One Winter Day

It was a gray and dreary day...

and I chose to wear one of my warmest, coziest outfits, which happen to be gray too...

so I figured a little POP of COLOR would make me smile all day! 

And it did.   

What else did we do that day?  

We read the longest chapter in the Book of Mormon and put our marking pencils to good use marking references to the Savior...

Then Adam and I gave blood again.

  

I try to give at least every January in honor of Spence (and the gazillions of blood donations he received during his treatment for AML).   It was Adam's second time giving and he did better this time than his first.   I'm glad to have a blood donating partner now.  Glen lived in the UK for too long and is barred for life from giving blood, and Emma's iron tends to be too low.   Now that Adam is 16 (and I take daily iron pills now), I expect to do this more regularly again! 

Then we came home to an afternoon of cancelled activities and a beautiful snowstorm! 

I love Virginia snow days.   It's nice to have a break from the routine in these dog-days of winter! 

So, what did your winter day look like?  

Engraving on Our Heart

In General Conference a week and a half ago, Elder Durrant gave a talk that really resonated with our family about "ponderizing" scriptures. What is "ponderizing", you ask?   According to Elder Durrant, it's 80% pondering + 20% memorizing.   He encouraged people to pick a scripture per week to "ponderize,"  hang it up around your house, and spend a little time each day reading it, pondering it,  and making it a part of your heart and mind.    We've read the Book of Mormon together several times over the years, but this sounded like a great way to dive in a little deeper.     So we started the very next day.   

Week 1 (10/4/15):   2 Nephi 31:20 

How we chose it:    This scripture was in the chapter we were reading in our daily scripture study on that Monday morning after General conference, and when we came across it, I just knew that that would be our very first ponderizing scripture!    We had a lot of great discussions about it through the week and even spent some time studying it in French.      

Week 2 (10/11/15):  D&C 82:9-10
How we chose it:  I decided that the activity of ponderizing would be more meaningful if we took turns choosing the scripture each week.  This is the scripture that Glen chose.   The kids already have verse 10 completely memorized, but it will definitely take some time to get the first part down.   We are not necessarily setting out to memorize them at all, but to remember phrases and what they mean to us.

We are looking forward to many more weeks of ponderizing to come and hope that you'll join us with whatever scriptures you read!      Tell me in the comments what scriptures you're ponderizing right now.  Or which one we should do next.

****************************************