As I was gearing up for 2013, about two weeks into January, which is pretty normal timing for me, I realized that this year is going to be one of THE BIG ONES. By the end of 2013, Dolly will be a teenager and almost ready for seminary. By the end of 2013, Caveman will be twelve, and old enough to hold the Aaronic Priesthood. By the end of 2013, Monkey will be eight, and old enough to be baptized and confirmed a member of the church. And all my procrastinations and missed opportunities started to look like a much bigger pile than the days when we actually had family prayer, scripture study, read the church magazines, Family Home Evening, sang or listened to "church" music, etc. etc. etc.
That feeling of inadequacy and unpreparedness combined with our 2013 Stake theme of "Real Growth" got me started. Considering the special needs status of my three kids and our success rate with standard scriptures, we're starting with the illustrated stories of each of the standard works. We are also going to read the standard works, but the strategy is to:
1. Read and or view the Doctrine and Covenants Stories chapters, to get a good overview and understanding.
2. Listen to the recorded scriptures online while reading from our own copies. This keeps us on track to finish all four standard works in a year, and gives us a peaceful evening activity that doesn't involve arguing or whining. Excellent practice for reading as well, especially for Monkey who is an excellent reader but not great at decoding or strategies for unfamiliar words. He wants to "know" it, rather than figure it out, and this is an excellent way to beef up his vocabulary.
3. Track progress on bookmarks with each chapter of each book in a grid. Feeling of accomplishment, anyone? I printed those out this afternoon.
I am considering getting the transparent picture clue "Scripture Stickers" for the kids as well, but I haven't put all the ones I bought into mine yet, because while I can still read the text through the picture as you're supposed to, I can't tell what the picture is once it's on top of the text. That defeats the purpose of using the picture to remember the Scripture Mastery scriptures anyway. Any thoughts, readers?
A couple of years ago when I was serving in the ward Relief Society presidency, someone brought up the idea of a "sabbatical year" being a longstanding tradition, not only of college professors going off on research trips, but of spiritual renewal and rededication, of getting one's spiritual "house" in order. That's what we need, and what I'm trying to accomplish. She had a nice set of activities and monthly themes I need to look up, if they're still in my files, or find something similar online, but I think we have a good start. I just need to put to use the many tools that I have in my hands every day!
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