Mission Stories - Scriptures

It is pretty obvious that for a missionary the scriptures (aka holy texts) are really important and play a large role in the mission life. Missionaries study the scriptures every day for an hour by themselves, and then study together with their companion for another hour, and then they study the language (which often ends up being reading the scriptures in Swedish) for another hour. And then you talk about them and teach from them all day long... So you kind of get a lot of scripture-stuff on the mish :P And it's awesome.

When I say 'scriptures', I mean the 'standard works' of the Church: the Bible (Old and New Testament, not the Apocrypha, though that's good to read too if you want but doctrinal soundness is not guaranteed :P), the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. The Book of Mormon is of course in the spotlight, because it has such an important role in everything with the Church. It's been called the keystone of our religion, because everything depends on whether the Book of Mormon is true or not. It can't be proven right or wrong (many have tried), so it really becomes a personal question of either-or. I found out that it was true back in 2007 and that's why I'm a mormon. When we say "it's true" we mean it's the word of God (as is the Bible), not some random story, and that Joseph Smith didn't make it up, he was led to it by an angel and he translated it by the power of God.

Anyhoo, all the books are a little bit different: the Bible contains the writings of the Jewish people, it spans a really long time and it's been edited and changed through the ages. The Church uses the King James translation (beautiful language <3). Joseph Smith was doing a translation (which wasn't finished before his death) so there are sometimes footnotes saying what his translation was. But the main text is the same ol' King James. The Book of Mormon contains similar sort of collection of texts from a same-ish (slightly shorter) time period of the people who lived in the American continent, but the original record was hidden for centuries, so it hasn't been through a similar editing process as the Bible. It was compiled by a prophet called Mormon around 400 A.D. then hidden, and then found and translated by Joseph Smith in 1820s. And from the English translation it has been translated to other languages. The Doctrine and Covenants contains revelations that Joseph Smith received in the early parts of the Church's history, so there's a lot of instruction on how the Lord wants his church to work, lot of revelations directly to individuals - they are almost all answers to questions. And the Pearl of Great Price is a little collection of other texts and documents to do with Joseph Smith: some translations (Biblical things) and a kind of a diary of his very first experience of seeing God in a vision.

I don't really know how to explain how "we mormons" approach the scriptures (like, is it literal or symbolic etc...), it's a bit of both I guess. We reserve for the prophet the right to make an official interpretation of any passage of scripture - but they don't tend to do that very often, they usually say "read for yourself and pray about it and figure it out" (there are very few freebies in this Church :P) Everyone needs to work out their own salvation. So apart from the helpful Joseph Smith translations, there are very few parts of scriptures where a prophet has said "this means this". One example of Mormon-specific interpretation could be the thing in the Bible where it talks about the stick/wood of Judah and the stick/wood of Joseph/Ephraim and that they become one in his hand - that is understood in the Church to mean that the Bible (stick of Judah) and the Book of Mormon (stick of Joseph/Ephraim) are one stick (where stick/wood is the wooden writing tablets that were common in Babylon at the time, or the stick that the book scrolls were wound around, take your pick), so basically they say the same thing, the gospel. And a lot of other parts are made to be understood in different lights than they are by other Christians because of something it says in the Book of Mormon. I'm sure a lot of church members can explain a whole lot of scriptures, just like all kinds of well-read Christians can explain them to mean all different things. So there is a less of a culture of "here is what the Bible says" and more like "read what the scriptures say to you today and act accordingly."

I take the scriptures as the word of God, so when I read the scriptures, He can talk to me (he can actually do this via tons of different media, anything from a text to someting happening or someone saying something). So it's not a direct process of from the page to my head, it's often more like the text is conveying the spirit of what I'm supposed to be learning at that time. At least I find it works for me, I can find advice, comfort, learning, interesting information, love, etc... the list is endless. It's just like a conversation with a person. When I want God to talk to me, I read the scriptures. When I want to talk to him, I pray. When the two are combined, it creates a personal Father-Child relationship with God. That's how I see it anyway. And as for the things that the scriptures describe, I have kind of a child's faith to them. I find it quite easy to believe in Noah's ark and the parting of the Red Sea and all this stuff with miracles, all the great stories. To me they are truth (I do not use the word 'fact' here). Sometimes I see the deeper symbolic meanings behind them, and I believe that those are equally truth. With God - just like with ogres, and people for that matter - there are always layers.

