Mosiah 7:1-15
Today was especially hard for me but the Lord provided a mighty faith building experience for me. When I came to pick up my kids from school I found out that there had been an incident during the day with allegedly, my daughter spreading rumors about another girl, which is an absolute no go with me, and it's really unlike her. I was livid and was calling for public apology and missing recess for a week, the principal told me that was a little bit extreme, but let's find out everything that was going on. Long story short, it didn't happen like they said, my daughter was distraught to the point on tears that she would be accused of doing such a thing and that she never would do anything like that, which I believe, she's a very good girl. But it did give us a good opportunity to learn the lesson of keeping other people's information to ourselves, because really, it's no one else's business, including our own. But it did set us up for an overly emotional good bye when I left for work, BOTH kids were crying and wouldn't get out of the car or go in the house, clawing at my arms "don't go mom!!!" It's been like this since they were very little, but as they get older it's very difficult for me, and I'm so tired of it. So after I finally got them out of the car and into the house with the door closed, I drove away feeling so very sad. So I decided to listen to old Ensign articles, because I always hear a message from the Lord that brings me peace, and of course the Lord is kind and desires my happiness, and so the first article I hear is called "Latter Saint Voices," and it's from a woman who says that when her family separated, they had some really difficult times, and I immediately perked up, my family is separated, permanently through divorce, and that's when our little family began to suffer. She continues "to our great fortune, one of my mother's friends saw our need to draw closer to God and introduced us to the full-time missionaries. As they taught us the gospel, we realized that God had a plan for us, and despite our many challenges, He had not abandoned us." This was my answer, I have challenges, and so do my children, but God has a plan for us, and a the time I had an overwhelming feeling that God was in charge of my situation and I was where I needed to be. As I continued to listen to the other articles, there were several about general authorities who's mother's were widowed and their struggles to make ends meet and care for their children. And I thought, I only have 2 kids, they had many many kids, I'm divorced, they were widowed, I have an amazing job and makes lots of money, they were not well to do, and their children ended up being amazingly spiritual people, so I should just relax and trust that I can do my best, but the Lord loves them more than I do and he will make up the rest. So I was grateful that God came to my rescue again just when I needed him and continues to teach me vital lessons over and over again.
7:1-5 - I love the Book of Mosiah, and I love the story of Zeniff, because I can really relate to him being disillusioned with the amazingness of society and thinking that there is a better place out there, only to learn that you were wrong and suffer. I can't tell you how many times I've thought "that's it, I'm moving to Thailand and never coming back!" I love other parts of his story, but we can get into that when we get there in a few days. There's not a lot here in terms of citations, mostly from the Book of Mormon teaching manual, lesson 17. The manual teaches us that "a group of Nephites left the land of Zarahemla to regain part of the land of Nephi. They obtained land there under the leadership of a man names Zeniff, who became their king. About 79 years later King Mosiah II, the grandson of the first King Mosiah,... permitted a man named Ammon to lead an expedition for this purpose... Ammon and his brethren found King Limhi and his people. Limhi was Zeniff's grandson." This is the basic synopsis of where we are. Because there's not a lot of material on this, we can just listen to me speculate on somethings, but this might be pretty short. There are a few points that we can infer from the first few verses. First is that the "continual peace for the space of three years," must have been pretty remarkable for Mosiah to allow an expedition to leave searching for lost kinsman in Lamanite territory. Second is that they had a really poor navigation system, because they had no idea where Zeniff went and so they "wandered many days in the wilderness, even forty days did they wander." To me, this says that the Nephites stayed pretty local, not venturing out of their borders much, because other wise there would have been a little bit more knowledgable about the land and routes and things. Just my thoughts, take it with a grain of salt.
7:6-11 - It had never occurred to me before but when reading this section tonight, I realized that Ammon left most of his party on the hill "north of the land of Shilom," and went into the land of Nephi with just himself and 3 of his "brethren." So he left most of the men in Nephite territory, and went to the first city in the Land of Nephi and "were surrounded by the king's guard, and were tken, and were bound, and were committed to prison." But I had never realized that at this point, we aren't told which king it is, is it the king of the Lamanites? Is it the king of the people who they were looking for? It's really kind of a literary game here, "which king is it?" It's the mark of a good writers, one who is trying to engage his audience, which Mormon clearly does. Now when they had been in prison for 2 days, the king had the 4 men brought out for questioning. It's interesting to me that the King of the people explains who he is first before he asks any questions. I wonder, he must have known that the men he took prisoner were Nephites, and knowing that he himself was a Nephite and looking for relief from the tyranny of the Lamanites, it's just interesting to me that Limhi is so intimidated by just 4 men that he had them put into prison and told them that "I suffered that ye should be preserved, that I might inquire of you, or else I should have caused that my guards should have put you to death." But I guess knowing what I do, and knowing that Limhi thinks that Zarahemla was destroyed and all the Nephites were dead (because his own expeditionary party found the Jaredites and mistakenly thought that it was the Nephites,) I guess since he thought they were all dead, he wasn't expecting any Nephites to come walking "so bold" into his land. Ok now that makes a little bit more sense.
