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[00:00:00] INSIGHTS INTRODUCTION

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Hey everybody. Welcome back. This is week 14 of Creative. Come follow me for the New Testament and it is officially Easter week and maybe our only mini week of the entire four years. I looked ahead, uh, this coming week between conference and Easter. We have two birthdays, a daughter on bedrest and a grandson at home.

We've got a lot on our plate. In addition to that, it's spring break for my kids, so I wanted a chance to lighten the load a little bit, and this Easter. Gave me a good opportunity to do that, cuz honestly, the reading material is pretty light. You could take it as deep as you wanna go, but for me, I found the most richness when I zeroed in.

So this week you guys we're going rogue. I'm gonna walk you through the manual itself and show you some of the good things that they've laid out for you. And then I'm gonna take you into the Living Christ just for a few minutes to show you where, if you're in a spotlight, me, where you might be running faster than [00:01:00] you have strength.

And the idea. Going in depth in the manual to all the places they're directing you feels overwhelming. Then you can find comfort and rest as you study the living Christ. So I'm gonna walk you through just a touch of that today and then take things a little easier all around. So grab your scriptures, grab your notes.

Let's get started. Before we get into the Living Christ, I wanted to show you what you'll find in the notes this week. So since it's a little bit different, this week is gonna play out different on all fronts, and it will be a little different in the notes as well. What you'll find there is some simple resources.

So I think one of my hopes, and maybe it's because of the way we've studied the Savior's teachings all this year, where he's trying to teach the scribes and the Pharisees to stop creating more, to stop making their discipleship. Busier and more cumbersome and instead to simplify on what matters most. So that was sort of the focus for me all throughout this week.

But a lot of that you're gonna find in the notes at the beginning, you're gonna see some links out. [00:02:00] You'll see a link out to the Almi manual where you can see their whole. Game plan for the whole week. You can also see things like a link out to the church's Easter site, so if you haven't seen it, if you go into easter.com onto christ.org, they have a simple daily plan, which is a scripture or two on each day to help you break down and study that Holy Week time, all those different days of the week in the, in those seven days leading up to the Savior's resurrection, and you can kind of study those.

With videos and other supplies, if you follow that website. Another great one I happened to find this week is, uh, he is Risen video. I don't know if you guys have seen this. I think it came out last year, but I've never watched it before. It's a little longer, but what I liked about it is it's this video that talks about beautiful art and music and then has all this.

This sound to it. Most of it is filmed on that same set where they shot the Bible videos and it's, you know, Jenny Oaks Baker playing the violin and a whole orchestra of kids who are playing with her. And I just found it was really lovely to have on in the [00:03:00] background. So if you're like me and this week is looking a little crazy for you, this is a great video to open up and just let it play.

Whether your kids sit and watch it or it just happens to be playing in the background, I think you'll find. Adds a little bit of lift, so don't miss that link in the notes. You're also gonna see some links out to the testimonies of the apostles since we're focusing in on the Living Christ. I, I think you wanna, if you have time, click on a few of those links and listen to what our apostles say about their own witness of the Savior.

Uh, I think even if you do nothing else, that's a really powerful way to connect with this Easter season. Um, so don't, don't miss those links if you can. The other thing you'll see when you go in the notes is I've broken. The manual essentially. Basically the manual broke it into three big sections, and I've laid out one of those for each.

The first one is all about this idea of Holy Week and celebrating it more, more thoughtfully. So President Nelson, I think it was two years ago, invited us to focus in on that last week of the Savior and [00:04:00] see. Discipleship on a daily basis and, and learn more about that leading up time to Easter. I just didn't think I had time to carry that out this year, but I did wanna give you the tools to do it.

So if you're in the course, I would invite you to go. If you go back into the Old Testament course and look at week 14, I give you this beautiful creation that my friend Amy Ferry basically made. She's this incredible artist and she provided, we worked together. With some of the ladies from Sugar Doodle, and we created this advent of sorts to to work you down to Easter so that there's a simple video to watch and a craft or an activity to do each day.

There's also some gorgeous decorations. She's got this palm tree garland that we put up on our fireplace Every Easter and supplies that you can put at your Easter table. There's this incredible spread so that you have everything you need. If you want to approach this Holy Week plan that the, um, that the conforming manual lays out.

All the tools are at your disposal. I'll link them again at this week's kombi, like under the creative video. But if you wanna go in and learn more about [00:05:00] it, you might wanna go back to the Old Testament course and watch the creative side of week 14. Uh, the next thing you're gonna learn and you go as you go in the manual is you'll see more about how the savior delivers and about the witnesses.

So I really liked the way the manual broke down the many witnesses of the living Christ that we have at our fingertips. I think. For us to develop our own witness, it helps to have this cloud. You know, like I, I actually see the cloud of witnesses as when I hear somebody witness to me, even if it's reading the story of Mary Magdalene or reading the story of Peter.

When I hear these witnesses, I actually, in my mind say, I'm gonna add that to my cloud. You know, they talk about that. I think it's in Hebrews, but it's that idea. I mean, I think they were thinking of a different kind of cloud, but I think of it almost like a data holding cloud that my goal is to make my cloud so full of witnesses that there can be no doubt in my heart that that way when the Holy Ghost teaches me, there's something rich to [00:06:00] rest on.

And so in the manual you'll see a whole bunch of witnesses laid out. I just found that their way of laying them out was a, Harder. So if you go in the notes, you'll see that I've added bullet points and just kind of broken them down and told you and given you all the references out so that you can see those a little bit quicker.

But I do think there's a lot of value when you're talking about understanding your own witness to, to build your cloud with as many tools as you can. And a lot of the witnesses I found were coming from those references and come follow Emmanuel. So go click on a few of those, read the verses, and then let let those witnesses thicken your cloud.

