Dec '17

As usual, we were assigned a point of doctrine to go along with our speaking assignment. The topic for this month was Book of Mormon and the talk was Pres. Russell M. Nelson's "The Book of Mormon: What Would Your Life Be Like Without It?"

I did most of my studying in the days before our meeting, and the Thursday night before I spoke I had 5 of 6 bullet points. By Friday evening I had 3 pages. I finished my talk about at about 1pm on Saturday afternoon. It's the longest talk I've written, and I ran out of time during the Sacrament meeting, so I didn't give it in its entirety. 

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Opening Remarks (1:05)

Good afternoon. I come with the love and gratitude of President Todd Wolfley, our fine Stake President. He strives to do that which is right, for your benefit.

I visited this ward just a few months back, but I hope you’ll allow me a brief re-introduction. My name is Lee McMains and I am the chair of the Industrial Technology & Energy Studies department at Aims Community College. My beautiful wife Rebecca is attending the Glenmere Ward, our home ward, with our 3-year old daughter, Lydia, with whom we’ve been practicing “sitting like a Sunbeam,” and our 1-year old son, Nole, who enjoys giving kisses and unplugging things.

I would like to ask for your permission to share some prepared remarks, largely as they’re written. I find that the Holy Ghost speaks to me much more clearly while I prepare my talks than when I give them, and I’d prefer to not step over something that may encourage or enlighten someone here today if it can be avoided.

Introduction (1:40)

There are blessings to be found in what we have seen and heard today. We have assembled ourselves under proper priesthood authority, we have sung songs of praise, and we have renewed in full our covenants with our Heavenly Father. Thank you for letting me spend some of your day with you.

One of our collective duties on the High Council is to study & ponder a topic of doctrine, as assigned by President Wolfley, and to prepare to teach the stake presidency what we have learned. As we interview the priesthood leaders in our assigned wards and branches, we likewise ask those leaders to study these same topics & to prepare to teach us. Those leaders, in turn, are encouraged to invite members in their stewardship to teach them about that same topic.

The topic for this month is ‘Book of Mormon’ and I encourage you to study & ponder this topic, and consider whom you might commit to teach what you have learned - perhaps within your family, or with your home- or visiting-teaching families, or with your priesthood and organization leaders.

To that end, we have been counseled to review President Russell M. Nelson’s October 2017 General Conference talk “The Book of Mormon: What Would Our Lives Be Like Without It?” I’m grateful for that assignment, and for my opportunity to share with you a few thoughts today. I have prayed, while preparing these remarks, that I might say something that you will benefit from hearing (just as I have learned while preparing this), something that allows the Holy Spirit to prick your heart and teach you.

What Can You Teach Me? (2:31)

President Nelson begins his address by telling a story about meeting an African tribal king in Ghana in 1986.¹

After my lecture, the king made his way directly to me, but this time without his linguist. To my surprise, he spoke in perfect English—the Queen’s English, I might add!

The king seemed puzzled. “Just who are you?” he asked.

I replied, “I am an ordained Apostle of Jesus Christ.”

The king asked, “What can you teach me about Jesus Christ?”

I vividly remember the anxiety I felt the first time I heard Pres. Nelson tell that story. What would I say if someone asked me that question: what can you teach me about Jesus Christ? Where would I even begin? I’d like to think that, even if I stumbled a bit in the beginning, that I would find my footing, and I would talk about how He is my Saviour - but there is so much wrapped up in that word: the premortal existence and my fervent efforts to get back to Heavenly Father.

I could instead start with the fact that He is my elder brother, in a literal sense, and that as my older brother, He has looked out for me, protected me, and He given my life meaning & purpose. I might continue by talking about His boundless love: how he lived with & taught the Israelites, and a scattered branch of Israel here in the Americas. If given the chance I would surely want to talk about His saving Atonement for my sins, and the Priesthood, and saving ordinances, and temples.

Here’s the kicker: I wouldn’t be able to talk about the full measure of any of these truths if I didn’t know the Book of Mormon, and if I didn’t have a personal testimony that it’s true. So anything that I could teach someone about my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ comes from the Book of Mormon, which means if I ever hope to be able face that question someday, I need to know, and study, and ponder the stories and the lessons therein.

