#LightTheWorld Advent Calendar Cards

"During Christmas, we are reminded that Jesus Christ is the light of the world.

This year, we have an amazing opportunity to share that light by resolving to do the things Jesus Christ did. Every day leading up to Christmas, we [can] focus on a different Christ-like behavior and [look] for ways we can emulate His example." (from Mormon.org)

This year The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wants us to

#LightTheWorld

In 25 Ways. Over 25 Days.

We are challenged to share our light and make the world brighter by participating in acts of service every day for 25 days, starting on the 1st December and finishing on Christmas Day. Mormon.org have provided a printable Advent Service Calendar with suggestions of acts of service you can participate in. You can find more details about this at Mormon.org.uk or Mormon.org

I decided that I wanted to encourage my children to participate in this, and since they each have a home-made Advent Calendar which I fill with goodies and scriptures/quotes each year, I thought I'd redesign the Service Calendar to fit into our existing Advent Calendars, and add a scripture for them to read to each day.

These are the cards that I made.

And here they are in my children's Advent Calendars, along with some chocolate, ready for tomorrow morning (1st December).

And I thought, since I'd gone to all that work, I may as well share them so that others can make use of them too! Just print the off, laminate them and  cut them out.

I made two different sizes to fit into our two different Advent Calendars:

The SHORT cards each measure 5.5 x 7 cm (2.2 x 2.8")

The LONG cards each measure 4.5 x 9 cm (1.8 x 3.5")

So, here are the links to download the pdf's:

SHORT page 1 (1 Dec - 12 Dec)

SHORT page 2 (13 Dec - 24 Dec)

LONG page 1 (1 Dec - 12 Dec)

LONG page 2 (13 Dec - 24 Dec)

Page 3 for both SHORT and LONG

This is a much bigger card measuring 14 x 20 cm (5.5 x 7.9")

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I'd love it if you would comment below and share some of the service experiences you have had through the month, or projects you have planned. That way we can inspire each other to serve, learn from each other, and share service ideas.

#LightTheWorld

Visiting Teaching Thought for the Month June 2015 {Handout}

For my handout this month, I share a lovely quote by President Gordon B. Hinkley: "Love of God is the root of all virtue, of all goodness, of all strength of character."

Elder D. Todd Christofferson tells us: "Sisters, of all your associations, it is your relationship with God, your Heavenly Father, who is the source of your moral power, that you just always put first in your life. Remember that Jesus's power came through his single-minded devotion to the will of the Father. ... Strive to be that kind of disciple of the Father and the Son, and your influence will never fade."

Having a good personal relationship with our Heavenly Father is of vital importance on our path to becoming more Christlike. Our first priority, day to day, should be to God, before even ourselves, our spouses or our family. Elder Richard G. Scott said: "Don't yield to Satan's lie that you don't have time to study the scriptures." This applies to prayer too. Scripture study and prayer are our direct communication line with our Father in Heaven and therefore our greatest tool in developing a loving relationship with Him.

Have a great month and enjoy your Visiting Teaching!

Click here, or on the image above, to download the English printable.

Click here, or on the image above, to download the Dutch printable.

Thank you to Chaya Herrebrugh-Wachtmeester for the translation.

If you would like to make fridge magnet pegs to display your Thought for the Month, click here for the printable and tutorial.

Click links below for previous month's Thought for the Month

• January 2015
• February 2015
• March 2015
• April 2015
• May 2015

Visiting Teaching Thought for the Month May 2015 {Handout}

This month we are asked to share one of the General Conference talks with our sisters. One talk that really stood out for me this conference was "Stay by the tree" by Elder Kevin W. Pearson. Here are my thoughts as I listened to his message:

He tells us that when one of the Brethren visited President Heber J. Grant shortly before he passed away, President Grant prayed, “O God, bless me that I shall not lose my testimony and keep faithful to the end!” Even a Prophet of 27 years is not beyond Satan's influence. This is a great reminder to me not to be discouraged when I feel the pull of temptation, the fact that I am tempted does not make me weak - it makes me human. It is how I act upon that temptation that makes the difference. My task is to withstand those temptations, strive every day to become more like Christ and endure to the end.

