Who watched the Relative Race Season 10 premiere last week? It was wonderful! Go here to watch it, then watch the debrief below. Episode 2 was today!
I watch this show every Sunday (reruns in the middle of the day) and work on a puzzle after our church meetings. I love it so much! You can watch a debrief of last week’s episode, Episode 1, in the video below. Thanks to Cheri Hudson Passey for creating these debriefs of each episode.
I firmly believe in angels, because I have felt their power. I can’t prove that they exist, but I ardently believe that they are real. My core book says that “Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost, wherefore they speak the words of Christ.” (2 Nephi 32:2)
So this tells us two things. It tells us how they speak to us and what they speak to us. Whenever you feel the whispering of the Holy Ghost, it could be that an angel is on the other side, using the instrument of the power of the Holy Ghost to deliver a message to you. That’s the how. And what do they speak? They speak the words that Christ would speak to us if He were with us. These are words to comfort, direct, warn, and save us.
Angels exist on both sides of the veil. They can be spirits who have died or spirits yet unborn. They also exist on the earthly side of the veil, as they can be mortal beings who speak to us and help us with gifts or acts of service after being prompted by the Holy Ghost.
I have had many instances where I believe that angels whispered by the power of the Holy Ghost to people around me to say the words that Christ would say to me if He were right by me. Or people have been prompted by the Holy Ghost to give resources to me or do acts of service for me. These angels have done for me what I couldn’t do for myself. I have been richly blessed!
Here are some true stories that have happened to me that I believe have involved angels.
2. During my years of financial struggle when I was a younger mom with a lot more children at home, it was October. I was in the midst of feeling frustrated that we had a lot more month left when the money ran out. I also desired a bigger home, but there was no way we could afford to move into one. My husband had lost a contract at work that reduced our income by two-thirds. A man in my church congregation came up to me and asked me to help him with a project. He said he was hosting a self-improvement seminar. He needed someone to speak about nutrition for an hour at the seminar. He told me he would pay me $500 if I would do it. I had never spoken to this man. How did he know that nutrition is one of my passions? By angels speaking to him by the power of the Holy Ghost. He even told me that the Holy Spirit told him to ask me. This cash paid in large part for our Christmas gifts that year. I was so grateful to him!
3. Just last week, on Thursday, I went to the natural foods store to buy raw milk. Lately it has gone out of stock on the two days a week that it is delivered to the store, Monday and Thursday. More and more people are getting the great news about raw milk! Hooray! That means, however, that it’s harder to get it, at least at this store, until they get more cows supplying the milk. Before I left to get the raw milk, I had been sitting on the couch, reading aloud a picture book to my son for our homeschooling. I was in my clothes that double as pajamas but are nice enough for me to wear outside the house. I didn’t even have a bra on. All of a sudden, in the middle of reading the picture book, I felt the Spirit whisper to me to call the store to see if the milk had been delivered. The employee said yes, just 10 minutes ago. She suggested I come right away to get some or it would be gone soon. So I left after running a brush through my hair, without even putting a bra or makeup on. (Ugh! I hate that feeling, I just feel so not put together without a bra.) Anyway, I got to the store within 15 minutes of the phone call, and sure enough, the milk was all gone. I stood there staring at the milk’s refrigerator case thinking that if I stared long enough maybe I would notice some milk appear in a corner. I finally decided it was time to go, without any milk. As I was walking to the door, a young cute mom with her little boy in tow saw me. She instantly offered me one of the jugs of milk she was holding as she stood in line to pay for it. I thanked her profusely for her generosity and gratefully received the milk. I believe an angel whispered to her to look over and see me, then prompted her to offer some to me. I believe an angel whispered to me when I was sitting on the couch, to call the store. Then an angel whispered to me to prompt me to leave without even putting a bra on. If I had done that, I would have been delayed about 5 minutes and then the mom probably wouldn’t have noticed me. I would have had to wait another week to get the milk since I can’t go on Mondays.
