{"id":7469,"date":"2009-03-24T10:45:09","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T15:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=7469"},"modified":"2009-03-24T10:45:09","modified_gmt":"2009-03-24T15:45:09","slug":"one-last-book-before-i-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2009\/03\/one-last-book-before-i-go\/","title":{"rendered":"One Last Book Before I Go"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So your mission call finally arrived (see <a href=\"http:\/\/thingsofmysoul.blogspot.com\/2009\/03\/my-sons-mission-announcement.html\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.millennialstar.org\/2009\/03\/20\/guest-post-mission-call\/\">here<\/a>, or <a href=\"http:\/\/mormonmatters.org\/2009\/03\/21\/my-sons-mission-details\/\">here<\/a>) and you suddenly realize that it starts in 44 days but you don&#8217;t know that much about Mormonism or what it is you are supposed to teach for two long years. You are suddenly serious about &#8220;missionary prep.&#8221; What book should you read?<\/p>\n<p>  <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>There is the MPC (Mormon politically correct) answer: The Book of Mormon. That&#8217;s not a bad idea, but you&#8217;ll read it in the MTC again anyway, so if you are starting from scriptural zero you are better off reading the New Testament. Having read Mark and Galatians will give you some credibility when speaking with Christians. But as a missionary, your scriptures will always be with you. It&#8217;s suggestions for books you can&#8217;t take with you that we&#8217;re looking for.<\/p>\n<p>Before leaving on my mission I read Hugh Nibley&#8217;s <em>An Approach to the Book of Mormon<\/em>, a very positive experience. It also prepared me to read large chunks of the Nibley corpus courtesy of the Geneva Switzerland ward library. Before my son left on his mission, I had him read <em>How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/em>. Any other suggestions?<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know that it really matters that much for most pre-missionaries, but for some the right book in those key few weeks before embarking can make a small positive difference. For a few, the right book might make a big difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So your mission call finally arrived (see here, here, or here) and you suddenly realize that it starts in 44 days but you don&#8217;t know that much about Mormonism or what it is you are supposed to teach for two long years. You are suddenly serious about &#8220;missionary prep.&#8221; What book should you read?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-missionary"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7470,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7469\/revisions\/7470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}