Book of Mormon Read-A-Thon

We issued a challenge to our Young Women to read the Book of Mormon over the summer for their Virtue or Honor Bee projects. We held a big kick off read-a-thon at my house. It was a big success, and the girls did AWESOME! We made it to 2 Nephi 24 (all the way through the Isaiah chapters). Here's a brief summary of how our night went:

At 5:00 the girls showed up with their scriptures, marking pencils, pillows and blankets. We fed them pizza for dinner and then had them settle in and get comfy. We listened to the title page, intro, testimony of the three and eight, testimony of Joseph Smith, and the explanation. 

 We had 22 girls show up! A couple had to leave early, and a couple came a little late, but the majority of them were there the whole 7 hours!

 We gave them a really cute tracker to mark off the chapters as we read them.

 We also gave them a really cool list of page titles that they could write at the top of each page as we read. It's a 1 sentence summary of each page. It can be found at www.confessionsofaslackermom.com. 

 Bailey was really excited about this activity. She did so great, and I think she learned a lot.

At 6:00, President Fuller (Stake President) came over dressed as Nephi and kicked us off by reading the first 2 chapters to us. He had the brass plates, and the sword of Laban. He was so great, because he would explain what he was reading as he went. I learned a few thing, so I'm pretty sure the girls did.

 President Fuller

We had some acting going on for the next few chapters. 

 Nephi smiting off Laban's head. I think Ali had WAY to much fun killing Emily :)!

The next part of the night was my favorite. Neal Larson came over as Nephi and explained Lehi's dream to them. The girls even got to walk through it. 

 Lehi's dream.

 We ran a rope (rod of iron) from my house to a tree out on the canal road (tree of life). The girls had to hold onto the iron rod and make it to the tree.

 Ha! We even had a mist of darkness for them to go through :)!

 On the other side of the canal (filthy waters), there was an big, empty field where some of our young men acted as the great and spacious building. They were HILARIOUS!!! They were blasting music, dancing, mocking us, and yelling taunts. Conner was waving some weeds back in forth in the air and yelled, "Hey, who wants some weed!" Then after Sawyer shook his butt for us, he lifted his shirt up and yelled, "You don't get abs like these from reading your scriptures!" I was DYING! Even Mark busted a few good moves.

 Once they made it to the tree, they got to partake of the fruit.

We listened to some chapters, and had some guest readers come to finish out first Nephi.

Mark narrated, and Sawyer acted out 1 Nephi 16. It's the Liahona and the broken bow. 

When we finished 1 Nephi, we gave them a handout that said, "The scriptures are to be used like bread...for daily use. Not like cake...for just special occasions." But we told them finishing 1 Nephi was a special occasion, so we had cake.

We knew that 2 Nephi would be challenging, because there is some hard stuff to understand in it. But the girls amazed us with how well they paid attention. We had some giggling during the last few Isaiah chapters, but who can blame them. We face timed with Tammi a couple times, had lots of guest readers, listened to it on double speed, gave them lots of treats, took some breaks to do Book of Mormon truth or dare, and just kept plugging along. We ended at midnight! Now the girls only have to read 5 pages a day during the rest of the summer to complete the challenge!

I love my calling! I love the awesome, and extremely dedicated ladies I serve with, and I LOVE the girls!