Around The Book of Mormon in 97 Days

I'm a sucker for a challenge, especially a reading challenge. A group of Latter-day Saints is getting together to read the Book of Mormon in 97 days as a tribute to our 97-year-old Prophet who passed away this week. Their website is found at The Hinckley Challenge, and it is really cool. You log in your reading each day, and it tells you how many pages per day you must read. Right now I have to read 5.42 pages a day to finish by May 11, 2008. There is a nifty graph to put on your sidebar so as to brag about your progress.

So far there are 3673 people who are taking the Hinckley Challenge, and I am sure there will be many more. We start tomorrow, but you can join in any time. I hope you will go check out the site.

President Gordon B. Hinckley on the Book of Mormon:

"I take in my hand the Book of Mormon. I read its words. I have read Joseph Smith's explanation of how it came to be. To the unbelieving it is a story difficult to accept, and critics for generations have worn out their lives writing books intended to refute that story and to offer other explanations than the one given by Joseph the Prophet. But to the open-minded, this critical writing has only stimulated them to dig deeper; and the more deeply they dig, the greater the accumulation of evidence for the validity of Joseph Smith's story. Still, as has been demonstrated for a hundred and fifty years, the truth of the Book of Mormon will not be determined by literary analysis or by scientific research, although these continue to be reassuring. The truth about the origins of the Book of Mormon will be determined today and tomorrow, as it has been throughout the yesterdays, by reading the book in a spirit of reverence and respect and prayer." ("Praise to the Man," Ensign, Aug. 1983, 4)