4. The same day that I got the raw milk, a Thursday, I couldn’t find my debit card. I had gone to bed the night before not knowing where it was, wondering if I should call my bank to report it lost. I had last seen it at Costco when I bought gas the day before, Wednesday. I had called Costco and another store to see if if had been turned in, and no luck. I had also looked through my purse twice with no result. When I woke up, I prayed and asked God about calling in to report it lost. I felt the answer was no. I asked my husband if he thought I should call the bank to report it lost. He said no as well. He asked me to look through my purse again thoroughly. So I did, and this time, I took everything out. If you are a mom like me you dread doing this because you know it’s going to take at least an hour as you have to decide what receipts to throw away and what to keep and what else to throw away and what else to keep. Then I have to vacuum out the whole thing because I find lots of lint and crumbs. Ugh. Well, I had just gone through the whole dreaded process, including vacuuming, with no card showing up. I was putting everything away, including some cards for a political organization that I keep to promote it. As I was pulling the cards apart I noticed my debit card was in between the cards. Success! I felt as happy as the woman in the Bible who finds the lost coin! Once it was lost, and now it is found!
I invite you to notice the times in your life when it’s more than a coincidence that people come along your way to help you with their words, gifts, or acts of service to bless your life. Angels could very well be behind those actions. As you do more things to invite light into your life, you will invite more angels to help you. That’s not to say that when bad things happen, it’s because you didn’t have angels helping you. It could be that angels are still right there, mitigating the effects. Perhaps conditions could be worse if the angels weren’t there.
What are the things that invite angels into our life? Seeking out the good, the true, and the beautiful both in what we consume (media) and what we produce. Being kind. Loving and serving others. Standing as a witness for Jesus Christ and doing what He would do.
I’d love to hear any true stories you have that show angels could possibly be involved. Please comment below if you care to share.
After homeschooling for over 25 years, I am sharing the best system for how to homeschool children 3-12 years old. By “best” system, I mean the most versatile system that is adaptable by almost anyone, for less stress and more fun. Oh, how I miss this season of homeschooling! My “baby” (youngest of 7 kiddos) is now 13 so I officially don’t have anyone in this stage anymore. Sob! At least I can keep interacting with young children at my weekly homeschool co-operative meetup, and with my grandchildren, when they visit from out of state.
I learned precisely how to implement this wonderful system after I had been homeschooling for over 14 years. If I had done this from the start it would have made homeschooling a lot more fun and easier to boot.
May I introduce to you..(drumroll, please!)…
the Spark Station System! Otherwise known as “The Closet” in TJEd/ Leadership Education circles.
First of all, it’s important to know that The Spark Station is best used in a home that is based on the Thomas Jefferson Education Philosophy (TJEd). These books pictured below elaborate the TJEd Philosophy in detail. A basic overview is here. A one sentence summary of TJEd is that it honors the child as an individual genius with educational needs that change as the child goes through natural seasons of learning. I explain what the seasons of learning are over here.
So basically, in a TJEd home, the parents are focused on teaching children ages 0-8 the difference between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, and good and bad through work and play, mostly at home, with lots of love, according to Oliver DeMille. Then during ages 8-12 parents focus on fostering a love of learning in the children. These two phases prepare children with a solid foundation to build intense academic work on during the teen and 20s years.
The Spark Station is the name Mary Ann Johnson gave to “The Closet” which is Ingredient #20 in the list of ingredients to make a successful TJEd homeschool, as outlined in Chapter 4, pages 108-109 of the Leadership Education: Phases of Learning book by Oliver and Rachel DeMille, pictured above.
What is the Closet or Spark Station? It’s anywhere that you keep a collection of learning materials, to be used during your family’s structured learning time, or dedicated “school time.” In the Phases of Learning book this time is called “kidschool” (Ingredient #4, p. 70) The Spark Station can be a closet, but it doesn’t have to be.
