As you start this journey, the adversary will try to keep you from reading and praying. This episode will give you the #1 way to protect yourself from sin so you can get your prayers answered.

---Transcript---

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you back to the Book of Mormon Challenge podcast. I hope that so far you have been taking the challenge, you have been reading, you have been praying and you have been trying to get an answer. I actually want to apologize, it's been a little while since I've done an episode and honestly, it's interesting, whenever you try to do something amazing in your life, and hopefully this is kind of a metaphor for you guys as well. It feels like the adversary wants to try to stop you. And it's crazy how the more I want to do this podcast and get in the right state and have the right spirit and all those kind of things, the more temptations and trials and things come up in my life that try to keep me from doing it.

And I'm sure for a lot of you guys it's going to be similar as you try to go on this journey and try to read. The adversary is going to do everything in his power to keep you from actually doing it, to keep you from reading, to keep you from concentrating, to keep you from praying, to keep you from asking. And that's just kind of his pattern.I felt it, I know that so far since I've launched this podcast a lot of amazing things have happened, some huge amazing conversations have been opened with people, it's just been powerful and amazing. But as soon as anything amazing starts happening, the adversary tries to stop it.

So I am here to kind of re-commit and to re-push forward and to be more consistent for you, but also for me as well. Also, just kind of, I'm going to make a couple of changes to the format, so I want to kind of explain that to you here. So this is going to be kind of the last big foundational episode for a while. I'm going to keep doing the bigger ones that are like 30 minutes to an hour, when I get excited about a topic I want to deep dive and go there because there's tons of stuff I want to share. But moving forward, I want to make sure that, sometimes the bigger episodes take me a lot longer to think through and get the notes and stories and get everything perfect, and then obviously praying to make sure I have the spirit, all those things to be able to deliver it to you and I don't want to keep that from progression and momentum.

So what I'm going to be doing, I'll keep doing some of the longer ones, like this, where we deep dive into things. But after this one I'm going to start jumping into shorter episodes. And the goal with the shorter episodes, honestly is, my goal with the whole podcast is just to get you to read and to pray. That's it. I want you to read the Book of Mormon and I want you to pray. If I can get you to do that then I've succeeded, because that's my only goal.

So as I shift from the episodes moving forward, you'll notice I'm going to be picking, for example, it might be 1 Nephi: chapter 1. And I'm going to go and study deep into the commentary and figure out the coolest, most exciting things possible that I can do to get you excited to read chapter one. That's my goal. Then chapter 2 I'm going to go and find the best, most amazing, most exciting things and preset the story and get you so excited that you have to go and read it. And I'm kind of good at this in my marketing background, at getting people hooked and excited, so my goal is to hook you, give you a story and then push you to go and actually read each of the chapters. So that's kind of the game plan.

So I'm excited. Next episode will be coming out in a couple of days and we'll keep moving forward a little bit faster on those. And again, my goal with this is to get you into the book, reading and praying. So that's kind of the goal.

After the last episode we talked about how to get your prayers answered. I got so much good feedback from all of you guys and I appreciate it. But honestly, the biggest feedback I got from people and it's also interestingly enough, the same thing that I struggle with the most and so I wanted to address it in this episode. The title of this episode is called "No more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually."

So the biggest question, the biggest problem people were messaging me with were, "Russell, I want to read and I want to pray but I don't feel worthy. I don't feel like I can get an answer." Or "I know that I'm not living right in my life, and I struggle to repent and I don't know how to do it." Or "I've tried to repent but I've fallen back in and the things that I try to do right, Is in and I make the mistake again." Or all sorts of things like that. "I want to do good Russell, but I keep making mistakes and because I make mistakes I don't feel worthy to actually pray and get the answers."

And like I said, that's the pattern, what the adversary wants to do. As soon as you try to take a step towards the light and towards truth, he will immediately bombard you with everything he can to distract you, to make you sin, to make you feel guilty, to make you not feel worthy because those are the feelings and the thoughts and things that will keep you from reading and praying.

So first off, I want to give some context and some things to kind of help you guys with, because it's something I have struggled with my entire life. I think I've been on this planet for 38ish years now and I struggle with this on a daily basis. So I know I'm not alone, and if I am alone then this episode is for me. But if I'm not alone, then hopefully this will be for you as well.

