Hank Smith: 00:03 Hello my friends, welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name’s Hank Smith, I’m your host. I’m here with my humble seeker of happiness, co-host John Bytheway, and our guest, Professor Lori Denning.

  00:16 John, let me talk to you first here, Alma 23-29, what comes to mind when you think of these chapters?

John Bytheway: 00:24 There’s a lot of things. One of my favorite metaphors ever, the idea of burying our weapons of war, is a really cool idea in here. I also think we have Ammon’s amazing mission, and then we have, boy, not only what happens to the converts here that is difficult, but the missionaries too. This earth life is a tough neighborhood, but we see how they all come through it and end up rejoicing at the end.

Hank Smith: 00:46 There’s a lot of highs and lows in discipleship in these chapters. John, like I said, we have Professor Lori Denning joining us. We’re in Alma 23-29 today, what are we going to do? Where are you going to take us?

Prof. Lori Denning: 01:01 Thanks, Hank. I think we’re going to cover a lot of ground. There are some great stories in here, if we break it up into two parts that’ll really help. What I hope to do is review the stories of joy of these missionaries, like John outlined for us. The first half we’re going to go through all the stories, and that’s what you alluded to with burying the weapons, and all the things that happened to the converts. And then in the second half we’re actually going to go to the missionaries talking about their missions.

  01:26 It really comes back to a word that’s used over and over again, similar to what the title that you gave to our humble seeker is, joy. As much as there’s going to be some tragedy and some really terrible things in this, Mormon picked these to show us the joy that comes in following the Savior.

Hank Smith: 01:42 We had a lot of fun with Lori last year. Where were we, Lori?

John Bytheway: 01:45 Yes.

Prof. Lori Denning: 01:45 Philippians.

Hank Smith: 01:46 Philippians, that’s what it was.

Prof. Lori Denning: 01:48 Philippians and Colossians, yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:50 Oh yeah, we should link that in our show notes. We laughed really hard, and I think you brought a Roman helmet with you.

John Bytheway: 01:55 Oh good, yes, thank you.

Prof. Lori Denning: 01:59 I mean, I obviously have a thing now, so I wanted to make sure that we do historical assessments. So heavy, if you can see it, I’m wearing a helmet. This helmet’s actually called a morion, morion. You’ll see it like the conquistadors, but we’re going to talk about their weapons of war, so I may have brought a few-

John Bytheway: 02:15 Look at that.

Hank Smith: 02:16 Wow.

Prof. Lori Denning: 02:16 Weapons. Like most women, I have quite a collection of arms and armor, so I brought some of those. If you’re online, if you’re listening to it, imagine a helmet and a sword.

John Bytheway: 02:28 All I brought was my humble sneakers, and you brought a helmet and a sword.

Hank Smith: 02:32 We have a lot of props today.

Prof. Lori Denning: 02:34 Fantastic stories. These are some of the most powerful, the most memorable, poignant, tear-jerking, heroic, exciting stories in the whole of Book of Mormon. I mean, I don’t know how I was so lucky to get these chapters, but they are fantastic. I’m pretty excited. And I won’t wear the helmet the whole time, but I might put it on a few times.

Hank Smith: 02:54 Hey, we don’t mind. I love it when you do, it’s awesome. And you mentioned part one and part two, we hope everyone will listen to both parts. I talk to our listeners who say, “I loved this one,” and I said, “What’d you think of part two?” And they kind of look at me like, nah. I’m like, “Hey, stay.”

Prof. Lori Denning: 03:11 That was too much of you guys, I just need to tone it down.

Hank Smith: 03:14 You got to go the distance.

Prof. Lori Denning: 03:16 Well, my very favorite chapter of all scripture, of all canon, is Alma 29. We’re saving the best for last, so stick around to hear why, of all the super nerdiness that I’ve done in my whole life, this is truly my favorite chapter ever.

Hank Smith: 03:30 Yeah, wonderful. Make it through part two, everyone.

  03:34 John, we talked about how we had Lori on last year, but let’s introduce her again for those who weren’t with us.

John Bytheway: 03:41 Yeah, she’s a well-known helmet collector, and she brought one last year too, a different one. Professor Lori L. Denning is Disciple of Christ and a card carrying scripture nerd. She’s pursuing her PhD in ancient scripture at Claremont Graduate University, with a master’s degree in theology from Gonzaga University. She has written three books, including the Real Hero series, and also teaches at BYU. She appears as a frequent podcast guest and hosts the video series called The Bible Brief. And I’ll tell you, Hank, I was looking forward to this because I remember how much fun we had last time, so really glad to have you back, Lori.

