Sisters in Scriptures Podcast

Sisters in Scriptures
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A Scripture Class in the SL Olympus Stake

  1. 4d ago

    Sept 29 2026 1 Nephi 16-18 by Anita Leimbach

    Sisters in Scriptures 92926pdfDownload Transcript Duration: ~45:52 I’m happy to be here today. I’m even happier that all the technology is working. Nobody’s been praying harder for that than me. We’re glad. I just want to say at the first, I know people listen to this on podcasts, because I’ve been listening on podcasts. If you are listening on podcasts and would like to see the slides that I show, if you will just email me, I will send them to you so you can look at those. And my email is—if you promise not to send me any offers for diamonds—you can do it to anita lineback at gmail dot com. Okay, so it’s really easy. So today we’re talking about First Nephi sixteen to eighteen, and I titled this Directors, Cycles, and Ships. As I was reading this, I just was overwhelmed with the cycles that I kept seeing. And here’s the cycles I see in Lehi’s family, okay? There comes a problem, or a bump in the road, and then immediately there’s murmuring, and then after murmuring and whatever else goes on with that, there’s chastisement, and then there’s repentance, and then we come to another bump in the road, and there’s murmuring, chastisement, repentance, and it just keeps going on and on. And we’re going to see a number of those today in the reading that we have. When we last left them, they were camping in the wilderness outside Jerusalem. This is an overview of Lehi’s journey. This is a map somebody made that I trust they know what they’re talking about, but I will make no claims for its authenticity except that it seems right to me. Lehi and his family have been camping in the desert outside of Jerusalem, so they’ve been going back and forth, right? Get the plates, get some wives, get all of that stuff. And now this map of the Arabian Peninsula: they are going to travel down the east side of the Red Sea, and there’s a whole bunch of little places that they camped, apparently, and this is mountainous terrain, and then at the bottom they sort of make a left turn and they end up along the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula. That’s a journey of about twenty-two hundred miles. I started thinking about that and I thought about what other journeys do we know. Well, the pioneers coming to Utah from various places in Missouri went about two thousand miles. The children of Israel wandered in the desert, and from Egypt to the promised land was about two hundred and fifty miles. So this is the math portion of the program today. I was very excited about this. How long—if you’re going twenty-two hundred miles and it took them eight years—somehow I’ve never clicked in that it was eight years that they went. That’s going two hundred and seventy-five miles per year. If you’re the children of Israel going the 250 miles, they’re going 6.25 miles per year—not a real burning speed. And the pioneers were going about 15 miles per day. I just like doing a little math once in a while. Here we go. They’re getting ready to start their journey. And it came to pass—I’m in First Nephi 16 verse 9—and it came to pass that the voice of the Lord spake unto my father by night, and commanded him that on the morrow he should take his journey into the wilderness. And it came to pass that as my father arose in the morning and went forth to the tent door, to his great astonishment he beheld upon the ground a round ball of curious workmanship, and it was of fine brass, and within the ball were two spindles, and the one pointed the way whither we should go into the wilderness. And it came to pass that we did gather together whatsoever things we should carry into the wilderness, and all the remainder of our provisions which the Lord had given unto us, and we did take seed of every kind that we might carry into the wilderness. Now this is amazing. The Lord tells him that night, “Okay, tomorrow you’re going to go in the wilderness,” and then that morning he finds this director outside his tent door. It just sounds fantastical, doesn’t it? This small thing that would point where you would go, and even we’ll find out later it has things written on it. How in the world could something like that happen? Do we have anything like that today? I mean, before Google Maps, here it is, and it’s telling you. So they’ve got this—I want to say magical, but that’s not the right word. They’ve got this ball that will tell them where to go for eight years. No battery recharging, nothing like that. I’ve always thought that we need to liken the scriptures to ourselves. That’s a direct quote from some scripture. And I started looking, and I found an example of where they actually did this in the Book of Mormon. And I’m going to Alma 37. And now my son, I have somewhat to say concerning the thing which our fathers call a ball or director—or our fathers called it Liahona, which is, being interpreted, a compass—and the Lord prepared it. And behold, there cannot any man work after the manner of so curious a workmanship. And behold, it was prepared to show unto our fathers the course which they should travel in the wilderness. And it did work for them according to their faith in God. Therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go, behold, it was done. Therefore they had this miracle, and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God day by day. And this is where Alma starts likening it. Nevertheless, because those miracles were worked by small means, it did show unto them marvelous works. They were slothful, and forgot to exercise their faith and diligence, and then those marvelous works ceased, and they did not progress in their journey. Therefore they tarried in the wilderness, or did not travel a direct course, and were afflicted with hunger and thirst because of their transgressions. And now, my son, I would that ye should understand that these things are not without a shadow. For as our fathers were slothful to give heed to this compass—now these things were temporal—they did not prosper. Even so it is with things which are spiritual. For behold, it is as easy to give heed to the word of Christ, which will point to you a straight course to eternal bliss, as it was for our fathers to give heed to this compass, which would point them a straight course to the promised land. I find that so interesting that Alma is likening—and I don’t know how he’s reading those plates or he just knows the story—how he’s likening the Liahona to them. And for those of you keeping score at home, the Liahona is only mentioned once in the Book of Mormon, and it’s right here in Alma 37. It’s always just called the directors otherwise. Now Alma’s preaching to his people and he’s using the Liahona, and then I went down a rabbit hole. Because what does Liahona mean? They said it was a director, but I found an article by Jonathan Kirche called “The Direction of the Lord: An Etymological Explanation.” Etymology means the history of a word. And he says the name Liahona, although it appears only once in the Book of Mormon text, has drawn the rapt attention of the curious and the learned. My contribution builds upon past efforts to explain the possible etymological meaning of the name Liahona. I offer what I argue to be a more plausible explanation than those of my predecessors in light of the Lehites’ linguistic background. My approach is to transliterate back into the Hebraic idioms of the time of Lehi what I perceived that Joseph Smith saw or heard and dictated. I was really excited about this because I love vocabulary, and I know I’m an old English teacher so that just turns lots of people off. But he said he wanted to look at what, if Lehi was writing in Hebraic terms, those terms would have been that Joseph Smith would have heard or seen in his translation. And then he presents the grammatical elements used to form the name Liahona, which he shows to mean quite literally “to Yahweh is the whither,” or by interpretation “direction of or to the Lord.” I thought that was really exciting. I can see that not everybody here is as excited about that, but I was excited about that. I really like this name—direction of or to the Lord. Now, has anyone besides Lehi and his family and his followers ever seen the Liahona? I want you to just turn to a neighbor and say yes or no. Okay. All right, let me point you to D&C section 17 verse 1. Behold, I say unto you—and he is talking to Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, three witnesses—Behold, I say unto you that you must rely upon my word, which if you do with full purpose of heart, you shall have a view of the plates, and also of the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, which were given to the brother of Jared upon the mount when he talked with the Lord face to face, and the miraculous directors which were given to Lehi while in the wilderness on the borders of the Red Sea. Now we have no official documentation that they saw all these things. But we also have no official documentation that they did not see these things. And I thought, oh, so I started researching, and I found some stuff, and I really wanted to show you it, but I couldn’t find it from any source that I was comfortable to put on a slide in front of all you ladies if it turned out to be bunk. But then I did find something somewhere that I was comfortable with. This is Revelations in Context, and the chapter is “The Experience of the Three Witnesses.” Days later, the prophecy was dramatically fulfilled. It was in the latter part of June 1829, David Whitmer wrote. Joseph, Oliver Cowdery, and myself were together, and the angels showed them the plates to us. We were sitting on a log when we were overshadowed by a light more glorious than

