Sunday, September 9, 2012

And It Came to Pass: Our Daughter Reads the Scriptures

"It wasn't really so, but it seemed to me[!]"

We do our best to read from the scriptures, as a family, on a regular basis.  The other day, our daughter convened the family, said a prayer, picked up the Book of Mormon, and started to say, "And it came to pass . . . mumble, mumble, mumble . . . And it came to pass, mumble, mumble, mumble."

And it came to pass!
If the Book of Mormon is new to you, it's a volume of ancient scripture from the Americas, and it contains the phrase, "And it came to pass" around 1,070 times, so I think you can see why our daughter might recall the phrase.

We were very tickled she remembered the phrase and, more importantly to us, we were thrilled she wanted to read and she remembered something from what we had read.

I'm intrigued to note one Egyptian scholar, an expert in Semitic languages, cited the frequent use of the phrase "and it came to pass" as evidence "the Book of Mormon was indeed a translation of 'the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.'"  http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/in-tune-with-the-music-of-faith?lang=eng

I'll close with a similar story I heard while serving as a missionary in Peru, seven years ago:

"Many years ago, when our oldest children were six, four, and two, my wife and I sprang a pop quiz on them. We had been reading daily as a family from the Book of Mormon.

"'Who was the man,' my wife inquired, 'who went into the forests to hunt, but, instead, prayed all day and into the night?'

"After a few moments of silence, she ventured to help: 'His name starts with an E … e … e … e … e.'

"From the corner of the room, our two-year-old called out, 'Nos!'

"This child was the one who was playing in the corner—the one that we had thought was too little to understand."

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2005/10/if-christ-had-my-opportunities?lang=eng

I'm convinced our children are always old enough for us to start reading the scriptures with them.  I encourage us all to continue reading with them or make a commitment to start.

5 comments:

Not sure said...

Helps me to remember that all of the hard work is worth it. Thanks for sharing!

Rock Solid said...

Truly they are never too young to hear the good word. It brings peace to the home, it brings righteousness, it brings love. Thank you for sharing this post.

Daniel said...

My pleasure! Thanks for commenting.

Not sure said...

That was a lot of fun, now if we have her start saying, "Vote for Mitt Romney" to random people. It will be harder for strangers to give her the stink eye then it is to us.

Steph said...

I love this! Maria is so cute :) And it's neat to hear those stories. We read scriptures together as a family each day already and although Kate is only 5 weeks old, I'm glad that she will grow up with the scriptures being a part of her normal daily life. Thank you for your example!