Think On These Things: Helaman 5

I'm not sure I ever thought I'd post on this blog again.

Time flies; things change. It's now been over two years since I was released as a missionary. While I've kept learning and growing and trying to help others where I can, I haven't really felt the need to publish these escapades in blog form.

Until now.

See, I've been thinking a lot about the Book of Mormon recently. After reading it through a few times after my mission, more recently I've started just studying certain chapters or stories individually, giving me more time to focus on them and think about them. Doing so has reminded me of experiences I had with the book during my mission, and it's prompted new, similar experiences now. And suddenly it felt like I needed to write about them again.

I can't claim that these insights and thoughts are going to be original or novel or even something you've never thought of before. Like my journal writing, I find that I'm writing these more for myself than for anyone out there. But, if you read it and find something new or something you like, then I'll be glad to have helped out a little.

So, let's begin, shall we?

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Today's topic: Helaman 5. Most people probably know this chapter because of a widely-quoted scripture contained therein, namely verse 12:

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Previously, I'd appreciated this scripture on its own merits, seeking for ways I could build my own foundation in order to withstand whatever fiery darts might come my way. However, since then I've come to see how it relates more personally to the men described in this chapter, and how the entire chapter of Helaman 5 itself can be seen as a demonstration of this powerful verse.

Let's step back a bit for some context: this verse was spoken by Helaman (son of Helaman, son of Alma, son of Alma, son of hey why don't you just look at this chart instead and come back when you have the people straight) to his sons, Nephi and Lehi. Helaman gave them this counsel right before they left to start declaring God's word for the rest of their lives. They were so disheartened by what they saw going on around them that they dedicated their lives to preaching God's commandments, and the chapter notes that they remembered this specific counsel (and the other counsel Helaman gave them) as they started.

So, how did they do as lifelong missionaries?

Pretty well, it turns out.

Verses 14-16 lay out their gameplan: they start out in the Nephite city of Bountiful, then make a broad sweep of the major Nephite cities before heading into Lamanite territory. Both demographics (Nephites and Lamanites) represented a significant challenge: the Lamanites at this time were at their usual standard of spiritual ignorance and anti-Nephite sentiments. The Nephites weren't necessarily hostile to Nephi and Lehi (their own people), but teaching them entailed a different challenge: rather than being ignorant to the church, many of these people were previous believers that had since abandoned the church and its teachings and were knowingly breaking commandments. An earlier account of a similar group of Nephites (Alma 47:36) notes that in turning from their knowledge, they actually become more hardened and anti-church than the Lamanites ever were.

So, Nephi and Lehi had their work cut out for them.

And yet, they were not dismayed by these challenges, rather, they seemed to face them head-on. Verses 17 and 18 of Helaman 5 describe how Nephi and Lehi taught with power, and how that power led to the conversion of many people. How many exactly? Well, among the Nephites, we don't know exactly; the record just states that they convinced "many" of the dissenters of the error of their ways. That's a little dissatisfying to read (we crave exact details), but frankly, given the previous descriptions of these former believers, it seems to me at least slightly miraculous that they converted any of them at all.

As for the Lamanites, we have a much more concrete figure. Verse 19 says that Nephi and Lehi's teaching convinced 8,000 of the Lamanites living in the land of Zarahemla (which until recently had been Nephite territory) to repent, be baptized, and join the church.

8,000 people. That's nearly three times the population of my hometown. On a whim, I googled "8,000 people" and found a bunch of pictures that represented that amount. Take a look at those pictures for a minute, then consider that two men influenced that many people to make major life changes just by speaking to them.

Power indeed.

Now things start getting interesting.

Perhaps emboldened by their successes among the Nephites and the Lamanites, verse 20 notes that Nephi and Lehi set out for the city of Nephi, the Lamanite capital, as their next stop on their let's-teach-and-baptize-everybody tour. They didn't make it far, though, before they were captured by an army of Lamanties and thrown into prison near Nephi.

Let's think about this for a second: an army of Lamanites picked them up and took them back to the capital.

Do armies generally wander about the land and just capture whoever they may find in their path? No, so this army had a purpose (otherwise I'm not sure it'd be called an army).

Do armies with orders to attack a specific city make random detours back to where they came from just to deliver two guys they found along the way? No.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? The fact that the army found Nephi and Lehi wasn't coincidental: the king of the Lamanites sent an army to capture them. An army. That's how impressive Nephi and Lehi's reputation was. That is how powerful their preaching was: the king of a nation commanded his army to apprehend them before they could speak to any more of his subjects.

