How to make Easter more Christ-Centered

We go all out for Christmas to celebrate Christ’s birth, but Easter—the celebration of His resurrection—often gets overshadowed. In this episode, we explore ways to make Easter more Christ-centered, bringing the true meaning of the holiday into our hearts and homes. From scripture discussions to meaningful activities, we’ll share ideas to help you and your family rejoice in the greatest miracle of all: Jesus Christ is risen! Join us as we find ways to truly celebrate Easter and shout, "Hosanna!"  

SHOWNOTES and References:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2465200

Transcript

Show notes, References and Transcript

Fair Use & Disclaimer
This podcast episode may contain brief quotes from external sources, used in a positive and respectful manner for discussion, education, and commentary. These references fall under fair use as they are not used for commercial gain, do not replace the original works, and are presented with proper context and attribution.

The views and opinions expressed in this episode are our own and those of our guests. They do not necessarily reflect the official doctrine, beliefs, or positions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

References (clickable links below)

http://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org. “Easter and Sundays near Christmas Limited to Sacrament Meeting.” Newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org, Feb. 2024, newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/easter-and-sundays-near-christmas-limited-to-sacrament-meeting. Accessed 2 Apr. 2025.

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“Try Some New Easter Traditions.” Churchofjesuschrist.org, 2019, www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/2019/04/try-some-new-easter-traditions?lang=eng#title1. Accessed 2 Apr. 2025.

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“Good Friday in the United States.” Www.timeanddate.com, www.timeanddate.com/holidays/us/good-friday.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “What Is Lent? | USCCB.” Www.usccb.org, 2024, www.usccb.org/prayer-worship/liturgical-year/lent.

‌published, Tom Metcalfe. “Why Does the Date of Easter Change Every Year?” Livescience.com, 6 Apr. 2023, www.livescience.com/why-does-the-date-of-easter-change-every-year.

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“Try Some New Easter Traditions.” Churchofjesuschrist.org, 2019,  Accessed 2 Apr. 2025.

‌“What Is Good Friday? What the Holy Day Means for Christians around the World.” USA TODAY

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Easter Message (clickable links below)

• Easter
• Dallin H. Oaks Easter message
• Easter for children

Craft Activities

DIY Palm leaves tutorials:

https://www.francinesplaceblog.com/2021/09/make-diy-paper-palm-leaves-easy-tutorial.html

https://somethingturquoise.com/2021/05/28/diy-paper-palms/?ssp_iabi=1683814012411

Easter with Eggs for kids:

https://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/magazines/friend-april-2020/16795_2020-04-0025-food-and-fun-eng.pdf?lang=eng

Easter readings

Luke Chapter 2

3 Nephi 11: 1-17

Holy Week Scriptures

Matthew 21:12-14  Jesus overthrew the moneychangers

Matthew 21-21-22 faith they could move mountains

Matthew 22:8 Goal Setting

Matthew 22:37-39 greatest commandment

Matthew 23:26 bitter cup

Matthew 24:13 kids, make an obstacle course and talk about strengthening ourselves to endure to the end

Matthew 23:37 The prophet is the leader of Jesus Christ’s church

Matthew 25:35-36 Service project

John 15:12-13 friendship

Mark 14, Matthew 26 Passover

Matthew 26:12 ointment on Jesus’s head

Mark 14: 18-19 preparing for Him to come again

Matthew 26:26, 3 Nephi 18:6, Luke 22:19 Jesus blessed the bread and then broke it

Matthew 26:30 sang a Hymn

Mark 14:19 Is it I?

Mark 14:38, Luke 22:40  Pray that ye enter not into temptation

Luke 22:6 greatest among you is he that serves

Luke 22:42-44 Jesus suffered

John 17 Intercessory prayer

Transcript

Clare Craner I'm Clare

Candice Buchanan And I'm Candice. Welcome to the Sisters Podcast, Sisters with Latter-day Voices. Today we're going to be talking about how we can make Easter more about Christ.

Clare Craner  This is the perfect time because it's right before Easter. And, it's really funny because right now my calling is teaching Sunday school. I received an email this morning from the Sunday school president like, Hey, it's fifth Sunday. You don't have to teach this Sunday. Instead, we're going to come together with the youth and the adults. And we're just going to talk about how we can make Easter more about Christ.