Alright, some of the context to this and what, honestly it's the thing that, not frustrating. That's not the right word, but the thing that I struggle with the most is I want to do good. And there's a scripture in Mosiah and I'm going to read it and it comes back to the title of today's presentation. Again, the title is "No more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually."

So in Mosiah 5:1,2 if you've read the Book of Mormon, there's this amazing king, his name is King Benjamin. He's about to die and before he dies he gets all his people together and he starts preaching to them, kind of his last message, "What can I do to help you guys to make sure you're going to succeed in life, you're going to be good people, you're going to be able to return back to God?" And in this speech if you look at verse 1 and 2 of Mosiah Chapter 5 this is what he says,

"And now, it came to pass that when King Benjamin had thus spoken to his people, he sent among them, desiring to know of his people if they believed the words which he had spoken to them. And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yeah, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. "

I remember reading that in seminary when I was a kid and thinking, "Oh my gosh. As I soon as I get the spirit, as soon as I know it's true, the most amazing thing is going to happen to me. I'm never going to have the desire to sin ever again." That's what I interpreted this, King Benjamin's people heard his word, they were excited. They were like, "I'm going to do this." And it said they had no more disposition to do evil but to do good continually. So I always thought that as soon as I repented, as soon as I was right, that I would have no more desire to do evil, but I'd only want to do good.

And then suck us into the real world and guess what happened, I felt the spirit, I wanted to change, I did change. But what shocked me, what surprised me was that all the sudden my desire to do evil did not go away. Actually let me step back, my desire to do evil did go away, but my….how do I explain this right? I didn't want to do sin, but I still sinned. I still got tempted, I had temptations, I had trials, all these things that pulled me back into sin. So while I had a disposition to do good continually, I didn't want to do evil, I still sinned.

And I kept sinning and I kept sinning and it was so hard and so frustrating. In fact, to this day I still struggle with this. I know, I think all of us have our temptations, our sins that we struggle with. And while I have desire, I'm going to point my life, I feel similar to how King Benjamin's people felt. I have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. But I want to add dot, dot, dot, yet I'm still tempted like crazy and I fall way too often. That's how, if it was me writing the scripture, that's what I would have said. "Russell has no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually, yet for some reason he's so weak he keeps screwing up, therefore he's yet to be perfect."

That's how I felt and I remember being frustrated by that and if you read in Matthew, Matthew 26: 41, in this scripture he's talking about this, he says,

"Watch and pray that y enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak."

When I read that I was like, okay, that's how I feel. I'm willing, my spirit is willing to do it, but my flesh is weak. And I was like, I'm frustrated, how do I….. I don't want my flesh to be weak. Why am I so weak?

And it's funny, if you look at our problems, our issues, it all comes down to our flesh, our body. It's the temptations of the body we struggle with. So our flesh is weak, even though our spirit is willing. Our spirit wants to do what's right, but then the problem is our flesh.

And as I started thinking about this a lot I realized that if you look at our lives here on Earth, what is the big test? We come to Earth, we have a chance to be here, we get these bodies, these amazing physical bodies and then our goal is to see what we're going to do with them. So if you look at what is the big test? The big test is 100% to do with our bodies. What are we going to do with these bodies?

If you look at the commandments and everything, all of the commandments, everything leads to either how you're treating your own body, or how you're treating other people's bodies. So if you look at the commandments or the rules or whatever you want to call them, it's like what things we put into our bodies. There's codes of health that the Lord's given us, there's things that we're not supposed to do to our bodies. We're not supposed to injure ourselves, we're not supposed to do things like that.

Then how we treat other people's bodies, thou shall not murder, thou shall not commit adultery. It's the big great test, if you want to look at the big secret of what is this life about, it's that. How are we going to treat our own bodies and other people's bodies. So we're given these bodies, this flesh that's weak, that wants to do sin, wants to do these bad things and the spirit wants to do what's right.

So the big conundrum, the big problem, the big struggle, the big thing that we're fighting with is, what are we going to do? Are we going to give into the flesh or are we going to stay strong with the spirit? So I want you guys thinking about that, it all comes down to this. How we treat our bodies and how we treat other people's bodies. All the commandments somehow tie into that. Either the sins I'm making against my own body, or the sins I'm making against other people's bodies. There's not sins against other things, it's all tied to those, to our bodies.

