Sisters in Scriptures Podcast

Sisters in Scriptures
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A Scripture Class in the SL Olympus Stake

  1. 4d ago

    Oct 20 2026 2 Nephi 4:13-8 by Anita Leimbach

    SIS 10_20_26 final 12Oct pdfDownload Transcript of the audio recording (approx. 44–45 minutes) Let me just second what she said about Judy, and I know your mother is so proud of all those lessons and all the practicing you did to be able to play so beautifully for us today. So welcome to this beautiful fall morning. I have to tell you, I’m a little bit surprised at how much I enjoyed preparing this lesson this week. I wasn’t counting on that, and I’m hopeful that you can feel some of that excitement that I felt also. Today we’re talking about Second Nephi chapters, halfway through chapter 4 through chapters 8. And during these chapters, it’s been thirty years since they left Jerusalem. Okay. We know that because Nephi talks about it; he says it’s been thirty years, and he is going back and he’s writing about all the stuff that we’ve already learned about in First Nephi, okay? He’s telling these stories. And later on in this chapter, he also talks about it being forty years, so thirty to forty years after they’ve left, he’s writing this, writing these books, and I thought, well, I’m looking out at this group, I bet most of you can remember stuff that happened thirty or forty years ago to you, you know? And because I can, and when I think back thirty or forty years, I’m thinking, oh, I was in the midst of raising teenagers, and aren’t I so glad I’m still standing here to talk to you, so this is great. So I have a much different perspective of my life thirty years ago than I did when I was in the trenches, you know, doing it. And I feel this is the same way with Nephi. He’s got a better perspective of what has happened these last years. And now he’s writing these plates. And upon these, I write the things of my soul, and many of the scriptures which are engraven upon the plates of brass. For my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them, and writeth them for the learning and the profit of my children. So here’s his purpose, and Laurie talked about this last week, about how his purpose for writing. We should have a purpose for reading. He had a purpose for writing this. Now, we start off with a very different kind of writing in this chapter than we’ve seen so far, and I’m almost not being the scholar and not being to the end of the Book of Mormon, I think this is a unique chapter in the Book of Mormon, and it is what we call the Psalm of Nephi. Okay? This isn’t him talking about his history or the brothers or all the miracles that have happened, you know, that have got them to this point in the promised land. It’s very, it’s just a different interlude. This is personal. This is, he’s looking back at his life and both lamenting his weaknesses and praising God. And I’m going to read the whole thing. It’s quite a long psalm, but I would ask you to follow along because I’ll have it up here, but you can read it wherever, but I just think it’s an important part, and we’re going to spend quite a little bit of time on this. This is the setup that he’s taught before he starts his song. Behold, my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord, and my heart pondereth continually upon the things which I have seen and heard. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the great goodness of the Lord, in showing me his great and marvelous works, my heart exclaimeth, O wretched man that I am, yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh, my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities, I am encompassed about because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me, and when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins. Nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted. This is kind of the setup for it. And it reminds us that Nephi was a prophet, but he was also a man who suffered and temptations and didn’t live the way he always wanted to live, maybe a little bit like us. And then we start with the Psalm of Nephi. My God hath been my support. He hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness, and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep. He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh. He hath confounded mine enemies, unto the causing of them to quake before me. Behold, he hath heard me, heard my cry by day, and he hath given me knowledge by visions in the nighttime. We know some of these stories that he’s talking about. And by day have I waxed bold in mighty prayer before him. Yea, my voice have I sent upon high, and angels came down and ministered unto me. And upon the wings of his spirit hath my body been carried away upon exceedingly high mountains, and mine eyes have beheld great things, yea, even too great for man. Therefore I was bidden that I should not write them. O then, if I have seen so great things, if the Lord in his condescension unto the children of men hath visited men in so much mercy, why should my heart weep and my soul linger in the valley of sorrow, and my flesh waste away and my strength slacken because of mine afflictions? And why should I yield to sin because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations that the evil one may have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul? Why art thou angry because of mine enemy? Awake my soul, no longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul. Do not anger again because of mine enemies. Do not slacken my strength because of mine afflictions. Rejoice, O my heart, and cry unto the Lord, and say, O Lord, I will praise thee forever. Yea, my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation. O Lord, wilt thou redeem my soul? Wilt thou deliver me out of the hands of mine enemies? Wilt thou make me that I may shake at the appearance of sin? May the gates of hell be shut continually before me, because that my heart is broken, and my spirit is contrite. O Lord, wilt thou not shut the gates of thy righteousness before me, that I may walk in the path of the low valley, that I may be stripped in the plain road? O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness? O Lord, wilt thou make a way for mine escape before mine enemies? Wilt thou make my path straight before me? Wilt thou not place a stumbling block in my way, but that thou wouldst clear my way before me, and hedge not up my way but the ways of my enemy? He’s just pleading with the Lord here. O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of the flesh, for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of the flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man, or maketh flesh his arm. Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss, therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee. Yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God. Amen. Now, this is called the Psalm of Nephi, and I know you all know this, but a psalm is a song, right? So I thought, certainly someone has made a song out of the Psalm of Nephi, and I was not wrong. The BYU men’s chorus put Nephi’s psalm to music. Finlandia, so some familiar music to you. But they took literary license with the words, making them rhyme while keeping the spirit of the psalm. I’m going to show you the video, and the video has the words up there. You’ll see that the words don’t exactly match this whole long psalm of Nephi, but they certainly match the spirit and the meaning that he gives, and I think they got it right. So let’s go. [Song plays; approximate lyrics from the performance:] Upon his word I ponder day and night.He stirred my drive, brought visions to my sleep,and kept me safe for desert’s and the deep.He filled my heart with his consuming love.And bore me hard on means of his grace. Yes, as I grow, O wretched man am I,my flesh is weak, and I become the spotof sin, O world of sin, which holds me in its thrall. If I give in and choose temptation’s call,then straight through slack I waste in sorrow’s day.My peace is strong, my enemy is free. Awake my soul, no longer droop in sin.Rejoice my heart, and let me praise again,let me praise the Lord my God, who is my rock and stay,to keep me straight upon His praise, plain way. O let me shake at the first sight of Thee,and thus escape my foes with. I love the Lord. In him my soul is. Okay, let’s try to do this right. I think they did a great job on that. So now, how can we liken that to ourselves? I have a big shout out to the Eighth Ward Blue Society book group. We read a bunch of books, and a couple of years ago, we read this book, Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools. And it is—I, the opinions you hear are not necessarily those of anybody above me, but I think this is the best book on prayer I’ve ever read. And he talks about this, not LDS, he talks in this book about how we can make our prayers more meaningful. And I’m just gonna read from one particular chapter called “How to Pray Differently.” And he says, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he gave the Lord’s Prayer. And, okay, this is the participation part of the program. All of you can repeat the first sentence of the Lord’s Prayer with me, if you would do that. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Okay, that’s the first—let’s do it again. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. That’s the first line, and he says, What do we learn from this first line? He says he learns three things. We are to remember who God is. He is our Father. He is in heaven, and He is hallowed or sacred. The second thing we learn is remember who we are. I’m a child of God. And the third thing, and this might be the most hard, everybody else is also a child of God, okay? To learn thos

