Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

14:1 - I've had kind of a hard day today as far as emotions go. I'm not sure exactly why, but I just had a lot of self discovery. I think it was mostly because my mom took my kids to the beach today and I had planned to go to the temple at 1pm then go straight to work. But for some reason, I didn't wake up until 1pm and that never happens. Yes, I probably needed the sleep but I needed the temple more. And I was so upset that I didn't get to go that it just kind of tainted my day poorly. I ended up reflecting on my trust issues and how my budding relationship with God is affected by my unwillingness to give up control and my subconscious need to be defensive around men. I know kind of deep stuff today. I started reflecting on my life and why I felt like I had to control everything, which is a myth, you can't control everything, in fact you can't control anything, except your choices and how you react to the world around you. I thought about the many time and rela...

I struggled a little bit with this section, I read the Institute manual section and I understand what it talks about but the wording in the actual scriptures is a little bit much for me right now. My brain power is dwindling, especially at this hour of the night, but I'll try, so this post might be a little bit shorter. 13:31-34 - It's a little bit difficult for me to understand who the Lord will be merciful to and why, here he says that the Lord will be merciful to both the gentiles and the house of Israel, but he will punish them as well. I'm going to have to read more about this later. 13:35-43 - The plain and precious truths that have been lost that we discussed yesterday will be restored in the last days, after the American Revolution, and they will be restored by the book that is published from the record of Nephi's seed. That must be kind of fulfilling for Nephi, to have this terrible tragedy take away some of the most important part of the Lord's gospel,...

13:20-22 - In the previous post we discussed the angel showing Nephi a book that was carried from the gentiles across the sea to the promised land. This assumably is the Bible. The angel asks Nephi is he knew what the book is, and Nephi says no. I wonder why the angel asked him if he knew what the book was. The angel must have known that Nephi didn't know. Interesting. 13:23-25 - When this book, let's just call it the Bible, first is written, it contains the "fulness of the gospel." This has always been a confusing statement for me for several reasons. First reason, who exactly wrote the Bible? In know that there are many different authors, but who kept the records. For instance, the Nephites handed ALL their records from one person to the next, and that person kept all the records together, safe, and was the lone recorder of that time, until the plates passed to the next person. Was the Bible like that? I don't think so, but then again, maybe they were. Take th...

13:11 - Why would the wrath of God be kindled against the "seed of (Nephi's) brethren" all these hundreds of years later. I always wondered why God would punish people for not believing in him when in fact it wasn't their fault at all, it was their ancestors hundreds of years ago, why not punish them? But then again, here comes the logic saying "well a just God wouldn't do that so there is probably something that I'm either not seeing or that I don't know that would make that judgement at that time make sense. 13:12 - I remember the first time that I actually read this verse and realized that it was talking about Christopher Columbus, it was magical. It was like lightening hit me... "Oh my goodness, I know who they are talking about!" According to the Institute manual, President Ezra Taft Benson identified this man as Columbus and says that Columbus always attributed his ideas and success to God. He said that the Lord "unlocked my min...

The vision chapters are a little bit difficult for me because I don't want to read into it wrong, or I don't know, it's just a little bit much for me. But I'll try. 13:1-6 - Now the angel shows Nephi "many nations and kingdoms" of the gentiles, and among the gentiles is set up a "great church." Now I think there are a couple of facets to this description that can be a little hard to understand. First it is called a "church" which implies it is a religious institution. Now the vast majority of religious institutions are built upon the premise of Jesus, or at a minimum, peace and brotherly kindness, for the vast majority. So there is a disconnect when this "church" is described later as "abominable" and founded by "the devil." This description doesn't really match up with what our society's definition of a "church." The second issue with this description is that it is "a" church, imp...

Tonight we got home from a friend's house late and did a quick family home evening . Honestly, our family home evening is hit or miss. I wish it was better and I'm really trying to make it a priority, but I usually just end up winging it on Sunday nights a couple of times a month. Usually we are out visiting friends and people until late, then I'm beat by the time we get home, and I work Monday nights, so we chose to do it Sunday night instead. So tonight, as usual, we sat down, someone chose a song and said the opening prayer, then I was going to talk about the scriptures and why they are important, but Lillie wanted to tell us the story that she learned in primary about the prodigal son. And I thought, "you know, practical application of a primary lesson is probably pretty good," so we went with that. So at the end Lillie was summing up the story, and she said "and he wanted to be rich and have lots of money, and he wanted it NOW, he didn't want to be p...