When I realized that I'm like, oh my gosh. I have to figure out how to be able to control, how to be able to control my flesh, how to control my body. So for me, that created an obsession with personal development. If you know anything about me or my background you know that I'm mildly obsessed with this.

I built a big company that teaches entrepreneurs marketing and sales and things like that, but really in that journey over the last decade and a half of my life I've become obsessed with personal development. How do we develop ourselves? How do we control our habits, our problems, our mindset, our energy, all these kind of things?

So if you ever came to my office and you saw, I've got a bookshelf with hundreds of thousands of dollars of books and courses teaching personal development. It's become an obsession with me. I think it stems back, the reason I have that obsession is because it comes back to this problem right here. I have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually, yet for some reason I keep messing up.

So I'm like, I need to keep personally developing myself so I don't mess up. What is it going to be? So I could go on for days teaching personal development strategies and things like that, but there's a couple of principles and processes that had the biggest effect on me. And I think that when I took repentance, how do I forsake my sins, how do I repent, how do I try to do what's right? And I took these lessons I learned inside of personal development, the blend of those two things, is what's helped me to be able to control my flesh and to be able to do what the spirit actually wants me to do.

And again, I'm not perfect. In fact, this episode is specifically for me to help remind me of these things. But it has been a huge help to me, and I hope it has helped you as well as you're going down this journey. Because if we're not careful, as soon as you start the path forward and start trying to do good, I promise you that temptations, the whirlwinds, the trials, all this stuff is going to beat on you because the adversary does not want you doing the right thing.

So if I can give you guys some information and some stuff that helped me, hopefully it will help you guys as well on this journey. So that way you can go and you can read and you can feel the spirit and you can pray because if you do that, your life will change forever. We have to break free of the sins of our body if we're going to be able to do that.

Alright so the thing I want to share with you, and again there's so much good stuff I could talk about but the thing I think is going to be the most impactful for you is something I learned from Tony Robbins. And if you know who Tony Robbins is, he's a 6'7" giant, he was on infomercials all throughout the 80's, if you've seen the movie Shallow Hal, he was in Shallow Hal, but I became a friend of his, me and him became friends about 10 years ago. I had consulted for his business and then I was in, I spoke at a couple of his events, he spoke at 2 of my events, I spoke at one of his events last month, so we've got a really good friendship and respect for each other.

But I remember, there's so many good things that I learned from Tony, but o

Today I'm going to try to read the WHOLE Book of Mormon in one day... but before I do, I need to answer some important questions that you've been asking.

---Transcript---

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you back to the Book of Mormon Challenge podcast. I am so excited for today's episode. It's actually 5:30 in the morning, and I got up really early today because I'm going to be taking you guys on a really special journey, and I'll tell you about it here in a second, but I am just ecstatic.

I couldn't fall asleep last night, and this morning I set my alarm for like 5:20, and I was up at 5:00 I couldn't even, which never happens for me. That's how excited I am for today.

Really quick, so I launched the podcast this week, which is a huge thing, it's something I wanted to do, honestly, for a couple of years now. And then about 6 months ago or so, I recorded the first two episodes and got excited, then I got nervous and then I didn't do anything about it and then finally, this week I was like, I just need to get this live.

So Monday I called my brother up, who does all my audio editing, and got the podcast live. And it's live and I just kind of shared it with friends and family and people I know, and it's been really fun to see people's feedback. And anyway, I'm just going to keep going on this journey and it'll be a lot of fun.

So as I have said out there, there are a lot of people obviously, members of the LDS church that listen to it, but I've had a lot of friends, and I've got a big following online, and I didn't really, I haven't published it out there. I think I'm going to talk about it a little bit today, just let people know about it in case they're curious. But some of my friends who aren't members listened to it, and it's been kind of fun and interesting to hear some of their feedback.

 Anyway, I really enjoyed it, and it's opening doors to conversations I normally don't have. So hopefully this, for those of you guys who are members of the church, who if you like this, feel free to share this with other people and hopefully it will help open up doors for you to talk about things that we should be talking about.

