Mormon Musings

The importance of reading, studying, and searching the scriptures is highlighted in several elements of Lehi’s vision of the tree of life. Father Lehi saw several groups of people pressing forward along the strait and narrow path, seeking to obtain the tree and its fruit. The members of each group had entered onto the path through the gate of repentance and baptism by water and had received the gift of the Holy Ghost (see 2 Nephi 31:17–20). The tree of life is the central feature in the dream and is identified in 1 Nephi 11 as a representation of Jesus Christ. The fruit on the tree is a symbol for the blessings of the Savior’s Atonement. Interestingly, the major theme of the Book of Mormon, inviting all to come unto Christ, is central in Lehi’s vision. Of particular interest is the rod of iron that led to the tree (see 1 Nephi 8:19). The rod of iron is the word of God. In 1 Nephi 8, verses 21 through 23, we learn about a group of people who pressed forward and commenced in the path tha...

If dying to that old way of using God’s law is, then, Nephi’s own explanation for how we are saved by grace, why does he add in 2 Nephi 25:23 that we are saved by grace “after all we can do”? What does this additional phrase mean? In particular, what did “after all we can do” mean when the Book of Mormon was first translated into English? As Daniel McClellan demonstrates, in 1830 the phrase “after all we can do” was unmistakably a very “specific idiom with a very clear meaning.” It was consistently used for “describing circumstances that obtain in spite of everything that may be done to overcome, prevent, or avoid them.” In short, “after all we can do” was, at that time, a clear and commonly understood way of saying “despite all we can do.” According to Nephi, we are saved by grace despite all we can do . Adam Miller (emphasis added)

With frightening speed, a testimony that is not nourished daily "by the good word of God" can crumble.  Thus, the antidote to Satan's scheme is clear: we need daily experiences worshipping the Lord and stying His gospel.  I plead with you to let God prevail in your life.  Give Him a fair share of your time.  As you do, notice what happens to your positive spiritual momentum. President Russell M. Nelson, April 2022 General Conference

"God is never surprised." Neal A. Maxell

Oliver Cowdery, previous to his apostasy said to President Joseph Smith: "If I should leave the Church it would break up." Joseph said to Oliver—"What, who are you? The Lord is not dependent upon you, the work will roll forth do what you will." Oliver left the Church, and was gone about ten years; then he came back again, to a branch of the Church in meeting on Mosquito Creek, in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. The body of the Church had come off here to the west, but there was still remaining there a branch of about fifteen hundred or two thousand people, and when he came there he bore his testimony to the truth of the Book of Mormon and the divine mission of the Twelve Apostles, and asked to be received into the Church again, and said that he had never seen in all his life so large a congregation of Saints as the one then assembled. We loved to hear brother Oliver testify, we were pleased with his witness, but when he passed off and went among our enemies he was forgo...

Joseph Smith once said that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. Why is the Book of Mormon the keystone of our religion? What is the Book of Mormon? Whatever else it is, it is revelation. In fact, it is a revelation about revelation. It is the basic document by which we would begin to testify to the world, with a copy in our hands, that the heavens are opened and that God lives and that he speaks and that Jesus is the Christ. That is a basic message of salvation. And the process by which that message comes is revelation. And Joseph Smith taught that that is the characteristic of this Church, a characteristic by which it will always be known and recognized. Jeffrey R. Holland, BYU Devotional 1976

“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the co...