Clare Craner Oh, I've got this. I can really help this week. I found a perfect quote about Easter. It's from New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright. And I quote, We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways. In art, literature, children's games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms, you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke. Nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don't have a New Testament. You don't have a Christianity. End quote. What a powerful quote.

Clare Craner I never thought of it like that. that's true. I mean, we do all this stuff for Christmas and then sometimes Easter is just not as celebrated, I love that change that's happening. When I was researching more about Easter, I learned that Easter actually is sometimes not the same day as everyone in the world, which I never knew.

Candice Buchanan Crazy to me, I did not know that.

Clare Craner I looked it up this year. It actually is the same date, but on previous years, sometimes it's not. And it all depends on Western or Eastern Christianity. And it is all based on the moon. So Easter is always after the spring equinox.

Candice Buchanan I don't know who's in charge of figuring that out, but good luck to them.

Clare Craner I know I started doing a deep dive into figuring out why that was and I was like, okay, I'm not going to get into that. Let's leave that to the professionals.

Candice Buchanan I just wanted to take a brief moment to talk about Ash and Lent. I think Catholics do a really good job of celebrating Christ at Easter time and I was curious to know what it's about because I've heard of it but didn't know a ton about it If you're curious, Ash Wednesday takes place forty-six days before Easter Sunday and that marks the beginning of Lent. And this year I actually saw people at Costco. I went to Costco that day and a whole family had the little ashes on their foreheads. So what they do is they go to, a mass and the priest will apply ashes to the forehead in the shape of a cross. And it symbolizes the dust that God made us from. And it also represents a willingness to repent from sin and the grief people feel for having caused a division from God. I think that's pretty cool. We feel a little differently about the last bit just because we believe we aren't responsible for Adam's sins. We're only responsible for our own. But I really like the reminder to focus on repentance and be grateful for where you come from.

Clare Craner I think that's cool that this is something that another religion does to show their respect. Even growing up in Boise, maybe I just didn't go out a lot on that day or was at school, I remember when I lived in Nebraska, it was a huge Catholic, Community. So my daughter has special needs and she had therapy on that day. I went to therapy and her therapist had that mark on her forehead. I was like, wow, what is this? Later that day I went home and Googled a whole bunch about it. It's so cool that they do that to celebrate and show respect.

Candice Buchanan actually, are you supposed to leave it on? Is that part of it? I mean, I don't know.

Clare Craner I'm assuming that you, as a reminder all day.

Candice Buchanan You don't want to be ashamed of it. From what I learned about Lent is that it lasts for forty-six days and participants are supposed to be between the ages of eighteen and fifty-nine and they fast. This is what I did not know. Typically, you're supposed to fast between Monday and Saturday. And I was thinking, okay, that's not possible. But the way that they do it is they have one full meal and two small snacks. And the two small snacks are not supposed to be... Added up to a meal. They're supposed to be small. And then they eat on Sundays. Or people can choose instead of doing the fasting like that to give something up. And that's what I'm familiar with is Giving something up. So choosing to give up a certain thing like chocolate, no eating out, no watching movies. and it's nice to just have a purpose for their fasting. and just like we fast once a month, we should always fast with a purpose. And I like hearing about What they do to fast with a purpose. I think they'll be blessed for fasting and giving something up in an effort to come closer to the Lord. Because I think anytime we do something with a purpose to come closer to the Lord, that we should do, then we're blessed for it.

Clare Craner It shows our devotion, respect, and love, and want to remind us it's for people who are physically able to fast. I know some people can't. And also just a reminder that there's always something that you could give up if it's not food. If that's not, something that you're physically able to do, there is things like give up a movie or looking at Social media or whatever it is that you could do to just show your love for him. read your scriptures during that time instead.

Candice Buchanan I should be clear that we're not advocating that people in our religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, need to practice Lent. I just thought it was a cool thing to learn about. So we're just sharing it with you.

Clare Craner It's so important to know how others celebrate Jesus, that's a good thing.