  2. Sep 22

    Sept 22 2026 1 Nephi 13-15 by Nancy Baird

    TranscriptDuration: ~58:30 [0:06] It’s so beautiful to see you all walking in. It’s like rain, the rain to me. [0:16] So today we are doing First Nephi thirteen through fifteen. And it’s the chapters thirteen and fourteen are the second half of Nephi’s vision. So we did the first half last week. [0:47] Because it will all end with John, I’m gonna start with John, the apostle. This is John 1:1. When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was. The Word then was with God at the beginning, and through Him all things came to be. No single thing was created without Him. All that came to be was alive with His life, and that life is the light of men. The light shines on in the dark, and the darkness has never mastered it. I want to read that last line again, because of our chapters. The darkness has never mastered it. [1:48] So that is John the Revelator, who the angel tells Nephi in his vision to write the things concerning the end of the world, and also many things which have been. That’s in 1 Nephi 14:21. John is to write them, not Nephi, although Nephi also saw them, and that’s what happened. [2:21] I read a comment about these chapters 13 and 14, that they’re not easy reading, that they’re like walking through sand. And the word that came to me is that they are thick. They’re very thick. The stuff of the teachings or what happens in these chapters, they’re all over the place. It’s like a play with entrances and exits of people and events along with prophecies and doom. It’s world history seen through the lens of the house of Israel. But it’s not Nephi’s doing. He’s just describing the vision he was given and what the angel, who is his guide, is telling him. So he is trying to recreate this spectacular vision that begins in chapter eleven and goes through the end of fourteen. It’s this huge sweeping vision encompassing the tale of the house of Israel and the movement of the Gentiles and their interactions with the house of Israel as God moves them, almost like chess pieces, to bring to pass somehow what he needs to happen. There’s my chessboard. And when one plan doesn’t work, God pivots to another one. And because of course he’s working through willful and unbelieving humans, he has to bring in other pieces. It’s more than an allegory of the olive tree, although that’s also in our chapter fifteen, where the branches are taken off and grafted in again. And then Nephi talks about this allegory at least four more times in his books. [5:04] It’s not Lehi’s gentle vision that Nephi relates in these chapters. Lehi’s is in chapter eight. Muhammad, as he was having his… well, let me ask you first, how long do you think Lehi and Nephi’s vision lasted? We don’t know, so you can guess. But Muhammad and his important and fundamental vision for Muslims said that he spilled a glass of wine as he went to sleep, received his vision, and when he woke up, the wine was still spilling from the glass. So these experiences are without time. I brought my glass and I forgot the wine. No, I’m just kidding. [6:25] Open your books if you have your books to thirteen, First Nephi thirteen. The angel talks about two books. This is in verse forty-one. And these books will come out at the end of time, kind of the end. They must come, this is verse forty-one, according to the words of the Lamb, and the words of the Lamb shall be made known in the records of thy seed, as well as in the records of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, wherefore they both shall be established in one, for there is one God and one shepherd over all the earth. So we’ll get two books. When Nephi is writing all this down, does he realize that what he is writing will be in one of these books? I thought that was an interesting question. [7:35] When our children were growing up, my husband John would bring them together at night, all of us, and read scripture and have a prayer, a family prayer. And our number two daughter, Lissa, would sometimes lock herself in her room by shoving a three-ring binder under the door, about this big, but it worked great because she didn’t have a lock. My husband would get somewhat annoyed about her refusal to come up until one day when I said to him, if you keep doing that, you’re gonna lose her. So sometimes it takes two experimenting parents to remain calm. Then John would go down and read one verse to her: “Jesus wept,” or “remember Lot’s wife,” or “pray without ceasing,” or “thou shalt not murder.” And then he would leave her alone. It’s not like she was doing drugs. She was studying for AP biology. She just didn’t want to come. She’s the child who stowed her friend’s split lip together with dental floss at a cabin one winter night when they went sledding off a cliff. This is a very unusual child. That was all about reading the books. [9:31] So in First Nephi twelve, when it ends after we see the great and spacious building right at the end, Nephi sees his people overcome by the seed of his brothers. And it says the Lamanites and the mixture of people left, so they were Nephites mixed in, right? Continue fighting in wars and rumors of wars through many generations. In other words, they just keep killing each other. That’s in twelve, twenty-one. And Nephi sees them dwindle in unbelief and become a dark and loathsome and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations. They didn’t start out that way; they became that way. [10:47] Scott Peck, who wrote The Road Less Traveled, also wrote this interesting book called People of the Lie. It’s older, but he’s a psychiatrist, and it is the hope for healing human evil. It’s about people who are evil. And it’s not easy reading. But he said that laziness or sloth—remember this verse just said that the people had become full of idleness—laziness or sloth is the most basic of sins. That it is boredom with divine things. Inertia that cannot be troubled to repent, even though it sees the abyss into which the soul is falling. [12:09] So that’s our stage for chapter thirteen, where the angel who is Nephi’s guide turns Nephi’s focus to the Gentiles and their nations and kingdoms to the world. And this great sweep of history begins. And right away in thirteen and five, the angel shows him the formation of a great church. And the angel said unto me, Behold, the formation of a church which is most abominable of all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God and tortures them and binds them down and yokes them with a yoke of iron and brings them down into captivity. And I saw the devil that he was the founder of it. So that is the great and abominable church. Well, the definition of a church is a gathering of people. It’s not a building. And it’s not just one church. John in Revelation calls this abominable church Babylon, where everything is for sale, including integrity. And I suppose that’s why it’s called the whore of all the earth, the great and abominable church. [13:53] This is 14:10 and 11, and the angel said unto me, there are save two churches only, the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil, wherefore whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God, belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations. She’s the whore of all the earth, and she sat upon many waters, and she had dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people. In other words, there are two great forces battling for humankind and their souls. C.S. Lewis said there is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan. [14:59] But God is merciful to the Gentiles and they are blessed by him and he begins to move. Here’s one of the entrances. This is thirteen and twelve. And here it starts. The spirit of God comes down and wrought upon a man and he went forth upon the many waters into the promised land. So who is that? Yeah, Columbus. [15:39] Thirteen and fourteen, and all these Gentiles scatter and smite the Lamanites because the wrath of God is on the Lamanites. And fifteen, the Gentiles prosper and obtain land, and the spirit of the Lord was upon the Gentiles, and then seventeen through nineteen, the mother Gentiles were gathered together upon the waters and upon the land also to battle against them. The power of God was with them, and they were delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations, which were… what nations? England, but also Spain and France. George Washington had to fight them all. Richard Bushman said that the American Republic makes only a cameo appearance in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon allows just nine verses to the deliverance of the Gentiles from English rule, and the rest of the book concentrates on the deliverance of Israel. [17:03] So what do we believe is happening with these Gentiles coming? A lot of bad things happen to the native people, but we believe that God was moving, don’t we? He was preparing the promised land for the restoration of the gospel. Because Joseph Smith was born in 1805, fourteen years after the Bill of Rights secured religious freedom. And I might add, and this is just me, but it took a while, but in 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment passed finally, which was the abolition of slavery. [17:58] So one of our patrons in the temple served a mission in Russia and told us of a man she knew in Russia who was searching on the internet for jobs in America and later on the street. He’s arrested and is still in prison. So it’s good to be reminded that despite all of our many problems in this great country, we have so much we can be thankful for. And it does