I had with me in Sweden a small English quad (as well as a Swedish set), where all the Standard Works are bound in one book. And I made markings and memories in its pages all through my mission - and now I'm glad I did because it's so awesome to go through it and read the little scribbles and go "..what's that...? Oh yeah, hahaha!" And since some of those are pretty good stories too, they deserve to be shared here. Some are funny, some are serious, and I'll also be sharing some straight up passages of scriptures that relate in some important way to my mission.


Let's go in the order of the books, makes life easier for me. So. Genesis. Mormons understand the beginning a little bit differently than other Christians because of all the additional stuff (BoM, revelations etc...). There is more to creation for us, and we don't blame Adam and Eve for all the bad stuff that resulted with what they did, we see it as part of the plan and we respect them as the first parents of humanity (there's a place in the Book of Mormon that explains their part in the plan, most key being that they would not have had children if they had stayed in the Garden). We consider Adam a prophet, because he received revelation from God after the Fall. Apparently this is radically different what some other Christian groups think :P We found this out one time when we were going to teach a group of young men from Africa about the Restoration of the Gospel and how God always works with prophets. There was a friend of ours (and it was his house), then his brother-in-law, and a few other friends who were from a muslim background. And my companion starts "Adam was the first prophet," and the brother-in-law goes "wait, what the heck? No he wasn't" and reads out to us the names of all the authors of the books in the Bible, and basically does a scripture-hunt about the profile of a prophet (a prophet needs to do this that and the other in order to be a prophet, otherwise he is not a prophet) and, well, the conversation went to pot from there :P I experienced other times like that during my mission when we said something that the person was very much not going to accept evar (like saying to Seventh Day adventists that we have souls and we lived with God before o.O) Scripture interpretation is a wonderfully interesting minefield :P

There are a lot of really cool stories in the Old Testament that were used in Zone Conferences and such to make some kind of a point. The coolest one was about David and Goliath, we were all given some kind of "weapon" (my team had "the toilet paper rolls of mass destruction") and you were supposed to use a hockey stick to shoot the Goliath who was standing on a chair on the stage (shouting abuse at you all the time :P), and of course it didn't work. Then they called for David (and the almost-pro hockey player assigned to the task earlier, whose first name conveniently enough was David too) and gave him a floor hockey ball, and while Goliath kept shouting ("you're going to attack me? You're like, one of the shortest ones!" David's actually my height, so he's not that short but not the tallest of all the elders either - but he stopped for a sec and went "what the heck? XD" at the insult :P) And then when David hit Goliath with the floor ball, Goliath fell of his chair pretty epicly, and then feebly called for help because he was all tangled in his Goliath robes. (I have a funny feeling that this is one of those "you had to be there" stories - but I don't care, it's my wiki and I was there and it's hilarious :P)

Another really amusing Zone conference activity was in the conference that the zone leaders had given a secret theme of "bringing sexy back" (whatever that meant), and they did kind of a catwalk scripture practice where every companionship was given a problem/concern that someone might have, and they had to go up in front of the group (on to the catwalk) and give a scripture that sheds light on that problem. And my "problem" was worded as "pre-earth life? What the deuce?" XD I still keep that little paper with the question on it in my scriptures, in Jeremiah 1:5 (which is the scripture we used to explain pre-earth life). The little paper'll never cease to bring a grin on my face whenever I see it. :P

One more silly zone conference thing: at Christmas we do the usual present white elephant swap thing. And these tend to be awesomely terrible (like B-movies) because missionaries are sometimes rubbish at buying presents, and sometimes forget to do it at all. So when the information/reminders were flying around before the Christmas Zone Conference, one message said that the punishment for the person forgetting to bring a present is outlined in Ezekiel 4:12 (which reads "And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.") XD

Going back a few books from Ezekiel to Isaiah. My very favourite passage of scripture is Isaiah 6:1 Sometimes people ask what your favourite is, usually in some kind of a group setting. We had such an event on a conference call FHE with the whole zone in it, at the end of the Family Home Evening call, as a grabbag, everyone was asked to share their favourite scripture (I followed along and marked everyone's favourites in my scriptures). But I shared mine, this one in Isaiah, and tried to explain a little how I feel about it and how it is a lot like art for me, it kind of escapes words. I remember an elder-friend of mine listening kind of got it, or at least got it that that would be my favourite scripture :) But I must admit, sometimes when people ask you to share your favourite scripture, I choose something else, something that I can talk about cohesively. But yeah, Isaiah's my man <3