  2. Oct 13

    Oct 13 2026 2 Nephi 1-4:12 by Lori Radman

    Oct 13 SISDownload Transcript Thank you so much for that prayer. I was just holding in—I feel like I’m kind of prayer needy. If you’ve even glanced at me sideways, I’ve asked for your prayers. There’s been a lot of thought and prayer that went into the decision of whether or not I could accept this calling to teach. I asked my family for some feedback, and I was met with some hesitation, surprisingly. So I asked what the hesitation might be, and I was told that when I’m preparing for lessons, I’m just not that much fun. So that’s definitely something that I’ve added to my prayers—that I can continue to do this and still be fun. But I have received comfort and assurance from the Lord that He will help me. But in addition to praying for me, I have been praying for each of you—each of you that come with whatever it is that you might be carrying at this time. I recognize that you all come for different reasons and different hopes of what you want to gain from this hour of being here. And for this reason, I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon. For what it has to offer, because I know that it is the Book of Mormon that can bring whatever it is that you might be in need of—whatever hope or peace or healing or assurance is found in the Book of Mormon, because it is the Book of Mormon that points us to that true source of hope and healing, which is our Savior, Jesus Christ. I was so inspired by Anita’s first class that she gave when she talked about finding a purpose and a focus in reading and in her scripture study. She commented about how we’re familiar with the stories in the scriptures, it’s something that we know that are comforting to us, but she wanted to challenge herself to read it with a central focus, and I believe she said she read it once focusing on the words of Christ and has since had other focuses and purposes. And when she said this, I knew that was something that I needed and that I wanted to do. I’m also curious if it motivated any of you, and if you have found a central focus or purpose this year in reading. But after deciding that and looking for what my focus might be this year, I was especially intrigued when I heard Jared Halverson talking about Nephi’s purpose in writing the Book of Mormon. In 1 Nephi chapter 6, verse 4, Nephi says, “For the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved.” So with this, we know that everything that Nephi writes is going to point us towards Jesus Christ. And then Jared Halverson pointed out what he said is Nephi’s thesis statement. This is the first chapter of the Book of Mormon, the very last verse in the first chapter where Nephi says, “But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.” That was it. That’s my purpose. That’s my focus—to focus on reading and searching these scriptures with the intent of seeing the tender mercies of the Lord. So this week’s assignment was 2 Nephi chapters 1 through 4, and right out of the gate, guess what we find? The tender mercies of the Lord. We have Father Lehi has gathered his children together. He’s getting old. He has some words that he wants to share with his children, and this is what he says: “And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had made an end of teaching my brethren, our father, Lehi, also spake many things unto them, and rehearsed unto them, how great things the Lord had done for them in bringing them out of the land of Jerusalem. And he spake unto them concerning their rebellions upon the waters, and the mercies of God in sparing their lives, that they were not swallowed up in the sea. And he also spake unto them concerning the land of promise, which they had obtained—how merciful the Lord had been in warning us that we should flee out of the land of Jerusalem. Why? Because if we had stayed, we would have perished. How merciful is the Lord.” Don’t you think that Lehi is just saying, do you want to see the evidence of God’s love? Do you really want to see how he has never forgotten us, how he’s been with us from the beginning? Look around. Look where you are. We’re here. We are in this land of promise. We are here safely. I get the feeling that Lehi, this father, doesn’t feel as though Laman and Lemuel are focusing on the Lord’s mercies. And it’s hard to blame them. Life hasn’t been easy for them. They’ve experienced every type of physical depravity. It looks nothing like what they had hoped. Do you ever get caught in this cycle of focusing on what’s not going right? Is there any chance that we can relate a little bit? I think that occasionally we start to ruminate on what’s not going right, on a prayer that wasn’t answered in the way that we’d hoped, in the way that our life looks, in the way that we might have been wronged. I don’t