The last part is about how you can find hope and joy through Jesus Christ. This is actually what led me to the living Christ, cuz I felt like what I've learned. In fact, this week I got to teach at a great ward near Bountiful, all about joy and in my studies for teaching that relief society, I found there was this.

Big connection between joy and rest that we often see. We read verses about joy and we think that means it's [00:07:00] happiness, but joy is something deeper. Joy is something that is a soul at rest, that is steady in adversity. A soul that is comfortable even amidst to heart times because they, they, they know for a certainty.

And that's how I feel when I read The Living Christ. I feel like that document just exudes. And joy and rest, and this is where it, I just found myself diving into it, maybe even tumbling into it this week because I found so much in it. If you don't have time to study any of the verses that are laid out in the Come Follow Me Manual, I would encourage you to just open up the Living Christ and look at every single scripture reference there cuz when you study them that way, for me at least, it opened up a lot of potential for.

I found myself resting on the witnesses that I was reading. I, I found myself grateful for the Savior and all of his many facets, and also eager to get my own witness. But I'll walk you through all the details of how I came to that in [00:08:00] just a second. But I would encourage you, especially in that third section that would come follow me, Manuel, to open up the Living Christ and see what it can teach you about finding hope and joy and ultimately,

[00:08:18] LIVING CHRIST

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Full disclosure here. I've had it kind of hard to jump from the miracles of last week, the walking on the water and the feeding the 5,000 and the Bread of Life sermon to jump all the way into the last week of the savior. It was hard for me. I don't know if this is just me and maybe the baggage that I carry with me in my situation, but I found myself thinking, no, there's more, like there's more.

One more time. We, we need more time before we get to that mortal end, I just, Didn't love the way it felt as I was doing. It's just my own issues. But I did find comfort and peace as I studied the living Christ because it had more of a zoomed out perspective and I just loved it. I [00:09:00] think I also loved it because of what we've been doing these last four years together.

You know, we started in the Book of Mormon and we read the doctrine confidence together. We studied. The Old Testament and now the new, and we've read this Easter story from all those different vantage points, and I kind of felt like the living Christ was a culmination of all of those. It's this beautiful harmony of all those doctrines, and it brought really sweet memories back to me as I studied it, different testimonies that I've gained throughout all these different books of scripture.

Bubbled up to the surface for me as I was studying, so I hope that happens for you as well. I will tell you that there is a really handy tool that you might not wanna miss this week. So I created a wide margin version of the Living Christ that you could print over and over and over again so that you can scribble all over it.

You could highlight it, you could print one copy that you're gonna focus in on what the savior does for you, and maybe another copy that you focus in on what the savior does for your family. Or you could have one copy that's focused in on the priesthood and one copy that's focused in on, you know what I mean?

Like you. You could go any direction you want, but it has a few [00:10:00] tools built into it. So similar to the template that I gave you guys for your patriarchal blessing template and the family proclamation. Remember we laid it out almost like scripture. I really like the two column approach and I like having numbers on each of the paragraphs.

Cause I felt like it gave my mind some. Quick reference points. I also really like having a lot of space around the edges, so in addition to the people in the course, we'll have this access to this printable. I'll also put a link out for those of you who are watching on YouTube, or if you're listening on the podcast, hop over to YouTube and grab it from the comments link.

But hopefully this will help all of you jump into the Living Christ and be able to just dive in a little bit deeper than you could have. Uh, when you go in, let me tell you a few of the things I just pulled out, one from each paragraph, but trust me, there is so much more. I only spent a couple hours with the Living Christ to study it and kind of follow the references out.

But there are a hundred different ways you could study this document. Let me just show you one thing from each paragraph that I love. So in the first paragraph, I particularly [00:11:00] love what he talks when he talks about virtue. So this is the apostles, the first presidency and the corner of the 12, writing their witness of the savior.

This is from January 1st, 2000, and they talk about his matchless life and his virtue. So if you look at it in paragraph one, as we commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ two millennia ago, we offer our testimony of the real reality of his matchless life and the infinite virtue of his great atoning sacrifice.

In particular, I loved that verse or that saying, because of what we just read about the woman with the issue of blood and that he recognized that virtue had gone out of him and that virtue equated to power. And I really like that the apostles chose to add that word in here. I think the power of his atoning sacrifice is softened and more full when we think of it as virtue.

And I just love that. Another one that I loved into is where it talks about how he went about doing good, even though people rejected him for it. What [00:12:00] I really love is at the very end, so this is where he talks about what he did. They talk about the miracles that he performed despite all the rejection and the teachings he offered, and I thought it was really interesting to see the three teachings that they outlined.

It says at the very last sentence, He taught the truths of eternity, the reality of our premortal existence, the purpose of our life on earth, and the potential for sons and daughters of God in the life to come. Essentially, in that last one sentence of paragraph two, you find that he has answered all those common questions that everyone has.

Where did we come from? Why are we here and where are we going next? Is there purpose in life? All of that is answered in the ministry of the. When you go into paragraph three, I particularly like what you see in the, that last sentence, uh, sorry, second to last. It says, he gave his life to a tone for the sins of all mankind.

His was a great vicarious gift in behalf of all who would ever live upon the earth. I think the emphasis that I love is that he gave his life. It was not [00:13:00] taken from him despite what, how it might have looked to those on the outside. He offered his life, and that is, That is a teaching that I never want my kids to forget, that he, he voluntarily used his agency to fulfill the will of the father, and there's power in that understanding.

Another one that you're gonna see in four, I love how it begins, says, we solemnly testify that his life, which is central to all human history, neither began in Bethlehem nor concluded on Cal three. When I studied that, I found. Almost laughing at myself for being sad about studying the death of the savior this week.