Sometimes I wish that I could forget everything that I've read in the Book of Mormon and read it fresh, for the first time, now that I'm older. I sometimes will hear stories about how a nonmember will read the Book of Mormon, and be hooked and finish it in one night and then know that the church is true. I finished the Book of Mormon for the first time when I was like 14, and I didn't understand hardly any of it. The more I've read, the more I've come to understand, but I sometimes I wish I could try it again, to see if now that I'm older I would read it, understand more and just "know." Mormonism has always made sense to me, and honestly it's the only religion that does or ever has. But sometimes I wonder if I was born a non member, would I have sought God? Would I have desired for something deeper out of life? Would I have pursued other religions but still yearned for the truth? Would I have read the Bible in search of some deep answers? I always...

Before we even start in chapter 12, at the beginning of the Institute manual's section for this chapter, there is a blurb about Heavenly Father granting the righteous desires of our hearts. Boyd K. Packer says "No message appears in scripture more times, in more ways that 'Ask, and ye shall receive." This is a very interesting concept to me, I recently discussed this with a friend, the whole idea of prayer, what is the purpose, and how to pray for what we want. It was really interesting and very eye opening for me, because as you know, I'm very infantile in my spiritual level. Don't get me wrong, I've grown tremendously over the last several years and most in the last few months, and I greatly desire to be a spiritual giant, but I'm not there yet, not even close. I squandered so many precious years in rebellion, learning my lessons the hard way, thinking I knew better. So as a 31 year old woman, I should know more about and deeply understand the simple...

11:24-25 - I don't know if this vision was legitimately this confusing or if it's just the way that it was recorded, but it seems to have pieces of different stories all occurring at the same time and it is hard to follow. In 24, Nephi sees the Savior during his ministry, then he sees the rod of iron leading to the tree of life, which he also describes as the fountain of living waters. All 3 of those elements occurring in the same plane is difficult to put together. Another reason why this might not make sense to me is because this was Nephi's vision and as we learned earlier, I believe that Nephi has a unique learning style. Plus in our day, we have knowledge of what happened during Jesus' ministry, but Nephi didn't have any background information so seeing all these elements together this way might have been what he needed to put it all together. 11:26-27 - "Look and behold the condescension of God!" One thing that bothers me about the way we are taugh...

11:11 - It amazes me that Nephi had the presence of mind to know what he wanted. I would have probably stood in front of the spirit and stuttered and drooled until he gave up and went away. Nephi says that he and the Spirit spoke to each other like two men talking. He says that the Spirit looked like a man, but Nephi knew he was the Spirit. I have heard the concept of the "Body of my Spirit." Like a spirit is not just loose particles floating around without purpose, even though there is no physical containment for the spirit in the form of a body, it would make sense that the spirit of a person would still be in some organized manner. 11:13-15 - In the pre existence Mary was one of the most valiant women, that is why she was chosen as Jesus's mother. I think that the description of her as a "virgin" is a little bit lost in our society today. Now parents work, kids have lives outside of home, they have boyfriends, and many times, probably the vast majority, the...

There's not a whole lot discussed about these first 10 verses in the Institute manual. There are a few articles linked in the LDS Citation Index, but not a whole lot. 11:1 - I find Nephi's writing style to be a little bit  difficult to read sometimes. For instance in chapter 10:17 he says that he desired to see the things that his father had seen, then goes on a 5 verse tangent, for lack of a better word, about the greatness of God. Then come chapter 11 verse 1, he again gets back on the subject he started with of desiring to see the same things his father had seen. It is just difficult for me to follow because he goes off onto other subjects in the middle of addressing something else. We will see, but I think he's the only one who has this writing pattern. I wonder what being "caught away in the Spirit of the Lord" means. Does it means like he went unconscious for several hours, or is it like a dream, zone out for a few minutes and it's like you've live...

10:11 - The whole "dwindling in unbelief" concept has always been a little weird for me. For me, the word unbelief has a connotation of "I've heard the truth and I choose not to believe." And in the first couple initial generations, that was probably the case, the outright rejection of the gospel, but in the case of hundreds of years and many generations of "unbelief" that this verse implies, the posterity of the apostates wouldn't have even had the opportunity to accept/reject the gospel. To me, the phrase "dwindling in unbelief" in this context implies a hard hearted, hopeless group of people just waiting to die out. And a reason that I don't like that is because, for the most part I believe that people want to believe in a God, in a higher power, in a purpose to their lives. To me that longing for belief is made clear by all the various religions world wide and those who are devoted followers of each. Until just the last 5-10 years...

