Three weeks of reading that lit up my life

Our focus for literacy right now is how literacy can light up your life. Three weeks ago I challenged everyone to read at least five minutes each day of the May Conference issue of the Ensign. As it so happens, the last three weeks for me have been some of the most challenging I have seen in a while, and those five or more minutes every day ended up being my anchor to finding peace through it all. Who knew I would be the one to benefit the most?

One thing I was struck with was the beautiful pictures in this issue. I always love to study the faces in these conference issues, but this time around they were in color, and the people were so much more real to me. So many different walks of life, so many stories behind each of those smiles. It reminded me of how much we are loved by our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. How much they know who we are and what struggles we are facing. How grateful I was to be reminded of that! Truly, reading these talks lit up my life these past three weeks.

Now here's another amazing thing. Remember your brain only requires five minutes to start responding to new information? Well, on average it takes only three weeks to form a new habit. Put the two together and now you’ve started a new habit for reading and learning. Congratulations! And what better way than through the conference talks?

So now it's your turn. How was your experience reading five or more minutes each day? I'd love to hear from you. I know the other sisters in our ward would too. Leave a post and tell us how it went!

Finding good material

Sometimes it’s difficult knowing which books (or other media) are “safe” to choose for yourself or your families. There are many resources available to give previews and reviews of the content. Other than the recommendations of trusted friends, how do you know what's good? One good resource is the website http://www.commonsensemedia.org/. On the site, you can read reviews and comments from others about what is in a book or movie. Of course, you must always use the Spirit as a guide, but this is a good place to start your research.

There are lots of smaller groups out there too, trying to sift out the good picks from the rest. I list these here with the caveat again that I cannot vouch for all the reviews posted on these sites, but they do tend to have similar standards and opinions of content. Here are their sites:

http://www.ldswomensbookreview.com/wordpress/
                  (or the related site http://ldswbr.blogspot.com/ )

http://homespunlight.blogspot.com/

http://www.squeakycleanreviews.com/

And finally, a great site for building your own community of readers! This is a great one to put together with people you trust so you can share great reading without worrying about the content.

http://www.goodreads.com/

Check it out!

Time for summer reading!

School is just about to get out. Congratulations to all those who have survived another year! Now summer affords us the time to read and enjoy learning in different ways. It’s so important to keep reading. Think of a way your family of one, two, or more can be motivated to read. Maybe a trip to the ice cream store for pages read or a family activity of some other sort. Or read a series aloud together. For children, there are lots of summer reading programs out there too. Here are some great links to check out:

• Recommended Books from the Friend (click on the link, choose any recent year, then click on the May issue. The recs are under the article title "Book Reviews.")
• Summer Reading at our local libraries: Make a Splash! Or Make Waves (for teens)! Drop by the library to pick up your booklet and activities. Also be sure to check out Cobb County Library System's extensive program offerings for children of all ages and their familes.
• Summer Reading List Ideas
• Borders Summer Reading Deal   Read 10, Get One Free!
• Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Deal       Read 8, Get One Free!
• Scholastic's Summer Reading Challenge
• Fun activities from Reading Planet, sponsored by RIF (Reading is Fundamental)
• An article about making summer reading easy from msnbc 

Make this a reading summer!!

Week 1 of the Ensign Reading Challenge

Last week I challenged you all to read five minutes a day of the Ensign from now until May 30. So I'm doing my best to practice what I preach! This week, I have enjoyed reading one talk a day give or take. It's inspiring to me how the Spirit can teach us different things in different contexts... even from the same words! The ideas and inspiration I have gleaned from reading the Conference talks have been totally different from what I got out of the talks while listening to General Conference. And this week in particular, I really needed it! One of the talks I read was by Bishop McMullin, Second Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric. He used a quote from President Joseph F. Smith that I loved:

"We should honor God with our intelligence, with our strength, with our understanding, with our wisdom, and with all the power that we possess. We should seek to do good in the world. This is our duty.”

Did you catch that? Intelligence and understanding! That's what literacy and lifelong learning is all about. Not only does it benefit each of us individually, it honors our Creator. This does not have to be something we feel guilty about. It CAN be something we rejoice in. He created all of us with the ability to learn -- about so many different things! If you want to read the whole talk, click here.

Keep up the good reading!

Happy Mother's Day! And here's a challenge...

Happy Mother's Day to you all! This is a special day for all women to stop and contemplate the role we can play in nurturing others. I know it can be hard as well. We all have our own special situations: mothers or no, with young children or empty nesters or somewhere in between, confident in our skills or not, good relationships with our own mothers or not. Sheri Dew gave a great talk in General Conference several years ago that I have always loved. Good recommended reading for this week. To check it out, click here.

Otherwise, I promised you a challenge today, so here it is! Hopefully by now you have your copy of the May issue of the Ensign. If not, it has already been posted on lds.org, so you can check it out there (note the link to Church magazines on the right-hand side of this page!). Remember that it only takes five minutes for your brain to start responding to new information? I challenge you to take at least five minutes each day to read a talk from the Conference issue from now until May 30. That's only three weeks of only five minutes a day. I promise it will light up your life! And I promise I'll be posting about it again at the end of the month!

The Ensign is here!

Usually the May and November issues of the Ensign arrive a little later than other months'. I have always believed that to be because of the immense undertaking it would be to verify accuracy on the words of the talks presented in General Conference, then edit, flow, and reproduce the issue. But we just received our copy today! Joy! Listening to General Conference is like drinking at the well of living water, and reading those talks and studying their teachings is wonderful. It was not always true that I studied these issues carefully, but they have come to be a source of light and edification for me. Truly the living scriptures! And worth every minute spent on them.

So stay tuned for a challenge on Sunday.... and go check your mailboxes!

Our first poll!

That's right. It's time for our first poll on this blog. It would probably be more accurate to say that I'd love everyone to post comments about this, not just place a vote. So here's the question:

What books have lit up your life or changed your perspective in some way? Why?

To post your comments/answers, click on the title of this post ("Our first poll!") or the link you see at the bottom of this post for comments. When the new window opens up, you'll see a large white box toward the bottom. Type your answers there and choose your ID from the dropdown menu labeled "Comment As." (You can select Name/URL and type your name.) Then click on "Post Comment" and follow the prompts from there!

I look forward to seeing everyone's answers and will put together a summary from there. Thanks!