Charity and Clean Windows

The November Visiting Teaching message is to be selected from talks in our last General Conference. I loved President Monson’s talk during the General Relief Society broadcast, and created a fun handout to go with it. President Monson began by sharing the following anecdote:

A young couple, Lisa and John, moved into a new neighborhood. One morning while they were eating breakfast, Lisa looked out the window and watched her next-door neighbor hanging out her wash.

“That laundry’s not clean!” Lisa exclaimed. “Our neighbor doesn’t know how to get clothes clean!”

John looked on but remained silent.

Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, Lisa would make the same comments.

A few weeks later Lisa was surprised to glance out her window and see a nice, clean wash hanging in her neighbor’s yard. She said to her husband, “Look, John—she’s finally learned how to wash correctly! I wonder how she did it.”

John replied, “Well, dear, I have the answer for you. You’ll be interested to know that I got up early this morning and washed our windows!”

President Monson went on to talk about not judging one another – and the meaning of charity.

Just for fun, I thought I’d share a recipe for homemade window cleaner. It is tied to a bottle of vinegar, which is a main ingredient in this simple concoction, and a great food storage item. I printed the recipe on white copy paper; and on colored cardstock, the following quote:

Charity is having patience with someone who has let us down. It is resisting the impulse to become offended easily. It is accepting weaknesses and shortcomings. It is accepting people as they truly are. It is looking beyond physical appearances to attributes that will not dim through time. It is resisting the impulse to categorize others.

You can download both here.

I cut the recipe out with some freehand scallops, and rubbed the edges on a dark yellow ink pad for a little depth. I glued that to the front of my folded card. I then punched some flower shapes out of newspaper, stacked four together, and attached them to the card with a black brad. I squished up the petals to give the flower some body.

I then punched another hole in the corner of the card and tied it to the vinegar with a pretty ribbon. You can view President Monson’s talk here.

Have a great month!

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Close Ups

I am using a couple pages from the Friend Magazine (from April and August 2010 issues) to help me choose songs in my next singing time. I am covering all the close-up pictures with sticky notes on which I have written page and verse numbers on the back side. A child can remove one sticky note, guess what the close up photo underneath is of, then take the sticky note with the page number to the pianist. I’ll use the nature one on the left with junior primary, and the church building photos on the right with the senior. I put the magazine pages in page protectors and had to trim my sticky notes a little to fit the photos well.

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Misionary singing time

I’m excited for today’s singing time. We are talking about being missionaries today, and because I wanted to learn a new birthday song, I decided to introduce “Feliz Cumpleanos (CS 282). We can talk a little about understanding different cultures, and how many missionaries learn new languages to share the gospel around the world. I am bringing a large world map to show where the phrases in the song come from, along with some birthday cards with “Happy Birthday” written inside in the different languages. I thought this would be really fun when we have several birthday children up front – they can hold the cards up as we sing to them. (Plus, it will be fun to sing while shaking a maraca!) The art for the cards come from A Children’s Songbook Companion.

After singing the birthday song a few times, we will review “We’ll Bring the World His Truth” (CS 172). If we have time I have one more activity planned.


I want to very briefly share the story found in this Friend article. I will then have the first six Article of Faith cards set up on a table face down, with a different color crayon on each. I will choose a reverent child to pick a crayon to draw missionary clothes on the child outline, and we will sing the song that goes with the corresponding Article of Faith card. I’ll talk about the importance of knowing what we believe, so we can be better missionaries to our friends, and how memorizing the Articles of Faith help us to do that.

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What’s in my apron

I posted a few days ago my “Follow the Prophet” singing time. These are the visual aids I’ll have in my apron pockets to help with each song. All of these ideas came from my favorite music go-to book, A Children’s Songbook Companion.

We’ll Bring the World His Truth (CS 172)
I have a picture of the army of Helaman, and will give a brief overview of their story, along with a super visual – 20 pages with 100 stick figures on each, taped together to represent the 2,000 young men. I have key words for the first two verses written on paper feathers.

When We’re Helping (CS 198)
I will have a spoon, some socks, and a dusting cloth for children to choose from my pockets, and we will play-act helping using these items during the “tra la la” part of the song. We will also clap to the beat of this fun Greman folk song rhythm. (1-2-3)

Love is Spoken Here (CS 190)
No visuals for this one.

The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden (CS 237)
I have a picture of President Kimball, who often encouraged families to work together in the garden. We will do sign language with this song. This is a great site to find ASL words.

Kindness Begins with Me (CS 145)
Some visuals I copied from the book.

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Following the Prophet

We did our Children’s Sacrament Meeting Presentation last Sunday – it was fun and beautiful – and I love having our program just before General Conference. We had a nice break from regularly scheduled meetings, and now I am excited to go back and sing some fresh songs.

