Hearing the Word

O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.
~Jeremiah 22:29

I love studying the scriptures. I'll admit that I've been less diligent about it lately, but I definitely feel a difference in my life when I pay more attention to scripture study. A few years ago, when President Hinckley invited the membership of the church to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year, I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to do it. I was working and going to school, and it seemed that I spent more time in my car than at home. I discovered that the scriptures were online in .mp3 format, so I downloaded them to my ipod and began listening.

I found that having audio scriptures gave me the chance to make my commute productive, but there were some annoying factors as well. First was that if I wanted to listen to actual music, I had to scroll through screens and screens of scriptures before getting to songs. Second was that if I had to stop in the middle of a chapter, I would lose my place if I waited too long to pick it back up again. Third was that the narrator is irritating.

I'm pleased to say that last week I found solutions to the first two problems. (No help on the annoying narrator voice, though.) I downloaded some audio books, and I was pleased to notice that they were in a separate section of my ipod, labeled conveniently "audiobooks". They didn't clutter up my music playlists, and best of all, they were bookmarkable. I wouldn't lose my place even if I plugged my ipod in, listened to other audiobooks, or listened to music.

I googled to see if anyone had made the scriptures in audiobook format. I wasn't able to find it, but I found the next best thing. There is a free computer program available that will convert .mp3 files into .m4b files, the ipod audiobook format. It also allows you to take multiple .mp3s and make them into a large audiobook. I downloaded it and it works great. Instead of having hundreds of files across 87 playlists in my music section (one for each book in the standard works), I have 12 files sitting in my audiobook section. My ipod is neat and tidy and I can find my music again.