Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

First I want to talk a little bit about the insights that I had over the weekend about the sacrament. I know that I wrote about it last week and vowed to make a stronger effort this coming week and I did. I thought about it a little bit before, but honestly I completely forgot about what I'd learned Sunday morning. Interestingly, Saturday night I read a horrible thing about slaughterhouses, and I was honestly sickened, and I realized that although torture is something that I dread and fear I realized that animals undergo death by dismemberment, torture, horror that people can't even imagine and it occurred to me that perhaps, because the atonement covers "Man, Animals, Plants, and the Earth," according to Tad R. Callister in "The Infinite Atonement," that Jesus probably feels the physical pains of animals that are butchered by human hands. It's not doctrine, that he suffered for the pains of animals, and as "The Infinite Atonement" reminds us, ...

20:10 - There is SO much in chapter 20 that it's a little bit overwhelming. After the Lord had administered the sacrament to his disciples and the people, he tells the people about the gathering of lost Israel. I would imagine that this would be a subject of much interest to the Nephites, seeing as how they were separated from their people in Jerusalem. I’ve never really understood the concept of “gathering Israel,” I guess because I’ve always lived in a worldwide church so I haven’t seen why we would need to live in one certain place in order to be faithful saints. And there’s so many places in the world that are beautiful and amazing that I would love to live in so being confined to one place is kind of daunting. The IM starts off this chapter by teaching, “The hope of all righteous parents is that their descendants will come to know God for themselves and be faithful to Him. God promised Abraham and his descendants that in the latter days their posterity would have the blessings...

20:1 - I’ve never noticed before how the chapters in the Book of Mormon were split, but there is a definite topic shift from the previous chapter that was heavy in the doctrine of prayer. The first verse makes the transition as Jesus “commanded the multitude that they should cease to pray, and also his disciples. And he commanded them that they should not cease to pray in their hearts. It seems like a paradox, “stop praying, but don’t stop praying,” but really it doesn’t have to be. Interestingly, in Step 11 of the Addiction Recovery Program manual of the Church, we learn, “Over the course of recovery, many of us learned to arise early and seek a period of quiet solitude for study and prayer. If you haven’t done so already, schedule time for prayer and meditation, perhaps in the morning. During this time you can put God first, before anyone or anything else in the day. Kneel is you are physically able. Pray, often aloud, to the Father, seeking the Spirit to guide you… When this preciou...

19:24-25 - Jesus said a prayer for unity among his people, and after he was done praying, “he came unto his disciples, and behold, they did still continue, without ceasing, to pray unto him; and they did not multiply many words, for it was given unto them what they should pray, and they were filled with desire.” The phrase here that is interesting is “they did not multiply many words,” but they did pray without ceasing, so it makes me wonder what or how they were praying if they were giving long prayers but without many words. And it’s also interesting to me that “it was given unto them what they should pray,” What was given to them? And for what purpose? I had a friend once who was talking to me about prayer and he said something to the effect of “if you pray by the power of the Holy Ghost, you will never ask amiss.” It was puzzling to me, and it still kind of is, but as I pondered and tried to implement his words, I found that I was listening more to the Holy Ghost, letting him tell ...

19:13-18 - I tried to focus more today on praying for a living for the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, and like I’ve noticed before, because I put that extra effort into praying for the Spirit, I was that much more aware of what I was doing and how I was acting and thinking so that I could try and keep him. I also was trying to be more patient with my kids so that I could be inspired by the Holy Ghost to know what they needed and how I could be a good mother to them. I was able to look at my situations and actions in a different light, seeing both my faults and my strengths. I guess I could say that ultimately I’ve felt really empowered today, spiritually strong and when I had a conversation with someone I know who’s familiar with the gospel, I was able to quickly and accurately identify eternal truths and Satan’s lies, and I tried to talk about them in ways that could be understood but I also prayed for the Holy Ghost to guide that conversation and I feel like he did. All i...

19:1-9 - Jesus ascends into heaven and “the multitude did disperse, and every man did take his wife and his children and did return to his own home.” It’s interesting because, I don’t know if it was this verse or one from King Benjamin’s speech, but this was one of the verses referenced when HN talked about horses in the Americas. He used this verse to demonstrate that there was some liberties taken because he says, if this verse is to be taken literally, then that means that every Nephite man had a wife and children and a home, he says to be literal, then there has to assumed that there wasn’t any single adult Nephite men, there were no married couples without children, there were no married couples with a single child, there were no families that didn’t have their own home, yeah so I could go on and on, but this is the point that he makes, that these details can’t be taken literally, anyways, just thought that I would comment on that. I guess it can be assumed that all this happened ...

