Family Joy is Found in Righteousness

If you've read any of my other posts you've most likely discovered that I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I love my church, and the gospel that I have found within its bounds.
One aspect of my church (differentiating from gospel here) that I have come to love is the concept of Home and Visiting teaching.
Each willing adult member of the church is given an assignment to minister to other families in the congregation (we call it a 'ward'). It's an assignment that can be really difficult for some.
It can be hard to go out of your comfort zone and befriend and try to converse with someone you know nothing about.
The first visit is always the hardest to set up. It's not that you dislike the person you've been assigned to visit with, it's just scary to reach out to someone who might say, "Eh, no. Don't come by and I don't like you."
I've been fortunate to cultivate many relationships through Visiting Teaching, and each time I'm nervous about an assignment it always becomes less of an obligation and more of a desire to actually love, serve, and minister to my assignee.
The church puts out a short message each month that we believe is inspired, and we're asked to share the message with our families.

This months message is "Family Joy is Found in Righteousness" and I love it. My favorite quote from the message this month was as follows:

And while our family members can sometimes drift away from righteousness like the Nephites did, Elder Scott said that a Christ-centered home still “provides the greatest assurance for peace and refuge in our homes.” He acknowledged that “there will still be plenty of challenges or heartaches, but even in the midst of turmoil, we can enjoy inner peace and profound happiness.”

I found this to be true in my home growing up. Every family has their struggles and mine was no exception. But as my siblings and I lost sight of our righteous goals, we always felt the peace and refuge that our home provided. My mother always made our home a place where the spirit could dwell, and I think that's why so many of our friends liked to congregate there - unbeknownst to them, what they were feeling was the presence of the Spirit.

I've seen something similar in my own home since starting my own family. My husband is a student and his classmates often choose our home for social events, even when our home may not be the largest or the most accommodating. It could be that it's just easier since we're the only ones with kids that need to be sleeping while we're playing, but I believe there is an additional element there, that others can feel something different when they enter our home.

My second favorite part of the message that I loved was one of the 'Additional Scriptures', 2 Nephi 5:27 says, "And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness." I love that! I hope that as I continue to try my best to live in righteousness that I, like the Nephites, can live after the manner of happiness! My husband actually shared this quote from Elder Jeffery R. Holland on facebook today, and I thought it fit right along with this message:

"If we give our heart to God, if we love the Lord Jesus Christ, if we do the best we can to live the gospel, then tomorrow—and every other day—is ultimately going to be magnificent, even if we don’t always recognize it as such. Why? Because our Heavenly Father wants it to be! He wants to bless us. A rewarding, abundant, and eternal life is the very object of His merciful plan for His children! It is a plan predicated on the truth “that all things work together for good to them that love God.” So keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever." Elder Jeffrey R Holland.

I made up a few printables with my visiting teaching ladies in mind, and thought I'd share them with you if you'd like to share them with your families (and those you teach) too! They are sized at 16x20, but you can easily print them as 8x10s.

Download the Green one here

Download the yellow one here

Download the chalk one here

Rediscovering: My Voice

I have gotten out of the habit of singing in the shower. It's something I stopped doing when I started apartment living back in '09. I've gotten out of the habit of singing and humming around the house, there's always so much other competing noise, I save my sanity by keeping silent. I've become an internalizer with my music - and often the music is gone altogether. I've missed the music that used to press so firmly against my heart, and I was looking for an door to open to allow some to find it's way back. The door was opened this last week.

I was given the opportunity to sing for my congregation.

The hubs accompanied me.

I chose a simple arrangement of Come Thou Fount for a Medium voice. No key changes, just the words at a 70 bpm rate with a few little interludes for the piano to bring the spirit of the song.

My voice is out of shape, I haven't been using it. I've lost over an octave from my range. I was straining on a C above middle and I was embarrassed and nervous for how the song would turn out at a 9:00 am meeting when I often struggle with hymn singing at that time. I was in constant prayer during my practices that the spirit would work through me and allow me to deliver my message: Here by Thy great help I've come. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Here's my heart, o take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.