Hokae, over to the New Testament. I only realised this just now, going through my quad to see what is in there and it made me laugh and think "cool" at the same time. In Matthew 25:1-13 I have written "this scripture reference is in the missionary order invoice :P" Missionaries use materials, like brochures and books and forms and stickers and stuff like that to do missionary work. We get them for free from the mission office, and they get them from some other place that distributes them. So there is stuff that is made to be available for missionaries so they can help people learn about the gospel. And when you are about to run out of something, you order more. In Sweden it worked in the following way: missionaries keep track of their inventory, and when they see a need, they email the secretaries in the office and place an order. The stuff is then put in a box with an invoice and the box is given to the missionaries in a Zone Conference. So you have two chances in a transfer to get more stuff. And if you fail to place your order in time, you do not get stuff at conference, simple as. So I just realised how awesome someone has been to put the reference to the Parable of the Ten Virgins into the invoice XD

My favourite teaching situation was when we taught this guy about the Spirit, and we read the passage in Galatians ("but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance"). His face lit up and he kept reading it over and said "you have given me the key" over and over. Everything kind of changed with him after that, we understood each other more, he was more willing to pay attention and listen to us (and even though his situation in life was really crappy, it even seemed that he found and help in dealing with it all from the spiritual stuff with us). It was such a beautiful moment because... all this text and all these books are just words, just ink and paper - until that happens, until it makes an impact. It was an incredible moment, I was so happy for the rest of that day, and it still is one of the highlights of my mission and my life. That is what makes missionary work so worth it, I can't explain how much love, real, pure love there is involved in that work.
^{The page before, in Gal. 4:13-14 is one that I want to be about me and my mission.}

Moving on we hit the epistle of James, which is worth mentioning because it is, oh I don't, the entire LDS-church's favourite bit of the NT :P Verse five in chapter one, I can quote it by heart in a couple different languages because it is so seminal. It stands there: "if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith..." As a teenager, searching for God, Joseph Smith read that passage in the Bible (he was reading a lot and going to different churches etc... really searching for truth) and he had a moment with it, it turned a key for him, and he thought about it and pondered and read it many times and all this, and eventually he realised that he "must do as James directs, that is, ask of God." And he did and that's where everything started. And that's where everything starts with missionary work too - people having the courage to ask "is this true?" and receiving an answer from God.
^{Chapter three of James is also worth mentioning though not mission-related as such. In my very first General Conference ever elder Jeffrey R. Holland talked about the damage tongues can do, it was very powerful.}


Hopping over the Topical Guide and the Bible Dictionary in the quad and over to the Book of Mormon. The first verse of the Bom starts with "I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents..." (just thought that might be handy to know :P) and starts with a pretty cool story of how Nephi and his family leave Jerusalem. Since reading the Book of Mormon is really important, we read it together with people often. Sometimes we'd pick a chapter to read and discuss, but often we'd also just start from the beginning. There are some parts of the history that some people get hung up on (Nephi killing Laban and other stuff), and we always dreaded those parts. :P One time we had an awesome moment with that when we were reading and the man just didn't even notice there was anything strange, he like passed by it saying "and then the lamanites got some weird skin disease." XD Now in hindsight I'm starting to realise how helpful those parts are, because they act like a litmus test. If you are honest and sincere, you won't make them into a problem. If you want to bash or generally have some kind of a problem (usually to do with something else), you use those things as excuses to hide behind. But it really flags it to the missionaries that there is something the matter somewhere else. It's quite cool.

The most used chapter in my quad (it is the page my quad opens to really easily because it's been opened there so many times) is 2 Nephi 2, which talks about the Adam and Eve stuff. It is the clearest explanation of the beginning of God's plan, about the Fall and all that jazz. <3 Plus it has one of the best lines of text in existence: "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." It also details the thing about agency (freedom to choose) that is basically the most important doctrine there is to me. This chapter is read a lot, quoted a lot and taught from a lot by missionaries all over the world.

