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

GET OUT THERE

So here's my thing. Its SUMMER!!! Its time to have fun! Be a little wild, a little crazy, let loose! I don't know about everyone else out there... But I tend to get a smidgen bored during summer without the constant deadlines,papers, tests, etc... So seriously GET OUT THERE! You only get to be YOUNG once. Sing, dance, act, CREATE. Just don't waste your life away inside this summer! There is ONLY one you! So bless the world by being your AMAZING self!!

What is it to be an American

This is an essay I wrote for my 11th grade English class. So, today I went to class all excited to hear everyone else's opinions and feelings. I was shocked by the lack of patriotism, and the lack of understanding of how blessed we are to live in this nation.

What is it to be an American?

What is it to be an American? It’s a question that has been asked since this country was founded. Does it mean to be proud, to be free, and have boundless opportunities? There isn’t a set definition of what it is to be an American. It means different things to different people. To a refugee from the war ravaged country of North Korea this country would offer a sense of safety, and the ability to start anew. Such a person would have a very different view of what it is to be an American and live in America; compared to a cooperate executive who works on Wall Street. To me, an American is a person who wants something better, something more. In the Declaration of Independence it states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.“ Most people don’t understand the risks, lengths, and sacrifices that were made that led our country to where it is today. Being American means knowing that you have a great heritage, that people gave their lives for this country. Many people have heroic tales of ancestors who fought for what they believed in and suffered many afflictions. A story of such endurance in my family is that of Grandma Jo. Grandma Jo crossed the plains and had to bury her new born baby in the ice. She covered her child’s body with rocks for a grave, and while slowly driving away she heard the wolves scrap the away those rocks. Such is the faith and courage of our fore fathers. It means knowing that I have a father in the Air Force who has multiple times put his life on the line to protect his freedom, his religion, his family, and this country.

Being an American is the knowledge that there’s something else out there. That all reason told us we would lose in the war against Great Britain. It’s realizing that all of our fore fathers: Jefferson, Franklin, Hancock, Rush, Madison, Adams, Washington, etc believed there was a Divine intervention. In May of 1776 George Washington wrote a letter to Reverend William Gordon. In it Washington said, “The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf…. In war He directed the sword, and in peace, He has ruled in our councils” We as Americans should strive to be better, do better, and do what’s right. We’ve been blessed with this free nation and it’s our job to keep it that way. An American is a person who isn’t afraid to shoot for the stars and stand up for what they believe in. Nelson Mendalah put it perfectly when he said, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." I am an American; I come from a long line of religious stalwart people. Who were pilots, engineers, military men, spies, teachers, leaders, friends, examples, laborers, mothers and fathers. Because of those before me I can worship my God.

I know that I have the same privileges as those around me, whither male or female. I can strive to be what ever I want to be; the sky is the limit. It’s the knowledge that if I don’t like something I have the power to change it. I can vote and petition, so that righteous leaders are elected. Being American is a blessing and a privilege. Thomas Jefferson said,” If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” This is what our country was founded on, what we need to uphold. Such statements remind me daily that I need to actively shape my future and do my best to help my country in the right direction. I will not be a lazy complacent citizen, I am American and the time is now.