1. Barbie Dolls and the Book of Mormon
2. A goal to gain a testimony
3. Truth or Dare!
4. Divine intervention

• (character chart)

1. Young Women's
2. Youth Conference
3. Saturday's Warrior
4. Brigham Young University
• Gratuitous Love Scene
5. Polygamist
6. Temple Wedding
7. Orem High
8. Bordeaux Mission
9. Exmo Conference

"Oh yeah, I forgot," said Lynn's Ursula voice. "I have a can of root beer in my pocket. I was going to share it with you guys. I only drank a little. Want some?" Annette and Lynn both laughed.

"Um, no thanks," said Lynn's doll Tuesday.

"Let's ditch her!" whispered Annette as Patty, and Annette and Lynn had Patty and Tuesday run off laughing, leaving Ursula alone in the pool.

Since there was clearly no way I could concentrate on my painting with this nonsense going on, I got up and went back to my room. I sat on the bed and read The Hobbit until Mom came around to tell us to start getting ready for bed.

I brushed my teeth and put on my pajamas, then I grabbed my copy of the Book of Mormon and went to Mom and Dad's room for our nightly family scripture reading.

As usual, Lynn and Annette were dragging their heels and moaning and groaning about being made to read the Book of Mormon. When they'd taken about ten times as long as necessary to brush their teeth, I heard Mom sternly say to them "You two had better be ready in two minutes, and I don't want to hear any more complaints!"

Mom had a frustrated look on her face as she came into the room where Dad and I were already sitting with our books open. Dad walked up to her and hugged her and kissed her on the forehead.

"They're just kids," he said. "They'll thank you someday, and you know I appreciate the effort you make for us to follow the prophet's advice and read the scriptures together as a family."

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Actually, I wasn't too keen on reading the Book of Mormon myself, but I didn't want to upset Mom like my little sisters did, and besides I knew that it was an important book for all of us to be studying.

Finally Lynn and Annette appeared and opened their books to the right chapter. As usual we went around in a circle and had each person read a verse until we got to the end of the chapter.

Our chapter for the day was Ether 6.

Mom began: "And now I, Moroni, proceed to give the record of Jared and his brother."

Then it was my turn. "For it came to pass after the Lord had prepared the stones which the brother of Jared had carried up into the mount, the brother of Jared came down out of the mount, and he did put forth the stones into the vessels which were prepared, one in each end thereof; and behold, they did give light unto the vessels."

As the story continued, I imagined doing a painting of Jared and their group, with all of their animals, traveling across the ocean in their submarine-like barges. I thought about painting the scene where the brother of Jared brought the stones to be touched by the Lord to give light inside the barges. But I couldn't think of how to portray the shot of the brother of Jared seeing just the Lord's finger in a way that was reverent and not silly.

It was kind of funny that one of the most important prophets of the Book of Mormon was referred to only as "the brother of Jared" instead of by his name, but my dad had once explained to me that the prophet Joseph Smith had had a revelation that the brother of Jared was actually named "Mahonri Morincumur" and that the Book of Mormon authors just wrote "the brother of Jared" as shorthand to save space on the gold plates.

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