but the current, corrupted US gvt. You will also learn why all the prophets wanted to live in our day.
That reminds me of what Elder Neil L. Andersen said. He is an apostle today of the Lord Jesus Christ. I got to hear him just two days ago in person at a special meeting for my area of for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He shared, just like he did at RootsTech years ago, the story of Helaman, son of Nephi. Helaman lamented in Helaman 7:7 that he wished he had lived in a day when the people he preached to had better character. He wished they had been “easy to be entreated” like in the days of his ancestor Nephi. Elder Andersen told us that just like Helaman consigned himself to realize that “these are my days” (Helaman 7:9), we can be grateful that these are our days. We can be grateful for all the wonders of technology of our days. Despite the rising wickedness in the world and the grave spiritual dangers out there, God is providing a way for his righteous people to escape. I definitely felt the Holy Spirit when he said this. Just think, we are living in a day that all the prophets wanted to live in! Here is the talk he gave at RootsTech that I am referring to.
Here is a talk Elder Andersen gave at BYU years ago, below, that has a similar theme to the one I heard this past Sunday. It’s very comforting to know that the Lord is blessing us with compensatory spiritual powers in our days, especially the ease in which we can do family history research and temple work. This power is one of the powers that protects us from evil.
I found some fun items from my last thrifting jaunt including this never-been-used Star Wars Mad Libs book. So I’m adding it to my Morning Basket! If you don’t know what a Morning Basket it is, it’s a place where I keep the materials I use for our morning routine for homeschooling. You can learn more about that here.
Here are the other fun things I got from my thrifting mini-haul:
It’s kind of hard to see the title of the book on the left, because I took the photo hastily and didn’t check it well enough (oops), and now I don’t want to retake it, so I’ll tell it to you. It’s The Curious Boy’s Book of Exploration. Worth the $1.50. The two boxes at the top are two sets of Tabletopics cards like the ones here on Amazon. Each only $1! Score! I’m keeping them by the dining room table to help spark dinnertime conversation. The pack of Little Golden Book Cards I got to use with my class of 6-7 year olds that I teach weekly, and also with my grands when they get older.
I was thrilled to find the Star Wars Mad Libs. Just the night before I had listened to this fun video below by Pam Barnhill. She has some great ideas to enliven up Morning Basket time when it starts to feel stale. I listened to it, thought, yeah, I want to get some Mad Libs like she said. When I was a kid I had so much fun with them. I remember laughing hysterically at some of the results. So I was feeling a lot of fondness for them and had them on my brain. Then voila, the next day, I found them at a thrift store, for only $1, never used! God is in the details of my life, for sure! We used them yesterday and I saw a fleeting smile on my son’s face before he saw me see it and then decided to hide it. My daughter was gone at the time but I can’t wait to use the book with both of them tomorrow.
I’m just popping in to share some some memories from our recent Easter celebration. I’m so grateful that God tempered the weather. Just the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before we had snow all day everyday. It felt like always a Narnian winter, never spring, with 6 inches of snow on the grass and the trees looking picture-perfect for a Christmas greeting card, covered with fluffy whiteness. I prayed that it would all melt in time for an Easter egg hunt and I got a yes answer. Yay!!! It’s a little thing, I know, but I am so grateful. Last year we had too little snow and this year we’ve received more than enough. We’re all ready to be done with winter, even my snow-loving 13-year-old.
The above image is from the cover of a little book a friend in my neighborhood dropped by with some Easter treats. It’s a book by Elder Neil L. Andersen. I love this quote from it:
“His life is the life that gives every person born on earth the gifts that open the doors to everlasting life in the presence of God.”
I didn’t do as much for Easter this year as I sometimes do. My children are past the age where they really enjoy dyeing eggs so we didn’t do that. I’ll probably do it next year with the grands, as my daughter and son-in-law are moving to live close to us this summer. Yaaaayyyy! I finally get to have grandchildren living close by.