The one thing I want to talk about really quick, the biggest question I've been getting so far by people is, "What's the Book of Mormon Challenge, Russell? What is it?" Well, there's a couple of things. The most basic and the most simple is that I'm challenging everybody, including me to actually go and read the Book of Mormon. And then not to take my word for it, or Google's word for it, but to actually go and pray and see what the Lord says, and say, ask him to find out if it's true. Because if it is true, like I talked about in episode 1 and 2, this is a huge deal and you should know about it, and you should care about it…It's huge.

But you gotta find out for yourself, so that's my challenge for you. Now, when you go to BookofMormonChallenge.com, the sites up there right now and all there are is download links to, or subscribe links to this podcast on both apple and android. And a link to where you can get a free copy of the Book of Mormon from lds.org, and just basically a place you can put your email address in to get on a notification list.

I'm working on a bunch of really cool things behind the scenes. We have an app coming out and a bunch of other stuff, so those things are coming but for right now I just wanted to start. I wanted to stop using the fact that the site and everything wasn't finished as an excuse, and I just wanted to start.

Alright, so with that said, the Book of Mormon Challenge is for everybody to read the Book of Mormon. After you read it to pray about it, ask Heavenly Father if it's true. If it is true, then I got so many exciting things I want to share with you, but that part is up to you. So that's still the challenge.

And as I was thinking about this, I thought about when did I take that challenge? And it's been, man, it's been…I'm getting old, it's been like 20+ years since I had that experience. And it changed the trajectory of my life, and I'm so grateful for it. But I wanted to go though it again with everybody. So I was like, I'm going to start reading the Book of Mormon again, in more detail. As you know, if you listened to the intro of this show, and episodes 1 and 2, I actually bought one of the first editions of the Book of Mormon, one of the first 5,000.

And what's fun, I've had a chance with my kids to read it, but I don't know the book is kind of frail and fragile, and I haven't really just read the whole thing, and I've wanted to. And Monday, after I launched the podcast I started thinking about a story, and there's a story about a guy named Parley P. Pratt, some of you guys may know him. People who are members of the Mormon church probably know him, but most people probably don't.

But he was one of the first people to join the church and he lived back when Joseph Smith was alive in the 1820's, and somebody gave him one of the first 5,000 copies of the book and he started reading it and I found a quote from him last night, he said, it said,

"Parley P. Pratt was introduced to the Book of Mormon in an experience that will forever change his life. Later he recalled, 'I read all day, eating was a burden, I had no desire for food. Sleep was a burden because when the night came I preferred reading to sleep."

And he actually read the entire Book of Mormon in an entire day. Like he said, sleeping and eating became a burden to him. I always thought that was the coolest story. I can't believe he read the entire book in a day. Anyway, on Monday I was thinking about that, I should do a Parley P. Pratt day and actually try to read the entire Book of Mormon in a day, just like he did. How fun would that be?

And then I was like, I wonder if I could find the date that he actually did that and I started searching and I couldn't find it anywhere. Then I just went to Wikipedia and looked it up. And it turns out that today was actually Parley P. Pratt's birthday. So this was Monday I found this out. I was like, oh my gosh, Thursday is his birthday. What if I made it a Parley P. Pratt day, I took work off and I just read the entire book in a day? That was the idea, I got excited and now here we are today. I'm going to read the entire book today.

So I am pumped and excited and so that's what's going to be happening. So I'm actually going to record multiple sections of this podcast throughout the day to just kind of talk about some of the stuff I'm reading in the book, obviously it's a huge book and I'm not going to have time to talk about everything. But some of the big story lines I'm going to jump back in and just record little pieces for you guys, with the hope that it gets you pumped and excited to go and actually get the book and read it.

Those who are members and haven't been reading it recently, it's going to hopefully get you excited to go back in and read it. Those who have no idea what this is about, hopefully get you inspired to actually open it up and read the book. That's my goal, so it's going to be kind of fun.

Alright, another couple of things I want to go through before I stop this recording and open the book and start reading. As I've kind of opened the flood gates of this podcast, the questions from people I love keep flying in, so I wanted to talk about one because I think it's really, really important as a preface to any of you guys who are thinking about, "Should I read this? Should I not? I'm scared, do I do it?" and the question a lot of people keep asking me is "Are Mormon's Christians?" and they're like, "I know you've been a Mormon for a long time, but are you guys Christians? What do you guys believe?"

