Come Follow Me - Book of Mormon!

This past year of Come Follow Me, as we studied the New Testament, I did not do a very good job reading the weekly chapters or the manual chapters. I'm kinda blaming it on the fact that Peter was born in January last year, so I got behind right at the start and never caught up. I'd try to just start over each week where we were but still didn't dig deep into it. I've resolved to do better this year. A lady at church uses this youtube channel, "Teaching with Power", in her lessons and I am going to listen to these each week as we go through the Book of Mormon this year. I really loved the video for 1 Nephi 1-7 - such great insights! I loved how he points out that the first chapter of the Book of Mormon teaches us how to gain a testimony in 5 steps - read verses 1:4, 1:5, 1:6, 1:12, 1:19

The 5 steps are:
1:4 - INTRODUCTION to God via prophets
1:5 - INVOCATION - prayer
1:6 - ILLUMINATION - learning more of God's word, revelation
1:12 - CONFIRMATION - We are filled with the Spirit as it confirms the truth of what we have learned
1:19 - DECLARATION - share your testimony with others!
And Lehi's declaration becomes Nephi's step 1. Also, I loved how when Lehi prays for help and understanding the Lord gives him a BOOK! The Lord will do the same for us as we pray for help and understanding, he will give us a book, he HAS given us a book - that book is the Book of Mormon!!! Today in Sunday school, we were told to write our own introduction to the Book of Mormon if we were to share it with a friend. I had a friend in mind, and my introduction written with her in mind was:

"The Book of Mormon is a sacred book of scripture, prepared by God himself, to help gather his saints into his church and fold in these latter days. It testifies of Christ and his gospel. I have read it and I know it is true!! Everyone who reads it will know for themselves of it's truthfulness."

So I'm excited to make studying the Book of Mormon a priority this year. In that video above, I also loved how he pointed out we are given two figures in Nephi and Laman that show us the choice we have to make - between Good and Evil - between Faith and Murmuring, between Obedience and Rebellion. I did get excited from the Sunday School lesson on Revelation and it is a nice transition into this in Nephi - that we have two choices. That is what John the Beloved teaches us in his vision. I'm reading a book "Who Shall Be Able to Stand" by S. Michael Wilcox. On page 17: "The emphasis is on living better lives rather than viewing apocalyptic events. However, this is frequently impeded by our sometimes overly enthusiastic focus on knowing the future or placing a sensationalist spin on the signs of the times. We must constantly remind ourselves that the main purpose of Revelation is to help us make correct choices and discern between the forces of good and evil." Some of those thoughts were shared in the Teaching with Power video on Revelation 1-6, especially in the symbolism hunt beginning at 31:49. I especially loved the symbolism behind earthquakes and the destruction there - falling of morals, families falling apart, marriages falling apart! ...and how the opposite of that is the temple and how that builds morals, builds families, builds marriages!