Hank Smith: 00:00:03 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name’s Hank Smith, I’m your host. I’m here with my instrumental co-host, John Bytheway. Welcome, John. The title of this week’s lesson is, I Will Make an Instrument of thee Alma 17 through 22. John, when you think of Alma 17 through 22, what do you think of?

John Bytheway: 00:00:25 I have students, “Hey, is there a good book I could read before my mission?” I’m like, “Alma. Read Alma 17 through 22.” What I love about it is there’s stories, but there’s so many principles that we can draw out and look at that could help and so many in our culture, if they haven’t been on a mission, they know people who have and have heard stories and they’re great ones in here. That’s what I’m looking forward to.

Hank Smith: 00:00:49 Absolutely. Missionary work is a major theme. John, we’re with Dr. Brian Mead today, fantastic friend of mine. We’ve been friends for over a decade. One of the most brilliant people I know. Brian, what are we looking forward to today? Where are you going to take us?

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:01:06 You know what? I love the story of Ammon. I mean, 12-year-old me thought the story of Ammon cutting off the arms of the people trying to protect the flocks of King Lamoni is the greatest story ever, and current me, I still love the story of Ammon and his brothers as they go on this Lamanite mission. However, I’ve grown to love how the lives of so many people are changed as they come to understand their identity as children of heavenly parents. We live in a culture where identity is talked so much about, and I love what President Nelson taught to the young adults a few years ago when he said, “I believe that if the Lord were speaking to you directly tonight, the first thing he would make sure you understand is your true identity.” My dear friends, you are literally spirit children of God, and so today, I’m excited that we’re going to see incredible things and incredible changes that happen in the lives of so many wonderful people as they come to realize that God is really there and that we’re his children.

Hank Smith: 00:01:58 These are huge transition moments for so many. It’s wonderful to see how these lives interact, these crossroads where people come together and everything changes. John, Brian is new to our podcast. Can you introduce him to everybody who’s listening?

John Bytheway: 00:02:15 Yes. I’m excited to introduce Dr. Brian Mead who was raised in Mountain Green, Utah. I drove through that place once and I thought, “Why do I live where I live? I could live here.” He attended a school in Rexburg, received a mission call to Italy, Milan mission, after completing a bachelor’s degree from BYU in neuroscience and minor in English. Hank, I hope my neuros are working today because this could be bad.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:02:42 Do you know what you can tell? Religious ed was not my original plan.

John Bytheway: 00:02:47 He worked for seminaries and institutes and taught both seminary and institute and eventually was transferred to the church office building and he was a member of the training services division and focused on several topics that are near and dear to his heart, such as disabilities, mental, emotional health, suicide prevention, LGBTQ, poverty, and many others. His focus has always been on helping building and strengthening the body of Christ, making all those who walk the covenant path feel they’re seen, valued, needed, and belong. While he was working for seminaries and institutes, he completed a PhD in applied social psychology and he and his wife Annie are a BYU success story. They live in Salem, Utah with their four children. We’re thrilled to have you. Hank, how are your synapses, are they firing?

Hank Smith: 00:03:38 I hope so. Brian, welcome.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:03:41 I really am grateful to be here. Thank you.

Hank Smith: 00:03:43 We’re excited. I’ve said since 12 years ago since I met Brian, if I was ever on one of those game shows and I had to phone a friend and it could be about anything, a question about anything, it would be Brian Mead 100%. I’ve never known someone who knows so much about so much. It’s pretty incredible, John, you’ll find out today. He can rattle off facts. You ask about any moment in history, he knows about it. You ask about any current event, he knows about it. We’re in for a treat today. I’m going to read a little bit from the Come Follow Me manual and then I’m excited to see where you take us in these chapters. The opening paragraph says, “Think of all the reasons people might give for not sharing the gospel. I don’t know enough or I’m not sure they would be interested, or maybe I’m afraid I’ll be rejected.

  00:04:33 Maybe you found yourself thinking similar things at times. The Nephites had an additional reason for not sharing the gospel with the Lamanites. They were described as a wild and hardened and ferocious people, a people who delighted in murdering the Nephites”. I can see how that would be a hindrance. “But the Sons of Mosiah had an even stronger reason why they felt they must share the gospel with the Lamanites. They were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature for they could not bear that any human soul should perish. This love that inspired Ammon and his brothers can also inspire you to share the gospel with your family, friends and acquaintances, even those who may not seem likely to accept it.” Wonderful opener to the lesson this week. Brian, how do you want to start?

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:05:22 I think as we start, it may be helpful just to have a little flashback, a little reminder of who these Sons of Mosiah are and when they step into the Book of Mormon story, they’re with Alma the Younger and they’re not the phenomenal of righteous young men that they ultimately become. They’re going about trying to destroy the church with Alma the Younger. They’re trying to destroy everything that their fathers, Alma and King Mosiah, had tried to build among the Nephite people, and then they had that incredible moment where an angel of God comes and he rocks them to the core and we see that it changes them. I just want to step back and just share a couple of verses about these young men that we get from the end of the Book of Mosiah.

  00:06:00 Mosiah 27, we get their names and it says, starting in verse 34 and four of them were the Sons of Mosiah and their names were Ammon and Aaron and Omner and Himni, and these are the names of the Sons of Mosiah, and they traveled throughout all the land of Zarahemla, and among all the people who were under the reign of King Mosiah zealously striving to repair all the injuries which they had done to the church, confessing all their sins and publishing all the things which they had seen and explaining the prophecies and the scriptures to all who desired to hear them, and thus they were instruments in the hands of God and bringing many to the knowledge of the truth, yay, even to the knowledge of the Redeemer. The Sons of Mosiah, I love what they try to do. They recognize the impact that they had among the Nephite people and they did everything they could to fix it.

  00:06:41 As they finished that experience, it’s not enough for them. As you go to chapter 28, it says, “Now it came to pass that after the Sons of Mosiah had done these things, they took a small number of them and returned to their father, the king, and desired of him that he would grant unto them that they might with these whom they had selected, go to the land of Nephi, that they may preach the things which they had heard and that they may impart the word of God to their brother in the Lamanites, that perhaps they may bring them to a knowledge of their Lord their God and convince them of the iniquities of their fathers. That perhaps they might cure them of the hatred towards the Nephites, that they might also be brought to rejoice in the Lord their God, that they might become friendly to one another and that there should be no more contentions in all the land which the Lord their God had given them.”