I just, you know, even though it's hard to read, it is not the end. And where we began in Luke two is not the beginning. I just think especially this year as we've been in the New Testament, to appreciate that. His life is so much bigger and that what all those miracles we saw in the Old Testament were the savior.

All those promises that we read in the Pearl of Great Price about the Premortal [00:14:00] existence, those are the great Jehovah. And it is that very same being from the beginning to the end, and I loved that reminder. Another one that you're gonna see is five in Five is about sleeping. And after we read what we read with gyrus, this one called out to me, says he rose from the grave to become the first fruits of them that.

The reason that I love that is simply because, do you remember what happens with Gyrus and his daughter and Jesus is trying to tell him, don't be afraid she's only sleeping. I think the promise of the Savior is, That all who we have lost are simply sleeping. There is, there is just a break until we see them again, until they are all restored.

And I, I love that he is the first of those that slept those first fruits. Another thing you're gonna see in six is you hear about his voice, they reference Joseph Smith and the first vision, Now we get Joseph Smith's perspective on what the Savior looks and sounds like. So if you look in verse six of the Living Christ, the prophet [00:15:00] Joseph wrote, his eyes were as a flame of fire.

The hair of his head was white, like the pure snow, his countenance shown above the brightness of the sun, and his voice was as the sound of rushing of great waters. Even the voice of Jehovah. What I love about that in particular this year in the New Testament, is we've heard him promise that he is the living water, especially last week, where we read the Bread of Life sermon, that, you know, partaking of that sacrament, those emblems that he's gonna teach 'em about in that last week of his life is our way of taking those living waters into us and being restored and replenished by.

In verse seven, it's citing the Savior's teachings to Joseph Smith where he said, I am the first and the last. I am he who liveth. I am he who was slain. I am your advocate with the father. I have taught a whole lesson to my ysa about advocacy. I actually feel like almost every. Every little vignette, every story that we read in the New Testament, even most of the parables are teaching us about how he is our advocate with the father, [00:16:00] that he does the will of the father, which means the father is also advocating for us.

They both want us to succeed. And I think the phrase advocate is just a poignant one. It it, it, to me, it's almost like a coach. You know, you picture someone who is rooting for you, who is gonna provide the tools that you need, who's gonna. Be an example for you and provide you with this constant encouragement so that you can accomplish what needs to be done.

I also think it's someone who doesn't lower the bar. You know, a, a really good coach doesn't lower the bar for you. They give you the tools and the training so that you can. Leap over it. And that's what I feel like the Savior is one of my favorite descriptions of him as an advocate. I think it came from Michael Wilcox years ago.

It's been ingrained so much in my brain that I have a hard time remembering where I learned it, but it sounds like something he would say. He spoke about how he pictures that final judgment scene as a bishop's office rather than a courtroom drama. I don't even remember the rest of his lesson other than that mental [00:17:00] picture shifted things for me.

Just in these last couple weeks, I've had to renew my temple, recommend, and so I went to go visit with a member of the Bishop Brick first, and then a member of the state presidency. And what I loved about that process is I found that both of those men were my advocates. That the men from the bishop brick was my advocate with the state presidency.

They were someone who wanted me to get to the temple. They wanted to provide whatever tools I needed. If I had needed some sort of repentance process, they would've happily guided me through that. There they were. A lot of. They were there to be my advocate cuz they want to get me there. They do not however want to get me there at the expense of pleasing God or abiding by his.

Laws so they don't lower the bar for me, they simply encourage me to use all the tools at my disposal and the grace that's available to me in order to get over it. And I think that's the promise of advocacy. I really like the visual for me of the judgment being this one-on-one interview [00:18:00] where he asks, tell me about your life.

How did it go? You know, it's a, it's a kind. Advocacy and then he can then turn to the father, similar to the way a bishop would turn to a state president and say, I can recommend her. I think there is something really warm about that visual and so I love that you see a, a touch of that in the living Christ.

In eight, you see that this is the testimony last of all, so this is Joseph Smith's speaking and he said of him, the prophet also declared, and now after the many testimonies which has been have been given to him, this is the testimony last of all, which we give of him that he lives. And then when you roll into nine for, we saw him even on the right hand of God and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the only begotten of the father.

There is a. Powerful witness in seeing and hearing, but I think what Joseph Smith also knows, How his works played out in Joseph's life. You know, Joseph didn't just have a witness of the savior because of what he saw and heard. He also had a witness of him because he [00:19:00] has put his works and his gospel into his life.

He's watched the fruits come from it, and so he has his own steady witness, and I love that promise. When you a little bit further, you're gonna see in 10 that by him and through him and of him, the worlds are, and were. The inhabitants there of our begotten sons and daughters of God. I thought that word choice at the beginning was really interesting, that by him and through him and of him, I started wondering what's the big difference between by and of?

And I don't know that I have the right answer you guys, but I really liked thinking about why each of those three are included. And for me, I think by means he is the creator. Just like we know that he is the creator under the direction of God, the father of him to. Kind of denotes what we've learned about him being the source of light and life.

That for things that he created to be of him, it means they've taken some of his characteristics onto them. All the light we have in this world, all the goodness [00:20:00] that we feel and see all came of the savior, that great creator, and I love that piece of that verse. When you go into 11, you'll see another one.

This is talking about the priesthood and the church being restored. We declare in words of solemnity that his priesthood and his church have been restored upon the earth, built on the foundation of apostles, prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, especially where we're rolling off of a week of hearing from our prophets and apostles.

I think there is power in this. Remembrance that his gospel is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That this gospel that we have here is based on the blueprint that he's set up in the New Testament. We've taken that same structure and it has been restored. The keys are restored, the priesthood is restored, and this is the only church on the face of the earth that has that, that has those keys and has that authority to really have the fullness of his gospel here on earth.