I spent a lot of my time of Holy Week listening to YouTube videos about Easter. This one below was my favorite:
Saturday night we went to my friend Katie’s home and had an Easter Singalong. We sang a lot of songs I have collected for Easter. I played the piano and sang with the others. It was so delightful. (See the April section of my Family Devotionals ebook for these songs. Here are my favorites of all of these:
I didn’t set up my Immaneul Wreath until Sunday so we crammed going through all the names of Christ in one night. We read the scripture, lit the candle, and talked about how we see Jesus show up in our life in that role. It was so wonderful to have my recently returned missionary son be there to do it with us. He got to report on his mission that morning at church, which made Easter Sunday extra special. He shared how the grace of Jesus can change all of us. He told the story of a grumpy old man in his mission who was changed by Jesus as he learned of him and got baptized. I am delighted to know that my son spent the last month of his mission memorizing the Living Christ proclamation.
We got to sing this song as part of our Easter Sunday morning church service, “There is No Other Name” by Lynn S. Lund. This song is so beautiful! The song keeps repeating in my mind, “Only He is able, to make men holy…” I definitely felt the Holy Spirit welling up in my heart filling it to overflowing. It is such a movingly, touching, achingly tender song. Tears came to my eyes as I sang. There’s nothing like singing praises to Jesus with a group of people, singing different parts but all in harmony. It is so amazing! I am so grateful that we can meet as a church choir, post-plandemic. I get to have a former professional opera singer as our church choir director. This is so terrific!
I found my Resurrection story eggs that have little tokens in them with scriptures to tell the Easter story. I had forgotten that I have them all in robin’s egg blue color, in a ziploc bag, until I went looking for them. We had an Easter egg hunt for eggs filled with candy and then read the scriptures from the eggs that night, after having a bountiful dinner with my extended family at my sister’s home, 30 minutes away.
It was such a beautiful Easter! The week before, we had a great prelude to Easter, when my missionary son came home, along with two of his brothers. So we get to be with them all for General Conference. It was a great family reunion. We were just missing my daughter and her little family, who had visited two weeks before. Soon we will all be together for my firstborn’s wedding, the end of May. I am so grateful that because of Jesus, we all have something to look forward to. Truly, He is Risen!
Happy Palm Sunday yesterday! I have been watching this Easter-themed video below by Jared Halverson. It is so glorious! Referring to the “awful artihmetic of the atonement,” in a talk by Elder Neal A. Maxwell, a late apostle of Jesus Christ, Brother Halverson gives deeper insights into Easter and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful and thrilled that I decided to listen to it, as Brother Halverson clears up the confusion I’ve had for decades about Mosiah 15, in the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. He lucidly explains what Abinadi means when he starts sounding Trinitarian. Wow, it’s so wonderful to have all that confusion cleared up about Abinadi seeming to say that the Father and the Son being one person.
On top of that confusion being cleared up, this video also has so many other goodies in it. I love that Brother Halverson weaves together art, poetry, an apostle’s witness, and his own thinking to enlighten us. It is soooo, soooo, good!
Here’s a quote from the talk by Elder Maxwell I just referred to:
“Most of our suffering, brothers and sisters, actually comes because of our sins and not because of our nobility. Isn’t it marvelous that Jesus Christ, who did not have to endure that kind of suffering because he was sin-free, nevertheless took upon himself the sins of all of us and experienced an agony so exquisite we cannot comprehend it? I don’t know how many people have lived on the earth for sure, but demographers say between 30 and 67 billion. If you were to collect the agony for your own sins and I for mine, and multiply it by that number, we can only shudder at what the sensitive, divine soul of Jesus must have experienced in taking upon himself the awful arithmetic of the sins of all of us—an act which he did selflessly and voluntarily. If it is also true (in some way we don’t understand) that the cavity which suffering carves into our souls will one day also be the receptacle of joy, how infinitely greater Jesus’ capacity for joy, when he said, after his resurrection, “Behold, my joy is full.” How very, very full, indeed, his joy must have been!”
I’ve included links below the video to the resources he refers to.
Please watch and enjoy and share with your families. Happy Easter!
Here is the talk by Elder Maxwell, called “But for a Small Moment.”
Here is the poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, called Gethsemane. It is so beautiful and true. I just love the last lines:
“All paths that have been, or shall be Pass somewhere through Gethsemane.