  00:07:25 In this part of the story, they go to their father and they say, “Do you know what? We want to go to the Lamanite people.” As a father, I can absolutely understand King Mosiah looks at them and he says, “No.” Hank, you introduced who these people are, or at least the way that the Nephites perceive the Lamanites and the lack of friendship and contention among them. King Mosiah doesn’t want to let them go and you look in verse five and it came to pass that they did plead with their father many days that they might go up to the land of Nephi. It’s finally after King Mosiah goes to God that he finally allows them to go and this is where they step out of the Book of Mormon story. The Book of Mormon continues with the story of Alma the Younger, we get the story of Amulek, and it’s not until Alma 17 that the Sons of Mosiah stepped back into the storyline, and that’s where I want to begin today in Alma 17.

Hank Smith: 00:08:13 This is interesting how Mormon does this. Instead of telling the two stories at once, he says, “Let’s cover an entire story, Alma, and then we’ll go back and we’ll cover another story that were happening at the same time.”

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:08:28 As we start in Alma chapter 17, it’s at the end of the story. He doesn’t begin with the beginning of their mission experience. As you look in chapter 17 and now it came to pass that as Alma, who’s journeying from the land of Gideon southward away to the land of Manti. Behold, to his astonishment, he met the Sons of Mosiah journeying towards the land of Zarahemla. They’re coming home at the end of their mission experience, and I love what happens between Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah. In verse two it says, “Now the Sons of Mosiah were with Alma at the time the angel first appeared unto him, therefore, Alma did rejoice exceedingly to see his brethren.” The closest thing I can even compare this moment to is a couple of years ago, I was able to go back to my mission. You read that I served in Italy, it was awesome. I was able to go back and travel through during the temple open house, and during that temple open house I ran into missionaries that I hadn’t seen for over 20 years.

  00:09:19 As we saw each other, we hugged each other, we laughed together, we cried together, we told stories, we caught up on each other’s lives. This is what’s happening with Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah at the beginning of chapter 17. I love what it says after this, not only do they have this incredible moment of rejoicing together, but in the verse it says, “And what added more to his joy, they were still his brethren in the Lord.” Then we get this phrase, yea. It’s one of these amplifier phrases that’s going to expound on what was said right before and it tells us what had happened to them and they had waxed strong in the knowledge of the truth. That we often, like you said in the introduction, that we tell these perspective missionaries or these missionaries that are going out, become like the Sons of Mosiah.

  00:10:05 Do the things that’ll help you to have a knowledge of truth. In my scriptures a couple of years ago, I can’t even remember when I did this, I wrote in a cross-reference because it teaches us how these Sons of Mosiah became these incredible missionaries, had this strong knowledge of truth. I wrote in the margins of my scripture’s Doctrine and Covenants Section 88 verse 118. It’s in that wonderful verse that we’re commanded to seek after three things. One of the things that we’re commanded to seek after is to seek learning even by study and by faith, and we see it in the way the Sons of Mosiah prepared themselves. As we keep going in verse two, we see how they prepared themselves through study. It says, “For they were men of a sound understanding and they had searched the scriptures diligently that they might know the word of God.” They’ve paid a price, they read the scriptures and they pondered on the scriptures and they sought to understand them so that they could know the word of God.

Hank Smith: 00:11:08 One of my favorite quotes, it’s from Richard L. Evans who says, “It is good to be faithful. It is better to be faithful and competent.” I think you get those two there, like you said in section 88 by study and by faith. It can’t just be, “Oh, I’m just going to fast and pray,” which is good. That’s part of learning by faith, but you have to learn by study. There’s something to be said of knowing the scriptures, knowing what is taught where.

John Bytheway: 00:11:38 These four could have said, “Oh, look, we have a testimony. We saw an angel knocked our buddy Alma over and we carried him to his parents.” That wasn’t the end of their testimony, that was the beginning. Then they started doing all of these things you’re talking about, Hank, so that they could become competent. I love how also in verse three they taught with power and authority of God. How do you do that? Well, what we just read, they searched the scriptures diligently. They gave themselves to prayer and fasting. You might think, “Oh, if I saw an angel, I’d have a testimony.” Well, some have seen angels and haven’t changed that much. They saw it and it was the beginning of whoa, and they really started to study after that.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:12:18 One of the most common questions I get asked is why do we grade for religion classes? I go back to that quote, Hank, that you shared from Elder Evans, and I go back to my students and I tell them of my own experience. Religious ed was not my original plan. I had other aspirations and good grades was really important, and I was a really good BYU student. I was trying to do everything that I should, and I also tell my students one of the reasons that I began reading general conference and actually studying general conference was in order to get a good grade in my teachings of the living prophet’s class. It’s the beginnings. We need to learn. We need to study the gospel of Jesus Christ by both study and by faith. We need to be willing to pay a price and we need to be willing to live and act on those things that we know to be righteous and true.

Hank Smith: 00:13:05 There was a time that I needed to put other things away that were good. What I listened to on the radio, on my way to work or what I was reading at night before I went to bed. There was a time that I had to put some of that away so I could study the gospel more.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:13:24 The Sons of Mosiah, they do this. It’s where we get the impact of what they do. Right at the end of verse three, therefore, they had the spirit of prophecy and the spirit of revelation, and when they taught, they taught with power and authority of God.

Hank Smith: 00:13:37 That’s a recipe, isn’t it, to be prepared to teach?

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:13:43 I think it is, that it gives us the pattern that as we study the word of God, as we pay a price, as we search the scriptures, as we search sacred text, and I would include with that the words of modern prophets, seers and revelators. As we begin to act on those things, as we begin to pray to God and as we communicate with him and as we ask for clarity and as we ask for revelation from him, as we fast, as we put other things that are really important, like you said, Hank, we put God first ahead of those things. That power comes into our lives through revelation and through understanding and we can become incredible tools in the hands of God.

John Bytheway: 00:14:19 I’m still thinking about they were still his brethren in the Lord. I’m a bit older than you two and I’ve missed a few of mission reunions, but just this past April, I got to go to a 40-year mission reunion with my mission president there who’s in his 90s. I saw elders and sisters I haven’t seen for a long time and that phrase, they were still his brethren or his sisters in the Lord. I was on cloud nine coming home seeing how many of them. One of them, I saw this young man, he said, “My dad was Elder Sia, SIA, and he passed away.” I didn’t know he passed away. Elder Sia was one of my companions, but here’s his son who’s a student at BYU firm in the faith, and that phrase right there was what filled me with joy, that day.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:15:12 As we continue in the story of Alma the Younger as he has this experience, I just want to go into verse four because it shares with us how long they’ve been on this mission. This is not a mission that’s gone a couple of weeks or a couple of months or even a couple of years. Look at the beginning of verse four, which it is interesting. I mean, have they even spoken to their father in these 14 years? There’s a lot of questions that I have, but let me just start to read verse four and it says, “And they had been teaching the word of God for the space of 14 years among the Lamanites.”