And there's a cool thing about the fifth chapter of that same book, only a few pages over. One time we were practicing teaching in a District Meeting, and I was playing the part of the person being taught. And my Zone Leader showed how in his scriptures he had written the letters 'GLÄDJE' ('joy') next to six verses in the chapter, because they outline how one builds happiness: keeping the commandments of God, seeing the fruits of your labour, having the scriptures and the guidance of the Lord in your life, making creative things (it mentions building buildings and working in all manner of materials), having access to the temple and being industrious. I don't think the person I was playing needed that, but it was a pretty darn cool thing to learn. So I wrote those letters in my scriptures too. 

And soon after that in 2 Nephi something very funny happens. It quotes almost 30 chapters of Isaiah. And in case you have never read Isaiah - it's hard XD Really symbolic, not very cohesive, he changes topic mid-sentence and it's just... hard. Somebody has said that only Jews of his time would be able to understand Isaiah, and someone else has said that you need the Spirit of Prophecy to read it (Joseph Smith once said that Isaiah is clear, and that it's really important to read it. Well, he would :P I'm still not sure if he didn't say that just to mess with people :P) But anyway, we mormons really appreciate Isaiah. His text is important because it hasn't all come true yet, and also, because it is so scrambled, it has a lot of things in it that were taken out by all sorts of editors from the clearer bits of the Bible that said the same thing. So it's kind of like coded, and because of that, it's remained pretty much un-messed-with throughtout the centuries/millenia, and now we have it and we love it.

But albeit we understand Isaiah's importance, it's still a pretty common thing to refer to 2 Nephi in jest as the impossible barricade of sorts that you just can't get through. Even one of the apostles (who is one of the really serious ones) has a favourite joke that he can't even tell all the way through without cracking up, about a man getting shot but he then survives because he had a Book of Mormon in his front pocket and the bullet had stopped at 2 Nephi, "because nothing gets through 2 Nephi" :P Because it really does get hard there, you go from a smooth-reading story of adventure and visions to the gathering of Israel and all this difficult symbolic language... I've heard someone suggest that God put all sorts of really good spiritual lessons in the first book in the BoM because he knew that people would read those ones often (la: you start the Book of Mormon from the beginning, you read along and get all this cool stuff out of it - until you hit 2 Nephi, you struggle and peter out, then sometime later you pick yourself up again and decide to read it again, and start from 1 Nephi and get a lot of cool stuff out of it again... :P)

I love Isaiah, btw, he's my favourite OT prophet <3

In 2 Nephi 29 there is once again one really funny thing (I'm really irreverent, but I can't help it that it's funny :P) I think God has a sense of humour. Otherwise he would not have had this written in 2 Nephi: (it talks about the latter-days and how the Book of Mormon will come forth, and how people will say) "A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be anymore Bible!" This is another common thing for mormons to refer to, I know I do it. "Bible-Bible, we need no more Bible". :P There are a couple other places where the phrasing in the Book of Mormon lives on in the mouths of the Saints. Things like "and it came to pass..." (Mark Twain said that if you take out all the "and it came to pass"es from the Book of Mormon, it will become the Pamphlet of Mormon :P) and "my father dwelt in a tent." I also quite like Jacob 1:12 "And it came to pass that Nephi died."

The rest of 2 Nephi, 31-33 is pretty heavily marked in my scriptures too, it's just really clear, awesome stuff about the Holy Ghost and all things related. <3 Jacob hass really cool stuff too, Enos is famous in the church for being epic, first few chapters of Mosiah where King Benjamin gives a talk to his people... This is all really good stuff that I have very good memories of, reading with people, reading by myself, being taught by/from... From there on the story is really exciting and interesting, in this middle part the BoM is more of a mix of history and God's dealings with people, so there are wars and wicked kings and all sorts of adventures.

And then we come to my very favourite bit in the BoM. The sons of Mosiah. The story of these guys is that their father was king and obedient to God, but the sons were not and they were going around destroying the church. And they had a divine intervention one day when they saw an angel of the Lord that told them to stop, and that if they themselves want to be destroyed that's fine, but stop bugging other people. So they stopped and changed their ways, and after a while they wanted to go to the Lamanites (which is this other nation that they are always at war with, and the Lamanites don't believe in God etc) and be missionaries. And from Alma 17 onwards is the stories of what happened to them. They went to the desert, prepared and fasted and prayed and studied (like the MTC!) and then went their separate ways and got to work. And we follow what happened to Ammon first. And Ammon really is my man. He was caught and taken to the King of the Lamanites and the king liked him and said "you can marry my daughter" and Ammon said "no, but I'll be your servant." Then one time he saves the king's sheep (and the lives of his fellow-servants) by whacking off the arms of people who are attacking them. The king hears about this and gets a little worried that Ammon is so strong and powerful. They have a conversation and because the king is so amazed at Ammon's epic-ness, he is really willing to listen to anything Ammon says, so Ammon tells him about God and the plan and the king believes and has a spiritual experience, and then all his servants and all the subjects also believe. When the king says to Ammon "tell me what's going on here", the text says "Now Ammon being wise, yet harmless..." I think that is awesome :P

