From D. Kelly Ogden and his book “8 Mighty Changes God Wants for you Before You Get to Heaven,”
1. Use more of your five physical senses. Psychologists tell us that the more of our five physical senses we use, the more we learn. Those senses include sight, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. You learn more through your eyes than any other part of your body, but if you can use other senses you will increase your ability to absorb intellectual and spiritual treasures. For example, take the sense of hearing. God blessed us with two ears and two eyes. Besides reading with your eyes, if you will read aloud you will learn more. Before I married, a friend and I read the entire Old Testament aloud. It took several months; in fact, it does take longer that way, but by one more of your physical senses you will find yourself “seeing’ more in the scriptures than ever before.
You can also use your sense of touch by having a red pencil or a fine-point pen in hand as you read the scriptures. Underline, color in, cross-reference, or take notes in your margins. Keep your hands busy as well as your eyes, and you will learn more.
2. Write Your Impressions—the revelation that comes while reading. While you are studying the scriptures, you are entitled to receive the Spirit; and while you are feeling the Spirit, revelation will come. We are writing our own “book of revelation.” Keep a notebook, any kind of notebook, right alongside your scriptures, and during your reading, stop and ponder what you read. As impressions come to you, write them down. They may be thoughts about what you are reading. Or, while you are “in the Spirit,” the Lord may reveal something to you that has nothing to do with what you are reading on the page you are studying—but it will generally have something to do with your life, something specific that the Lord wants to tell you. Sometimes we may think as impressions come, “Don’t distract me, Lord, I’m studying the scriptures!” and He can’t get through to us. Don’t get too busy going through the motions that you cannot receive revelation when he wants to send it. Joseph Smith once warned, “For neglecting to write these things when God had revealed them, not esteeming them of sufficient worth, the Spirit may withdraw and God may be angry.
A missionary wrote me: “President, for more than a half a year I’ve had a question I couldn’t answer. It wasn’t anything grand, actually it was something quite simple. And it all happened because I was writing what came to my mind, as you told us to do. I have so much enthusiasm and personal revelation about what to do—now that I’m writing down what the Lord tells me.
Remember: your scripture study time is not a race. . . . I don’t try to adhere to any strict quantity in scripture reading any more, because I want to stop and ponder and write about what I’m thinking and feeling. A strict one-page-a-day or one-chapter-a-day may inhibit your time to ponder, as well as inhibiting the free flow of revelation.
3. Pray, meditate, write about the scriptures, and teach your impressions to others. Pray for guidance to your study of the Lord’s words. I know one leader in the Church who prays over each page; as he turns each page he offers a little prayer that he will gain something wonderful from that page. After you have prayed and paused to reflect on what you are learning, and after you have written some of you new understanding make a point of teaching your new idea or revelation that has come to you to another person—your spouse, roommate, family member, friend, anyone. By teaching a principle to someone else, it will cement the concept even more in you own mind. (Caution: Sometimes the Lord will reveal something to you that he does not want you to share with others. Be discerning and careful about to share about personal revelation.) ~~~ D. Kelly Ogden, “8 Mighty Changes God Wants for you Before You Get to Heaven”,(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004), p.6-9