  00:15:41 I think over the years as I’ve read this verse, I’ve really focused on kind of the second half. I focused on the miracles that have happened where it says, “Having had much success in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth, yay by the power of their words. Many were brought before the altar of God to call upon his name and confess their sins before him.” It seems as we move into these coming chapters that their mission experience goes so quickly, but the reality is this is a 14-year experience.

Hank Smith: 00:16:06 I’ve told some people who have served missions, 14 years makes your mission look like one transfer.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:16:13 I couldn’t even imagine. I’m a terrible journal writer, but I wrote my mission journal every single day. My MTC teacher said that I should do that. Right now, with my kids, we try to sit and we read it, I got to a point in my journals where there was a four-month period I didn’t teach a single discussion, nobody listened to us. Elder Paul V. Johnson a General Authority 70 who was also sustained as the General Sunday School president this last conference said about this experience. He said, “Making important changes is typically difficult. Sometimes the direction is clear but the execution can be very challenging. Think of the Sons of Mosiah. They had a clear purpose that salvation should be declared to every creature and that perhaps they might save some few souls.

  00:16:59 It is easy to focus only on the miraculous success and forget how challenging things were. They tried everything. They were at it for 14 years and their experiences included suffering every privation, teaching in the streets, temples and synagogues, and being cast out mock, spit upon smith and stone-bound and cast into prison, but they persevered, kept their focus and received the Lord’s power to accomplish their mission.” I love what Elder Johnson taught. Obviously, the Lord is able to bring about amazing changes in a short period of time. How often what I’ve often found is that meaningful changes happen over a long period of time in my life. Annie and I often reflect on our children. I think for any of us that have children, we love these children. I tell my children all the time, being a parent is one of the most incredible things that I’ve ever done. I tell them it’s been incredibly wonderful.

  00:17:47 It’s been incredibly amazing. It’s been incredibly fulfilling, and at the same time, it’s been incredibly hard, incredibly sad at times and incredibly difficult. We’re so proud of what they’re doing in their lives, and yet there are times that we look at these children and we worry. It seems the response of what our Heavenly Father is continually telling us right now is just give them time. Give them time. I look at our son who’s 20 years old, again, I am so proud of him. He’s doing so many great things. I worry at times, and it’s just that idea, let the Lord operate in his life. It’s one of those things I think we’ve all realized that God is really good at playing the long game. Sometimes with my children, I wish that things would happen immediately within their lives. The story of Ammon is a great reminder. 14 years, it took 14 years to have these miracles happen in the lives of the Lamanites. I need to be willing to allow time to operate within the lives of my children and others.

Hank Smith: 00:18:51 Brian, what you just said reminded me of a story that I haven’t thought of in so long. John, I don’t think even you have heard me tell this story. I gave a talk once out in Spanish Fork about the Provo Tabernacle becoming the Provo City Center Temple. A man came up to me afterwards and he told me this story. I didn’t write his name down, but I did write the story down because it touched me. He said he had one of these blowups with his teenage daughter. They were butting heads and they had had an argument and he had left and he went to the construction site of that temple of the Provo City Center Temple.

  00:19:27 There was a little viewing spot that you could sit in. I don’t know if either of you remember that, but you could sit on a couple of benches and you could look at the construction. No one was there. It was late at night, he’s sitting on this bench staring at that construction and he said, “A worker came by, construction worker. The worker said to the man, it’s amazing, isn’t it? This father said, yeah, it’s incredible what you guys are doing. Unbelievable. This construction worker, like an angel said to this man, well, don’t judge her too quickly. We’re not done with her yet.” He said he went home and apologized to his daughter and just what you said, Brian, give it some time. We’re all a work in progress.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:20:12 It’s one of the beauties of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that God is not finished with us and that he allows us to grow and to repent and to change. He doesn’t give up on us when we haven’t figured it out when we’re 20 years old or 30 years old or 40 years old. That’s a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that, Hank. I don’t think these Sons of Mosiah had any clue at the beginning of their mission of how long they’d be gone or how hard their mission was actually going to be. We see some of that in the text.

  00:20:42 Mormon shares some of that with us as we start in verse 11 in chapter 17, “And the Lord said unto them also, go forth among the Lamanites, thy brethren, and establish my word. Yet ye shall be patient and long suffering and afflictions that ye may show forth good examples unto them and me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls, and it came to pass that the hearts of the Sons of Mosiah and also those that were with them took courage to go forth unto the Lamanites to declare unto them the word of God.”

  00:21:13 Now, these Lamanites are not an easy people, or at least there haven’t been friendly relationships. We see that in verse 14 as Mormon begins to describe them where it says, “And assuredly it was great for they had undertaken to preach the word of God to a wild and hardened and a ferocious people, a people who delighted in murdering the Nephites and robbing and plundering them and their hearts were set upon riches or upon gold and silver and precious stones. Yet they sought to obtain these things by murdering and plundering that they might not labor for them with their own hands.”

  00:21:45 Then in verse 15, “Thus they were a very indolent or lazy people, many of whom did worship idols and the curse of God had fallen upon them because of the traditions of their fathers. Notwithstanding the promises of the Lord were extended unto them on conditions of repentance. “As Mormon explains what this mission experience is going to be, he then shares in verse 16 what these Sons of Mosiah and those who are with them are trying to accomplish or hoping to bring about in the lives of these people. In verse 16, we see therefore this was the cause for which the Sons of Mosiah had undertaken the work. Then we get two phrases that begin with that perhaps, two things that they’re trying to bring about.

  00:22:23 The first one is that perhaps, they might bring them unto repentance, and the second that perhaps, they might bring them to know of the plan of redemption. I began in my little tease at the beginning of this podcast saying that it’s beautiful to see what happens as we come to know our identity as children of heavenly parents. I think it’s important that we understand and that we recognize the two things that the Sons of Mosiah were trying to bring about in the lives of the Lamanites were things that connect us to God in a very personal way. I think each of us have taught hundreds of youth throughout the church over the years. As I talk of repentance, I ask the question, tell me what repentance is. You recognize they often give us the answers is, well, repentance means that we need to feel bad about what we’ve done. We need to try to fix it, we need to apologize, we need to change behavior.

  00:23:13 The reality though, at the core, those things aren’t repentance. They’re part of the process of repentance. What repentance is, at its core, it’s about a relationship with God and it’s about seeing us in our relationship with him as our father. I want to share how the Bible dictionary defines repentance for us. It begins by saying the Greek word of which this is the translation denotes a change of mind. You’ll notice it doesn’t focus on a change of behavior. We all recognize that changing behavior is a critical part of repentance, but repentance at the beginning, it starts with changing our mind or our thoughts or the way that we see a few really important people. It says the Greek word of which this is the translation denotes a change of mind.