think that Lehi’s trying to invalidate all of the hard, but I think he knows that ruminating on the dark keeps us from seeing the light. But what if it’s our nature? What if it’s our nature just to be a little bit skewed towards our lack? Is that something that we can change? Can we change our nature? Neuroscientists tell us that the more we repeat a behavior, the deeper a neural pathway in our brain becomes. This is called Hebb’s law. It’s neurons that fire together, wire together. It’s basically what you think about becomes your reality. So one of the greatest gifts of God is that he has created us and created our brains to be able to change. We can change our very nature. This means that you can create new neural pathways. It’s just that your brain wants to go to that path of least resistance. So it will continue down the path that is well-worn. So if you want to create a new neural pathway, you have to repeat a behavior over and over again. So if I want to bypass the very deeply worn neural pathway that is created by picking up my phone, which is just an impulse now, I have to focus on instead picking up my scriptures. And the more I pick up my scriptures and not my phone, the deeper this neural pathway becomes. The easier it is for my brain to go to this neural pathway. What we choose to think about is deeply influenced by our image and knowledge of God, which is what I think that Lehi is desperately wanting his children to know. He wants them to know God, he wants them to know his nature, and he wants his sons to respond to the greatness of God by openly loving and honoring him. He knows that when we understand—when they understand God’s greatness—we want more and more of him. I personally really want my children and grandchildren to focus on the goodness of God, on the goodness that’s in their lives. My son mentioned to me recently that he spent a lot of time and effort creating what he’d hoped would be this really fun weekend for his three kids, who are ages ten and seven and four. He said he felt like the weekend went really well, everyone had a great time, and then when their grandparents had met up with them later and asked them what they did that weekend, they all shrugged their shoulders and said they couldn’t remember. My son said he just felt so defeated. How could they not remember? I feel like Lehi has a little bit of this similar feeling. How do you not remember? How can you ignore the goodness of God? How can you ignore what we just did this weekend? And then he kind of gives us a little insight as to how we remember, in that he continues to bring it up. He continues to talk to them about it. He continues to remind them about all of the ways that the Lord has shown up in their lives. And that is why in the scriptures we hear over and over again, remember, remember, remember. So when we remember, it changes our very focus, which changes our very nature. So Lehi’s come to the end of his life, and he’s gathered his family together for some counsel. He’s going to teach them, he’s going to bless them, and he’s going to bear his testimony to them. What message do I want to leave my loved ones? I have a new daughter-in-law, Ellie. We had a conversation recently about fathers and counsel. Ellie told me that she remembers many conversations with her own father growing up in Mexico. When Ellie was born, her father applied for a green card for his daughter, knowing that if and when that application was accepted, she would need to leave his care and his protection and move to the US. He knew very well that that time could come before either of them felt ready. What would you say to your children if you knew that you had limited time while they were in your care and protection? Ellie said her father took every opportunity to fill her with his wisdom and love and counsel. She said many of their conversations centered around situations that had moral implications, and that they would go something like this. He would say, listen, if X happens, you have a choice. You can choose to follow the crowd, you can choose to follow the world and where those natural man tendencies lead you. But pick up that thread, see where that choice leads. Could that choice lead to this, but might then lead to this, and it could then lead you to a place that you don’t want to be? Make the choice, he said, that is going to protect you and protect our family name. Ellie’s father was trying to teach her to think celestial, and she felt his love. Well, when throughout all of those conversations, at seventeen, that application was finally accepted, and she left her father’s physical presence. But his words stayed with her and have been a beacon and a protection to her to this day. In this last conference session, Elder Christofferson had his landmark talk, “O Be Wise.” H

