What is The Mormon Helper?

The Mormon Helper is the brand new sister site of The Personal Progress Helper! The Personal Progress Helper started as a fun project to work on as a young woman, but now it's growing into something larger than I ever expected, and as I'm nearing the end of my journey in the Young Women's program, it seemed like the best next step was to expand into places beyond the Young Women's program.

The Personal Progress Helper is still going to be my first focus, but no longer my only focus. The Mormon Helper will have a variety of things available for Primary, Activity Days, Sunday School, Seminary, and Relief Society. My hope in distinguishing these things from The Personal Progress Helper is that I'll be able to reach an even wider audience and help even more people!

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2016 Primary Theme Binder Covers "I Know the Scriptures are True"

I love primary so much! It's loud and crazy and stressful, but there can be such a sacred spirit there as well. The 2016 Primary theme is awesome (as usual): I Know the Scriptures are True. Even though I have nothing to do with Primary right now, I was inspired. And so I threw together these fun and simple binder covers for Primary leaders, In addition to the Primary Presidency, I also have one for Music Leader and Teacher.

I also have it without callings on it in two sizes, to be used as posters. One is 8.5x11 and one is 8x10. All these files can be downloaded HERE!

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Christmas Handout Elder Maxwell Quote

I thought I was done with Christmas things as I've been working on content for 2016 and focusing on real-life Christmas celebrations, but one quote has been popping up a lot lately that I wanted to revisit. Elder Maxwell has an amazing way with words, and this quote really touches me. It tells us the role we need to play in our own Christmas story, and it's such a powerful perspective to examine things from this season. 

This quote is perfect for sharing at home, in Young Women's, Primary, Relief Society, or anywhere else. And if you like the design and are in need of invitations for your ward Christmas party, you can find just that in my Etsy store. 

This download comes as a 4x6 300dpi JPG and PDF. Download here.

And upon request, I've also done it in Portuguese! Download here.

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Press Forward 2016 Calendar with Come Follow Me Themes

The year is steadily approaching its end, which not only means it's time for Christmas shopping, but it's also time to start planning for next year! I'm a big planner who loves calendars, but I've been a slacker the past little while, So as a means of self-motivation I created this 2016 calendar! This is just the start of quite a few class presidency resources I'll be making, since the new year is a great time to refocus class efforts.

These calendar pages are portrait so they can easily be put into binders (without having to flip it sideways) and leave enough blank space (without the confines of boxes) for writing whatever notes needed for activities and lessons. Just underneath each month is also the Come Follow Me topic, to serve as a reminder while planning lessons and activities.

The calendar is a PDF which can be downloaded here.

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Old Testament Scripture Mastery Candy Puns

Scripture Mastery is probably my favorite part of Seminary. I still struggle with the idea that waking up at 5:00 is going to help me become a better person, but I endure it anyway. Scripture Mastery, though, is something special. I love how they all teach the basic principles of the gospel, and I'm always surprised by how frequently I use them in the weirdest situations!

I was sitting around one day and thought "Wouldn't it be cool to make candy puns for Scripture Mastery?" and my head kept spinning for the rest of the day. I brainstormed with my older sister, and we ended up with a list of candies for all 25 Old Testament Scripture Mastery verses that I'm actually pretty proud of. My only rule was that it had to be a candy I could find walking through the grocery store, and I was successful! Of course it isn't perfect, and some puns are better than others, but they're still all pretty amusing. In fact, I've started coming up with more for the other standard works!

The fun part now is finding uses for these puns. My two main ideas were to have students try to match the candies with the verses, OR they could be used as incentives for memorization. Candy has a way of motivating even the least motivated students to do things. I'm sure there are DOZENS of ideas out there for memorizing, teaching, chasing, and more! (And feel free to share them!)

The list is below (along with a couple explanations). I considered making wrappers for all of them, but then there were too many different sizes of each candy, so instead I made nice, uniformly sized printables for each verse. These printables are available in my Etsy store. They can be used as cards for a game, attached to candy bars, turned into a bingo board, or anything else anyone can think of. .

