“’Do You Have a Blue Book with Gold Lettering?’” Liahona, October 2020
“Do You Have a Blue Book with Gold Lettering?”
Sometime after throwing the book away, I was curious to know what was in it.
Illustration by Greg Newbold
Years ago, I received a blue book with gold lettering on the cover from missionaries serving on the military base where I was receiving training for my job in the United States Navy.
As I started to read the book, someone told me that it was false because it was copied from the Bible. This caused me to doubt the book’s authenticity, but I held onto it. I read a little of it, put it in the bottom of my seabag, and then forgot about it.
Over a year later, I decided to clean out my seabag. I found the book but no longer had any interest in it, so I threw it away. But sometime later, I grew curious about what was in that blue book with gold lettering. I now believe that this feeling came from the Spirit, “which leadeth to do good” (Doctrine and Covenants 11:12).
In 2005 a newfound friend invited me to listen to the missionaries. At first, I had questions and doubts about what they taught, but the missionaries were confident and gave answers that made sense to me.
When I realized that these missionaries were like the ones I had met years before, I anxiously asked them, “Do you guys have a blue book with gold lettering?”
“Yes, we do!” one of them replied. “It’s called the Book of Mormon!”
I was excited to have the Book of Mormon again. In fact, I was so excited that I read it more than once in less than two weeks! As I read and prayed, I came to know that it is the word of God.
Elder Rubén V. Alliaud of the Seventy said something in general conference that relates to my experience with the Book of Mormon: “Any reader who commits to a sincere study of [the Book of Mormon], with the spirit of prayer, will not only learn about Christ but will learn from Christ—especially if they make the decision to ‘try the virtue of the word’ [Alma 32:5] and not reject it prematurely due to prejudiced unbelief by what others have said about things that they have never read.”1
By reading the Book of Mormon, praying, and trusting in the Spirit, I have seen great things come to pass in my life.