Bright Scripture

By Lela Bartlett Coons

One of my earliest memories is of attending Sunday School class as a five-year-old in the basement of our old ward meetinghouse. I recall one day watching the dust particles move in the shafts of bright sunlight as our teacher read to us the story of how Joseph Smith prayed and our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ came and stood before him. I can still feel myself sitting there, looking and listening, surrounded by the towers of sunlight. But most of all, I remember the warm feeling swelling within me when I heard about Joseph Smith seeing and talking to our Heavenly Father.

Later that day at home, I found a book of my father’s that looked like the one my teacher had read from. I didn’t know at the time that it was a copy of the Triple Combination. I couldn’t read it, but just holding the book in my hands and looking at its pages recaptured for me what I had felt in Sunday School.

When I got older and read the book for the first time, I felt this same warmth. Over the years, I have experienced this feeling again and again—in church, in the temple, while listening to someone speak, and most of all, while reading scripture.

Illustrated by Tyler Lybbert