Below is a link to a book review done recently by Rosemarie Howard of the Deseret News! We’d like to say thank you to everyone that has supported us with A Christlike Heart. It’s been a great blessing to us to have heard some really touching feedback from people that have read it already.

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900076491/book-review-a-christlike-heart-invites-book-of-mormon-study.html

I hope everyone enjoyed General Conference last month.  I absolutely love General Conference.  I do things a little bit differently in my personal study with Conference.  I love to combine all the talks into one document and then run a program to find the word frequency of every word said in those talks.  There is also an app called “Wordcruncher” that I love to use. It allows you to search a session of Conference or the Standard Works to see how often a certain word is said. 

Here are a few interesting observations from the last Conference.  Including the priesthood session, there were 31 talks given.  “Jesus” and/or “Christ” were said a total of 370 separate times! This comes to about 12 times per talk! And this doesn’t even include other names that we use for Him such as Savior or Redeemer!  

“Minister” or “ministering” was mentioned 46 times. “Come Follow Me” was said 8 times. “Covenant path” had 18 mentions. “Home-centered” was said 21 times.  “Family history” had 12 mentions.  “Temple” had 145 mentions.  “Repent” in its various forms had 93.  “Atonement” was said 45 times.  “Family” had 155 mentions.  And “prophet” was said 66 times.

What may be surprising to some people is that the word “heart” was said 99 times!  Elder Kim B. Clark shared some incredible thoughts on the heart during his talk, “Look unto Jesus Christ.”  He taught us that Jesus gave His heart to His Father.  The Savior showed this in every thought, word, and action while on Earth. He submitted to His Father’s will. He did only those things that pleased His Father.  He loved His Father.

Elder Clark connected our hearts to covenant keeping when he said, “Our covenants come alive in our hearts.”  This was one of my favorite quotes from Conference.  Have our covenants been written upon our hearts? Have the promises we’ve made to Heavenly Father “become rock-solid commitments, our deepest desires?”  

I don’t think we can overemphasize the fact that Heavenly Father is much more concerned with our hearts and our desires than just merely with our actions.  He wants us to do the right things for the right reasons.  As we try to do so, the Holy Ghost will sanctify us and help our covenants come alive in our hearts during this pursuit!   

Our book, A Christlike Heart, hits the shelves at Deseret Book and Seagull Book tomorrow!!!  It is also available at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and Target.com.  You can preorder it at any of these places today.

We are so excited that this day has come and would be honored if you buy our book and take the time to read it and share it with others.  We’re excited to pass along the insights we’ve gained and the experiences we’ve had in regard to the heart.  We hope that this will lead to increased study and appreciation for the Book of Mormon as a result.

I was reading the other day in Ether 11 and something stood out to me.  And just to give you some perspective, this chapter of Moroni’s abridgment of the Jaredite plates spans a significant amount of time across multiple generations.  

In verse 1, many prophets are sent to the Jaredites warning the people of destruction if they did not repent.  These prophets were rejected by the people and were put to death.  

Again in verse 12, there came many prophets warning the people of destruction if they did not repent. Again, the people rejected the prophets and “would not hearken unto their words.”  The prophets mourned over the people’s wickedness and withdrew from among them.  

Again in verse 20, there came many prophets warning the people of destruction if they did not repent. Again, the people did reject all the words of the prophets.  

There are other instances throughout the Book of Ether in which prophets were sent to the people to warn them of destruction if they did not repent (see Ether 7:23; 9:28; 12:2). 

Sometimes, we feel like we are only given one chance to keep the commandments and that we need to do everything perfectly.  It’s comforting to know that when we make mistakes and sin, the Lord will still be there for us when we repent.  He will not give up on us!  

Not only did the Lord send prophets on many different occasions to the Jaredites to give them a chance to repent, but He sent many prophets on multiple occasions.  Amulek taught that we have been given “so many witnesses” of the truth of the gospel (Alma 34:33).  Amulek himself says he was “called many times” before he finally responded positively to the angel who came to tell him to care for Alma (Alma 10:6). 

I love the patterns that we can find in the Book of Mormon if we are looking for them.  I testify that the Good Shepherd has called after us before, and He is still calling after us today (see Alma 5:37).  He will give us every opportunity possible to hearken to His voice and follow Him.  It is awesome to consider His long-suffering and patience with us throughout our mortal journey.  It makes me want to react in kind and be a more patient husband and dad.  I’m grateful for the many witnesses we’ve been given.  We’ve been blessed with many prophets, too, who warn us of dangers we face today.  It’s up to us accept and follow their counsel for our safety.   

 

How do you read and study the Book of Mormon?  Above, you can see how my son Jack studies/colors the Book of Mormon.  🙂

I love asking people this question to learn better ways to study the scriptures from others.  I’m excited to get your answers to this question if you’re willing to share in the comments below.

Personally, I love reading Book of Mormon commentaries. I’ve really enjoyed Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon by McConkie and Millet and Understanding the Book of Mormon by Grant Hardy among others.  I will share some of the specific ways I study in my next post.  Today, however, I want to discuss how much time we spend studying the scriptures.

The one study practice that has single-handedly changed my life comes from President Ezra Taft Benson.  He said, “There is a book we need to study daily, both as individuals and as families, namely the Book of Mormon.  I love that book.  It is the book that will get a person nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than any other book.  President Romney recommended studying it half an hour each day.  I commend that practice to you.”