  00:24:01 It implies a fresh view about God, about oneself and about the world. Repentance is when we change the way that we see God, and instead of seeing him as maybe a second or a third priority in our life, he becomes our first priority and we want to connect with him and we seek to draw unto him because we see ourselves as his children. Then we’re willing to be obedient to the things that he asks us to do, not because we necessarily love those things or those things are easy for us to do, but because we know and we trust and we love God.

  00:24:53 That’s the first thing that these Sons of Mosiah are trying to bring about in the lives of these Lamanites. They want them to see God and they want them to see themselves as children of him. Second, they want them to understand God’s plan. All of us recognize that we can call God’s plan a number of different things. We often call it a plan of salvation. We call it a plan of happiness. I think it’s fascinating in these chapters. It always refers to it as the plan of redemption. Both Ammon and Aaron and the other Sons of Mosiah focus on what Elder McConkie called the Three Pillars of the Plan of Salvation. They focus on teaching the importance of the creation, the Fall and the atonement of Jesus Christ. As we go deeper into these chapters, we’re going to see the power that comes as we realize that there is a God, and of the incredible and beautiful truths we learn about God through the creation, the Fall and the atonement of Jesus Christ.

John Bytheway: 00:25:55 Brian, when I was a missionary, I want to say June ’82 Ensign. It was pretty exciting when the Ensign came on a mission, and there was an article called Christ and the Creation. It was the first time I’d ever read Elder McConkie called it The three Pillars of Eternity, the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement. I remember at the time thinking, “Huh.” Then I started to see how Aaron in one verse mentions them coming up. Ammon, it’s separate by few verses where he gets into the plan of redemption. That was an aha moment for me about what do you teach people like the Lamanites who don’t know anything about God? The Creation, the Fall and the Atonement is here, here’s how we got here and here’s who made us, and that’s who God is, and here’s the problem, death and sickness and everything, and then the Atonement, the plan of redemption. They used to have a seminary video with a bridge and three pillars that were labeled Creation, Fall, Atonement.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:26:58 That’s one of the things that I really want to focus on is, Ammon, and we’re going to see Aaron, they both begin with this idea that there is a God, but there are so many different beliefs about who God really is. It’s through the story of creation, it’s through the story of fall, and it’s through the atonement of Jesus Christ that we really find out who God is and who Jesus Christ is.

John Bytheway: 00:27:21 It’s always fun to say, get out your phones and find the word plan in the King James Bible. It’s nowhere. It doesn’t appear one time, which is crazy. There’s so many hints of it. As in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. Clearly, there’s a plan but it doesn’t use that actual word, and then we look it up in the Book of Mormon and we see plan of redemption, I think 15 times. Then like you just did, I point, look at the references. Who’s using that phrase? It’s Alma and the Sons of Mosiah almost exclusively.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:27:56 This plan of redemption really is a plan of relationships. When I ask individuals to draw the plan of salvation, they draw what we’ve drawn probably hundreds of times in our lifetime. They draw the diagram and they draw circles, lines and arrows that ultimately culminate with a sun or a moon or stars. I’m not saying that that’s a bad way of representing the plan of salvation. I actually think it’s helpful, and then I mentioned to them one of the most important things I think we can recognize within this plan that at its core, it’s a plan of relationships. I ask them to go back and I ask them to think about that pre-earth life before we came to this earth.

  00:28:35 There’s obviously many things that we don’t know, but the few truths that we do know of that pre-earth life, they center on relationships. As we learn in the family proclamation, we are children of heavenly parents. A loving Heavenly Father proposed a plan, a loving older brother stepped in to be a Savior, to be a Redeemer within this plan. Then I go to the Celestial Kingdom and I ask, “Why do we draw it as a sun?” They say things, “Well, it’s bright and it’s glorious and it’s amazing.” Which it rightfully is. It is. I ask, “What makes the Celestial Kingdom so wondrous? What makes it so amazing? What makes it so bright and what makes it so glorious?” When you think about it, they all center on relationships.

  00:29:14 That as we go to the Celestial Kingdom, we’re back in the presence of Heavenly Father. We return to God’s presence. Within the Celestial Kingdom, we’ve developed a personal intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. He’s become our Savior, he’s become our Redeemer. The Celestial Kingdom is so amazing because of the relationships that we have with family that can endure for eternity. As we begin talking about these important ideas of repentance and as we talk about this beautiful plan of redemption that Ammon and Aaron and others teach to these wonderful people, I think it’s important that we remember that each of these things center on our relationship to God and to others.

John Bytheway: 00:29:53 Thank you, Brian. Looking at verse 16, sometimes when the scriptures say something, I’d like to ask myself, notice what it doesn’t say. They had undertaken the work that perhaps they might bring unto them repentance, that perhaps they might bring them to know of the commandments. That is not what it says. What it says is that they might bring them to know of the plan of redemption. Last week, we read Alma 12:32 where it says, “Therefore God gave unto them commandments after having made known unto them the plan of redemption.” It gives us the sequence. I love what you said about, okay, why? You can hear the word redeemer in redemption. You don’t hear as easily in salvation unless you think Salvador. Isn’t that the word for Savior in Spanish? Try to put Christ in the center of the plan because he’s the Redeemer that makes the plan of redemption work or the Savior that makes the plan of salvation work. I love that, that’s what they said, we need to teach them the plan of redemption. Then we’ll have a place for the commandments once they understand this relationship to the Redeemer.

Hank Smith: 00:31:02 When I think about our missionaries going out to teach this plan of redemption and how Mosiah must have felt to send his boys to this wild and hardened and ferocious people, I think of the sacrifice of so many Latter-day Saint parents, mothers and fathers, all across the church who though there’s probably not a mission like this. I don’t think you look up your, as you get your mission call and you think, “Oh, the description of the city is wild and hard and ferocious.” Sending your daughter or your son across the world, I want my children to go to Southern Idaho, the nicest people who are going to take good care of them. I think of a family in my ward, Dave and Cheryl Southam, who when their son Sam got his mission call, he opened it up that said Georgia, and they were so excited he’s going to Georgia and then he said-

John Bytheway: 00:32:05 Not that Georgia.

Hank Smith: 00:32:07 Yeah, I’ve never heard of Tbilisi, Georgia, and Armenia, and Azerbaijan. All of a sudden, they realized he is not going to Atlanta, Georgia. He is going basically to the mission closest to the Middle East that you can get to and his, Sam’s sweet mother, Cheryl, “Oh, wow.” I think there’s a quiet secret pain, a worry that never leaves a missionary parent. John, you could speak to that.

John Bytheway: 00:32:41 It backs you up against the wall of faith, yeah, I’ve got one out right now as you know, and I’ll have two out next month.

