Hi my name is Anthony Celaya and I am the LDS institute director at UC Berkeley.
I've spent much of my adult life teaching Latter-day Saint youth and young single adults
here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Answering their questions clarifying LDS doctrine in history
and helping them stand strong in the faith.
Considering the explosion of LDS scholarship during the last several decades
I have been struck by the enormous gap between the myriad resources that exist
and the scant resources that are actually accessed by the vast majority of saints,
even right here in Silicon Valley.
With Berkeley in the East Bay and Stanford on the west and many bright Latter-day Saints between the two
Even with the Internet where one can access almost everything Latter-day Prophets have said
and at least some of what faithful Latter-day Saint scholars have written.
Finding accurate and faith promoting answers too
complicated scriptural, doctrinal and historical questions can be quite difficult.
I've also been struck by how many faithful Latter-day Saints find their scripture study somewhat tedious
and even insipid.
Many wish their study could be more engaging more worshipful and more delightful
but are uncertain how to make it so.
My passion and pursuit for the last five years at least
has been to find a way to take the abundant scholarly resources including the array of powerful media,
assimilate it all into a palatable accessible format
and then put it into the hands of every Latter-day Saint worldwide.
Imagine this,
a mobile application on a smartphone or tablet
that includes every significant,
prophetic and scholarly insight on every verse of the LDS canon
all at your fingertips.
Imagine for example studying First Nephi 1:1,
you think to yourself I've read this a thousand times what else can I possibly pull out of this verse.
So you tap on the verse and suddenly several questions pop up.
Questions posed by James Faulkner, is making the scriptures harder series,
what relationship is there between this first verse and the last verse of the chapter.
Afflictions in the one and tender mercies in the other.
What truth is Nephi asserting from the very outset of his record
etc.
Or let's say you find words and phrases you just want to clarify,
just a tap away you can look them up in a Webster's 1830 dictionary
or in Dennis Largey's "Book of Mormon Reference Companion" or even in the encyclopedia Mormonism.
Perhaps you're reading with your children
and wonder if there is any media that could give life to the verse and the story
one tap away you find Nathan Pinnock's painting of Father Lehi,
tenderly tutoring his son Nephi as they overlook the city of Jerusalem.
Maybe you want to look at the verse in your mission language,
pull it up for a side-by-side comparison.
A map or image of Jerusalem,
several are just a click away and they're interactive.
You get a quick thought where you wonder what the original or printers Book of Mormon manuscript may have looked like
BAM,
it's right there.
Maybe you have a group of friends or a class studying the same chapter
so you tap on a livestream where they have entered their comments and insights
and where you can read them and add your own
or maybe you just want more insight into what the verse actually means.
In that particular section of the app you find a phrase by phrase elaboration of meanings and applications,
historical, linguistic, cultural and doctrinal insights.
You learn of the possible Egyptian origins of the name Nephi.
You're struck by the use of Near Eastern Kalafans
You read prophetic tributes to Nephi.
You see a beautiful chiasmus in this and the next couple of verses.
You read about various possible meanings of goodly and get a sense of Lehi social station.
You discover what kind of education Nephi was likely to have received.
You consider the affliction-blessing dichotomy that Nephi poses.
You take a moment to learn about Sariah and her influence on the family.
You marvel at Nephi's family-centric worldview.
You see the beginning of a book wide father-son pattern.
You read about possible meanings of mysteries that you'd never considered,
or you mull over the idea that Nephi may have had several complicated purposes
in making his record in the first place.
And all this,
and you're still in verse one.
Other tools you can record personal notes and impressions
and organize them by verse or by topic.
You can mark and annotate in a variety of ways including freehand.
The application sports a haptic, hard copy look
where it actually looks like the Book of Mormon written text.
And you can easily and quickly tap cross-references, add your and navigate.
You also have tools for setting goals making plans and adding reminders to keep you consistent in your study.
I started this project about five years ago as I said entirely on my own.
At one point I actually hired a team of mobile app designers,
encoders in India and we began in earnest.
But the coding and build out was just one challenge.
The prospect of reading and parsing every significant Latter-day commentary prophetic and scholarly
and matching it all to the verses in scripture was let's just say more than I can handle.
I'd started with the Book of Mormon and after five years
I was basically finished with the introductory pages and First Nephi 1
verses 1 through 3.
Clearly it wasn't going to happen with me alone.
Now i'm working with Book of Mormon Central and this project has become a sort of hallmark in their mission.
Even so we need a team of several full-time designers and coders
as well as scores of editors
I was recently with my wife and children in Southern Argentina, in La Patagonia,
About as far from civilization as anywhere in the world.
We were shocked that though the members we visited lived in homes with dirt floors, aluminum siding walls or cinderblock walls,
and often no indoor plumbing they all had smartphones
This mobile app will empower Latter-day Saints all over the world from seasoned member to recent convert
President Harold B. Lee taught, "not just that the time would come but that the time is here,
when every one of us must stand on our own feet."
He said "the time is here when no man and woman will endure on borrowed light,
each will have to be guided by the light within himself.
If you do not have it you will not stand."
That was in 1970, the year I was born.
This mobile app will empower Saints all over the world to engage with scripture more deeply,
seek and find meaningful answers to their questions
deflect the misinformation that now abounds in an electronic world
and help the faithful Saint, stand independent in his faith.
Thank you.