It can be a suitcase, a set of drawers, a set of shelves, a trunk, a chest, a plastic bin, or even a cardboard box. It’s ideally a closet that you can lock up when not in use, but if you don’t have a closet to dedicate to this, use one of the other options I just named. If shelves, they can be shelves that are too high for the children to reach. If it’s a box, bin or suitcase, it doesn’t come out unless you, the mom, gets it out.
To repeat, the #1 rule is that you only let it be used during your family’s “school time.” All other times, it is locked up or put away. So if all you have is a cardboard box, you might have to put it behind locked doors, even if that means putting it in your car or garage. Or in the case of shelves, the shelves are high enough that the kiddos can’t access them without your help. So if the children want to use the Spark Station when it’s not school, you just kindly let them know that they have to wait until school the next day. This, plus adherence to the rule that you rotate the items according to your children’s sparks of interests, keeps interest and anticipation high, so that your kids beg for school time.
What do you put in the Spark Station? Anything your children have a spark of interest in using or learning more about, within reason of course.
Suggested items for the Spark Station are the following:
The next three sets of images below, from readaloudrevival.com, show quiet activities that can be done while you read aloud a book you get from the closet, to your children.
The sky is the limit! I had soooo much fun playing with my kids with our Spark Station. Moon dough with little molds to make replicas of fruit? Yes! Magnetic pattern blocks with designs to make animals and vehicles? Yes! Lacing cards? Yes! A mini sandbox with a bulldozer and tools? Yes! I even put cap guns and ammo in my closet along with library books about the history of guns for my little boys.
The next important thing, after having certain times when it’s available, is to put things in there that you suspect will spark your child’s interests. So it’s important to observe what they like to do, scout out materials that go along with the interests and stock the closet. You don’t have to be fancy. Even a picture book about amphibians from the public library will do if they are asking questions about such creatures. You don’t have to find a frog to dissect it with a scalpel, but if you want to, by all means, go for it! It’s also OK to put things in there that you want to help your children master, like phonics games (I highly recommend Diane Hopkins’ Happy Phonics kit) and math materials, even if they aren’t begging for such things. (It is OK to have daily math and phonics lessons if they are developmentally ready at this age, another post for another day.)
The supremely important thing is to be present. Be there with them when they use the materials. Show them how to use the adult tools (things like the compass, microscope, binoculars, etc.) if they ask questions. Let them experiment with the materials and don’t rush in to “help” unless they ask. Take note of what sparks interests, and change out weekly, taking things out that aren’t being used. Yes, that means you have to find a separate space that is your homeschool storage place, but it will be worth it.
You can get all the rules for using the Spark Station over here. Mary Ann Johnson has created 5 rules for the Spark Station. I’ve covered some of them here but you will want to check out her resources to get all the rules. Scroll down to the bottom of the PDF and you will see all the rules. Watch the video below to get an intro and use all the materials in the PDF too, and you will be having one happy homeschool time!
If you think the closet is a new idea, I have news for you. It’s not. Louisa May Alcott shows her characters using it in her book Little Men, illustrating what Jo did with the “little men” on Sunday afternoons. In the italicized quote below, just substitute the words “homeschool time” for “Sunday,” and “conveyor belt education” for “common study and play,” and “conveyor belt school” for “school.” Then you will have a perfect vision of the results of homeschooling using the Closet/Spark Station.
“This is my Sunday closet,” she said, showing him shelves filled with picture-books, paint-boxes, architectural blocks, little diaries, and materials for letter-writing. “I want my boys to love Sunday, to find it a peaceful, pleasant day, when they can rest from common study and play, yet enjoy quiet pleasures, and learn, in simple ways, lessons more important than any taught in school. Do you understand me?” she asked, watching Nat’s attentive face.
“You mean to be good?” he said, after hesitating a minute.
“Yes; to be good, and to love to be good. It is hard work sometimes, I know very well; but we all help one another, and so we get on. This is one of the ways in which I try to help my boys…”(Little Men, Chapter 4 “Sundays.”)
