There are so many ways to read the Book of Mormon, but for most of my life I only read the Book of Mormon on a small scale, analyzing word by word and verse by verse. After helping out with a youth activity where we listened through the Book of Mormon for about eight hours, I realized that I had been missing so many big-picture elements of the Book of Mormon. Inspired by this experience, I set a goal at the beginning of 2021 to read the Book of Mormon through once per month. It was a lofty goal, but this was usually accomplished by listening to the Book of Mormon during my forty-five minute commute twice per day. I really wanted to begin remembering the stories, characters, and chapter contents so that I could quickly find references and topics and be a more effective teacher. After four months of meeting this goal I realized that I was not remembering anything at all. I would have insights here and there, but ultimately was not getting the familiarity with the stories that I was trying to achieve. At this point I decided to shift from reading the entire book every month to reading a segment of about thirty chapters eight times per month, then moving to the next segment the next month. This proved to be an extremely helpful study. As I became more and more familiar with the segments, I would find myself memorizing the stories and often saying the scripture phrases with the audio as I listened to it. I also decided around this time that I wanted to write summaries for each chapter in the Book of Mormon so that I would remember it better. I created a spreadsheet where I wrote my own summary and copied my favorite verses from the chapter. I wanted this to be something I could use to study easily, so I decided to make it into a Quizlet. I had way too many favorite verses, so I condensed what I had copied into the spreadsheet and made two giant Quizlet flashcard sets: one for Book of Mormon events and one for verses. I have a vision that people who want to learn the chapters of the Book of Mormon can quiz themselves and others with these Quizlets. This endeavor, though it often felt purely academic, has become one of my most spiritually fruitful studies of the scriptures. I bear my personal witness that the Book of Mormon is true. It was written by prophets who saw our day and knew what we would need to hear in our modern lives. The Book of Mormon has taught me so much truth about myself, the world we live in, and most importantly, about the Lord. My daily study of the Book of Mormon has almost single-handedly built my faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ. I would bet my life on its truthfulness any day.
For those who would like to see the spreadsheet I used or try out the Quizlet flashcards, here are the links. Be advised that these have not been revised or edited very much yet.
Very impressive – this is lots of work!