I remember gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon in Bro Hixson's seminary class my Freshman year of High School. Well, actually, not really IN his classroom, but he challenged me to pray to find out if it was really true. I did. Kneeling in my own bedroom with rust colored carpet. I remember it vividly. I remember the bed...it was my grandmother's. My bed moved around my room through the years, but at THIS time it was under the window. Soooo much happened in THAT room....but this experience trumps them all.
I remember kneeling down and very humbly and matter-of-factly asking if the Book of Mormon was true. NO huge lights or voices. NO great feelings of peace or tears streaming down my face. NOTHING! The ONLY thing I could feel was felt deeply. "You already know it is true!" Wow....and I did! But that wasn't good enough for my 14 year old self. I wanted an answer like those the people in the scriptures received. I wanted something BIG! So I asked, "Then, is Nephi a real person?" I cannot recollect the FEELING I got at that time from that question, but somehow I KNEW that he was. This many years later I know I felt the Spirit...small, still, quiet, but unmistakably definitive! From that point on that year, and MANY years since, as I read I felt as though I was IN the story, watching from behind a tumbleweed as Nephi and his family left Jerusalem, as they traveled back to get the plates and Ishmael's daughters, as King Benjamin stood upon a tower to talk to his people one last time....and ALL the stories I loved.
I knew it was true then and I know it is true now.
Thirty two days ago one of our missionaries (Elder Petersen with his companion Elder Boggess) challenged us to read the Book of Mormon in 30 days! I was going through some struggles that really knocked the wind out of my sails at the time and KNEW this was JUST the challenge I needed. I began reading....and reading and reading. I figured out I had to read almost 20 pages a day to finish on time. NEVER before had I read it so fast. On my mission I would read it every couple months...dissecting every verse almost in my personal study. But I was bound and determined to finish this.
As I began I prayed that the struggles I was going through would iron out, that my reading would bless my children even if they didn't fully read it on their own. I prayed to feel better. And I read. I would wake up earlier than usual just to get my reading in. Many times Scott would wake up and I'd be asleep on the couch, having read until I couldn't keep my eyes open. I would read at night before I went to bed. I felt like my entire day was reading the Book of Mormon - and I LOVED it. I'd listen to it while I was walking or driving to TN on vacation for the weekend. Reading it that fast has its ups and downs. I missed the dissecting and pondering over just one verse or phrase (though I still did that in effect) but LOVED getting the story line from start to finish all together in one small amount of time.
On Aug 5, Wednesday, I got up early to finish the book of Moroni. I finished the Book of Mormon that morning! Again, no fanfare! No bright lights! No immense feelings of anything! Just the quiet assurance that the book is true! The Book of Mormon is true! It IS the word of God! Nephi DID live! He WAS a real person! And so was his father, Lehi....and so was Mosiah, and King Benjamin, and Alma and Amulek, and Lahonti, and Abish, and Mormon and Moroni and ALL the other people who actually lived and wrote...those who knew of the coming of Christ and believed in Him and those who did not. They ALL lived and breathed and I cannot imagine their lives. This time around I wondered how they must have felt....all the wars and trials. I thought about how the prophet would write about our day with all the wickedness that abounds.
But mostly I loved the sweet peaceful feeling that the Book of Mormon is true. It's not an overwhelming feeling at all....just DEFINITIVE! As a youth it became the ONLY book I had read all the way through more than once....maybe even once (I wasn't much of a reader AT ALL). Over the years it has become my favorite book...the book I consistently go back to in my life to feel peace, to feel something sure under my feet when all else is swirly around me. It is the book I love the most in my life. I HAVE become somewhat of a reader now (not like the REAL readers of the world though) but the Book of Mormon still wins out ... it trumps all!
The Book of Mormon is true!
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