In the South African Mission, circa 1965 thru 1967, we had a little thing we did with the Book of Mormon. When we received a new shipment of Books we would leave them in the shipping box until we marked them.
Marking them meant writing something in our own words, like our testimony, and then a statement like To help understand a little of what this Book is about please turn to page
We, the missionaries, then used a template of pages and scriptures to lead the reader through the Book of Mormon ending with the promise in Moroni 10: . On each page they were asked to turn to we would use a red pencil to mark a little circle on the scripture we wanted them to read. At the bottom of the page we would give them the next page to turn to and so on.
Once we marked them they went into a bottom drawer or some other storage place until we needed to replace the ones we handed out.
We used down time when we had some to take turns marking the Books of Mormon. This usually became sort of boring after 10 or 15 books. One time it was my turn because my greeny companion needed time to study.
As I sat marking the pages and scriptures I came to 2 Nephi 29: 3 10. I thought of this scripture a lot on my mission. The people of South Africa considered themselves very religious and would not talk to us if we started to use the Book of Mormon. (In fact the missionaries had to learn 212 bible scriptures word perfect so we could quote the investigator scriptures while they read them in their own Bibles, otherwise they thought we were quoting the Mormon Bible.)
For some reason instead of just marking the scripture with a little read circle I took a card and drew underlines and highlighted the scripture.
One other thing we did whenever we took out a new copy of the Book of Mormon was to put one of our Missionary cards that had the Articles of Faith and a picture of our favorite Temple with our names and the mission address and stick it in the Book.
Some weeks later we had given the Book of Mormon lesson to a golden family named Kahn. The father was Jewish and the mother a Dutch Reformed Afrikaans church member and three wonderful children who all attended an Anglican Church private school. Each step of progress towards baptism was full of trials and problems. We knew that the powers of the adversary were working very hard to interfere.
Many appointments had to be rescheduled, doubt would creep in and out and when we were waiting for our next appointment. After giving them their Book of Mormon we had to reschedule their appointment several times. When they would call to reschedule we would always ask them if they had stared to read the Book of Mormon yet. Each time the answer was no. We knew progress would not be made until they started reading.
While we were waiting to reschedule we received a message when we came in for lunch to call them as soon a possible. We called and were asked by a very excited Sister Kahn if we come that evening.
That evening she related that she had finally picked up the Book of Mormon and started reading it using the little guild. But as she read it she started thinking this is just a copy of the Bible and she said to herself A Bible, A Bible, I have got a Bible, I dont need another Bible. and dropped the Book of Mormon on the table.
She reported that as the Book landed on the table it flipped open to a page and there was a card stuck in it. She recognized my missionary calling card but also noticed there were verses highlighted and with red underlines. She told us she picked up the Book and read the underlined passage and saw her own words written there, highlighted and underlined in red.
She said she spent most of the day reading and could not wait another day to talk with us.
It still took more patience and trials but this great family all joined the church.
3 And because my words shall hiss forthmany of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible. |