Now, if you want to keep reading, I will tell you all the mistakes I made with the Closet/Spark Station early on before I learned the rules for using it.
#1. I didn’t have a dedicated space with boundaries to close off the materials. When I first started homeschooling I lived in my in-laws’ home while they were away serving missions for our church. All the closets of this home still stored my mother-in-law’s stuff. So I didn’t have a spare closet to store my educational materials, and I didn’t want to pack up her stuff to replace with my stuff. I ended up putting all my educational materials in plastic crates that I had arranged on the long table in the informal dining room. We ate at the kitchen island bar and didn’t use the table for meals, so that seemed to work OK. The result from this mistake, however, is that the kids saw the stuff all the time and didn’t ever get wowed and didn’t really engage when it was school time.
#2. I had all the educational materials I owned in the closet all at once. When we moved from my in-laws’ to our own home, I finally got a closet where I could stash all my homeschool stuff and close a door on it all. No more open crates on the dining room table! But…the same result came as with Mistake #1. The kids had access all the time and got bored of it.
#3. I didn’t lock it. Same result as above.
#3. I never rotated out the materials. Same result as above.
#4. I never took notice of their sparks. I put in stuff that only I thought was interesting. Same result as above.
Are you seeing a pattern? So when I heard Mary Ann speak at homeschool conference AND applied the rules, things changed. By this time, the three oldest kids were scholars so they didn’t get to benefit from my new-found knowledge. Oh well. The four youngest have never been to Disney World, like the older ones have, and I am not as strict about food with the youngers as I was with the olders, so I guess it all evens out, :-). Anyway, I started changing stuff out.
I locked the closet. I opened it every day during dedicated school time, which was usually 10 AM to 12 noon. I added new stuff often. I was present with them as they used it. Then I started hearing the words every homeschool mom wants to hear, “OK, well, we just better have school tomorrow!” My then-10-year-old-boy actually said that as I was locking the closet up so we could go have lunch. Those days were truly magical!
What about if you have a baby that you don’t want “getting into everything.” I finally learned with my last baby, that if I woke him up when we had family scripture study, early at 6 AM, the baby would be ready for a nap just when I wanted to start our Spark Station time, at 10 AM, after breakfast dishes were done. That was a game-changer for sure. If the baby stays awake, such is life. Just remember, as Diane Hopkins wrote, that the baby IS the lesson.
Happy homeschooling with the Spark Station! This is definitely a HUGE way to foster of love of learning in children. It works and it’s so much fun!
We are exploring Isaiah in the Come, Follow Me study guide for September. So awesome! If you are like me, you know that Isaiah is HUGELY important, as Jesus said to search his words, “for great are the words of Isaiah” (3 Nephi 23:1). But, and this a big BUT, you struggle to understand him because of his heavy hand with poetry and other literary symbolism. At almost every verse, if you are like me, you are wondering, “What the heck is going on here? I have no clue!!!!”
It helps to understand that the Bible uses symbolic names for Jesus. See above. Isaiah follows this symbolic pattern and uses symbolic names for a tyrant and a servant. See below. The tyrant is the bad guy and the servant is the good guy.
I appreciate all the abundant resources out there to understand Isaiah. They all have their place. So far, the best resource I have discovered for clearly getting Isaiah is the videos from Rhonda and Farrell Pickering over here at propheticappointments.com.
First, start with this video below that gives an overview of Isaiah 1-12, which is what we covered in Come Follow Me last week. This video also gives the Bifid Structure, to give you an overview for the whole book of Isaiah. A bifid is a leaf structure that Isaiah’s book resembles.
You can download a colorful handout of the Bifid structure here (click on “can I download the handout from the Isaiah workshop?”) Thanks to Rhonda and Farrell for all these great resources, and for the pioneering work of the supreme Isaiah scholar, Avraham Gileadi, the Pickerings’ mentor.