Elder Pearson says that the principle of "enduring to the end" is not the same as "hanging in there" (which is not a principle of the gospel). To "hang in there" has the implication of doing as little as possible to just get by.  Christ, however doesn't want us to be mediocre, he wants us to become perfect, and we are not going to achieve that by doing as little as we possibly can. Instead, we need to make that endure actively, we need to put daily work into remaining faithful.

He says: "Casual obedience and lukewarm commitment weaken faith. Enduring to the end requires total commitment to the Savior and to our covenants" (emphasis added).

He gives us 6 important principles that can help us do this:

1. Don't Forget to Pray
2. Come Unto Christ and be Perfected in Him
3. Press Forward with Faith
4. The Book of Mormon is Key to Spiritual Survival
5. Don't be Distracted and Deceived
6. Stay by the Tree (referring to Lehi's vision)

My Visiting Teaching Thought for the Month comes from point 4, and he repeats the message again towards the end of his talk. He reminds us that we need to prayerfully study the Book of Mormon and the words of the Living Prophets and live it's teachings every day, every day, every day! Doing this will help us when we feel conflicted, spiritually low, confused and overwhelmed. Elder Pearson testifies that "the profound power in the Book of Mormon will change your life and strengthen your resolve to follow Christ. The Holy Ghost will change your heart and help you see 'things as they really are.' He will show you what you need to do next."

I hope that seeing this handout on your fridge, pin board, mirror or wall can serve as a little reminder to feast, daily, on the scriptures and strengthen your resolve to come unto Christ, be fully committed to Him and to actively endure to the end. One day at a time.

Click here, or on the image above, to download the English printable.

Click here, or on the image above, to download the Spanish printable.

Thank you to Wanda Lopez for the translation.

Click here, or on the image above, to download the Dutch printable.

Thank you to Chaya Herrebrugh-Wachtmeester for the translation.

If you would like to make fridge magnet pegs to display your Thought for the Month, click here for the printable and tutorial.

Click links below for previous month's Thought for the Month

• January 2015
• February 2015
• March 2015
• April 2015

Visiting Teaching Thought for the Month April 2015 {Handout}

It is good for us to remember that no one of us is without sin, and that we should not hypocritically esteem ourselves above any others, for we know not what is in their heart. As Christ said: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone..." (John 8:7).

The only man who has, or ever will be without sin was Christ, and no more humble man is there, without any guile or hypocrisy. To become more Christlike is not to prove to the world how good we are, but it is a look into our own hearts. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin said: “To beguile is to deceive or lead astray. … A person without guile is a person of innocence, honest intent, and pure motives, whose life reflects the simple practice of conforming his [or her] daily actions to principles of integrity.”

Becoming more Christlike is striving to honestly BE the best we can be, patterning ourselves after Christ's example. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said: "None of us is quite as Christlike as we know we should be. But we earnestly desire to overcome our faults and the tendency to sin. With our heart and soul we yearn to become better with the help of the Atonement of Jesus Christ."

Click here to download the English 4-up pdf

Click here to download the Spanish 4-up pdf 

Thank you to Wanda Lopez for the translation :)

If you would like to make fridge magnet pegs to display your Thought for the Month, click here for the printable and tutorial.

Click links below for previous month's Thought for the Month

• January 2015
• February 2015
• March 2015

Doctrine & Covenants Apples to Apples Game {Free Printable}

My Seminary students love playing games, and are very competitive! Whenever they get together, out comes the Risk, Playing Cards, Apples to Apples, etc. Games have become quite a significant part of our Seminary lessons too, it keeps my students engaged and interested in the lessons. Never do they read and understand scriptures better than when doing so earns them points or some kind of advantage. Now, I understand that not everyone thinks that games belong in Seminary lessons, but it works for the particular students I have right now. I try very hard to make sure they are not just games for the sake of games, but rather use them to enhance the lessons or build on Scripture Mastery knowledge. I am finding that the students (and I) are getting tired now though, as the Seminary year has progressed, so I have introduced a new game that isn’t specifically linked to Scripture Mastery, nor any one lesson, but on the Doctrine and Covenants as a whole. I use it as a short game either at the beginning or end of a lesson, to either wake the students up, or give them a break and a bit of fun.

