RACHEAL ALVSTAD / Scroll

Students dedicate their time to read ‘spiritual textbook’

by Brad Jackman Brittani Lusk LUS04002@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

When Brad Gill recently finished The Book of Mormon he didn’t move on to the rest of the standard works. He began The Book of Mormon again.

Gill, a freshman from Cupertino, Calif., is following counsel recently given by President Gordon B. Hinckley.

“I offer a challenge to members of the Church throughout the world and to our friends everywhere to read or reread The Book of Mormon. If you will read a bit more than one and one-half chapters a day, you will be able to finish the book before the end of this year,” Hinckley said earlier this month.

Members were asked to read The Book of Mormon by the end of the year in the First Presidency message of the Aug. 2005 Ensign and in an official letter from the First Presidency dated July 30, 2005.

“The Book [of Mormon] is here to be felt and handled and read. No one can dispute its presence,” President Hinckley said in the Ensign article.

BYU-Idaho students can attest to the influence of The Book of Mormon.

After Lisa Taylor, a freshman from Allen, Texas, heard President Hinckley’s announcement, she began reading The Book of Mormon with her family at home and will continue by herself at BYU-I.

“You can think about the spirit more than worldly things,” Taylor said about reading her scriptures.

Gill has felt a difference in his life too.

“When things go bad it doesn’t affect me as much when I read,” Gill said.

In the Ensign, President Hinckley gave Latter-day Saints a promise if they read The Book of Mormon.

“Without reservation I promise you that if each of you will observe this simple program, regardless of how many times you previously may have read The Book of Mormon, there will come into your lives and into your homes an added measure of the Spirit of the Lord, a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to His commandments, and a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God,” he said.