  3. Sep 15

    Sept 15 2026 1 Nephi 8-12 by Morrissa Rich

    Transcript: Lehi’s Dream — 1 Nephi 8–12 Thank you for the love that you bring into this room, the love of the Savior, and the love of each other. This is a unique experience here, because you are here only because you want to be. Same with me. A word about my use of the slides, for those of you who weren’t here when I made this explanation last year. Because of my granny eyes, I can’t see regular font, I can’t read regular font on a regular eight-and-a-half by eleven sheet of paper. And so these slides are my notes. There are a lot of them, but that’s the way I keep track of what we’re talking about. But let’s start with Christ. Elder Holland said, at the very outset of the Book of Mormon, in its first fully developed allegory—we’re going to talk about the tree today—Christ is portrayed as the source of eternal life and joy, and the living evidence of divine love. We’re working a little bit with the mic this morning because it needs to be pretty loud for the Zoom to be effective. You can hear me okay? Am I too loud? Okay. We’re talking today about 1 Nephi. Look, I left off the “First” in Nephi. That won’t be the first error you see, or the only one. 1 Nephi 8 through 12, that’s our assignment today, is about Christ’s invitation to partake of God’s love. It’s about Lehi’s dream, it’s about Lehi and Sariah’s family, and it’s about your and my family, and it’s also about Nephi’s revelation. Scholars have interpreted this allegory in many ways, and it’s fascinating to read the many interpretations of this dream. Some have interpreted it as temple imagery, some as the Garden of Eden and the Fall, some as the Abrahamic covenant, some as the 23rd Psalm—“yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”—and so on. It’s also been interpreted as mankind’s spiritual progression throughout his life, and a lot of others too. If you ever wanted to have a lot of fun, start looking at all the ways that this vision of Lehi has been interpreted. These chapters provide endless opportunities for learning, discussion, and inspiration. But today we will focus only on Lehi’s dream and what it can mean in our lives. That necessarily leaves out much of interest and importance. Remember, it’s going to leave out a lot of stuff. So if you leave here and say, “Why didn’t she talk about that?” don’t worry about it. The other instructors will get to it. This is not your first or last reading and learning about Lehi’s dream. As a result, you bring a wealth of insight into today’s discussion, and that’s what we’re going to do. I hope you’re sitting by someone you like, because you get a chance to talk to them today. Hi, Andrea. Are you my go-to girl? What we’re going to do is just a quick overview of Lehi’s dream and Nephi’s vision. Lehi, as you know, is shown a dark and dreary wilderness, the tree with white fruit, a river with filthy water, a rod of iron, a straight and narrow path, a mist of darkness, and a great and spacious building. Nephi is shown a guiding spirit, the tree and its meaning, Christ’s birth, baptism, and ministry, the covenant path, spiritual opposition, the scattering of Israel, pride and worldly wisdom, and the restoration of the gospel. Now, it’s not that Lehi didn’t know these things, but they weren’t all in his dream spelled out the way they were for Nephi. Lehi sees the journey of individuals toward the tree, while Nephi sees the larger story of Christ, Israel, the restoration, and the struggle between God’s kingdoms and the world. Nephi’s vision turns Lehi’s symbolic dream into a vision of Jesus Christ and the history of God’s work among His children. Nephi’s vision doesn’t replace Lehi’s vision, but it explains it and greatly expands it. As you know, Lehi’s dream shows his concern for his family’s spiritual welfare. So we’re going to talk today about what we can learn from Lehi’s dream about our own and our loved ones’ spiritual welfare. I’m going to show you a video. This is one you’ve seen before. It was part of the Come Follow Me manual, and it’s an eight-minute-long video. I’m not going to show the whole eight minutes. What I’ve done is I’ve chopped it up into segments, and we’re going to talk about those segments as we go through this lesson. Once again, remember, even though the reading covers some of Nephi’s dream—and Nancy will discuss that next week—we’re going to focus on Lehi’s experience. These are a little choppy, so don’t be disturbed if they look and sound choppy, because they are. But let’s get started. [Video clip]“I saw in my dream a dark and dreary world.”By the way, it’s dark because you can’t see it because it’s dark.