Candice Buchanan We're going to talk about the Holy Week as an idea of celebrating the Holy Week and learning what happened on the Holy Week to celebrate Christ at Easter time. I think one of the reasons why it can be a little daunting or... More difficult to choose how to celebrate Christ at Easter is because there's so much to choose from. at Christmas, there's just a couple of chapters, like one or two chapters. And then for Easter, just in studying this lesson, there's so much that you could take away. I think we're just going to give a lot of ideas and suggestions. But I mean, just like certain scriptures will Pop out at you or teach you things at different times. Hopefully someone will be able to take at least something away from this and apply it to what they do for Easter time. we're going to go over some ideas of what you can do during Holy Week and then some ideas for kids and what you can do with them with Easter baskets and things like that to incorporate Christ and make it more about him. and note that the church, churchofjesuschrist.org, have a ton of stuff for Easter. if you go on the church website, they'll have a link that's up right now that you can click on Easter to learn more about it. They have a A Holy Week section where they have a scripture, an invitation, and a journal prompt for each day of the Holy Week. They also have Easter videos, kids activities, music, messages, and they also have a brief Synopsis of what we believe about Easter. 

There's actually one time in Virginia we had neighbors over and we were just having pizza. They had a little boy that was the same age as our little Girl who was like two at the time. And I remember her asking me like, oh, what do you guys believe about Easter? And it took me off guard and I wasn't prepared for the answer. I don't remember what I said, but I definitely remember I didn't do a good job of explaining it. I was kind of like stumbling and after that, I just thought to myself, I need to be prepared so that the next time this happens, somebody asks me what I believe at Easter time, I can have a clear answer and on the church website, it just has a little snippet. So it's very clear and simple if people want to know what we believe about Easter.

Clare Craner I think the church did a great job with the website and, talking about Easter more. They also gave suggestions of what other people do in different parts of the world. It is really cool just to celebrate different cultures and how Easter is celebrated. 

Candice Buchanan depending where you're at, for sure. so starting off the Holy Week, it starts with Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and people that were there had palm leaves, they were waving, they laid clothes on the ground, he rode in on a donkey

Clare Craner I love that Palm Sunday is called a triumphal entry. And when I was reading about it, it talks about how Friday is coming up where- he gets crucified. It's going to be the hardest day of his mortal existence. But on that triumphal entry on that Sunday, it was a tender mercy. He gets one day before- where everyone is praising him, shouting Hosanna and how he's riding in on a donkey, that donkey was Meant for peace as a peacemaker. Everyone was able to celebrate him before Friday happened, before the crucifixion.

Candice Buchanan That's, that's really cool to think about. It also makes me think about how the leaders of the church, the prophet and the apostles and the people who are Really regularly putting themselves out there and representing the church need that love and support too. The people were praising him, like, openly. He, knew that these people loved him and believed in him. I think people who are... Who are representing the church probably need our support too. Just need us to let them know hey, we're so thankful for the sacrifices you're making. their whole lives are spent serving and I'm thankful for it.

Clare Craner I like how you brought it back to now like how we can celebrate and show respect and love for our prophet.

Candice Buchanan A few ideas of ways you could celebrate Palm Sunday is you could fast for opportunities to share the gospel to bring people to him just like people were there praising him because they believed in him. What can we do to bring people to him? I like that on Palm Sunday people were there and they weren't ashamed to shout Hosanna. They were in a city that definitely had a lot of, Mixed feelings about who Jesus was. And they weren't ashamed to shout it. To say, I am a believer. I'm praising Hosanna. I think a way to celebrate is to think of what ways we can do to be proud members of the church ways that we can shout Hosanna today I think we could share an Easter message just pray for an opportunity to share something about Christ during Easter time to somebody. I think when we pray for those opportunities, they come. something that I'm going to do with my girls because they love crafts and art. I'm gonna make paper palms and there's tons of different ways you could do this but they're really simple and they look really cute. I actually love the look of them. Dried flowers are kind of in right now and you can get craft paper and Craft paper is cheap. You can, it's the type of paper that you use to wrap presents in or packages, just brown paper. And you cut it out, fold it in accordion style, and you glue it and put little skewers or popsicle sticks on it. I think skewers that you use like for kebabs. I have a couple of links for people if they want that and they're super easy. And then I'm going to put it out as a reminder. It's a cute display for Easter decor and it's a good reminder of We want to be proud. What can we do to shout Hosanna in our own way?

Clare Craner That's also a great way to just be interactive, especially for younger kids, because a lot of this stuff or things that I can do to help remember this week is different than what my youngest child can do. So I think this is great for different levels too.

Candice Buchanan It's a good reminder for your house, too. So you have a lesson and then have a visual reminder of the lesson. In preparing for this, I was thinking, okay, I'm just going to learn about everything that happened during Holy Week, and I'll talk about what happened on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, only to find out that we don't really know exactly what happened.