I actually, there's an app on my phone called Voxer, it's kind of like a walkie-talkie app, so a couple of my friends who asked me that question, I actually voxed them back a response. I kind of did a little mini history lesson. Let me explain kind of where everything fits in the world history and where Mormons come from. And I explained it and I've sent that to two or three people and they're always like, "Oh, I didn't know that. That's what you guys do? That's what you believe? That's what Mormons are?" and I'm like, "Yeah." And then it's really fun.

So I thought I would just go through that really quick with you guys because if you see where it fits in the timeline of world events and Christianity, it makes a lot more sense. So that's what I'm going to do, I want to kind of walk you guys through that process.

For all my good Christian friends, I'm going to start with the Old Testament. So if you read the Old Testament right, everything inside the Old Testament is pointing to Christ. In fact, it's interesting, two weekends ago it was Easter Sunday, it was the Passover, a bunch of stuff, and we don't actively as Mormons, like most Christians celebrate the Passover, but one of our close friends, Monica Tanner who goes to church with us, she actually grew up Jewish and then she became Mormon later, but her and her family always celebrates Passover.

So she actually invited us over to their house for Passover dinner, which was one of the coolest things ever. So we went through and we learned all their traditions with the Passover, how it works, and we actually had a Passover meal, we had unleavened bread, it was the coolest thing ever.

And she was going through it and she was explaining all this stuff to us, the symbolism, I've always known about the symbolism in the Old Testament and how it all points to Christ, but going through the Passover, it was so cool to see. It was just amazing to see how everything pointed to Christ, it's such a cool….maybe I'll see if I can get her to come on and do an episode because it was just amazing to see how all those things, how they all pointed to Christ.

So we fast forward, and we know that Christ comes. He's born from Mary who was a virgin and he lives this life. And what's so cool is we have the New Testament that documents that, right. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all tell the story of Christ and his coming, and his life and everything that happens here on this earth.

There's where it's very, we believe the same thing. I have friends who are like, "Oh you don't believe, you guys are Mormons, you don't believe what we believe." I'm like, "No, we believe the same things, I read the Old Testament, it all points to Christ. I read the New Testament. I love Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All that stuff, we believe all that stuff."

So I don't want people thinking that we don't. We do, I think I've read it and I understand it more than most people. I believe it and it's something that we cherish.

So here's where I want to go into the timeline. So Christ is here on earth and before he's crucified he organizes his church and it's somewhere between 30 and 34 A.D. right. He calls 12 apostles; he gives them keys of authority to do certain things to be able to build his church. So he calls his 12 apostles and then he goes out and starts teaching and sometimes it's received really well, other times it's not so well. And as we know eventually Christ is crucified. And then 3 days later on Easter morning, he's resurrected the greatest miracle in the world. And because he was resurrected, we as human beings all have the chance to be resurrected as well, which is one of the greatest gifts ever. If not, the greatest gift.

And I'll go deeper on other episodes about Christ and him being our Messiah, our Savior. By far that moment of him suffering and dying for our sins and then rising again is the most important thing that ever has, and ever will happen on this earth. We love Christ, we sustain him as our savior. So for any Christians, yes, that is the most important event in the history of time. From the beginning of time until forever, and that's huge.

Now, if you look at what happened after that, I want to talk about the history side, because it's just, it's interesting. So when Christ comes back, he comes back to his apostles and says, "Okay, now it's time to go out and teach this gospel." If you read the New Testament, the Acts of The Apostles, they're going out there and doing these things. And the rest of the New Testament, these letters they're writing to different people trying to maintain the church and there's false doctrine popping up coming from other religions and other faiths and other belief's and they get converted into Christianity, but when the apostles leave they start doing all sorts of crazy things.

They're writing all these letters trying to, "No, that's not what we believe. We believe this, this, and this." And they're trying to keep this new church together and it's hard. It wasn't in the day and age, like we live in now where there's internet and things that connect people. They're trying to spread this message around the world and it's hard, and they're going out there.

