An Old Companion

I've been trying to remember how long I've had this scripture case.  I know its been a real long time.

I don't think it was on my mission with me.  We used to keep a bag that we always called "the tasche", which is simply "the bag" in English.  It probably took me a little while to feel the need for a scripture case after I got home.  I think I was married when I got this case.  At any rate, I've had it a very long time.  It is probably one of my oldest possessions.

This hole is from when I set it on top of the car and then forgot about it and drove off with it still up there.  Of course, it fell off and landed in the road, bouncing and rolling a bit.  Luckily I saw it in the rear-view mirror and stopped.  This hole was the only sign of the episode it got.  Its a pretty tough old scripture case.

But gradually it has begun to show the age and wear of constant use.  Lots of handling.

Finally the zipper began to come unstitched so that I could no longer zip it from both ends like I like to do, so that the two zippers meet in the middle.

Even though its a big, roomy case, over the years I have accumulated enough stuff in it that its gotten pretty crowded inside.  All these years, whenever I was at church, it was a pretty convenient place to stuff things. I began keeping a small note book in it when we first moved to Wisconsin. That 's still there, along with a bunch of other stuff.

I carried my scriptures from my mission around in it until they got so worn I replaced them.  I still have my mission scriptures but they sit in a box with a bunch of other stuff from my mission. They are no longer the set I use all the time.

But its been long enough that the "new" set is no longer pristine, its getting pretty marked up and worn, too.

All kinds of study guides and little handbooks have lived in my scripture case over the years.  The church, for the longest time, had what they called the correlated study program that worked through all four of the standard works every four years.  I have the little study guides from all four years.  I've been through them at least three or four times.  There were two versions of For The Strength of Youth in it, both outdated.  A Duty to God handbook from when that program got updated to correlate more closely with the scouting program, which the church is now getting out of.  My, how times have changed.  I know for a while I had a Personal Progress handbook in there but it isn't there anymore.  Maybe that made its way into my briefcase that I've used off and on for church.

This has also been the place where I put the programs from funerals I've been to.  Both my parents' funeral programs are there.  A couple from services I conducted back when I was branch president over twenty years ago. A number of others from friends and others I've known, funerals I've attended over the years. Lots of history there.

My scripture case and my scriptures fell into disuse the last few years as I have begun using the electronic scriptures on my phone.  Also because when I was at my unhealthiest, carrying a scripture case was a lot of work.  But I'm healthier now. And, while there are a lot of advantages to using the electronic scriptures, there is also something nice about the books, as well.  I've been wanting to get back to using them more.  So I bought me a new scripture case.  I'm not sure this one is real leather.  The old one must have been to have survived so long and take all the abuse its had.  So I recently moved all my stuff from the old case into the new case.  I actually threw a few things away.  But not much.  I am my father's son, I am a bit of a pack-rat on certain things.

I think the Come Follow Me for Families and individual comes in a smaller size, one that would fit quite nicely in my brand new scripture case.  I ought to see about getting a copy.