Then I recommend you dive deep with all the Isaiah videos, under the tab “Classes” over here at propheticappointments.com. For some reason they are listed backwards, with Class 1.1 B over here. I don’t know why there’s not a 1.1 A. The visual below shows a summary of Isaiah 1-12. Happy studying of Isaiah everyone!
I know a lot of families have been back in school for weeks, but over here, we are trickling into it, thank goodness. Our homeshool co-operative starts next week. I’m so grateful the board members of the co-op agree with me that the proper time to start school is after Labor Day. I’m holding onto summer as long as possible, just because I know that before I know it I will be pining for warm weather in the doldrums of winter. We got to have a cabin retreat last weekend with my parents that helped me somewhat emotionally close out summer and move into fall, despite the continued heat wave we are in that still feels like July. My baby will be taking classes all of his older siblings have taken, the two LEMI Scholar Project classes of Key of Liberty and Shakespeare Conquest. I’m excited to see how he engages with the projects. I love new school years with all the hope and anticipation of what will unfold! To celebrate the new school year, I’m using the resources above and below. They are fun, free resources from Jennifer Flanders over at flandersfamily.info to celebrate back to school time. First, check out the banner above. Then below are some fun prompts to get dinner conversation flowing about school days, especially for your kiddos to hear from their relatives and friends. Go here to download. Thanks to Jennifer Flanders for creating these resources. I’m going to put these under people’s plates for Sunday dinner this weekend when Grandma joins us. Then I will record her answers and upload them into FamilySearch.
If you want more conversation starters, go here.
I got to meet Andrew Pudewa 16 years ago in person at a homeschool conference. I had several conversations with him that day and found him totally delightful. If you homeschool, you will want to absorb his decades of wisdom he has gleaned as a homeschooling dad, former Suzuki instructor, and guru of teaching language arts to children. His company, Institute of Excellence In Writing, can be found here.
In this podcast episode from readaloudrevival.com, he and Sarah Mackenzie answer “The 10 Best Questions We’ve Been Asked.” It is recorded from a session they did at a Great Homeschool Conference. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope you do too. You can listen to it here.
And…if you want to binge watch more of Andrew and Sarah, just go below.
Here is the very first podcast episode Sarah and Andrew did together, which also happened to be Sarah’s first ever podcast episode, over here. Then here is Episode #89, where she welcomed Andrew back.
I have a friend who, over this past spring and summer, experienced heartbreak because her 18-year-old daughter moved out and away and refused to keep in contact with her. The daughter had told her mom not to talk to her about religion. She also said that she didn’t want to go to the college close by, but she would be moving out to attend a college that was further away and cost more. The mom missed her daughter terribly and worried about her. She wondered how she was paying her bills and surviving physically and spiritually. Anytime she reached out to her daughter, the daughter wouldn’t reply. So my friend, the mom, started praying that someone would cross their path, either the mom’s path or the daughter’s, to help the situation somehow.
After months of praying, the blessing came! My friend was at a public building in a small town, miles away from her hometown. Who should walk in but someone in a leadership position associated with this college where the daughter was attending. This person talked to my friend and found out her daughter was going to college there. This person offered to reach out to the daughter and help her find a job. My friend said that after she told her daughter about this person and the offer to find a job, her daughter started talking to her again. Now they communicate back and forth often. My friend bore testimony to me that God indeed loves us and watches over us. He answers our prayers. He sends people to cross our paths to help us. I know this is true too as I have experienced it as well. Praise God for these tender mercies!
To quote President Spencer W. Kimball:
“The Lord does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other. The righteous life is achieved as we magnify our view of life, and expand our view of others and of our own possibilities. Thus, the more we follow the teachings of the Master, the more enlarged our perspective becomes. We see many more possibilities for service than we would have seen without this magnification. There is great security in spirituality, and we cannot have spirituality without service!” (source)
Before I explain how to play Gospel Wits and Wagers, I just want to share something so wonderful. This week I felt an amazing blessing come into my life. It had been almost a year since we had an appliance break down. I was reveling in our good fortune when, what do you know, the washing machine broke. Ugh. So I called and made an appointment for a repairman to come. The soonest that his schedule meshed with an opening with my schedule was Wednesday next week. Double ugh.