As an aside, Pres. Nelson, in his wisdom ,answered the king’s question with another question. I’m sure I’m not clever enough to have done that.

Why We Might Not Study (6:27)

In the April 2017 General Conference, President Monson said:

I implore each of us to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day. As we do, we will be in a position to hear the voice of the Spirit, to resist temptation, to overcome doubt and fear, and to receive heaven’s help in our lives.²

I have struggled, every month since my baptism almost fifteen years ago, to read the Book of Mormon daily. As I prepared these remarks I reflected on why this might be so, and I have compiled a list of reasons that I have heard myself say to explain why I don’t study the Book of Mormon each day. If you struggle to study or even read, as I have, perhaps you will hear your reason in here as well. As I propose a reason, I invite you to consider whether it’s justifiable, or merely an excuse.

(Read the bold title and the blue, then move on. Come back to read the white text later.)

1. I’m too busy. I do some work in the morning, then help Rebecca get the kids up, dressed, and fed, then it’s time to head off to work. Once I get there I’m constantly moving until I head home to spend some daddy time with the kids before bed. After that it’s either time with Rebecca or back to work for a few hours until it’s bedtime. But, of course, that’s not the whole story. Rolled into the work I do in the morning generally includes reading a few news sites; that’s true for the evening work as well. But these are just mental breaks, two or three minutes of scanning headlines, maybe an article or two.  Really what I’m saying here is that the Book of Mormon is not important to me. I would never use those words, but that is the message I convey to my God when I put CNN and Solitaire before my scriptures.
2. I forget.It’s not that I don’t care, or that I don’t want to, it’s just that I don’t think about it. I know it’s there, and that reading it is important, but I only ever remember when I’m not in a place where I can read from the scriptures. Again, this is an issue of priorities in my life. What is consuming my time so much that I can’t dedicate, that I can’t consecrate a few minutes to my Heavenly Father? If I have to remember to read from my scriptures, then there is something askew in my life.
3. I kind of do already. We read the Book of Mormon Stories with our kids, and we watch the Life of Christ videos on Sundays - those things are very nearly close to approximately being the same as reading for myself. It’s great that I do that with my kids, but what am I doing for my kids? Am I studying the right things, the necessary things, to prepare me to lead them in righteousness? Can I answer the question when they ask me what I could teach them about Jesus Christ? If I shake my hand when I talk about how much I read the Book of Mormon I am most assuredly not reading it enough.
4. It’s so boring. There are the Isaiah chapters, which nobody gets, and the back-and-forth of who’s good and who’s evil; I mean, yeah, there’s some intrigue with the Gadianton Robbers, but the story just doesn’t move like a good Harry Potter book. This book is far from boring, and it moves at a good clip. I mean, 600 years in a few hundred pages? It takes Mr. Potter 7 books to get out of puberty! There are some great stories, like Abinidi, and Captain Moroni, Enos, and Alma the younger, and the brother of Jared, and - the big one - Christ coming to commune with and teach the Nephites, and the three Nephites! In all of those wonderful, compelling stories, there are truths hidden in the adventure, which leads me to my next point….  
5. I’ve already read it once, I know how it ends, why read it again? The story won’t be different if I read it again. As an adult convert, I didn’t exactly memorize the verses I was supposed to for Primary and Seminary, but I’ve read them so I think I got what I was supposed to get out of the Book of Mormon. I challenge anyone who hasn’t read the book of Mormon in the last 12 months to read it again. You are, by virtue of the fact that you are alive, in a different place in your life than you were a year ago. You are certainly a year older, and perhaps even a year wiser. Importantly, the world has changed under your feet over the last year, and I promise that you will learn something in this reading that you were simply not in a place to comprehend a year ago. The truths are always there, what changes is our ability to uncover them - which we can only do by saying a prayer and cracking the cover.
6. I’ve fallen into a large hole and I don’t have my scriptures with me, and there’s no one who would be willing to go to my house and get them for me, much less help me get out of this hole. Of course, this is a bit silly but I’ve been there, emotionally, before. I testify that there is no more important time for reading our scriptures, and praying to our Father in Heaven, then when we feel like we’re at the bottom of a deep hole with no way out. (Go back to #1 and read the white text.)

