Today I am talking about building a Spiritual Foundation in our homes! I’m overjoyed to get to remind you of the GLORIOUS promises we have received for our efforts in this and some practical applications we have found that make a living faith doable for our family. We will begin with the promise and counsel from our Prophet, President Russell M. Nelson from his final address in the October 2018 General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He said, “The new home-centered, Church-supported integrated curriculum has the potential to unleash the power of families, as each family follows through conscientiously and carefully to transform their home into a sanctuary of faith. I promise that as you diligently work to remodel your home into a center of gospel learning, over time your Sabbath days will truly be a delight. Your children will be excited to learn and to live the Savior’s teachings, and the influence of the adversary in your life and in your home will decrease. Changes in your family will be dramatic and sustaining.”
That was 4 years ago this month! How are we doing? Are you experiencing those blessings? Does your home feel like a Sanctuary of Faith and a Center of Gospel Learning? Are your children excited to learn and live the Savior’s teachings? Has the influence of the adversary decreased in your life and in your home?
As we prepared for General Conference, Emily Belle Freeman shared the following,
“I was having this conversation with this woman who said to me, Sometimes I feel like in the church, we get wrapped up in the rule system of the church, that everything becomes this strict set of rules that we live our life by. And we need to change that in the culture of the church because you can become so pharisaical when your life is run by a rule system.. and Emily says, “in my life I want to ask this question. Are they rules or rhythms? And if they are rhythms, the Earth is governed by rhythms. The sun and the moon run by rhythm. The tides of the sea run by- those are rhythms… There's something about the rhythms of the tide that is healing to us. I don't think that's coincidental. I think God is teaching a lesson there about these rhythms. Rhythms heal people. I think you've probably experienced that, and that is true for me about what some people might call rules, right? Going to church every Sunday, reading the scriptures, praying, fasting, wearing garments, all of these things you might be like, this is a rule system I don't want to live in. It causes people to be judgmental, and you could view it like that. I view those as rhythms in my life. Reading Scripture, going to church, praying, putting on my garments every single morning. Those are rhythms in my life…Those are constants in my life. And those are rhythms that actually heal me. They bring me joy. That is just true in my life. And sometimes maybe the fault is ours. Maybe the fault is not the culture of the church. Maybe the fault is how we're viewing those things. And for some people they might be rigid rules but for other people they are rhythms of holiness and depending on the way you enter into those is the response you will experience. For me, those rhythms have brought healing and joy and gladness- that is true about my life. And so I think that's important as we think about that, that the joy of the Lord is our strength, those rhythms are my strength. They have strengthened me in my life…These rhythms are actually bringing me joy. They're actually bringing me strength. These are the rhythms that have raised up my family and that have kept us safe and protected us.”
This idea came up so frequently in General Conference a few weeks ago- Rafael Pino talked about customs and traditions that will help us to stay on the covenant path. Joseph Sitati called these “Holy habits.” Steven Lund called them “Holy habits and righteous routines that can sustain and fuel the fires of our faith.” Jonathan S. Schmitt said, “Great spiritual strength comes from small and simple things32 like developing “holy habits and righteous routines”33 of daily prayer, repentance, scripture study, and service to others.” He noted that the phrase, “holy habits and righteous routines” is an oft-repeated phrase from President Dallin H. Oaks’ ministry.
I remember distinctly in 2014 when Linda S. Reeves of the Relief Society Presidency spoke in the April General Conference. We were living in Kentucky far from family and I had two small children and I was entertaining them during conference with our little Conference board and I had so many righteous desires for my little family. She said “How do we lead our children to deep conversion and to access our Savior’s Atonement? I love the prophet Nephi’s declaration of what his people did to fortify the youth of his day: “We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, [and] we prophesy of Christ … that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.”4
How can we do this in our homes? Some of you have heard me tell how overwhelmed my husband, Mel, and I felt as the parents of four young children. As we faced the challenges of parenting and keeping up with the demands of life, we were desperate for help. We prayed and pleaded to know what to do. The answer that came was clear: “It is OK if the house is a mess and the children are still in their pajamas and some responsibilities are left undone. The only things that really need to be accomplished in the home are daily scripture study and prayer and weekly family home evening.”
