Elder Nelson's 2200 Scripture Challenge

For those who haven't seen it yet, Elder Nelson gave a challenge to study the 2200 scriptures about Jesus Christ listed in the Topical Guide.

https://www.lds.org/blog/i-studied-more ... d?lang=eng

I wanted to see if I could organize the information in a way to make it easier to study. Being a programmer I wrote some code to parse the 50 something TG entries about Christ and save all of the references in a database. I found 2227, however only 1648 were unique. So I created a table that has a row for each of the unique reference grouped by the topic they came from. I thought I would share that in case anyone else might find it useful.

http://ldsgeo.org/ElderNelsonChallengeOnSteroids.php

Nice! It took a while to load, but it's really handy.

BTW if you look closely at the first column, you will see each reference has 2 different links. The first one opens that chapter with every verse in that chapter from the whole table highlighted. The second one only highlights the verses that are part of that reverence. In both cases it scrolls the page to the first verse in the reference.

It is slow to load. I'm not sure how much of that is the fact it is just a very large page or the database queries. I just added some indexes to the database tables and some other changes that should speed it up a little. But I'm not sure it is much faster.

The odd thing at this point is if there was a little more traffic to that page, the info would be more likely to be in the server memory. Of course if the traffic goes too high it will then slow down

Chris W

Thank you so much for this fabulous resource! You have no idea what a blessing this is to me.

This is so cool! Thank you so much for sharing this You've made my studies so much easier!

Thank you so much!

The format you created makes it very easy for me to track my progress and to study this topic with my family also.

lefevrej, aleydavis, and tkratzer, you're very welcome. I'm glad others find it useful. As a software engineer, I often create things like this for myself. Often I spend more time than I should on it, so it's nice that sometimes I can create something other people find useful.

Chris W

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!

Thank you! This is exactly what I've been looking for!

This is awesome and very user friendly. Thank you very much for taking the time and making it available to everyone.

I've been searching and searching for someone who has laid out a format for me to follow as I was a bit confused as to how President Nelson did this. Your work has answered my prayer! Thank you so much.

This is fabulous and such a huge help, thank you!! Do you by chance have this sorted by your column "Reference Text"? That would be a big help as well!!

This is amazing! Thank you for your work! I do have one question- In this article President Nielsen shares that he read 2,249 citations. It's in one of the pictures with his handwriting. I'm wondering why the numbers are off.

https://www.lds.org/blog/i-studied-more ... t=2pZepIcT

stacyriggs wrote:This is amazing! Thank you for your work! I do have one question- In this article President Nielsen shares that he read 2,249 citations. It's in one of the pictures with his handwriting. I'm wondering why the numbers are off.

https://www.lds.org/blog/i-studied-more ... t=2pZepIcT

Some of the scripture references appear in more than one topical guide entry. cdw3423's list groups things together by reference, so if the same scripture is in multiple topics, it will only be counted once (for the numbers on the left).

OK, thank you! I've shared your list with friends and they are SO grateful!! Thank you thank you!

THANK YOU!!

This is amazing! Thank you!

This is such a great challenge to take on. If there are any iPhone or iPad users that would like a way to keep track of their progress, here is a free app I made where you can read the verses and track your progress along the way. Let me know if you have any questions. learnofme@sudomail.com

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/learn-o ... 85624?mt=8

Thank you so much for this. The organization of this Elder Nelson's challenge has been a stumbling block for me and this helps to remove that obstacle. I appreciate you sharing your skills and talents.

What a marvelous resource! I am thrilled to start the challenge. Thank you for this wonderful study aid.

I am THRILLED to find this and THANK YOU for creating it! My Excel attempt at sorting for this purpose was clunky and ineffective because of weird hyperlinking and too many commas for practical delimiting. I am definitely bookmarking this on the homescreen of my phone for continual use. I also plan to share this on Facebook (and even try to get it mentioned on Meridian magazine). I just have two questions first:

1. For some reason, many of the links to Moses 1 in the first column open by default in Spanish on my desktop browser....though as far as I can tell from random clicking, most of the verses in the document open in ordinary English. Is this somehow part of your code, or something peculiar to my computer? Any suggestions about this?

2. I'd find this most useful if each link changed to purple once I clicked on it, so I don't have to use mental energy (ha!) to keep track of where I am in the list. At the moment, they all stay blue. Is that setting changeable on the document, or is it something I indicate in my browser? If I change it in my browser, could you tell me where and how to do that, especially on a phone version of Chrome or Firefox? I'm eager to pass this functionality along to my whole Relief Society, who discussed this last Sunday.

Thank you a million!

It loaded in 1/2 a second for me.