My game is based on Apples to Apples by Out of the Box and Mattel, and is played by the same rules. Each player holds 5 Red cards, one player - the Judge - picks a Green card from the pack and places it in the centre of the table, face up. Each of the other players choose a Red card from their hand that they feel best suits the word on the Green card, then place them face down on the table. The Judge collects all those Red cards up, shuffles them then lays them face up on the table. They then decide which of the Red cards they think suits the Green card best. While they are making their decision, the other players try to convince the Judge to pick their card - here is where strategy comes in, you don’t want the Judge to know which card is yours! Once the Judge has picked a card, the player who put that card down ‘wins’ the green card. The played Red cards are discarded. Those who played a Red card draw a new one from the pack. Play continues with the player to the left of the Judge becoming the new Judge. The winner of the game is the player who has the most green cards at the end of the game (we never play to a certain number as it takes too long, but rather play to a time limit).

While playing, my students may only use their D&C / church knowledge to ‘help’ the Judge choose a card. Once the Judge has chosen a card, they must justify why they chose that card - again, using their D&C / church knowledge. Any Scripture Masteries are to be quoted. If a student gets a card they don’t understand, they may use their scriptures to look it up (or a dictionary if it is not a gospel specific word).

My class is small, so we can all play the game together. If your class is large, perhaps you could make multiple decks and your students can play in smaller groups. I am sure there are other ways that the game can be played - please comment below if you have any good ideas!

These are the cards I have made, click HERE or on the image above to download the pdf.

For a set with American spellings, click HERE.

It is a 24 page file - 8 pages of Green cards, 14 pages of Red cards and 2 pages for the backs of the cards (352 cards in total). Print out the first 22 pages onto white card, then put them back into your printer and print the backs using the last two pages (make sure you put them into your printer the right way around!) Each A4 page has 16 cards on it, and I have made them edge-to-edge, so you can just evenly divide the page in to 16 (4x4) and cut it up (I use a metal ruler and an exacto knife, that way I can cut many pages at once).
If you use a different page size, just scale the image down to fit your page, then trim any excess off before splitting the page into 16. I haven't included any cut lines because I found that my cards all came out slightly different sizes when I did that (printers don'y print exactly straight) and I got a better result without cut lines. If you would prefer to have cut lines, just let me know and I will provide a copy of the file with them.

I hope you enjoy playing - let me know what you, and your students, think! And if you feel that I have left any cards out, comment below and I can add them to the pack.

Visiting Teaching Thought for the Month March 2015 {Handout}

This month's Visiting Teaching message is all about patience - one trait upon which I have much improvement yet to make!

I remember being told in a talk once to be careful when praying for patience, because you may not get what you expect. Rather than giving you an instant gift of patience, the Lord is more likely to send you trials that test your patience, thereby increasing your patience through experience.

I have been told in many blessings lately (as I have struggled with the injury to my right shoulder) to have patience and remember the the Lord works in his own time. I have felt many times that this patience I have had to endure was passive - literally sitting around waiting for my arm to heal so that I could get 'back to normal'. However, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, tells us “Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something … even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!”

“Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith. It means being ‘willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father’ [Mosiah 3:19]. Ultimately, patience means being ‘firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord’ [1 Nephi 2:10] every hour of every day, even when it is hard to do so.”

So I thought about how this applied to my current situation, and realised that it is in my attitude to my circumstances that I can 'endure well', rather than sitting around feeling sorry for myself and 'failing to act', I can still find ways to play an active roles in my family, community and church, even if they are different from those I am used to.

Click here to download the pdf of this month's Thought for the Month.

Click here for the Spanish pdf

If you would like to make fridge magnet pegs to display your Thought for the Month, click here for the printable and tutorial.