And then about 65 A.D. the persecution of the Christians starts happening and it's getting worse and worse and worse, and that's happening for the next 250 years. Now by about 100 A.D. all the apostles have been killed and most of them by some pretty bad, they didn't die happy deaths. In fact, I have a list here that I pulled up. Andrew was crucified, Bartholomew was beaten almost to death and then crucified, James was stoned to death, the other James was beheaded, John as you know, was exiled and then he ended up dying of old age, Judas (not Iscariot, but the other Judas) was stoned to death, Matthew was speared to death, Peter was actually crucified upside down because he didn't want to die the same way the Savior did, he didn't feel he was worthy of that. Phillip was crucified, Simon was crucified, Thomas was speared to death, Mathias was stoned to death.

It wasn't a happy thing. People weren't all excited, they didn't take this message of Christianity well. So within 100 years all the 12 apostles of Christ were gone and false doctrines among all the churches started creeping up like crazy, and it kind of just went out of control. We start moving into the dark ages and all these things because of that.

Now if you look at, again, history. About 325 A.D. there was this dude named Constantine, and he was not a good person but he wanted power and he was like, "How do I get power?" And he's like, "I'm going to, there's this little thing, this cult of people called Christianity, if I take that and make that the official church it will give me ability to have power." So he, not in a righteous, good way took all this, took this Christianity thing and made it the national church, made it this big thing, and that's when Christianity as we know it was formalized like, okay this is Christ

I wanted to start this podcast with a very important question. Is the Book of Mormon from heaven or hell? There is no middle ground and it's essential for everyone who is seeking salvation to find out for themselves if it's true.

---Transcript---

Hey everyone, so again, my name is Russell Brunson and I want to welcome to you guys to the very first podcast here on the Book of Mormon Challenge. And I'm not going to lie, it's something that I have been almost starting, probably on and off, for the last year, year and a half or so.

I actually first had the idea while sitting in General Conference, it was almost like a calling that I needed to do this and then I didn't. And then I felt like I should do it, and then I didn't, and I back and forthed as we sometimes do.

And today's actually an interesting day. My wife and my kids are out of town and I'm home alone. I woke up this morning, getting ready for church and I felt like today was the day. So I got home from church and had kind of a really cool moment where I had a chance to start thinking through this and what this Book of Mormon Challenge was supposed to be. I had purchased the domain name, I had some ideas, but I didn't really know what, where, or how. Sometimes you start taking the first step forward and the Lord tells you what to do and how to do it.

So I'm praying that I'm going in the direction that he would have me do. I wrote the intro for this podcast a few minutes ago and I recorded it and hopefully by listening to that you kind of know a little bit about what this podcast is about.

So to kind of begin with, because I'm sure some of you guys who are just finding this randomly on iTunes or someone told you to listen to it, you have no idea who I am and the reality is it doesn't really matter who I am. The story and this message is not about me, but just to give you guys some context to who you are listening to, who's talking, my name is Russell Brunson. And yes, the story I told during the intro of the podcast is true.

I was born in the LDS church. LDS stands for Latter Day Saints, for those who don't know, the Mormon church. And growing up I didn't know much about what we do, and I went to church and listened to the songs and those type of things. As I got older I remember hearing my dad share with me his testimony about how he found out the Book of Mormon was true. And it was probably, you know my dad is a tough guy, and it was probably one of the few times in my life I've ever seen him cry, was when he told his story.

He got his testimony of the Book of Mormon while he was in the MTC waiting to go on his mission to Switzerland. I remember as I was preparing for a mission, thinking cool, I'll just take care of it at the MTC, I'll be good to go. I went to the MTC and I got there and I didn't get a testimony, I didn't have one. And then as I left the MTC I didn't have one and I started going to New Jersey where I served my mission. I'm knocking on doors and I was scared because I didn't have a testimony.

I will tell you guys how I received my testimony and kind of the whole experience behind it, actually in the next episode, but I did. And because of that, I know that the Book of Mormon is true, and because of that my life shifted. Everything since that moment when I found out, when God told me, this is the truth, it set me on a different trajectory. And I look now, almost twenty years later, the fruits of that decision and that answer, it's been amazing.

