At the beginning again.

I finished the Book of Mormon a couple of weeks ago.  Although I use the Book of Mormon and the Bible quite a bit (on Sundays anyway), this is only the third time that I have read it cover to cover.  The first time was when I was 15 or 16 and had to read it for seminary.  Even though - or perhaps because - it was required reading and we had quite a bit of discussion in class, I'm not sure that I fully appreciated what I read.  The second time I read The Book of Mormon was about 4 years ago when President Gordon B. Hinckley challenged members of the church to read it as a family.  We procrastinated a little bit, which gave us about 3 months to have the book finished by the goal date President Hinckley had given.  Now, if you've ever had scripture study with six children between the ages of 2 and 12, you can understand why I didn't get a whole lot out of the reading that time either.  Don't get me wrong.  I definitely felt the blessings that came from following the prophet and from daily scripture study.  There was more peace in my home than there had been in a very long time - maybe ever.  But I didn't LEARN a lot.  Kind of like trying to make it through Sacrament Meeting with 6 kids:  you're glad you went, but what in the world did the speakers say?

So this time, instead of family study, I decided to read the Book of Mormon on my own.  I printed out a cute little checklist called "The Book of Mormon in 365 Days".  It had broken the reading down into 365 sections so that theoretically the reading should be done in a year.  I decided that I would check of three sections a day and be done in four months.  I did pretty well for a long time, only missing a couple of days here and there.  When I'd miss a day, I would make sure to read the missed sections (for example, if I missed on Monday I would read six sections on Tuesday) so that I would stay caught up.  Life happens, and my schedule didn't always work, but I did finish in a little more than six months.  I learned so very much in those six months! 

Now the reason for the blog - I figured that I could learn even more if I kept a journal while I was reading the next time.  I can't stand writing anything out.  I'd much rather type, and I'm completely and hopelessly addicted to the internet, so blogging seemed like the natural choice.  I think it will be kind of therapeutic for me, and maybe there will be someone out there who feels like joining me on my journey.

My goal is to blog daily about my thoughts while reading, but who knows how consistent I'll actually be!  I'm kind of a loud mouth sometimes, and pretty sarcastic most of the time, so I hope to never offend anyone who happens upon my blog.

So tomorrow, I will be starting at the beginning again.  Hopefully you'll feel like coming along for the ride!

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