A mere year and a half or so later...plus, I am sharing our January Family Scripture Study Plan if you want to use it too!!!

Yes, it has been a long time.  Oh well.  This blog will always be here when I feel the need to express myself in more than a couple of sentences on facebook.  2013 was a fabulous year, and I'm hoping 2014 will be even better!  We got through Erick starting a new business, Cash was the craziest 3 year old I have EVER had, Cora and Bryant are nearly half way through the school year, and so on and on.  The real reason I decided to blog was because I want to share our scripture study plan for January.  That is probably my best success of 2013--getting my act together in a lot of ways after having a baby, who is not so much a baby anymore.

A big way I got things together was in really getting serious about family scripture study.  I realized nighttime study was just never going to work for us.  My kids go to bed at two different times, and everyone is crazy right before bed.  CRAZY.  After trying for years to make it work, it just clicked that it was NOT going to happen.  So I realized we needed to do mornings.  Simple as that.  I started making all of the lunches the night before which shaves off 5 minutes of time and then set the alarm clock back another 15 minutes to give us enough time for 20 full minutes of study and discussion.  The best part of all is that Cora and Bryant are still young enough to where they really don't care if we wake up earlier and they really have enjoyed the studies so far.  I thought this might be something a lot of people would like to do a better job at, so that is why I am sharing our plan.

I was torn in two ways for this year/month.  I also reserve the right to study any topic at any time I see fit!  I think it is always a good idea to change things to fit your family's needs.  Also, on a side note, Bryant, Cora, and I all started a "read the book of mormon in a year program" back in the beginning of November so we are doing daily reading of the BOM even though there is not a lot of BOM reading in this month's plan.  The Friend magazine from January has an entire year's plan to read through the Old Testament which is awesome.  I love all of those old stories and am so excited to go through the scriptures and read them all with my kids!  But then I looked at the Primary 2014 Sharing Time Guide thingy and it is also awesome.  It is all about teaching about Christ and Eternal Families and I wanted to do it all.  So my plan incorporates them both together.  Monday through Thursday is Old Testament Stories and Friday's are "Primary Focus Day" where you Focus on the Primary theme of the month.

So how we do each study session is we begin with a prayer and then start with an Article of Faith.  We work on a new one each month. This month is #4 for us.  I also ask the kids to recite a couple of other ones to keep their memories fresh.  Then, we do a "scripture of the month."  It is a scripture we are working on memorizing.  For Dec. we did Moroni 7:45. I do not know why, but it was SO hard to memorize.  Anywho, this year, I think we are going to memorize the Primary scripture of the month each month.  So we recite that.  Then we read the assigned reading.  The assigned reading is sometimes just one verse, and sometimes several.  It just depends.  I try to ask questions and discuss.  This whole process usually takes 15-20 minutes.  I can skip the Article of Faith and the "SOTM" if I have to (but that is really the kids' favorite part) if we are running late and cut it to 8-10 mins.

Alright, here it is:

January: Primary theme:  Learning about the Saviour

January memorization scripture

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in

him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Article of Faith #4

Week 1 Plan of Salvation

Dec 30-Moses 1:39

Dec 31-Abraham 3:12

Jan 1   -Abraham 3:22-28

Jan 2   -Abraham 4:1

Jan 3   -(Primary focus day) How we can follow Jesus’ example John 13:14-15

Week 2 The Creation

Jan 6   -Genesis 1:1-15

Jan 7   -Genesis 1:16-24

Jan 8   -Genesis 1:25-31

Jan 9   -Genesis 2:1-3

Jan 10  -(Primary focus day) How we can follow Jesus’ example Matthew 5:1-2

Week 3 Adam and Eve

Jan 13  -Genesis 2: 7-9

Jan 14  -Genesis 2: 15-18

Jan 15  -Genesis 2: 19-22

Jan 16  -Genesis 2: 23-25

Jan 15  -(Primary focus day) How we can follow Jesus’ example Luke 15:4

Week 4 The Fall

Jan 20  -Genesis 3: 1-6

Jan 21  -Genesis 3: 7-12

Jan 22  -Genesis 3: 13-18

Jan 23  -Genesis 3: 19-24

Jan 24  -(Primary focus day) How we can follow Jesus’ example 3 Nephi 17 1-10

Week 5 Cain and Abel

Jan 27  -Genesis 4: 1-4

Jan 28  -Genesis 4: 5-8

Jan 29  -Genesis 4: 9-12

Jan 30  -Genesis 4: 13-16

Jan 31  -(Primary focus day) How we can follow Jesus’ example Acts 10:38

Hopefully the kids like all of the Old Testament Stories!