Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

3:1-5 - Lehi's youngest recorded son was named Joseph after ancient Jacob's son Joseph who was sold into Egypt by his brothers as a slave. Joseph in Egypt is an amazing story, he is an amazing man that I really respect and hope to one day study his story as in depth as I do these. Joseph was truly favored of God as a boy but young and probably a bit naive about the world, maybe a little arrogant as well. But to be thrown in a pit to die, then sold as a slave into another country a world away, he grew up quickly in the ways of the world. What is absolutely amazing to me about Joseph is that he was stripped of everything to the bare bones at least 3 times before he finally was given peace in his position. First he was betrayed by his brothers and SOLD into SLAVERY. Honestly how much worse can it get than that? I can't think if much worse, doing forward and backward math we can see that he was 17 when he was sold into slavery, and spent probably close to a decade as a slave, I...

2:21 – I’ve never thought as in depth about or understood the concept of agency as much as I have within the last few days. I guess logically, I could see a mild connection between “opposition in all things” and the ability to choose for ourselves. But honestly, even though I believe that Heavenly Father would only do what’s best for us, deep down I’ve still been that hurt little girl who thought Satan’s plan was better because I wouldn’t have suffered. It really wasn’t until yesterday that I truly realized that Satan didn’t make his plan to keep us from suffering; he came up with his plans to make us all his slaves. The ultimate betrayal would have come from him, not my loving and just God. We were all given the ability to choose for ourselves, moral agency, which I’m going to have to research a little bit more later. And to make the playing field even, he had our first parents fall. We are all born into different circumstances, with different personalities and different resources; it...

Tonight's reading might just be a little bit too much for me right now, I read the material but might not get into it until tomorrow night. So instead I wanted to share some insights that I had today during Relief Society . The lesson was on " Obedience to Law is Liberty ." Like usual, I hear something and then mentally go off onto my own little tangent, and it leads into something different from the lesson, but hey, as long as I'm learning right? In the article, it says that we are free to choose for ourselves, and I thought "hey, I was just reading about this last night" and I started reflecting on Lehi talking about how without agency there is no real purpose to our existence. I would think that since some spirits chose to join Lucifer in the war in heaven , that implies that we had agency from the beginning. So he would have taken away the agency that we already had and compelled us to do the "right" thing and return to God again. If he was suc...

2:11-14 - The concept of "agency" has always been a difficult one for me to understand. When I was a child and the " plan of salvation " was explained to me, I thought, and this is going to sound really terrible, but please remember that I was a child in an abusive household, "I wish Satan would have won because then no one would have ever hurt me, he would have made everyone be nice to me." It was difficult for me to reconcile that the suffering I endured as a child came because of my "loving" Heavenly Father's plan. It wasn't until I was much older that I realized that  when I suffered Heavenly Father suffered as well, he cried right along with me. This allowed me to see God in a new light, I didn't see him in a condescending manner that was irritated with me for suffering, but I saw that he was in fact a deep concerned, compassionate man who cares for me more than I ever knew, and I was settled with that. But honestly it wasn't...

2:1-3 – Lehi recognizes that all the craziness that “the boys” (the naughty ones in the family) has affected all those in the traveling party, to include Jacob who was probably much less than 12 or 15 when his father died. But he promises him that all these terrible problems that Jacob has gone through would benefit him in the long wrong. This has been promised many times in the scriptures to include modern day revelation. The Institute manual cites D&C 98:3 “and all things wherewith you have been afflicted shall work together for your good,” and then again when Joseph Smith is in Liberty jail, he pleads for relief and his answer is one of my absolute favorite scriptures, D&C 122:7 “and above all, is the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.” To me this is the ultimate example of the law of compensation and clear evidence of the concept that we are completely ...

There are a lot of prophecies in here from Lehi about the American continent being a chosen and protected land for all those that the Lord brings here and that keep his commandments. I'm going to skip a lot of the prophecy parts for the same reason as the other chapters. And even though Lehi is speaking to his sons about their seed, reading it has made me so much more aware of what  we as an American people are responsible for and what we are blessed with. 1:13 - Lehi begs his sons to "awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound." In a deep sleep, there is no activity, there is no progression and there is no regression, however this life is not meant to be lived in a static state. The old saying "if you're not growing, you're dying" seems applicable here. In an April 2012 general conference talk entitled "The Powers of Heaven", Elder David A. Bednar quotes President Spencer W....

My family wants to make a coat of arms and on it we want the saying "did you know?" translated into Latin on the front. I also wanted to put "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!" But I was out voted because it's funny to me but apparently a sensitive subject to my family. Why did I want to put "did you know" on there? My siblings and I are very intelligent, IQ wise, not really life wise, and we all have self esteem issues, so one of the ways that we make ourselves valuable to other people is to be super smart and supply random, useless facts to the rest of the world constantly so that our intelligence is never questioned. Why do we do this? I don't know, nothing really makes sense when you are dealing with deep seeded emotional issues from childhood, but we all do this, all 5 of us, every single one. It's not all bad, we like to analyze things to death, don't come home with us after a movie unless you're ready to spend the next 3...

