Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Chapter 5


What is significant about covenants?  Why does King Benjamin make such a big deal about it?  And what about the new name that is given when entering into a covenant with God?
Let’s step back to our premortal life.  We first existed as “Intelligences.”  This is the part of us that has always existed. 
From Intelligences we were born as Spirits to Heavenly Parents.  Surely they gave us names.  We don’t remember our names but we know we were—and are today—children of God, meaning the Father.
When we came to Earth we received new parents and new names.
Then we matured and became accountable for our actions.  We were ready for a major change in our existence.  We were ready for the covenant of baptism.  When we were baptized we received a new name:  Jesus Christ.  We became his sons and his daughters.  This is the same covenant that King Benjamin’s people were renewing.  King Benjamin emphasizes that we become the Children of Christ.  He becomes our new father.  We now have three fathers: Heavenly Father, our mortal parents, and Christ as the father our rebirth.
As we progress in our journey we will receive more covenants and more new names.  Each layer of covenants is like a new layer of an eternal quilt that covers us and protects us until we return to our Father in Heaven.

Christ Comes to America--A story from my mission


Entering the mission home in Salt Lake City, Utah in September of 1973, was exciting and terrifying.  My parents dropped me off for what would be a three day experience.  Saying good bye was difficult. We were given our missionary discussions in a small black 3 ring binder.  And some of us were asked to go get a haircut after the first assembly was over.  I was soon introduced to the other missionaries who were going to the Navajo mission with me.  I could not imagine how I could learn such a strange language.
I remember we met in a large room.  I would say about 200 chairs were set up. The mission home president stood to welcome us and give us our first assignment.  He had us open our missionary discussions.  He showed us how there were seven discussions and each discussion was divided into concepts.  He told us that each of us was to memorize one of these concepts before we went to bed and prepare ourselves to “pass it off” in front of all the other missionaries the following day at our second big assembly.
The terror of passing off a discussion in front of all the other missionaries sunk deep into my chest.  Not only was I terrified; now I was petrified.  That evening I scanned through the various concepts, unable to settle on one to read through, let alone to try to memorize.  I went to bed without being able to memorize a single word.  I wondered what they would do to elders who couldn’t do their very first assignment in the mission field.  Do they chastise you in front of everyone?  Do they send you to the corner of shame and make you wear a “dork dot” on your lapel?  Even if there wasn’t any special punishment, the embarrassment alone would be hard to overcome.
I couldn’t sleep.  I wrestled with the Lord in desperate prayer through the night.  At four in the morning I went down to the men’s restroom with my discussion book in hand and sat on the cool blue tiles with my back against the wall.  I begged the Lord for help as I scanned the pages. 
Finally, I came to the discussion about my relationship to Christ.  I saw a heading that caught my eye.  It read something like this:  After Christ was resurrected he came to America and visited with the Nephites.  He taught them his doctrine, ordained disciples, and set up his church, just as he had done in Jerusalem.  I was directed to read 3Nephi chapter 11 which I did.  While I was reading, the Spirit of the Lord testified to my soul of the truthfulness of this event. Never before had any scripture impacted me like this.  I was reborn in that moment.  My testimony was anchored forever.
I had no problem memorizing the concept, although it wasn’t word perfect.  But my soul was comforted and I knew the Lord loved me and would allow me to tell the Navajo people many times that the Lord had come to their ancestors here in America.  And I did! 

