Love Her Mother

I loved this talk as well. I used portions of this to get my Beehive Dads to help volunteer at our quarterly temple trips. A lot of my 13 year olds hadn't been to the temple with their Dads. Because temple attendance is a life-line for me and such an important part of our lives, I wanted to make sure the Beehives had a chance to go often. This was a great talk to quote from.

In Young Women we are helping your daughter understand her identity as a daughter of God and the importance of remaining virtuous and worthy to receive the blessings of the temple and of a temple marriage. We are teaching your daughter the importance of making and keeping sacred covenants. We are teaching her to commit now to live so that she can always be worthy to enter the temple and not to allow anything to delay, distract, or disqualify her from that goal. Your example, as her father, speaks louder than our important words. Young women worry about their fathers. Many express that their greatest desire is to be united eternally as a family. They want you to be there when they go to the temple or get married in the temple. Stay close to your daughter and help her prepare and remain worthy for the temple. When she turns 12, take her with you to the temple often to perform baptisms for your ancestors and others. She will cherish these memories forever.

What I Hope My Granddaughters Will Understand about Relief Society

I loved this talk! Sis Beck always does an outstanding job. And I'll admit that I haven't had the chance to go through the new Daughters in My Kingdom book from the new Relief Society manual. I need to find time to sit down and read, perhaps at lacrosse or baseball practice this week. I'll have to go find it and put it in the car. :)

Charity Never Faileth and Providing in the Lord's Way

We read these talks in FHE. It was interesting to see how our children understood this concept that most members have a hard time understanding how the welfare program operates and what is required of the member and their family before the church steps in.

A Time to Prepare

This address was used in a great Youth video from the Church's Youth website. We used it in a combined YW lesson a few weeks back. It was very effective- the visual with the talk.

Recently we were asked by our Stake President to use Facebook at a means to connect with our Young Women. This was hard to swallow for me. I absolutely detest facebook. After a few days of brewing it over and talking with G, I decided to go ahead and sign up. But I signed up as Sis LaJeunesse. And I only use it for very few personal announcements (ones I know the girls would enjoy hearing about and get them watching my page every now and then) and mostly use it with only Church messages on it. It took some time to set up and ocassionally takes time to update and I can see how our young people can get caught up in this social media.

Redemption and The Divine Gift of Repentance

I, too love hearing stories of redemption- both in the scriptures and from life experiences.

The scriptures, literature, and the experiences of life are filled with stories of redemption. Through Christ, people can and do change their lives and obtain redemption. I love stories of redemption.

Elder Christoffersen's talk was another that was easy for our kids to understand. I love the five things

Repentance is an expansive subject, but today I would like to mention just five aspects of this fundamental gospel principle that I hope will be helpful.

First, the invitation to repent is an expression of love.
Second, repentance means striving to change.
Third, repentance means not only abandoning sin but also committing to obedience.
Fourth, repentance requires a seriousness of purpose and a willingness to persevere, even through pain.
Fifth, whatever the cost of repentance, it is swallowed up in the joy of forgiveness.

Cleave Unto the Covenants and Covenants

Sis Thompson is so sweet! I loved hearing of her grandmother. This was simple enough for even our youngest to understand.

Our covenants sustain us whether in good times or in difficult times. President Boyd K. Packer reminds us that “we are a covenant people. We covenant to give of our resources in time and money and talent—all we are and all we possess—to the interest of the kingdom of God upon the earth. In simple terms, we covenant to do good. We are a covenant people, and the temple is the center of our covenants. It is the source of the covenant.”

I love how Elder Nelson explains things in a simple matter.

Children of the covenant have the right to receive His doctrine and to know the plan of salvation. They claim it by making covenants of sacred significance. Brigham Young said: “All Latter-day Saints enter the new and everlasting covenant when they enter this Church. … They enter the new and everlasting covenant to sustain the Kingdom of God.”33 They keep the covenant by obedience to His commandments.

Perfect Love Casteth Out Fear

This was a great missionary talk! I loved it, although I will readily admit I need to do a better job. It's hard when you're stuck at home and don't have any outside activities where you can try and find ways to share the gospel.

There are a number of things that we can do—that you can do—to advance an understanding of the Church. If we do it with the same spirit and if we conduct ourselves in the same way we do when we host a temple open house, our friends and our neighbors will come to understand us better. Their suspicions will evaporate, negative stereotypes will disappear, and they will begin to understand the Church as it really is.

True Valentine's Day story

This was recently shared during the World Wide Leadership Training.
A great story to share on Valentine's Day.

