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

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

Boxes of Love - RAOK

My mother-in-law is such a sweet woman and she often sends us 'care-packages'. They always arrive just when we need some lifting. Sometime in August I had told my husband that I wanted to get him some new clothes for school, but after doing our budget for September it was just not in the cards. Only a few days later we received a package from my mother-in-law containing a few new shirts and a pair of shorts for my husband to wear to school (also candy - something else I really needed that day ;)).  The feeling of receiving a Box of Love is so great, that I was excited to share the experience with others in our lives that are struggling.

One night I had talked to my dad and he'd mentioned that my grandpa had been ill with shingles and wasn't doing very well. In the same call he told me of my aunt and three cousins who were desperately looking for a new place to live. I had also talked to my husband's sweet friend who was going through a lot of things (think physically, emotionally, mentally, the gamut) recently and she'd been on my mind. Finally, I have a close friend from high school who has been fighting some really hard physical battles who has needed some uplifting.

I knew that in each of their situations I could not do anything to take their pain or confusion or anxiety away, but I hoped to simply give them a smile and make their circumstances seem just a little bit more manageable. With those four circumstances in mind, we headed to Target to get some things to brighten their day for our Random Acts of Kindness (RAOK).

Grandpa

If there's one thing that my grandpa LOVES, it's black licorice. I picked up some soft Australian liquorice because it was on sale in the Target Dollar Spot! Score!

Aunt & Cousins

This one was tougher because we had several people to pick things for, wanted it to seem significant, but also knew we didn't have a huge budget for big gifts.

I've heard it said it's better to laugh than to cry, so in addition to the card, we included a fun game for their family to play together. If you haven't played The Game of Things yet, you need to! It's a lot of fun!

To keep each of their gifts separate, I wrapped each of their 'bundles' in twine and used washi tape to label whose gift was whose. The girls got nail polish, and my Aunt got lipstick.

Husband's Friend

My husband's friend got the same thing as my girl cousins, but I included a darling teal sequined pencil pouch. It reminded me of The Little Mermaid, and our friend has gorgeous red locks like Ariel, so I couldn't resist!

Old Guy Friend

This one was harder because boys are always harder to buy gifts for, I swear!! I pretty much just threw stuff in my cart as possibilities the whole time, and once I got in line to checkout I narrowed it down to just a few things.

My friend has had a lot of food restrictions put on him so that they can find out what's causing him so much pain. He can pretty much only eat meat, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. He's also in a lot of pain, so I thought a movie was one thing he could do relatively pain-free.

Something else I included in each of the packages was a personal drawing from my 2 1/2 year old. He had a lot of fun coloring for the packages and it's always a hoot to hear what he's drawn. He drew my husband's friend two skunks (which we kindly labeled for her) and my grandpa a wildebeest. The things that kid comes up with...

At the end of the day we spent more than we'd planned to (after shipping costs), but felt really good about where the money was going. Sure we could have used that money to serve ourselves, but we found it much more fun to shop for those we hoped we could help! Since doing this initially RAOK, we've decided to budget $50 each month to do fun RAOKs like this monthly!

Something I've discovering about myself is that I can help when there's a need, and that's refreshing.

What are some fun things that you have done to serve someone lately (or something that someone else has done for you)? Also, what are some inexpensive yet thoughtful gift ideas you've found for adult men??? I'm really at a loss here, so anything would help!