There's power in that paragraph. When you go a little bit further in 12, it talks about his glory. We testified that he will someday return to [00:21:00] earth and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh Su shall see it together. He will rule as king of kings and reign ass Lord of lords, and every knee shall bend and every tongue shall speak in worship before him.

I think this is one of my favorite paragraphs of the whole living Christ for a couple reasons. First off, I love this promise that when he comes again, it will not. Difficult two spot. He, his glory will radiate out where people in Nazareth only saw him as a carpenter son. There will be no question when he comes again, who he is and who sent him.

It will be. Visible to everyone, which is why every Nisha bow and every tongue confessed. In fact, what I love about that phrase is this promise. Sometimes when I read the New Testament, I start to get a bit envious of those who saw his miracles firsthand. You know, have you forgot like that? Like I just, you know, all of us have people in our lives who need healing or who need help in this way, and I wish I [00:22:00] could, I wish I could carry them and let them down through a roof to get to the savior and.

Don't I have that option? So I find myself envious of those people in the New Testament, and then I read this promise and I think about this idea that at one point when the Savior comes again, every single person will have a chance to be healed from the savior. Every person will be made perfectly whole.

No matter how you lived your life, all mankind will be restored to their body and in a perfect form. And so we'll get to stand by and watch as every person we love, especially those who have struggled with mortal limits will be. Perfectly restored, and that's when every knee shall bow. In fact, I believe that a big reason every knee will bow is because at that point in time, every knee can bow.

All of us will be able to witness that this is real. What I don't want to have happen is for me to wait until that day to Neil. I think [00:23:00] if we wait until that day, It's everlastingly too late. Not just because it's the day of judgment, but because we will have missed all the miracles. You know, just like we studied last week with Nazareth, that because they didn't have faith in him and they only saw him in this mortal limited view, he couldn't perform any great miracles among them.

And I think that's the same thing that happens with me if I choose to wait until that day when all are made whole. I will know that he is my savior. I will see him clearly, but I will have missed out a miracle of having a relationship with him, being connected through covenants. Knowing him and him knowing me, and having miracles play out in my life.

I, I don't wanna miss that. So I, I like the reminder in that verse is a powerful one for me. At the very end, 13. I'm just gonna read the full verse, but it says, we bear testimony as his duly ordained apostles, that Jesus is the living Christ, the immortal son of God. He is the great King Emmanuel, who stands today on the right hand of his father.

He is the [00:24:00] light, the life, and the hope of the world. His way is the path that leads to happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come, God be thanked for the matchless gift of his divine son. What I love about 13 is it is this. Peaceful, hopeful, rested promise. Th this is a witness of those who know for a certainty, who the savior is and what I love about what, what we've learned from the scriptures and what we'll see even next week as we go into studying Peter's witness is that although I have no doubt that the apostles and prophets have witnessed the savior in ways that I can't quite fathom, I, I don't know what they've seen or know if it's anything like Joseph Smith.

I'm sure it's remarkable, but I. What I do know about the prophets and apostles is their witness of the savior doesn't just come from what they can see and what they can hear. It comes from what they know. This is what we're gonna see from Peter next week in Matthew. It's in Matthew 16, 16, and 17. This is where the Savior asks how he came to his [00:25:00] testimony and Ben says to him, you know, flesh and blood have not revealed some to you, but my father, which is in heaven, That's the promise for us as well, that no matter how much we study these stories and come to know his parables and his dealings with his fellowmen while he walked the roads of Palestine, what what will witness to us is the Holy Ghost.

I found this because I went to the holy land, so I told you guys, I went when I was 20 and again, when I was 40. When I went, when I was 20, I had this goal. I wasn't terribly great at Revelation and I had this thought in my mind that I. I would walk where the savior walked and I would know for a certainty, like some, I really thought something would happen.

It's not like I thought the walls would crumble or some, I just thought there would be some sort of resonance that would hit my heart and I wouldn't know for a certainty. Whereas I didn't know for a certainty before I went there. I thought if I went to the holy land and walked where he walked, I would get it.

We didn't go to the garden tomb until one of the last days in the Israel portion of our [00:26:00] tour, and I really hadn't had that experience anywhere. And then it gets to the day where we're gonna go to the garden tomb and I'm like, okay, this is it. This is where I'm gonna get my witness. I, I was so certain that this was gonna happen, so I let the whole tour group go ahead and me, I sat and I sketched on the side while every single person went.

And then once everybody was clear, I decided it was my turn. And I went in almost hesitantly cuz I was like waiting. I went into the garden tomb and I felt nothing. I, I didn't feel anything negative. I just didn't feel anything. And I stayed there for a couple minutes thinking, come on, heavenly Father, this is, this is where I needed my witness.

Why aren't you teaching me in this moment? Why aren't you hearing me? And I just remember feeling. Ache a little bit as I stood in that little cold dark place. And then I had this beautiful experience stepping out because as I stepped out and I looked up, because every, you're kind of down low when you're in the tomb and you can kinda see people up on the [00:27:00] hill.

That's where I saw my parents and I saw my brother and I, I saw people out there and I got a, this bright sun in my eyes and I, I remember re feeling at the time that this. This is the testimony of that place, that it's not about standing in that spot, it's that he emerged from that spot. And over the course of time, I've learned that I, my witness doesn't come from walking in his places, you know, standing where he stood.

It doesn't even come from studying his life. It comes from a witness of the Holy Ghost that when I have studied and when I have done all I can to learn of him, to yolk in with him and try to live his gospel. Where my witness comes from is from the Holy Ghost, and I think that's where the witness of these 15 men came from as well.