A friend recently cautioned, “When you ask the sisters to read the scriptures and pray more, it stresses them out. They already feel like they have too much to do.”
Brothers and sisters, because I know from my own experiences, and those of my husband, I must testify of the blessings of daily scripture study and prayer and weekly family home evening. These are the very practices that help take away stress, give direction to our lives, and add protection to our homes. Then, if pornography or other challenges do strike our families, we can petition the Lord for help and expect great guidance from the Spirit, knowing that we have done what our Father has asked us to do.”
I took that to heart. A successful day as a stay-at-home-mom with those two small children was a day that we read scriptures and prayed together. That was all I HAD to do. We accomplished that and I could feel peace that I was being the mother they needed.
So how did we do it then and how do we do it now? Bless the internet that allows talented Christians to share ideas and resources across the globe! As I mentioned, I made a Conference board and my kids matched speakers to the screen and topics to speakers. We got simplified versions of the Scriptures that my kids could understand and enjoy so they could learn the people and the stories. We bought a few scripture readers off Etsy that were fun and engaging for them. We kept it short and sweet.
For Family Home Evening, I had learned some valuable tips from members of our prior ward in Peoria, Arizona. We kept it short, sweet, and FUN and made sure to include Family Night treats! Another family in the ward, I can’t remember who or I’d give them credit here, but they gave everyone a turn to share a lesson. Young kids LOVE to be heard! They love to have everyone’s attention. If you want them to listen to you, you have to listen to them. This made a huge difference in our success! Everyone got a turn to teach- they’d teach the most random things but it didn’t matter! We all got our turn if we wanted it! The appeal of that has faded as they’ve gotten older so now we have one person assigned to do a lesson and we still open it up for anyone but it’s rare that there are more volunteers. Now for Family Home Evening- we call it Family Night and we do it on Sundays- we start with a song, then do Act it out, talk it out which came from Joy D. Jones Conference address in 2021- she said we need to be role playing the challenges they’ll face and give our children experience successfully navigating those. I’ll include the resources I have for this on my blog at ashleyjaggi.com/blog if you’d like them. In the past we’ve done Manners and Standards here where we chat about exactly that. After that we have a lesson followed by an activity.
After Family Night, we have our Family Council as we were instructed to do by President Ballard in 2016. We call it a MAJ, which stands for Meeting of All Jaggis. This happens at the table during family night treat! We do a call to order and start with Positive Feedback. we recognize each others' efforts and positive activities by each other throughout the week. I LOVE seeing my kids recognizing each other, having them routinely giving us an extra thank you for the things we do for them, and having that space where they are used to us highlighting their triumphs. We then move on to family business and talk about the upcoming week, household logistics, Children and Youth goals, or any other business. We then try to end with affirmations.
Scriptures nowadays for our family happen just before bed and is meant to be a supplement to individual scripture reading. I still read scriptures with my 6-year-old outside of this scripture time and we try to do the simplified scripture readers in the morning with family prayer but the evening scripture time is where we try to highlight something special from Come, Follow Me. We use the Line Upon Line Come Follow Me video toward the beginning of the week and talk about what to expect to see when reading that week so they can hopefully understand it better. This family scripture study looks different almost every day. We listen to podcasts, use videos or talk about certain scriptures. One of our favorite podcasts for this is One Minute Scripture Study with Kristen Walker Smith and Calli Black.
After scripture time is Family Prayer but before we pray we do a prayer council where we talk about what we want included in the prayer. I love this time! I hear what concerns my kids are having and we share what we know about who could use prayers and then we unite our faith through the prayer that is offered and we’re all invested in that prayer because our ideas are in there! We know WHY we are praying.