Going on, verse 22 says that Nephi and Lehi were kept in the prison for many days and were deprived of food during that time. Eventually, a group of prison guards was sent into the cell to kill them. Now, this begs the question: if the plan all along was just to kill Nephi and Lehi, why didn't the army just do it when they first encountered the brothers outside of Zarahemla? There's no official word on this, but I think the Lamanite's actions are telling. They only attempted to kill Nephi and Lehi after they had been starving in a prison cell for who knows how long; I think it's entirely possible that the army didn't try to kill Nephi and Lehi because the soldiers didn't believe they could.

Now that I've spent all of this time outlining how powerful Nephi and Lehi seemed to the people of their day and what miracles they brought about, it's time to burst the bubble: they were just men. Humble, righteous men? Definitely. Eloquent, thoughtful men? Entirely possible. Men blessed with the power of God to aid them in their labors? Certainly, but in the end, for all intents and purposes, they remained normal, mortal men.

So now let's consider what they might have been thinking at the point of verse 22. They only recently abandoned all other temporal pursuits so that they could preach the gospel to strangers, strangers who often did not have the kindest feelings toward them. Despite this, they had success, and quite a lot of it, due to their hard work and the power of God working through them. Maybe they allowed themselves to feel hopeful about the future. Maybe they thought that, if things kept going like this, they might not have to spend their entire lives preaching after all.

But then things went south, and they went there quite quickly. A hostile army accosted them and threw them into prison. They were kept in that prison cell for days, without food. Seeing as how they were mortal men, this made them weak. And then, after days of this torment, a group of guards enters their cell, with the intent to kill them. The brothers, despite their hunger and weakness, rise and stand to face their captors.

Did they hope for a miraculous deliverance like that given to Alma and Amulek so many years before?

Or did they resign themselves to their fate, knowing that, as Alma once said, the Lord sometimes allows the righteous to be slain so that his judgement can fall upon the wicked?

I see the guards start to advance. The moment of the brothers' doom seems to have arrived. I see them closing their eyes, thinking back to the words of their father:

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

The devil had sent his shafts and the winds to propel them forward. He had sent his thunderous storms filled with devastating hail. He had sent opposition. He had sent people to denounce them and capture them and starve them and finally to kill them.

But Nephi and Lehi didn't fall.

A pillar of fire surrounded the brothers, driving back the Lamanite guards but leaving those enclosed by it intact. That this divine protection was unexpected is apparent from verse 24; it notes that upon seeing the pillar of fire surrounding them but not consuming them, Nephi and Lehi took courage. Thus emboldened, they began to preach again, and this time their preaching led to a powerful spiritual experience for the guards who came to kill them. All of them went forth and preached after this experience, leading to a massive conversion across the entire land. This conversion, in turn, led the Lamanites to return land that they had taken from the Nephites earlier, something the Nephites had failed to accomplish through military might and force of will.

To bring this about, Nephi and Lehi listened to their father. They build themselves upon a strong foundation. The devil came and threw all he had at them, but in the end they did not fall.

And that's what I think about when I read Helaman 5.

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And that's about how these posts are going to go. Not all of the stories I have in mind are as self-contained as Helaman 5, so there will be a few differences moving forward. Some stories might be told over multiple posts. Some posts might examine the same story from multiple angles.

I have a few more ideas, a few more ideas I'd like to share. We'll see how things go after that.

Have a wonderful week, everybody. Take care of each other. Keep Moving Forward.

-Jesse

Cubans, Astronauts, and Commandments

Welcome back! I hope you all enjoyed Conference! Elder Holland was definitely on the soothing side this go around. In general, I thought the conference was fantastic; I received many answers to my questions and felt God's Spirit strongly.

So, as a Spanish missionary here in Florida, I have the amazing opportunity to speak with Hispanic people from all over the world. I've met people from Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Spain, Puerto Rico and Uruguay, to name a few. Here in Jacksonville, I've had the chance to talk to a group of people I've especially grown to love: Cubans.

Before my mission, I didn't know a lot about Cuba or Cubans. I knew that it was in the Caribbean (a map of Cuba here, provided by the LDS church. Which gets its maps from Google), that their cigars were supposedly high quality (not that I'd ever smoke one--The Word of Wisdom (scroll down to find it) says that's not a good idea), and that their Spanish was a bit mumbly and hard to understand.