I just finished a copy-and-paste into Excel and un-merged the cells that were merged and now this file is sortable by topic, or other desired criteria. I added a column for the source of the books from with the scripture is referenced and a column where one can add a date that the scripture was completed. How might I share this with others who would like an Excel version?

ctrstandards wrote:I just finished a copy-and-paste into Excel and un-merged the cells that were merged and now this file is sortable by topic, or other desired criteria. I added a column for the source of the books from with the scripture is referenced and a column where one can add a date that the scripture was completed. How might I share this with others who would like an Excel version?

Make a new post to this topic, and use the Attachments feature below to attach the spreadsheet.

Ok...so I'm a "non-techy" and love this resource. Please help me understand how I can download it and track my progress. All I can do is click on the link and it opens rapidly in my browser. Would love to have it in a doc that I can highlight what I have completed, rather than printout 160 pages Thank you for doing this! Amazing!

dlefrandt wrote:All I can do is click on the link and it opens rapidly in my browser.

With most browsers, you can right-click on the link, and a menu will allow you to save the file to your computer.

ctrstandards wrote:I just finished a copy-and-paste into Excel and un-merged the cells that were merged and now this file is sortable by topic, or other desired criteria. I added a column for the source of the books from with the scripture is referenced and a column where one can add a date that the scripture was completed. How might I share this with others who would like an Excel version?

I'd love this unmerged excel option so I can study by topic instead of sequentially. Let me know if you can email it to me.

Thanks!

Love Love Love this creation. You are amazing. I am excited to be able to use this since we have been challenged again by our RS teacher. This will make my study so much quicker. thank you again. - Krystal Boyack, Sandy Utah

This is very helpful. Thanks for doing that work. Is there a way to sort it by the topic, instead of the reference? That way you could study all the scriptures across the standard works about a given topic at the same time, and then move on to another topic.

Thank you!!

nicpacker wrote:This is very helpful. Thanks for doing that work. Is there a way to sort it by the topic, instead of the reference? That way you could study all the scriptures across the standard works about a given topic at the same time, and then move on to another topic.

The Topical Guide itself is organized by topic – so the easiest way to study by topic would be to open the Topical Guide on LDS.org or in Gospel Library, and follow each scripture link from there.

This is wonderful!

Just a couple of suggestions:

1. The first reference column on the left loads quickly in a new tab, so you can go to the next reference easily by just closing the tab. However, the second reference column opens in the SAME tab, so that when you read these references, you have to go back a page and load the large file all over again, which takes long. Can you make the second column references ALSO open in new tabs, so that the original large file stays open?

2. Minor issue, but the title has "References" spelled incorrectly as "Refrences."

3. Is there any way to get it as an Excel file so that it can be sorted and filtered?

Thanks for the great help in studying these scriptures!

Orion Wood
orionw@pacbell.net

Does anyone know if the Excel version by ctrstandards was ever posted anywhere?

I would love to have a copy to sort and filter.

Thanks!

Orion Wood

orionw wrote:1. The first reference column on the left loads quickly in a new tab, so you can go to the next reference easily by just closing the tab. However, the second reference column opens in the SAME tab, so that when you read these references, you have to go back a page and load the large file all over again, which takes long. Can you make the second column references ALSO open in new tabs, so that the original large file stays open?

In most browsers, you can hold command (Mac) or control (Windows) while you're clicking a link, and it will force the link to open in a new tab. Hope this helps!

sbradshaw,

Thanks, that works.

Minor point, but for the second column, after creating the tab with ctl-click, you have to then click the tab to open it, but the first column opens directly to the tab.

But this works.

Thanks for the quick response!

Does anyone have the Excel version of the file? Did ctrstandards post it somewhere?

Thank you

This is so great! Thanks for the resource!

Thank you. I have looked for a way to accomplish this invitation/challenge as well. In my searches I found Brother Chris Woodhouse's list, which I've borrowed to create a track-able list in Google Sheets and/or Microsoft Excel.

I am sharing what I have created (the instructions and attributes are on the second worksheet/tab):

* Topical Guide References to Jesus Christ - Tracker (Google Sheet version) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

* Topical Guide References to Jesus Christ - Tracker (MS Excel version) https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxlLIC ... sp=sharing

Respectfully,
- Jason Hansen

orionw wrote:Does anyone have the Excel version of the file? Did ctrstandards post it somewhere?

Yes, I am sharing what I have created (the instructions and attributes are on the second worksheet/tab):

* Topical Guide References to Jesus Christ - Tracker (Google Sheet version) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

* Topical Guide References to Jesus Christ - Tracker (MS Excel version) https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxlLIC ... sp=sharing

Respectfully,
- Jason Hansen

Aaron, I have a 3rd Gen iPad which is not compatible with iOS 10. Is there a way to make this wonderful app compatible with my iPad?

