Elder Shayne M. Bowen (Oct. 18): "The Role of the Book of Mormon in Conversion"

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First, it should be mentioned that Elder Bowen (I believe) was president of the Spain Barcelona mission, which was my mission.  He came after me, but still I like him for that.  :)  Traditionally, an approach to a talk like this might be to invite a couple of members to share how the Book of Mormon helped in their conversion or to ask class members to share informally their experiences with the Book of Mormon.  Those are potentially powerful approaches, but here I have gone for something a little different.

The Activity:

  1. Prepare a bunch of slips of paper with one of these two quotes on each slip:
    1. Para. 16 "A principal purpose . . . gather scattered Israel"
    2. Para. 28 "The Book of Mormon . . . sons and daughters"
  2. Ask the class to form small groups of 3-4 people.
  3. Give each group one slip of paper.  It does not matter what group gets which quote as long as there are groups with each quote in the room.
  4. Explain that each strip of paper contains a quote from the talk about something the Book of Mormon does.  Ask each group to spend a few moments thinking and talking about HOW the Book of Mormon does this.
  5. After a few moments, come back together as a class to share some insights that were brought up in the groups.
  6. Read Pres. Nelson's quote in Para. 29  "In fact, if . . . would not occur."
  7. Have the class members return to their groups and discuss WHY the Book of Mormon holds such a central role in the gathering of Israel. Encourage them to identify specific reasons beyond the superficial.  
  8. After a few minutes of discussion, ask the class members to consider how these ideas should impact the way they use the Book of Mormon in their everyday lives and ask them to commit to making a change in the coming week.
Using the Activity:

The idea here is to have the class members think a lot about the Book of Mormon so that it leads to change.  There is no right answer that I can think of to either of these questions; it seems that there are a number of possible answers that would be on target.  The purpose, then, is not to come up with the "right" answer, instead, it is to spend time pondering these ideas so that the Spirit can speak to each class member about their use of the Book of Mormon in their lives, whether that is their personal study, how they apply its messages, or how they use it in missionary work.  

Thank you for coming to my blog.  I hope that you have found something of value here.  

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