Summer School in the Scriptures

Our eldest daughter, her husband, and their six children live in northern New York. To overcome the separation twenty-five hundred miles imposes on us, my husband and I decided to invite our grandchildren one at a time to spend part of their summer with us.

One fall, after saying goodbye to our number three grandchild, Christopher, we felt concerned about the quality of our influence on his life. Surely we had filled his days with fun activities, but had we touched him spiritually?

The next summer when nine-year-old Sally arrived, we had a plan ready. My husband, as a boy, had learned the names of all the books in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. This, we decided, was to be one of his projects with Sally. One of my assignments was to help her read and memorize favorite passages of scriptures. One passage became our favorite: Paul, in counseling young Timothy, stated, “I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also” (2 Tim. 1:5).

At the end of our time together, we presented Sally with a leather Bible, a book she had come to love and now knew a great deal about. This summer plan has become a set pattern for our other grandchildren who have visited us. Not all have achieved their goals, but all have left with a greater love of the scriptures and memories of spiritual experiences with their grandparents. Edythe K. Watson, Salt Lake City, Utah