Rhythms of righteousness. Patterns of holiness and healing.
What about church on Sunday--if you have kids and your kids are like mine, sometimes they complain about going to church. I don’t know where I got this but we used to talk about the 3 reasons we go to church every Sunday on our way to church. My kids know these and can rattle them off. So now if they ask why we have to go to church I can turn that around and ask them why we go to church- those reasons are 1. To Feel the Spirit. 2. To take the Sacrament and renew our covenants. And 3. To learn about Jesus.
Before Conference this October, Emily Belle Freeman listed 3 reasons we participate in Conference so we have those in our family now too! Those are 1. To hear the law from God’s chosen mouthpieces. 2. To understand the application of the law for our day as shared through God’s chosen mouthpieces. And 3. That we might rejoice and be glad together. Conference at our house is like another holiday! My kids used to think it was an actual holiday, which I love. As I said before, we used to use a Conference board. We used to do a conference treat whenever someone in the First Presidency came to the pulpit. Now we have Conference Cash and they get $3 to spend at the start of each of the 5 sessions and can earn more in the session if they make it through halfway or are being awesome. The prizes are treats, snacks, journals, busy books, fidget toys, erasers, sticker or sticker by number books or pages. Mostly things they can use during conference. I also have a few free activity pages they can take that I print from the many online packets or resources. We try to eat special foods Conference Weekend and we end with a game night on Sunday night. We also find a time within the next week to share favorites from Conference.
Sundays are a day we are asked to give back to the Lord so it is encouraged in our home to put the Lord first. It is a family day- it looks and feels different from other days of the week. We listen to different music. We give time to the Lord. My brother’s family has a 3 things rule where they are expected to do 3 things that demonstrate participation in God’s work or putting the Lord first and then they are allowed to do other things with their day. We’ve adopted this in our family. This can be writing a letter, calling an extended family member, reading scriptures, playing church music on the piano, serving others, building a family relationship through spending time together you wouldn’t normally, or many other things. We have also started watching a Chosen episode or a nature video (that idea comes from David Butler- I believe) as a family on Sundays. We try to go for a family walk.
So I just shared my collective knowledge of gospel living in the home from a decade of getting ideas so remember to just take what is useful and leave all the rest!
Briefly, I want to finish with revisiting the three things for a successful family culture and how that applies to a culture of gospel living in the family-
What are the symbols of the Gospel in your home? Do you have pictures of the Savior or temples on the walls? Do you have scriptures out or church magazines? Or a picture of the Prophet? One thing I love in my home is we have a shelf with stone monuments from reading Joshua this year and the encouragement in the Come, Follow Me for Individuals and Families manual that represent answered prayers or miracles we have witnessed in our family.
What about the doctrine- do you have the Proclamation on the Family, Articles of Faith, the Living Christ or the Restoration Proclamation in your home? Do you have quotes from prophets around? Our ward did a Technology Proclamation that we decided to adopt in our home- I’ll include that on my blog as well. What about the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet?
And the rituals or traditions are all the things I’ve shared.
In Summary today, our church is a living faith. It requires action and consistent effort. The path of least resistance does not include the things that will strengthen our faith and testimony or our ability to Hear the voice of the Lord. We must deliberately invite and bring those into our lives. In Tucson we had a visiting authority teach that everything we do or say in our homes is either teaching eternal truth or false doctrine. Engaging in “holy habits and righteous routines” will provide healing, strength, and power to us and our families. We want to make sure we don’t get too busy that we lose sight of the things that matter in the end. In the words of Sister Reeves, “ The only things that really need to be accomplished in the home are daily scripture study and prayer and weekly family home evening.” If you feel lost or overwhelmed, start small. Remember that any time you do these things you receive the strength and blessings from them. Our loving God loves effort and has provided a Savior for us to make up the difference where our efforts fall short.
May your efforts in this worthy endeavor be magnified by the Lord is my prayer for you!