Dare to Stand Alone

I loved this talk. I especially want my children to read and re-read this talk often. As parents, we often find ourselves standing alone even within our own ward. But we love our children too much to cave in to pressures from others and the desire to "keep up with the Jones".

As we go about living from day to day, it is almost inevitable that our faith will be challenged. We may at times find ourselves surrounded by others and yet standing in the minority or even standing alone concerning what is acceptable and what is not. Do we have the moral courage to stand firm for our beliefs, even if by so doing we must stand alone? As holders of the priesthood of God, it is essential that we are able to face—with courage—whatever challenges come our way. Remember the words of Tennyson: “My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.”

It is Better to Look Up

This was a great talk for me. Things have been difficult with our special needs child lately and as I read this talk this week I was inspired to keep going and to have a better attitude. I was also encouraged by his words,

Experience has taught me that if we, like President Monson, exercise our faith and look to God for help, we will not be overwhelmed with the burdens of life. We will not feel incapable of doing what we are called to do or need to do. We will be strengthened, and our lives will be filled with peace and joy.3 We will come to realize that most of what we worry about is not of eternal significance—and if it is, the Lord will help us. But we must have the faith to look up and the courage to follow His direction.

Life will be getting more difficult in our family as my husband prepares to deploy this summer for another year. I know that the only way to get through it with peace and strength is to look to my Heavenly Father.

Children

We love this talk. And it makes us sad when we see so may couples choosing to delay having children for worldly reasons- education, money, self satisfaction. Difficulty having children, like so many others in the church, has made us appreciate the children we've been so blessed to have and to have adopted.

The Hearts of the Children Shall Turn

This is a topic so very close to our family's hearts. We love doing Family History. We now have two kids who can help us by doing baptisms for our ancestors and they have committed to go at least once a month to do our own family names. That means my husband and I have to really search out for names they can take. It was easy in the beginning of our marriage. My husband is a convert and he had all of his ancestors to gather together. Now after 17 years of searching we are finding less and less the further we go back, which is a great thing! But what can we do to ensure that our children enjoy the Spirit of Elijah? We've introduced our oldest to Indexing and when he has time (which is rare now that he's in high school) he loves to help in this endeavor.

But how can I use this talk in my own life? I can more diligently use my time to do more indexing and more searching of family names. I can go back in each family and find them in the census records and make sure all the children have been recorded. A lot of times we simply focus on the direct ancestors and not their brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles.

I'm going to use this talk in a Beehive activity later in the year to get my Beehives interested in indexing and searching out their family names.

You Matter To Him

This is a great confidence building talk. I love Pres Uchtdorf, as I'm sure many church members do. He inspires others to be their best, do their best, and think their best. He constantly uplifts those who hear him.

Disciples of Jesus Christ understand that compared to eternity, our existence in his mortal sphere is only "a small moment" in space and time. They know that a person's true value has little to do with what the world holds in high esteem."

Counsel to Youth

Chris used this talk in FHE. He shared some thoughts from a Seminary devotional where this talk was also used. Chris did a nice job. It was a great talk about what to do and what not to do- thing to do and things not to do.

"With all that is going on in the world, with the lowering of moral standards, you young people are being raised in enemy territory."

Pres Packer says this twice, about the youth being in enemy territory.

"Dress modestly; talk reverently; listen to uplofting music. Avoid all immorality and personally degrading practices. Take hold of your life and order yourself to be valiant."

Doing the Right Thing, At the Right Time, Without Delay

Our 8 year old gave this lesson in FHE a few weeks back and he did a fabulous job! I loved this talk because it was all about looking for ways to serve without making it into a big project or forming another big committee.

"...it is not necessary to create new programs or take actions which are complicated and costly. They only need our determination to serve- to do the right thing at the right time, without delay."

I loved his quote from Pres Monson, "The Lord expects our thinking. He expects our action. He expects our testimonies. He expects our devotion."

I was asked to serve on a Ward Compassionate Service Committee. There are about 16 of us, but things are so crazy! We're the only one that are called on to make meals, which is hard for me because I work off a menu and when I go shopping I only buy groceries that are on the menu. Our budget is really tight. When we moved here last summer we lost nearly $2000 a month so we've had to cut back on our wants and focus more on our needs.
I had a hard time accepting email requests for meals and couldn't understand why they couldn't ask other RS members to help out- knowing they are in much better circumstances than we are. But I finally made it a goal to do better. I've tried to add an easy meal to my menu each month. And it's not been as hard as I thought it would be. And I take the kids with me when we go drop off meals and it is a great teaching tool.