2 Nephi 25-27 Nancy Baird - December 14, 2010

"Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long'
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is that time."
Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.i.158-64.


"As winter deepens, the loss of light saps spirit from even the sturdiest souls. It is a critical time of year - the earth has tilted as far as it will go in its orbit and sent the bright winter stars sliding over the western horizon. Days are short; the midday sun is low and weak. It is easy to feel despair, or at least a nagging uneasiness in the waning light. Could not day disappear altogether and we be left in darkness? Each morning...I impatiently count down the days to the moment when the planet makes its final great arc downward and joyously tilts back - to the winter solstice...the war with darkness is once more won and again the earth turns its beautiful, flawed face from death.
 Nancy Hanks Baird, "The Bundle of Life," Every Good Thing, Talks from the 1997 BYU Women's Conference, pp.13-18.




Two stories of healing read from:
Kitchen Table Wisdom, Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., pp.242-244.


"The ordinary, comfortable, even safe life has been interrupted. Things are not what were hoped for; they are not what was planned for. God has interrupted, pushing aside the ordinary to conceive something out of ordinary. We may not understand it, and we may not be able to manage it. What can we do? We can receive it, as frightening as that sounds. And if we read the Christmas story right, this out-of-the-ordinary interruption will prove more valuable that anything we could ever plan......
Once a Savior is born in the world, you can't cradle Him to your breast without discovering that He is dragging the whole world into your heart as well.
So let us not get too sentimental about what is happening in the manger at our Christmas celebrations. The reason Christ was born among us was to change the world. The reason His arrival has interrupted your life is to call you to His work..."
"How Shall This Be?" Jane Wise, Clark Memorandum (BYU Law School), Fall, 2010, pp.22-23.


"We live our lives in the eye of God, and not at the periphery but at the center of His vision."
M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled, p.311.


"The French are a frugal people who have learned to give so that the recipient feels good in receiving. Sidney Harris says: One of the loveliest examples is a note that Corot the painter sent to his friend Daumier who was nearly blind and facing eviction on his 65th birthday: ' Friend, I have a little house at Valmondois which I could not for the life of me think what to do with. Suddenly I thought to give it to you. Liking the idea I have had your ownership legally confirmed. I had no idea of doing you a good turn. The whole scheme was carried out to annoy your landlord. Ever yours, Corot.' And Daumier wrote gratefully in reply: 'You are the only man from whom I could take such a present and not feel humiliated.'"
from Nancy Baird's files.


"With the birth of the Babe in Bethlehem, there emerged a great endowment, a power stronger than weapons, a wealth more lasting than the coins of Caesar...His glorious gospel reshaped the thinking of the world."
President Thomas Monson, Church News, 2001


2 Nephi 25-27 - Nancy Baird - December 14, 2010 (Audio)

2 Nephi 17-24 Diane Adair - December 7, 2010

DVD viewed during class - "New Testament DVD Presentations 1-15; #5 The Nativity, #12 To this End Was I Born

2 Nephi 17-24 - Diane Adair - December 7, 2010 (Audio)

2 Nephi 11-16 Morrissa Rich - November 30, 2010

2 Nephi 11-16 - Morrissa Rich - November 30, 2010 (Audio)

2 Nephi 9-10 Diane Adair - November 23, 2010

DVD viewed during class - "Doctrine & Covenants and Church History DVD Presentations; #19 Joseph Smith - Prophet of the Restoration


2 Nephi 9-10 - Diane Adair - November 23, 2010 (Audio)

2 Nephi 4-8 Nancy Baird - November 16, 2010

"Philosophers are interested in procrastination for another reason. It's a powerful example of what the Greeks called akrasia --doing something against one's own better judgment. Piers Steel defines procrastination as willingly deferring something even though you expect the delay to make you worse off."
Quote in: "Later - What does procrastination tell us about ourselves?" by James Surowiecki, The New Yorker, Oct 11, 2010, p. 110.


"Keep balance in your lives. Beware of obsession. Beware of narrowness. Let your interests range over many good fields while working with growing strength in the field of your own profession."
President Gordon B. Hinckley, from an address to the Religious Educators in the Church Educational System, in 1978.


"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p.104.