Hank Smith: 00:32:51 As my son gets closer and closer to serving a mission, it makes me whoo.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:32:58 In my church calling, we just set apart a missionary a couple of months ago, and this mom is just weeping and she said, “They just do not prepare you as a parent of how hard this will be.” She says, “I literally feel my heart is being ripped out.” It’s been amazing. Her child has had an incredible experience on their mission up to this point. The sister in my stake is so grateful for her child’s experience, and yet it’s hard.

Hank Smith: 00:33:24 I thought being the missionary was the hard part, but I think being the parent is right there. Right there next to it.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:33:33 I agree.

John Bytheway: 00:33:34 It’s awesome to have him call home and what happened, and, oh, man.

Hank Smith: 00:33:40 What Mosiah would’ve done for FaceTime.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:33:42 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:33:43 Yeah.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:33:44 Do you know what? Thank you, Hank. That story is an incredible example of just how consecrated families are when it comes to the gathering of Israel, that they’re willing to put their children on planes to all over the world and allow them to go and serve. We often, as we mentioned, focus on the sacrifice of the missionaries. You look in the story, we get at the beginning of the story, this incredible sacrifice of a father, the King Mosiah. It’s only when God tells him this is a good thing, he’s willing to let them go. I love hearing these stories of these parents that allow these children to go and to serve. I want to pick up with the story of the Sons of Mosiah. As they begin this mission experience, they gathered there together. They have this one final moment where Ammon blesses them and then they go their separate directions.

  00:34:29 The story now focuses on Ammon, who like I said at the very beginning, is one of my greatest heroes in the Book of Mormon. We know the story that as he goes his way, he wanders into the kingdom of King Lamoni. He’s taken prisoner, he’s tied up, he’s brought before the king. I want to pick up in verse 22, “The king asked him a question and the king inquired of Ammon if it was his desire to dwell in the land among the Lamanites or among his people.” It would be really interesting to be able to ask Lamoni what he thinks of Ammon at this time, who he thinks he is. Does he know that he’s a missionary coming to preach the gospel to him? Does he know that he should be next in line to be king of the Nephite people? We just don’t know.

  00:35:08 Then in verse 23, “And Ammon said unto him, yea, I desire to dwell among this people for a time. Yea, and perhaps until the day I die.” I don’t think Ammon wants to make this mission story about him. We’re going to talk in a moment how I really believe that Ammon wants to glorify God and show forth the power of God, and yet we see little glimpses throughout the story, the impact of Ammon’s goodness that he has during this mission experience and with Lamoni. He says it in the very next verse, it came to pass at King Lamoni was much pleased with Ammon. Again, we don’t know exactly why he was pleased with him. We don’t know if he discovered that he’s a Nephite prince. We don’t know if he’s impressed with him because of who he is or what he says or that he just desires to serve.

  00:35:52 It does say, again, and it came to pass that King Lamoni was much pleased with Ammon, and did cause that his bands should be loosed and he would that Ammon should take one of his daughters to wife. Then it goes on, Ammon looks at him, and in verse 25, “But Ammon said unto him, nay, but I will be thy servant. Therefore, Ammon became a servant to King Lamoni, and it came to pass that he was set among the servants to watch the flocks of Lamoni according to the custom of the Lamanites.” We now move into my favorite primary story when I was little of Ammon and this incredible experience he has as he tries to protect the flocks of King Lamoni, and I want us to read verses 25 through 39. I just want us to see the storyline.

John Bytheway: 00:36:32 “Ammon said unto him, nay, but I will be thy servant. Therefore, Ammon became a servant to King Lamoni, and it came to pass that he was set among other servants to watch the flocks of Lamoni, according to the custom of the Lamanites. After he had been in the service of the king three days, as he was with the Lamanite servants going forth with their flocks to the place of water, which was called the Water of Sebus, and all the Lamanites drive their flocks hither that they may have water. Therefore, as Ammon and the servants of the king were driving forth their flocks to this place of water, behold a certain number of the Lamanites who had been with their flocks to water, stood and scattered the flocks of Ammon and the servants of the king, and they scattered them insomuch that they fled many ways.

  00:37:14 Now, the servants of the king began to murmur saying, now the king will slay us as he has our brethren because their flocks were scattered by the wickedness of those men. They began to weep exceedingly saying, behold, our flocks are scattered already. Now they wept because of the fear of being slain. Now, when Ammon saw this, his heart was swollen within him for joy, for said he, I will show forth my power unto these my fellow servants, or the power which is in me in restoring these flocks unto the king that I may win the hearts of these my fellow servants that I may lead them to believe in my words.”

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:37:49 King Lamoni has given an assignment that obviously is not the greatest assignment to have as a servant of the king. We’re going to see in just a moment that many individuals have gone and tried to fulfill this assignment, and every time the flock of the king have been scattered, what is the king’s response to these individuals?

John Bytheway: 00:38:08 Not good.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:38:09 He kills them. It doesn’t sound like Lamoni is planning on Ammon being around for a long period of time. In this moment, Ammon goes back to the promises that he’s been given and his father’s been given, and he looks at the fear of those around him. I love that he recognizes that this is an opportunity. This is a moment for him to show forth the power of God.

John Bytheway: 00:38:31 He’s not laughing at their misfortune. He’s going, here’s an opportunity to fulfill that promise my father gave me. One of the things I’ve got in my scriptures really tiny is a number one next to the word win and a number two next to the word lead. I think that could be a sequence. I may win the hearts of these, my fellow servants, that I may lead them to believe in my words. Many years ago, I was at Austin P State College. It’s Austin P University now in Clarksville, Tennessee. When I was there, I was the session director for an EFY there. At the beginning of the week, I told, there were about 450 just classy Southern hospitality, Tennessee teenagers, and I told them the story of Ammon. I asked them, “At the end of the week, do you think that these people will remember your name?”

  00:39:24 They all said, “Probably not.” I said, “Do you think they’ll remember that we were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?” They were like, “Yeah, they might.” I told them, “Colleges don’t like these camps. They have extra dorm space, fixed costs in the summer. They fill them with computer camp and volleyball camp and math camp and all these different camps, and they don’t like it. It’s hard and sometimes there’s vandalism.” I told them the story and said, “If we can win their hearts, then maybe we can lead them to believe in our words. When you go through the cafeteria, when you get your towel from the dorm person on Wednesday, look at them in the eye and say, thank you.” I’m embarrassed now because they had such Southern manners. They didn’t need my help at all. They were so good.

  00:40:07 Right after that talk, I’m in the cafeteria surrounded by what we used to call Miamaids. That was kind of the story of my life back then. The cafeteria servers, “Would you like meatloaf or the chicken or the fish?” This girl next to me says, “What’s your name?” The server said, “Keisha.” She said, “Keisha, I love your braids.” Keisha just kind of looked at her like, “Thank you.” Plop some food down. When we move over, “What’s your name?” The next lady, she said, “Barbara.” This little girl, “Thanks for helping us, Barbara.” Five days of that, three meals a day, and at the end of the week, I came into Keisha and Barbara, that was their name, and I said, “Keisha, Barbara, y’all going to miss us?” I said y’all because I called them you guys once and they laughed at me.

