Hi I'm Brooke, and I'm so excited that Sister Allen invited me to be a guest on her blog today! I'm a member of the ward that she is serving in- or congregation, if you aren't a Latter-Day Saint and so the word ward only means "mental hospital" to you. :)
I thought that since Sister Allen is always sharing stories from The Book of Mormon on here, that today I would talk about why I read it.
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we talk a lot about The Book of Mormon. Like, a whole lot. And we try to explain to those not of our faith just how powerful and life-changing it is. I gave a copy of it to someone a few weeks ago and I told him that reading it every day has changed my life. And it has.
But sometimes I wonder if maybe people don't really understand why that is.
I know I didn't always.
I think that maybe for someone who's never read it and has no idea what it's about, when they get a Book of Mormon and are told what an amazing thing it will be for them, they might then open it up to the first page and read "I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents...." and then think, "Wait, what?"
Because sometimes I wonder if people are expecting something different. Like the mysteries of God laid out in plain view from page one. And I think that sometimes even those of us who grow up in the church don't always get it. After all the hype, we want to crack open the cover and see light pouring out but instead what we get is much more subtle.
But what I've learned is that that is part of it's beauty.
Because the mysteries of God ARE there.
And things I never thought I could know about the Savior's Atonement and His great love for me, are all there.
But in order to find them, I have to be looking. I have to read it every day with the intention of being taught. And I'm taught through the lives of other people, who's lives on this earth happened long before mine, but who were just as real as I am. And by reading about their lives, and their struggles, and their faith in Jesus Christ, I learn so much about my own life. Because even though their lives looked different than mine, so much about them is the same. And by trying to learn from their mistakes, and strengthen my faith by remembering theirs, I become better. I'm stronger. I'm happier. And I feel a security about my life that I wouldn't have otherwise.
Right on its cover The Book of Mormon says "Another Testament of Jesus Christ". And I have come to know that that's exactly what it is. My very favorite Book of Mormon scripture is Jacob 4:4, because one day when I read it, after reading it countless times throughout my life and never really noticing it before, it hit me that the things I was reading about really did happen. The people who wrote this book really did live, and they wrote about their experiences and the things that they knew, so that someday others could read it and know those same things.
The scripture says "For, for this intent have we written these things, that they may know that we knew of Christ, and we had a hope of his glory many hundred years before his coming; and not only we ourselves had a hope of his glory, but also all the holy prophets which were before us." -Jacob 4:4
I know that this book exists to bring us closer to Christ. That God commanded prophets on this side of the world to write what they knew about Jesus Christ, just like He commanded the prophets of the Bible to write. And the fact that it exists is more proof to me of God's love for us. By reading it I come to know the Savior better, and learn how I can be more like Him. So that someday, as the prophet John in the Bible says, and the prophet Moroni in the Book of Mormon, I will "be like him" and will "see him as he is".
That's why I read The Book of Mormon.
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