A Meaningful Easter

I heard a story once about a returned missionary who was asked about the Gospel.  He dutifully drew out the standard Plan of Salvation graphic with the Premortal Life, Earth, Spirit World, Judgement, and three degrees of Glory.  The person studied the visual aid and said, "I knew you didn't believe in Jesus."
The returned missionary was apalled.  Of course he believed in Jesus!  But in his excitement over the Plan, he had neglected to mention the most important part.  It was Jesus' plan.  He presented it.  He brought it to pass.  Without Him and His sacrifice, the Plan would never have worked.  The Resurrection will happen because of Him.  He will be our judge.  Our goal is to live with Him and His Father.

I've been thinking about Christ a lot, lately.  When I'm in Church, I think "If someone who wasn't a member came to this meeting, would they leave knowing that we believe in Christ?"  When I'm at home, I think "Do my children know that I know that Jesus lives, that He is my Savior?"
Latter-Day Saints have a problem; we are given SO MUCH information, that sometimes we get hung up on little pieces of it and forget about why we have it in the first place.  We have lessons on Chastity, the Word of Wisdom, the Priesthood, temples, genealogy, service, keeping the Sabbath Day holy, etc.  In the back of our minds is the connection to why we are learning these things and who gave them to us.  But I can understand how someone else attending these meetings would think "They never talk about Christ!"

Joseph Smith, the first prophet in the latter-days, said “The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it."

Christ Himself revealed to Joseph,

31 And of ^atenets thou shalt not talk, but thou shalt declare repentance and ^bfaith on the Savior, and ^cremission of sins by ^dbaptism, and by ^efire, yea, even the ^fHoly Ghost.

32 Behold, this is a great and the last ^acommandment which I shall give unto you concerning this matter; for this shall suffice for thy daily walk, even unto the end of thy life. (Doctrine and Covenants 19:31-32)

Lately, I've been trying to not go off on tenets (or tangents) and focus instead on my Savior and the simple truths His Gospel in my "daily walk".  That translated into how we spent Easter.
We decided to invite the Easter Bunny to come to our house a day early.  The kids woke up Saturday morning to their baskets full of little toys and a little bit of candy.  (I'll do a post about that when I get the pictures.)  That left us free to focus on Jesus on Easter Sunday.

Unfortunately, with every one of us sick and miserable, we had to stay home from Church.  Nathan and I played tag-team, taking care of the kids and taking naps in shifts.  It was shaping up to be a regular illness-in-the-house day.  But then in the afternoon we took a walk to a cemetery not far from our house.  They have a crucifix in the center.

It gave us an excellent opportunity to talk to Annalee about death in general and Christ's death in particular.  We told her about the Crucifixion and then the Resurrection.  And we bore our testimonies to her that He really lives and that because He lives, everyone in that cemetery will someday live again with a perfect body that doesn't get sick and doesn't get hurt.  Everyone we care about that has died will live again.  We will live again.

It was a short little moment that ended when Annalee saw a box on the side of the road that had been painted with the words "Yard Sale" and she yelled "Hey look!  A box!" and ran over to inspect it. 

Nathan and I smiled at each other and said "Squirrel!"  (You know how the dogs are always distracted by squirrels in the movie "Up"?)
The weather was gorgeous and warm, but by the time we got home we were having trouble enjoying it.  Sick as we are, the small exertion of the walk tired us out and we couldn't wait to get home and fall down unconscious.  (If only the kids would let us!)  I was going to heat up left-overs, but decided to do one more thing to celebrate Easter.

You may have heard of eating a special "Bethlehem Dinner" or Passover.  We kind of did that.  I looked up an easy recipe for unleavened bread, and while it was baking I cut up some cheese and washed some grapes.  We also had nuts and juice.  We talked about how these were the kinds of things Jesus might have eaten when he was on the earth.  Then we watched the He is Risen video from lds.org while we ate.  Annalee was so excited when she realized that the bread Jesus was eating at the Last Supper looked just like what we were eating!  (I didn't plan that, but hey!)


Despite feeling miserable, it was a good day.  And I guess our misery just makes us all the more excited for those perfect bodies that can't get sick!
Psssst!  He lives.