Candice Buchanan What happened when? We just have a lot of scriptures for what happened during the week, Monday through Wednesday.

Candice Buchanan There are a ton of scriptures. There's so much that you could use. This is just a couple of ideas. You could definitely read these scriptures and just pick out one scripture that you like that you think would be applicable to you in your life or your family or your kids or what they're dealing with and put that on the fridge. And have that be the reminder for the day and then talk about it at night. It doesn't have to be overcomplicated. but here are some ideas. one thing that happened, Jesus overthrew the money changers and he healed the blind and the lame in the temple. And he taught the importance of the temple. I think similarly, we can also be healed in the temple. I absolutely believe that when we go to the temple, the blessings follow us home and you can Honor that by reading that verse or going to the temple, walking around the temple grounds if you're younger family members. Another thing Jesus told his disciples that with faith they could move mountains, you could put out a picture of mountains in your decor and have that scripture there and I'll link all these scriptures In the show notes, you could focus on goal setting for one night. He told parables to the chief priests and Pharisees. the wedding is ready but they which were bidden were not worthy. Consider how we can be worthy. Maybe think of one thing that you could Set a goal to work on and then set a reminder in your phone with alerts so that you think about that goal at least once a month to see how on track you're doing. Yeah. So if you have kids, you could check in with their youth goals, spiritual, social, physical, and intellectual goals.

Clare Craner I love checking in. our ward does a really good job with the adults checking in on the youth with their goals. And sometimes it's a group goal But they make really fun ones. sometimes they see how many pushups they can do or

Clare Craner one kid wanted to learn how to juggle. I just love that they all try to help each other out with their goals.

Candice Buchanan your ward does seem really good at it. So a couple more ideas. the Sadducees and the Pharisees tried repeatedly to find fault with Jesus and failed. Jesus then asked them a question they can't answer and then they finally leave him alone. the opinions of the world can feel loud, but we can know that God's opinion matters most. We could write a quote from Jesus in the scriptures and display it as part of our Easter decor.

Clare Craner I love that opinions of the world can feel loud, but God's opinion matters most.

Candice Buchanan I'll need that reminder sometimes. He also taught the greatest commandment, love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment and the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets and With that, you could plan a service project or just a small act of service for a neighbor or whoever. he also told the hypocrites, before you make clean the outside of the cup, but within they are full of extortion and excess. First clean what's within and then The outside may also be clean. And I don't know if this sounds silly, but I was thinking for kids especially, I think they learn things better when there's a visual reminder. I know when we were little, the times that we had scripture study and there was something visual. I remembered that way longer. Um,

Clare Craner I still do that and

Candice Buchanan yeah.

Clare Craner I'm an adult. Yes.

Candice Buchanan Without a visual, I feel like sometimes it can just go in one ear and out the other. So I was thinking maybe with dinner or just By itself, you could get a cup, fill it with something like vinegar or something strong like that and have a reminder that we want to focus on what's inside, not just what's on the outside. Even if it looks pretty on the outside, we need to focus on how we're doing on the inside. Um.

Clare Craner Well, that's funny because Jocelyn a couple weeks ago for Sunday school, her class, they used vinegar as an example, and then the kids who wanted to could try it

Candice Buchanan Oh my goodness, that's so funny. That's a great idea. I feel like kids would love the challenge. How did Jocelyn do?

Clare Craner She said some people almost threw it up. She's like, it was so gross. Hopefully she got more out of it than just from the vinegar taste.

Candice Buchanan Okay. Another thing Jesus warns the apostles about the doom of Jerusalem and what would happen before the second coming Quote, but he that shall endure unto the end shall be saved. End quote. For kids, you could make a little obstacle course. It doesn't have to be hard. Really simple and talk about how we strengthen ourselves to endure to the end. Jesus condemned the scribes and Pharisees for killing the prophets. How can we honor the prophet and support the leaders of the church? once Easter comes, it will be shortly after general conference. Focus on that. Another one was, I was hungry and you gave me meat, thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you visited me, I was in prison and you came unto me, again, for a service project. also in John, it says, greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends. And I was reading a missionary email recently and he talked about this quote and I always think of Jesus and his ultimate sacrifice of laying down his life for us. He applied it to how we can give something up in order to follow him. Sometimes that's necessary in our lives and it's kind of similar to the scripture of he that shall find his life shall lose it. He that shall lose his life for my sake shall find it and how we can When we make those little sacrifices to follow him, we'll be blessed. and those were just some of the ideas that I had for Monday through Wednesday. I did find, I'll link it, something on Pinterest where, for little kids, just to make it simple, it was like Palm Sunday, Cleansing Monday, Teaching Tuesday, Service Wednesday, Passover Thursday, Good Friday, Spirit World Saturday, and then Sunday He's Risen, and there's little things to go with each of those.