I finally got the words down Saturday night before the performance, but I never had a practice where I felt like my voice was just taking the music where it needed to go. I felt like I was putting too much effort into everything.

The morning of the performance I woke early and started my water drinking, forced myself to awkwardly sing through my shower, and prodded myself to hum hymns as I made breakfast for my boys and did my hair and makeup.

The hubs and I played through the song twice and I felt confident that I would be able to hit my C's.

Sitting in sacrament meeting my nerves started to get a little jumpy. My stomach was slowly filling with butterflies. Again, constant prayer that all would go as He planned.

As I headed to the podium the nerves came in full force and the shaking began. I tried to keep it under control, not sure where to set my eyes while I was singing. Shawn started up with the accompaniment. It was go time.

All was off to a fine start. I was projecting fine, I hit my first C. I could hear the wavering in my voice but I was keeping it at bay. Then somewhere there in the first verse I hit a wall. I stopped, the tears came. I tried to get them under control and began the measure again. Through my tears.

Each time I would think I had it under control I would crash into another wave of emotion and 'sing' through broken sobs. Here by Thy great help I've come. *Sob*. Jesus sought me when a *sob* stranger. I was drowning in my emotion and love for my Savior and a congregation of  130+ people were watching me struggle through it.

I probably made it through 4 lines combined without sobbing, which was a small fraction of the song, but the spirit kept washing over me and I couldn't escape His touch.

When I was finally shaking safe in my pew, I slowly pulled myself together and sat through the rest of the meeting avoiding any one's gaze. My aunt (who I'd invited to hear me sing - not sob) leaned over and gave me a little hug of reassurance.

As soon as the closing prayer was said and the flood of people moved out of the chapel and into the hall I was again consumed, this time by love from the congregation. The sweet lady behind me telling me it was her favorite performance of the song; the friend who spoke before I sang telling me she wished to stand next to me and hold me through it; the gentleman in the hall who told me he felt as though I were a sister and embraced me while juggling child and bags; the woman who had scheduled my performance who felt the spirit; another friend who was touched. Based on the feedback there was nare a dry eye in the congregation, or a soul whom wasn't touched by the warm encircling of the spirit by whose waves I'd been ravaged so publicly.

A small part of me was lost in the sorrow of another botched, imperfect performance; another failed attempt to sing in public. But there was no support for those threads of thought. Each time I thought I had heard the last of the comments, there was another kind heart who was touched by my testimony of the Savior, ready to express gratitude for my performance. Each let me know that they shed tears along with me.

Once home from church, safe to allow myself to 'woe-is-me' for my performance, the texts started coming in. All the same and yet so different and touching in their own way. Tears sprang to my eyes each time another would come; I was touched that the Lord had allowed me - such an imperfect tool in his hands - to help build up the kingdom of God in such an imperfect way. After the texts were Facebook messages, and the next morning I logged onto my email to hear from another gentleman:

While you were singing, D&C 25:12 kept running through my mind

"For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me..."

As much as any musical number I have ever listened to, your beautiful song felt like a pleading to our father in heaven.

And so I believe that the Lord's plan for my performance was fulfilled. His message was spread through that congregation like a rising tide and all present were pulled into the same love for the Savior that I felt. That is how the Lord will continue to work in our lives, in ways that seem so imperfect to our human perspectives, but are whole and perfect for our spirits. Sometimes we don't see the how it's all going to work or why things are the way they are, but the Lord sees it, and if we can just allow Him to  move through us, we can push His work of love and peace and grace forward and bring the world His truth.

The scripture that was shared with me touched my heart and I wanted to share it with you all. So I made another 8x10 print for anyone who wants one.

Download the 8x10 here.

Primary Newsletter Design

A few months ago I was called to serve as the secretary in my ward's primary. If you're not a member of the LDS faith, that was a whole mess of gobledegook to you.

Ward - congregation of people within a particular geographical area
Primary - organization for Children 1.5 - 11 years old

One of my duties as secretary is to design and distribute a monthly newsletter with assignments for the children; information on that month's theme, scripture, and song; birthday's; activity schedules; etc.

