Mariah Wimmer
Thought Paper 1 I have read the Book of Mormon many times in my life, especially the first half of it, so I thought that this class would probably be a breeze and I wouldn’t learn too many new things. I was absolutely mistaken! Even in the first day of class that we started talking about the Book of Mormon, I found out so many things that I never knew. I love that you know so many cross references that help me understand things I don’t get. Whenever I have read the Book of Mormon in the past it has honestly been for the most part just reading to read and occasionally noticing a verse that I liked here and there. Even just having a place to talk about the things that I read and discuss different verses that I never noticed before opens up a whole new level of understanding and things to think about. One of the things that I think I have gained a deeper understanding of is when Nephi and his family are in the wilderness and his bow breaks. Everybody has always put a lot of emphasis on the part where Nephi asks his father to pray to the Lord and tell him where to find food, but I never fully understood why. I always just thought oh that’s great; he’s helping his dad humble himself. I’m so glad that we spent a while on that in class! Its such a great lesson about how we need to always turn to our leaders in times of strife and trial, even if we think they may be not doing exactly what we think they should be doing, or if we think we can just take the lead