“Lehi. Come with me.” So you’ve seen a dark and dreary waste, and you’ve seen Lehi offer a prayer for deliverance. He said, “And after I had traveled for the space of many hours in darkness, I began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me according to the multitude of his tender mercies.” I have a video here. This is a Church-produced video. Let’s watch that and then let’s talk about it. [Video: woman’s testimony about depression]I could draw a picture of what depression looks like. It’s chaotic. It’s dark. It’s like being literally in the middle of a storm that you cannot see what direction is up, what direction is down, and it’s just closing in on you. And you’re just desperate to see some kind of light break through the darkness, the storms, the craziness, the chaos that is just all-consuming. So 22 years ago I was pregnant with my third child, and I was not wanting to get pregnant right away, but I felt very impressed that it was time. And so I went ahead and followed that, and five months later I felt like I was losing my mind. It wasn’t just the baby blues. I wanted to lash out at people, and I didn’t enjoy anything that I once did enjoy. It was just like the lights had gone out in me, and I couldn’t figure out what had happened and what was going on. I was in my doctor’s office, and she had me take this test, and when she came in she said, “You have severe depression, major depressive disorder is what this is called.” And I remember just sitting there like in shock, because in my world at that time that meant that I didn’t have enough faith. It meant I was weak. It meant I wasn’t strong enough. And yet I had just done something courageous. So as a result, my anger toward God just got greater and greater and greater. I thought He had left, He had abandoned me, or that I was so dark and evil that this was punishment. So I go to counseling when I need to—I know when I need to—and lots of meditation, prayer, scriptures. But in the beginning none of it worked because I was so angry with God. And so although I didn’t feel like God cared, I didn’t feel like He was listening to me, I continued to go to church, I continued to read the scriptures, I never stopped praying. And so honestly I think that was one of the greatest gifts I gave myself, because three or so years into that anger, when I was finally able to listen and hear, there was a means for that to be communicated. But I also know deep in my heart that there is a greater purpose. I truly believe that going through depression is helping me to fulfill the mission that I wanted to have on earth. I’ve learned so much, not only about the character and nature of our Heavenly Father and Savior, but also the ruthlessness of the adversary and his trips, traps, and snares. And so if going through this helps me to help somebody else recognize the lies from the truth, it’s worth it. So what can be the benefit of a darkened and dreary waste? Has the Lord’s mercy delivered you or someone you know from a dark and dreary place? Have you been blessed by your experience in a dark and dreary place? How have God’s tender mercies comforted you in dark times? Now let’s take a few minutes to talk about those. Will you choose one or all of these questions and chat with the person or persons next to you and see how a dark and dreary place has been in your life or the life of someone you know—perhaps grieving for a spouse who’s died, a child you’ve lost? Will you please take a few minutes to do that? Thank you. [Discussion time] Aren’t we blessed to have each other? Tell me, is there something you’d like to share with all of us? We have a couple of mics. Something that you said or your friend said that you think we could… oh, here’s a hand here, Jill. Jill: I haven’t shared this experience before, and I don’t know—anyway, so if you’ve heard it I am so sorry—but there was a time in my life that I’d given up hope and given up trying, and it just lasted for a long time. And you don’t want to be in that dark spot. You don’t want to be in giving up hope. And I remember I woke up one night. I was functioning like a robot. You just kind of go on, do your thing and whatever. And my life is not like the storybook life. You come to earth, you gain a body, you keep the commandments—and that’s where it gets dicey. And then you go home and you’re home, meaning to our Father in Heaven, and everything’s happy and joyful and everything. That part of keeping the commandments—not that I wasn’t trying to keep the commandments, but life is hard. So anyway, long story short, I woke up in the middle of the night one night, and I was covered with perspiration. I mean, my night clothes were wet. And I’ve never been so terrified in my life. I’ve been held at gunpoint in a bank robbery, and that was a walk in the daisy field. But this was terrifying. And when the woman was going in the water and sinking, you felt the—I felt the weight of

