Who Do YOU Think You Are?

This is a programme that I love which is currently on TV. Not sure which channel but I know it is there somewhere. It follows celebrities (or some are more film stars, singers etc. so famous people), famous people in their quest to find out who they are and where they are from by using family history sources available to them. These sources could be websites, census forms, parish records and sometimes even books.

There is a UK version and of course the Americans took us up on the good idea and now there is a US version BUT I love this version because it has some really famous people in it like Gwyneth Paltrow and Steve Buscemi, both of which I love and would never be on the British version. They start off with the basic information of their parents and possibly grandparents and then work back from there to as far as something interesting can take them. Sometimes they even go back four or five generations and find out some incredible stories about what happened to their loved ones.

I think this show is a brilliant tool in raising awareness about our family history to people all around the world. For years The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has always pushed the idea of family history so that our families can be joined together from now until eternity - and how are you supposed to do that if you don't know who they are? So, now with programmes like Who Do You Think You Are? There seems to have been a massive increase in people searching for their family history to know who they are and whey they are from.

I know one or two people that don't really care about their family history and that don't want to know more about how came before them and that's fine but sometimes curiosity just gets the better of us and we want to know more. This is why we have experienced an increase in websites helping people search for their family websites such as familysearch.org and ancestry.com have become vital in helping people connect with other loved ones that they didn't even know existed; another reason I love family history.

Sometimes searching through your family history can bring up little surprises that you didn't expect such as one story I read recently about Kevin Bacon and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick who were looking back through their family history and their DNA when they found out that they were actually cousins (once removed), Kevin Bacon although slightly started by this revelation was put at ease by his wife who said that because they were once removed cousins it didn't matter.

But you just never know what might crop up for you. My mum works on the familysearch.org website and as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ and knows so MUCH about family history. She can search almost anyone and if you're looking for someone she will keep searching until she finds them for you. My mum is brilliant at the family history stuff so if you're looking for someone you should just let her know and I am sure she would help.

A Testimony of Cheese - or Thereabouts

I asked my sister what I should write my blog on today and she said I should write it on cheese. I am not quite sure what she meant by that as my blog has never been about cheese and the posts I write would never connect to cheese so, sorry, this post isn't going to be about cheese.

Hmm... this is made from cheese.

Today was testimony meeting at church; or should that be with a capital T?

Testimony meeting is the most wonderful Sacrament Meeting of the month and always lands on the first Sunday. At the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Testimony meeting is where we stand and share our feelings about the church and about how we feel our spirits grow through different things during the month. Or, it could be about something that happened to you months ago and you still remember it now. It could be about anything that brings you closer to Christ and uplifts others around you.

I love listening to other people's Testimonies of how they enjoy the spirit and the gospel but my mind always goes blank as to what I would like to say to other people without it sounding the same as everyone else. I know I have a Testimony and the people around me, in my family, know I have a Testimony of the Church because they see it in me and how I act every day yet I never share my Testimony and as people say if you don't share it then it won't grow.

My first meal after baby is born will be THIS cheese with tomatoes OH MY OMMMMMM

But can you share it in the actions, thoughts and feelings that you enrich in yourself and provoke in others? I really like to think so. I like to think that people know I do the things I do and live the way I live because I know the gospel of church is true and it is something I can never deny. I tried to deny once, I didn't go to church for 5 years and kept blocking it out of my life because I wanted to believe it was wrong, I refused to believe it was wrong. Yet, that niggling feeling just wouldn't go away. So, here I am. Doing what makes ME happy and through that I received blessings that I would have never thought possible.

Both my sister and my husband put me to shame today by pushing aside their nervousness and getting up on the stand in front of other members to share their Testimonies and each one of them was beautiful. Even young children got up and bore their Testimonies with the pure innocence of the love of Christ oozing out of every fiber of their being. I know what that feeling is like and when I experience it again I will get up and share my Testimony with others. My husband says he doesn't think he has ever heard me get up and bare my Testimony which is quite sad really to say we've been together for so long now. But I vow to myself that the next time I get the feeling to bare my Testimony - and those of you who know what I am talking about - I will bare it. It's pretty much like your heart wants to jump out of your chest and stand on stage for you.