Even though I'm sure they have studied deeply and they know things intimately about their father in heaven and their savior, I think. The real witness that he is, who he, [00:28:00] who they say he is, comes from the Holy Ghost. And that's a tool that we have accessible to us as well. And isn't there comfort in that promise?

[00:28:13] CREATIVE PREVIEW

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Guys, we're doing things different across the board. The creative side's a little bit different this week as well. So welcome to the creative side of week 14 for Easter week, I decided in order to simplify things a little bit on my end, I would create one new object lesson for all of you to enjoy. And then I would give you some of the greatest hits of the last two years that we've done for Easter.

There's a lot of really awesome resources in the chorus. I think there's 10 or 12 Easter object lessons, but I've just pulled four so that you have a chance to teach some of these beautiful principles. Kids and to your classes. And instead of separating out what's in the course and what's available freely on YouTube or in the podcast, I just decided to make it big, everybody in week.

So this week it's accessible to everybody. I've tried to choose object lessons that don't require printables and other things so that you can easily pull these off with your families and your classes [00:29:00] and just have a lot of fun connecting these spiritual dots. So, few things that you're gonna need on hand.

The first, the new object lesson. For what we're putting on the chart. So if you haven't scratched off this week's chart, it ha it's a goals icon because at the very beginning of every quarter we're gonna focus on those goals. So remember how we set up the children and youth goals last time, and I gave you some templates you could use.

So this is a chance to check in with your kids, see how their goals are going, and if your kids are anything like my kids, like start from scratch and begin again because we didn't do so great. But this is why this week is here. So you have a chance to kind of refresh.

[00:29:41] THE LIVING CHRIST: STUDY AND MEMORIZATION TOOL

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One of the things I thought you might wanna consider as a goal is choosing to study the living Christ. I know it's one of those things that some of you have studied in the past, but I wondered if as a family or as a class, you could maybe take some time and study it. That's why I provided these tools.

So in the free printables, no matter where you're in the course or outta the course, you'll be able to find the wide margin version of the [00:30:00] Living Christ that you can study together. And then you'll also find these. Flashcards because as all of you know, I'm sure you've seen some time on Instagram or something.

One of the things you could do at Easter is to make a recording of your family or your class saying the living Christ. The only reason I think this is tricky with the version that the church provides is it has a bunch of scriptures kind of tucked into it, which is great for study, but a little hard to read.

It's also formatted small. So for younger kids it's a little bit tricky, but if they wanted to take time to try and memorize the living Christ on their own, or simply as a family recite it, you can use these little flashcards. So basically what they're is, I've broken up the Living Christ into eight chunks and taken out all the scripture references and tried to open up the spacing and increased the size a little bit.

So that it's really easy for your kids to read it and recite it out if they're gonna memorize it. I would encourage you to put all these on the little key chain so that they can flip through and practice. If you just wanna recite it as a family or as a class, I would pass out one of these to each kid and then just put your phone in the middle.

I, I, for me, that's what I [00:31:00] hope to do on our Easter. I just want a record of my family saying these. And I think sometimes when we do it in a video form, it's too intimidating and you wanna be too perfect. So for us, we're just gonna read it and record the audio and then upload it to Family Search Memories app and have it for always, because my hope here is to have a simple record of what the apostles believe and what we believe as we echo their words.

So hopefully these simple tools will help you pull that. The next four object lessons, I'm gonna actually post after this one. So you'll see me from the Old Testament course and the doctrine covenants course. Walk you through some of the Easter object lessons. Well, let me tell you a quick summary of what you have in store.

So the first one is helping you understand the resurrection. One of my favorite ways to teach this, and it went great when we did this together in the doctrine covenants, is the rubber egg analogy. So if you haven't made a rubber egg before, this is where you're. Dip an egg and keep it in vinegar for a while until the shell breaks down.

I'll walk you through it. But the whole point of this is to [00:32:00] teach your kids about the body and the spirit and how they come together and how there will be a time when you will ache to have your body reconnected with your spirit again, and that's the promise of the resurrection. So you're gonna need just some eggs on hand.

I'm sure you all have eggs this week, so you'll need a few eggs on hand and maybe some vinegar, and you'll be good. Okay. The second one we're gonna talk about, behold the wounds. One of my favorite principles to teach kids is why. The Christus that we see on our church logo has the wounds. In fact, if you look at any picture of the living Christ that we have post his resurrection, they always sort of feature those wounds.

They have special significance, and it talks about when you study them, it helps you understand how much he loves you, that he would choose to keep these wounds. And so we're gonna do an activity that actually is just coloring Easter eggs, but then use that as a tool to teach that simple principle about the wounds in the Savior's hands and feet.

The next one you're gonna study is string eggs. So this is one. One of the things I love about Easter is that the [00:33:00] Savior didn't just. Die for us, and he didn't just rise again for us. He also lived for us. In fact, I think his perfect life is a piece of the atonement of Jesus Christ that he was willing to condescend and come and lead this perfect example that we could follow is part of.

What makes him as magnificent as he is, and one of my favorite ways to teach that to my kids is by creating these cool string eggs. So you're gonna form them around a balloon, almost like paper mache, but lazier. And then you're gonna pop the balloon and see how, by following his example, we become like him.

It's just this beautiful Easter principle that you can teach in this really fun, sticky, creative way. So for that one, you're gonna need some embroidery floss, and then some water balloon size balloons you don't want. Party balloon. You want some like a small, a few inches across, like water, balloon size balloon, and if you have that on hand and a little bit of glue, then you'll be good to go.

[00:33:58] KITUNDERSTANDING RESURRECTION: RUBBER EGG ANALOGY

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If you've ever attended primary [00:34:00] or taught primary, chances are you've taught a lesson where you used a hand and a glove to talk about the resurrection. And the reason that object lesson has worked for so long is it teaches. Really good doctrine, very clearly about the body and the spirit, how they're separated at certain times in the plan of salvation and united at other times.