  4. Sep 8

    Sept 8 2026 1 Nephi 2-7 by Anita Leimbach

    Sisters in Scripture 9826 pdfDownload TranscriptDuration: ~47 minutes I am excited to be here because I’ve learned how to rename my emotions. Instead of saying I’m nervous, I’m excited. I have to tell you, this spring I retired from teaching after fifty years. So this is a really hard thing for me to be right here, right now, and not say a few things that I’ve been saying for fifty years. I’m glad you’re all here. They haven’t given me a role, and I will just say, you can sit by your friends today, but if there’s a problem, I am not above making a seating chart. Okay? And extra points for everybody who read the sign and picked up the piece of paper on the chairs as we came out—you get extra points on that. All right, so today we are—these last few weeks we are starting reading the Book of Mormon, and I’ve got to tell you, I thought, how many hundreds of times have the ladies in this room read the Book of Mormon? I bet if we tallied up all the numbers of times you personally have read the Book of Mormon, we’d be in the hundreds and maybe the thousands. And I thought, what in the world can I bring to this group with all the times that we’ve read the Book of Mormon? No, I’m fine. Thanks. Is this better? Oh yeah, okay. All right, so I thought what I’m gonna ask you is: how are you going to read the Book of Mormon this time? I don’t know if you remember this a few years ago, President Nelson talked about reading the Book of Mormon, and this is how he looks when he’s reading the Book of Mormon. He says the Book of Mormon is filled with truth. If you read it daily, you will have more truth and power in your life. It teaches us about the premortal world and the purpose of life. It gives more understanding about the atonement of Jesus Christ than any other book of scripture, and teaches us about the reality of God the Father, his son Jesus Christ, and the holy priesthood. Studying daily from its pages will affect your life in a way no other book can. Well, I gotta be honest. This is not how typically I read the Book of Mormon. Although this is how I read the Book of Mormon this last week for preparing this lesson. But I had an issue, and I’m old enough now that I can’t tell you if this was three years or twenty-five years ago, but I think it was about fifteen years ago. I looked at it—it was time to start the Book of Mormon again—and I thought, I’m not getting that much out of it. I’ve read it a number of times, and this is how I’m reading it: blah, blah, blah. Oh, here’s this story where Nephi has a dream, blah, blah, blah. Oh, they go back to Jerusalem, blah, blah, blah. Oh, here’s the Liahona, here’s this, oh, here’s Second Nephi. I was reading story to story and mark scripture to mark scripture. That’s how I was reading the Book of Mormon. And I thought, I’ve got to do something different. So I looked at different Book of Mormons, and I brought a few here today that I looked at. Some people call this the Old Faithful or the Blue Book. This is the one I read in seminary. I call it the steroid edition, because it’s the first one with the Arnold Friberg illustrations in it. Think about that. I’m going to say that once more. I call it the steroid edition because it has the Arnold Friberg illustrations in it. And it doesn’t have many footnotes, and the footnotes it has are all just within the Book of Mormon. Nowadays you can buy a facsimile of the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, and it’s interesting because it’s in chapters, but there’s no verses. And when you read it, it’s more like re-reading a story, a narrative. But I looked at it—my eyes are bad, the printing is not really easy to read. I didn’t look at this very long, but this is a 1920 edition where they put the first time they did double columns, and they have scriptures and chapters and verses. And then if you remember when President Hinckley was making the big outreach to the world, he actually allowed indie book publishers to publish versions for like Barnes and Noble, for bookstores. And this one, it says Another Testament of Christ, it’s got chapter and verses, no footnotes. It’s the 1920 version. And then this one that was written by Penguin, because it is a Penguin classic, and it is actually the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon. It was the last edition edited by Joseph Smith before he was killed. I got quite excited about this, you can see. Then I got this version, the Book of Mormon Restored Covenant edition. This is by the RLDS, Community of Christ now. Version, which is the 1908 edition. It’s got all the verses, but the book of Nephi, there’s only seven chapters, so think how long those chapters are. So only divided into seven chapters. And I was really excited about this because it