Using the Gospel Library to be able to talk on anything at any time.

Any discussions around the Gospel Library App on various mobile and electronic devices.
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dconger
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Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:14 pm

Using the Gospel Library to be able to talk on anything at any time.

#1

Post by dconger »

I felt impressed some years ago that I need to be able to talk on any Gospel subject at any time. To enable myself to do this, I started making what I call scripture chains in my hardcopy scriptures. With the advent of the Gospel Library, this is much easier.

Basically what I do is use the Notebook feature to create a document called Scripture Chain Launch Page. In the document, I list subjects that I want to be able to talk on. For example, on of my topics is Why Tribulation? So my entry for that looks like this:
Why Tribulation? Ether 6:4

I then go to Ether 6:4. There I have verses 4-8 marked. Here's the note I have attached to that scripture.

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Why Tribulation?
Sometimes we feel as if mountain waves of tribulation are falling upon us. we wonder why God allows such troubles to come into our lives.
The Jaredites were traveling in barges God taught them to build. You'd think that by following God's commandments, their lives would be easy. but that was not the case. God deliberately taught them to build barges that were capable of being turned upside down. Even so, they were designed to continue to function properly and to keep the Jaredites safe.
It works the same for us. Sometimes we feel as if a mountain wave of tribulation is hitting us. Like the Jaredite's barges, God's commandments and covenants keep us safe when this happens.
Notice also who sent the mountain waves upon the Jaredites. It was God himself. It was these very waves that enabled the Jaredites to move forward toward their promised land.
God does the same for us. He gives us weaknesses, trials, and tribulations to drive us forth toward his kingdom. But like the Jaredites, we must keep his commandments and follow his instructions exactly if we are to remain safe and move forward. Imagine, for instance, what would have happened if the Jaredites had saved themselves some work by deciding that the barges didn't need to be quite as stout and strong as the Lord commanded. They could have easily died on their journey by neglecting to follow God with exactness, cosistency, and diligence.
James 1:2
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I start with the title of the scripture chain, and I end with the reference for the next scripture in the chain. I do this because I often use the same scriptures for multiple scripture chains. The notes for all chains that use these particular verses are all in the same note. Here's an example of what I mean.

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Finding Your Promised Land
The Jaredites did everything they could to prepare for their journey. Then they put themselves into God's hands and moved forward on their journey by literally taking the plunge.
You and I are the same. We must do all we can, move forward, and rely on God for the rest.
Notice that the barges God taught them to build were capable of being turned upside down. But even so, they continued to function properly and to keep the Jaredites safe. Even whe. the mountain waves crashed upon them, they moved steadily towards their promised land.
It works the same for us. Sometimes we feel as if a mountain wave of tribulation is hitting us. God's commandments and covenants keep us safe when this happens.
Notice also who sent the mountain waves upon the Jaredites. It was God himself. It was these very waves that enabled the Jaredites to move forward toward their promised land.
God does the same for us. He gives us weaknesses, trials, and tribulations to drive us forth toward his kingdom. But like the Jaredites, we must keep his commandments and follow his instructions exactly if we are toremain safe and move forward. Imagine, for instance, what would have happened if the Jaredites had saved themselves some work by deciding that the barges didn't need to be quite as stout and strong as the Lord commanded. They could have easily died on their journey by neglecting to follow God with exactness, cosistency, and diligence. Keeping our covenants works exactly this way.
Rev 11:1-2

Why Tribulation?
Sometimes we feel as if mountain waves of tribulation are falling upon us. we wonder why God allows such troubles to come into our lives.
The Jaredites were traveling in barges God taught them to build. You'd think that by following God's commandments, their lives would be easy. but that was not the case. God deliberately taught them to build barges that were capable of being turned upside down. Even so, they were designed to continue to function properly and to keep the Jaredites safe.
It works the same for us. Sometimes we feel as if a mountain wave of tribulation is hitting us. Like the Jaredite's barges, God's commandments and covenants keep us safe when this happens.
Notice also who sent the mountain waves upon the Jaredites. It was God himself. It was these very waves that enabled the Jaredites to move forward toward their promised land.
God does the same for us. He gives us weaknesses, trials, and tribulations to drive us forth toward his kingdom. But like the Jaredites, we must keep his commandments and follow his instructions exactly if we are to remain safe and move forward. Imagine, for instance, what would have happened if the Jaredites had saved themselves some work by deciding that the barges didn't need to be quite as stout and strong as the Lord commanded. They could have easily died on their journey by neglecting to follow God with exactness, cosistency, and diligence.
James 1:2

Facing Tribulation with Christ
Matt 14:22

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So you can see that I use Ether 6:4-8 for three different chains. Each one has its own title and reference to the next scripture, along with specific narrative for each particular talk, if there is any.

I then add actual links for each chain. So the references you see in my notes above are also made into links so I can move rapidly from one scripture in the chain to the next. I am often called upon to give talks at a moment's notice, or sometimes no notice at all. People have often asked me how I do it. I wish I could say I was a Gospel genius, but the reality is that I cheat. I have this stuff all prepared already in scripture chains, so I just get up and rattle it off.

I wish I could take credit for this idea, but it was pure inspiration and direction from the Holy Ghost. I really had very little to do with it. And I was doing the studying anyway, this just gave greater organization and purpose to my studying.

So here's why I'm posting. I'd really like to request that a few features be added to facilitate this type of study.

1. Please make the notebook documents more integrated with the rest of the app. It would be ideal if they were available under a Notebook entry in the main menu. Tapping the Notebook button in the upper left corner does get me to my scripture chain launch page, but it's a pain to move back and forth between the Notebook and the Library. If the Notebook documents were just integrated into the Library, you could make the management of the documents live under Manage Library. That would make the whole interface much easier to use.