THE LIST:

Moses 1:39 – Lifesaver Candy
Immortality and eternal LIFE come through being SAVED by Jesus Christ
Moses 7:18 – Good & Plenty
Zion was RIGHTEOUS and had PLENTY because there was no poor
Abraham 3:22-23 – King Size Milky Way (I figured Milky Way's are pretty generic and well-liked)
Abraham saw many NOBLE & GREAT SIZED intelligences
Genesis 1:26-27 – Hershey's Milk Chocolate
HE & SHE were created in the image of God (It's does require a bit of a stretch, but one you see it it works--and it's still grammatically correct!)
Genesis 2:24 – Hershey's Kisses
HE & SHE CLEAVE to each other (since kiss & cleave are appropriate substitutes in this context)
Genesis 39:9 – Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Joseph RESISTED (Reese's-ted) Temptation
Joshua 24:15 – Charleston Chews
CHOOSE to serve the Lord
Exodus 19:5-6 – Chocolate Treasure Coins
God's covenant people are a peculiar TREASURE
Exodus 20:3-17 – 100 Grand
Follow the 10 GRAND Commandments
1 Samuel 16:7 – Milky Way Fun Size (Again, because it's generic and fairly popular)
The Lord looks not at your SIZE, but your heart
Psalm 24:3-4 – Orbit Gum ("A good CLEAN feeling")
You need to be CLEAN to stand in holy places
Psalm 119:105 – Fruit by the Foot
God's word is a lamp unto my FEET
Psalm 127:3 – Sour Patch Kids
CHILDREN are an heritage of the Lord
Proverbs 3:5-6 – Sweethearts
Trust in the Lord with all thine HEART
Isaiah 1:18 – Hostess' Sno Balls
You sins may be white as SNOW
Isaiah 5:20 – Hershey's Dark Chocolate
Woe unto them that call EVIL good & good EVIL, that put DARKNESS for light and light for DARKNESS
Isaiah 29:13-14 – S'Marshmallows
The restoration was S'MARVELOUS and S'WONDERFUL (This one is a stretch, because it relies on being familiar with the song S'Wonderful, but I couldn't think of something better)
Isaiah 53:3-5 – Candy Cane
With His STRIPES we are healed (This is actually legitimately part of the story behind the candy cane)
Isaiah 58:6-7 – Reese's Fast Break
Take a BREAK to FAST (You could even tie it back to RESISTing the temptation to eat)
Isaiah 58:13-14 – Hershey's Air Delight
The Sabbath is a DELIGHT
Jeremiah 1:4-5 – Jelly Belly
God knew you before you were formed in the BELLY
Amos 3:7 – Nothing (Yes, it's cheating, but...)
The Lord reveals NOTHING (except unto His servants)
Ezekiel 37:15-17 – Twix
TWO STIXS shall be joined together in the last days (Where else could the name come from?)
Malachi 3:8-10 – PayDay
PAYING tithing brings blessings
Malachi 4:5-6 – Sugar Baby & Sugar Daddy (It could be one or the other, but both would tie it together better)
The hearts of the CHILDREN turn to their FATHERS

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Fall 2015 General Conference Study Schedule

Ever since General Conference ended less than a week ago, I've been asked when I'd be coming out with a study schedule--so here it is! My last schedule doubled up talks fairly randomly because of the number of weeks vs number of talks, so I evened it all out by delaying it a few weeks, so each week has two talks. If you're looking for a schedule which starts THIS WEEK, then you're out of luck--though you could start now anyway and ignore the date, thus giving you a couple weeks to catch up if you fall behind. Otherwise get ready to roll on November 15th!

The way I paired the talks was a bit different, too. I decided I wanted a talk from an apostle each week (which I had with one exception), but that I still wanted to try to pair them by topic. I didn't go back and read every single talk to pair them up, but I did flip through my notes, and I think that reading each pair with the search for a common bond in mind could deliver really interesting results.

No matter your study strategy, hopefully this schedule will prove useful!

Download Here

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