My mom (Lucinda Truman), who fostered my own testimony of The Book of Mormon, is posting today.
Balance
I stand on the edge
Teetering, tense
My concentration inward,
No outward reach.
While all along, running in parallel with the narrow rim
Is the iron rod for me to cling to if I will?
When I wrote those words nearly twenty five years ago I knew The Book of Mormon was true. I had read it in seminary, read from its pages for years after, and understood in some uncommitted corner of my mind that it was my solace and my salvation. But it wasn’t until my oldest sons were deacons that my real discovery of The Book of Mormon began.
One Sunday afternoon a young man strode down the hall after church, his hand outstretched, and introduced himself. He was Scott Jackson, newly graduated from BYU and in six weeks he was to marry the most beautiful girl in the world and bring her to Kansas to begin their new life. He was brimming with good cheer and excitement, and when he was called as Deacon Quorum advisor I mentally rolled my eyes and thought to myself “He’s the right age for the job! He’ll fit right in with the boys!”
Some weeks later I heard my son Mark on the telephone, “Have you read yet? Because, if you do we’ll get pizza!” As the calls continued with the promise of pizza I was curious. When I asked Mark about the calls he explained that if all the deacons read The Book of Mormon for a month, Scott was going to give them pizza. My motherly guilt surfaced. I knew we should be reading the scriptures as a family everyday. We sporadically tried. The present effort was a scripture a day over breakfast from a scripture calendar. But I knew we needed to do better.
Soon Scott brought his lovely bride Karen to our ward; she was called to work with me in the Young Women and was as talented and beautiful as he proclaimed her to be. This young couple was a wonderful example. And my boys were reading The Book of Mormon everyday, and enjoying pizza.
Quickly I understood that my children were going to have a deeper knowledge and understanding of the scriptures that I did. And I began to read. I did not yet read everyday, but I read, and over the course of the few years Scott and Karen were in our ward our family’s experiment with the word began in earnest.
Karen and Scott moved to California for employment and our family moved back west to Las Vegas soon after.
Phil was again called into the Bishopric and I was again working with the Young Women. I had recently read all the standard works and was encouraging the Young Women in our ward to read The Book of Mormon. Scott was traveling and dropped in to visit us. We were all delighted to see him and hear about his family. He had been such an influence in our family and I asked him how he persuaded the Young Men to read in The Book of Mormon everyday, was it the pizza? His answer was obvious and simple, “You have to do it too, that’s all.”
And so I did, for the last twenty years I have read from The Book of Mormon everyday. I believe all of our children and grandchildren do the same. The promise President Ezra Taft Benson made is true: “It is not just that the Book of Mormon teaches us truth, though it indeed does that. It is not just that the Book of Mormon bears testimony of Christ, though it indeed does that, too. But there is something more. There is a power in the book which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation. You will find the power to avoid deception. You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path. The scriptures are called “the words of life” (D&C 84:85), and nowhere is that more true than it is of the Book of Mormon. When you begin to hunger and thirst after those words, you will find life in greater and greater abundance.”
My life is abundantly blessed because of The Book of Mormon, through trials and afflictions, through joys and celebrations the power of the word had guided me along the rim of life and given me power to try to reach out and share the blessing of faith in Jesus Christ manifest in its pages.
I declare with Ammon: “. . . but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God. Therefore, let us glory, yea, we will glory in the Lord; yea, we will rejoice, for our joy is full; yea, we will praise our God forever. Behold, who can glory too much in the Lord? Yea, who can say too much of his great power, and of his mercy, and of his long-suffering towards the children of men? Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.”