I said yesterday that I'm gong to skip the vast majority of Nephi's prophesies this time around. I've read the Book of Mormon many times through and I've found that my enthusiasm and comprehension of the scripture comes to a screeching halt when I get into Nephi's prophesies, they are just too over my head right now. I know some will disagree, but that's what I'm doing so, yeah. I did glean a few nuggets out while skimming through though, and I'm like to discuss them here, I'm super short on time today so bear with me. 22:1 - L&L ask a question that I think is interesting, they ask "are you talking about things to come in the spirit or in the flesh?" I had never thought about it before but they asked this same question before after being taught. I wonder what it is about this concept that is to foreign? 22:17 - I love that Nephi says "he will preserve the righteous by his power, even if it so be that the fulness of his wrath mu...

After last night's little "break through" I sat and thought pretty much the whole way home and in my heart, truly wanted to know "why are you acting like this? Why are you rejecting the love and blessings that God is actively trying to give you because you're afraid?" And I thought deeply about my different reasons and I thought "God is a little bit more stable than my dad," and "God is perfect, he knows exactly what to do, exactly when to do it, you don't need to be afraid of him turning on you, he never will." And I realized that my dad will never be able to become the perfect man, the perfect father, so I just need to take what I get from him and accept it. I realized that I don't need to be afraid of my dad anymore either. If I trust God, no one can do anything to me that ultimately damages me eternally. And I realized that I've been so damaged by my dad, my ex husband, old boyfriends, even just random dudes and I keep loo...

19:1-5 - Nephi talks about making 2 sets of plates and apparently I had never paid attention enough to notice that he says here that he made the larger plates and kept that record for quite some time before he was commanded to make the smaller plates and to keep "the more sacred things" on them. I wonder why the wait between the two separate plates? 19:6 - Nephi is a really interesting character to me because he some of the things that he says, in the context of our society he sounds quite arrogant, like when he talks about being the leader of the people over his brothers or his ministry, I don't know, I think it's just the way of reading words, you don't have the intonation for context, etc. Then as I've learned through this blog, he's done things and acted in certain ways that show his great level of humility. Here in verse 6 he says "I do not write anything upon plates save it be that I think it be sacred" he doesn't say that it IS sacre...

18:17-18 - Nephi spends 2 verses talking about how this terrible incident effected his parents. Every family has drama, some more than others, and this appears to be a highly dysfunctional family. Apparently it was Laman and Lemuel, as referred to as "them: and named specifically, but  also involved are the sons of Ishmael, and I don't know if they said specifically how many there are, but I'm assuming two. When family drama comes up, it's painful for everyone. I've had my fair amount of family drama in my life, and when it comes up there are so many emotions that are rubbed raw, especially as a parent with a set of righteous kids, at least one an up and coming prophet, then you have another set that are akin to the devil incarnate. Lehi has the most extreme ends of kids and that must be deeply troubling to him. Sometimes when I get really upset, I can get physically ill, I think the emotional upheaval combined with near death in a ship and my guess is they weren...

18:11-15 - Well that didn't last long, L&L were angry that Nephi had told them to calm down and so they tied him up and "did treat (him) with much harshness," my guess is that means they beat him up. But I think it's interesting that Nephi teaches us that the Lord allowed this to happen to him "that he might show forth his power unto the fulfilling of his word which he had spoken concerning the wicked." The Institute manual asks an interesting question "why do you think Nephi was delivered immediately the first time ( 1 Nephi 7:16-18 ) and not until after four days on the second occasion (this time)? Another difference between these two events is that the Lord physically delivered Nephi when his brothers tied him up, on the way back from Jerusalem with Ishmael's family, by loosening his bands, but this time, L&L had to physically let him go, the Lord didn't free him. Nephi understands and sounds like he respects the Lord's decision t...

I was pulling up lds.org to get started on tonight's reading, and the front and center topic on the main page was "Sharing the Gospel Online." I thought, "oh how interesting, maybe there's a new button for my blog that will link back to the church's website or something." Then on the next page there were several options, and I of course picked the "Share through blogs" because of what I'm doing here. The little blurb says that one way to share the gospel is to blog about your everyday life and that your example of living a righteous life will show people what it means to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I thought "ok cool, I'm doing that, both on here and on my single mom blog." But then it says "be sure to promote your blog. Ask friends and family to follow you and share your blog." That's where my heart sank. I write these everyday, but I don't do it because I think people ar...

I feel much better today about moving forward with the scripture study blog project. I tend to go in cycles, probably like everyone else where I don't really want to spend so much time doing mentally challenging tasks, such as studying the scriptures, but I just want to watch a movie or listen to music or pin pretty pictures on Pinterest. I try to have a balance because I feel like doing mentally challenging tasks are very important to our progress as people, but we also need a chance to just relax and at least I need some time to just chill out, otherwise I will feel like I've been run ragged mentally and I just can't do that. That's why I listen to the Ensign on my way to work, but I listen to the radio on my way home. I read the scriptures and do my blog before I settle in to relaxing, though that's fickle because of my work schedule, but I try and when I'm done I can do other, less meaningful, stuff, or I can write a less important post for my other single m...