The Challenge

Right before Christmas break began I felt inspired to challenge my seminary class to take the break and commit to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover. We are studying this book in seminary this year, so they are already halfway through, but I thought that it would be nice for them to do a speed read of the entire book as they focused on Jesus Christ during the Christmas season. It wasn't going to be an easy challenge to accept. 531 pages in about 10 days, some of those days packed with Christmas seasonal activities. Yeah. It was going to be hard. But not impossible. I knew that they could do it if they put their minds to it. So I made the challenge. I didn't see any lights going off in anyone's eyes when I challenged them, but you never know. Sometimes I think that no one is accepting the challenges that I set out, and then one day in a testimony meeting I'll see one of my students get up and testify of the great blessings that came about because of their willingness to accept the challenge. So you never know.

I didn't hear anything from my class over the break. No one came up to me in church or sent me a text letting me know about their amazing spiritual experiences while reading the book over break. I didn't see Savannah or Spencer reading their scriptures like mad, trying to get their reading done on time. Frankly, I have little hope that anyone actually listened to me. It makes me a little sad. To be fair, I told them that they didn't have to do it. I wasn't going to come back when school began and cry a river of tears if I found out that no one read. But I hoped. I hoped a lot. I hoped that someone in my class would hear my challenge and the blessings I promised would come to them. I hoped that they would decide on their own that they wanted those promised blessings. I wanted for them to decide exactly how they would go about meeting the challenge. 

I wanted them to experience the power that comes from reading the Book of Mormon and following the wonderful principles found inside. I wanted for them to have a greater understanding of the importance of Jesus Christ in their lives. I wanted for them to see how they would feel stronger and better able to make good choices when they took the time to read this book. But I wanted for them to discover this ON THEIR OWN. It does no good for me to say it over and over and over again if they don't ever take the time to find out for themselves. We'll see how it went when we get back to school ... surely sometime this week. We've already missed today and tomorrow because of the snow and extreme cold.

Well, last Monday I woke up, and thought to myself that if I was going to make that challenge to my students I should probably take the challenge myself. At this point Christmas break was already halfway over. I would only have seven days to complete the challenge. That would require approximately eighty days of reading per day. Now I am a prolific reader. I read a lot. A lot. Last year I read 140 novels just for fun. I have no problem reading. But I am a slower reader. I'm a good reader, but my mind wanders a lot while I read. I'll read something, and that will get me thinking about something else, and before long I find that I've been sitting on the same paragraph for ten minutes. That happens A LOT while I'm reading the scriptures. There are so many hidden jewels of wisdom in the pages that I am constantly finding myself thinking of things outside the words of the pages. I could not afford to do that if I wanted to get the entire book read in one week. I had my doubts, but Herman just looked at me and said, "You can do it. I know you can." 

So I believed I could do it too.

I have been reading in every spare minute of free time over the last week. The house has kind of fallen apart, but I really wanted to make sure and finish this challenge. The house could wait. I read, and I read, and I read. And yesterday I finished. 

This is the fourth time that I have completed a Book of Mormon reading challenge. I made one for myself when I first joined the Church. I wanted to make sure I read it through all the way so that I didn't feel so lost around everyone who has spent their whole lives LDS. Then several years ago our bishop at the time encouraged us to read the book in two months. President Hinckley made a challenge several years ago as well. And now I read this week. Each time that I have accepted a challenge to read I have recognized great blessings in my own life. I have felt closer to the Lord and better able to hear the promptings of the Holy Ghost, letting me know things I could change in my life to make it even better. I have gained an even stronger appreciation for the power of the Book of Mormon to change lives, to improve them.

This time around I was reading it faster than I ever have before, so I didn't have the chance to recognize any sort of long term blessings from this reading ... at least not so far. But I did gain a greater appreciation for the prophet Joseph Smith and exactly what he accomplished by translating this book. I really thought about the amount of anger that is directed toward him even today because of what he did. There are people who dedicate their lives to disproving what he did. They malign him and disparage him and say all number of horrible things about him and his character. They go through this book with a fine toothed comb, looking for proof of some sort of great Joseph Smith fraud. Who would put themselves through such a thing? I know I couldn't have handled it. And as I read the book this time around I really appreciated the depth of the knowledge contained within its pages. So many wonderful truths are found inside this book. I just cannot believe that it is a fraud. I believe that it is true. I KNOW that it is. And I love it. As I read it this week I thought about all of the wonderful things that have happened in my life because of the knowledge I gained from the Book of Mormon. I really thought about the word REMEMBER. That is found so many times in the Book of Mormon, and I think that it is significant. As I read I remembered all of the eternal truths that have blessed my life in the past twenty-three years. I thought about all of the tender mercies of the Lord that I have been blessed to witness. And my faith was strengthened. What a blessing!

So I am grateful that I took the last week to speed read the Book of Mormon. Generally, I don't believe that reading the scriptures super fast like that is the best way to experience the blessings of scripture reading. I get so much more out of it when I take my time and study the scriptures a bit more carefully and deliberately. I am so grateful for the calling that I have and the fact that this calling pushes me to study the scriptures in depth each and every day. I am learning to read the scriptures more effectively. I hope that I can help my students to learn to read them similarly. I don't think it is totally sinking in. At least not yet. But maybe I am planting seeds for later. Maybe none of my students took the challenge over break. That's okay. Maybe it was only Heavenly Father's way of giving me an opportunity to recognize the blessings I have seen in the past week. Who know? I'm just grateful for quiet inspiration and the chance to meet the challenges that Heavenly Father places in my path. I love the Book of Mormon!