"Please do not take the Book of Mormon for granted."-Preach My Gospel
As missionaries we don't just go around carrying the Book of Mormon because it's the new cool thing, or the most popular accessory now a days. We don't just go around with this book to get reactions, though i have to say more often than naught they are pretty good. From getting strange looks, to quickened paces, to people darting across to the other side of the street (Ha! Nice try! Im COMING for you!). So why do we go around with this book? Because it's TRUE!! I seriously cannot explain the power of this book! You can always count on the Book of Mormon to get things done. Or as my father would say it, "Get get get get GET ER' DONE!"
For the entire transfer the Book of Mormon has been the center focus of our lessons with members, and every time we teach about it our testimonies of the power of the book are deepened. But you can't just look at the thing, you got to read it! But not just read it, you got to get into it, you got to STUDY it! If you were to have asked me before my mission how my scripture study was on a scale of 1-10 i would have giving you a 0.5. I would occasionally read a verse before bed, sometimes i would take them to church and never open them, and the word phrase "study the scriptures" left me clueless. Where do i start???
Well it's been a work in progress, and ever since we took an entire afternoon during the first week of the transfer we have mashed our heads together to create what is by the far the best scripture study lesson plan we have ever created, and have been teaching it to every member we visit and every time it has been a success! I think we just sometimes forget what a fresh testimony tastes like, and there's no better place to start than in the Book of Mormon, because that's where it started! We go around with a Book of Mormon in hand because it's the first step towards following Christ and His gospel. It is KEY to our this work, our salvation, and our conversion.
So what is the secret? THERE IS NO SECRET. But there are tips!
So what is the secret? THERE IS NO SECRET. But there are tips!
ALWAYS
start with a prayer. (Pay close attention to ideas that come to your
mind and feelings to your heart)
Preferably
read in the morning. Why?
- If you read in the morning you have the benefit of being uplifted by the scriptures throughout the day
- If you plan on reading in the morning and don't get to it you have all day to do it
WRITE! WRITE! WRITE!
- It's a commandment! (2 Nephi 29:12)
- God want's us to build precept upon precept (Isaiah 28:10) How can we do that if we can't even remember what we studied yesterday? Or last week?
Create
your own topic study journal. Any topic you choose! (Certain
prophets, Christlike attributes, gospel principles )In that topic
your can write things such as:
- Scripture references
- Quotes
- Personal thoughts on the subject
- Favorite talks on the subject
- Hymn lyrics
- Pictures and cutouts
- Personal or common questions on the subject (put yourselves in another's shoes or think how you would have answered a question you heard)
- Titles of videos provided by the church
- Ideas or object lessons to teach the subject
- Definitions
- Drawings
- Analogies
Feeling
a little lost? USE PREACH MY GOSPEL! It is filled with personal study
ideas to help you better understand and apply the scriptures to our
lives
- Don't be afraid to branch out a little and use other church materials!
- Church Magazines
- General Conference Issues
- Bible Dictionary
- lds.org
- Mormon channel
- BYU Education week talks
ALWAYS
end with a prayer. (Imagine coming into a room, saying hello, but
then leaving without saying goodbye. Rude!)
Just last Monday we had a lesson at a members house (10 people all crammed into one cozy little room) and in return for a 3 course meal of blinchiki with smetana, ice cream, and apple compote, we surprised them with a surprise exam of the Book of Mormon using a picture book and asking them to tell who a certain person is and the story behind it. It was so fun to see them rack their brains, and they were more than open to improve their studies! So far every member has LOVED the idea of keeping a topic journal and all absolutely open to bettering their studies. Most members have never been taught how to study the scriptures so they just read, or that the only time they find themselves digging and searching through the scriptures is when they are trying to prepare to teach a lesson. So this is something Sister Robertson and I love to teach and focus on; to really get in and LOVE the Book of Mormon. And all accepted to go out and buy a little book to begin their own "Gold Plates." We really feel if every member had good studies and loved to read and didn't do it out of obedient duty or desperation they, and the work would explode with the spirit.
