From a Child

I recently read the first chapter of the new LDS Gospel Principles Manual.  It caused me to find 2 Timothy 3:14–17,

14But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; 

15And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 

16All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:  

17That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

Which so nicely summed up what I have been thinking about for weeks. I'm not quite sure if it was something in a lesson I taught or it was connected to reading the Book of Mormon with J.  But I've lately been thinking about how my parents always read the Book of Mormon to me, so it was never a hard for me to believe in the stories in the Book of Mormon.  The bedrock of my testimony is the Book of Mormon, the prophets in the Book of Mormon have always been real people to me.  I have just always known the Lehi, Nephi, Jacob, Alma, Moroni, Mormon, Abinadi, etc, were always real people, because my entire life I have read about their lives.
For weeks I've been thinking about whenever something gets hard, I can always go back to when I knew I felt the spirit or when I knew the Book of Mormon was true.  Or when I knew my husband had to do an MBA, or when I knew I had to be a mother.  Those are comforting memories to me, because being a mother is not always the easiest thing for me.
I'm glad the church has encourage the primary children to read their scriptures every day this year, because its the push we needed to finally get our act together.  Its been so fun reading 1 Nephi with J.  I think I might have already mentioned this, but he is loving the plot, we read columns each night instead of verses, because he gets so into the story line he doesn't want me to stop. When I read 2 Timothy 3:14–17, I hoped as parents we can stay on the ball, so J can have the same blessings of always knowing the Book of Mormon as me.

But back to the beginning you may be wondering why a CTR 5 Primary teacher is studying the Gospel Principles Manual. I will tell you its because my Stake President, President Wright called me to repentance a few weeks ago during ward conference.  He shared his 10 steps for Developing Stronger Obedience to the Lord:

1. Daily Personal Prayer
2. Daily Scriptures Study
3. Weekly Church Attendance
4. Regular Study from the Living Prophets (Conference Addresses, he implied at least one talk a week)
5. Weekly Priesthood/Relief Society Manual Study
6. Weekly Sunday School Lesson Study
7. Weekly Family Home Evening
8. Monthly Temple Attendance
9. Monthly Fasting during Fast Sunday
10. Monthly Home/Visiting Teaching -100%

I'll tell you the truth I'm not perfect in all these things, I did read the Old Testament with the church last year, and I'm reading the New Testament this year, but I was not studying the Gospel Principles Manual, so now I've started.  Reading it on my iPod is the perfect place because cross-referencing is just a click away, instead of a throw back to seminary scripture search. I've been trying to read two lessons a Sunday, and if I do that and factor in some weeks I won't then I should catch up with the church by June.
Another point, reading the Old Testament last year was an interesting experience there is a lot I read in there that made me question a lot.  I wondered how it could be the foundation of the same religion as mine?  But I always went back to what my father taught me as a confused trouble teenager.  He told me something didn't matter, I was positive it did matter.  He finally said what does that have to do with your relationship with the Lord?  The answer of course was nothing.  As I remembered that, and focus on I what I knew to be true, I could see the perfection of the Lord in the Old Testament and could see were it was imperfect people in a corrupt society trying their best, which helped strengthen my testimony. I actually found quite a few verses where women were treated correct and fair, proving it wasn't the Lord who brought about the culture.