And I love it, except for one thing, as I was studying this week about the resurrection, and I learned more about that. We don't just get our bodies back, but that you get your body in a perfected form. You know all the illnesses, all the disease, all the damage that occurs over. Period of mortality, that's all reset.

You know, we don't go back to being children necessarily, but we get our bodies back in their whole form. And I think maybe, cuz I've seen so many people I love struggle and. Have loss, loss of mobility, loss of health, loss of all kinds of things. There is something so sweet about that promise of getting our bodies in this perfected form.

So I wanted to add that [00:35:00] piece to the glove object lesson. And to do that, we're gonna make rubber eggs. So basically you just need a raw egg, maybe one for each of the kids, and then you want some glass jars that you can kind of set on a shelf somewhere. So maybe like a mason jar. We use these little pudding kind of.

And you're gonna fill them with vinegar about, you just want enough that will cover the surface of your egg. So depending on how wide or you know narrow your jar is, you're gonna want enough vinegar to cover an egg. And essentially the egg is the same as the glove and the hand story. And you're gonna talk about what's on the inside of this egg, even though you can't see it.

In fact, if you shine a flashlight through it in a dark space, you can probably show your kids the yo that's inside the white that's inside. And even that, there's a membrane kind of holding everything. And then the, um, outer the shell is representative of the body for me. So you're gonna talk about how in the pre-existence, you know, in the premortal life, we just had our spirits, but heavenly father knew that in order for us to progress in the way we needed to, he needed to give us a body so that we could [00:36:00] endure this earth life with a little bit of.

You know, strength and support. So we have the shells represented by the body, but over the course of our lives, that body breaks down and eventually is left behind. As we die and move on, our spirit moves on. So this is where the vinegar comes into play. So you're gonna wanna actually take this raw egg and drop it into your vinegar if you wanna take it to the next level to make a colorful egg.

You wanna put a little bit of food coloring in your. First. So as you drop your raw egg in perfectly white, you'll notice immediately bubbles start to form on the shell. You'll see that chemical reaction happening really quickly, and over the course of about 24 to 36 hours, that whole shell will slowly break down and slough off if it doesn't.

So for us, I left it for 24 hours and then. Pulled it out of the vinegar and I just ran it underwater and used my hands to kind of rub gently. You wanna be really delicate, cuz remember this is just the membrane of the egg and all the parts inside, so it's [00:37:00] really fragile, almost like a really thin water balloon.

But as you rub the surface of the egg, That shell will slough off, and you're left with this really funky rubbery egg that your kids can play with and enjoy. And then you'll talk about how when you leave this life, your body stays behind, but your spirit goes back up to your father in heaven and in the spirit world, spirits are eager to be reunited with their body.

There are limitations. Somehow, we don't exactly know all the details, but we know that they're eager to be reunited. So in the resurrection, it's basically an opportunity to get that body back, but it's a different kind of body. It's a stronger, healthier, more resilient body. So that's where this plastic egg comes into play.

So you wanna take an Easter egg that's a little bit bigger than your egg, and you're gonna take your rubber egg and put it inside it. And this gives you the opportunity to talk about a resurrected body and that it looks the same and has the same shape. It has the same feel. But it is perfected, it is immortal.

It is never to be separated again. Um, and that's the blessing of the [00:38:00] resurrection. So you can see it takes the glove lesson just one step further with the added danger of an egg. My crack all over you, so I hope your kids enjoy it for us. We've left this red egg. I let sit in the vinegar. Four days and it's still holding on just fine, but you wanna be a little delicate with it.

You can bounce it a few times, but if you bounce it from too high, it will crackle over the place. So be careful since it's raw eggs. But I hope you thoroughly enjoy this new twist on a very classic object lesson.

[00:38:37] BEHOLD THE WOUNDS: EASTER EGG DYING ACTIVITY

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Odds are pretty good that sometime this week your kids are gonna beg you to to dye Easter eggs. So since that there's an inevitable situation, you're gonna be stuck in, you might as well have a good way to tie it to the gospel. So for me, when my kids wanna dye eggs, I tend to dread that. So I wanted to come up with some new ways to do it, both that are less messy and maybe a little more fun.

So I've got three ways to die e Easter [00:39:00] eggs. And the goal behind this, this is if you follow along on the chart, this is watch and learn week, which basically means you're gonna watch something and you're going to craft at the same time. So for me, I thought since it's conference week, this is an awesome activity to do.

During conference or in the breaks, or maybe if you're doing it as a youth group or primary activity, you could watch some of the Bible videos and talk about the life of the Savior. The premise behind the object lesson is that the reason the savior left those prints in his hands and his feet and his side was so we could have an evidence, right?

He comes to the people of the Book of Mormon and invites them to touch the wounds and see. The wounds up close. He does the same thing as a erected re resurrected savior in the New Testament where he invites people to see the wounds, um, because they're evidence. There's this beautiful quote from Elder Holland in the notes about, it's a reminder, a physical reminder of the love he has for us.

And the reason that ties to the eggs for me is because I love that even though these [00:40:00] eggs look totally different, I can tell by looking at them what kind of process they've been through. I can tell because this pattern is so perfect that this one was silk dye with a neck tie. And I can tell because this one is so swirly that this one was done with shaving cream.

And that's kind of the premise behind trying a few different dying techniques that by looking at the egg, you. Appreciate the process it's been through. Um, and that's kinda the same thing with the Savior's wounds. That by seeing them, it's a reminder of what he endured for our sakes. So the goal here is that you'll just enjoy it.

