Jill Holmes | Mormon Life Hacker

General Conference Activities for Children

Posted by Jill Holmes | Mar 31, 2012 | church, conferences, family & children, talks & devotionals | 0 |

General Conference weekend is a time that families come together and listen to our Prophet, the 12 Apostles and other general authorities. With pen and paper in hand, many of us take notes that will help ourselves and families. We listen intently to the messages being given over the pulpit, but for some of us, it is a chore to keep the little ones quiet long enough to receive one message, let alone the whole conference. For years since the beginning of email, I would receive homemade general conference packets from friends and family. The first of its kind...

Use Online Mapping to Save Money on Gas

Posted by Jill Holmes | Mar 31, 2012 | deals, finances, priorities & planning | 3 |

Gas prices keep soaring and there are reports that prices could hit $5 or $6 a gallon this summer. Living in California myself, I am already seeing gas prices at $4.30 a gallon. But we don’t have to be stuck paying more than we need to. We can use Google or Bing Maps to help us reduce our bill or at least find ways to keep it as low as possible. I’m a working mom and I have to watch my budget. Other areas of our budget suffer when we have to pay more at the gas pump. It...

Use Mormon Messages for Baptism Waiting

Posted by Jill Holmes | Feb 21, 2012 | family & children, missionary, ordinances | 6 |

At a baptism, a great way to fill the time waiting for those who were baptized to change back into their Sunday clothes, is to play MormonMessages—official church-produced videos with various gospel messages and themes. Here’s how we did it recently, with great success. A few months ago my youngest child was baptized. In the weeks prior to the big event I was putting together the program and the big question for many families is what will we do while those being baptized change out of their wet clothes? In the past we have seen piano music, musical numbers...

Get FREE e-books from DeseretBook.com

Posted by Jill Holmes | Feb 21, 2012 | entertainment, family & children, gadgets & tech | 2 |

If you put DeseretBook.com and FREE together you get a great combo. DeseretBook.com/free has a great collection of books available for free. You just need to establish an account with DeseretBook.com/free and you can then download any of the choices that are listed below. They will put the e-books into your account for download and they will be available for 30 days. This is for a limited time, so don’t wait to download them. Here is the current list of books: Please Pass the Scriptures by John Hilton The Book of Mormon Sleuth, Vol. 3 by CB Andersen What I...

Use Your Camera For Genealogy, Notes & More

Posted by Jill Holmes | Jan 21, 2012 | deals, emergency prep, family history, gadgets & tech | 0 |

A huge percentage of people have a camera of some type with them at all times. iPhones, Android, BlackBerry, and even many “dumb” phones are getting better & better cameras. Even actual digital cameras are small enough to carry with us at all times. Have you ever thought ‘outside the box’ of what you can use those cameras for? I use them for so much more than the typical ‘family and friends pictures’. As a genealogist I learned many many years ago that you can use a digital camera to take pictures of documents and old photos that couldn’t...