Great Christmas Gift Idea (or Shameless Self-Promotion)

Ok, this is my blog so I can write what I want, right? Right. So I'm going to plug my own books. I hope you don't mind.

My books Monday Nights in Zarahemla and Monday Nights in Nauvoo are excellent resources for teaching your family about the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. My newest book Monday Nights in Nauvoo will help you and your children better understand the Doctrine and Covenants. I don't know about you, but that book is a tough one to read with children so I included only the sections that contained gospel principles and topics that would apply to their lives or that taught about important events in Church History. I also included a few Church History stories to fill in the gaps. The book is arranged chronologically and includes passages from Joseph Smith History in the Pearl of Great Price. Each lesson is divided up into sections that contain the verses to be read, questions to ask, and
"treasures of knowledge" that help explain words or phrases that might not be known. You can read just one section each time, or you can read several; whatever best fits the needs of your family.

I wrote these books to help transition my children from the picture scripture books into the actual scriptures because just jumping straight into the scriptures was a little overwhelming and confusing. So many of the chapters contained deep doctrine that my young children were not ready for. Most of the lessons in my books contain the same verses found in the picture scriptures so there is already some familiarity for the children to connect with.

Even though the title of my books suggest that they are for Family Home Evening, I actually wrote them for family scripture study and that is what we use them for. They work great for both FHE lessons and scripture study (personal and family). Each time we get together for scripture study we start where we left off, and sometimes we only read a few sections at a time (once and a while we only read one!).

If you have younger children you can still use these books. I would recommend reading a story from the picture scriptures and then finding that story in one of my books and reading just a few verses at time. This helps children to learn where the stories are coming from, and the language of the scriptures. After reading a verse, ask questions to see if the children comprehended it. If they don't know the answer, read the verse again and have them listen to find the answer.

I know from experience that family scripture study can be a struggle for families and wrote these books to help make it easier and more enjoyable. So if you're looking for something like this for yourself, or if you're looking for a great gift idea look no further!

You can buy them at any LDS bookstore or online at deseretbook.com and amazon.com.

And if you don't believe me on how great they are, you can read some unbiased book reviews here and here. :)

Book of Mormon Reading Chart

"If you don't have time to pray and read your scriptures, you are busier than God ever intended you to be"

I love that quote (don't know who the author is though) and think it's a great reminder for all of us who sometimes put these important things off. I KNOW it's hard, we struggle with doing it consistently in our home too. So I found this great Book of Mormon reading chart (click here) that you can use for family scripture study or for your kids personal scripture study. I recommend printing it out and hanging it where you'll see it everyday to remind you to make reading the scriptures a priority. I plan to have a family home evening lesson about the importance of reading the Book of Mormon and of gaining a testimony of it for ourselves (yes, we've had this lesson many times but it's one that needs repeating). Then I'm going to print a chart for each of my kids and hang it right by their beds so they can read a little bit each day and mark off their chart as they go a long.

General Conference and FHE lessons

In the October 2007 General Conference, President Hinckley encouraged us to study the talks in Family Home Evening.

"All of the proceedings of this conference will appear in a subsequent issue of the Ensign and Liahona. We encourage you again to read the talks in your family home evenings and discuss them together as families. They are the products of much prayer and meditation and are well worthy of careful consideration."

Here are some suggestions on how to do this with both younger and older children. Please comment if you have additional suggestions.

* For younger children: Show them the magazine and tell them what it is. Show them the picture on the front of President Monson and teach them his name and that he is a prophet. Explain what a prophet is (someone who speaks the will of God for the church). Look through the photographs taken during conference and talk about them. Show the page with all the General Authorities and explain who they are. Have the children point out President Monson and his counselors, and teach them their names. You can have them look through the magazine and try to find which talks were given by the First Presidency or other apostles by looking at their pictures.

*For older children: Choose a few talks that you feel your family might need at this time. Write down the title of each of these talks on seperate pieces of paper. Then read through the talks and copy and paste from your computer (or write on paper) a paragraph or two from that talk that best summarizes the objective. Place the talk titles on the floor and then pass out the paragraphs to each member of the family to have them read a loud. Try to match up the paragraph with the title. Remind the family that the topics of each talk were prayed about and given for the membership of the church at this time. Discuss why each talk is important to your family and how you can apply the teachings in their lives.

It might also be helpful to have the children find each author of the talk on the picture chart in the magazine. This is a good way for them to learn the names and faces of the General Authorities.

*For teenagers: Have them read through the Conference talks and choose one to give a lesson on. Giving a lesson on a talk is a great way to learn and reinforce the principles taught.

Book Signing Cancelled

In case you saw the post I had up here yesterday, I wanted to let you know I will not be signing books this Saturday. They moved it to the following week and I will be unable to attend. But I'll be sure to let you know when they reschedule me. Thanks!