Scripture Reading...

This is the post in which I tout the greatness of reading the scriptures. I am definitely a fan. The scriptures are my daily dose of eternal reality. When I am caught up in the demands of life, they help me build my foundation on Jesus Christ, inspire me to improve myself and resist temptation, and give me the motivation I need to keep going on those days that are extra hard.

I have NEVER been a fan of electronic scripture reading. Like a technological eternity ag0 (2002), my DH (boyfriend at the time) purchased a Handspring Visor for me. He put the scriptures on it. I never, well hardly ever, used it for the scriptures. If I'm being honest, I was annoyed when the men other members would bring their "PDAs" and look up scriptures on them in Sunday School. I mean, how can you enjoy reading on that little screen when you can have the real thing in front of you, the crisp pages, the highlighting colored pencils, writing notes in the margins... I just didn't get it.

Fast-forward to 2009. I downgraded my cell phone and bought an iPod Touch. Which I adore. I love all my music on there, my organizer apps (to-do lists, calendaring, grocery lists, contacts, etc), a few games, a few that keep the kids entertained. Maybe someday I'll post my personal top 10 list of iPod apps. And then, I went ahead and bought this...

It's not free (and actually, the LDS Church now offers an official free LDS scriptures app that isn't too shabby). But I'm going to stick to this one because it's what I already have notes in and what I know. I didn't start using it right away. In fact, I didn't start using it on a regular basis until March 15. That's when I started reading the Book of Mormon again as part of working on my Personal Progress, Virtue value project. I made a goal to complete the entire book by the end of Girls Camp on June 23. Enter this scripture app. Wow! I LOVE it! Here are the reasons why:

1. I can read, highlight, make notes, cross-reference stuff ONE-HANDED. Which means I can read while I'm taking care of Baby T! Total breakthrough! Totally using my nursing time much more efficiently.
2. It has some great highlighting options. I can highlight text, change the appearance of the text (text color, bold, underline, italics). There are a bunch of different color combinations and I can have my own system for highlighting.
3. It has a great note-taking feature. You just click on the verse and you can type in a personal note. Then the notes can use different icons and different colors as well.
4. It has a great bookmarking system where I can create folders and save verses in those folders. For example, when I'm praying about and preparing a lesson or talk, I can create a folder and then save a verse in the folder as I'm searching so that I can go back later to put it all together.
5. It also has a personalizing tagging system. You can assign a tag to a verse or chapter. Right now, as I work on personal progress, when I'm reading scriptures that go along with a certain value experience, I can tag that verse with the name of the value.
6. There's a lot of material (scriptures, manuals, resources) available and I can cross-reference sections in a resource or manual to scriptures as I wish. Or create a bookmark from a section/quote I really like from a manual.
7. I can get more content from the website or make my own content and send it to my iPod (like for lessons or talks). I haven't done this much because it already has so much I don't need a ton more. But it's a nice feature! I can also backup my data (highlighting, notes, tags, etc) to the website.
   
8. I can email myself my bookmarks. If a choose a bookmark folder and email it, it will come as an htm file that I can open and it includes all my highlighting and notes!
9. Search feature is intuitive and works quickly and well when I'm trying to find something specific.
10. It is portable! Now when I'm in a waiting room at a doctor's office, instead of picking up a magazine to read, I find myself reading my scriptures! If I can't fall asleep in bed at night, I can read on my iPod without turning on the lights and bugging DH.

So it totally works for me. Of course, some of these features are found on the official LDS scripture app, so I strongly encourage you to try that one first. But this is working for me. I still use my scriptures and I take them to church and enjoy using them, but on a day-to-day basis, I find myself using my iPod scriptures more and more. Portable and uplifting, it's a win-win!

(PS - No one paid me to write this review. And no one gave me anything for free for doing this. I just really like my scriptures and my iPod. The End. Thanks.)