A Dream Come True

So much cuteness and joy in one moment just has to be celebrated...

Book of Mormon Reference Comparison

For several years I've wanted some kind of companion book to use in my Book of Mormon study. What I want is something that will almost be like a person sitting next to me, ready to have a conversation when I read a verse that's interesting to me or confusing to me. I've looked at different books from time to time, but never really settled on anything.

In the last few months I've bought several different books, and I thought I'd tell a little about them in case you're looking for something to accompany your scripture study too.

The first one is called the Book of Mormon Reference Companion. I already had this one, but have only just started looking at it. This one is like an encyclopedia or dictionary for the Book of Mormon, with alphabetized entries. It's great for finding out more about a particular subject, but not what I was looking for right now.

I picked up this book a few weeks ago at the LDS bookstore. It wasn't until I got home and read through the introduction that I really understood what this book was. The introduction explains that the compiler, Douglas Bassett, has problems sleeping. He finds that reading the scriptures and writings of the general authorities and gospel scholars helps him to find peace and be able to rest at night. When he reads at night, he underlines sections and marks what scripture verses they correspond to. Then during the day his wife types these quotes up and organizes them by scripture reference. The result is an amazing resource. Each entry gives a scripture verses, (like 1 Nephi 1:4), a short summary ("And it Came to Pass"), and then relevant quotes by different church leaders. So under the "It Came To Pass" heading, there are two entries. The first is from an Ensign article explaining the frequency of the use of this phrase in the Book of Mormon, and the second is a paragraph from Hugh Nibley that describes the Egyptian use of repeated phrases instead of punctuation.

One of the most interesting things I've read in this book was regarding the descriptions of the great and abominable church in 1st Nephi. There is a great explanation from Stephen Robinson about it can't be talking about the Catholic Church. He points out that the verses in chapter 13 of 1st Nephi describe the actions of the great and abominable church — taking away the plain and precious parts of the gospel, killing the apostles, etc — had already happened by the time the Catholic church began in AD 313. He goes on to point out that we should be grateful to the work of the medieval monks for saving as much of the scriptures as were saved at all. So interesting!

These books (3 volumes) are really excellent. I love to read what different writers have said about different parts of the scriptures. Unfortunately, the amount of reading that I need to do to keep up with our ward's Book of Mormon challenge doesn't leave me time for this much extra reading. So I think I'm setting these books aside and I'll use them when I can read the Book of Mormon more slowly again.

The last book I bought (this one used from Amazon--hooray for really cheap!) is called Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon. It's by Robert Millet and Joseph Fielding McConkie, which predisposed me to like it even before I saw it.

And then it arrived, and I opened it and started reading, and knew I'd found what I was looking for. It has the actual text of the Book of Mormon, so you could just do your reading in here if you wanted to. (If you didn't have a super-cool edition of the Book of Mormon like my Reader's Edition to use instead.) Under each section of scripture verses are their comments on those verses.

Most are very short--for example, this from 1 Nephi 7:35--

The Lord esteemeth all flesh in one: God is no respecter of persons. All men are saved by obedience to the same laws and ordinances.

Well that makes that verse more clear to me!

Some are longer, but in general this book is working for my reading this time. When I read a verse and want a little clarification or just an idea of what someone thought about it, I look it up in here. It will also be a great study aid next time around.

Speaking of my awesome edition of the Book of Mormon, I emailed the editor and have received an email in return. I asked him how he decided what verses to put in a poetic form, and he said that when he felt like passages exhibited a lot of repetition, parallelism, and lyrical language, he experimented to see if they could be arranged into the sorts of poetic forms that are characteristic of Hebrew poetry. I thought that was very interesting.

He also pointed out something that I had recently noticed. The last page of the book explains that he will receive no royalties from sales of the book — he's donated his part to the church Humanitarian Fund. He says that he wants more people to have his book so that they can read more easily and with more comprehension. What a lot of work to go to help people read the Book of Mormon more easily--I sure appreciate it!

FHE Ideas

I know you probably already have FHE totally planned for tonight. Or maybe you're planning on going to the North Carolina State Fair like we are. But just in case you haven't got a plan yet, here's a suggestion.