Before adopting this practice as a teenager, I called myself a Book of Mormon “chapter chewer.”  I tried to read a chapter a day and the only thing I worried about was finishing the chapter for that day.  You can imagine how excited I was when I was reading 3 Nephi 30 or one of the first few chapters from Moroni.  🙂

Everything changed for me when I started reading for 30 minutes each day.  All of a sudden, I didn’t worry about how much I read.  Instead, I began focusing on what I was really learning and understanding from my reading.  I had time to ponder what I was reading, too, and that’s when revelation is more apt to come.

If we really want to draw nearer to our Savior, if we really want to gain or strengthen our testimony of the Book of Mormon, is 30 minutes of study a day too much to ask?

I admit that in the past studying has sometimes felt like a burden, but I’ve been blessed the last few years with incredible excitement and joy for the scriptures.  It’s the best part of my day.  I’ve found no better way to invite the Spirit more strongly into my life than by reading the Book of Mormon.

If you don’t currently feel this excitement and joy, pray for this spiritual gift and then consistently study and I promise it will come to you!  And then you’ll notice how quickly time flies when studying the scriptures and you’ll wish you had more time.  It’ll become a clock-chewing, not a chapter-chewing experience.

Hello, everyone!  Thanks for visiting our new blog about the Book of Mormon.  We are so excited to share with you our thoughts and impressions about this testament of Christ and His gospel in this format.  Our personal testimonies of the Savior and His life, teachings, and atoning sacrifice have been forever changed because of our study of this book.

We expect to add new blog posts at least every week or so.  We hope to provide a forum where we can share our views and insights with you and you can do the same and thus learn from each other.  The Book of Mormon was written for our day.  We love finding application to our current circumstances from its pages and are looking forward to sharing some of these experiences as well.

We also hope to give some new or added perspective on stories with which you may be quite familiar.  There are so many hidden gems within its pages.  We are excited to unearth some of them.  Please feel free to openly share your comments with us about whatever we are discussing.  You can also let us know certain topics you’d like us to explore further.  We love to learn and selfishly believe that this blog will help us learn from all of you.

Ryan and I have been writing a new book titled A Christlike Heart – A Study of the Heart in the Book of Mormon.  We are excited to tell you that it will be published by Cedar Fort in May 2019 and is currently in the editing process with them.  You can see what the cover will look like under the “About the Book” link.  We’ve put a lot of time into this project and are anxious to share what we’ve learned in our study of this important topic in the Book of Mormon.  If we can give one person extra motivation to work on developing a more Christlike heart then our book will be considered a success for us.

Thanks again for visiting our website.  We hope you enjoy the blog and happy feasting on the word of God!

I absolutely love the war chapters in the Book of Mormon! There are so many lessons that can be drawn from Alma 46-62.  I’m sure we’ll have many different entries about this portion of the Book of Mormon as we go along.

Today, I want to focus on Alma 50:1-4.  We learn that “Moroni did not stop making preparations for war” against the Lamanites.  He was constantly preparing himself and his people to stay a step ahead of the Lamanites. In Alma 50, Moroni began fortifying all of the Nephites’ cities in a particular manner to protect them from the Lamanites.

They did four things specifically.  First, they dug up heaps of earth round about the cities.  Second, on top of these heaps of earth, they built up works of timbers to the height of a man.  Third, on top of these works of timbers, they built frames of pickets that were strong and high. And fourth, they erected towers that overlooked those frames of pickets from which guards could see the enemy approaching.

I’ve thought a lot about these fortifications. Individually, we all need to build up spiritual fortifications against the buffetings and temptations of Satan.  These four types of fortifications symbolically remind me of things I need to do to protect and strengthen myself spiritually.

First, digging up heaps of earth reminds me of kneeling down on the ground or the earth to pray.  The more we get ourselves down on the earth and dig our knees into the ground to pray, the more this fortification will completely encircle us.  Prayer is a wonderful protection for all of us, but enemies could still effectively attack us without additional fortifications.

Second, the works of timbers remind me of the scriptures.  What do you need to make paper?  Timber, of course!  The scriptures are a work of timber.  Daily feasting upon the scriptures fortifies us against our attackers and their deadly arrows.  Still, these works of timbers were only built up to the height of a man.  The enemy could still overcome this obstacle with persistence and do some harm.

Third, the frames of pickets remind me of Church steeples and temple spires.  We need to be consistent in both our Church and temple attendance to make these frames of pickets strong and high.  We make it much less likely for an enemy attack to be successful with these three fortifications in place.

Fourth, the towers that were erected for guards to overlook the works of pickets remind me of the watchmen on the towers we have today, our prophets and apostles.  Great safety is promised if we follow their counsel.

Our fortifications are quite strong and secure at this point, leaving only one vulnerability – the place of entrance.  This vulnerability is mentioned five times in Alma 49.  The only way into our place of security if we have properly fortified ourselves is through the place of entrance.  We have to always guard ourselves against what we bring into our mind, eyes, and heart. Satan can get into our place of security through the entrance if we allow.  However, if we fortify ourselves through prayer, scripture study, Church and temple attendance, and by following the prophet, the Holy Ghost will strengthen us in our efforts to resist temptations that are aimed directly at our place of entrance.