On Saturday last week I had just finished writing out my schedule, with all these grand plans to sunbathe and then run errands in the afternoon. (I sunbathe for heliotherapy, which I explain here.) Then the Holy Spirit whispered to me, reminding me that several days prior I had made an appointment to go to the temple on Saturday afternoon. Even though I had to change my plans, I decided the temple was more important than my errands. I also realized that if we were to have clean clothes, I needed to go use my ministering sister’s washing machine. I had just enough time to run over there to start a load, come back and eat, and then change clothes to go to the temple.
The temple visit was so wonderful. There’s a temple worker there who interacted with me. She just oozed unconditional love. I interacted with her last week as well. That’s when I first noticed this unconditional love. I was happy to see her again and feel this incredible love again. When I was done visiting the temple, I went to my car to come home. I noticed two text messages on my phone that had come in while I was inside the temple. One was from the appliance repair business. One was from my husband.
The message from the appliance repair business: “Our repair technician was involved in a four wheeling accident today. We don’t know yet how serious his condition is. We are cancelling all his appointments for next week. We are sorry for the inconvenience.”
The message from my husband: “The washing machine works now. I don’t know why. I didn’t touch it. It just started working. We are using it now.”
Wow! Before I even had time to stress about the canceled repair appointment, I found out I didn’t have to stress. Of course I can’t explain why this happened. I can’t prove why it happened. I believe, however, it was a result of my sacrifice to do temple work. I believe angels on the other side were rejoicing in the work I did for them and somehow influenced the washing machine to work again.
I love doing family history research work and temple work. The blessings are innumerable. I feel the blessings come temporally and spiritually, as so beautifully elaborated in my absolute favorite story about temple and family history work told here by Sister Kim Crenshaw Sorenson, told here.
OK, on to how to play Gospel Wits and Wagers.
First go here to read what I wrote on how to play Book of Mormon Wits and Wagers.
Now that you’ve read that, just expand the questions you use to include other gospel-based questions. Just remember to always have the answer be a number, either a quantity or a year.
The photos I’ve included in this post are pictures of pages I found from the Ensign and Liahona magazines that show facts and figures about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in different areas of the world. Use these questions for a Gospel Wits and Wagers Games. You can also turn to the magazines online or other places to find more facts and figures. We played this game today for a Sunday gameschooling round with my mother-in-law, husband, children left at home, and my married son and daughter-in-law. It’s so interesting to learn about the kingdom of God building up around the globe.
Other Sunday gameschooling games can be found here. Enjoy! May your Sabbath Day be even more of a delight with Sunday School-based games!
I was reading through the scriptures this past week and noticed a phrase I’ve never noticed before. It’s in 2 Nephi 1:9. It says that Lehi obtained a promise from the Lord that “as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves.”
I’ve read that phrase lots but I never really let it sink into me. I’ve always focused on the actual promise, which is amazing. This time around though, I noticed how cool it is that Lehi even obtained a promise. “Obtained a promise from the Lord.” I’m thinking a lot about that these days. I’m wondering the following:
“Can anybody obtain a promise from the Lord?”
“How does one obtain a promise from the Lord?”
The simple answers are yes, in the form of baptismal and temple covenants. Covenants are two-way promises, and in gospel terms, they are promises with the Lord. The promises from God, in these covenants, are available to anyone who is worthy. What about beyond that? Do we just walk around and do our daily tasks and then one day, we feel the Holy Spirit tell us the Lord is promising us something that is individualized to us, and then we can say we obtained a promise of the Lord? Or does a “promise from the Lord” come after much seeking for it? Yes I think so. I believe obtaining a promise from the Lord is not a random thing. I believe it is something that people seek out and ask God for.