Click links below for previous month's Thought for the Month

• January 2015
• February 2015

Melting Moments Cookies & Choices {Recipe}

Melting Moments are crisp, shortbread-like cookies that are tender to the bite, a little crunchy, but then melt away in your mouth. They are simple, unassuming little cookies, but definitely moreish! And I think they look rather pretty with the bright red cherry in the middle!

I had a bit of fun with these cookies. I made a big batch for my Young Women lesson at church on Sunday - everyone really enjoyed them at the end of the lesson, and we had the Young Men appearing at the door looking for their share too.

Some of the cookies however, had a little extra, not so welcome ingredient - dirt. I presented a platter of dirt infused cookies at the beginning of the lesson and gave the girls a choice, they could eat a cookie if they wanted to, but I made them aware that there was just a little bit of dirt in each one. Only a tiny bit of dirt though, it probably wouldn't even really be noticeable if you were to eat the cookie, the few tiny visible specks could surely be ignored - the cookies still looked really yummy. Unsurprisingly, they did not rush to eat them. I then compared eating the contaminated cookies with making choices to do things that were mostly OK, hoping that the tiny little bits of 'bad' involved in those choices wouldn't affect them.

If you would like to make your own Melting Moments, here is the recipe (don't worry, I left the dirt out ;)

Melting Moments       PRINT

Makes 30 cookies

Ingredients:

225g butter - room temperature

175g caster sugar

2 large egg yolks

1 TBSP vanilla

270g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

60g rolled oats

15 red glacé cherries

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180ºC

Line 2 baking trays with baking paper or silpats.

Beat butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla together. Add the flour, baling powder and salt and beat in until you get a smooth batter.

Spread the rolled oats out on a plate.

Scoop out about a 1 1/2 inch ball of dough (either with two table spoons or with a small ice cream scoop), and drop it onto the rolled oats.
My little ice cream scoop measures 1 1/2" across, I use it for all of my drop cookies, like chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles. It's just the right size and using it means that my cookies all come out uniform in size and shape.

Roll the ball of batter around until it is coated in oats.

Place on a baking tray and flatten slightly, then top with half a glacé cherry.

Repeat until all the dough is used up - you should get about 30 cookies - 15 on each baking tray. Ensure there is space around each cookie to spread out when cooking, about 1 1/2” space between cookies is enough.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, until just going golden around the edges.

Leave to cool on the baking tray for a few minutes, then lift onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Best eaten within 48 hours.

Happy Baking!

Visiting Teaching Thought for the Month February 2015 {Handout}

The quote that really stood out to me in February's Visiting Teaching message was the following by Elder D. Todd Christofferson (once again):

“Jesus was … a being of flesh and spirit, but He yielded not to temptation (see Mosiah 15:5). We can turn to Him … because He understands. He understands the struggle, and He also understands how to win the struggle. …"

It was only recently that I fully appreciated the life experience our Saviour, Jesus Christ gained here as he walked on the earth. He lived His life just as we did; experiencing pain, sorrow, hardship and hunger. He knows, first hand, what it is like to work hard, worry about loved ones and struggle against the odds. When He speaks to us, it is with the true compassion only one who KNOWS what it's like can have. Through it all, He remained without sin, the perfect example for us. He gave us the template towards which we work, and also His Atonement, so that with every passing day, as we try harder to be more like Him, we can repent and become pure.

This image of Christ (that I have used in my handout) is my own artwork. It is free for you to use it  as long as credit is given to me, and it is not used for commercial purposes.

I hope you enjoy using the free handout I have designed as you do your Visiting Teaching this month. It is great to give as a reminder of the lesson you have given, or to pop into a card or letter. To download the .jpg of the handout, click on the image below, for a .tiff click here.

Click here for the Spanish pdf.

Click here for the Dutch pdf.

If you would like to make fridge magnet pegs to display your "Thought for the Month", click here for the printable and tutorial.

Have a great month!

Click link below for previous Thought for the Month

• January 2015