On the Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon is my favorite scripture. As much as I like to turn to the Bible sometimes just to get some other reading, it is the Book of Mormon that stirs my heart. I know when I turn to this book my soul will receive peace. Reading the Book of Mormon is the best way for me to hear the word of God. I hear His voice and His commands in the words of the great prophets in the Book of Mormon. I love learning from these great men of God who are so clearly human that it makes me laugh and I understand them.

This semester one of the things I really grasped onto was hope. Especially in the Book of Mormon, the idea of forgiveness and new chances is preached over and over again. To me, hope is only one step short of faith. Even as we “press forward, having a perfect brightness of hope” (2 Nephi 31:20) we are coming closer to God. Isaiah preached that there is always hope. We only lose it if we let it go. Despair is Satan’s way of pulling us closer to him. He doesn't want us to feel the light and joy of a bright future. Christ, on the other hand, never wants us to give up. Enduring to the end is one of the important steps in His gospel. Hope is an important part of enduring. If we don’t understand that we will win in the end, it can be very hard to have a sense of hope, to understand redemption. But knowing that we are on the winning side and we are going to win, it is foolish not to “have faith, hope, and charity” (Alma 7:24). In a way it almost seems ungrateful. Do we or do we not trust in the Lord?

We must submit ourselves to the Lord. The only way Jesus can save us is if we will submit all of ourselves, all of our loyalty, to him. I know this is true, even if I don’t exactly understand it yet. And no matter how far gone we think we are, there is always a chance to come back. Christ will never leave use forsaken. Recognizing the miracle of the atonement, the chance we all have for redemption if we only claim it leaves a powerful feeling of hope within my heart. Not just hope, but the will to keep on trying. There is nothing desperate or threatening in the word of God, except maybe to the wicked. And even they have the opportunity to change. We are not hopeless.

Every time I read the Book of Mormon I get something different out of it. This time when we read through Jacob, his words touched me like they never have before. Jacob was a powerful orator. Although he was called of God to denounce the evils or riches and pride to the Nephite people, Jacob doesn't delight in this power. In fact, he says that “it grieveth my soul . . . that I must testify unto you concerning the wickedness of your hearts” (Jacob 2:6). It wasn’t just his obvious compassion for the Nephite people that caught my attention, either. It was his language. Jacob didn’t bother mincing words; he said exactly what his heart felt. He blamed the wicked for causing the innocent to have “daggers placed to pierce their souls and wound their delicate minds” (Jacob 2:9). So strong are these words that I felt them in my heart. This little speech felt as real as my Sunday school lesson last week. Jacob had something to say, an important message to get across, and he used whatever means necessary to do it.

I love the characters in the Book of Mormon. I got to know them very well this semester. I loved seeing their feelings, so blatantly admitted for us. I noticed this most in Alma. Alma drew me into his story with his emotions. I could feel what he felt, and it is the love he had for his brethren that made me feel as though I was there. There is a bond between Alma and the sons of Mosiah, for “these sons of Mosiah were with Alma at the time the angel first appeared unto him; therefore Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren; and what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord” (Alma 17:2). The bonds of friendship are not something that form easily; such friends with such love must’ve been friends before this life. Evidence of friendships such as these makes me happy. I can’t exactly say why. But more importantly, Alma was happy to see that they still followed the Lord. Just as there is very little worse than watching someone I love fall away from the church, there is nothing greater than finding out one of my friends is stronger in the church than when I last saw him or her. In Alma’s joy I see my own hope for friends and loved ones.

And then we have the same story, from Ammon’s point of view. Not about to be outdone by Alma’s apparent joy, Ammon’s joy was “so great even that he was full; yea, he was swallowed up in the joy of his God, even to the exhausting of his strength; and he fell again to the earth” (Alma 27:17). Like Jonathan and David, these are the sort of friends who would die for each other before letting harm come to the other. (That can create a sticky little paradox, however, both of them arguing over who’s going to die.) But more than that, I love the little narrative stuck in by Mormon: “Now was not this exceeding joy?” (Alma 27:18). Just in case the reader failed to notice how close the men of God are, Mormon mentions it himself. Indeed, Aaron and Omner and Himni were also glad to see Alma; “but behold their joy was not that to exceed their strength” (Alma 27:19). Little lines like this only prove the point. These were real people; they had joys and frustrations and jealousies.

This only touches on a little bit of how the Book of Mormon stirred my heart this semester. This book is amazing to me. It is the word of God coming from ordinary people; people like me who have managed to control the same worldly hungers that I feel. I loved studying this book; and though the class was rigorous, I am glad to learn all that I could. There is always more.