A Mission Story


Two Mission Stories
By Walt Stone

1.  A CONVERSION STORY
Elder Kim and I were assigned to the “Farm Road” area of Shiprock, New Mexico, on the Navajo reservation.  At the end of the last farm road was a little shack inhabited by Ina Yazzie and her three young boys.  When Elder Kim, my senior companion, first took me to her place we opened a broken down gate of a picket fence and were immediately charged by an aggressive, noisy guard turkey who had been hiding behind the one small, leafless tree in the yard.  Elder Kim stepped to one side and let the turkey come after me.  He pecked and screeched at me saying “get off my property” in turkey language.  Elder Kim just laughed and so did Ina who was watching from her doorway.
She approached us and shooed the turkey away inviting us to enter her humble dwelling.  The entrance was not actually into the home.  It was into a screened porch she used to house a sheep, goat, and dog.  The ground was peppered with dung of all types.  We tip toed past the droppings and winced at the smell. Ina chuckled.
Entering the one room shack, I noticed there was a wood burning stove in the middle of the room with the stove pipe extending through the roof.  There was an unmade bed to one side and two chairs.
Elder Kim took one of the chairs and Ina took the other.  So I was left to sit on the bed.  I sat down, but heard a “squeak.”  I had sat on her baby!  Don’t worry he wasn’t hurt.  I scooted over and made sure there wasn’t another child under the covers.  The other two boys were in the room shouting and laughing and playing some sort of tag.  Both were naked; neither looked like they had bathed in some time—if ever.
 As I looked over at Elder Kim, I noticed he had settled into the chair and had his eyes closed.  Could he be asleep already?  He was getting up at 4:00 a.m. so it was entirely possible.
Meanwhile, Ina began speaking to me in Navajo.  “What is your name?” she asked.  “What is your clan?”  “What is this called (pointing to the stove with her lips)?”  “Do you have a story?”  Each question was followed by a pause as she waited to see if I could answer.  She was teaching me Navajo.  In return, she let me practice my missionary discussions on her, all of this in Navajo. This scene repeated itself twice a week for a period of six months.  No English was spoken the entire time.
As the weeks went on, little changes took place.  The turkey disappeared.  The screen porch got swept and packed down. (It had a dirt floor, as did the home.)  The animals were put out in the yard.  The bed got made.  The children got dressed.  We even saw them get a bath one day as Ina put them into an aluminum tub used to water the animals.  They were having a bubble fight.
One day Elder Kim went with another missionary and I brought a Navajo elder to Ina’s place.  He took up the conversation with Ina and I tried to understand them. Even though she had worked hard to teach me, without any English spoken at all, I didn’t think I was making much progress.  The Navajo elder asked her how things were going with the discussions.  She said something like, “Well, Elder Stone has taught me all the discussions and I want to be baptized.  I’ve been trying to tell him my desires, but he doesn’t seem to understand.  Will you tell him?”
When the Navajo Elder told me what Ina had said, I almost fell off the bed!  She wanted to be baptized?  Amazing!  So the baptism was planned and carried out.  It was a wonderful occasion.  Ina Yazzie and her boys looked like angels.
When I got the news that I was to be transferred we went over to Ina’s home to give her the news.  She was sad and so was I but she was sustained by her faith.  Then something amazing happened.  She said to me, “Elder Stone, thanks for baptizing me.  Thanks for bringing the gospel to me and my boys.  I will always be grateful to you.”  Then she chuckled.  Every word she had spoken was in perfect English.  She spoke perfect English!  She had always spoken perfect English but she had hidden it from me.  She did it as a prank at first but then she just kept going because she decided I really needed to learn the language without the crutch of English.
As we drove away in our pick-up I turned to see Ina standing outside her home.  The yard was picked up and in order.  A tree was bursting out in leaves. The little picket fence mended.  The animals were grazing on grass.   She held the baby.  The boys were playing with sticks.  Ina was standing by the door of her screened porch smiling.  Her dress was second hand but clean and neat, her rose colored sweater reminded me of the Navajo sunsets I had come to love. 

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Chapter 4


King Benjamin tells us how to retain a remission of our sins.  He says the key is to take care of the poor and needy.  It makes perfect sense to me.  It is when our hearts our turned to others especially those with temporal needs that we can have confidence that our sins are wiped clean.  There are plenty of people in our neighborhood we can take care of.  We all need lots of help.  We can also focus in our own families and make sure they are being loved and cared for.  Sharing our testimonies also covers a multitude of sins.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Chapter 3


Priceless words from an angel are given by King Benjamin to his people: “For behold, the time cometh and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reighneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay, and shall go forth amongst men, working mighty miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, causing the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and curing all manner of diseases….And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people.  And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the son of God….”



Friday, November 15, 2013

Chapter 2


King Benjamin begins his final words to his people by declaring that his son, Mosiah will be taking his place.  He has a wonderful surprise for them because he has been visited by an angel and he plans to tell them what the angel said.  But just before that he says, “I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God.  For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness.”