has all the words of Christ in red. And when I was a kid, the Bible we had at our house had all the words of Christ in red. And I thought, oh, this is pretty good. And then this is a gift issue edition of the Book of Mormon. I got to be honest, I think this is way too dangerous to read unless you’re sitting at a table, because if I should drop this or fall asleep or something, it would kill you if it dropped on you. But I liked it because it’s got all the illustrations by Minerva Teichert. So this is the post-steroid edition of the Book of Mormon. Well, I didn’t recite on any of those, but I knew I needed to do it in a different way. And then I remembered, wait a minute, you’re a reading teacher. And I had an aha moment. I remembered I was a reading teacher. I had an aha moment. And I said, I remember something that I have been teaching my reading classes for years. And so this is what I did. I got a two-dollar Book of Mormon from distribution. No markings in it at all. And I said, we say it’s another testament of Christ. I’m going to prove it. And so I got my red pencil out and I said, as I read this Book of Mormon, I am going to mark every time Christ speaks or there’s a prophecy about Christ, anything to do with Christ, and that’s how I’m going to read this Book of Mormon. And I will tell you, it was the best reading I have ever done of the Book of Mormon. In fact, when I finished, I said, I think I’d like to read it again, but how am I going to do it this time? And I decided to turn my red-blue pencil upside down and use the blue side, and this time I went through and marked all the times that they talked about the atonement. And I was astounded that with the exception of one book—and now I can’t remember the book, I think it’s Words of Mormon—there was something I marked in every book of Mormon about the atonement. So I thought, what better way—and it is the first day of school for me—so everybody who picked up a piece of paper from the back, if you would pick up that, get your piece of paper, and if you didn’t, hurry and grab one. This is the cheesiest, crappiest handout you’ll ever get in this building, because it’s a piece of paper, and you have to make it yourself. So this is what I call—well, let me go. This is the piece of paper. If you don’t want to do this, I can’t imagine why not, you can on a piece of paper with yourself just draw two lines. But what I want you to do is take your piece of paper and you’re going to fold it in thirds. Hold it landscape, fold it in thirds. You didn’t know there was going to be arts and crafts today, did you? Okay. What you’ve just made, we in the education biz call a graphic organizer. And this organizer is a KWL chart. And the KWL chart stands for something important. And you will put a K, a W, and an L at the head of each column because we are going to set a purpose for reading. The reason I got so much out of reading the Book of Mormon when I was looking for Christ and when I was looking for the atonement is because I set a purpose for reading. I wasn’t just reading from story to story. It wasn’t just another reading. So, Know is under the first column. The second column is What I Want to Know. And the third column is Learn. Now under the Know column, we’re not—I’m not going to worry about that today because I know you know a lot about the Book of Mormon. And you can fill this out if you want or you don’t have to, but maybe you just know that this is a book of scripture, I have a testimony of it, whatever you feel like you need to know, but I don’t care what you put, if you put anything. Here’s the most important column right now: What I Want to Know. And when I started, the first time I did, I said, where is Christ in the Book of Mormon? That’s what I put on my chart. The second time through, I said, what about the atonement in the Book of Mormon? And as I was contemplating the lesson this week, Nephi 2 through 7, I thought, all these women in here are going to know these stories backwards and forwards. What can I do? What can I see in this that is more than just the narrative? What am I going to see? And this is what I came up with: How can I, Anita, hear the voice of the Lord? And as I read this, I started paying attention to every time the Lord speaks or makes manifest something that he wants done. Now, we’re going to leave the Learn blank because that is what I would expect that you would do at the end of these two years of what you’re reading and see what you find out about the Book of Mormon in your reading. It’s just a suggestion, okay? But it’s a good suggestion. And for years, the missionaries have been saying to people when they give them a Book of Mormon, they say Moroni 10:4. 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 ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in

