Week 38: In Eve's Lines
Dear Loved Ones,
This week, we went to visit a member of the YSA and her dad was picking tomatoes in the front of the yard. He came up to me and said, "Hey sisters, you know how this is the Garden of Eden?"
"I do."
"Would you like a tomato from the Garden of Eden?"
I took it and ate it. People in the church worldwide talk about the Garden's location surprisingly little. Independence has so much focus as the location of the Second Coming that we brush over what happened first.
Friday morning, all the visitors' center sisters held a meeting at the temple lot across the street. It's cared for by the Church of Christ, who don't mind us wandering around it. It used to be a battleground. Women and children sheltered from the mob on the temple lot and the Union and Confederates skirmished here, too. There's a lot of blood in Jackson County. And I'm striking back with light. I am walking in the ancient battle lines drawn by Eve.
I wish I could say I'm always heavily impressed by the history of the place, but honestly, the landscape of Independence today is so different from what it used to be that I have a hard time reconciling the things I read with the place I live. But it just hit this week.
A man from one of the break-off churches came into the visitors' center yesterday and we got to chatting about different literary features of the Book of Mormon. I told him something I've noticed lately: often, when characters are introduced, they're "on screen" for a couple of verses without being named. A description comes first and the name comes after. I'm not sure yet if this is consistent throughout and if this name pattern is followed in the Bible or not.
He told me, "Please, please, pursue the formatting of the structural names as presented in the Book of Mormon. That was such an interesting though. You will never know until you go through the entire book and list how each name is introduced to the reader. I would love to know the results when you finally have an answer."
I'm excited to research this. I'm going to make this a focus of my Book of Mormon study when I go in depth for Come Follow Me next year.
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
This week, we went to visit a member of the YSA and her dad was picking tomatoes in the front of the yard. He came up to me and said, "Hey sisters, you know how this is the Garden of Eden?"
"I do."
"Would you like a tomato from the Garden of Eden?"
I took it and ate it. People in the church worldwide talk about the Garden's location surprisingly little. Independence has so much focus as the location of the Second Coming that we brush over what happened first.
Friday morning, all the visitors' center sisters held a meeting at the temple lot across the street. It's cared for by the Church of Christ, who don't mind us wandering around it. It used to be a battleground. Women and children sheltered from the mob on the temple lot and the Union and Confederates skirmished here, too. There's a lot of blood in Jackson County. And I'm striking back with light. I am walking in the ancient battle lines drawn by Eve.
I wish I could say I'm always heavily impressed by the history of the place, but honestly, the landscape of Independence today is so different from what it used to be that I have a hard time reconciling the things I read with the place I live. But it just hit this week.
A man from one of the break-off churches came into the visitors' center yesterday and we got to chatting about different literary features of the Book of Mormon. I told him something I've noticed lately: often, when characters are introduced, they're "on screen" for a couple of verses without being named. A description comes first and the name comes after. I'm not sure yet if this is consistent throughout and if this name pattern is followed in the Bible or not.
He told me, "Please, please, pursue the formatting of the structural names as presented in the Book of Mormon. That was such an interesting though. You will never know until you go through the entire book and list how each name is introduced to the reader. I would love to know the results when you finally have an answer."
I'm excited to research this. I'm going to make this a focus of my Book of Mormon study when I go in depth for Come Follow Me next year.
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
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