I had PTCon yesterday and GenCon today. The former was foreign to me, but I typed up questions I wanted to ask all of the teachers and then took notes as we discussed each of my scholars. This helped me keep everything straight after meeting with 16 teachers and I was able to relay everything in detail to Richard later. This record will also help for future conferences.

• ~What is your impression of [name] as a scholar?
• ~How does s/he interact with you? With others?
• ~What are [scholar]‘s strengths?
• ~What does s/he need to improve?
• ~What are your goals for October/prior to report cards?
• ~What can we do or emphasize to realize those goals?

The teachers were all very pleasant and eager to answer all of my questions. I like how well they are trying to keep in touch with e-mails and newsletters through the year. Each is there because they truly want to be there, and it shows.

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Today has been the Saturday Session of the 181st Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Familiar territory for me, at least. I took notes here too. I like Church at home, so to speak. Tomorrow we’re having a turkey dinner to make room for sales in November. Life is pretty good in casual clothes with the occasional sweet treat.

We enjoyed a small presentation by our ward mission leader about the mormon.org campaign and how it will be rolling out in our area soon. We viewed sample videos and discussed statistics. Stephen Colbert caught some of the previously released material and found it quite compelling. It comes in the middle of his segment here  (2:10–3:40) but I think you’ll find the entire 5 minutes enjoyable. It’s just not as relevant to our Church lesson….

Hi, I’m Cheanna [...]  And I have a few thoughts on gratitude.

 There are lots of things that I’m grateful for, for example, I’m grateful for my family, my friends, my teachers, School, the gospel, Mutual, and books. Definitely books. Gratitude helps us to recognize and realize our blessings, so, Gratitude is something to be… well, grateful for.

 The prophet of today says we should have an attitude of gratitude, and, you know, besides being fun to say, it’s pretty good advice. As an example, Lehi’s sons, their attitudes made a lot of difference. Nephi & Sam had attitudes of gratitude, and Laman & Lemuel had an attitude of murmuring which is definitely not an attitude of gratitude.

 Different levels of Gratitude can affect your entire life, and all your surroundings, having high levels of gratitude can make things seem a lot more positive. You can choose whether you have a high level, or a low level, or no level of gratitude.

Thomas S. Monson said in his conference talk about Gratitude in October, 2010:

 “To express gratitude is gracious and honorable, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven.”

I love this quote because I know someone who has gratitude ever in their heart and is always nice to be around.

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Hello Brothers and Sisters of the [...] ward, my name is Duncan [...] and I was asked to give a talk on honoring womanhood. This may seem strange as I don’t have any experience with Womanhood but I intend to do what I can.

Womanhood is one of the tougher parts of life I think, because you develop the ability to do what anyone else can do. But because you are a Woman some may not respect your work the way that they would respect a man doing the same thing. This is wrong, but unfortunately it is more common than you might think in these times. As Women in these times in this place you have been granted your Rightful ability to have your own life and have the same rights that any man could have. But these rights are not always respected. And in some places they do not exist at all.

I want to tell you that as Women your work is just as good as anyone else’s regardless of Gender. And don’t let anyone else tell you differently, you may end up doing different work then some men, depending on what you chose to do. But it is no less important. Heavenly Father loves you equally with anyone else. And you are in every way equal to man. The Family: A Proclamation to the world says “All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.” and it is the duty of anyone, No matter who they are, to respect that and appreciate what you do for yourself, your family, your ward, the church, your country, and even the world.

Something I take as a sign that Women are valued equally is that The First recorded time that Jesus identifies himself as the Messiah was to a woman, and his disciples wondered why he would waste his time talking to her, but Jesus knew that she was just as much a child of God as they were.

The fifth commandment is to honor your father and your mother. And I thought about this and decided that one meaning it could have is that if I respect my mother and father then I am more likely to listen when they try to tell me or show me  something that will help me in my life. So that’s just one of the ways that my life is made easier and better when I keep the Lord’s commandments. 

And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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Two points of clarification–this talk is Duncan’s and Duncan’s alone. He let us read it before he delivered it but Richard & I did not edit it, nor did we desire that power.  The inspiration he received, including the clever introduction, is pure Duncan, continuing our family tradition of the children writing all of their own talks in Primary.

Second, we were very pleased with his efforts, no matter how awkward it seemed to be as a subject or how uncomfortable the audience may have been, to broach the topic of honoring womanhood from a male perspective. Many others appreciated it as well, given the numerous compliments he received that day (and others that have come to me since then).

I strengthen my family by reading the scriptures. It will strengthen my family because we will learn more about the heroes and about Heavenly Father.

I strengthen my family by helping others. Because I’m helping others, I’m doing what God wants me to do. Serving together helps us have blessings from working together.

I strengthen my family by protecting them. Now I can tell my family when something bad is going to happen because the Holy Ghost will tell me, because I got baptized in February.

I strengthen my family by praying to Heavenly Father, because He is always there for me when I need Him. He will always be there to protect them too.

These are a few ways I can strengthen my family.  By keeping my family together, we will be strong and eternal.

The Baron’s post this week over at Waters of Mormon, Block-Hour Smackdown: Sunday School vs. Auxiliary Hour, takes a good look at both sides of the popularity and practicality of post-Sacrament church meetings.

I’m curious to know what you would say, my dear reader, if you had your way.
What’s the answer?

I can tell you I’m grateful that I’m not on the 3-6pm block at our building here–yikes!