  3. Oct 13

    Combined YW and RS Conference with Sister Shima Baughman – Oct 7

    Transcript – Shima Baughman So I have to call her Ms. Howells because she was my daughter’s teacher, so I feel like, thank you, Ms. Howells. You can’t say no to anything your teacher, your kid’s teacher asks, right? It’s like, you come speak at my conference. Yes, I will. When is it? I will be there. Waltmans, thank you so much for that. Katie, Ashley, Lois, that was so beautiful beyond. I wish, I was trying to clap, but then I’m like, clap, no clap. Okay, we’re not clapping, but I would be, I was clapping in my heart. That was beyond beautiful, and yes, that made it worth all of our while to be here, even if everything goes wrong after that. But it’s so great to see you all here. I want to start to tell you about my high school graduation. I was seventeen years old. I was wearing white, a white dress, cap and gown, a brand new pair of white Dr. Scholl’s wooden sandals. They were brand new. And they had a little bit of a heel. And I thought I looked very beautiful and grown up. I felt grown up. So we have this large ceremony where I grew up. It’s at a track. And there’s over a thousand people in this audience and families there, your friends are there, teachers, strangers. And I had been told right before that started that I was going to receive an award. So that meant I had to go up to the stage twice. Once for the award and once later for my diploma. So when my name was called for this award, I stood up, I smoothed my dress, I walked to the stage, shook the principal’s hand, I took the award, I smiled, and then I turned around to walk back to my seat, down this metal ramp with this hollow metallic sound that my shoes made as I walked on it, in front of a thousand people who are now all watching me walk. About halfway down that ramp in my new white Dr. Scholl’s shoes, I lost my balance and slipped and fell. I went down hard. I cut my knee open on the metal of the ramp. I scrambled up, cause, you know, what do you do? And I finished walking back to my seat with blood running down my leg, and I was trying to pretend that I hadn’t been deeply humiliated and embarrassed in front of every single person I’ve ever met. But the ceremony wasn’t over at that point, right? I still had to walk up and down that ramp again in these shoes I clearly didn’t know how to walk in for my diploma. So my name’s called the second time. I walk up the ramp, I shake the hand, I take the diploma, and then I have to walk down this ramp again past the thousand people that I just embarrassed myself in front of, and I was terrified. I didn’t want to fall again. I didn’t want to bleed again. So I made a decision. I would walk so carefully down that ramp that I couldn’t possibly fall. I would tiptoe. I would inch. I would crawl down the ramp if I had to. So I did. I tiptoed down the ramp, one tiny step at a time, so slowly that I think the principal had to call three more names before I reached the bottom. And as I’m tiptoeing, already humiliated, my knee bleeding through my dress, the audience began to laugh. They were roaring, actually. A thousand people couldn’t help themselves. Ha, ha, ha, the girl with the white shoes who fell down the first time is now sneaking down the ramp like a cartoon mouse. I want to tell you what I was thinking on that ramp, because I think every woman in this room has been there. Maybe not at a metal ramp, at a graduation maybe, but sometime. Sometime where you fell once and you didn’t want to fall again. And so instead of walking normally, you inched. You shrank yourself. You tried to manage how you appeared so that you ended up looking more strange, not less. I wasn’t trusting my steps anymore after that fall, and the truth is I didn’t start tiptoeing on that ramp. I was tiptoeing for a long time. I had been afraid to be myself for years before I even put on my white shoes. To understand why, I have to take you back further than that graduation to where I was born. I was born in Iran, and my family was Muslim growing up. We were Persian, my parents were both educated and very politically engaged, my mother especially. My mother’s a very brave woman, much braver than she even thinks she is, but she fought for freedom and democracy in Iran. And at the time, and even now, fighting for those things came at a very heavy cost, and she paid that cost. My mother was imprisoned as a political prisoner in Iran for her work for the cause of religious freedom, freedom of speech, and democracy. I want you to imagine that for a moment, a young woman, and at this point a mother, she has my sister and me as little kids, ends up being sentenced to a political prison just because she dared that human beings should be free. The conditions that she was held, and I won’t really describe in detail, but there was a time she describes where she was held in a prison called Evin, it’s