The scriptures are amazing

December 17, 2008

Okay, I have 22 minutes to hurry up and tell you what I think will be the most beneficial thing for all of my friends and family to hear. Ahhh. Now only 21 minutes...okay

The scriptures are amazing. I've always had a hard time with the scriptures. They'd bore me. I wouldn't be able to pay attention to anything that was going on. I knew they were important, but I was overwhelmed by the amount of work it took for me to get anything out of the scrambled jumble of words. But after spending two weeks doing nothing but learning from the scriptures, I've had a change of heart. I want to suggest to you how to study the scriptures so that they will have a more profound impact on your life.

Use "Preach My Gospel." I've had a hard time with PMG too cause its also really boring to me. All it does is give basic principles that I already know. But I've learned that you have to use the scriptures and PMG together and all of the sudden it all makes sense. Everything falls in place and the scriptures become incredible books of poetry that teach eternal truths and PMG is your guide book to understanding the poetry. Don't just read through PMG looking up the scriptures it asks for. I mean, you can do that, but I'm a verbal and hands on learner. So my suggestion to you is to learn lessons one and two and make your own personal lesson plans that are 1 min long, 10 minutes long, and 20 minutes long. Then practice teaching them to each other. Don't worry about teaching something they already know, just teach each other and you'll be amazed how much you learn because you'll start making connections that you didn't know existed. You'll start learning that the book of mormon teaches over and over the principles found in the first two lessons, only the Book of Mormon does it in a much more eloquent and interesting way. But until you know what its talking about it will be a mess of confusion.

Now I know all the returned missionaries are rolling their eyes because they remember when they were here being taught the same method of learning/teaching, but I wish now that one of my RM friend's had've taught me this method. I guess that's why I'm sharing it now. Don't wait to share the gospel to a non-member. I've been teaching fellow missionaries for two weeks and we are better for it. Our testimonies are stronger and we are taking part in the salvation of each other's souls. Teach the gospel to each other! I'll write a more interesting and entertaining letter later, but this is the most imporant message I have to share right now

~sis. johnson