I remember feeling many times that I was just marking time, waiting for my life to happen.

A great number of righteous men and women from the Old Testament and Book of Mormon, including prophets, priests, kings, and others, served as types and shadows of Jesus Christ. Their personal purity and righteousness, as well as events in their lives, foreshadowed Jesus’ righteousness and his works. The parallels between these individuals and Christ are so striking that these persons “were types and shadows of our Lord’s coming; they were living, walking, breathing Messianic prophecies.”1 Elder Jeffrey R. Holland wrote: “Jehovah used an abundance of archetypes and symbols. Indeed, these have always been a conspicuous characteristic of the Lord’s instruction to his children. Examples of those figures—especially prefigurations of Christ—are present throughout the pre-Messianic record. . . .

Introduction

Years ago, before the Church instituted the three-hour block schedule for our Sunday meetings, we used to go to the chapel for meetings three times every Sunday—once in the morning for priesthood meeting, a second time for Sunday School opening exercises and classes, and finally a third time for a ninety-minute sacrament meeting. When I was a very young man, our ward’s Sunday School superintendent, Brother Marchant, came to our class one Sunday to ask for volunteers who would be willing to give the prayer, the 2½-minute talks, and the sacrament gem (a verse of scripture shared before the sacrament was passed) in the following week’s Sunday School opening exercises. My strategy was to quickly volunteer to say either the prayer or the sacrament gem. I was motivated by the desire to avoid having to give a talk at all costs! Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t the only person in the class with that strategy, and I missed out on my first choice, the prayer. I was quick enough, however, to score the sacrament gem assignment. Given the other alternative, I felt lucky.

It hasn’t even been a year since President Nelson became President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but in this short time, we have seen numerous blessings and experienced massive changes in the Church.

INTRODUCTION: In 3 Nephi 24 and 25, the Lord quoted two chapters from Malachi to the Nephites so that they could be included in the Nephite scriptures for the sake of future generations:

Matthew 25

Recently the Instagram account @BofM365 extended the #PhotoBofM challenge to their 95K followers. The goal for this challenge is to flood Instagram with touching testimonies of the Book of Mormon. Al Fox Carraway and hundreds of other Instagrammers have already joined in sharing their testimonies. If you'd like to join in, just follow these three simple steps:

I must tell you about my dear Aunt Alice, from whom I have learned some wonderful lessons. What a woman she is! She lives in Cardston and is now ninety-three years of age. If you were ever to see her when she was dressed up, you would find her wearing a perky little hat, a delicate chiffon scarf tied at her neck—"to cover the wrinkles," she says—a bright smile on her face, and a twinkle in her eye. A couple of years ago, her son took her to a Saturday night stake dance. This was a happy occasion, she was excited to report to me. She told me that several people had asked her to dance. Her excitement reminded me of a conversation I might have had with a girlfriend fifty years ago.

At noon on the Ides of March, 1493, a small wooden ship rode the rising tide up the Río Tinto and into the harbor of Palos, Spain. She wasn’t much of a ship—her deck was only about 55 feet long. She was weathered but solidly built and appeared to be newly caulked. She was named the Santa Clara, but was usually called the Niña after her owner, Juan Niño of Moguer. The Niña had last been seen in Palos on August 3, 1492, sailing down the ebb tide with two other ships, the Santa María and the Pinta as part of an attempt to reach the Orient by sailing west across the uncharted waters.