infamous, and recently came in the news as the Iran protests happened again, where her captors would randomly execute a certain number of prisoners every night. And she said you could hear a pin drop as they were executing because all the people that were in the cell being held wanted to hear exactly how many of their friends were being killed at random. What do you think she did in that prison? Well, I’ll tell you. She prayed. She had learned to pray from her mother. She didn’t have the gospel of Jesus Christ, didn’t know anything about it, but she knew there was a God, and from her cell she prayed. She prayed for her daughters, for her family that she couldn’t see. And during this time, she had a dream that she was in America. And this confused her because she had eight more years in prison. At this point, she had already served two. She dreamed she was flying above some of the most beautiful fall colors on a plane, and she was over a place that she’d never been before and never even dreamed of in America. And at the same time, outside of this prison, my dad was a neurosurgeon. And during this period, a very high-ranking religious leader from Iran needed a very difficult medical procedure. My father was blessed enough to perform it, and by skill or grace, we’ll never know, probably prepared by the hand of God, though, the procedure was successful. And because of that, this leader asked my dad, what can I do for you? And it turned out his wife and sister were both being held in political prison, and so they were able to be released six months later. And through miracles, my family was given the opportunity to leave Iran during the Iran-Iraq war and to immigrate to America, to start over. I was seven years old when we arrived in America, and I knew exactly two English words that my mom taught me the day we were leaving, yes and no. And I used both incorrectly. Yes was really hard, so I’d say no a lot because it sounds like nah, nah, no, that’s the same word in Farsi. So, but yes, I did not remember, and so I would get in trouble quite a lot at school. So this is where our story turns from miracle into miracle. Within six months of arriving in America, my father, who was now working in this hospital setting, met a nurse, and she happened to be a Latter-day Saint, a convert, and she was from Iran. And so she didn’t see my father as a, you know, foreign physician with a heavy accent or a complicated past. She looked at him and she felt this prompting from the Holy Ghost, invite his family over for family home evening. And she felt it, but she didn’t act on it. She thought, they’re new here. they don’t know me. This is strange. I, I won’t do it. Then she said she felt the prompting a second time, invite them to family home evening. And again, she hesitated. This time she thought, no, because they’re here for one year. If I invite them and they come to my house and learn about Jesus, they have to go back to Iran and they might get killed. But then she says, she describes her third time getting this prompting. She said, she’s at a, my dad’s at a water fountain pausing to get a drink. And then she gets the prompting again. This time she finally obeys and walks up to my father. She invites him and we came. And that from that one family home evening, this nurse that was prompted three times and finally listened, my family was able to learn about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and we were baptized into the church. I just marvel at that, and I, you know, so happy to be able to share this with you because I think about my mother praying in a prison cell in Iran, my father having the opportunity to perform a procedure on a religious leader, grant, getting granted passage to America, and within a few months being introduced to the church by this incredible nurse in the hospital. And here I am today in Holladay, Utah, more than thirty years later, with five kids of my own, a marriage in the temple, serving in the church, working at BYU, having a covenant family, just because this nurse followed a prompting to invite us over. This is the wisdom that my family first learned is that walking with Christ means trusting promptings that we don’t fully understand. I think of the scripture in Isaiah, and it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. Before my mother had even finished praying in her cell, God was already arranging a nurse on the other side of the world, and before my father had finished his procedure, God was already preparing our visa. Before any of us knew there was a thing called Latter-day Saints, the Holy Ghost was already nudging a nurse to invite us to her home. God was answering my mother’s prayers in a language none of us yet spoke. So you would think that a girl who came from these miraculous circumstances, who had been delivered out of a prison cell from Iran by the hand of God, would walk into Americ