"Here he [Nephi] uttered the great truth that delivers each of us from despair, that answers the secret question of the heart: How much can I depend on the Lord? (2Ne. 4:35).
...God whispered to him that life is simpler than it appears, because God is in charge of the world and of each of us. We are not responsible for everything...we can cast on the Lord what we cannot manage alone."
Catherine Thomas, "A Great Deliverance," Studies in Scripture vol. 7, p. 109-110.


"Being home isn't all that it is cracked up to be. I have a cell phone and I can call anyone I want to, but I don't. Most of my friends from before still aren't home. I have a car and could drive anywhere I want to (no limit on miles), but I pretty much just go to school and back. I can watch TV or listen to music or whatever, but I haven't done much of that either. Now that I have everything that I thought I might be glad to come home to, it doesn't really seem all that important anymore. I feel sorry for anyone who just can't wait to get home; they are just setting themselves up for a big disappointment."
Missionary, in a letter to the Bairds, Puerto Rico, 2002.

2 Nephi 4-8 - Nancy Baird - November 16, 2010 (Audio)

2 Nephi 1- 3 Diane Adair - November 9, 2010

DVD viewed during class - "Book of Mormon DVD Presentation 1-19; #15 The Mediator


2 Nephi 1-3 - Diane Adair - November 9, 2010 (Audio)

1 Nephi 19-22 Nancy Baird - November 2, 2010

"All that is honorable is perishing; evils are naked; our voyage is in the dark; there is a beacon nowhere; Christ is sleeping."
Gregory of Nazianzen, in the fourth century to a friend, Interpreters Bible, vol. V, p. 565.


"Isaiah wielded the 'pencil of the Holy Ghost.'" Interpreter's Bible, p.573.
2 NEPHI 4-8


1 Nephi 19-22 - Nancy Baird - November 2, 2010 (Audio)

1 Nephi 16-18 Diane Adair - October 26, 2010

1 Nephi 16-18 - Diane Adair - October 26, 2010 (Audio)

1 Nephi 12-15 Nancy Baird - October 19, 2010

"I have been carefully reviewing the state of things throughout the Christian land. I have looked with feelings of the most painful anxiety. Upon one hand, I behold the manifest withdrawal of God's spirit and a veil of stupidity."
Joseph Smith, in 1833. (Quoted by Hugh Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, p.108.)


"A predominant characteristic, however, of the behavior of those I call evil is scapegoating. Because in their hearts they consider themselves above reproach, they must lash out at anyone who does reproach them. They sacrifice others to preserve their self-image of perfection."
M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie, p. 73.


"Our capacity to choose changes constantly with our practice of life. The longer we continue to make the wrong decisions, the more our heart hardens; the more often we make the right decision, the more our heart softens - or better perhaps, comes alive...Most people fail in the art of living not because they are inherently bad...they fail because they do not wake up and see when they stand at a fork in the road and have to decide."
Eric Fromm, The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil, pp. 173-178.


"There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan."
C. S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, p. 33.


Information about the worship of Asherah in ancient Israel found in:
"Nephi and His Asherah," by Daniel Peterson. Cited on www.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu, vol.9, issue-2, 2000.


1 Nephi 12-15 - Nancy Baird - October 19, 2010 (Audio)

1 Nephi 6-11 Diane Adair - October 12, 2010

DVD viewed during class - "New Testament DVD Presentations 1-25; #1 Come Unto Me


1 Nephi 6-11 - Diane Adair - October 12,2010 (Audio)

1 Nephi 1-5 Nancy Baird - October 5, 2010

"I was never so happy in my life as when I looked over my shoulder [they were being driven out of Nauvoo in the dead of winter] and saw the temple on fire. Lord, take it if you want it; it's yours. We are now free, and we're going out."
Brigham Young (quoted by Hugh Nibley in Teachings of the Book of Mormon, p.117.

"A man's character is his fate."
Heraclitus

QUESTION by May Swenson

Body my house
My horse my hound
What will I do
When you are fallen

Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt

Where can I go
Without my mount
All eager and quick
How will I know
In thicket ahead
Is danger or treasure
When Body my good
Bright dog is dead

How will it be
To lie in the sky
Without roof or door
And wind for an eye

With cloud for shift
How will I hide?

1 Nephi 1-5 - Nancy Baird - October 5, 2010 (Audio)

Sisters in Scripture Introduction Diane Adair - September 28, 2010

DVD viewed during class - " Reflections of Christ " - Mark Mabry


Introduction to Sisters in Scripture - Diane Adair - September 28, 2010 (Audio)