  00:40:55 They said, “We’re not guys.” I said, “Oh, sorry.” All y’all going to miss us? You’ll watch this when you see my movie in heaven. She said, “Oh, we love y’all. We don’t want the students to come back. We love y’all.” We gave away seven copies of the Book of Mormon in the cafeteria. I wondered, if we try to give those copies of the Book of Mormon away on day one, do we have the same result? I love this idea of I will win their hearts. Stephen Covey said, “We have to warm them before we warn them.” I thought that that was a cool idea. To a certain extent, people need to be converted to the messenger before they’re converted to the message. I have personal experience with that idea of being a sequence. Maybe if we can win their hearts, then maybe we can lead them to believe in our words.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:41:51 That’s one of the great lessons for me throughout this chapter is like I said at the beginning, I don’t think Ammon wants us to focus on him, I think he wants us to focus on God. Yet throughout all of this, the goodness of Ammon and just his heart and who he is has an incredible impact on these people. John, thank you for sharing that. Ammon, he invokes courage in the hearts of these individuals. He tells them to go and gather the flocks together. They go and gather them together. He says, “Protect the flocks.”

  00:42:18 Then Ammon steps forth, and I want to pick up the story again in verse 36 where it says, “But Ammon stood forth and began to cast stones at them with his sling, yea, with his mighty power, he did sling stones amongst them, and thus he slew a certain number of them insomuch that they began to be astonished at his power. Nevertheless, they were angry because of the slain of their brethren, and they were determined that he should fall. Therefore, seeing that they could not hit him with their stones, they came forth with their clubs to slay him.”

  00:42:44 Then in verse 37, “But behold, every man that lifted his club to smite Ammon, he smote off their arms with his sword, where he did withstand their blows by smiting their arms with the edge of his sword insomuch that they began to be astonished and began to flee before him, yea, and they were not few in number and he caused them to flee by the strength of his arm.” When I was young and in primary, I loved the story of Ammon. In many ways the story of Ammon chopping off the arms took on kind of a mythological stature. I don’t think Ammon wants us to focus on him so much as he wants us to focus on God and his incredible mercy and power.

  00:43:23 A little bit later on, you’ll remember in Alma chapter 26, this is the moment where Ammon is with his brother and they’re talking about the experience, and as Ammon is describing it, one of his brothers begins to chastise him for bragging. I just want to share these verses in Alma 26 verses 11 through 12, it says, “But Ammon said unto him, I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom, but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy and I will rejoice in my God. Yea, I know that I am nothing. As to my strength, I am weak. Therefore, I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God for in his strength I can do all things. Yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land for which we will praise his name forever.”

  00:44:06 It’s not about Ammon, but it’s about the goodness of God. Brother Chad Webb is the administrators of seminaries and institutes. He was also sustained as a counselor in the General Sunday School presidency. This last conference, he gave a talk talking to religious educators about the greatest things that we can do in order to help our students. He said, “I’ve come to understand and believe that the single most important way in which we can help increase faith in the rising generation is to more fully place Jesus Christ at the center of our teachings and learning by helping our students come to know him, to learn from him, and to consciously strive to become like him. Every day, we must talk of Christ, rejoice in Christ and preach of Christ.” Brother Webb then goes on and gives several ways that we can do that, and he adds this, “Another way to help students recognize Jesus’s attributes is to focus not just on scripture events, but what those events teach us about the Savior.”

  00:45:02 For instance, why do we teach the story of Ammon cutting off the arms of the men who scattered King Lamoni’s sheep? Is it to talk about the greatness of Ammon, or is this story actually about the greatness of God? What does this story teach about the Lord and the way he blesses those who put their trust in him? Ammon’s own account concludes with his enthusiastic testimony. I do not boast of my own strength. I know that I am nothing. Therefore, I will boast of my God for in his strength, I can do all things. One of my favorite things to do in this moment as I talk of Ammon is to sit and reflect and say, if Ammon were in front of us, if we were able to have a fireside or if we were able to sit down with Ammon, what do you think he would really want us to know about God from his experience?

John Bytheway: 00:45:43 Way back there in verse 29, I love when Ammon said, “I will show forth my power.” Then there’s this pause maybe on the plates “or the power that is in me”, that acknowledgement of God right there. That’s one of the things we sometimes joke about. Is it possible to erase plates? Do you have to melt the whole plate down and start over? He corrects himself there that it’s the power of God that’s in me. I had a student write a paper who suggested Ammon was a type of Christ who was willing to lay down his life for the sheep. In verse 33 when Ammon said, “Encircle the flocks roundabout that they flee not.” My student, she wrote in her paper that this is like President Hinckley saying, “Give them a friend, give them a responsibility to keep them nourished by the good word.” She concluded by saying Verse 39, “And he returned the flocks to the pasture of the king whose sheep they are.” I’m, “Okay, you passed the class. That was awesome.”

Hank Smith: 00:46:46 That’s fantastic. Brian, that is such a great question. I go back to verse 11, same chapter, where the Lord said, “Go forth among the Lamanites, my brethren. Be patient in longsuffering and afflictions. You may show forth good examples unto them in me.” I think often, when we read that verse and we think, oh, they’re going to be good examples, and that’s true. The good example needed to come from being patient in longsuffering and affliction. Perhaps Ammon sees this difficult moment joyfully because this is my chance to be a good example in affliction, in great difficulty.

  00:47:29 That’s not the first thought when great affliction comes is how am I going to be a great example right now? It is good to remember that how we behave in affliction is usually when eyes are on us, and my friends Audrey and Jake have their little girl up in the hospital in Salt Lake. She’s two years old and has leukemia. All eyes are on them at this moment. They are exactly what you would hope they would be. They are patient in longsuffering and afflictions, and that example is making a profound difference for those who are seeing it. I wonder if Ammon would say that about God, that he gave me an opportunity. I don’t know if I could call it that, but an opportunity to be a good example in affliction.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:48:18 I think one thing that comes to my mind connected to that is we’re able to do that as we also recognize that God is a God of promises and that he keeps his promises. One of the stories that comes back to my mind is that God is a God of promises and that we can trust those. You read through my biography, obviously, I wasn’t planning on becoming a religious educator. That was not the long-term plan.

Hank Smith: 00:48:45 What was the bachelor’s degree again?

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:48:47 Neuroscience.