If that didn't get you wanting to explode with the spirit here is my favorite testimony about the Book of Mormon by Elder Holland. I've taped this little puppy in my scriptures for when i need a little fuel to my fire...
If that didn't get you wanting to explode with the spirit here is my favorite testimony about the Book of Mormon by Elder Holland. I've taped this little puppy in my scriptures for when i need a little fuel to my fire...
As one of a thousand elements of my own testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, I submit this as yet one more evidence of its truthfulness. In this their greatest—and last—hour of need, I ask you: would these men blaspheme before God by continuing to fix their lives, their honor, and their own search for eternal salvation on a book (and by implication a church and a ministry) they had fictitiously created out of whole cloth?
Never mind that their wives are about to be widows and their children fatherless. Never mind that their little band of followers will yet be “houseless, friendless and homeless” and that their children will leave footprints of blood across frozen rivers and an untamed prairie floor. Never mind that legions will die and other legions live declaring in the four quarters of this earth that they know the Book of Mormon and the Church which espouses it to be true. Disregard all of that, and tell me whether in this hour of death these two men would enter the presence of their Eternal Judge quoting from and finding solace in a book which, if notthe very word of God, would brand them as imposters and charlatans until the end of time? They would not do that! They were willing to die rather than deny the divine origin and the eternal truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
For 179 years this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands. Failed theories about its origins have been born and parroted and have died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spaulding to deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for this book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator. In this I stand with my own great-grandfather, who said simply enough, “No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so.”
I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies. If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit. In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said to be: “a stone of stumbling, … a rock of offence,” a barrier in the path of one who wishes not to believe in this work. Witnesses, even witnesses who were for a time hostile to Joseph, testified to their death that they had seen an angel and had handled the plates. “They have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man,” they declared. “Wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true.”
This week we went over to the see the temple with our investigator! Ira is absolutely amazing, and really has proven to us that we really don't have much to do at all when it comes to this work. She has just taken the Book of Mormon, the truth, and the spirit and ran with it. And......she will be baptised this Saturday! This work is true people!
Oh and my camera took a little fall and had to take it to the camera shop, luckily for me and a warrenty it didn't cost me a penny, and i picked it up just in time for.....Ukrainian Flag Day!
Oh and my camera took a little fall and had to take it to the camera shop, luckily for me and a warrenty it didn't cost me a penny, and i picked it up just in time for.....Ukrainian Flag Day!
One of our good friends took us out for an afteroon in the city which happend to be right strait dab into a Ukrainian festival!
 |
| Now THAT'S patriotism |
 |
| This cutie kept asking "Do you wanna dance?" |
 |
| Oh pottery....im com'n for you! |
Never on my mission would i have thought that i would find an even deeper passion for art, and creating and photography but there is no way i can deny it. I ran UP a DOWN escalator while my companion yelled at me like a dog, just to see an advertisement for a crafts fair for goodness sake! Right now im working on making bookmarks and Study Tip inserts for members to keep with them in their scriptures.
Luda (our friend) also took as around to see one of the last 12th century architectures still standing. This was the the "gate" to Kiev, and was so strong it couldn't be destroyed, and so....they made it into a cathedral.
 |
| We com'n up on our 4 month anniversary! |
Awkward Awesome Moments:
- Having a girl taxi driver for the first time. THAT was strange.Best part was when i got out and i saw the headlights had big lush eyelashes on them. Say it loud, make it proud right?
- Dreaming of wadding through a flood with no shoes to go get an orange soda for Johnny Depp
- The beauty of finishing your planning on time when you get home is a full on breakfast feast and all before 10!
- Missionary life. It amuses me. Both hips popping while moving to get a pen. And you know it's a missionaries phone when auto correct chooses the word "fhe" over the word "did" or the word "ouch" before the word "much."
 |
| Watch out world, we're com'n for ya. Rock calves and all. |
I love you all! Take those study tips and apply them because the Book of Mormon is true! The Lord didn't trust a bunch of 18-22 year olds to go around and testify of His gospel without giving them a special weapon, so lock and load and get er' done!
XOXOXOXO
-Сестра Ро
XOXOXOXO
-Сестра Ро
