Guest Author - Terrie Lynn Bittner

When I first joined the church as a teenager, I wondered how I was supposed to fill an entire day with nothing but church and scripture reading. When I had children, it seemed even more challenging to fill the time. Trina Boice has created a valuable resource by offering more than 350 ways to spend the Sabbath alone or as a family. This new book by Spring Creek will keep your family appropriately busy all year long.

Sister Boice, 2004 Mother of the Year for California, shares her thoughts on unique, but appropriate ways to spend your day. You will want to evaluate these against your own understandings of what items would be appropriate. A few of the ideas I considered outside my personal guidelines; however, I found most to be acceptable and interesting, and because they are divided by category, it is easy to quickly locate the type of activity you want to create.

Sample activities include:
Make a matching game for toddlers.
Tape record yourself reading church materials for someone who needs them.
Offer to take a deacon to collect fast offerings.

Interspersed with these ideas are quotes from church leaders on the Sabbath and some discussions on how to keep the Sabbath Day holy.

The book would make an excellent resource to keep close at hand. When someone gets bored, hand them the book and assign them to select an activity.

To learn more about Sister Boice, visit her website. Here you can read summeries of all her many books, most of which are resources for various activity callings. You can also sign up for her newsletter from the mysterious Sister Thrifty, who will lead you to the best prices on various emergency preparedness items. Buying her books from her site can net you some free goodies to go with them, even more than the treasured autograph.

In addition to being Mother of the Year, Trina is also the recipient of President Bush's Points of Light Award for her many far-reaching service activities. With any luck, her next book will be on how to become Super-Mom!