As I've talked with Cubans, I've found out a few things. For one, their way of speaking is, in fact, a bit hard to understand at first. You get used to it after a while, but there's still a particular man from Havanna that's just about impossible to figure out (we love him anyway). For another, they love to talk. They also love to read. They're very open and relaxed; most are pretty friendly. In general, they're a likeable people.

From recent conversations with some Cuban friends, I've also found out a bit about the actual country of Cuba. They say that the land is beautiful and there are stunning islands all around. But, they're not allowed to go there. In fact, Cubans aren't given free reign over a lot of things, due to the communist government currently in place. For the poorer people, you're told where to go, what to buy at the store, what to do for work. If your scores on scholastic tests aren't high enough, you're required to give military service for two years. Even if you do well in school, it can be hard to get around or even leave the country if you want. Few Cubans I've talked to say they want to go back.

Why does this matter? Well, a conversation with one Cuban in particular got me thinking. We were talking about all the restrictions in Cuba, and somehow the conversation turned to us talking about the missionary rules. The Church is known for its high standards of membership in general, but missionaries are asked to follow even more guidelines. We get up and go to bed early, we don't watch tv or go to the movies, we don't swim, and we only call our families on Christmas and Mothers' Day (not including weekly emails). All of these guidelines have been put in to place to help us better be able to do the work and help other people. However, after sharing some of these standards with our Cuban friend, he sat back and shook his head.

"Wow," he said (translated from Spanish). "I could never do it. After finally leaving all of that behind [he'd just finished describing the rigorous military service], I could never limit myself like that."

Stemming from that conversation, I believe, was the idea for this entry. I was thinking about things while shaving (I get a lot of good thinking done then), and a voice (not my own) came into my head and said:

"Wow, the commandments sure are restrictive, aren't they?"

To which I responded (in my head):

"Maybe they are restrictive. Seatbelts are pretty restrictive too, come to think of it. In fact, when you're in an accident, they tighten up and make it so you can barely move at all."

I then went on,

"Do you know what else is restrictive? Space suits. Astronauts can barely move around in those things."

Satisfied, I kept on with my shaving.

The point here is that the commandments, although they're "restrictive" (which is debatable), are there to help us. Just as seatbelts keep us safe during accidents and space suits keep astronauts secure when they travel to the moon, the commandments keep us safe as we go throughout this life.

The devil's advocate inside of me wasn't done, though.

"Hah! You think you've got it all figured out. Sure, we need things to protect us when we're in danger. But that's just the thing; we're not in danger! You don't need a seatbelt when you're parked in a parking lot! You don't need a space suit if you're just going for a walk on the beach!"

"Well, do you need any kind of protection if you're just walking on the beach?"

"No! You're free! You could even run around--"

I think he was about to suggest that I go running around the beach naked, but I cut him off.

"What about sunburns? What about skin cancer? Even if you're on the beach, you still need protection; you need sunscreen!"

And I think around then I moved on to thinking about other things.

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Taking a step back, the Devil's Advocate is right. There may be many situations where there are seemingly few or no consequences to breaking God's laws. This, I think, is a big reason why so many people don't care. But, just like hanging out on the beach without sunscreen, we'll eventually feel the consequences of our actions. It may not even be in a sunburn the next day (I very rarely get those), but somewhere along the line we are going to realize the damage we have done to our skin by neglecting our sunscreen. Similarly, the effects of sin may not manifest in days, weeks, months, or even years. It's possible we may not even see them in our lifetimes. But, if we continue to willingly disregard counsel from our Loving Heavenly Father (who would never ask us to do something that would limit our happiness), there will come a day when we'll have to stand before Him and realize what we've done.

President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles summed it up nicely (in a great Ensign Article by D. Todd Christofferson on the subject of obedience):

“We are not obedient because we are blind, we are obedient because we can see.”

 We don't follow God's laws because someone's just telling us to; we do it because we have long-term vision, and we know that a brighter future lays in store if we do.

I know that God lives and loves us. I know that He sent us here to earth in order to be happy, and to prove ourselves worthy of returning to live with Him after this life. I know that He didn't want us to fumble blindly, wondering what to do in this life, so He gave us commandments through His prophets. And I know from experience that living according to the commandments blesses us and helps us receive all the happiness Our Father in Heaven intends us to have. I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Have a great Sunday (Keep the Sabbath Day Holy)! Keep Moving Forward!

-Elder Richmond

Photo courtesy of LDS.org