On rare occasions though, sometimes the Lord reaches out and gives people promises that they didn’t seek out. For example, I have a vague memory of a story of a woman, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who lived in Australia. She had been visiting the US. On the day she left the US, she was given a promise by the Lord that she would meet the man who would be her husband when she went back to Australia. So she went back to Australia with that hope. She started law school. On the first day of law school, she met this man who would later become her husband. It was a beautiful fulfillment of a promise she obtained from the Lord. Now that I think about it though, she received a promise of the Lord. Maybe obtaining a promise of the Lord means you wrestle for it, which means you seek it out.
I do know that the Lord has told us in the Book of Mormon to seek out every good gift. I think that includes promises. We are given many promises in the scriptures that are there for the taking, or “obtaining” if we just receive them.
As Elder Larry W. Lawrence reminds us in this talk that I love here, Moroni tells us:
“Remember that every good gift cometh of Christ….Remember that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that all these gifts of which I have spoken, which are spiritual, never will be done away, even as long as the world shall stand, only according to the unbelief of the children of men” (Moroni 10:18-19).
Lots to think about! Promises and gifts. Obtaining and receiving. I’ve seen this book pictured below this past week, and I’m wondering if it might give more illumination about this. I want to get it and read it! The website for it is here.
I had so much fun at my Tree of Life Mama Retreat last weekend!
Here are some free resources from some of the presenters. Some of these were mentioned by presenters in the Retreat and some weren’t. I’ve had great fun rounding up these resources.
The screenshots above and below are from Paola Brown’s video about The Healing Path, which you can watch here. This concept of the Healing Path is so amazing. I want to watch this video with my children at least once every year, just to drive all of it into our brains forever more. It’s so important to learn along with our children that our bodies are designed to heal. Being healthy doesn’t mean never getting sick, it means that our bodies heal when they do get sick. After all, the word “heal” is in the word “health.” This Healing Path diagram from Paola illustrates this truth perfectly.
Tamara Laing mentioned a fascinating book to help with healing, by medical doctor M.K. Strydom. You can download it for free here. It’s called Healing Begins With Sanctification of the Heart.
Tamara also mentioned the book Switch on Your Brain by Dr. Caroline Leaf, which you can read in scribd.com, or listen to the audiobook format. (If you don’t know what scribd is, please read about it here. You can sign up for a free 90 day trial with the link in my post over there. It has so many books to read or listen to, many more than Audible!)
Over here, you can register to watch Angie Law’s Wellness Journey class for free.
From that class you will learn about altered food, vitamins and minerals, and how to build the immune system.
OK, so we talked about health at the retreat. We also talked about homeschooling. Mary Ann Johnson has her whole course about mastering the spark station here. The spark station allows a mom to make her homeschool time with younger children a LOT more fun, meaningful, and sustainable. Watch the video below to get you started on how to capture your children’s sparks. This is the “closet” idea/ingredient that the DeMilles talk about in their book Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning. I used this when my kids were all younger and thoroughly enjoyed those times together.
Check out Mary Ann’s list of recommended books for reading aloud to children here.
(I know it’s not pie season/fall yet, but I noticed this picture of Mary Ann’s fabulous pies over at her site so I just had to add her recipes for perfect apple pie filling and perfect apple pie. They are here. Don’t they look fabulous? Yum! I’d just substitute a whole sweetener for the sugar.)
My devotional ebook is here for free. This is a collection for all 12 months of the year with links to stories, poems, songs and scriptures to go with seasonal and gospel themes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Use this for your family devotionals or gathering times.
My slides in PDF format on gameschooling are here, along with the PDF on how to build a gameschooling collection on a budget.
The recordings should be available by Sept. 1. If you would like to buy access to them, please email me: info (at) treeoflifemothering (dot) com.
Tree of Life Mothering 