Thanks! Great help for my response to Elder Nelsons challenge!
Susan Reese

aaronchristianmartinez wrote:This is such a great challenge to take on. If there are any iPhone or iPad users that would like a way to keep track of their progress, here is a free app I made where you can read the verses and track your progress along the way. Let me know if you have any questions. learnofme@sudomail.com

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/learn-o ... 85624?mt=8

I am very excited to use this! Thank you for creating an app for it.

Thank you, I was trying to copy and paste all of the references out of the topical guide, then my word stop respinding after getting 1/4th of the way through. This make it so much easier and less frustrating to get started. Much appreciated.

Thankyou for this wonderful opportunity and link to study our now new Prophets, President Russell M Nelsons 2200 Scripture challenge. I have had a strong prompting to do this for a few days now as part of my personal and family scripture study for 2018. I wondered how I was going to accomplish this and now I have the tools. Thanks so much for your help. Kind regards, Aloma Peihopa, Perth, Western Australia.

Has anybody merged the Topical Guide references with the Index references. President Nelson's challenge appears to be using just the Topical Guide references, however there are certainly additional references to the Savior found in the Index

Thank you so much for doing the work and making this available!!!

This is great! Thank you so much!

This is so amazing and such an awesome resource especially for youth who are learning of Christ this year!! Thanks so much!

Thank you so much. I really appreciate your work in organizing this way.

Chris -- thank you so much for the work you have done!!!
I want to focus my study in the Book of Mormon and though it was not part of the challenge, I want to include the references to Jesus Christ found in the Index. By chance have you parsed that as well? Is it somethinfo you could do, or want to do?????
Thanks

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I started the challenge last year and I am excited to continue the challenge.

This is amazing!!! Thank you so much for putting it together

Thank you for preparing this. It's excellent!

I'm a book designer planning to create a PDF of all of the scripture verses per topic to help me with this scripture challenge. I'm looking for anyone who wants to help. I'm hoping to find 20 + volunteers... maybe 4 - 5 hours each? Please review the attachment if you're interested. It explains more about the project and shows an example. Thanks!

Very nice that it's in order!

Here's one I made to track reading progress: https://zvakanaka.github.io/scriptures-of-Jesus/

What a treasure. I sought a consolidated list and this is what I found! Even better. Much appreciation and thanks!

Hey, Thanks for doing this. I have a question what do you mean by unique? The other 500 references were they quotes or retweets from other prophets?

This file:
http://ldsgeo.org/ElderNelsonChallengeOnSteroids.php

is no longer available. Can anyone repost it?

Thanks.

Due to the age of this thread and the absence of the domain on a domain registration search that hosted the file, it most likely no longer exists.

The domain name is gone but I do still have the file. The only problem is it links to the old lds.org webiste. If there is interest I can probably update it so the links in the file go to the current church website.

http://chriswoodhouseonline.com/ldsgeo/ ... eroids.php

It turns out it was a lot easier than I was thinking to update the links so they point to www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study instead of lds.org. But for some reason it is really slow to load right now. That might just be a temporary issue. The server hosts lots of different domains.

Hello,

Does anyone know where to find the database mentionned in the message below with all the scriptures references? When I click on the link it doesn't work anymore probably because lds.org is not the domain name used anymore?

I am a church employee so don't hesitate to sent it to me directy at my CHurch e-mail adress that you will easily find in outlook by tiping my name.

Best regards.

Erik BERTOLA

--

cdw3423lds a écrit:
> For those who haven't seen it yet, Elder Nelson gave a challenge to study
> the 2200 scriptures about Jesus Christ listed in the Topical Guide.
>
>
> https://www.lds.org/blog/i-studied-more ... d?lang=eng
>
> I wanted to see if I could organize the information in a way to make it
> easier to study. Being a programmer I wrote some code to parse the 50
> something TG entries about Christ and save all of the references in a
> database. I found 2227, however only 1648 were unique. So I created a
> table that has a row for each of the unique reference grouped by the topic
> they came from. I thought I would share that in case anyone else might
> find it useful.
>
> http://ldsgeo.org/ElderNelsonChallengeOnSteroids.php

erikbertola wrote: Tue May 21, 2024 1:31 am Does anyone know where to find the database mentionned in the message below with all the scriptures references? When I click on the link it doesn't work anymore probably because lds.org is not the domain name used anymore?

See the post before yours.

It was never hosted by the church, but the work of a community member parsing the Topical Guide.

I am also looking for the "steroids" document to assist in the study of the topical guide. Is there a doc listed with a different name?

I moved the page to a different site and updated it to link to the new church website address.

http://chriswoodhouseonline.com/ldsgeo/ ... eroids.php