It’s a new month and that means a new family challenge!
(I will debrief February’s challenge later this week.)
My husband and I tossed around the idea of focusing on gratitude for the month — playing off of St. Patrick’s Day and luck. We also thought about focusing on mental health since we have some struggles in our home right now. And the alliteration of Mental Health March almost convinced me to do it.
But in the end, my husband and I decided we wanted our March Family Focus to be Preparedness.
First, I’m just a little uneasy with the elections and the lack of character and integrity there. Who knows where are country will be this time next year? Second, my 72-hour emergency plan used to consist of different ways to get to my mom’s house. But now that we’ve moved farther away and up a canyon, I need to be more self-sufficient. Third, our power went out last month at night, and it showed me many ways I am not prepared. Lastly, I blame my unease on Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Crew and I read it together this year and it was a wake-up call for all of our luxuries.
“But if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear” (D&C 38:30) so it’s time to get moving.
This month’s Family Challenge is a series of things to do that will help us get prepared for any kind of natural or personal disasters. Here is a list we generated on our family brainstorming session:
- Fill up water containers (We emptied them when we moved and have yet to fill them back up.)
- Pick up food storage from Thrive (I ordered several cases of food storage from Thrive at their Black Friday sale and have yet to pick them up.)
- Organize food storage room in the house.
- Update 72-hr kits.
- Check batteries in flashlights and gather them all in one spot.
- Put together car preparedness kit. (The canyon near our town has been closed for multiple hours more than once this year. We were reminded that even our car needs to be ready in case we are stuck in an incident.)
- Get first-aid kit for car.
There are several other things we could add to the list, but I am trying to be realistic about what can be done in a month’s time with a busy family.
We also decided that we wanted to be spiritually prepared for whatever life throws our way, so I proposed that we commit to reading our scriptures as a family together EVERY DAY in March. We were all skeptical if we could do it or not. The kids were particularly hung up on Saturday. They couldn’t see how we could read together when we are all going our separate ways with sports and dance and friends. Chad proposed reading Sunday-Thursday as an alternative goal.
As we continued to talk about March’s challenge, we remembered that these are Family CHALLENGES, and they are supposed to stretch us and make us do hard things. So after some time for the idea to sit, we agreed we would aim to have family scripture study every day in March.
(After all, we started the Book of Mormon in 2013. It is about time we finished it!)
This challenge will definitely challenge us. I am hoping, like the “No Eating Out” Challenge, that we will get creative and find ways to make it work. We will think outside the box and our own limitations. We may find ourselves reading in the car, reading over FaceTime or reading in the middle of the day, but we will be reading.
I’ll have to print out a calendar or something so we can mark our reading and see our consistency.
**UPDATE: I talked with my children about how they would like to record our family scripture reading challenge. We decided that we wanted to see something go away rather than see something fill up like we did with the jar of conversation hearts. That’s when Croft had the great idea to keep track with a paper chain.
She got right on it and made a chain with 31 one links, and we will cut one off each time we read. If we have any links left then we know we didn’t read every day. We are keeping the chain right by our scripture reading basket along with a pair of scissors.**
I’m hoping that spiritual habits will be set and that we will be further prepared to face whatever may come.
Wish us luck!
![I spoke in church today and said the Atonement of Jesus Christ is the greatest act of Charity. I read Moroni 7:45-47 to make my point. But wherever there was the word ‘Charity’ I substituted it out for ‘the Atonement of Jesus Christ.’ See if these scripture verses now have new meaning for you:
“And the Atonement of Jesus Christ suffererth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth in the truth,
[The Atonement of Jesus Christ] beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not the Atonement of Jesus Christ, ye are nothing, for the Atonement of Jesus Christ never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail-
But the Atonement of Jesus Christ is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.”
So Easter really reminds us of love. The first and greatest commandment.](https://www.raisinglemons.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed-pro/img/placeholder.png)
Love this! And thanks for sharing the link to my Thrive store <3
I think these are awesome goals! I know this is a big thing, but have you ever looked into water catchment? If you already have a metal roof you're almost there. I've also known people to build a carport like sturcture for rain water collection. You can get a lot of a small area. Plus the water is soft and doesn't require much to clean it. Food for thought. Water is one of the greatest needs and water catchement is awesome because it meets that need so beautifully. I guess I need to read Anne Frank with my kdis! It reminds me of this book I love that had the same effect called We Were Never Alone. One of my all time faves! Anyway you know you inspire me and I pray you don't move on from this, I saw your post on Facebook.
Preparedness…what a great goal! I love that you are including spiritual preparedness also! Our family definitely needs to work on preparedness so I am excited to see the details of your family plan. Up to this year we have always struggled with consistent family scripture study. Around the first of the year, Randall and I were discussing how we were tired of the seemingly endless fighting and teasing going on in our home. Almost at the same time, we said…”We haven’t been having Family Scripture Study!” We know there are promised blessings of increased peace and love when we read from the scriptures as a family, but we hadn’t been doing it on a regular basis. My youngest will turn 12 this year and the challenge for Primary-age children is to read the Book of Mormon this year. We decided we wanted to finish reading it before he turns 12 in July. So that gave us a goal to focus on. We looked up how many verses we would need to read each day and surprisingly it was only 34. (There is a program that figures it out!) We decided we would read together as soon as everyone was home from school or work. After the first day of reading, we noticed a difference in our home! Was it complete love and bliss…no, but it was better! We know there are blessings that come as we are obedient. Ever since that first week of January we have read every single day. It is true that it takes about 21 days to forma a habit. Once we hit that 3 week mark, it didn’t seem quite so hard to do. We hardly ever have any complaints anymore to read, so that tells me that my boys notice a difference in our home when we read (we talk about it with them also). Some days we don’t read all 34 and then we have to catch up, but the consistency has made a big difference. Some days its before bed. Sometimes we read during dinner. Thanks for sharing your family struggles and helps! It helps my family, too!