Hank Smith: 00:48:48 Neuroscience.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:48:49 The original plan was medical school, and it was a goal that I always had, and we were working towards that goal. I don’t even know if you know this story, Hank. The week of our one-year wedding anniversary, I woke up in the morning. I’ve always been a runner. I hopped out of bed to go running. I went head first into the wall. We were living in Wymount. Annie pops up, she laughs a little bit because I’ve fallen into the wall. She wants to know why. I don’t tell her, it’s because I can’t feel my feet. Day two, I can’t feel up to my knees. Day three, I can’t feel up to my waist. The week of our one-year wedding anniversary, I’m diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and it was one of those things that it rocked us. I mean, it just rocked us to our core.

  00:49:24 Like I said, we had a lot of goals as far as academic goals. We had a lot of hopes and dreams in our future, and we didn’t know what was going to happen or we didn’t know what to expect. That day that I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, I called my dad for a blessing. My dad was out of town on a work trip. He immediately started to rearrange his schedule to get home so that he could give me a blessing, and I felt that I needed one then, and so I called my mission president, who was a professor on BYU’s campus at that time. I went to go see him in his office. I told him everything going on with us and asked for a blessing, and he asked if Annie and I could come up to his house later that night. He wanted us first to be together as a couple. Second, he wanted to begin fasting. It was during that blessing that there were promises given to us from God.

  00:50:09 Obviously, they didn’t take away the fear and they didn’t give a perfect answer of what we needed to do in our life, but there were promises given to God that everything would be okay, and I’m grateful that I’m married to Annie because, I mean the fear didn’t leave immediately. It’s still there. Admittedly, it’s still there at times. At times when I express fear or at times that I’m thinking of making a decision that may act counter to some of those promptings of faith that we’re feeling, she’ll go back to her journal account of that blessing given to us from God. She reminds me, “Brian, God has promised us.” Then we’ll sit and we’ll talk through those blessings and then she’ll tell us that we need to act in faith according to those promises. I think Ammon would want us to know of the beautiful truths that all of us have shared. One of those is that God is a God of promise and we can place faith and trust in him even when it seems that we’re up against impossible odds, just like Ammon was in this moment.

John Bytheway: 00:51:07 Hank, maybe that’s what those two last words mean. I’ve been sitting here trying to think, show forth good examples unto them and then in me. What does that mean in how I’m involved in this? Maybe that’s a perfect example, what you just shared, Brian. Not just good examples of you but good examples unto them in me. I wonder what that means.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:51:27 That’s a great insight, John.

Hank Smith: 00:51:28 Speaking of afflictions, I don’t know how old I was when someone told me that whenever Mormon uses the word arms in his books that he writes Mosiah, Alma, that he’s talking about weapons. I thought, “Don’t tell me that.” They said, “It may be that Ammon is smiting off the weapons of the Lamanites.” I thought, “I don’t want to know that. I want it to be a big bag of arms.” Either of you, I mean either of you, John, what do you think? You think it’s a big bag of biceps?

John Bytheway: 00:52:01 I’ve heard that, I’ve seen it both ways. One of the things that I read in one of the FARMS, remember FARMS when they used to call it FARMS, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, was that there are Egyptian murals with chariots full of hands that were cut off. Because sometimes generals would exaggerate their battlefield conquests, so they’d have to prove it to the king by literally taking arms off of victims so that they could prove no, really look, see, we did this. Either way, it’s gruesome to imagine.

Hank Smith: 00:52:35 I get it, the story is not about the arms, whether they’re weapons or actual arms.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:52:41 I mean eight-year-old me would not like you at this moment.

Hank Smith: 00:52:43 I know.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:52:45 It is a really good point. I think it’s important that we recognize that we’ve read it one way and thought of it that way throughout our entire lives and there is a possible other explanation to it.

Hank Smith: 00:52:56 Be open to that.

John Bytheway: 00:52:57 One of the things that I noticed here is that in verse 29, Ammon said, “I’ll show forth my power. Oh, wait, I mean the power that is in me.” At the end of verse 37, it says, “He caused them to flee by the strength of his arm.” Now, that’s his arm, probably is not by the strength of his weapon. That’s probably his arm. I made a fun little footnote right there to Doctrine and Covenants section 35 verse 13 and 14, and this is what it says, verse 13, section 35, “Wherefore I call upon the weak things of the world, those who are unlearned and despised to thrash the nations by the power of my Spirit and their arm shall be my arm and I will be their shield and their buckler and I will gird up their loins and they shall fight manfully for me and their enemies shall be under their feet, and I will let fall the sword in their behalf, and by the fire of mine indignation will I preserve them.”

Hank Smith: 00:53:59 Wow.

John Bytheway: 00:54:00 I love this idea to share with missionaries that this is the Lord’s work and you’re doing it by the strength. Your arm becomes his arm. You are looked upon as the weak unlearned things of the world, but you can go out with the arm of the Lord, which is kind of a empowering thought out a section 35 there.

Hank Smith: 00:54:20 I love it.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:54:21 Beautiful. Thank you.

Hank Smith: 00:54:23 Brian, we’re not modeling good teaching here if we’re going to spend all of our time in the first chapter, so let’s keep going.

John Bytheway: 00:54:29 and talking about gruesome swords and arms.

Dr. Brian Mead: 00:54:33 What they really are or not. Well, I want to pick up the story in chapter 18, because it’s in chapter 18, let me just share a few things setting up the story so that we understand the context of this chapter. It says in verse one, “And it came to pass that King Lamoni caused a servant should stand forth and testify to all things which they had seen concerning the matter. When they had all testified to the things which they had seen and had learned to the faithfulness of Ammon in preserving the flocks and also the great power in contending against those who sought to slay him, he was astonished exceedingly and said, surely this is more than a man.” This is that moment as King Lamoni begins to hear the story, and as he begins to see the arms, so the evidences of what Ammon had done, it shocks him and he has this moment where he begins to wonder, “Well, who is this? Who is this person that’s shown up to our kingdom?”

  00:55:21 Then he says, “Behold is not this the great spirit which does send his great punishments upon this people because of their murders.” What does King Lamoni believe about God in this moment? We’re just starting to see some of these things. He does believe in the existence of somebody. He refers to him as a great spirit and he does wonder if Ammon is that great spirit and he becomes concerned because Lamoni has killed many of these Lamanites servants who have not protected his flocks. In verse five, he worries about it because we see one of the beliefs he does have about God at this point is now this was the tradition of Lamoni which he had received from his father that there was a great spirit, notwithstanding they believed in a great spirit.

