Happy Easter!

March has been a wonderful spiritual month for our family, and our gospel study efforts have been aided by amazing on-line church resources.  At the end of February, Ezra and I made a goal to read from the Book of Mormon every day in March--and we have!  We were inspired in our effort by a story from the March Friend called Scripture Power.

We have been following the monthly Book of Mormon reading schedules and supplementing with our own additional reading.  What a blessing to study King Benjamin's and Abinadi's prophesies of Jesus Christ in anticipation of Easter!

Ezra and Maren loved the Hallelujah Easter video, and were so excited that the words from Isaiah were included in Abinadi's message (see Mosiah 14).  We watched it together at least 20 times.  After listening to Handel's Messiah, and especially the Hallelujah chorus throughout the month, Maren began to sing bits and pieces during routine daily activities.   Maren watched a full hour, fully-engaged of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir & Orchestra live stream of Handel's Messiah on Friday night.  I imagine she would have stayed for the entire thing, but it ran into her bedtime. 

We also tried many of the Easter activities and lessons recommended in this article 7 Family-Friendly Ideas for a Christ-Centered Easter.  On Good Friday we had a candlelight dinner and read select passages from 3 Nephi 8-10, describing the darkness and destruction, and the hope that came as Christ spoke to the people from heaven.  We ate in complete darkness, and then, as we read 3 Nephi 9:18 ("I am the light and the life of the world"), we lit a candle.  Ezra and Maren loved our special dinner.  

Dallin played in an amazing local production of Rob Gardner's Lamb of God, and I got to attend too.  The music is so deeply moving, and many of the songs have been re-playing through my head for weeks.  Go here (Lamb of God) for a lovely sense of the music, and several short song excerpts.

Our Sunday morning sacrament meeting was filled with music that testified of Christ.  Dallin played two beautiful pieces on violin and sang in the ward choir.  The Easter program definitely touched my heart. 

My little sunbeams were amazing too!  We had our best lesson yet.  All seven of my sunbeams were hanging on every words as we talked about how sweet Jesus had to die, but then rose again.  We made tombs out of salt dough, and re-enacted Jesus' burial, the closing of the tomb (with a small rock), and his glorious resurrection.  Happy Easter!

My cute sunbeam class