That was 4 years ago this month! How are we doing? Are you experiencing those blessings? Does your home feel like a Sanctuary of Faith and a Center of Gospel Learning? Are your children excited to learn and live the Savior’s teachings? Has the influence of the adversary decreased in your life and in your home?
As we prepared for General Conference, Emily Belle Freeman shared the following,
“I was having this conversation with this woman who said to me, Sometimes I feel like in the church, we get wrapped up in the rule system of the church, that everything becomes this strict set of rules that we live our life by. And we need to change that in the culture of the church because you can become so pharisaical when your life is run by a rule system.. and Emily says, “in my life I want to ask this question. Are they rules or rhythms? And if they are rhythms, the Earth is governed by rhythms. The sun and the moon run by rhythm. The tides of the sea run by- those are rhythms… There's something about the rhythms of the tide that is healing to us. I don't think that's coincidental. I think God is teaching a lesson there about these rhythms. Rhythms heal people. I think you've probably experienced that, and that is true for me about what some people might call rules, right? Going to church every Sunday, reading the scriptures, praying, fasting, wearing garments, all of these things you might be like, this is a rule system I don't want to live in. It causes people to be judgmental, and you could view it like that. I view those as rhythms in my life. Reading Scripture, going to church, praying, putting on my garments every single morning. Those are rhythms in my life…Those are constants in my life. And those are rhythms that actually heal me. They bring me joy. That is just true in my life. And sometimes maybe the fault is ours. Maybe the fault is not the culture of the church. Maybe the fault is how we're viewing those things. And for some people they might be rigid rules but for other people they are rhythms of holiness and depending on the way you enter into those is the response you will experience. For me, those rhythms have brought healing and joy and gladness- that is true about my life. And so I think that's important as we think about that, that the joy of the Lord is our strength, those rhythms are my strength. They have strengthened me in my life…These rhythms are actually bringing me joy. They're actually bringing me strength. These are the rhythms that have raised up my family and that have kept us safe and protected us.”
This idea came up so frequently in General Conference a few weeks ago- Rafael Pino talked about customs and traditions that will help us to stay on the covenant path. Joseph Sitati called these “Holy habits.” Steven Lund called them “Holy habits and righteous routines that can sustain and fuel the fires of our faith.” Jonathan S. Schmitt said, “Great spiritual strength comes from small and simple things32 like developing “holy habits and righteous routines”33 of daily prayer, repentance, scripture study, and service to others.” He noted that the phrase, “holy habits and righteous routines” is an oft-repeated phrase from President Dallin H. Oaks’ ministry.
I remember distinctly in 2014 when Linda S. Reeves of the Relief Society Presidency spoke in the April General Conference. We were living in Kentucky far from family and I had two small children and I was entertaining them during conference with our little Conference board and I had so many righteous desires for my little family. She said “How do we lead our children to deep conversion and to access our Savior’s Atonement? I love the prophet Nephi’s declaration of what his people did to fortify the youth of his day: “We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, [and] we prophesy of Christ … that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.”4
How can we do this in our homes? Some of you have heard me tell how overwhelmed my husband, Mel, and I felt as the parents of four young children. As we faced the challenges of parenting and keeping up with the demands of life, we were desperate for help. We prayed and pleaded to know what to do. The answer that came was clear: “It is OK if the house is a mess and the children are still in their pajamas and some responsibilities are left undone. The only things that really need to be accomplished in the home are daily scripture study and prayer and weekly family home evening.”
A friend recently cautioned, “When you ask the sisters to read the scriptures and pray more, it stresses them out. They already feel like they have too much to do.”
Brothers and sisters, because I know from my own experiences, and those of my husband, I must testify of the blessings of daily scripture study and prayer and weekly family home evening. These are the very practices that help take away stress, give direction to our lives, and add protection to our homes. Then, if pornography or other challenges do strike our families, we can petition the Lord for help and expect great guidance from the Spirit, knowing that we have done what our Father has asked us to do.”
