Week 20 - Looking Back

We began our study of Mosiah's sons' work among the Lamanites in Alma 17. A preface to that chapter states: An account of the sons of Mosiah, who rejected their rights to the kingdom for the word of God, and went up to the land of Nephi to preach to the Lamanites; their sufferings and deliverance -- according to the record of Alma. Comprising chapters 17 to 26. Those chapters represent a time period of about 14 years. They are filled with a story of faith and love. Pure doctrine is contained there. The plan of redemption is taught. It's a story about people whose "hearts had been changed; that they had no more desire to do evil" (19:33). It's a story about one who said, "I will give up all that I possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy" (21:15). It's a story of a people who "as many . . . as believed . . . and were converted unto the Lord, never did fall away" (23:6). And sadly, it's a story of some whom "we can plainly discern, that after a people have been once enlightened by the Spirit of God, and have had great knowledge of things pertaining to righteousness, and then have fallen away into sin and transgression, they become more hardened, and thus their state becomes worse than though they had never known . . ." (24:30). It's a powerful story of how "the Lord worketh in many ways to the salvation of his people" (24:27). It is a story of servants of the Lord who believed the Lord's promise: ". . . bear with patience thine afflictions and I will give unto you success" (26:27).

The story culminates with Ammon's summary in chapter 26 of what had happened over those many years since he and his brethren had themselves been converted. He said, "how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we started from the land of Zarahemla that God would have granted unto us such great blessings" (v.1) . . . "and we have been instruments in his hands of doing this great and marvelous work (v.15). . . . Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel" (v. 16). Is there any more beautiful story in all of scripture that is so full of eternal truths? Is there a story anywhere that helps us to see that as we seek to be instruments in the Lord's hands that He will bless us - and those we serve - in ways we never imagined? We will find ourselves looking back over the years of our lives, and with Ammon, declaring these words: "yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will repent and believe on his name" (v. 35). . . . yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever" (v. 37).

Read Alma 26 again. Go to a quiet place and really read it. Imagine yourself in the story. Try to feel Ammon's words in your heart. And then, review the following testimony that we read together in class:

Elder F. Burton Howard of the Seventy shared how his reading Alma 26 as a young missionary impacted his testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon:

“I was reading again the twenty-sixth chapter of Alma and the story of Ammon’s mission. I read out loud, as I sometimes do, trying to put myself in the position of the characters in the book, imagining that I was saying or hearing the words, that I was there. Once more I went over the report, and, with a clarity which cannot be described and which would be difficult to comprehend by one who has not experienced it, the Spirit spoke to my soul, saying, Did you notice? Everything that happened to Ammon happened to you?

“It was a totally unexpected sentiment. It was startling in its scope; it was a thought that had never occurred to me before. I quickly reread the story. Yes, there were times when my heart had been depressed and I had thought about going home. I too had gone to a foreign land to teach the gospel to the Lamanites. I had gone forth among them, had suffered hardships, had slept on the floor, endured the cold, gone without eating. I too had traveled from house to house, knocking on doors for months at a time without being invited in, relying on the mercies of God.

“There had been other times when we had entered houses and talked to people. We had taught them on their streets and on their hills. We had even preached in other churches. I remembered the time I had been spit upon. I remembered the time when I, as a young district leader assigned by the mission president to open up a new town, had entered, with three other elders, the main square of a city that had never had missionaries before. We went into the park, sang a hymn, and a crowd gathered.

“Then the lot fell on me, as district leader, to preach. I stood upon a stone bench and spoke to the people. I told the story of the restoration of the gospel, of the boy Joseph going in to the grove and the appearance of the Father and the Son to him. I remembered well a group of teenage boys, in the evening shadows, throwing rocks at us. I remembered the concern about being hit or injured by those who did not want to hear the message.

“I remembered spending time in jail while my legal right to be a missionary in a certain country was decided by the police authorities. I didn’t spend enough time in prison to compare myself to Ammon, but I still remember the feeling I had when the door was closed and I was far away from home, alone, with only the mercies of the Lord to rely on for deliverance. I remembered enduring these things with the hope that ‘we might be the means of saving some soul’ (Alma 26:30).

“And then on that day as I read, the Sprit testified to me again, and the words remain with me even today: No one but a missionary could have written this story. Joseph Smith could never have known what it was like to be a missionary to the Lamanites, for no one he knew had ever done such a thing before” (Heroes from the Book of Mormon, 124-125).