Lists of the Book of Mormon (4:27)

President Nelson makes clear in his talk that even he was inspired by Pres. Monson’s imploring:

Since President Monson’s challenge six months ago, I have tried to follow his counsel. Among other things, I’ve made lists of what the Book of Mormon is, what it affirms, what it refutes, what it fulfills, what it clarifies, and what it reveals. Looking at the Book of Mormon through these lenses has been an insightful and inspiring exercise! I recommend it to each of you.³

Well! According to this, I have been invited, by a General Authority, to make a list. I love making lists! The only thing better than a list is a spreadsheet. I thought about recreating his list in a spreadsheet, but - and this may sound silly - I wanted to write the list with my own hand rather than type it out.

I turned to the Index to the Triple Combination and pondered the many verses under the heading ‘Book of Mormon’ and tried to categorize them under the headings President Nelson suggested. For example, the first entry in the index comes from the title page of the Book of Mormon and reads,

abridgement of record of Nephites and Jaredites, written to testify of Christ

This would fall squarely in the “IS” category, I believe, because it explains what the Book of Mormon is.

The second entry in the index, 1 Nephi 13:40 which reads, “last records shall establish the first” should be listed in the “FULFILLS” category. This book, along with the Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and other modern revelation, are the last records. Their modern testimonies of Jesus Christ add to those of the Old & New Testament. I recognize that the timing of some of these books - the writings that became the Pearl of Great Price were recorded before Nephi’s time, and the New Testament after - is a bit wonky, but I’m trying not to overthink it, instead focusing on the value and knowledge these things bring me. That said, if anyone is interested in sitting down and diagramming all of this out, which charts and timelines, I am all about color coding and using a straight edge….

I won’t take you through every entry in the index - as a professor I should leave that for you as homework - but I would like to share a few thematic comments:

The Book of Mormon IS a second witness that the Lord is God (2 Ne. 29:8), and it’s much easier to understand, in my opinion because it is a book that was translated into English by the power of God.

The Book of Mormon AFFIRMS that repentance is available to all, not just a few (2 Ne. 3:9-20); that the Lord and Heavenly father have a timetable for the world and for me (Morm. 5:12); that God will not be mocked (the 116 lost pages); and that things on earth will get worse before they get better (Morm. 8:16). (Luckily we a survival kit for that!)

The Book of Mormon REFUTES the incorrect beliefs and practices of others (2 Ne. 27:29); and the notion that Joseph Smith was a fraud (Ether 5:4).

The Book of Mormon FULFILLS the bringing together the sticks or tribes of Israel and Ephraim; and Moroni’s claim that what he wrote is true (Mor. 10:4).

The Book of Mormon CLARIFIES that to believe in Jesus Christ is to believe in this book (2 Ne. 33:10); it clarifies to the Lamanites their true and correct history (Enos 1:16); it clarifies the covenants that we make with God.

The Book of Mormon REVEALS additional covenants that we make; it reveals to our children that Jesus Christ is their Saviour (2 Ne. 25:2); that people will be gathered to their homes and that God’s word will be gathered to one (2 Ne. 29:12-14); it reveals light in a time of darkness (Morm. 8:16).

Having made my lists, it struck me that the categories with the most entries were AFFIRMS, FULFILLS, and REVEALS. I think those terms sum up the Book of Mormon pretty well!

Out of Small Things (1:16)

Consider Doctrine and Covenants 64:33, which says

Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.

With that verse in mind I’d like to read a passage from President Marion G. Romney’s April 1980 General Conference Talk:

I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, both by themselves and with their children, the spirit of that great book will come to permeate our homes and all who dwell therein. The spirit of reverence will increase; mutual respect and consideration for each other will grow. The spirit of contention will depart. Parents will counsel their children in greater love and wisdom. Children will be more responsive and submissive to the counsel of their parents. Righteousness will increase. Faith, hope, and charity—the pure love of Christ—will abound in our homes and lives, bringing in their wake peace, joy, and happiness.⁴

It can truly be that by the small thing of reading the Book of Mormon in our homes that great things can come to be.

