Night Light

by Brittney Achter

I can’t get to sleep without it. And I’m glad.

At my baptism I received a set of scriptures. I was so excited. The black-bound books had my name engraved on them in bright gold letters. I proudly carried them to church every Sunday. Previously I had had only a Book of Mormon. Now I felt extra special carrying the other scriptures too.

As a new member of the Church, I decided I would read the Bible every day. But that only lasted about a week. I got confused with all the names and years in the first part of Genesis. So I tried just reading during the sacrament on Sundays. After a while I wasn’t thinking about Jesus anymore; I was just trying to piece together who was who in the Bible.

A year later, our family started reading the Book of Mormon together. When we finished the following year, I had forgotten almost everything we had read.

As I became older and could understand things better, I decided to read the Book of Mormon by myself.

I started okay, but soon began forgetting—or thinking I didn’t have enough time. When I did read, it went through my 11-year-old brain like water. I was just reading to read and was not really understanding what the book was saying.

Then, the summer right before I turned 12, I went to girls’ camp with my ward’s Young Women.

We had time each night for scripture study in our tents, and I decided I was going to read the scriptures every night I was there. I began with the first words of the first verse that almost everyone has memorized: “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents …” (1 Ne. 1:1).

It was so incredible. I don’t know how, but the scriptures started making more sense. I felt how hard it would be if Heavenly Father commanded my family to leave our home and go somewhere so far away. I had always known the story of how the Lord commanded Nephi to go get the brass plates, but those three nights at camp I could actually see a young man going to an evil man’s home, needing the plates.

I have read the scriptures every night since girls’ camp. I haven’t forgotten, and if I accidentally turn off the light before I read my scriptures, I am not able to sleep. After I finish reading the Book of Mormon, I plan on reading the Bible.

Now that I have learned to “liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning” (1 Ne. 19:23), I hope others will learn from my experience and be able to enjoy reading the scriptures too.

Illustrated by Scott Greer