2. Please allow multiple notes for the same verses. I tried adding a new note to some selected verses, but it overwrote the old note. Right now, I'm keeping all of the commentary for all of the scripture chains that use particular verses in the same note, as shown above. If I could add as many notes to the verses as I wanted, then I could just put the name of the scripture chain in the title and make a separate note for each chain. This would be much more intuitive.

3. As long as I'm asking, please consider allowing links in notes. That way, each note in the chain could have its own link to the next scripture in the chain.

4. Please enable sharing. It would be great to be able to select a scripture chain and click a "Share" button to send these to my kids, friends, relatives, Ward members, or whoever. Ideally, it would package all of the scriptures in the chain, along with all of the notes that pertain to it. I know this is a big ask. But since I'm asking, I might as well go for the whole wish list.

Thanks for your consideration. I want you to know that the Gospel Library is a great app. I bought another app that does the same thing, and it's very slick. It's got lots of resources and a great interface. But it doesn't enable me to link scriptures, so I can't do scripture chains. These days, most of my scripture study is focused on building these chains As a result, I hardly use that app. I use Gospel Library constantly. I'm really grateful for it and for whoever wrote it.

Thanks,
Dave Conger
dconger
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Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:14 pm

#2

Post by dconger »

And while I'm asking, it would be ideal to link from documents in the Notebook directly into Library content.

Thanks.
briancragun
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Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 5:30 pm

#3

Post by briancragun »

I also request that we be allowed to link to content from with in a document element in a notebook. in a system that is so filled with hyperlinking, it's amazing to me that we can't hyperlink from within a document element.
devoid99
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Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2012 6:06 pm

Re: Using the Gospel Library to be able to talk on anything

#4

Post by devoid99 »

I'd like to see sharing enabled also. I often find articles that would helpful for my calling and want to share the with others in my organization, but I don't see an easy way to share them from the IPad.
serajinn
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Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 2:43 pm

Re: Using the Gospel Library to be able to talk on anything at any time.

#5

Post by serajinn »

Nice article. I solved this problem using tags. I tag the first scripture in the chain, not the rest. I go to tags which are alphabetized and easy to move around In. And follow the links to the nextent scripture. Each scripture has an annotation, usually from an Apostle or Prophet. I have found about 8 to 10 is all their is time for in a talk. But in a classroom discussion I have added some questions to stimulate dialog.

Thanks for the article,
ROBERT
lmcguire
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Posts: 339
Joined: Wed Jun 15, 2011 4:12 pm

Re: Using the Gospel Library to be able to talk on anything at any time.

#6

Post by lmcguire »

Another way to accomplish this goal is as follows:

* Create a notebook for the topic (this I think is the weakest part - that's an awful lot of notebooks to have and not really an easy way to sort / filter them)

* Create journal entries instead of (or in addition to) notes on the verses; add the entries to the appropriate notebooks

* Highlight the verses of interest and add those to the notebook(s) of interest

* Open the notebook, choose the "Edit Notebook" option, which shows little handles for the entries so you can rearrange them, and sort the entries therein so they're in a logical order.

When you need to speak on a topic, pull up the notebook and work from the top down...

(I have Android GL; iOS GL may be slightly different; Windows version is quite different, I think.) NOTE: My Android GL is crashing when I try the last step. I have reported that. I know it has worked in the past because this is how I do talks and lessons which don't involve a manual.

Liz
lajackson
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Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:27 pm
Location: US

Re: Using the Gospel Library to be able to talk on anything at any time.

#7

Post by lajackson »

It sounds as if the tags are alphabetized. Are notebooks? Maybe that is an advantage of tags over notebooks.
lmcguire
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Posts: 339
Joined: Wed Jun 15, 2011 4:12 pm

Re: Using the Gospel Library to be able to talk on anything at any time.

#8

Post by lmcguire »

lajackson wrote:It sounds as if the tags are alphabetized. Are notebooks? Maybe that is an advantage of tags over notebooks.
The tags themselves are shown alphabetically. Within a tag, however, the items are listed (I think) with the most recently added / edited at the top, and you have no option to rearrange the items. Also, you cannot tag journal entries (whereas you can put them in a notebook).

With notebooks, the notebooks appear to be listed in the order in which they were created / last edited (or something, hard to tell). But within the notebook itself, you can rearrange the order in which items appear, so that you could put them in a useful order (e.g. a journal entry to introduce your talk, then a couple of scriptures, then anther journal entry with your comments, then a quote from a General Conference talk, another journal entry, etc.).

Both methods give you a list of all the associated items, including the option to view the full text and tap links to the source. The list of items under a tag will NOT include your notes, only the text you highlighted and tagged. Notebooks include the highlighted text *and* any notes you added to that highlight. Both show all the tags for that highlight, with the option to tap the tag and view all other items with that tag.

Notebooks can be shared so that someone gets an email (for example) of your entire notebook (journal entries, highlights, notes on the highlights, tags on the highlights (even what color was used for highlighting)), in the order you specified. You cannot share the list of everything with the same tag.

Basically, each option has benefits, and one has to pick which use (or combination) works best for them. For me, for talks or commentary or lessons on a topic, notebooks would work better, but the lack of sorting of the notebook titles themselves, and the inability to filter them, is a big drawback to using that feature extensively - and you'd think it would be awfully easy for them to change this to sort alphabetically by title.
lajackson
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Location: US

Re: Using the Gospel Library to be able to talk on anything at any time.

#9

Post by lajackson »

Thank you for the explanation. Options and agency.
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