January is flying by! (I am not complaining a bit. I don't particularly care for January or February. I am all about SPRING!) We have been keeping very busy with life and learning.

I have been reading The Chosen by Chaim Potok and Randy has been listening to it on audiobook as he drives to work and class and back. It has been very fun to discuss it together. We actually went on a date last weekend and talked all through dinner!

Randy and I have been really working on using our leisure time more wisely to get a classic education since last summer. It has been very good for us. The other day we had a good discussion on some stuff he was learning in Plato about whether virtue is something that can be learned and whether knowledge can bring more courage. We decided that knowledge does bring more courage as in the case of 9/11. The guys on the last flight had the knowledge of what the terrorists' plans were via cell phone conversations which gave them the courage to bring down the plane. Perhaps if the passengers on the earlier flights had been given the same knowledge, they would have been just as courageous.

I firmly believe that the Prophet asks us to study and learn for a reason. Even if we never "need" to know the things we study, being able to have meaningful conversations as a family does strengthen family relationships and we all know how needed that is.

Since President Hinckley asked us to finish the Book of Mormon in 2005, we have seen the promised blessings. We have been able to have more meaningful scripture study as a family. We have read the BOM twice since then and started again this month. We have again hit the Isaiah part of the BOM that "makes no sense." This time we have decided to actually learn the stuff and try to understand it instead of just muddle through again.

In reading The Chosen, there is a part where Danny is trying to read Freud in German and can't make heads or tails of it. It drives him crazy until he remembers how he had to start learning scripture in the beginning. He used commentaries and study aids to help him understand it - he didn't just push through, he studied one line at a time until he understood it. Now he easily understands his scripture study and has much of it memorized. He realizes that that is how he needs to study Freud if he wants to get it.

Randy and I, in our discussions of The Chosen, realized that we are not going to "get" Isaiah by just pushing through it and we have been looking for commentary to help us. We have found the Old Testament manual from institute days and W. Cleon Skousen's work to be helpful. I found a big book at Seagull Book yesterday called Understanding Isaiah by Donald Parry, Jay Parry and Tina Peterson that I intend to get into today.

It has taken us three days to get through 1 Nephi 20 which compares to Isaiah 48, but we are getting it now. The reason that it is so hard to understand is that each verse is a different topic that could fill a sacrament meeting.

Goodness. How does a girl journal what she learns in a whole chapter of Isaiah in one paragraph?!!

This morning we learned in 1 Nephi 20: 18-22 that if the Israelites had obeyed the commandments, they would have had peace and have had a larger population. The Lord will always provide for his children, but if those children are wicked, they will not receive. It is not because the blessings are not being given, it is because the blessings are not being received.

How many times have blessings been available, but I have not received because of "wickedness." Even if the wickedness is just lack of self discipline that keeps my kitchen too messy to have neighbors over. Or blessings I have missed being too busy to play legos with my kids because of poor time management. Or blessings in my marriage that I have missed by not starting dinner quite on time so I am stressed and cranky when my darling husband comes home. Since my morning sickness has abated, I have really been working on doing better at receiving these blessings. Maybe that is why January has been so much more tolerable this year. It really works! Wow!