About Joyce Anderson

Joyce is a mother, wife, sister, school teacher, Bulgarian speaker, conservative, lover of good music, social media junky and a two time culinary arts Grand Champion bread baker. She and the family reside in a remote mountain community where great discoveries have been made. When not changing the world, she enjoys the occasional bowl of chips and salsa. She can be found at: http://pinterest.com/TheAtomicMom

What I Learned in Primary: The Covenant Path

Posted on January 19, 2020 by Joyce Anderson

I teach the CTR-7 Primary class in my ward. I’ve taught this class several times over the years, and these 7 year olds turning 8 are always a hoot.

Today’s lesson was on Lehi’s Vision of the Tree of Life. I let the kids tell the story. Here were some of their observations:

7 year old boy: “I would go to the Great and Spacious Building…..and PUNCH IT!

Me: “Why does’t this building have a foundation?” 7 year old boy, “Because the devil can’t build Legos!”

8 year old girl: “I would throw the fruit at the people on the path!” “Why?” “Because so they could have a snack!”

7 year old boy, “You better be careful around that water! You could drown!”

Continue reading →

Church Music: I Will Walk With Jesus, and Go & Do

Posted on January 12, 2020 by Joyce Anderson

In the Face to Face broadcast back in November, two new songs were introduced which go along with the new Children and Youth programs in the Church. Normally, I am not a fan of what I call “church pop”, but these songs are really good and have brought a very strong spirit into our home as we’ve listened to them. And as an FYI — there is an entire album of songs that go with this year’s youth program found by following THIS LINK.

We started learning I Will Walk With Jesus in Primary today. It was raining on my face is all, I was not weepy or anything — primary kids are the best! I am really starting to understand at a deeper level why Pres. Nelson talks about walking the “Covenant Path” so much. We need to walk that path, we need to teach our children to walk that path at very young ages, because the world they are going to live in will try and take them in so many ways off of that sacred path.

The song for the youth (kids age 11-18) is called Go & Do and is the youth theme for the year, based off of 1 Nephi 3: 7. . In the official video the song is sung by David Archuleta. This song also talks about walking with Christ. Do you see the theme of walking the covenant path and walking that path with Jesus Christ? What a great message for our kids. What an invitation for all of us.

Christmas Music: The Nutcracker Ballet

Posted on December 12, 2019 by Joyce Anderson

Last year when I had more time, I shared some of my favorite Christmas music every day in December. Life is a bit more hectic this year, and I’m only getting to thinking about Christmas this week, and even then, it’s very passive thoughts. If anyone wants to come wrap presents, let me know …

One of my favorite memories of childhood Christmas time is dressing up in our Sunday best, piling in the station wagon with all of our cousins and Grandparents, and driving over to Grady Gammage Auditorium in Tempe, Arizona. Every year Ballet West would come thru town and perform the Nutcracker Ballet. We went every year. Gammage was magical, the Nutcracker was magical, and planted in my childhood heart a love of Russian classical music.

This weekend we’re going to watch the Nutcracker with our kids, on the TV, as we’re far away from Arizona, Gammage and have no station wagon to pile into. Enjoy this performance of the Bolshoi from last year.

Love Makes a Family and Other Lies

Posted on November 13, 2019 by Joyce Anderson

This morning for our family devotional I felt prompted to take a slight detour from our regular Book of Mormon reading and read the Family Proclamation. I found out a few days ago my older son was having a lesson on families today. The school district we live in has partnered with a prominent LGBT activist group to teach “kindness, tolerance, and diversity”. That’s not really their goal though. Their goal is to introduce and normalize LGBT propaganda to young children. There are plenty of programs out there that teach tolerance, kindness and diversity without an LGBT focus I found out about this group and their program at the parent night which was held the first week of school. As much as we all hate going to those things, it was a good thing I went, and noticed in the display of books on the teacher’s desk of the curriculum materials from this group. Friends, pay attention, and be “that parent”. I’ll share my experiences meeting with the superintendent of the school district about this program in a later post. Continue reading →

Fall of the Berlin Wall 30 Years Later

Posted on November 9, 2019 by Joyce Anderson

Ten years ago today, I wrote my first post for The Millennial Star as a regular contributor. I wrote about the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (see that post HERE). Today is the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Wall. As I usually do on November 9th, I’ve spent some time thinking about that momentous event, and its impact on my life. I’ve been thinking about my exchange-family and friends in Berlin. We’ve sent messages this week celebrating, remembering, and giving thanks that, that wretched wall is gone.

As I wrote ten years ago, I served a full time mission behind the Iron Curtain in Bulgaria. When I was there, the dreary grey of communism still stuck on all of the buildings. People struggled to meet their most basic needs of feeding and clothing their family. Sometimes basic food items like bread and meat were scarce. Inflation was rampant, sometimes the exchange rate even changed several times a day. You didn’t change your American Dollars until the minute you needed to buy something it was so out of control. With the rise of socialism’s popularity in this country, I find myself saying to anyone who promotes socialism to talk to me after they’ve waited in a bread line or 14 — believe me, it’s not as fun as you might think. Continue reading →