10:1 - Nephi states that he must address the teachings of his father in order to give an accurate account. There are quite a few of Lehi's teachings in the first book of Nephi, and it's interesting to me that Nephi would use precious space on the plates to discuss his father's teachings when his father had made his own record. When the plates were originally translated there were 116 pages that Lehi had written at the beginning of the record, so Lehi obviously had extensive records of his own. But for Nephi to include his father's teachings in his own record, and for him to reference his father's lessons like we wouldn't have any idea about Lehi or what he taught, except what Nephi tells us, indicates for me that the Lord had prepared hundreds of years beforehand for the 116 pages to be lost. And many times in his record, Nephi tells us basically "and for more information on that, reference the large plates." But I haven't seen very many times when...

When I was writing about chapter 8, Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life, I realized that one of the things holding me back spiritually was that I felt like I had never personally eaten the "fruit" or felt the no holds barred Love of God before. I was afraid of the commitment and also the disappointment of not being delivered from trials on my timeline, or for when I make mistakes that I know better. I guess deep down, I was afraid that if I was vulnerable to God, if I said "ok I trust you to take care of me," that he wouldn't or that suddenly I would be asked to endure horrid trials, suddenly with my commitment I would be plunged into chaos. But really that wasn't the case at all. As I wrote that blog post and made the self discovery, I realized that I was seriously denying myself something that would change my life. I have been thinking about that and the various experiences that I've had while writing this blog, and last night as I was driving home f...

I've honestly never done scripture study this way, in fact, I've pretty much always done it the same way, everyday for the last 8 years. Right before I go to bed, I pray then I read 1 chapter, doesn't matter how long or short it is, I read that then go to sleep. And to be quite honest, sometimes I'm asleep before I even finish the reading. But I've been writing on this blog every weekday for about the last 2 weeks and I'm only on chapter 9. By the shear numbers I should be on at least chapter like 21 or something. But I took something like 4 days to go through chapter 8, only 10 verses at a time. When I first started, I was trying to muscle my way through a whole chapter everyday no matter what, but the blog posts ended up taking me around 2-3 hours and as much as I would love to spend that much time in scripture study each day that just isn't a realistic amount of time for me. So I've found that going about 10 or so verses at a time average me about 45 ...

9:1 - So even though this chapter is short, there are a lot of good points that I've never really considered before. I thought about this the other day and with this blog, I can begin to understand a little bit about what Nephi was talking about, keeping the small plates for "the things of God." I have this blog, and I have my own personal blog. And honestly between the two, this is the one I write on the most, because my time is limited and I really feel the need to read the scriptures and write what I learn, not because I think anyone reads this, but because I know that the Lord does. My other blog I talk about being a single mom, trying to become healthy, stuff I think is fun, my journey to overcome self esteem and confidence issues, and some of that overlaps, but for the most part, this is my special blog, where I get to really ponder and talk through some teachings. 9:2 - Why does Nephi name BOTH sets of plates, plates of Nephi? It's interesting, he names pretty...

I've read about the Lord's tender mercies as I've more diligently searched the scriptures recently and while reading the LDS Institute manual, and blogging about it. When I first came across this term I looked it up on the LDS website , and what came up was a talk given by Elder David A. Bednar back in 2005 about The Tender Mercies of the Lord . He says " that the Lord’s tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord  Jesus Christ ." Very personal blessings. I thought "I wonder if I've ever experienced any tender mercies?" And I've been thinking about it, and then today BOOM! I had one, a huge one, and when it was over I almost cried, I was so touched and humbled that the Lord would do this for me.  Today was the last day of school, Lillie went to a friend's ho...

8:2 - Lehi has a dream, or in other words, he says, "I have seen a vision." This makes me wonder, I have dreams all the time, but I don't think any of them have been visions. Well maybe a couple now that I think about it, but how do you know the difference? 8:7 - Lehi and his guide walk through a "dark and dreary waste," which is an interesting analogy for this life I think. If compared to the horrors endured during this life, or the craziness that is seen I can certainly understand it as a terrible, depressing place. It can also be seen as the state of the natural man as it is without guidance. By nature most people are sad, lonely, greedy, etc. This creates a place within one's self that is empty and hallow. If just initially dumped here without any teachings, most people naturally will feel as though they are in a dark and dreary place. Because the ways that the natural man tries to fill the void is useless and will never make one happy. But I guess w...