On New Year’s Day, our gospel doctrine teacher challenged us to read the Book of Mormon in its entirety this year. No doubt, Church members all over the world received the same challenge from bishops, branch presidents, quorum and auxiliary leaders, and Sunday School teachers.
No one can argue with this challenge. Even though most of us have read the Book of Mormon multiple times, reading it again this year should be at the top of our list of resolutions for 2012.
In earlier days, reading the Book of Mormon meant obtaining a copy and reading its paper pages. What joy Parley P. Pratt felt when he first beheld, then read this precious book. In August 1830, just months after the Book of Mormon was published, Parley, himself a preacher, met a man in upstate New York who told him “of a book, a strange book, a VERY STRANGE BOOK!. . . This book, he said, purported to have been originally written on plates either of gold or brass, by a branch of the tribes of Israel; and to have been discovered and translated by a young man near Palmyra, in the State of New York, by the aid of visions, or the ministry of angels. I inquired of him how or where the book was to be obtained. He promised me the perusal of it, at his house the next day. . . . Next morning I called at his house, where, for the first time, my eyes beheld the BOOK OF MORMON’—that book of books . . . which was the principal means, in the hands of God, of directing the entire course of my future life.
“I opened it with eagerness, and read its title page. I then read the testimony of several witnesses in relation to the manner of its being found and translated. After this I commenced its contents by course. I read all day; eating was a burden, I had no desire for food; sleep was a burden when the night came, for I preferred reading to sleep.
“As I read, the spirit of the Lord was upon me, and I knew and comprehended that the book was true, as plainly and manifestly as a man comprehends and knows that he exists.”[1]
Now, in our technological world, “reading” the Book of Mormon can be accomplished through a variety of additional means, including audio versions, handheld devices and tablet, and the Internet. Often utilizing several methods enhances one’s study of this sacred book. I plan to access the Book of Mormon this year by several methods.
For years I have kept CDs of the current year’s Sunday School curriculum in my car and have listened to the scriptures frequently as I drove. I don’t even have to change CDs anymore; I can tune into the audio Book of Mormon via my iPhone and have it broadcast just with a tap on buttons on my steering wheel.
A friend and I have been attending an institute class together for several years. We have made our own scriptural notebooks by putting the Book of Mormon and other Standard Works on 8 x 11-inch pages. We thus have more space in which to highlight and annotate passages. We look forward each week to 90 minutes of the teacher’s enlightening discussion and insights. We talk about the evening’s lesson on the way home and often refer to our detailed notes for further study.
I don’t like to wait—in lines or for appointments. I find that my impatience is assuaged and my charity increased if I read scriptures on my iPhone rather than the usual magazine fare at doctors’ offices. This compact edition of the scriptures also makes the perfect traveling companion.
Another way I am going to read the Book of Mormon this year is in Spanish. I have previously read the Book of Mormon in Italian, French, and Portuguese—though I am not fluent in these languages. I have accomplished this by holding the English version next to the other edition and at first compared word for word. (It helps a lot to know the plot!) I have been able to read more freely and understand more and more as I progressed through each chapter to Moroni 10.[2] With the help of my visiting teacher, Sister Salazar, I hope not just to revive my eighth-grade Spanish, but to read with good comprehension the truths of “the keystone of our religion.”
Twenty-five years ago, a young man with Down Syndrome taught me a great lesson on reading the Book of Mormon. Clay Ure, a member of our stake, read Moroni 10:4-5 at the Saturday night session of our stake conference in January 1987. Clay had read the entire Book of Mormon in 1986. What was so remarkable was that Clay had not ever learned to read until then. Because he had been ill much of his childhood and missed a lot of school, he had not learned to read. Though his mother had tried many times through the years to teach him, he simply could not grasp reading. When Clay was 25 years old, she felt an urgency that he learn to read so that he could function better. She prayed and was impressed to teach him to read with the Book of Mormon. She well knew that the Book of Mormon is not first-grade reading material. Yet by their praying before each reading session, his mother’s patient teaching, and through the blessing of the Lord, Clay completed his first reading of the Book of Mormon on December 20, 1986.[3]
President O. Brent Black, then president of the Salt Lake Brighton Stake, told the members of his stake after Clay read his favorite passage, “If Clay can read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, so can the rest of us.”
President Joseph Fielding Smith stated: “No member of the Church can stand approved in the presence of God who has not seriously and carefully read the Book of Mormon.”[4]
However you choose to read the Book of Mormon in 2012 make sure by December 31st you will be one that can “stand approved.” I hope to stand with you.
[1] Autbiography of Parley P. Pratt, ed., Parley P. Pratt Jr. (1938), 36-37.
[2] See Janet Peterson, “Book of Mormon Language Lessons,” Ensign, Aug.
1999, 70-71.
[3]See Janet Peterson, “Clay’s Present for Jesus,” Ensign, March 1990, 62-63.
[4]In Conference Report, October 1961, 18.
