What Mormons Believe: Joseph Smith - Prophet of the Restoration

If you have ever wondered about the story of Joseph Smith or what Mormons believe about him you may enjoy and learn from this full-length film just made available online.

What Mormons Believe: The Purpose of Life

To see more videos about the Church visit Mormons Made Simple.
To learn more about the LDS Church visit Mormon.org.

Our Kitchen Table is Getting Ready for General Conference, Are You?

Well, General Conference is just around the corner and it is time to get the creative juices going, print off some activities, and gear our children up (and ourselves) for the 8 hour spiritual feast (or 10 hours if you are a Preisthood holder).

In October we pulled our small kitchen table into the living room and let the fun roll.  We had my little boy doing things from painting prayers rocks, to coloring the ties of the apostles and prophets, to playing with playdough, to playing general conference bingo.  I had activites selected for different topics, prayer rocks were done while someone spoke abour prayer.  Playdough was done while someone spoke about love and we tried to shape it into hearts. Etc.  It was a successful experience last time around.  He was entertained and yet he listened.  I remember him shouting out "he just talked about Jesus", or missionaries, or anything that was on the bingo sheet.  We even left the table there for our meals and our 3 year old, at the time, loved the fun change.  It could get a little more interesting this time around since our 1 year old only has one nap now.  Last time she went down around 10 and 2 and it was perfect so we shall see how this time rolls. 

If nothing else our table is ready for its job.  When I told my son that General Conference was almost here he got super excited and said something like, "so we get to bring the table in here and do tons of fun stuff".  I hope I can pull something together that will hold that excitement and keep him listening and learning throughout the whole 8 hours.

What do you do to keep your kids and yourself glued to the TV and supping up every last morsel of general conference goodness?  What General Conference traditions do you have?

Here are a few links that may help in your preparations:

• Sugardoodle.net has a ton of packets that they have created ranging from packets for Nursery aged kids to Adults (there are 7 different packets).
• You also may want to check out the regular General Conference page on Sugardoodle for activities, ideas, and printables that fit any conference session.
• On lds.org there is also a page that has printables as well as activities to do in this upcoming week to prepare your children for conference.  Ranging from a printable bingo game to online apostle matching games.
• Deseret Book also has a packet that you can download.
• Mormon Share also has various ideas and printables.
• There is a nice article at Mormon Times that shares 10 ideas for a meaningful conference for children.
• About.com has a ton of activities and games.
• There also some fun ideas over at The Idea Door.

I really could go on and on.  The internet is just full of ideas, activies, and printables for this exciting event.  Please share your preparations or traditions.

3rd Semi-Annual No TV Week

So a year ago we held our first "NO TV WEEK" at our house and decided to make it a tradition and now we are going on our 3rd go at no tv for a week. There are actually two official no tv weeks one on April 19-25 and the other September 19-25.  So officially "NO TV WEEK" will begin in a few weeks but for us it is going to begin this Sunday. We have decided that our week (almost a week) of no tv would be the week just before conference.  So from Sunday-Friday no watching tv. Then the first thing that we'll watch at the close of our television fast will be General Conference on Saturday and Sunday.

During our "1st Semi-Annual No TV Week" I realized many things:

1. Many times when I turned the tv on there was something else that I should've been doing.
2. I used the television as a babysitter way too often.
3. I had my attention divided between the tv, the laundry (or some other task), and my kids rather than just being with them.
4. The TV was my first go to when I was board, tired, or plain lazy.
5. Having minimal external voices filling our home helped to prepare us to hear the word of the Lord at Conference.

These are all things I realized the first time but  because I need reminders I am glad to hold this week of no television and awaken myself to our new or continued tv habits.

So please, FEEL FREE TO JOIN US IN OUR

3rd SEMI-ANNUAL NO TV WEEK - March 27 - April 1
(Leave a comment at let us know if you plan to join in the fun,
this may serve as a little extra motivation and accountability in following through.)

And just in case you need even a little more motivation read these quotes from a previous post or click on the following links to read two complete posts:

I challenge us to change this stat within the walls of our homes:
"American children and adolescents (and I'd add some adults) spend 22 to 28 hours per week viewing television, more than any other activity except sleeping. By the age of 70 they will have spent 7 to 10 years of their lives watching TV."-- The Kaiser Family Foundation

And far too often those hours spent are in watching programs that are far from uplifting:
“Again I say, leave it alone. Turn it off, walk away from it, burn it, erase it, destroy it. I know it is hard counsel we give when we say movies that are R-rated, and many with PG-13 ratings, are produced by satanic influences. Our standards should not be dictated by the rating system. I repeat, because of what they really represent, these types of movies, music, tapes, etc. serve the purposes of the author of all darkness.”
-Elder H. Burke Peterson

What a bold statement that a lot of the media out there is "produced by satanic influences" and "serve the purposes of the author of all darkness". It is scary to think that we often are allowing satan to be our entertainer. We are allowing him to keep us company, to make us laugh, and to fill our minds with his filth. We must be so careful to not allow the rating system to determine our standards but allow our conscience and our personal standards to do so.  And sometimes Satan is simply striving to make us idle away our time and distract us from what is most important.


TV, Television, the Tube, Flat Screen?
A Little Experiment

And while you're televisions are off you'll have plenty of time to prepare your family for conference.  I will have a Pre-General Conference post coming sometime this weekend.

Young Women Meeting

I just wanted to post this reminder for those of you who have YW, are a leader of YW , or really anyone who wants to listen in. I think I will watch it on TV. I always end up reading it afterward but figured this time around I might just take a peak at the real deal, that is as long as the little kidlets cooperate and it is still enjoyable otherwise to reading I may go.

Here is the info from lds.org - "Under the direction of the First Presidency, the Young Women General Presidency invites all young women ages 12-18, their mothers, and Young Women leaders to attend the General Young Women Meeting on Saturday, March 26, 2011. The theme is the 13th Article of Faith.

The meeting will originate from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. The live meeting will be broadcast by satellite to meetinghouses worldwide and on the internet at https://preview.lds.org/broadcast."

Live Broadcast	Rebroadcast
8 p.m. Eastern time	10 p.m. Eastern time
7 p.m. Central time	9 p.m. Central time
6 p.m. Mountain time	8 p.m. Mountain time
5 p.m. Pacific time	7 p.m. Pacific time

Celebrating a Birthday!

We are just a few days shy of the Birthday of the Relief Society, which was born on March 17, 1842. Our ward recently had our Birthday Activity to Celebrate the organization of this great Society. I am so grateful for the Relief Society, for the sisters that I am able to interact with, learn from, and lean on. I love this yearly reminder that we belong to a group that was organized by God and I love the reminder from Emma Smith that we are to do and be something extraordinary.

Let us continue to strengthen one another and to serve one another.



To learn more about the Relief Society visit HERE or read from this years visiting teaching messages which are focused on Relief Society.

What Mormons Believe: Agency is Essential to our Eternal Progress

(Click on Images to Enlarge)

This article is from the June 2010 Ensign.

To read the Ensign online visit the PDF documents HERE.

To learn more about the Church visit HERE.