Bringing My Scriptures to Church

One change that having a baby brought to my life that I did not expect was how much—or how little—I would be able to listen gospel lessons during Sunday meetings. For the first several months of my baby’s life, it felt like I spent most of my time at church in the mother’s room. Where I could hear sacrament meeting but missed the other lessons. Then carrying around all of the baby’s gear made me start being lazy about bringing my scriptures to church. When I realized that not bringing my scriptures to church was affecting my experience with gospel learning, I did some reorganization and made it work, but even though I made the effort to bring my own study materials, in reality most Sundays I never opened my scriptures during church.

This is why during Sunday school on my baby’s first day in nursery I had to remind myself to open my scriptures again. Although I had made myself keep the habit of carrying my scriptures with me, I would have to start remembering that with the baby in nursery I finally had enough hands to open them once more.

Coming full circle with going to church as a mother, these changes have made me grateful for many things. I’m grateful that we have scriptures available to each of us, individually, so much that we are able to bring our own scriptures to church each Sunday, engage in lessons, and take an active part in gospel learning. Having this opportunity taken away a little while I had to chase a crawling baby helped me better appreciate the opportunities I have on Sundays to be a gospel learner. And now I’m so grateful for the nursery program and dedicated teachers and leaders who will teach my son the gospel so that I can take time during church meetings to keep learning too.