I've had quite a time getting into the swing of these newsletters, sometimes they'd take me more than 10 hours to put together! Originally I wanted it to look 'clean' and professional, but then I realized that this is for kids and decided to spice it up a little bit. I think I've got a pretty decent format going right now and wanted to share it with all of you.

It was designed in google docs, and if any of you have played around in there, you know that some times things can be a little bit frustrating. A few things to point out if you'd like to use the document so you're not pulling your hair out:

1. Tables in Google Docs require a 'carriage return' (enter) before and after them.
2. The doc uses tables within tables, so if you're getting confused as to which table you're in, set all of the borders to a solid black line so you can get an idea of what you're working with.
3. The headers and footers drive me bonkers, too, so if you figure them out let me know.
4. The 'August' at the top is an image that you can replace with text. I happened to receive some cute month lettering that I got to utilize here recently, but you don't have to use an image.

You can make a copy and start editing it up here!

If you're interested in knowing how we track who has participated in opening exercises, I can probably share a template for that as well, though I have to be honest and admit that the original idea wasn't mine.

Good luck to all you hard working newsletter makers out there! Cheers!

Conference Kit - RAOK

Something that I get to do biannually is watch General Conference (follow the link to find out more and watch for yourself). General Conference is held the first Saturday and Sunday in April and October. Millions of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints gather together to hear prophetic counsel from men and women they sustain as leaders of their faith. For me, personally, it is a time I use to receive answers from the Lord through his servants and always come away from those weekends feeling rejuvenated and inspired to be a better version of myself.

In late September I sent my brother's family a small 'conference kit' for them to enjoy and to motivate them to watch General Conference. My brother has struggled with church activity for many years. Recently he and his wife have been doing extremely well spiritually and are working towards being sealed in the temple. My brother is a very loving person, and I've always known he has such a good heart, but there's something about the gospel of Jesus Christ that can take a good person and turn them into an incredible person. That's been true of my brother.

Chaddy, if you're reading, the gospel looks good on you ;)

I'm not going to say that this RAOK was really that big of a win. I sent the package with too little time, and they didn't get it until Saturday afternoon of conference. I made a second mistake that I'll mention later in the post, but the kit can be reused so it wasn't a total fail.

What I included in my kit:

• Greg Olsen 550 piece puzzle
• LDS Conference Bingo Cards (the linked ones are cuter than the ones I used) - Laminated
• Card

What I was planning on including (that I forgot to include until it was being mailed)

• Candy - preferably something that is small enough to be used as bingo pieces
• 3.5 X 5 inch pictures of the apostles and prophet - Laminated, hole-punched, put on a ring
• Small notepads/drawing pads
• Pens/Pencils/Markers

I thought for sure that Deseret Book would have 3.5 X 5 inch picture cards of all of the apostles so when I got to my local store and they didn't I was at a loss. I've seen a few blog posts around the blogosphere with pictures of what I was imagining, but they must have designed their own (link to one example above - though it doesn't include the new apostles sustained in Oct '15). Regardless, at the time we didn't own a printer and so that idea was out. :(

I would still like to do that in the future (maybe a future post - stay tuned), not just for my brother's family, but for my own as well. They would be great to have on hand to help teach young children the names of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles and the Presidency of the Church.

The notepad and pens were intended for note-taking and doodling. My sister-in-law is an artist, so I was hoping to have something available to her for doodling while she watched, but, again, I dropped the ball.

When I was trying to figure out the logistics of mailing the package I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't really want to send two packages and risk them arriving at different times. When I bought the puzzle and realized that the puzzle was in a bag I decided to take the cellophane wrapper off the puzzle and stick the cards inside the box and mail everything in the puzzle box. Great idea. EXCEPT I forgot to mention in a note outside the box that there was more than just the puzzle inside, and therefore, my brother had no clue and they didn't end up using anything during conference. :(

So if you try to be too cheap like me, then at least remember to add a note. :S