I took that to heart. A successful day as a stay-at-home-mom with those two small children was a day that we read scriptures and prayed together. That was all I HAD to do. We accomplished that and I could feel peace that I was being the mother they needed.
So how did we do it then and how do we do it now? Bless the internet that allows talented Christians to share ideas and resources across the globe! As I mentioned, I made a Conference board and my kids matched speakers to the screen and topics to speakers. We got simplified versions of the Scriptures that my kids could understand and enjoy so they could learn the people and the stories. We bought a few scripture readers off Etsy that were fun and engaging for them. We kept it short and sweet.
For Family Home Evening, I had learned some valuable tips from members of our prior ward in Peoria, Arizona. We kept it short, sweet, and FUN and made sure to include Family Night treats! Another family in the ward, I can’t remember who or I’d give them credit here, but they gave everyone a turn to share a lesson. Young kids LOVE to be heard! They love to have everyone’s attention. If you want them to listen to you, you have to listen to them. This made a huge difference in our success! Everyone got a turn to teach- they’d teach the most random things but it didn’t matter! We all got our turn if we wanted it! The appeal of that has faded as they’ve gotten older so now we have one person assigned to do a lesson and we still open it up for anyone but it’s rare that there are more volunteers. Now for Family Home Evening- we call it Family Night and we do it on Sundays- we start with a song, then do Act it out, talk it out which came from Joy D. Jones Conference address in 2021- she said we need to be role playing the challenges they’ll face and give our children experience successfully navigating those. I’ll include the resources I have for this on my blog at ashleyjaggi.com/blog if you’d like them. In the past we’ve done Manners and Standards here where we chat about exactly that. After that we have a lesson followed by an activity.
After Family Night, we have our Family Council as we were instructed to do by President Ballard in 2016. We call it a MAJ, which stands for Meeting of All Jaggis. This happens at the table during family night treat! We do a call to order and start with Positive Feedback. we recognize each others' efforts and positive activities by each other throughout the week. I LOVE seeing my kids recognizing each other, having them routinely giving us an extra thank you for the things we do for them, and having that space where they are used to us highlighting their triumphs. We then move on to family business and talk about the upcoming week, household logistics, Children and Youth goals, or any other business. We then try to end with affirmations.
Scriptures nowadays for our family happen just before bed and is meant to be a supplement to individual scripture reading. I still read scriptures with my 6-year-old outside of this scripture time and we try to do the simplified scripture readers in the morning with family prayer but the evening scripture time is where we try to highlight something special from Come, Follow Me. We use the Line Upon Line Come Follow Me video toward the beginning of the week and talk about what to expect to see when reading that week so they can hopefully understand it better. This family scripture study looks different almost every day. We listen to podcasts, use videos or talk about certain scriptures. One of our favorite podcasts for this is One Minute Scripture Study with Kristen Walker Smith and Calli Black.
After scripture time is Family Prayer but before we pray we do a prayer council where we talk about what we want included in the prayer. I love this time! I hear what concerns my kids are having and we share what we know about who could use prayers and then we unite our faith through the prayer that is offered and we’re all invested in that prayer because our ideas are in there! We know WHY we are praying.
Rhythms of righteousness. Patterns of holiness and healing.
What about church on Sunday--if you have kids and your kids are like mine, sometimes they complain about going to church. I don’t know where I got this but we used to talk about the 3 reasons we go to church every Sunday on our way to church. My kids know these and can rattle them off. So now if they ask why we have to go to church I can turn that around and ask them why we go to church- those reasons are 1. To Feel the Spirit. 2. To take the Sacrament and renew our covenants. And 3. To learn about Jesus.