7:12-15 - I like that Ammon says "I am assured that if ye had known me ye would not have suffered that I should have worn these bands." It's kind of like when someone says "don't you know who I am?" But the rest of his speech reflects humility so I don't think he meant it like that but I think it's funny. In verse 14 Limhi says "now, I know of a surety that my brethren who were in the land of Zarahemla are yet alive," giving us a small preview of the perception of the people of Limhi about the destruction of the Nephites. Another interesting point to me is that Limhi automatically assumes that the visiting Nephites are there to free them from bondage. So far Limhi only knows of the 4 men that came to him, and having lost to the Lamanites in battle so many times, he couldn't possibly think that they could be freed militarily. And also interesting to me that Limhi wants to be free from bondage to the Lamanites and become slaves to the Nephites. I wonder if he really thought that the Nephites would accept them as slaves, because as far as I can remember King Benjamin said that he didn't allow the people to make slaves of each other, so his father probably didn't allow that either, so it's probably pretty common knowledge among the people of Limhi that the Nephites don't allow slavery.
Small writing tonight, but I'm really excited to get into Mosiah and Alma, I absolutely love these books, and even though there is a lot more history and story in it, there are lots of little hidden nuggets of gold waiting to be discovered.
7:1-5 - I love the Book of Mosiah, and I love the story of Zeniff, because I can really relate to him being disillusioned with the amazingness of society and thinking that there is a better place out there, only to learn that you were wrong and suffer. I can't tell you how many times I've thought "that's it, I'm moving to Thailand and never coming back!" I love other parts of his story, but we can get into that when we get there in a few days. There's not a lot here in terms of citations, mostly from the Book of Mormon teaching manual, lesson 17. The manual teaches us that "a group of Nephites left the land of Zarahemla to regain part of the land of Nephi. They obtained land there under the leadership of a man names Zeniff, who became their king. About 79 years later King Mosiah II, the grandson of the first King Mosiah,... permitted a man named Ammon to lead an expedition for this purpose... Ammon and his brethren found King Limhi and his people. Limhi was Zeniff's grandson." This is the basic synopsis of where we are. Because there's not a lot of material on this, we can just listen to me speculate on somethings, but this might be pretty short. There are a few points that we can infer from the first few verses. First is that the "continual peace for the space of three years," must have been pretty remarkable for Mosiah to allow an expedition to leave searching for lost kinsman in Lamanite territory. Second is that they had a really poor navigation system, because they had no idea where Zeniff went and so they "wandered many days in the wilderness, even forty days did they wander." To me, this says that the Nephites stayed pretty local, not venturing out of their borders much, because other wise there would have been a little bit more knowledgable about the land and routes and things. Just my thoughts, take it with a grain of salt.
7:6-11 - It had never occurred to me before but when reading this section tonight, I realized that Ammon left most of his party on the hill "north of the land of Shilom," and went into the land of Nephi with just himself and 3 of his "brethren." So he left most of the men in Nephite territory, and went to the first city in the Land of Nephi and "were surrounded by the king's guard, and were tken, and were bound, and were committed to prison." But I had never realized that at this point, we aren't told which king it is, is it the king of the Lamanites? Is it the king of the people who they were looking for? It's really kind of a literary game here, "which king is it?" It's the mark of a good writers, one who is trying to engage his audience, which Mormon clearly does. Now when they had been in prison for 2 days, the king had the 4 men brought out for questioning. It's interesting to me that the King of the people explains who he is first before he asks any questions. I wonder, he must have known that the men he took prisoner were Nephites, and knowing that he himself was a Nephite and looking for relief from the tyranny of the Lamanites, it's just interesting to me that Limhi is so intimidated by just 4 men that he had them put into prison and told them that "I suffered that ye should be preserved, that I might inquire of you, or else I should have caused that my guards should have put you to death." But I guess knowing what I do, and knowing that Limhi thinks that Zarahemla was destroyed and all the Nephites were dead (because his own expeditionary party found the Jaredites and mistakenly thought that it was the Nephites,) I guess since he thought they were all dead, he wasn't expecting any Nephites to come walking "so bold" into his land. Ok now that makes a little bit more sense.
7:12-15 - I like that Ammon says "I am assured that if ye had known me ye would not have suffered that I should have worn these bands." It's kind of like when someone says "don't you know who I am?" But the rest of his speech reflects humility so I don't think he meant it like that but I think it's funny. In verse 14 Limhi says "now, I know of a surety that my brethren who were in the land of Zarahemla are yet alive," giving us a small preview of the perception of the people of Limhi about the destruction of the Nephites. Another interesting point to me is that Limhi automatically assumes that the visiting Nephites are there to free them from bondage. So far Limhi only knows of the 4 men that came to him, and having lost to the Lamanites in battle so many times, he couldn't possibly think that they could be freed militarily. And also interesting to me that Limhi wants to be free from bondage to the Lamanites and become slaves to the Nephites. I wonder if he really thought that the Nephites would accept them as slaves, because as far as I can remember King Benjamin said that he didn't allow the people to make slaves of each other, so his father probably didn't allow that either, so it's probably pretty common knowledge among the people of Limhi that the Nephites don't allow slavery.
Small writing tonight, but I'm really excited to get into Mosiah and Alma, I absolutely love these books, and even though there is a lot more history and story in it, there are lots of little hidden nuggets of gold waiting to be discovered.
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