In September President Monson gave a devotional at BYU. He spoke about each of the prophets that he has known, and told about their favorite food, favorite songs, favorite saying, and thing that were happening during their presidency. It was lovely and fascinating and our whole family enjoyed watching it for FHE a few weeks ago. A big thanks to Jenny for telling about it on her blog!

Here's the link if you want to watch it: President Monson's Devotional.

And I just wanted to make sure that everyone had seen the link that Stephanie posted in my comments a few weeks ago when I was talking about the Jaredite barges. This is the most fascinating short video of what the barges might have been like, and let me tell you--things make a lot more sense now that I've seen this! Jaredite Barge Video

Enjoy!

He Rescued Me

Several weeks ago in Sunday School the lesson started with a discussion of the Martin & Willie handcart companies. After the teacher finished describing the circumstances that these pioneers faced, he asked a question:

Have you ever needed to be rescued?

The rest of the lesson was about the atonement of Jesus Christ, reminding us that we need the rescue that the atonement provides just as much as those pioneers needed to be rescued from their desperate situation.

For the rest of the day that question stayed in my mind.

Have you ever needed to be rescued?

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I am fairly capable person. If I had been asked that question at the beginning of the summer I might have had to to think hard to come up with an answer. Sure, there are many times I want to be rescued. I want Russ to rescue me from cranky kids or from the necessity of cooking dinner at the end of a hard day. I want a pleasant phone call to rescue me from the boredom of the moment. I want a mental health day at the beach to rescue me from the stress of every day life.

But I usually do not need to be rescued.

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Before our trip to Utah this summer I made a schedule. This schedule included a listing of activities that we hoped to be able to enjoy while there; dirt-biking, swimming, reunioning, camping, star-gazing, four-wheeling, etc.

I also planned to do some painting while we were in Utah. My dear friend Katie has wanted her family room/kitchen painted for a long time. Her ongoing medical problems don't leave any time or energy for random home improvement projects, so I decided that I wanted to do it for her.

Unfortunately for me, the time available to paint the house intersected with the mystery illness. I woke up on the first painting day with a high fever and a terrible cough. I knew that if I didn't get the first coat of paint on that day, the painting probably would not get done. So I took a lot of ibuprofen and filled my pockets with cough drops and got to work.

The first part of the day went ok. I wasn't feeling great, but I was making good progress. By lunch time, though, I could feel myself starting to wear down. I decided that I would fill the paint tray one more time and then when it was empty I would take a good nap so that I would have the energy to finish.

I went into the kitchen and picked up the small bucket that I had put the paint in, and carried it into the family room to pour it into the paint tray, which was sitting on the coffee table. Just as I started tipping the bucket to pour the paint, the handle of the bucket broke. The paint, probably at least 1/2 gallon, poured everywhere.

I think I was paralyzed by shock.

There was paint all over the coffee table, and even worse, all over the carpet.

I had no idea what to do.

I went over the options in my mind. I could call Katie, but she was on her way to an important doctor's appointment and wouldn't be able to help me. I could call Sean, but he was at work and would be joining Katie at her doctor's appointment. The last thing I wanted to do was freak out either of them before this appointment by telling them that I had spilled paint all over their carpet. So that option was out.

I stood frozen in panic for another minute. And then I had an idea. My dad lives about 30 minutes away from Katie, and he's retired. What's more, in another life he ran a small janitorial company and so he has more cleaning tools than most people. Maybe he could help me.

I called him, explained the situation quickly, and he said that he would come immediately.

As I waited for him to arrive I started cleaning off the coffee table. Fortunately for me the Sunday paper had not been cleaned up and still covered most of it. I carefully picked up and threw away each paint covered section and then began scrubbing the parts of the table that had not been covered. I felt sick and exhausted and overwhelmed at the mess I had (inadvertently) created.

My dad soon arrived with his carpet cleaner. He went to work right away, going over the paint stained area over and over and over again with the carpet cleaner. My dad cleaned that piece of Katie's carpet--probably no more than 8 square feet, for more than an hour and a half. He patiently filled, emptied, and refilled the cleaner again and again, until finally the water extracted from the carpet was completely clear and there was no hint of paint anywhere.


