OPENING DAY AT HOME
One day before school Autumn and Giselle received a telegram each from EJ! I don't remember if they received it as the mini reveal prior to school. The telegram invited them to come on an adventure to the Book of Mormon lands, including Chichen Itza, Teotihuacan, and Machu Picchu.
This telegram shared the layout for our entire adventure,
and they didn't yet know who EJ was.
I don't remember how this clue showed up, but our opening day at home began with this.
The girls had to decipher the clue to learn the name of our school year.
I gave them this handbook to decipher it.
These aren't all the pages, but we did go through part of it that day
to learn what these symbols were all about.
Characters copied from the gold plates by the prophet Joseph Smith.
We talked a little bit about what reformed Egyptian might be like.
The last thing in this booklet was a code. I took a few of the symbols Joseph copied from the gold plates and made my own code, each symbol corresponding to a letter of the alphabet.
I was hoping I wouldn't get struck by lightning!
The clue read:
Etiwanda Jones and the Quest for Quetzalcoatl
I explained the title to them. They knew Etiwanda Academy, the Deena's umbrella we have been a part of for several years. The quest for Quetzalcoatl was the quest to uncover and discover Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon, and in the ancient Latin American legends about the the white, bearded God. We would learn about three of those gods in three cultures: Maya--Kukulkan, Inca--Viracocha, Quetzalcoatl--Aztec.
I gave the girls other accoutrements for the year while playing some beautiful, soothing jungle noises with water and animals sounds. The girls received hats, shirts, and knapsacks,
and the black and white mind maps of the year to color and put in their binders.
Coloring their mind maps
They each received a Liahona...
and what I call, "small plates." I spray painted little notebooks gold, and then added this insight to the inside front cover, (from He Did Deliver Me from Bondage by Colleen C. Harrison). I invited them to use this golden journal as a scripture journal, and later we went through this.
The girls received these bookmarks and some small colored pencils. I invited them to seek Jesus in the Book of Mormon by marking four things about Him. As they read the Book of Mormon this year, they could look for and color the names, attributes, words and doctrine of Christ.
I made these faux leather Journals of Discovery for each of us. This really looks and feels like leather, only it's thin and easier to sew through. I used thin cording all around the edges.
I read thematic literature throughout the day while the girls colored their mind maps. Then Giselle must have been inspired by the jungle music. She spent the day turning our living room into a jungle with paper vines and rafia and animals, like a boa constrictor and this toucan.
Autumn used the reformed Egyptian code to engrave on this gold foil. This reads,
"The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ, I Nephi having been born..."
Lastly, we went outside for some jungle photos.
It was an exciting and enchanting opening day.
OPENING DAY IN TIJUANA
A week after our opening day, our family went to Tijuana! The kids were so excited! Deena had lived here with her family for a few years, so she was a guide for us at first. Everything is set up for tourists to spend money, and it was a kids' paradise, since everything was so inexpensive, and they loved dickering.
We saw these Indiana Jones-type leather hats, and even though I had just purchase hats for the girls, I really wanted leather ones like this. Jeremy Church did some bargaining for many of us to get hats all in the same shop. The shop keeper must have loved us!
We also got whips, and the shopkeepers taught us how to use them. They were the hit of the day! It was so fun watching Chase and others walking around cracking whips. The roads/walking areas were wide enough that the kids could do this at various places that day!
We stopped by the cathedral, but there was too much happening inside to go in.
A few families stopped for lunch in a sit down restaurant, and it was amazing how long lunch took. We wanted to keep shopping! Giselle and India sporting their new hats.
Haley, Giselle, Autumn
After leaving Tijuana we drove back to San Diego and the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center to regroup and say goodbye. While people used the restrooms, etc., the kids pulled out their whips and cracked them all over that back parking lot! It was awesome! It was so fun to watch!
We had such an amazing opening day in Tijuana!
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