The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying,
Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:
And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.
Ezekiel 37: 15-17
Having been born and raised as an atheist, when I finally joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the age of 24, I knew nothing about Biblical scripture, much less Latter-day scripture. I did not want to be doctrinally ignorant, so I developed a color scheme for marking my scriptures topically. I also began creating topical lists of scriptures, and finally, I felt I needed to summarize what I had learned by looking at all pertinent verses from the entire scriptural canon on selected topics. The essays provided below represent some of the revisited fruits of that effort from long ago. I hope that others will find these essays as illuminating as I did when writing them.