Cheanna Talk in Primary 4/26/2009 
Most of us already know the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den.  Right? [chorus of affirmative responses from crowd]
Daniel was put into a den of lions.  He had some choice before he was put into the lion’s den.  He made a right choice, but, still he was put in with the lions.  Daniel was saved because he believed in God until the very end.   
Well, I thought of it because we are like Daniel.  We had some choice to come down here on Earth.  Earth is full of many dangers like the lions that Daniel faced.  We need God’s help to get out safely and to live with Heavenly Father again.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
God sent the Gospel.  He sent us the Prophets.  He sent his own begotten son.  Jesus fulfilled the prophecies made by the prophets before Him: that He would come.  He made it so that we could be resurrected.  He sacrificed himself so that He could be resurrected and so that we can be resurrected, too.  Daniel is one of the prophets who testified of the resurrection. 
Jesus suffered for our sins, too.  In Doctrine and Covenants Section 19, verse 16, Jesus tells us, “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all that they might not suffer if they would repent.”  Jesus suffered for us because he wants us to return to live with him and with Heavenly Father.  We need to repent and put our faith in God like Daniel did. 

Wish I could have said that to the woman sitting behind us in the overflow this morning, in a nicer tone of voice than the seething in brain would allow. Ephraim’s wiggles and sacrament commentary (“there’s the water, huh?”) or random comments (“Mommy all done glasses, okay?”) had absolutely no connection with eating candy this morning!

It’s entirely possible, though, that had we given him some Easter treats, he would have behaved much better  =)

The Holy Week, as touched upon in Elder Jeffrey Holland’s magnificent conference talk last week, has so much to it for us that we bumped all the eggs & candy to Easter Monday, or “Celebration Monday” around here. In addition to the spiritual benefits, there are many practical ones as well:

  ~Cheaper goodies from post-Easter markdowns.

  ~It’s a ready-made Family Home Evening.

  ~More friends can join us because it doesn’t conflict with their own festivities 

It’s not one that affects our family so much, but those who have children attending school outside of the home also report more time to prepare hunts and such with fewer interuptions (or waking up at 4am to “greet the Easter Bunny”).

So, no, you can’t blame “the left” for attacking all things Godly (a post about today’s Relief Society for another time) and you can’t say that my Sunbeam was spreading his special glow all over the chapel because he was hopped up on bunny ears.

Happy Easter and a blessed Resurrection Sunday, almost everyone*!

*special note for my nontheist readers, I hope you had a great first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. And I believe with all my heart that the Easter Bunny can visit anyone, regardless of religious preference  ;)

She’s very excited for this afternoon, and what a vision of a lovely nervousness she is!

If you did not receive an e-mail invitation*, my dear reader, and would like to join with us in celebration (more…)

…and the days leading up to it…

We were intentionally flexible with our Christmas traditions this year, anticipating the attention-needing details of ailments and imminent (not-so-small) changes. It was hard to let go of some of the things we’ve enjoyed in the past. Gifts for friends & neighbors fell by the wayside, we didn’t bake our own batches of goodies, we didn’t hit the various snowy events in the valley, we didn’t put up the big tree or outdoor lights, the menorah remained in its box, etc. Very low key advent season.

We read scriptures by candlelight after dinner, combining ideas from The Friend magazine with a countdown gift from the Relief Society (a taper candle with numbers painted down the side accompanied with verses describing different qualities found in Jesus Christ). We sang songs, sampling from both religious & fun carols, before blowing out the candle.

Christmas Eve dinner was deliciously the same: Clam Chowder (adapted from the Fanny Farmer New England recipe), crescent rolls, apple cider. Grandpa Don & Cathleen provided the gingerbread cookies for dessert (they mailed well).

After everyone changed into new pajamas, it was time to pose on the couch. Some poses were more photogenic than others…

Then I made an attempted timer shot with my phone’s camera. I opted not to crop, dear reader, so you could appreciate the fullness of my zoom deficiency.

One tradition we didn’t do away with this year, however, was the putting-off-wrapping-gifts-and-assembling-stocking-contents-until-the-last-minute. The four older children went to bed with almost no trouble; the younger two went to bed as easily as herding cats to nail ducks made of jello in a row on the wall. Eph finally fell asleep during Blue’s Big Holiday, and Anya passed out during the two o’clock hour. Richard and I enjoyed WGN’s yule log on TV, listening to the radio dramas while we wrestled with paper and tape, counted out fruits and candies. I didn’t have to raid anyone’s birth year piggy banks for coins, either, because in my purse I found one penny from each of the eight years we needed for the stockings. (Pretty amazing after a season of kettle-giving!)

Behold, our finished product!

This takes me back to our first Christmases here in Phoenix when all we had was a table top cloth tree I made at a super Saturday two months earlier. We just did the mini-trees this year, which, unfortunately, took quite a toddler beating by the time the 25th rolled around. (note the ornaments scattered around the bases)

Our own family gifts ended up on the other side of the rocking chair so we could form a nice circle on the floor in the morning. I should note, too, that in addition to wonderful presents from parents/grandparents, friends and siblings, we received a basket of gifts for the children from “secret givers” tonight. A delightful surprise!

So this, dear reader, takes you to shortly before 7am, the end of our Christmas Eve. It makes a nice resting point, don’t you think? I know rest sounds great to me…

Stay tuned Check back soon later for Christmas Day!