* Dad flew out to Denver for a Branch Managers Conference for 3 days
* We spent some time on Saturday afternoon as a family getting the garage all ready for the cars to pull in for the winter
* August went out with the Missionaries
* We hosted the Young Men/Young Women activity here on Thursday for Mutual. They went on hayrides, had a bon fire and drank hot cocoa. It had snowed all day but stopped in time for the activity to continue as planned.
* We started decorating for Christmas! We got both trees up and it's starting to look festive around here! Hallmark Christmas movies and Christmas carols on Pandora are a daily occurance :)
In Our Homeschool This Week:
(I think this is the first week since starting to blog that I didn't take any pictures of our schooling!)
* We worked on memorizing Moses 1:39
* How our language affects us and those around us
* "Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back" read aloud
* Listening to "Swiss Family Robinson" audio book
* Nathan and the girls attended the ASK (After School Kids) program at the Library where they made their own Rainmakers
* The girls have rekindled their love of blog writing. Here is the link to Lexi's and this one to Aubrie's. I love that this is a "real world" way of getting practice in on spelling, sentence structures and typing :)
* Worked on Phonemic awareness with Nathan a lot this week
* Ben has decided to participate in the NaNoWriMo (which stands for National November Writers Month). He has set a goal to write 30,000 words by the end of November in a new book. If he meets his goal, he receives 3 copies of his book as the Prize from the sites sponsor. So he has been writing hours a day!
* Our Rabbit Trails this week took us on adventures into what a big city is like, geography of the US, Babe Ruth, Oxen, Paul Bunyan and Halloween Witches!
* Learned about Piranhas
* Math word problems and daily math computations
Spiritually Speaking...
I recently was re-reading my Scripture Journal and thought I'd share something I wrote last week as I was reading in Isaiah ch. 8. A question for the reading that was presented was "In verse 20, what is one test we can use to avoid spiritual deception?" The answer that Isaiah gives is if "they speak not according to the law or to the testimony." So basically if their words are not in harmony with the preaching of Christ's gospel. I then came across a quote by Ezra Taft Benson that went a bit further and he gives three tests that we can use to avoid being deceived. They are:
1) What do the standard works say about it?
2) What do the latter day Presidents of the church have to say on the subject - particularly the living Prophet
3) The Holy Ghost - the test of the Spirit. Moroni 10:5 tells us that by the Spirit we may know the truth of ALL things. Of course this test can only be freely effective if one's channels and communication with God are clean, virtuous and uncluttered with sin.
We then had the opportunity to put this to the test during our morning Enrichment time! Ben didn't see any problem with some of the words that he was using (they weren't swear words, but "ugly" words that were used to put down others) and so we looked up with the standards were for language in For the Strength of Youth and discussed how it specifically stated that "Speak kindly and positively about others. Choose not to insult others or put them down, even in joking. Avoid gossip of any kind and avoid speaking in anger." We then turned to what the prophets have said about language over the years and how they counsel us to use our language to uplift and edify ourselves and those around us. We talked about how the ancient prophets in the Bible used their words to beget mighty miracles - So if it is by words that miracles are commanded and things are created – should we not consider the power of our words in our everyday lives? We looked up verses on how Jesus spoke to others and saw how he made others feel good and lifted them up. So if we want to truly be Christlike, we should be seeking to build and to lift. It is impossible to imagine Christ going up to his friends calling them names or insulting them just in joking. His tongue was tamed and only filled with hope and love.
I also found this super cute poem and we committed that in our family, we wanted to be "builders" and not "wreckers":
BUILDERS OR WRECKERS
I watched them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a busy town.
With a ho-heave-ho and lusty yell,
They swing a beam and a sidewall fell.
I asked the foreman, "Are these men skilled,
As the men you'd hire if you had to build?"
He gave me a laugh and said "No indeed!"
Just common labor is all I need.
I can easily wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken a year to do."
And I tho't to myself as I went my way,
Which of these two roles have I tried to play?
Am I a builder who works with care,
Measuring life by the rule and square?
Am I shaping my deeds by a well-made plan,
Patiently doing the best I can?
Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,
Content with the labor or tearing down?
-Unknown
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