Watch conference, watch the Bible videos, and. Craft a little bit, dip and die. I walk you through, there's some instructions in, um, this week's notes and then there's also some videos that I link out to, to show you the how to tutorials for how to silk dye eggs and how to shaving cream, dye eggs, and also how to sharpen dye eggs so that you have a few varieties, basically the silk diet eggs, to give you a quick summary.

Um, you're gonna take [00:41:00] a raw egg and you're gonna wrap it in a silk tie. So we just took. Ugliest ties we can find. In fact, we found that the uglier the tie, the cooler, the pattern it made on the egg. So when you go to di or Savers to look for old silk ties, find one that has really hideous patterns and colors and they'll turn out amazing.

Um, but you're gonna wrap it up almost like a dumpling, as tight as you can get it with a rubber band around the top. And then you're gonna wrap it one more time in a piece of t-shirt. Basically this is designed to help the colors not bleed into each other, because you're gonna put all those little wrapped up dumpling eggs into a pot and cook them for about 20 minutes or so, and then you let them cool and you open them up and they have this incredible pattern.

So we found all kinds of different ones. Like you could make a cool stripe, you could make a paisley, you could make polka dots. Any kind of tie you could find, you just wanna make. It's not polyester. It has to be a hundred percent silk. If it's not as high, it could be a scarf. Anything you can find that's silk [00:42:00] to do.

The shaving cream, eggs, this was probably Violet's favorite. That's basically just a muffin tin with shaving cream or whipped cream in each of the wells that you drip a little bit of food coloring into and then swirl around almost like you're making. A marbled cake batter. So you're gonna kind of swirl the color into the whipped cream and then just roll your eggs in it and set them to the side.

They'll look like a puffy cloud. You wanna make sure they're as covered as you can get them. Let them sit for 20 minutes or so, and you get these really cool tie dyed looking eggs. The third one is kind of an adjustment on that. Option. So I wanted my kids to be able to make their own pattern. So this, we just took the t-shirts that we had laying around that we had already cut, and I let the kids color them with sharpie markers, with whatever design they wanted, and then we wrapped them around the eggs and cooked them in the same way.

We tied 'em up, bundled them up with rubberbands, put 'em in a pot and let 'em cook for 20 minutes. And then we got these cool patterns that they designed themselves. The only thing I would tell you is we did find that the green Sharpies, for [00:43:00] whatever reason, did not work well. They turned yellow in the heat, but blue, red, orange, all those vibrant colors came out really cool.

I figured it would be a good way for you to gift something. Enjoy this creative process and watch. Conference, watch the Bible videos and just get a, um, a deeper understanding of the Savior and why he chose to keep those wounds, what it is to remind us of. And then as we head into Easter Sunday, we get an even better understanding of that sacrifice he made and a way to tie it to a tradition that you probably were gonna do anyway.

So I hope you enjoy.

[00:43:41] “I HAVE GIVEN YOU AN EXAMPLE”: STRING EGGS

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One of my favorite insights from the many, many talks I listened to this week on Easter was from President Worthen. He's the B Y U President, and he gave this beautiful address at the by U Easter Conference. I linked you it in the notes if you wanna learn more, but. One of the things I love that he brought to the surface for me is that often in Easter at this [00:44:00] time of year, we correctly celebrate his suffering and resurrection and rising from the tomb.

That's a beautiful thing to study at Easter, but we can't lose sight of his life as well that when we. Talk to our kids about Jesus Christ. It's not just that he died for us, it's also that he lived for us. That his life is a pattern for us to follow. And that on its own is an incredible gift. And to help you teach this in kind of a fun, creative way, we are making these.

Crazy string eggs. I don't even know what to call them. They're a little bit scratchy. They're just kind of decorative fun. Um, but my hope is that it will teach this key principle. So let me walk you through how to pull this off. You wanna begin, like I mentioned, with a water balloon size inflatable balloon.

You want it inflated. If you want to create like a prize inside, you could stick treats or like a little toy inside and then, you know, wrap it with your straighten if you want it to be kind of a surprise when they pop the balloon. But ours we just [00:45:00] made totally. So first you need a balloon for each kid and then you need some of this embroidery floss.

This is the one that worked best for us, but you could use anything that's thin, kind of like this as string, and you're basically gonna follow the same process you would follow with like paper mache. You're gonna dredge your string through a mixture of 50% glue, 50% water. You want it kind of a really thin consistency cuz you're not trying to get like a gloppy mess on your string.

Basically what I did is when I opened up my embroidery floss, I pulled this the little gold wrapper thing off, and if you kind of unwind it carefully, you can see that you can form a circle like this. So I actually looped this circle around a water bottle that was a little bit heavy so that I could pull just a little bit of the string at a time.

I covered my whole work surface with parchment paper cuz I wanted to be able to sort of drop the string down so I would dredge the string about 18 inches or so through the glue, and then use my fingers to squeegee off any [00:46:00] excess. And then just kind of set the string down as you go. Basically, you're gonna work your way through an entire skin of.

Of string or embroidery floss and have this sort of wet pile of strings sitting to the side. Then you're gonna grab your balloon, take the last bit of that floss that you just dipped, and you start to wind. And there's really no. You know, method or magic to this, you're just gonna wind in all kinds of directions.

You wanna turn your balloon a lot so that you don't have any gaping holes in your floss. Over time, it'll kind of look like this. For ours, I found it worked even better if I did a second. Batch of embroidery floss. So you can see on this one it's got dark pink and orange. I just layered the orange right on top of the pink using the exact same method.

We let ours dry for a few hours by, if you'd left 'em overnight, they'd for sure be done. You just want it to dry again. If you didn't get a super gloppy glue, it will dry pretty quickly. And then this is when the fun part happens. So once they're all dry, if you don't have a way to hang them [00:47:00] up or it's too much hassle, you can also just set them down and then rotate them a few times throughout the day and they'll dry perfectly fine.