We also had a really good teaching experience one time with this story. We went to drop by this girl we knew and were teaching, and she was really positive and happy, but somehow there was something up that we weren't quite sure what. So we showed up just to see if she was home and she was! And she asked us in, and we hadn't planned on what to teach her. So while she was out of the room, we were like "what do we do?!" and this was my first transfer as a proper senior companion, so the executive decision fell on me. So I opted for reading together my favourite story. So we read this part where Ammon teaches the king, and stop at the end of the chapter, where the king drops to the ground, as if dead. And the girl looked at us with wide eyes saying "amg did he die?!" And we were like "no... the story continues, but we don't have time... ...but you could read it on your own!" And explained to her how the story of Ammon and his brother Aron continue for a bunch more chapters, and she was so excited and wanted to read it all. And she asked if the entire book of Alma was about Ammon, and we explained that it has a ton of stuff of all kinds of things, for example an explanation of what happens after death and so on, and she got even more excited and said "what, where? I want to read that, I really need to know", so we showed her that chapter too. It was so cool to see someone get so excited about the Book of Mormon. I shouldn't have found it so surprising because I am excited about the Book of Mormon, but sometimes I have that funny feeling that other people won't be excited about things that I'm excited about. But sometimes they are :)

Moving on, there is a lot of history and battles and stuff like that in the Book of Mormon, and one time in a Zone Conference my companion had an awesome witty response -moment. They were teaching us something about preparation and reading the story in Alma 43: "...Moroni had prepared his people with breastplates and with arm-shields, yea, and also shields to defend their heads, and also they were dressed with thick clothing- Now the army of Zerahemnah was not prepared with any such thing: they had only their swords and their cimeters, their bows and their arrows, their stones and their slings; and they were naked, save it were a skin which was girded about their loins; yea, all were naked..." And the Zone Leader teaching asked rhetorically "now why would you go to battle in a loin cloth?" and my companion muttered under her breath, but loud enough so that everyone in the room heard: "why would you go anywhere in a loin cloth?"

There is tons of really seminal mormon stuff (reference-wise) in the Book of Alma: Captain Moroni and his standard of liberty, 2000 stripling warriors aka the army of Helaman, Rameumpton, Teancum, Hagoth's boats... It all works its way into the culture of the church, people actually use this stuff in conversation, you find it in cultural products (music, art, stories etc...) All sorts of things from the Book of Mormon and scriptures in general. It is really cool, the mormon culture is very rich and enriching.

The one thing I want to mention in the Book of Helaman (realising that this page is getting ridiculously long...) is verse 5:12 "And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall." An elder, who had become a very dear friend to me in the MTC, shared this with me when I was griping about having a hard time. So that stuck with me, it really helped. And from now on, this verse is always associated with that :)

Third Nephi. :) This is the really good part. The book starts with Christmas as it happened in the American continent. The people there had had prophecies of Christ's birth and they had been promised signs to recognise when it was happening: there would be a night when the sun would set and it wouldn't get dark, so essentially a day and a night and a day would be as one long day. And a new star would appear. But there were people who said they would kill everyone who believed this nonsense if it didn't happen by a certain day. And there was a prophet, called Nephi (another Nephi among all the different Nephies in the book) and he was praying, because he was getting a little worried. And the Lord answered his prayer: "Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world..." <3 To mormons this is as seminal as "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed" is to Christians everywhere. So the book starts with Year 1 (well, technically year 0? But year 1 sounds better) and then all sorts of troublesome things happen (as shown in the church movie the Testaments, which I love <3) until chapter 11, which is probably one of the most important chapters of the entire BoM: the Saviour appears to the Nephites after his death and resurrection. He then teaches the people for 18 chapters. It's just full of awesome stuff. I'll just pull out one verse that was particularly meaningful to me on my mission because we were told to memorise it: 5:13 "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life." It makes a big difference when a missionary remembers that. :)

After a few more good books you get to the last one, Moroni. The last chapter of Moroni has the single most read and quoted and taught from verse in all of the Book of Mormon: "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost." We shared this with everyone, because it is very direct and very real: God is making a promise here. "Don't trust what these people say, but figure out for yourself." I've done it. I've seen people do it. It's awesome.