  5. Sep 1

    Sept 1 2026 Intro to Book of Mormon by Nancy Baird

    Transcript(~50 min 42 sec | Book of Mormon class, opening lesson on 1 Nephi 1) Nancy (teacher):This is different, in a while. And I sat there with that light coming in and started to cry, so it’s not a good start for me. It was just so beautiful, and I could hear you talking. And so I wanted to say—and plus I see my children—and oh, anyway, it’s a great honor to be here, and I also thank you for being here. We have two years on the Book of Mormon. My brother-in-law said, “What are you teaching?” And I said, “Book of Mormon.” Big pause. He said, “Well, that’s nothing to know anything about.” So we’ll try. And we have a couple of new teachers that are wonderful. Hello, Emily. Is it two? Yeah, I don’t know how to—if I knew how I would, or I could put it out. Then you can see my face. It’s not boring. It’s deep. It’s wild and deep, what we will be studying. Psalm 42 says, “Deep calleth unto deep. In the roar of thy waterfalls all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.” Deep calleth unto deep. And Joseph Smith from Liberty Jail said, “Thy mind, O man, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens and search and contemplate the darkest abyss, and must be introduced into the society of the most ancient and greatest of beings.” Deep call upon the deep. So we were—let me just pause and say that occasionally I stutter. Don’t be nervous. I was just listening to an actor, this very handsome man, and they were interviewing him on NPR and said, “Now I heard that you stutter.” And he said, “Yeah, not when I act, but when I get home and let it loose.” Love this guy. Anyway, I don’t really even think about it. Well, I hope you don’t. Okay. We were on a late trip in San Diego this July, and we had bought tickets—a couple of us, a few of us—to the Chris Stapleton concert. But at the last minute the adults couldn’t go, or didn’t want to go, and so my husband John took all the teenagers to it. And they were on the grass, and every few inches there were beer venues, you know. And the day before, everyone had been—all 28 of us went to the San Diego Temple Open House. So a couple of days after the concert and the Open House we were having a family gathering, and John, my husband, asked the 14-year-old Jackson what the difference was between the Open House and the Chris Stapleton concert. And he said, “Well, there was a lot more beer at the concert.” And you gotta think about what I just said. You gotta love 14-year-olds, right? I think he was joking, but with Jackson you can never tell. Anyway, so my friends, let’s see this year if we can go deep into this beautiful, beautiful book. Leave the beer behind—which is, you know, I mean the world behind—and find openings into another world. Thomas O’Dea, a Catholic sociologist, wrote many years ago that the Book of Mormon has not been universally considered by its critics as one of those books that must be read in order to have an opinion of it. So, 1 Nephi 5:5 and 10, and we’ll start with the word. When Lehi gets the plates after his sons have brought them from Jerusalem at such cost, what does Lehi do? You don’t have to read it, but I can tell you. He takes them in his hands, and he holds them, and begins to search them and to read them. He probably had never held them before. He was not a Levite, he was not a priest. Didn’t have access. Only Laban had access to the scripture and maybe a few elders. If anybody’s out there, you can—I mean, please come in. There’s a few up here, and we don’t care. Anyway, and Lehi holding them is so overwhelmed that he begins to prophesy and worship. And I think he began to weep. I’m sure he did, holding those which he had never held himself, been able to read himself. And he says they will never be dimmed by time. So what book is he holding? What are those brass plates? See, I’ll allow you one. The Old Testament, or parts of it—the Torah, the prophets, up to Jeremiah. So right here, these books that we have are the Torah and the prophets and the writings. And of course Hebrew, you go backwards, right? But you can see the Hebrew and the translation over here. So that’s what he’s holding, right? In his hands. This is an older one that I got from one of my children, I think. It’s beautiful. In Nehemiah 8:1–9, Ezra, priest and scribe, has come back from exile with a few of the Jews. This is fifth century. Nehemiah 8:1, the people have gathered at the Water Gate in Jerusalem, and Ezra brings the book of the law of Moses before the congregation, both of men and women and all that could hear with understanding, and he begins to read from the book and cause them to understand what he was reading. And when he opened it, all the people—I’m sorry, I cry every time I read this—all the people stood up, lifted their hands, and bowed their heads and began to weep. Why did they weep? Why did those people being carried along most? Because for the first time it was not reserved only for the priests. It was for them. It was for the people, God’s people, and they were included. Anyway, go to 1 Nephi 1, and the story begins. So after his opening paragraph, which in the original Book of Mormon were one paragraph, Nephi begins