Our Book of Mormon Challenge

So, Jaicie turns eight next July!  I know, crazy huh!  It is hard to believe that she has grown up so fast. Last night while I was reading my scriptures, I had an idea and I decided to run with it!  This morning Jaicie and I talked about it and she loved the idea!

What's the idea? you are probably saying...so Here it is! ~

I want Jaicie to read the Book of Mormon before her 8th birthday, and before she is baptized. So I logged onto readthescriptures.com and created a reading program for her so that she finished on July 13, the day before her birthday!  I set her up her own account and showed her how to get into it and what she needs to do. Each day she needs to read 26 verses to be done on July 13. That isn't too bad!  She is really excited about it actually. I am going to read along with her (along with my own regular scripture study) so that we can talk about what she read each day. So each day she will click on the icon on the desk top and open up the website, all logged in and everything. She will then click on Read Online and when she is done, she will click complete. I will get emails everyday in my inbox so that I can read her assigned reading each day. Then after dinner (or maybe before) we will sit down and talk about what we read and how she felt about it.

I want her to have a chance to really learn to recognize the spirit in her life. I want her to understand the power of the scriptures. I also want her to start to develop her own scripture study habits. For her eighth birthday, she will get a set of scriptures and I want her to have an appreciation for them and want to read and study them everyday. But more than that, i want her to know when she gets baptized that it is what her Heavenly Father wants her to do. I don't want her to just trust me and Justin on it. I know that she won't have a complete understanding of everything, but I do want her to understand a little bit more. And having the chance to talk about it everyday, will give me the chance to make sure she understands what she is reading. I am really excited about this--mostly just for her, but also for the two of us together. I know Jaicie is really good at remembering to do things, sometimes, more so than I am. It will give us a chance to really talk about the scriptures.

It will be an adventure. I wish that the churches website had the same features as the readthescriptures site, so that she could use the My Study Notebook feature and record her thoughts...But then I realized that she can't have an account until she is 8. But it will be fun and hopefully she will gain that understanding and appreciation for the scriptures before her baptism! I also love what I found about this ward. IN our ward, before a child is baptized, the ward missionaries, go through the missionary lessons, as if they were teaching an older investigator. Not sure exactly how it works, but I am excited for Jaicie to have that as well. This next 10 1/2 months will bring lots of change into our home. And I look forward to it. Because most of it should be for the good of our entire family!