There we have it. Next is the Doctrine and Covenants. Most of the D&C is answers to questions. Imagine the situation: a young person with no experience in being a priest or an administator of any kind is all of a sudden in charge of running God's church. Whenever Joseph Smith had a question, he asked God, and God answered. So a lot of what went on in those days, especially the revelations God gave, was recorded and compiled into this book. It's very mormon-specific. This is where we get things like the Word of Wisdom (aka the no coffee, tea, alcohol or smoking -rule), our understanding of the Plan of Salvation with different degrees of glory/heavens, etc... In it you find the revelation where God told the people to practice polygamy, and the one where He told them to stop it. The D&C talks a lot about the temple. It's basically the restoration of all those things that you can't find from the Bible or the Book of Mormon.

Aside from the section on the Word of Wisdom (which you need to teach people about the WoW), section 4 is the most missionary-relevant. Because missionaries have to memorise it. :D It's only seven verses long and not that hard to memorise, and it is another great thing for missionaries to remember. "Now behold, a marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men. Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day. Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work; For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul; And faith, hope, charity and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, qualify him for the work. Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence. Ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Amen." And we would all recite it out loud in Zone Conferences. It's pretty win.

Another section with a cool story with it is section 6. We were teaching this guy, and I wanted to make a point that in every book of scripture it is the Saviour that is speaking, either personally or through a prophet, and that this is the case with the D&C too. And I was flicking really quickly to find a place where that would be, and I made a mess of the references in the list (in English it's the reference first and the little summary of it after it, but in Swedish it's the other way round) and I was in a hurry with it. So I said "let's read in Section 6 together," and the person found it really quickly and said "okay, where?" And I hadn't had the time to look at it, so I just kind of went, "err, maybe..." and spotted verse 21 where it says "Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God..." and said "there, verse 21 onwards." So we read til the end. And it was perfect but bold. It was basically calling him to repentance. If I had realised what it said, I would not have dared read it with him, out of fear of offending him. So we read together, one verse each until the end, and then we were all very quiet for a while. I had no idea what to say, I had no idea what effect it was having, but it felt right. After the teach my companion was all O_O "You are so bold..." and I was all "I didn't mean to..." :P

I'm very aware that this page is getting very big, but I just want to finish talking briefly about my favourite section in the D&C 121. It is located in the ironically-named Liberty Jail, where Joseph Smith and some other men were held prisoner (pretty unlawfully even for those days) in dreadful conditions. It is a prayer and a revelation about enduring suffering. And at the end, the very last two verses have for me been very useful and important in many situations in my life, especially on the mission. They're just so beautiful and powerful: "Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forver and ever." <3


Then the very last thing to mention is the Pearl of Great Price, which is very small. But it too has a small part there that is very central to the mission experience: Joseph Smith's First Vision. It is inside the little chapter called 'Joseph Smith - History'. He wrote it much after the fact, and it is about those very early things that happened, when he saw God for the first time. There was a lot of religious excitement going on when Joseph was in his early teens, and he was really worried about getting it right. So he searched different religions and churches and was really confused. And he read in James 1:5 (discussed above) and after thinking about it a lot, he did what James says to do: went to pray. He went to a small grove of trees so that he could be alone. This was the first time he had ever prayed out loud like this. And the result, in his own words (words that every missionary knows by heart) was: "I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. ... When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other-This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!" I've recited that many times, and it has an effect. I also remember when it was recited to me for the first time. I remember paying very close attention. And it is so interesting how... the air around you just changes when a missionary repeats those words out loud. It is a very powerful thing. :)

There's a movie about Joseph Smith - History here:
http://lds.org/media-library/video/feature-films?lang=eng&query=restoration#2008-06-01-the-restoration

My relationship to the scriptures grew and strengthened during my mission. I consider them very interesting to read, I draw a lot of inspiration (both for art and for life) from them - I almost consider them a game, a challenge, that you get better at the more you do it. But, y'know, a bit more worthwhile than Tetris :P