What is this blog?

In 2008 I stumbled upon a blog organized by a woman who wanted to read The Bible each day through the year and then comment and receive comments about the reading assignment. I decided to join and I really enjoyed the experience of discussing the passages. I wanted to continue that. I thought I would start a blog that follows the LDS Sunday School lessons, not in any way replacing them, but just to offer a venue to comment on the readings for those who don't like to/get to comment in class or don't get to go to class at all, or just anybody. 2009 was my first full year with this blog, reading the Doctrine and Covenants (all archived in 2009). 2010 I did my best to discuss the Old Testament but fell off in the fall. 2011 is a review of The New Testament, but I was even less successful in continuing with that year, but I hope to fill those in during the year! During 2012 we discuss The Book of Mormon. I will post at least once for the week's readings. I will not post on General Conference weeks and will probably be behind your current reading due to our church schedule, but hope you can still find relevancy. Also, I probably won't proofread much, so please forgive me for errors, I'll be lucky to just get a post each week in. Feel free to comment on my current week or your class' current week. Enjoy! I do!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Reading Nov 23-27 - Happy Thanksgiving!

"Being Good Citizens"
I love this topic. The readings of late seem to be shorter so I haven't been splitting them up into days. Perhaps I'll start doing that again at the beginning of the year with the Old Testament (oohhhh!).

Doctrine and Covenants 58:21–22, 26–28; 98:4–10; 134; Articles of Faith 1:12; Our Heritage,pages 133–34.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Taking on the armor of God = Be proactive

What excellent scripture passages for this last week! Thanks D for your comments! As I read through these scripture passages, the verbs really stuck out: take, write, lift, rejoice, gird, stand, love, cleave, repent, deal and let. Taking upon ourselves the armor of God takes a lot of work. We cannot just sit in our church meetings and expect someone to educate and inspire us, we have to be prepared to accept the education and inspiration. I think taking on the armor of God requires humility, which to me means, that you can make almost anything applicable to you and your life's moment, that you can find inspiration in almost anything.

Here's a question about the armor of God: When do we get to the point where we know the armor is on? And if we put it on one time, does it stay on? Sometimes I think life is an exercise of taking off and putting on armor. It's as much of a daily exercise as putting on physical clothing. But if we choose to put on the armor every day, the armor gets stronger making us more resilient in battle. Perhaps it follows the cycles of life. Sometimes we are ready to go for battle and sometimes we are on army reserves hoping not to be put in battle and therefore not putting much effort into preparation.

But if we want to be prepared, we must be proactive in our spiritual development. If we are not proactive with our time and efforts, our apathy and complacence allows our armor to weaken. We must take, write, lift, rejoice, gird stand, love, cleave, repent, deal and let the right things make our armor strong so that we are not caught off guard in battle, and even if we are, our chances of surviving are better with stronger armor.

As Jacob often repeats in the allegory of the olive tree: GO TO!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Is this like deathbed repentance?

I am waaaay behind. If anyone out there reads this blog, I'm sorry. We've had sicknesses on top of sicknesses in addition to all the other stuff I can't seem to say no to. Here is two weeks worth of reading and I'll do my best to comment on both. Though the first one is about missionary work, and I've posted on that before here.


"Every Member a Missionary"
Doctrine and Covenants 1:4–5, 30; 65; 109:72–74; 123:12; Our Heritage,pages 116–17, 124–25.

"Continuing Revelation to Latter-day Prophets"
Doctrine and Covenants 1:38; 68:1–4; 84:109–10; 107:25, 34, 93–98; 132:8; Official Declaration 2 (pages 293–94 in the Doctrine and Covenants); Our Heritage,pages 117–19, 125–27.