This year I plan to study the the scriptures slowly - this is not to say that I haven't done that in the past...there has been been plenty of slow going, but I mean in bites that I can study at a deep level. I have found after reading the Book of Mormon how many times...I'm not sure, several times, and the Bible, that I am stuck at a kind of superficial level of knowledge. In short, I forget! I want to drink more deeply. So I have at my command, on my desk, a copy of the Book of Mormon,
the Bible, a copy of Sweet is the Word (you can download this for free at the link above in the title), the BYU Religious Studies Book of Mormon Student Manual, and another book called Charting the Book of Mormon (also free at this link: http://byustudies.byu.edu/januarybomcharts/index.html).
I will keep you posted on how it's going. I delved right in where I happen to be in the book, which is in 3 Nephi, where Jesus Christ has come to visit the America's. It's fascinating to read the surrounding additions from the additional support books, for example I took a better look at 3 Nephi 5:20 where Mormon makes a "simple but moving statement of faith". What a fine declaration, and one that pierced my heart with it's truth. In the same chapter in a couple of verses previous he voices his regret that he can't include everything that is important. In the early portion of the history, in 1 Nephi, the history follows one family...but of course the Nephite people become a huge populace with a complex history, so with the difficulty of condensing the important, and hammering out metal plates and etching the characters, he is hard pressed to include as much detail and content as he would like.
I had planned to study for a few minutes but have been at it for quite a time now, it's so interesting and fulfilling. Just to clarify, this is not a New Year's resolution, because I began a month or more ago, but have been traveling and on the run with kids, and Christmas so am ready to make it a more fixed daily activity.
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