Book of Mormon

This is Tate with all the Young Women in the Steilacoom ward.

"Why," you ask? Because he finished reading
the WHOLE Book of Mormon!

Tate absolutely loves reading the scriptures! We have always read "scriptures with pictures" together in the morning before school, but this year we decided to read the real deal. Tate became so passionate about reading, that he set a goal to finish the Book of Mormon before he turned eight (and is baptized). We pulled out the calendar, figured out how many chapters he had to read each day to meet his goal, and got to work.

Tate would always ask me and Todd where we were in our personal reading and then moved on to everyone in the ward. Seriously, he would tell people where he was in his reading and ask where they were. It was fun for him. One day he played this game with Sister Gehring, the Young Women's President in our ward. Apparently the young women were in the midst of a challenge to read the Book of Mormon by June 8th. Sister Gehring was so impressed that Tate was reading the Book of Mormon, that she invited him to attend their party as an honorary guest if he finished by June 8th. This was a month and a half before his original deadline, but he was so excited about attending that party, he stepped it up and even finished a week early!

I am so pleased with Tate's desire to read the scriptures and am even more pleased that he lets his passion spread to others. He loves talking to people about the scriptures and even wants to share them with his friends at school. He wanted to give the Book of Mormon he just finished reading to his friend Sadie. We realized it was pretty thrashed, so we got a new one from the missionaries (Tate couldn't stand to wait for us to buy one). Before the missionaries even left our house Tate was writing a note to Sadie in the front cover. We asked Tate to let us talk to her parents before he gave them to her.  Apparently he still took that Book of Mormon to school the next day and told me on our way home from school that he gave it to her. When I expressed concern that I hadn't talked to her parents yet, he explained, "It's okay mom! I saw her dad and asked him first. He said it's okay!" I talked to Sadie's mother later who seemed to understand completely. What relief! I wish I had Tate's courage and enthusiasm.

Todd and I had bought Tate a hardbound set of scriptures for his birthday. After a week of listening to "If you bought me a Bible for my birthday can I please have it now? I want to read more!" we decided to give them to him early. Within one week he was half way through the Doctrine and Covenants. He asks questions and we talk about the things he is reading. What a wonderful blessing Tate's love for the scriptures is to our family. I pray that he will keep this love and enthusiasm throughout his life. It will help him know the Savior better and bless others as it has us.