The scriptures are chock full of verses admonishing us to pray to our Heavenly Father. The commandment to pray can sometimes be a tricky one because prayers can easily become redundant and repetitive. I know I catch myself saying the same thing over and over in my prayers on a regular basis—I have to be…
October’s visiting teaching message is The Family is Ordained of God. Really, it is just a culmination of many of the earlier messages this year. It’s all about family and family is important because family is ordained of God. That’s it. That’s the big plan. God put us in family units for an important reason—many…
September’s visiting teaching message (Parenthood is a Sacred Duty) couldn’t have come at a more opportune time for me. We have been on sabbatical for a month now, and my sacred duties to my children as their mother are front and center as I help them navigate living in a new place. Not only did…
Sometimes I’m in the mood for a really deep read that makes me think, but sometimes I’m just in the mood for an enjoyable and fun story. I recently read Dear Jane by Rachel Ward, a new LDS romance, and amazingly enough, it fit both bills for me! Dear Jane begins while Quinn is serving her…
I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately, so this month’s visiting teaching message on Nurturing Families was perfect for me. The idea that the Lamanites were more righteous than the Nephites simply because they loved their families really hit me hard. (Jacob 3:7) Sometimes it’s hard to love our families—and sometimes it’s just hard…
When I was a freshman in college, my singles ward had a contest between the Relief Society and the Elders Quorum to see who could extract the most names for temple work. Back then (almost 25 years ago now!), we had to go up to a special extraction center and work from microfilm and enter…
The visiting teaching message for July 2016 is titled Our Potential for Parenthood. Like some of the previous lessons on marriage emphasize, parenthood may not happen in this life for some people, despite their faithfulness to gospel teachings. If that is the case for any of your sisters this month, you may want to go…
The visiting teaching message for June 2016 is about temple ordinances and covenants. As a person who lives nearly 7 hours away from the nearest temple, I really enjoyed reading this lesson. Ever since I moved here, the chances I have had to visit the temple are much more meaningful to me in general. I…
Choosing which quote to feature this month was really difficult, you guys! I always love General Conference so much and so many different little sound bites inspire me greatly. That’s why, in the end, I chose to highlight Elder Holland’s talk for my May 2016 visiting teaching message. Elder Holland’s talk is titled “Tomorrow the…
I always have really good intentions to study the conference talks before the next General Conference rolls around. I rarely succeed, though, and it’s mostly just because I don’t really have anything keeping me accountable. So, I decided to change that this time around. When our General Conference editions of the Ensign arrived (we always…
The visiting teaching message for April 2016 is titled Daughters of Our Eternal Father. For this month, I chose to use the quote from Elder Holland about the fact that God knows us because he is truly our Father in Heaven. Sometimes I forget what that word—father—actually means. The two earthly fathers closest to me—my…
Now that I have two teenagers (yes, I did say TWO TEENAGERS, what has happened to my life?), it’s becoming more difficult to make General Conference special. I want them to be inspired and to listen, but I still want them to be just as excited about it as they were when they were in…