Well, I don't know why it is still just as hard every
week to think of what to say, but it is!
This week was good, but I just don't really know what to say
about it--so I'll just talk about where my thoughts have been this week...
3 Nephi 28. I am just in love with this chapter. It's all about the Three Nephites that chose to stay on the Earth. This absolutely
fascinates me!
In verse 4, the Savior says: "What will ye that I should do unto
you, when I am gone unto the Father?" 5: "They sorrowed in their
hearts, for they durst not speak unto him the thing which they desired. 6: "And he said unto them: Behold, I know your thoughts, and ye have desired
the thing which John, my beloved, who was with me in my ministry, before that I
was lifted up by the Jews, desired of me."
Now I love this story, and have every since the first time I
heard about it. I remember when I was 15 and I was trying to finish the Book of
Mormon all the way through before I turned 16. Yes--many people have read it
multiple times before that point, but that was when I first really read it
through for me.
I remember ever day after seminary coming home and just being
excited to read! I have never liked reading, but I have found that for some
reason the Book of Mormon and other church books have been a special exception
to that particular dislike. I love reading them. I remember driving home and
wondering what I was going to be reading about.
That was quite possibly one of
my favorite reasons for doing homeschool. That, and the amazing time I got to
spend with my family. Looking back on it, though, there were so many things that
I did during that time--my last 3 years of highschool--that I would have never
gotten to do had I stayed at school. But, just as I was saying, one of those
things was being able to begin to discover my love for the Book of Mormon.
Every morning kneeling at my bed, and beginning with a prayer--and there was one
particular morning that I remember more than the rest--and that was the day I
read 3 Nephi 28. I remember I had just prayed, so I was still on my knees, and
unlike every morning before when I would hop into bed and begin reading, I stayed on
my knees this time and I grabbed my Book of Mormon and just began reading.
I just
remember being so shocked and just thinking about what it truly meant--that
there are four of Jesus' disciples that lived during His time that are on the
earth today. After reading that, I just stared off into space just thinking,
"no way!" It was just the most amazing thing to hear! And the
testimony of it came shortly after...
Well. I don't really know why I just shared that, but there
it is! But I can't even tell you how much I just love the Book of Mormon.
We
have ridiculous people throwing out their sadly pathetic claims on the Book--and
they have never even given themselves the chance to read it. Well,the Book of
Mormon is here for us to read, ponder, and pray about so that we can form our
own opinion about it. It's a beautiful thing. And whenever I hear people saying these things about the Book of Mormon, in my
mind I just hear the voice of our dear Elder Holland saying:
"For 179 years this Book has been examined and
attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no
other book in modern religious history—perhaps like no other book in any
religious history. And still it stands. Failed theories about its origins have
been born and parroted and have died—from Ethan Smith to Solomon Spaulding to
deranged paranoid to cunning genius. None of these frankly pathetic answers for
this book has ever withstood examination because there is no other answer than
the one Joseph gave as its young unlearned translator.
"In this I stand with my
own great-grandfather, who said simply enough, “No wicked man could write such
a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were
commanded of God to do so.
"I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this
latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in
these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon
and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies. If anyone is foolish enough or
misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with
literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the
origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness
of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what
is now tens of millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person,
elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it
must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make
that exit.
"In that sense the book is what Christ Himself was said to be: 'a
stone of stumbling, … a rock of offence,' a barrier in the path of one who
wishes not to believe in this work. Witnesses, even witnesses who were for a
time hostile to Joseph, testified to their death that they had seen an angel
and had handled the plates. 'They have been shown unto us by the power of God,
and not of man,' they declared. 'Wherefore we know of a surety that the work is
true.'”
I love you all!
Ha en bra vecka!
Syster Campbell
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