And then once you're ready to pop it, you take a thumb tack or a toothpick and you're just gonna. Jam it in, and then the balloon will pop really fast. It makes this cool sound as it detaches from the glue, you can pull the um, balloon out and you have this awesome hollow egg. The point of all of this is to teach about the life of the savior.

This balloon to me kind of represents. His mortal ministry. We didn't get to see it firsthand. We didn't get to touch him. We didn't get to experience these miracles firsthand. But as we wrap our string, as we study his life and learn about his character, for us, the best way to do that is in the scriptures.

That's why I love this week's study. It's so much scripture about the savior. As we go through that process and we learn more about his character, we're basically forming a string around him, and even though after you pop it, he's not there. We have his form, we have his shape, [00:48:00] and it teaches us who he is.

So even if we don't have the same experience they had in the New Testament, we know him and we can recognize him when we see him. Again, that's the whole purpose behind this study, so that we'll pattern our lives after him. We'll choose to live as he did, and we can learn all that as we form our choices and our actions around the example that we find in the scripture.

So hopefully there's a way for you to tie that.

[00:48:32] #HALLELUJAH: HOLY WEEK ADVENT KIT

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I'm also this week giving you a whole bunch of tools from the Holy Week kit. So last year, if you were part of the course, I added in on Easter week, I think this project that the Sugar Doodle Girls and Amy Fairy and I did for one of the church campaigns for Easter, I think it was the Hallelujah campaign.

And we created this advent that you can kind of walk through the days before Easter and have. Holy Year, week. So I, last year I was able to give you the instructions, but I didn't have artwork licensing, so I couldn't [00:49:00] give you Amy's art. This year I reached out to Amy and she just gave it guys. She sells all this in her shop and she just gave it to you all.

So if you don't love Amy Fairy yet, you will. But she created this gorgeous artwork to teach us about Holy Week. It all goes with the principles. There's instruction pages that tell you like verse you can read each day and a couple videos you can watch, and then some traditions that go with it. And then all her artwork is just freely available to download and to print.

So I hope you enjoy it. My intent with all of this is not to make your days leading up to Easter harder on you. When I worked on this campaign and then the following Easter, I helped the church with that campaign and my heart changed a little bit about Easter. We, my kids kind of resent it quite, quite frankly because they miss all the baskets and the peeps and the bunnies.

You know, we, we shifted gears a little bit and our Easter is a different kind of Easter and I love it. What I loved as I was reading the verses this week. I notice how often the Lord is warning Moses, [00:50:00] your children are gonna ask. I don't think that means his children. Were gonna be like, oh, Moses' father, tell me why you did this wonderful tradition.

It's very possible that his children and grandchildren were annoyed that they had to do all these things, and it gave him an opportunity. To teach them. That's what I love about the change in our house at Easter is even though they still miss having the awesome Easter baskets that are full of toys, they ask, why do we do this again?

Why did you change it to be this holy thing? And it gives me a chance to testify and to teach. It is a different holiday to me in my heart because of what I know about the savior. That doesn't mean I'm preaching that that has to be that way for you, but for my house where we have birthdays surrounding that week, we have all kinds of happy, fun, mom opportunities.

Holy time. That's beautiful. Sunday morning breakfast at Easter. That's just simple and clean. To me, that teaches about the savior. It gives me a chance to talk to them about it, even if [00:51:00] they're annoyed. And what I love is no matter what happens, the spirit can be there. That's the power of Easter. It's an opportunity to testify and to teach.

So hopeful. You will find a way to add a little bit more Christ into your Easter, but I do believe that as you turn to the Lord and ask, how can I do this better? He'll help you know what needs to be pulled away and what needs to be added. And that's the best part of it, right? Getting an answer about your particular family is what this is all about.

So I wish you the best of luck and I wish you a happy.

[00:51:33] WRAP UP

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Thanks so much for being here, you guys. I hope you enjoyed this week. I know it's a little bit different than we normally do, but I hope it gives you a chance to jump into some simple scriptures about your savior and then try out a few fun things as a family.

I tried to focus in on things that were. Supplies you'd already have on hand, and even activities like dying eggs that you'll already be doing so that these object lessons that you're gonna teach are really simple to feather into the family traditions that you already have rolling. So [00:52:00] hopefully it won't add any extra, you know, trouble to your week, but it will help it be a little more memorable and meaningful and simple.

If you have any questions or you wanna join me on the live, I'll have a quick live the Monday after conference so that we can talk a little bit about this week and what it's for and then. Answer any questions you might have about the object lessons. Um, I would tell you if you're in the course and you wanna ask me a specific question, you'll wanna put that on the discussion boards, or if you just have a comment or a thought about one of the verses that you studied, I hope you'll post it there.

Just go to the top right of every video and you can find a link to open up the discussion boards and chat with me or the rest of the community. In addition, I would remind you that if you're on the free version, if you're on the podcast you're watching on YouTube and you want a link out to that, to the notes or to that Living Christ printable, you can find it freely.

Just look at that first comment under the YouTube video, and it should be there at least I hope, somewhere in the YouTube comment thread. You'll find the link out to the notes and to the printable so that you have everything at your fingertips to make this a really good week of study. And for those of you in the course, you can find the principles that I've mentioned here, as [00:53:00] well as Amy Ferry's kit under the creative video for week 14.

All right you guys. I think that's it. I think you're gonna have a really good week. So come off the powerhouse weekend that you had studying conference and now jump right into a little bit more about the savior and his glorious resurrection. And I hope you just have a chance to soak it in cuz it's a beautiful week of study.

All right, enjoy it you guys, and I'll see you on Monday.