18:22-23 - I really like where Jesus goes next, and I think that it’s very interesting especially in contrast to our church culture today. Jesus teaches us, “And behold, ye shall meet together oft; and ye shall not forbid any man from coming unto you when ye shall meet together, but suffer them that they may come unto you and forbid them not.” I think that to move forward in this idea, we have to first define ways in which we, as a church, “suffer them that they may come unto you,” and in which ways we “forbid” them. For the most part, I’m going to say that the members of the church wouldn’t come out right and tell someone to leave, even though I have seen it on occasion. There are other, more subtle, but just as effective ways to tell people that they are not welcome in our church meetings, and these are the ones that I find the most common and exceptionally frequent. First, the looks, the looks and stares of judgment, the little sneers and faces that we pull when we see someone dress...

Prompted by yesterday's idea to list the attributes of the Savior and then work on them myself, the first one that came to my mind was "slow to anger." I thought that that was pretty insightful because I am quick to anger, and it's not always raging anger, which I've managed to subdue over the last several years, but I'm quick to irritation boy, it takes me about half a second to get mad at someone and then I'll typically pout about it or walk around all huffy like an idiot. So when I immediately thought about that attribute of the Savior and knew that that was what I needed to work on the most, it made sense to me. Then like He always does, Jesus goes on to teach me great things once I've accepted his lesson. Today while driving to work and listening to "Bonds That Make Us Free," C. Terry Warner talks about the concept of "Forgoing," which is, as he defines, "If forgiving can be thought of as recovery from moral and emotional ...

18:15-17 - I'm super short on time tonight, it went by really fast which is nice but also not. The next part, apparently Jesus only says to his Disciples, as in the Nephite apostles, well looking back at it, Jesus had been addressing the Twelve since verse 10, so continuing speaking to His apostles, Jesus counsels them "ye must watch and pray always, lest ye be tempted by the devil, and ye be led away captive by him. And as I have prayed among you even so shall ye pray in my church, among my people who do repent and are baptized in my name. Behold I am the light; I have set an example for you." It seems to me that there is quite a bit of administrative instruction here, and the IM quotes Elder Neal A. Maxwell as teaching, "Each of us plays various roles in family, Church, community, business, education, and so forth. Though we have differing needs, we have in common the need to focus on all Christ's qualities, especially those which individually we most need to d...

18:1-14 - We are now taken to the Jesus instituting the sacrament, it doesn’t say if it’s the next day or if Jesus actually does leave after blessing the children, so I’m guessing that it’s probably not significant. The sacrament is an interesting concept and because we do it every week sometimes we lose the perspective of the importance of taking the sacrament. I think I’ve talked about it here before that I like to reflect on how I’ve done the previous week during the sacrament, think about things I could improve on and things I did well, kind of my “game plan” for the next week. Sometimes when the water comes I like to ask myself if the amount of water in the little cup is similar to the amount of blood Jesus shed for my sins for that week. Kind of abstract I know, but one week it was a significantly profound experience because I had had a pretty bad week and the little cup was filled to the top and to me it signified that my actions and thoughts that previous week were particular...

17:11-25 - Jesus has just healed all the sick and afflicted and now “he commanded that their little children should be brought.” He wants to see the little kids. It’s really interesting because I’ve always wondered at this before, why the little kids? Who not the teenagers, or maybe it was including the teenagers, I hadn’t thought about that. Once all the children are brought, “Jesus stood in the midst, … He prayed unto the Father, and the things which he prayed cannot be written, and the multitude did bear record who heard him. And after this manner do they bear record: The eye hath never seen, neither hath the ear heard, before, so great and marvelous things as we saw and heard Jesus speak unto the Father… And no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father.” I have always wondered about this, I always wondered what Jesus could have possibly said that was so powerful that the people wept with joy. HN suggests "What he ...

17:4-10 - Ok I’m better, last night was pretty rough but I’m doing ok now. Jesus is telling the Nephites that he’s going to have to go, tells them what to do to be prepared for his next visit tomorrow, and then says, “but now I go unto the Father, and also to show myself unto the lost tribes of Israel, for they are not lost unto the Father, for he knoweth whither he hath taken them.” Pretty small, simple verse but the IM has quite a bit to say about this one little verse, “Although the scattered tribes of Israel are lost to the knowledge of man, they are not lost to God. He knows where they are, ‘for he knoweth whither he hath taken them.’ His knowledge of them and the Savior’s visit to the lost tribes of Israel suggests the possibility that we will someday have access to other accounts of Jesus’s visits to His sheep. Elder Neal A. Maxwell observed: ‘Lost books are among the treasures yet to come forth. Over twenty of these are mentioned in the existing scriptures. Perhaps most startli...