Thursday, November 14, 2013

The Book of Mosiah Chapter 1


King Benjamin tells his oldest son Mosiah that he will become the next king.  During their discussion, King Benjamin makes it plain that without the scriptures and the teachings of the prophets that his people would have been raised in ignorance and would have fallen to the Lamanites because of disbelief in God.  I can bear witness that without the Book of Mormon I too would have fallen into disbelief and most likely would have gone after the things of this world forgetting my God.  I owe every happiness I have in this life to my testimony of the Gospel of Christ.  My belief in the commandments and doctrine of Christ has saved me thus far.  But I must continue in Christ and strictly abide by his teaching.  I must endure in faith to the end of my life.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Words of Mormon


Mormon explains that he abridged the Large Plates of Nephi including Lehi’s writings. Then he tells us he attached the Small Plates of Nephi to his plates without any abridgement.  He did this “for a wise purpose.”  We know that the translation of the abridgment (116 pages) of the Book of Lehi was lost by Martin Harris.  But with the inclusion by Mormon of the Small Plates, we get the record of Lehi and his family as they flee Jerusalem and settle in the New World (1st and 2nd Books of Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni).  As we begin The Book of Mosiah, we are starting the abridgment by Mormon of the Large Plates—minus the Book of Lehi which was lost by Martin Harris. 

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Omni


This is the last book written on the Small Plates of Nephi.  There are several authors covering a period of about 140 years.  One of the authors, Amaleki, connects the historical records between the small and large plates by telling us that the Nephites were forced to flee out of the Land of Nephi down to the land of Zarahemla.  Here they discovered the people of Mulek who left Jerusalem about the same time as Lehi but took a different route to the Promised Land.  The Nephites and the Mulekites unite themselves. Mosiah is the leader of the Nephites and Zarahemla leads the Mulekites.  Because the Mulekites did not bring the scriptures with them from Jerusalem like Lehi’s family, their language and religion had become corrupted.  So as these two groups of people united there must have been a great deal of teaching going on.  When Mosiah died, his son, King Benjamin reigned in his stead.  Amaleki concludes his record with this classic exhortation:  “…come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption.  Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved.”

Jarom


Jarom, the son of Enos, continues the Small Plates of Nephi.  It is apparent from Jarom’s words that there is precious small space remaining on the plates.  It sufficeth him to say that his fathers were clear on the Doctrine of Christ.  During his day, it became more and more difficult to keep his people on the right path.  However, he was successful in doing that by “…prick[ing] their hearts with the word, continually stirring them up unto repentance.”

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Enos


Enos was Jacob’s son and grandson of Lehi.  He had a desire to repent.  He went into the mountains to hunt and in the process prayed all day and all night, periodically kneeing and pleading, walking and crying to the Lord, and kneeling again in solemn humility, until in the morning came the voice of the Lord forgiving him of his sin, sweeping his guilt away. He described this process as a “wrestle.”  Enos rejoiced and wondered out loud how it was done.  They Lord told him it was because of his faith in the Atonement of Christ.  Enos then prayed for his family, the Nephites, and for his family, the Lamanites who had apostatized.  Once we obtain blessings (in this case forgiveness of sins) for ourselves we naturally and appropriately ask for those same blessings for others.

Chapter 7


Jacob describes his experience with one of the church members in his town.  His name was Sherem.  “And he was learned, that he had a perfect knowledge of the language of the people; wherefore, he could use much flattery, and much power of speech, according to the power of the devil.”  While Sherem was an anti-Christ, we have wonderful church leaders, most importantly, apostles and prophets who also have a perfect knowledge of the language and use their knowledge to persuade us to do what is right.  I love the Apostles of Jesus Christ and I am studying their inspired words every day. 

Chapter 6


Jacob uses one of his best one-liners: O then, my beloved brethren, repent ye, and enter in at the strait gate, and continue in the way which is narrow, until ye shall obtain eternal life. O be wise; what can I say more?”

Chapter 5


The allegory of the Olive Tree by Zenos gives us the history of the House of Israel.  It shows us that (1) there is missing scripture in the Bible since there is not a Book of Zenos found there from which Jacob was quoting; and (2) shows us by its content regarding olive trees that Joseph Smith could not have possibly written it, he having no idea, whatsoever, of olive tree husbandry; and having no access to such knowledge.