At the same time, now I've got a beautiful wife, we've got 5 kids, I've got a business, I've got over 100 employees, I'm doing a lot of things. If you Google my name you'll learn a little about who I am, even though, once again, it doesn't matter. I have a big company, I've written two books through a traditional publisher, I've written a lot of other books as well with a software company, a lot of things that are happening. And as happens to most of us, because of so many things happening, a lot of times we forget about the things that are most important.

A while ago I was walking around my house, we live in a beautiful home, and I see Book of Mormon's laying in different spots around the house and realizing that we hadn't picked up those, as a family, for months, if not even longer. And I was looking at that one night, just looking at one of these books, it was laying there and I was like, "This book is not important, it's vitally important to salvation for myself, for my kids, for those who I care and I love and it is the key to help us understand Christ today. And we just throw them on the ground.

They're just sitting there and we don't open or read them and this book that should be the most important thing in the world has become just a commodity, it's just sitting there. It didn't really matter to us as a family. I remember how much that bothered me, so I remember thinking I have to make this special again, but how do I do that?

So what I ended up doing, I started searching for an original copy of the Book of Mormon. I remember when I was on my mission somebody had said, there was one for sale on EBay or something, it had sold for like $150,000, I don't know, something crazy like that. So I'm like, I'm going to see if I can find one. So I started searching and through my searching I think I found 6 that were actually for sale. Some of them were really expensive. One of them was owned by Hyrum Smith, who was Joseph Smith's brother, it was for sale for over a million dollars. There was one from Samuel Smith, who was the first missionary of the church ever, it was on sale for over a million and then it went down from there.

There was a $500,000 one, a $200,000, $100,000, an $80,000 and then I found one that was cheaper as well. I ended up purchasing, not the million dollar one, I purchased one that was a lot cheaper, but it was funny because I didn't…It was actually an EBay auction and I didn't buy it, and it expired. And then later, a couple of months later he relisted it, I was like, I had all this emotional drama. Finally I decided you know what, I'm going to do it. Because I need to make this special to me again.

And it's interesting because, I know there's a lot of different people listening to this. There are people who are not members of the LDS church, there are people who used to be, who left, and there's probably people who are members of the church. So regardless of where you're at, I want you to understand that I needed and I wanted this to be special to me and my family and I wanted to treat this like it was probably treated when it first came out. When Joseph Smith printed the first 5,000 copies, people financed their entire lives to be able to print this book and when they got it, it was like when it touched their hands for the first time, I can't even imagine what that felt like.

You hear the stories about Parley P. Pratt, when he got the book and he sat down and he spent, he started reading and read for an entire day until he finished it. He said that sleeping and eating became a nuisance because he wanted to read this book. I think about the first missionaries, when somebody came to England and they handed one of these books to someone, what that must have felt like, and how special that could have been and should have been and probably was.

And I wanted that again. So when we ordered the book, it was right before General Conference, which those who aren't members of our church, General Conference is when the Prophet and the 12 Apostles speak to us twice a year. So I called up the person I bought it from, I said, "Can you overnight this to me. I want this before conference. I want to show my kids this." So it showed up and we had this just amazing moment with my kids where I had a chance to tell them the history of the Book of Mormon and how it came about. We talked about the Gold Plates and the whole origin story of the Book of Mormon, which I'm sure we'll cover in more detail in future episodes, But how it came about and the sacrifice that went into this thing.

I showed pictures online on LDS.org of where it was printed at the Grandin Building, the whole thing. We talked about there was only 5 thousand copies that were printed and how most of them have been destroyed or have fallen apart. I said, "Hey you guys want to see something cool?" and I opened it up and I pulled this book out and let my kids touch it and it was so cool in their eyes. They're like, "Dad, this is one of the first ones? This is one of the ones you talked about?" I'm like, "Yeah, how cool is that?"

Since then, it's been fun to share it with people around me. A lot of times someone has an heirloom like this and they put it in a glass case and air proof it so that fingerprints don't destroy it because they're looking at it as an investment. But for me it was never an investment for financial purposes. I wanted the investment for me and my kids, being able to read it as a real book. So It's been such a cool experience.