Clare Craner Oh yeah. something small to do every day.

Candice Buchanan Yeah, just to make it simple. Thursday was the Passover and there are, again, so much that happens. You don't have to review everything, but you could think of what's part of those scriptures that stands out to you. That you want to talk about. it's common to have big meals or feasts at Christmas time. This might be a good time to have a big meal or just to have like your own feast. I mean, maybe I'll set out olives or naan or something like that to try and make it more like the Passover. And then just read scriptures about the last supper. Something that happened was a woman poured precious ointment on Jesus's head. And we can discuss ways we prepare for him to come again. I remember dad telling us this, that, when Jesus first implemented the sacrament at the last supper on Thursday, when he, Did that, he first blessed the bread and then broke it because at that point his body was still whole. But then in 3rd Nephi, when he comes to the Nephites and he gives them the sacraments, He breaks the bread first and then blesses it and that's what we do now because his body was already broken. they also sang a hymn before going to the Mount of Olives so you could sing a hymn. the scripture, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. pray that ye enter not into temptation. We could just have that as a journal reflection of what can we work on? what do we need to pray for? Cause we're all human. he also taught that he that is the greatest among you is he that serves. I think the leaders in our church are great examples of that, of. Just spending their entire lives in service. And then I think the most important thing for Thursday is to focus on scriptures about him going to the Garden of Gethsemane. I mean, him implementing the sacrament is so important too. But I mean, the big thing, there's lots of little things that we can do to

Candice Buchanan try and remember him. But the most important thing is what he did on that day. So reading those scriptures. And then also in John seventeen there's the intercessory prayer, which is beautiful and you could focus on that too.

Clare Craner when I was thinking about Thursday night and the last supper and then Gethsemane, I just love my youngest daughter. She loves music she always steals my phone and she's eight and she has down syndrome, but she just loves music It's her favorite thing ever. She's singing every day, all the time. And one of the sweetest things that she does is she loves the song Gethsemane. she can find it herself on Spotify and she listens to it on repeat. the thing that sticks out I love the words that say Jesus loves me. So he went willingly to Gethsemane.

Candice Buchanan She is so sweet. I love that she loves music so much and she is so good at finding the songs that she wants. I'm pulling them up. It's amazing.

Clare Craner that even her, she just, she gets it. So moving on to Good Friday, Some call it Good Friday. It's also known as Black Friday. German Day is called, I'm not even going to try to pronounce it, but it means Sorrowful Friday. And then, An English origin of the term good is debated, and some believed it developed from an older name, which is God's Friday. So I kind of loved that.

Clare Craner I thought it was interesting that Good Friday, growing up in Idaho, it's not a federal holiday, not everyone recognizes that, but there are twelve U.S. states that do recognize it as a state holiday, which means that schools and organizations like that have the day off, I remember. When we moved to Texas, the kids were in school and they had that day off and I'm like, wait, what? I was like, wow, this is so cool

Candice Buchanan I have a friend who used to live in California and then she moved to Texas and she posted a Valentine's that a kid had sent home and it was just like a Christian poem. She's like, wow, things are really different here. I think I could get used to this.

Clare Craner I know I remember being there Friday thinking this is the coolest day ever. I love that. Okay, so speaking of Good Friday, it's all about remembering how Jesus willingly suffered and died by crucifixion. Which is the ultimate sacrifice of our sins. And I know Roman Catholics two days out of the year, which is Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, they're obligated to fast. A Catholic priest said, this practice is a way of emptying ourselves so that we can be filled with God. And many Catholics do not eat meat on any Friday during Lent. Anything with flesh is off limits. And he said that this practice is to honor the way Jesus sacrificed his flesh on Good Friday.

