Book of Mormon Stories

We have loved diving into the stories of The Book of Mormon this year for Come, Follow Me. It's been a fun bonus to watch the new videos that correlate to the scriptures for us visual learners. I've been amazed at all the things even Lincoln and Jonah are able to pick up on with the help of the videos, and I've been amazed that the clips are always able to keep every boy's undivided attention. 

I loved studying about Lehi's family and couldn't help but relate to the scriptural parents of four sons. As we've told the boys stories of the broken bow and arrow, the sword stealing, and the camping in the wilderness, I've become convinced that the stories of The Book of Mormon were intentionally written in a way that would hold the interest of the male mind. 

As we read about Lehi's family leaving Jerusalem and dwelling in a tent, I knew it was time to bust out our new Christmas present from David and Mary to act out the scene. Jeff set the tent up in our playroom and we "journeyed in the wilderness" (walked around the kitchen and up the stairs) before settling in to "dwell in a tent" for the night. 

We also talked about how Nephi got the gold plates and right away Lincoln and Jonah recognized Nephi as the hero and began scrambling through the house to find every copy of The Book of Mormon they could to bring back to the tent while saying, "I'M NEPHI!" It's been neat to see these stories that I often fear will go over the heads of little kids instead settle right into their eager hearts. 

We spent the night in the tent...well...not all of us! The littlest two and I spent the night in the tent. The other three bailed and instead chose a softer slumber. 

I've also been really excited about the new youth and children program to focus on personal goals rather than certifications. My dad was a big goal-encourager growing up, and as I've gotten older I've appreciated the pushes from my dad to always be working on something and trying to improve. I have loved seeing that from the church and I'm grateful my boys will get to work and grow in areas they are interested in. 

We made vision boards for one of our first Young Women activities this year. A few of my goals for the year are:

• Run two half marathons
• Finish the Book of Mormon by April
• Have weekly mini-lessons with my older boys about ways to manage their emotions
• Learn how to play a hymn on the piano
• Go to the temple 12 times

We stole an idea from my sister of having the boys draw what they heard in the scriptures while reading Lehi's Dream. Again, I was amazed at the things they were able to pick up on. Lincoln focused on the iron rod and the tree of life with the fruit in the tree. He also has the spacious building floating and Lehi standing by the tree. 

Jonah's was less straightforward but no less adorable. 

Carson noticed the mist of darkness and was able to envision some colors to go along with the dream. 

Eli focused on the people following the path and the people calling (and falling?) down from the building. 

Later in the week we acted out the vision. Jeff set up a whole scene upstairs that brought everything to life...to the Tree of Life to be exact.

He tied a rope from doorknob to banister to doorknob for the boys to hang on to, blindfolded, no less. He also added a fan for a wind effect, he had a flashlight flickering for lightning, he had a phone playing stormy sounds and another one playing what sounded like a group of people at a party. He really captured all the feelings of traveling through the dream!

It ended with the boys coming into our calm, quiet room with a picture of Christ and "The Tree of Life" with the "fruit of the tree" (suckers) for all of the boys to "partake." It was sweet to see them enter one by one and then get to cheer each other on as they each approached the bedroom. Nothing better than a good object lesson to throw them into the scriptures and to give them a memory they can return to each time they hear about The Tree of Life. 

This week we talked about how Satan likes to trick us by making evil things look good and good things look evil. There was one scripture (2 Nephi 15:20) that talked about putting bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. I handed everybody a blow pop after reading the scripture. 

And they were alarmed, disappointed, and outraged to discover a grape tomato where they were expecting their sweet treat to be.

It made the lesson so much more impactful to give them the real feelings of being surprised and confused to be tricked and we had a great lesson on how Satan loves to disguise things to look good and appealing at first, but will leave us confused and disappointed once we start grabbing at his temptations.

We love Come, Follow Me (or as we call it, Night Light). The boys are often doing headstands during our lessons. Someone is usually screaming or making some kind of potty joke at any given moment throughout the message. Many nights are less exciting than a cherry tomato Blow Pop. But I can feel the power of the scriptures as we make an effort to teach from them, and I know we're planting little seeds of faith and understanding in my boys' brains that I hope they'll be able to fall back on forever.

We have had a lot of good conversations because of the stories we've studied. Eli said he wasn't sure he was a "Nephi" because Nephi never seemed to do anything wrong. He felt like maybe he was a "Sam." We were able to talk about how Sam was a good brother and he was righteous and did the things he was supposed to. We also talked about the chapter where Nephi was discouraged because he was tempted by sin, so he wasn't perfect either. We were able to talk about the differences between Laman and Lemuel and Nephi and Sam and the things we could choose to do to be like either set of them.

We talked about being free to choose captivity and evil or to choose freedom. This scripture reminded me of the Genie in Aladdin so we watched the end of the movie where Jaffar wants to be a genie and have endless power, but his power is limited to his master and he ends up being locked in a tiny lamp and thrown into the desert. Then we talked about how the Genie was freed by Aladdin and how good he felt to no longer be confined to the lamp anymore. We talked about how that's like us. We can choose to follow Satan and be captive to what he tells us to do, or we can be freed by the Savior as we follow Him.

This translated into talks with the boys when they had difficulties through the week that they could choose. They could choose to scream and fight about their homework and feel bad and not get their work done (murmuring like Laman and Lemuel), or they could choose faith and optimism (like Nephi and Sam) and do the best they could do with a good attitude and rely on help from the Savior. When we've had lessons with the boys about the scriptures, we're able to later help them apply it through the week and I've been surprised how many times we've been able to have a lesson perfectly tie into a life situation that we have faced that very week.

I love reading The Book of Mormon from the perspective of a parent. Jeff makes fun of me because I'm a sucker (a real sucker, not a grape tomato one) for self-help books and every time I try a new one he reminds me we have the best self-help book there is--The Book of Mormon. I'm seeing that to be true as we have tried to help our kids pull from the stories to make them applicable to their lives and their challenges. I will continue to argue with Jeff that self-help books are a useful side-study to the ultimate self-help book, but we can both agree that The Book of Mormon is true!