with his father’s experience, Lehi’s experience, which he took from Lehi’s own record, the Book of Lehi, which was in a portion of the large plates. Lehi’s out walking around Jerusalem, listening to the prophets. You’ve been there—it’s a very windy, narrow little place. I’m trying to imagine where the prophets were at places that, you know, intersect, or where are they that he’s listening to. And they’re all prophesying doom for Jerusalem, for Israel, and Lehi begins to pray. This is 1:6. And as he prayed, there came a pillar of fire and dwelt upon a rock, and there was probably someone in the fire—there usually is in scripture. So he goes home, verses 7 and 8, and lies on his bed, and is carried away in a vision, and he sees the heavens open. Now John the Revelator in Revelation 4:1 says, “I looked and behold a door was opened in heaven.” So it’s the same experience. And I think it slid open like a sliding glass door, because I’ve seen it once. Where do you think heaven is? You can just think. Brigham Young said heaven is all around us. It’s on the earth. It’s around the earth. That’s in Discourses of Brigham Young. Anyway, verse 8 of chapter 1, Nephi writes that Lehi thinks he sees God on his throne with angels all around, as also John saw. And then Lehi [sees] one descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noonday. So here we have the first mention of Jesus Christ in verse 8 already. And after this, he’s everywhere in the book, as you know. Verse 10, there are twelve others with him who go out on the face of the earth. And verses 11 and 12, and then the one stands in front of Lehi and gave unto him a book and tells him that he should read the book. And as he reads, he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord. If we knew that every time we read God’s word we would be filled with the Spirit, would we read it more? So Lehi, verse 13, reads a prophecy that Jerusalem will be destroyed and the people in it killed and taken captive by Babylon. So here’s a question. Why is it that Lehi is to read the prophecy instead of being told the prophecy? Why is he handed a book to read? It’s almost as strange as in Revelation when John is told by an angel to eat the book, and it would be sweet as honey. The book would have been a scroll like this, right? So John does, and he eats the book, and also Ezekiel is told the exact same thing: eat the book. And Ezekiel eats it, and then… say it’s bitter in their stomach. They’d probably about throw up. Sorry. Anyway, it’s very interesting, I think. Okay? So this summer I read a book that I haven’t read since I was probably in high school. This is Jane Eyre. I mean, and then I looked, I started to read about it. It’s one of the great novels in the world that have ever been written. And it was so wonderful. I was walking around the corner of my house, and I had not really started this, and I thought, I wish I could just eat that book. It’s a very human thing. I thought it was. And then afterwards I remembered, it’s very human to read and to read. But isn’t that a great mystery that Lehi is told to read? To read means to riddle. So when you read, you unriddle, and thus you are starting to think about in scripture about the mind of God that’s beginning to come into you and you’re unriddling it. And so that is what’s happening here. We are seeing, we are unriddling God through Nephi’s mind, and he’s all through Nephi’s mind. So here’s a thought that just when Lehi and his family are about to leave Jerusalem, and the brass plates will become crucial, Lehi is given a book to read. We have this book to unriddle, begun by Nephi, carried through and abridged by Mormon, finished by Moroni—the three great narrators of the book. And there are main, minor ones, but those are the three great narrators: Mormon, Moroni, and Nephi. This is probably a good place to say that when we are reading a book, we should be aware that there is almost always two minds present, and occasionally three minds are present, when you have a prophet who quotes prophets who quotes other prophets. So you are reading through three minds working at the same time, and they’re all—there are sources that are being used, like letters and sermons and lists and poetry and geography and genealogy. It’s a complex book when you really read it as a book instead of just looking up topics, which is what I hope we can do this year. So let’s go back to what was happening in Lehi’s world. Verse 4, chapter 1 is when it really begins.

  6. May 5

    May 5 2026 Revelation 4-12 by Trina Beckstrand

    Sisters in Scriptures Podcast

  7. Apr 28

    April 28 2026 Revelation 1-3 by Nancy Baird

    Sisters in Scriptures Podcast

  8. Apr 21

    April 21 2026 2 John 3 John Jude by Morrissa Rich

    Sisters in Scriptures Podcast

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A Scripture Class in the SL Olympus Stake

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    Sisters in Scriptures
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    © 2010-2025 Scripture Class in the Salt Lake Olympus Stake, Salt Lake City, Utah Not an official site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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