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I've thought about this experience a great deal since that day in Sunday School. Even though I knew conceptually how I might get the paint out of the carpet, there was no way I could do it myself. I was sick and in an unfamiliar town. It didn't matter that I am normally a capable and independent person.

I needed to be rescued.


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I think I needed this experience. I needed to experience that moment of realization that I, on my own, was lost. That I had created a mess I would never be able to fix on my own.

I needed to see my father's love for me in action. Both because it warmed the cockles of my little heart, and because it reminded me that my Heavenly Father is also willing and waiting to drop everything and give me the help I need in my hour of need.

I needed to begin to understand more clearly that no matter how careful or intelligent or able I am, I will always need to be rescued.

And more than that, that the whole point is not to keep trying to save myself, but instead to learn to depend on the rescue that the Savior has already offered.

Book Review: As I Have Loved You

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Can you tell that I've been reading a lot lately? I think I only read one book the whole summer...but I've been making up for lost time!

Several weeks ago I was in the LDS bookstore by myself. When I am there with Russ I don't feel like I can take too long, but this time I browsed as long as I wanted.

At the back of the bookstore is a shelf with used books on it, and I decided to see if they had anything interesting. I found some very early Jack Weyland books that I couldn't resist, and a copy of Patricia Holland's sweet book. (Which I bought before, but my other copy seems to have decided to live in Idaho instead of with me.) And then at the bottom of the shelf I saw a title. "As I Have Loved You," by Kitty de Ruyter.

It took me a minute to figure out why the title seemed familiar, and then it came back to me. Several years before my mom died she had purchased this book at the LDS bookstore in Atlanta. She told me that she had read this amazing book, but when I asked if I could read it she said that she had already loaned the book to my aunt. I never did remember to ask my aunt for the book, and in time I forgot about it.

"As I Have Loved You" is the story of Kitty de Ruyter's life. Born in Indonesia to a wealthy Dutch/Indonesian family, she spent most of WWII in a concentration camp along with her mother and sisters. After WWII the Indonesian natives rebelled against the Dutch colonization and a civil war began. Because they were not pure Indonesian, she and her family had to flee to a refugee camp until they could be sent to Holland.

Kitty's mother had a deep faith in God, which was evident both in the way she raised her children and the way she dealt with living in a concentration camp. Reading their experiences reminded me of reading "The Hiding Place." It was a good moment for me to read about strong faith in God in the face of such adversity.

I also felt a real connection to my mother as I read. As I read parts of the book that I could tell that she would have particularly enjoyed, I could almost feel her delight.

And that was wonderful.

What Say Ye About Facebook?

While I was on vacation this summer several different people that I was visiting with told me how bothered they are by Facebook. I am personally ambivalent about Facebook, and my computer really hates facebook so it's difficult for me to spend much time on it. But I was surprised to hear such strong opinions expressed against it.

Later I read an article in the Wall Street Journal called How Facebook Can Ruin Your Friendships. Apparently my friends aren't the only ones with Facebook issues.

But then several days later Cindy Lynn pointed me in the direction of an article on Salon.com called Is the Internet melting our Brains? This article asserts that every communication advancement throughout human history, from the pencil to the typewriter to writing itself, has been met with fear, skepticism and a longing for the medium that's been displaced. He also believes that social networking sites, blogs and the Internet are actually making us better writers and improving our ability to reach out to our fellow man.

So where do you stand on Facebook? Love it, hate it, or somewhere inbetween?

My Lost Lamb Puzzle Piece is Found!

Earlier today I was straightening up my desk. For a moment I considered taking the puzzle apart, since it's presence makes having a neat & tidy desk a little difficult. (On the other hand, it's a great excuse. No one can blame me for having a messy desk with that big puzzle on it!) But I just hated to take it apart before it was completely finished. During the last week I have searched in the various places that we had the puzzle while we were working on it, even lifting our huge ottoman to look under it. But no missing piece.

Then as I moved things around on the desk something caught my eye. Can you guess where I found the missing piece? I'll give you a clue--it was a total tender mercy that I saw it at all.




If you guessed that it was in the tape dispenser, you were right!