The October week 1 theme is: Following the prophet will help us come unto Christ. I have an old laminated family home evening kit that has pictures and words describing ways we can follow some of the prophets teachings. I plan on putting corresponding songs on the back of a few of the pictures, and a word to descramble on others. You could use actual objects, and the children would love that as well.

The songs I have chosen (click here to see how I will present them):
Be a missionary: We’ll Bring the World His Truth (CS 172)
Learn to work at home and do a good job: When We’re Helping (CS 198)
Respect your parents: Love is Spoken Here (CS 190)
Plant a Garden: The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden (CS 237)
Be a friend to the friendless: Kindness Begins with Me (CS 145)

Descramblers:
Read and study the Book of Mormon: M
Keep the Word of Wisdom: O
Pay your tithing: N
Believe in Jesus Christ: S
Smile and be kind to others: O
Write in your journal each day: N

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Touching the Temple

October is here, and the Visiting Teaching message for the month is to be selected from the special temple issue of the Ensign. I chose a portion of the article by President Monson to share with my sisters.

I loved the story of the grandfather who took his small granddaughter on a special trip to the temple for her birthday. As the young girl placed her hand on the door of the temple, the grandfather told her to, “Remember that this day you touched the temple. One day you will go inside.” President Monson spoke of the appreciation the little girl gained of the temple that day, how, “…she had touched the temple, and the temple had touched her.”

I printed a quote from the article on my handout, underneath a fun dot-to-dot of the Salt Lake temple (found on lds.org). As we touch our dot-to-dot temple, we can reflect on all the ways the temple has touched, and can touch our lives. 🙂

You can download the file here in English. And here in Spanish. And here in Portuguese.

To present my handout, I’ll roll up the paper, slide a homemade flower rubber band around it, and attach a pen and a tag.

The flowers are really simple to make. I gathered three white flower pieces, a button and a white hair band, then sewed it all together through the button holes.

I happened to pick up a ton of these little flowers packages at a yard sale, so this is what I used, but you could also buy flowers from a dollar store. Simply disassemble the flower, remove all the plastic pieces, and then sew up with your band and button.

Have a great month, and please share how your visiting teaching goes! Love you all.

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Family Proclamation Book Folder

This is how I am sharing my proclamation book with the sisters I visit teach: I put an empty photo album in the front pocket of a folder, and the printed transparencies in the back. In the center section I placed an empty page protector to collect the necessary photos, along with a checklist to help acquire and organize the photos. You can download the checklist here.

Posted in Proclamation on the Family | 10 Comments

Follow the Prophet Prompts

I just made these little stick prompts to remind the children which verse is coming up as we sing in the Sacrament Meeting program.

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Scripture Review

We had a fantastic review of the program songs today using the scriptures annotated in the Children’s Songbook. I was inspired by this “The Children Sing” post. I wrote the scripture reference on each paper and used them as bookmarks, having a child point to the paper he/she wanted. We read from my scriptures, discussed it’s significance, then had fun guessing which song it referred to. I asked the children to try and reflect on the scripture we read as we sang the corresponding song. I bore testimony at the end of our singing time, that the principles in the scriptures and in the songs we sang are true.

Matthew 19:13-15 (I Know that My Savior Loves Me)
Galatians 3:26 (The Fourth Article of Faith)
John 3:16 (He Sent His Son)
D & C 18:34-36 (This is My Beloved Son)
2Nephi 31:10 (Come, Follow Me)
D&C 115:4-5 (The Church of Jesus Christ)
D&C 21:4-7 (Follow the Prophet)
John 14:26 (The Holy Ghost)

I had the song titles written on the chalkboard as reference.

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Proclamation on the Family Photo Book

The September Visiting Teaching Message is about our responsibility to nurture the rising generation. One of the suggestions in the message is to share a copy of the “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” with our sisters.

I thought it would be fun to make a 4×6″ photo book with the words from the proclamation printed on transparencies, then placed on top of corresponding family photos. I bought a 36-photo album from Wal-Mart for $1.00.

There are plenty of pages to layer the text over photos, and also to have some pages with just text (like the photo above), if the photos are too busy to layer words over.

It definitely works best if the photos have a light-colored background.

You can, however, still see the text on a little dark or slightly busy photos. My transparencies seem to be staying put without adhesive, but I may experiment with some paper glaze (made by Aleene’s) to see if it adheres invisibly.

I love breaking up the proclamation into small bites like this, to really think about each part and what it means. My children love seeing it alongside our photos. It’s much more meaningful.

Make sure you buy the transparencies that are meant for your printer – whether inkjet, laser or copy machine – and follow printing directions on the package. You could also print on cardstock and make a little paper album. Please leave a comment and let us know how you use this download!

Click here for the pdf file.

One last thing – I made a duplicate of this quote: “Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.” It is printed all together in one place, and then printed as separate words on the last page, in case you want to use a separate photo for each principle mentioned.

Click here to see how I presented the book and transparencies.

Hope this is a fun project for you and your families!

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