  00:56:05 They suppose that whatsoever they did was right. Nevertheless, Lamoni began to fear exceedingly with fear lest he had done wrong in slaying his servants. Lamoni at this point did believe in a spirit, did believe in a great spirit, but he also believed in a great spirit that was almost a God of relativism that he existed, but whatever Lamoni did was okay. For the very first time he begins to question. Lamoni then looks around and Ammon is not there. He asked the servants in verse eight it says, “And it came to pass that King Lamoni inquired of his servants saying, where is this man that has such great power?” I love the answer of verse nine, Ammon is not in the courtyard. He’s not waiting to be praised by the king for what he’s done. Ammon is, well, let me just read, “And they said unto him, behold he’s feeding thy horses.”

  00:56:51 Now, the king had commanded his servants previous to the time of the watering of their flocks that they should prepare his horses and chariots and conduct him forth to the land of Nephi, for there had been a great feast appointed at the land of Nephi by the father of Lamoni who is king over the land. Again, I don’t think Ammon is sharing this story because it’s about him. I think it’s about the goodness of God, and yet like we’ve already talked about, Lamoni is touched and Lamoni becomes receptive because of the goodness of Ammon. As you look in verse 10, it says, “Now, when King Lamoni heard that Ammon was preparing his horses and his chariot, he was more astonished because of the faithfulness of Ammon saying, Surely there has not been any servant among all my servants that has been so faithful as this man, for even he doth remember all my commandments to execute them.”

  00:57:38 I love something President Henry B. Eyring said years ago reflecting on this, he’s reading through the story, or President Eyring is telling the story of Ammon, and he comes to this part of the story and then he asks a question, President Eyring said, “Isn’t that odd?” President Eyring goes on and says, “He was called to teach the Doctrine of Salvation, but he was in the stables. Don’t you think he should have been praying and fasting and polishing his teaching plan? No, he was in the stables. Never, never underestimate the spiritual value of doing temporal things well for those whom you serve.” Then President Eyring adds this, “Be their servants and you will love them and they will feel your love, and more important, they will feel God’s love.” To remember that statement that we’ve said, they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Ammon, again, is an incredible example of that with King Lamoni.

  00:58:31 He shows up in the kingdom, Lamoni doesn’t know who he is. What are you doing here? I want to be your servant. He goes and he cares for the flocks. Then in this moment where he could have been relishing or glorying in what he had accomplished, he chooses to be obedient to the commandment of the king and to go and take care of the horses. All of us can think of examples of people in our lives that have had an incredible impact on us, not because of necessarily what they led out with in their teachings, but because of how they loved us and how they cared for us.

Hank Smith: 00:59:04 Brian, I did my PhD work in high-trust schools and the impact on student achievement, and what you’re talking about here brought one thing to mind, and that is the difference. John, maybe we’ve talked about this before. The difference between moral authority and formal authority. Formal authority, I do what you say because I have to because you’re the boss, you’re the parent, the law. I do what you say because I have to, or if I don’t do it, there’s going to be some serious problems for me. That’s formal authority. Moral authority is I do what you ask because I want to. I want to follow you.

  00:59:43 What I found in that PhD work is the highest-trust schools, those leaders used moral authority. There’s of course, times you have to use formal authority. If your child is standing in the road, two or three years old, you don’t say, “Do you want to come out of the road?” No, you go out there and pick them up, but do we use our formal authority too often? I do what you say because I have to, where Ammon seems to say the real influence is in moral authority. I’m going to win your heart.

John Bytheway: 01:00:20 You guys both know S. Michael Wilcox. We’ve had him on here before. He wrote an article in the March 1995 Ensign Magazine. The article was called, Ammon Helped Me Reach My Neighbors. Got the article, not only is Ammon the king servant and friend, he’s the greatest servant he has ever had. What if our less active neighbors felt we were the most faithful home or visiting teachers or ministers they had ever had? What if our other neighbors considered us to be the most true and faithful of friends? I thought, good point, when I see verse 10.

Hank Smith: 01:01:05 Brian, do you remember Russ Bullock? Russ Bullock, he taught me how to be a seminary teacher. He took me out of my junior and senior years of college and said, “You have some gifts, but I really need to help you out, kid.” I’ll tell you, I would do anything for Russ Bullock. He was so good to me, has so much moral authority in my life. If he asked me to run through a wall, I would do it. I think it was, I knew he loved me.

Dr. Brian Mead: 01:01:35 I think of people in my life that sometimes they’ve had to have difficult conversations with me, but I’m willing to listen to them because I know they love me and I know they care for me. I think that Ammon is this incredible example of that. As we pick up in verse 12, it says, “And it came to pass that when Ammon had made ready the horses and chariots for the king and his servants, he went in unto the king and he saw that the countenance of the king was changed, therefore he was about to return out of his presence.

  01:02:15 As Ammon walks into the presence of the king and he sees that something is on the mind of the king, Ammon is about to leave, and one of the servants reaches out to him, and he calls him Rabbanah,” which we see in verse 13, “which is being interpreted powerful or great king, considering their kings to be powerful and thus he said unto him, Rabbanah, the king desires thee to stay. Ammon turns to the king and he asks, what will thou that I should do for thee, O king? The king answered him not for the space of an hour.” Ammon is standing in the presence of the king. I can try to imagine this awkward moment. I do like awkward moments. Ammon is just standing there waiting for the king to say something, and it’s finally after an hour, inspiration begins to come to Ammon, and Ammon is able to discern the thoughts of the king.

  01:02:58 The king finally has arrived at a point that he’s really willing to listen to who Ammon is and the message that Ammon really wants to share with him. As you go to verse 20, it says, “And the king said, how knowest thou the thoughts of my heart, thou mayest speak boldly and tell me concerning these things, and also, tell me by what power ye slew and smote off the arms of my brethren that scattered my flocks.” We get this great little line in verse 22, it says, “Now, Ammon being wise, yet harmless. He said unto Lamoni, wilt thou hearken unto my words, if I tell thee by what power I do these things, and this is the thing that I desire of thee. The king answered him and said, yea, I will believe all thy words, and thus he was caught in his guile.” I don’t think that’s a negative thing that it’s saying, but it’s the king, his heart has been touched. He’s arrived at a point that he’s willing to listen to Ammon.

  01:03:49 Then in verse 24, this is where Ammon truly begins to teach of God. We see in verse 24, “And Ammon began to speak unto him with boldness and said unto him, believest thou there is a God? Lamoni responds and answered and said unto him, I do not know what that meaneth. Then Ammon said, believest thou there is a great spirit? and he said unto him, yea.” Ammon is going to begin building on what the king already knows and understands. We talked about, well, what does Lamoni really believe about God up to this point? He believes that there’s a great spirit, but he doesn’t really know him. I want us to go to verse 32, and I want us to look and see some of these beautiful truths that Ammon begins to teach about God.

Hank Smith: 01:04:48 I have to say back in verse 22, Ammon was wise, yet harmless. Those Lamanites that scattered the flocks, they were unwise and armless.

Dr. Brian Mead: 01:04:57 All right.