Reading the Book of Mormon in 24 hours!

So after hearing a few stories of lds kids reading the Book of Mormon in 24 hours, my friends and I started talking about US trying it too. Well after a few months I decided ENOUGH is ENOUGH we're doing it. So I talked to a few ppl-got their input, picked a date and a time, and invited some friends.

Here's Who CAME:


Karissa Kartchner


Jared Allen


Katie Thompson


My LOVELY little sister


William Baker

and................... ME!

So at 7 am on August 12th all of my friends started trickling in... Once we all were at my house our cell phones went on "stun" and into the cell phone bucket. We started out sitting on my HUGE blue comfy couches, each reading a page... Needless to say that didn't last long. So throughout the day we'd read a column each, 2 verses, or 3. We stayed there for awhile but then we needed a change of scenery. So we moved into my dining room...And quite a few interesting things happened at that table....

1.While sitting there we realized we could stick 33 twist-able colored pencils in my hair... and they stayed.
(Here's what it looked like)


2.Karissa got all creative on us....


3.Brizzle decided she wanted to help


4.And we went a little stir crazy from reading about 5 hours....


After some intense math :P we realized in order to finish in time we had to read 25 pages EACH hour. So we'd have an hour where we'd be PERFECTLY on schedule. And the next we would find ourselves with 20 minutes left and 11 pages to read, we're some pretty talented speed readers. We read a few pages silently to ourselves once or twice, but other than that SOMEONE was ALWAYS reading out loud. For lunch Jared and I made hamburgers. Somewhere around Mosiah 27 (3 pm ish) Katie, Karissa, and I made 1-2-3 cookies. For dinner we had pasta. At 6:40 we had made it past the half way mark (Page 270) and we took the ONLY break. A 20 minute period where we didn't read. During that lovely 20 minutes of refuge Kt played the piano, I showered, and everyone else just chilled. But then it was back to HARD core reading.



Around 8-9 ish pm we had another reader join the cause


And then at 10 pm Sister Thompson brought us Slurpee's!! YUM! the Slurpee's and the cookies were the ONLY sugary things we allowed ourselves that day :)

We migrated ALL over my house. Couches, tables, floors,stairs, standing up and walking when needed, I did my postural solutions, Karissa bounced on the exercise ball, Jared and I had push up and sit up contests... ANYTHING to keep us awake.



Now around 2 AM staying awake GOT really hard. And we were ALL PRETTY LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPY!!! And tired and maybe even a little irritable. And im sitting there thinking to myself... "WHO IN THE WORLDS IDEA WAS THIS... Im SO tired I WANNA SLEEP! GRUMBLE GRUMBLE! oh wait.... it was mine... Never mind"


haha al francis?


So at around 3 AM when Sister Baker showed up and put the Pizzas in the oven. We were ALL pretty stinkin happy. And she in her motherly wisdom made us all stand up and walk around while she read to us for a few minutes. (THANKS Sister B!!) Then we ate some TASTY pizza that woke us up a bit...SO Sister B leaves and I start to get REALLY TIRED again. SO I say a silent prayer that I can stay awake... Well about 3 minutes after that I got the hiccups, and i had them FOREVER! and then my hiccups led to JARED getting them. Then Taylor falling off her chair laughing, and me RUNNING from the room(STILL HICCUPING) and laughing hysterically. It is SO hard to read when you have the HICCUPS! But hey... it kept me awake :p Thanks for not killing me guys, those hiccups where pretty annoying.... Around 4 am we lost Tay and Bailee to sleep....



But they were cute...and tired....so we didnt wake them



We SPEED read through Ether not even remotely enjoying the book of bloody death and destruction. Because we were dying off one by one....



FINALLY Moroni came around and we all sat around the table, and each read 2 verses to keep us coherent. The sun came out again and graced us with its presence... AND FINALLY, after Tay and Bailee once again graced us with their reading capabilities, we FINISHED at 6:36 AM.


We all looked at each other half asleep, gave each other some high fives and pats on the back. Then one by one slipped off into oblivion. Karissa drove home, Jared took Will home then passed out on my couch,Taylor and Bailee slept in the guest room, and Kt and I slept in my room.... And apparently I was a bed hog... Sorry KT!! And after about 4 hours of sleep I woke up, got dressed, and went to work. Delirious, but happy.

Start Time: 7:30 AM
Date:August 12th, 2009
Break: 6:40 pm- 7:pm
Food:chips, fruit chew things, salsa, fruit,1-2-3 cookies, wheat thins, burgers,pasta,slurpees, pizza, and WATER absolutely NO soda!
Finished: 6:36 AM
Date: August 13th, 2009

TOTAL READING TIME: 22 hours and 46 minutes!!

~~~What I Learned,Realized, Noticed~~~
-Get MORE than 5 HOURS of sleep the NIGHT before you start
-When Lehi had the Tree of Life dream 1 Nephi 8:21 says,"He saw numberless concourses of people, many of whom were pressing forward, that they might obtain the path which led unto the tree by which I stood." I wonder if he saw me.
-1 Nephi 11:6 says the Spirit "cried with a loud voice" How often is the Spirit LOUD? and we still don't recognize it?
-2 Nephi 27:11 I CANT WAIT!!!!
-So somewhere in Nephi he says that the Spirit revealed to him that the Saviors name would be Jesus Christ, and that was around 600 ish years before Christ was born. That's is SO COOL!!!
-Every time the Nephities go to battle with the Lamanites, or after they have almost killed them all. They ALWAYS gave them the option to yield up their weapons and live. Talk about MERCY and Christ-like love. Because it says AGAIN AND AGAIN "It grieved them to send their brethren to meet their maker unprepared"
-they use the word Betwixt A LOT
-what the heck does it mean to LOP SOMEONE
-reading the Book of Mormon straight through that fast makes the time line of it all make SO much more sense
-its so cool to see the scriptures where it talks about Joseph smith, Moses, Columbus, etc without saying their names. SO COOL
-The PRIDE cycle is RIDICULOUS I MEAN COME ON! WHY cant we LEARN!!
1.Spiritual Faith to Courage
2.Courage to Freedom
3. Freedom to Abundance
4.Abundance to Selfishness
5.Selfishness to Complacency
6.Complacency to Apathy
7.Apathy to Fear
8.Fear to Dependency
9.Dependency to BONDAGE
and it just happens again and AGAIN
-I want to marry someone like Moroni
-I want to more readily share the gospel with those around me


So yeah.... Thats my story and im sticking to it! Thanks to ALL my lovely friends who shared that AMAZING experience with me. Thanks Sister B & T for the food. And thank you Mom for letting us have this shindig at our house!! <3