Clare Craner Yeah, that was also another thing that if we wanted to, we could do I know a lot of people wear a cross as a necklace or jewelry or display in their homes. We often don't see that as much with members, in our church, I thought it was a cool reminder that we represent Christ's two-part triumph with the small I'm gonna say this wrong, Thorvaldson image of the resurrected Christ. And it's him emerging in glory from the tomb with the wounds of his crucification still evident. And that's the picture where If you go to the website, it's the one in blue and it shows Jesus with his outstretched arms and it's him in white with his robe. And that's normally what we see. Does that make sense, Candace?

Candice Buchanan I think so. Yeah. Just instead of the cross, that's what we do.

Clare Craner few years back, my sister-in-law told me that there was something happening in our stake, which is pretty cool and rare. Somehow, someone got a replica of Michelangelo's Beloved sculpture, is it the Pieta? Am I saying that right?

Clare Craner And that is the sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus in his lifeless body on her lap. It was just cool because they had the gym full of artwork of Jesus and in different times of his ministry and then they were able to have this sculpture and they also did a live depiction of Leonardo's The Last Supper.

Candice Buchanan so I went to that too and I remember thinking it was so cool and my girls loved it and it was a full experience because you walked in the gym and they had ushers ushering you through And you could see all the paintings and the stories of his life. And then you would get to eventually the sculpture La Piera. And then you would go through and they had, you had the live performance, It was three different scenes and they had a song for each one, once you came back to the chapel, they had people depicting three different scenes. And then the lights would kind of come on on that scene and a song, they'd play a song and then the lights would go down and then they would show another scene and lights would go down and it was a really cool experience. I love art, and so, and there's so many artists now. I feel like it's nice that you can find so many different kinds of art now depicting Christ. It's great. One of the shows, the TV shows that I like is on BYU TV and it's called Artful and it's just interviewing different people and they're not all Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they interview just gospel artists. Some are Catholic, some are, I mean, there's a variety of people. It just talks about their art and their gospel art.

Clare Craner Oh, I like that. I'm gonna have to try it out. Yes, I think really the most important thing for Good Friday or any day this week are just finding ways to remember him and his sacrifice. so moving on, I don't have necessarily any ideas for Saturday.

Candice Buchanan I think for Saturday you could just do what you want to if you want to do an Easter egg hunt or there's so many scriptures. I think you could choose what you want to do for Saturday.

Clare Craner Yeah, and I think also weekend is a good time to just do things that you weren't able to do earlier in the week. I know everyone's schedules are busy, you could go to a grave site and visit a loved one, put flowers on there. To temple baptisms or find names.

Candice Buchanan Love it.

Clare Craner And then for Sunday, I remember in 2023, the first presidency puts out a message and it was just reminding everyone about the celebration of Easter and how there will only be sacrament meeting and then no classes that day. so we can celebrate Easter in our homes? I was reading a church talk and he's like, I remember getting that message too. you know, the church takes care of it. And he just didn't really do anything at his house. oh crap, that's kind of how I've been. I'm just putting it all on the church and not on myself, which. come on, I can do better than that. he brought up some ideas where at Christmas time we do reenactments and we always read the birth of Jesus, but what can we do? At Easter to also make it meaningful. And what he recommended, which I also read, was Luke two It's just full of hope in Jesus's mission. And then switching over to the Book of Mormon, we could read, Third Nephi chapter eleven especially verses one through seventeen And that talks about when Jesus was resurrected and he comes to, The Americas and he holds out his hand and lets the children come. It's such a special like moment in the scriptures. It's one of my favorites.

Candice Buchanan I love that image. I have some ideas for kids or with Easter baskets or what you want to do with kids. one idea that I found and kind of tweaked is something that I'm going to try out this year with my girls is that We're going to paint colorful rocks and instead of going on an egg hunt, we're going to go on a rock hunt and that's why we're going to paint them first because they love painting things anyway and then they're colorful and easy to find they'll go put the rocks in their baskets and rocks are heavy. And so then by the end, they'll have a heavy basket of rocks and then we'll have them set that out on Saturday night. And then on Sunday, the rocks will be replaced with their Easter basket stuff and we'll have a message and maybe like a little moment lesson about how. The rocks represent our sins and our burdens and how Jesus sacrificed for us to take those away. And the blessings that he wants to give us are so much better than anything that you could find in this basket or anything you could find in this life. And if we endure to the end, we will have that great gift, that great reward.

Clare Craner love that idea. I've never heard of it, and now I'm totally gonna copy that.

Candice Buchanan I'm excited about it. I'm excited to try it out.