Happy Sunday everyone. I hope you had as good a day as I did.

Fish & Chips and Babies

I went to church today, as I do every Sunday and at the beginning of this morning's Primary someone on the Primary Presidency made an announcement. They said that for a service at a place they worked some of the staff were working on a project called 'Fish and Chip Babies'.

They were asking for all avid knitters to try and make jumpers/ hats and clothing to send to children in Africa. The jumpers had to be in dark or bright colours and the jumpers weren't to be pale or striped. I don't know the reasoning for no stripes but I shall explain soon why no pale coloured jumpers were required.

These jumpers would then be sent to children who were born as said in Africa in hospitals where HIV and AIDS were a common and sad occurance. The children were known as the 'Fish and Chip Babies' because when they are born and allowed to go home they are sent home and wrapped up in no more than newspaper. The group were asking for no pale colours to be used in the jumpers because some of the jumpers will never get washed and so bright and bold colours will be best to use.

There were shocks all around the room at this announcement. Living in a country where I know for a fact my child will go home in a beautifully home made blanket, strapped up to it's (her) eyeballs in a comfy car seat and going to a place where they will always be kept safe, warm and fed made me realise how thankful I should be for such a small blessing as a blanket.

Annoyingly enough, my baby brain prevailed in retaining the knitting pattern for this jumpers, and I left it at church. But I read the pattern and it looked very straight forward to me so for any avid knitted who is more than capable of doing a beginner's pattern it should be simple enough to do. Now, if you can't knit then it is obviously fine that you don't find the pattern but, please, ask your family members or anyone you know if they can help you out in knitting even one jumper. If you know 5 people that can knit, that's still 5 beautiful babies born in to hard circumstances going home with more than the mothers could give them.

Please Google the pattern if you are interested, as I left my sheet at church, BUT if you wait until next week I shall have all the details of the patterns and where the jumpers need to be sent to.

See more here:-

Tiny knitted goods flown out to poor African 'Fish & Chip' Babies (Daily Gazette)

Knit for Africa - This website has patterns on it too!

Helping Fish & Chip Babies in Uganda - Patterns included too!

Primary, FHE & Church

Or should that be Church, Primary & FHE?

Nor one or the other is more important but I guess I can't have FHE and Primary without Church.

Again, another one of those random tab things I have at the top of my page for who knows what reason... well why don't you click and find out?

I shall explain more about Church, Primary & FHE in the tab named the aforementioned but for now Sunday shall be my day of posting about Church, Primary and so on and so forth. I love going to church for the simple reason that it makes me happy. Someone once asked why I go, what I do it for. I simply said,
"Because this is the only Church I know of that answers the question of who I am, who I was and where I am going next" the biggest questions of all... and no the answer, unfortunately isn't 42; like we are led to believe in Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Today was a lovely day at church. I love Primary and the children I work with and couldn't possibly ask for a better calling (besides being a mother). In Primary today we sang some songs and played 'Name That Tune' for the songs we've been learning recently and then we talked about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and why they came to Earth. Such a simple and yet incredibly important lesson to learn. But I think they understood it perfectly.

We have a mini problem with behaviour at the moment, because with kids being kids they don't like to sit and behave all the time. We have a system in place where if they behave they get to put a piece of armour on the 'Warriors' but for the past few weeks they have been nothing but trouble sometimes and today we had a meeting about we could eradicate the bad behaviour, nip it in the bud so to speak before the child gets too erratic and sets off other children in the room - we don't want to punish the lot for the few if you get what I mean.

So, we had a chat and I prayed and had a think about it and I've put it to the Primary President that we should make a 'traffic light' system but more basic. We have green badges for good children and red badges for bad children. When they come to the classroom all the children are presented with a green badge and if they misbehave they get the green badge taken from them and are given the red badge, if they are still misbehaving and being disruptive we take them to their parents (after-all nobody is perfect). Those who have green badges or green stickers against their name at the end of Opening Exercises and Sharing Time get a gold star on the chart, those who have red badges or stickers get nothing - because nobody should be rewarded for bad behaviour. So, hopefully this should work but let me know what you think.