And as we read it as a family it's been fun because, you know the first time it was printed, think about this, it was back in the early 1800's and they didn't have printers and things like that, so they were taking letter by letter and put them on these things and then they'd stamp ink on it, and stamp the ink onto the pages. It was crazy. So there's little typo's and little errors and things like that, that somewhere between the translation, you know the people reading it, to the people putting the metal pieces in to spell all the words out of this huge book, the little issues. So as we say something in the book that sounds different, like "Shall" versus "shalt" or just little typos like that, the kids will raise their hand and it's come to be a really cool, special thing.

That's why we did it, and shortly after that I felt like I wanted to share this experience with more people. Because if other people, if I can make the Book of Mormon more real for other people as well, it will transform their lives as it has transformed mine. So that's why this podcast and this challenge and everything has been created.

I'm just not sure exactly what's going to happen on bookofmormonchallenge.com but it'll be a challenge for all of us to go through, to find out if this book is true, or if you're a member who left, or if you are a member who believes, how to actually take this book and use it as a tool to radically shift your life and the life of your family. So that's what this is all about. And again, I don't know the path of where this is all going yet, I just know that this is the direction that I am supposed to go.

My biggest fear with this podcast, honestly, and why I don't think I've done it for the last year, year and a half since I first had the idea was, I teach, I'm an educator, I've written books, I speak at seminars all around the world, I have audiences of…our next event coming up we have 3500 people will be there, I'll be speaking for 3 days onstage. I'm not afraid of speaking or teaching, I do that all the time. My biggest fear is teaching within the church, teaching about God, because it's not me. I'm fully aware of that.

I can speak at an event, I can get people excited, I can tell stories in a way that motivate and get people excited. But if I go on this mission to serve you guys in this way, if I don't have the spirit with me, I know that none of this will matter. Because this is not about me being a good teacher, it's about me, allowing or letting or having, or whatever, the spirit speak through me to you. So I pray as I do this that I'll have the spirit so that you will not just hear what I say, but you feel what the spirit wants you to learn through these messages. And I'm going to try as close and as hard as I can to stay close to the spirit so I can deliver this in a way that will give you the ability to feel the spirit and make the changes you need to.

With that said, as I'm going through this I am 100% fully aware that I am going to mess up a lot in this. I'm going to teach things that maybe aren't doctrinally correct, things that I think are right, things that are my opinions, or things like that. So a big thing, this is not the doctrine of the church, this is according to Russell. I'm going to try to stick as close as I can to the doctrines, what we know are true. But if I mess up, don't blame the church, blame me. That's a big thing.

The second thing is if I say something, don't take my word for it. That's the most amazing thing about God is that the power he has given us is not take things blindly on faith. Faith is not about blinding believing and walking. He says, learn something and then bring it to him, and pray, and ask, and he'll tell you if it's true.

So if you hear me talk about the Book of Mormon, about concepts, about doctrine, about ideas, about things that I believe are true, the reason why I'm sharing them is not because I'm a genius or because I made them up or anything, it's because I heard them, and then I prayed, and then the Lord told. I know that God answers prayers and I know he'll answer your prayer if you ask. So if you're confused or you wonder or whatever, ask. I'm sure we'll do a podcast going deeper into how to do that and what to look for and what you're trying to feel, but he is the ultimate giver of truth and he will let you know if it's true.

Alright, so why am I doing this podcast? A couple of reasons. Number one, I've got the 5 most amazing kids on Earth, by far. Someday I'm not going to be here and I want this to be archived forever. I want my kids to know what I believe. I want them to know that forever. My kids, my grandkids, I want people to know what I believe. And I want my testimony to stand. That's number one.

Number two is because there's a lot of people in my world around me who see what I do in the business side of things or other places, and I want them to be very clear on where I stand and what I believe. I'm hoping that I have people who aren't members who wonder, "Why is Russell so happy all the time? Why is he so excited? What is wrong with this guy?" I want you to understand what is wrong with me is this. I am happy, I have this spirit, I understand where did I come from, why I'm here on Earth, and where I'm going. And when you understand those things with absolute clarity, you can't help but be happy and be excited.

Yes, there are sad, depressing, horrible things that happen but when you understand the plan, it makes you free, it makes you happy. So for those around me who are wondering why I'm so happy, I want this to help you understand where I stand, what I believe and hopefully it will give you the boost, the inspiration, whatever you need to figure it out for yourself as well.

Because the third reason I have