Clare Craner imagine my older boys, trying to put really, really heavy rocks in their

Candice Buchanan This huge rock. Oh, they would. I can picture that. another thing that we usually do is have an empty egg when we have, whether it's an Easter egg hunt or an In everybody's basket, they have one empty egg to represent the tomb. You can put a little scripture in there about it or just talk about how that represents the empty tomb. how Jesus still lives. You could do, I didn't know that scavenger hunts were a thing for baskets because we always just woke up and our baskets were there. But after watching Bluey and talking to some friends, I guess a lot of people do scavenger hunts for their Easter baskets. one thing you could do is you could include with the clue a little scripture. So when they find that clue, they have the scripture and then the clue and it kind of walks them through. You could simplify it to walk through the Easter experience to make it a little bit more Christ-centered.

Candice Buchanan you could make resurrection rules. I have never done this before, but I want to try it. So you put a Big marshmallow in the middle of the dough and then you bake the roll and the marshmallow melts and so then you open the roll. It has an empty hole you can decorate frames with an Easter picture inside and then display them. You can get cheap dollar store frames to do this. Um, You could make an Easter garden like a fairy garden. I saw those fairy gardens a thing where they make little tiny gardens for fairies.

Clare Craner I love fairy gardens.

Candice Buchanan you do. I thought you'd be excited about this one. You like make a, you know, the tomb and the rock that rolls away and you can make a little fairy garden and you could have an object lesson. This one, I think a lot of people are familiar with, you know, where you get the twelve eggs and

Candice Buchanan then you put a little scripture and a little, Something symbolic to go with the scripture so it's like spices or toothpicks for a cross or a little cloth and I'll link in the show notes what those scriptures are and you can do those I think there are twelve and so you could do that twelve nights leading up to Easter or do it all together, whatever you want to do. I'm in the primary presidency in our ward and we always have a little Easter egg hunt and decorate cookies and I was thinking maybe we could incorporate doing the empty egg and about how Jesus lives to go with the activity. And the kids always like Easter, I can't. And we make it easy. We just ask people to donate eggs and a lot of people do. it easy for everybody and the kids love it. And then, this isn't just for kids, but I was talking to my mother-in-law she lives in California in like the Santa Clara Bay area. And she's in, has a steak, Uh, chorister, I think that's her calling. She has always had a stick music calling for a long time and she's been wanting to do an Easter program for a while. So last year they finally did one and they just had, it wasn't on Sunday. And they just had people come and made a little program and they had choirs sing different songs and then they would have someone come up and give a little talk at the end. And she said that they didn't know, like, how many people were going to come. It's at their stake center. But she said 400 people ended up coming to it. And she thinks, a lot of people would invite their friends because it's a nice it's not, I don't know, too – Diving into like our religion, you know, it's just people want to come celebrate Jesus at Easter time. And so it was nice to have of people could come hear songs, and so this year they're doing it again and she's actually having a choir group that's not members of our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They're a separate choir group, but they're a really great choir and they're going to come and they're going to sing one of the songs and she has just more of a variety of musical numbers this year. and they had a, a small refreshment afterwards after the program. Anyway, and I think this year they're going to break it up and just have like a little scripture, a little message in between the songs instead of a talk at the end.

Clare Craner I remember attending one of those in Texas and I still remember it to this day and loved it. And yeah, it was great.

Candice Buchanan It sounds amazing. Yeah.

Clare Craner It wasn't even someone from our stake. It was just like a different religion, but I went and it was really cool.

Candice Buchanan And then again, the church website has a ton of little videos for kids if you want like a little simple video to show them.

Clare Craner Yeah, right on the church's website, it says, and it's like this big section, and it says, feel love through the power of his resurrection. Celebrate Jesus Christ's greater love this Easter. And you can click on that link and have so many ideas. I'm excited to just show my kids like go on the website because I think sometimes they just only use the church's app on our phones that we have.

Clare Craner And so I want to sit them down and be like, no, like sit down at a desk and just. Go through different things. Look up the scriptures or look up talks or different ways. And so they can also for themselves find ways to celebrate Jesus.

Candice Buchanan That's a good way to teach them how to study too. Just learning how to dive deeper, into gospel topics. That's great.

Clare Craner Yeah, navigate it for themselves. I'm just going to end with John chapter fifteen verses twelve through thirteen This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Thank you so much for joining us on Sisters with Latter-day Voices.