"Hoppy" Easter

Happy Easter!! I love Easter. It is full of so many great memories and traditions for me, like watching The Ten Commandments with my dad, or hiding freshly colored Easter Eggs with my brothers and sister. We never would quite find all the eggs we had hidden, and inevitably every year, someone would find a colorful egg under a rock in the back yard in the middle of July.  

When I was little I always looked forward to Easter Sunday. My parents always did a good job of making Easter centered around Christ, but I gotta admit that my favorite thing about Easter Sunday was the Easter Baskets, not because of the candy (although that was great), but because of the hunt. Yes, the "Easter Bunny," which we all knew was my Dad, took great joy in hiding our baskets, in the craziest places. All Easter morning was spent searching high and low for our baskets, while my Dad would laugh and drop hints of where they were.

Now that I am older, Easter has changed a bit.  But I still love it.  Owen is still so young, that we did not do a basket for him, or even hide eggs.  However, our stake did have an Primary Easter Party, so he did get to hunt for eggs, and make some bunny ears.  We had a beautiful Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School program today on the atonement resurrection of Christ.   

As I have gotten older, I have really truly come to understand and appreciate the importance of Easter.  I am so grateful that Jesus Christ atoned for all my sins, and then rose from the grave so that I can return to my Heavenly Father, and live again. What a true blessing.

Cool Youtube Video

So I don't usually do more than one post a day, but I was looking for a video clip on Youtube, and this was one of the most watched videos of the day, and I thought it was really awesome.

General Conference in ASL.

I love General Conference. I look forward to hearing the voice of the Prophet, and receiving council from our Church leaders every 6 months.  It is such a spiritual and emotional feast for me, I am truly grateful for it.  

One of my favorite talks this conference was by Elder Robert D Hales.  He talked about Provident Living.  He had a lot of great advice.  I loved it!  He reminded us to "be provident provider for ourselves and our families; to joyfully live with in our means; be content with what we have; avoid excessive debt; and diligently save for a rainy day."  What great advise we could all do better to listen too, especially during this economic crunch.

Something that was unique for our family this conference was that we got to watch it in American Sign Language.  The sister missionaries assigned to our ward are also the ASL missionaries.  One of the the sisters, Sis Barnard, is completely deaf.  So they asked if they could watch conference at our house, with the ASL translation.  

Here is an example of what it was like, only this is from a couple conferences ago: 

It was great having the sisters over.  I have been signing to Owen since he was born, and I  sometimes wonder if he is picking up on it.  But whenever Sis Barnard comes around, he actually signs to her.  It is amazing to see a 14 month old communicating with someone other than his parents!  It makes me so proud!