All those who journey soon or late, Must pass within the garden’s gate ; Must kneel alone in darkness there, And battle with some fierce despair. God pity those who cannot say : “Not mine, but thine;” who only pray, “Let this cup pass;” and cannot see The purpose in Gethsemane. Gethsemane, Gethsemane, God help us through Gethsemane.”
If you want some Easter-themed stories to share with your family, go to the April section of my Celestial Family Devotionals Ebook. You can get it here.
I’ve loved digging into the meanings of some of the parables of Jesus, the ones found in Matthew 13, in my Bible reading this week. This video below by Rhonda and Farrell Pickering show many deep levels of meaning that I never knew about. I hope you enjoy them!
Here are some questions that relate to Matthew 13 and the video below:
1 – 1:40 Which part of following the geography of Christ’s life and ministry intrigued you the most?
2 – 5:00 Ephesians 2:20 – Where in the Book of Mormon does it corraborate that 12 Apostles are the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ?
3 – 9:20 What is at the core of the Chiasmus in Matt. 13:13-18 that relates to OUR day, and what is happening in our world regarding CLOSING THE EYES?
4- 12:40 Are Birds in the Parable of the seeds by the wayside (Matt. 13) good or not? Who did they represent in Jesus’ day, and who could they represent in our day?
Wow, we’ve had snow since early this morning! I think this past winter makes up for the past five year’s lack of snow in Utah Valley. So although the calendar says it’s spring, it definitely still feels like winter. This year, it feels like the winters of my childhood, growing up in Utah. I would wait for the bus to go to school and feel the inside of my nose freezing.
It may feel like winter, but in my heart it’s spring because of all the new beginnings going on. I am about to enter a new season of life with my third son. I’m super excited because this son, who has been serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, comes home next week!
He has been telling the good people of Texas the past two years about the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. This book brings a person closer to Christ than any other book.
I love this story about a man who heard about the Book of Mormon on an oil-drilling rig from a co-worker. The co-worker gave him the Book of Mormon to read.
“But he said, ‘Isn’t the Bible enough? We don’t need any more Bible. We have the teachings of Jesus to his people in our Bible.’
“I then explained the principle of fasting and prayer and asked James if he would fast the next day. I told him that he should pray and ponder the questions he had in his heart until he felt he had received an answer.’
“As James retired to his room at the end of the day, he knelt in prayer to ask his Father in Heaven whether or not the Book of Mormon was necessary. He told our Heavenly Father that when he arose from prayer, he would open the Book of Mormon to find his answer. He knew that if it were true and necessary as holy scripture, the answer would come from it.
“When he arose from praying, he opened the Book of Mormon and placed his finger upon a passage. It read:
‘Thou fool, that shall say: A Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible. Have ye obtained a Bible save it were by the Jews?
‘Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth?
‘Wherefore murmur ye, because that ye shall receive more of my word? Know ye not that the testimony of two nations is a witness unto you that I am God, that I remember one nation like unto another? Wherefore, I speak the same words unto one nation like unto another. And when the two nations shall run together the testimony of the two nations shall run together also.’ (2 Ne. 29:6–8.)
“As he read these words, he felt the thrilling warmth of the Holy Ghost. He fell again to his knees to give humble thanks to his Father in Heaven. He then made his way to my room and knocked on the door.”
Read the rest of the story here. You can get a free copy of the Book of Mormon here.
For the next days of March, I’m going to be blogging about the Book of Mormon, in honor of its birthday on March 26th, which is coming up!
An Italian man named Vincenzo di Francesca found a book without a cover and title page on top of a barrel of ashes in an alley of New York City. Already a Christian, as a Protestant minister, he read the book and became even more converted to Jesus Christ because of it. After many years, he found out that the book was the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. The photo above is his hand-written testimony of Jesus Christ and the book.
Here is part of his testimony: He says this is what happened after he prayed to God, asking to know if the Book of Mormon is true:
“I felt my body become cold as the wind from the sea. Then my heart began to palpitate, and a feeling of gladness, as of finding something precious and extraordinary, bore consolation to my soul and left me with a joy that human language cannot find words to describe. I had received the assurance that God had answered my prayer and that the book was of greatest benefit to me and to all who would listen to its words.”
You can watch Vincenzo’s story below or read it here. That link has the paragraph I just copied plus much more. This is such a beautiful story!
Tree of Life Mothering 