  4. Oct 7

    Oct 6 2026 1 Nephi 19-22 by Morrissa Rich

    FINAL Monday 1 NEPHI 19-22 10 5 26 26 links Instructor: One lovely prayer. Thank you. And how good it is to see you. You look terrific. Let’s start with Jesus. Let’s start with Christ. I have a song here that I hope you’ll enjoy. This is a combined choir of BYU students, and as you listen to it, will you listen to the contrasts in the lyrics? And also, will you look at these beautiful, beautiful young people? Choir (lyrics approximate; recognition is poor):As he suffered, he had faith. Once upon the cross he bowed, bowed the lonely hand. Now the Lord of grace I am. Once upon the cross he bowed. Now his cherubim arise, now his cherubim arise. Was rejected by his own, nothing he shall be known. Nothing he shall be known. As I seek and let alone, thou exaltest to a throne. Once of thee see me, reward, cause in I will then go. I see how you… Instructor: Now, dear King, he shall be known. Well, I ask you to look for the difference of the contrasts in that song. Our lesson today is 1 Nephi 19 through 22, which is a study in contrasts, but also similarities. So I hope you see that as we go through. It’s about Jesus Christ as Savior, Redeemer, and Gatherer. It’s about our learning and profiting from likening the scriptures to ourselves. It’s about former and present-day scatterings. It’s about present-day gatherings. And it’s about our commission to gather God’s children. You know that old saw you hear: tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them. Well, that’s kind of the way these chapters work. In 1 Nephi chapter 19, Nephi tells us what he’s going to tell us. In 1 Nephi chapters 20 and 21, he uses Isaiah 48 and 49 to tell us. And then in 22, he tells us what he told us. In other words, he makes an explanation of Isaiah’s words to Laman and Lemuel. Let’s talk about Nephi’s purpose. He says, “I have written these things unto my people, that I might persuade them to remember the Lord their Redeemer,” and you will hear this purpose spoken over and over as we go through this lesson. Again, that I have written these things that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer. One of the aspects of this lesson, because of what I told you about the structure—tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them—I’ll be moving through all of those scriptures to make that point. In other words, they’re not clumped together. The first section of chapter 19 we’re going to talk through, but throughout the lesson I pull in verses from the other chapters as well, so don’t let that confuse you. I hope you’re not flipping through pages trying to follow the scriptures that we’ve referred to. Here’s an example. I just quoted this from chapter 19, verse 23. Here’s verse 24: “Hear ye the words of the prophet, and liken them unto yourselves, that ye may have hope.” I’m interested in this. How do Nephi’s writings or influence affect your hope, your comfort, your joy? Also, do these writings influence your choices, your concerns, and maybe even your repenting? Well, Nephi cites Zenock and Zenos’s prophecies of Christ’s coming sufferings and crucifixion, and we’re going to deal with that now. So in verse 7 of 19, he says, “For the things which some men esteem to be of great worth, both to body and soul, others set at naught and trample under their feet.” And I have an example of this from my life. There’s a TV show called Clarkson’s Farm. It’s a British documentary, and it’s just a hoot. We love it. It’s a lot of fun. And we watched several episodes of it, and we love all the characters. They’re all great. There’s a fair amount of profanity in it—not a lot, but some. You know how farmers are. But occasionally, rarely, they take the Lord’s name in vain as a way of swearing. And the first couple of times we went, well, let’s move on. Not that it’s okay, but we like this show a lot. And about the third episode, we kind of had it with that. And the problem was, we’d been watching this show with a daughter who’s not in the Church, and she was loving it too. And we were joking about it. We joked about the characters together and everything. And so the challenge came: how do we tell her we’re not going to watch this anymore? But we did. I said, there is other profanity—that’s what farmers say—but this is a bridge too far. And we were worried about her reaction because the relationship with her is rather tenuous, and so we grasp at every opportunity. But she was okay with it. She even said, “I’ll try not to do that while I’m around you.” Oh, please don’t. Anyway, it worked out okay. But in fact, it was a method of trampling under their feet our Savior Jesus Christ. “And behold, Christ cometh according to the words of the angel, in six hundred years from the time my father left Jerusalem. And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught. Wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it. They smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it.” Why? Because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering toward you and me. I came across this writing, so it’s in poetic form. [Name unclear—sounds like “Albersdor”; described as German.] This is a German poem, which doesn’t translate all that well in terms of the rhyme scheme and so on, but it’s still worth reading. Listen to this: “Christ, you have been made man so as to make us gods, and you have been chained so as to release us from our chains. God, tortured with floggings and thorns under an unjust judge, you teach us to bear our sorrows with calm and resignation.” Isn’t that lovely? “And all these things must surely come, saith the prophet Zenos. And the rocks of the earth must rend; and because of the groanings of the earth, the God of nature suffers.” So we’ve kind of dealt with that part of chapter 19. And so let’s move to the scatterings now. We’re talking about—by the way, scatterings include a whole human history of scatterings—but specifically we’re going to talk about Israel and Lehi’s family scatterings and present-day scatterings. Here’s a screen that we’re not going to read all of. You can relax. The reason I put it up here is to show you how complicated the scattering process is, and the gathering as well. This is a very complex, history-long process, so we’re not going to talk a lot about it. But I came across this gal named Kristen Walker-Smith. She’s a mother of teenagers, and she makes videos in an attempt to help her children understand what the scriptures are about. And so she’s made a video about the scattering. Now, I regret to tell you that the screen’s rather small on this. I made it as large as I could, but frankly, I used this because she’s so cute. I think you’ll get a kick out of it. Kristen Walker-Smith (video): Class is in session, and today we’re finding out what exactly is the scattering of Israel. Prophets have been telling us that the gathering of Israel is the most important thing going on in the world right now. So what exactly is the scattering? The scattering happened in three parts. First, the united Israelites divided into northern and southern kingdoms. Second, the northern kingdom, which had ten tribes in it, was taken by the Assyrians. We don’t know what happened to those tribes. Third, the southern tribe of Judah, with the remaining two tribes, was later taken into captivity by the Babylonians. About 70 years later, they were given permission to return to the Promised Land, but only some of them returned. The rest stayed scattered. So the scattering is the idea that God’s chosen people were no longer together in the Promised Land physically, and their lack of proximity to prophets, priesthood, and sacred promises with God—or covenants—meant that they became scattered spiritually too. That’s exactly what the gathering of Israel is reversing today. We are trying to bring people back to God’s prophets, his priesthood, and promises made with him. Make sure to save and share this with your team, because they’re probably wondering what the scattering actually is. Instructor: Isn’t that great? “And as for those who are at Jerusalem, saith the prophet, they shall be scourged by all people, because they crucified the God of Israel, and turn their hearts aside, rejecting signs and wonders and the power and glory of the God of Israel. And because they turn their hearts aside, saith the prophet, and have despised the Holy One of Israel, they shall wander in the flesh, and perish, and become a hiss and a byword, and be hated among all nations.” Notice—I’m going to go back. You know, notice that this is chapter 19. This next one is chapter 22. I told you I was going to be skipping between the chapters, okay? Because the themes are the same. “And it appears that the house of Israel, sooner or later, will be scattered upon all the face of the earth, and also among all nations. And behold, there are many who are already lost from the knowledge of those who are at Jerusalem.” A very complicated pattern. “And they are scattered to and fro upon the isles of the sea; and whither they are none of us knoweth.” That’s what she said, right? Nobody knows, “save that we know that they have been led away.” By the way, there’s a great deal of scholarly information that you can access about the gathering, if you choose. It’s fascinating. There’s just too much to cover here. But Laman—Nephi tries to explain to his brothers. Remember, they ask him in chapter 22, “What meaneth these things?” And he says, “Hear ye the words of the prophet, and liken them unto yours

  5. Sep 30

    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

  6. 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

  7. Sep 15

    Sept 15 2026 1 Nephi 8-12 by Morrissa Rich

    FINAL 1 NEPHI 8 Monday Sept 14 2026 linksDownload 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 th

  8. 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

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