Institute

This semester Trevor and me decided to take an institute class together.  We picked Evidences of the Book of Mormon, which has turned out to be a really great class!  One of the coolest things we've learned about was about this guy who decided to go back to Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia and find the path that Lehi and his family followed when they traveled in the wilderness and he made a video about it.  So our teacher explained that Saudi Arabia is the driest area in the world.  That there are hardly any inlets into the Red Sea and the country hasn't changed much since those times.  In 1 Ne 2:5-10 Nephi describes the beginning of their journey:

6. And it came to pass that when he had traveled three days in the wilderness, he pitched his tent in a valley by the side of a river of water.
7. And it came to pass that he built an altar of stones...
8. And it came to pass that he called the name of the river, Laman, and it emptied into the Red Sea; and the valley was in the borders near the mouth thereof.
9. ... emptied into the fountain of the Red Sea
10. ... like unto this valley, firm and steadfast, and immovable...


The video talks about three days by camel is about 60-70 miles, so they know they have to find a valley by a river within that distance.  Through some high-tech language translating they talked about how in verse 5 Nephi says "came down by the borders" and borders means mountains.  So there is in fact a mountain range there, which they go through and FIND a valley and a river of water.  And my teacher said that this guy went back to the area different times of the year and multiple years and every time he went there this river was running and it actually empties into the Red Sea.  The valley is  in these really high granite mountains that are "firm and steadfast" you know.  So they do find this place that matches all of these descriptions!  And not only THAT but they find some ruins there and some pottery that dates back to 600 BC.  And they also find the ruins of an altar.  The place really exists!!  And the video goes on to follow the other places in the next couple of chapters and those places exist too!  It's so cool!

Another my teacher talks about is the change in missionary age that Pres Monson announced this past conference.  Our teacher is in the stake presidency of a singles stake so he does interviews and such.  This last class period he said that there have been 87 missionaries in his stake alone since conference and only 10 of those are Elders.  He also said that in the past the church has processed about 700 missionaries a week, so given out those many callings.  And they are now processing 4,000 a week.  So there is an explosion of missionaries!  Which is really fun to hear about.

Institute rocks socks!