Before Conference this October, Emily Belle Freeman listed 3 reasons we participate in Conference so we have those in our family now too! Those are 1. To hear the law from God’s chosen mouthpieces. 2. To understand the application of the law for our day as shared through God’s chosen mouthpieces. And 3. That we might rejoice and be glad together. Conference at our house is like another holiday! My kids used to think it was an actual holiday, which I love. As I said before, we used to use a Conference board. We used to do a conference treat whenever someone in the First Presidency came to the pulpit. Now we have Conference Cash and they get $3 to spend at the start of each of the 5 sessions and can earn more in the session if they make it through halfway or are being awesome. The prizes are treats, snacks, journals, busy books, fidget toys, erasers, sticker or sticker by number books or pages. Mostly things they can use during conference. I also have a few free activity pages they can take that I print from the many online packets or resources. We try to eat special foods Conference Weekend and we end with a game night on Sunday night. We also find a time within the next week to share favorites from Conference.
Sundays are a day we are asked to give back to the Lord so it is encouraged in our home to put the Lord first. It is a family day- it looks and feels different from other days of the week. We listen to different music. We give time to the Lord. My brother’s family has a 3 things rule where they are expected to do 3 things that demonstrate participation in God’s work or putting the Lord first and then they are allowed to do other things with their day. We’ve adopted this in our family. This can be writing a letter, calling an extended family member, reading scriptures, playing church music on the piano, serving others, building a family relationship through spending time together you wouldn’t normally, or many other things. We have also started watching a Chosen episode or a nature video (that idea comes from David Butler- I believe) as a family on Sundays. We try to go for a family walk.
So I just shared my collective knowledge of gospel living in the home from a decade of getting ideas so remember to just take what is useful and leave all the rest!
Briefly, I want to finish with revisiting the three things for a successful family culture and how that applies to a culture of gospel living in the family-
What are the symbols of the Gospel in your home? Do you have pictures of the Savior or temples on the walls? Do you have scriptures out or church magazines? Or a picture of the Prophet? One thing I love in my home is we have a shelf with stone monuments from reading Joshua this year and the encouragement in the Come, Follow Me for Individuals and Families manual that represent answered prayers or miracles we have witnessed in our family.
What about the doctrine- do you have the Proclamation on the Family, Articles of Faith, the Living Christ or the Restoration Proclamation in your home? Do you have quotes from prophets around? Our ward did a Technology Proclamation that we decided to adopt in our home- I’ll include that on my blog as well. What about the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet?
And the rituals or traditions are all the things I’ve shared.
In Summary today, our church is a living faith. It requires action and consistent effort. The path of least resistance does not include the things that will strengthen our faith and testimony or our ability to Hear the voice of the Lord. We must deliberately invite and bring those into our lives. In Tucson we had a visiting authority teach that everything we do or say in our homes is either teaching eternal truth or false doctrine. Engaging in “holy habits and righteous routines” will provide healing, strength, and power to us and our families. We want to make sure we don’t get too busy that we lose sight of the things that matter in the end. In the words of Sister Reeves, “ The only things that really need to be accomplished in the home are daily scripture study and prayer and weekly family home evening.” If you feel lost or overwhelmed, start small. Remember that any time you do these things you receive the strength and blessings from them. Our loving God loves effort and has provided a Savior for us to make up the difference where our efforts fall short.
May your efforts in this worthy endeavor be magnified by the Lord is my prayer for you!
Russell M. Nelson, Becoming Exemplary Latter-day Saints, 2018: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2018/10/becoming-exemplary-latter-day-saints?lang=eng
October, 2022 General Conference Addresses: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/10?lang=eng
Emily Belle Freeman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbjs5CDhabk
Linda Reeves, Protection From Pornography- A Christ-Centered Home, 2014: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2014/04/protection-from-pornography-a-christ-focused-home?lang=eng
M. Russell Ballard, Family Councils, 2016: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2016/04/family-councils?lang=eng
Joy D. Jones, Essential Conversations, 2021: “As they act it out and then talk it out, rather than being caught unprepared in a hostile peer group setting, children can be armed with “the shield of faith wherewith [they] shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.”14” Joy D. Jones, Essential Conversations 2021https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2021/04/13jones?lang=eng
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