Blessings of the Book of Mormon (5:47)

President Nelson related in his talk an experience of one of his grandaughters on her mission.

Immersing ourselves regularly in the truths of the Book of Mormon can be a life-changing experience. One of our missionary granddaughters, Sister Olivia Nelson, promised an investigator that if he would read the Book of Mormon daily, his test scores on his university exams would improve. He did, and they did.

How could it be that reading the Book of Mormon helped someone do better in school? It’s reasonable to expect that, as one studies the Book of Mormon more, they will have a stronger desire to draw close to God, and will pray to know Father’s will, and to have the strength to do it. This desire for closeness, and the habit of prayer, would inevitably lead to a request to have one’s mind expanded, to understand the topic of study, and so on. I think there’s another piece to it as well. We are meant to be proactive creatures, not reactive ones. Being diligent in our scripture study would certainly cause us to be more diligent and structured in our academic pursuits; we would become less prone to being tossed about by the winds of life. And the Holy Ghost might be more inclined to whisper the correct answer in my ear, or help me recall what to say in a classroom discussion.

My conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is rooted in the Book of Mormon. I was given a missionary copy by some elders who’d been sent to my home by an LDS friend. I missed that yellow bookmark that said, “Read this verse, then this verse, then pray about what you’ve read.” I knew nothing about this book, and my first introduction was,”I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents.” I had no idea what kind of ride I was in for! I read steadily for a week, and then it was General Conference, October 2004. I went with my friend to the Sunday morning session and watched a series of old guys get up and talk - I had no idea what was happening, but I liked it. I’m pretty sure that was my first time attending an LDS meeting. The last fellow got up, and started talking about “The Women in Our Lives” - how valuable & important & crucial they are. I heard a different message, and it was exactly what I needed in that moment.

I went home and kept reading for another week. The following Sunday I went back to that same building and the experience was totally different. I found myself in the overflow, before the meeting began, sobbing, weeping, shaking uncontrollably. I had no idea what was happening to me, but I knew that I was making a scene...and that I needed a Kleenex. My friend’s brother, whom I had met one time, volunteered to come back to the church after his block was over, so that I would have someone to sit with. This was, I learned later, a Fast & Testimony meeting. This brother had not borne his testimony in his home ward, but he got up and talked about how he’d not always represented the church well as a young man, and how he hope others in the congregation would forgive him. That was it! As soon as he said the word “forgive” I knew what my body was doing. I was being taught by the Holy Spirit that I needed forgiveness, and that I had finally come to the right place where I could receive it, and I had been sufficiently prepared to understand it, for I had been reading the Book of Mormon. On the advice of that ward’s bishop, I went home that night and read Alms chapter 36. As soon as I read the first verse,

My son, give ear to my words; for I swear unto you, that inasmuch as ye shall keep the commandments of God ye shall prosper in the land.

I started weeping again, but this time I understood that I was being visited by the Holy Ghost. In that moment, the evening of Sunday October 10th, 2004, with that blue copy of the Book of Mormon, I was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The rest of it, meeting with the missionaries, the baptism, the confirmation & the Holy Ghost, conferring of the priesthood - these were all necessary, but - they were formalities. I have been richly blessed for my efforts heretofore, and recognize that I am far from done.

To paraphrase President Wolfley, when we taught him what we had learned from our studies:

You want to be a force for good in your family, in your community, at your work? Read the Book of Mormon. The Holy Spirit can only work with what is there. So put something there!   

Testimony (0:38)

Brothers and sisters, thank you for letting me spend a few moments with you today. I testify that if we can have the mindfulness to place the Book of Mormon at the top of our already-full priority list then we will start to recognize the miracles that happen in our lives. If we can have the courage to live worthy of our covenants, and seek after the Holy Spirit, the cycle will be more complete, and the Book of Mormon will become more important to us. I leave this with you in the name of our beloved Savior, Jesus the Christ.

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Amen.

1. “The Book of Mormon: What Would Your Life Be Like Without It?” Russell M. Nelson General Conference October 2017.

2. “The Power of the Book of Mormon” Thomas S. Monson General Conference April 2017.

3. Nelson, ibid.

4. “The Book of Mormon” Marion G. Romney April 1980