Prof. Lori Denning: 04:21 I’m glad to be here, and I am going to start saying helmet collector in all of my bios from now on, so thank you, John.

Hank Smith: 04:28 Lori, let me read from the Come, Follow Me manual. Let’s jump in, see where we’re going to go. Here’s what it says, it has three opening paragraphs that I love. It says, “Do you sometimes wonder whether people can really change? Maybe you worry about whether you can overcome poor choices you’ve made, or bad habits you’ve developed, or you may have similar worries about loved ones. If so, the story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies can help you. These people were the sworn enemies of the Nephites. When the sons of Mosiah decided to preach the gospel to them, the Nephites laughed them to scorn. Killing the Lamanites seemed like a more plausible solution than converting them. But the Lamanites did change. Through the converting power of Jesus Christ, they were once known as a hardened and ferocious people, but they became distinguished for their zeal towards God. In fact, they never did fall away.

  05:18 “Maybe you have some thoughts or actions to change, or weapons of rebellion to lay down, or maybe you need to be a little more zealous towards God. No matter what changes you need, Alma 23-29 can give you hope that through the atoning power of Jesus Christ, long-lasting change is possible.” So well said, and I can think of things that I would love to change. That does give hope. Lori, where do you want to go here? Where should we start?

Prof. Lori Denning: 05:46 Thanks, I thought we could start with a story. And I’m going to leave it a little bit of a cliffhanger, just hold on and at the end of this we’ll come back around and it may make sense. But when I was younger, I was 15, 16, I was about in 10th grade, and I signed up for the volleyball team. And at that point I had made the varsity soccer team and varsity softball team already, so I thought I was this really great athlete as a young high school student. You can’t see me very much, but I am short and not very tall, and I have a vertical jump of about two inches even today. So I’m not a natural-born volleyball player, but in my mind I was this great volleyball player.

  06:25 Most of you know I am an identical twin, so my twin and I both signed up for volleyball, and we had been JV, junior varsity, the year before, the junior team, and we make it, we make varsity. And about a week into the program we get dropped down to JV, because a friend of ours transferred from another school, she was an amazing athlete. They needed another slot, instead of dropping one of us, they dropped both of us. Well, my twin and I didn’t take it very well. We got back to the JV squad and we moped around, and we scuffed our feet, and we hung our head and we complained. And we looked over at the other team and we looked at our friends who were the second squad on the varsity and we’re like, “We’re better than them,” and we complained and complained.

  07:08 About the end of that week our coach pulled us aside, and I’m like, finally, we get to tell our righteous indignation how we had been unfairly cut, not for the brilliant girl, but those other teammates, we were certainly better than them, and we already made it, and what dishonor. As a 15, 16-year-old, this was a super big deal. I look back now and think, I can’t believe I was so worried about it, but I couldn’t wait until the coach, “I want to talk to you two after practice.”

  07:34 We go back in the back room and she’s like, “I am so disappointed in you two. You need to figure it out.” And you’re like, wait, this might’ve changed. She’s mad, our coach is mad at us. And she proceeded to tell us, “Look, I had a choice of who to bring down to the team, and I thought you two would be great influences on the team. You’re great athletes, you’re fun, and you’ll play every game, on the varsity you wouldn’t play any games, I thought you would really help the team. You’re better than this, I know your parents, and I expected more out of you.”

  08:10 I was absolutely crushed. I remember being absolutely blown away and just hanging my head. She gave one more statement, she said, “Think about it tonight, but if you want to be on this team, you need to come back and you need to get rid of your bad attitude and you’re going to play on the team, otherwise don’t come back tomorrow.” I had a lot of thinking to do. Was I going to change? Was I going to say, am I going to play with the JV or am I going to say, yeah, I should have been on that varsity team?

  08:39 That is a little bit about what I think is going to happen in these stories. People have a chance to change, are they going to change? Do they believe they’re going to change? How do they actually affect that change in their life? Now, they’re not playing JV volleyball in San Diego, California, they’re doing something so much greater. I haven’t had experiences quite as serious as the people that we’re going to meet, but that same idea, I think we look at the stories of when the Lord has invited us to change, invited us to become something greater, and what will we choose and how do we make that change?

  09:10 These ideas are told in stories. The nerd word obvious because it’s called narrative, right? We say they’re a narrative, but they’re stories, right? We don’t get a laundry list of commandments, we’re going to get these stories of these people, and they are historical events. But Mormon, if we think about it, has seen our day and said, this is what we need to see, these are stories that are just like our stories. I want us to look at the stories and say, how am I like this?

  09:38 Here’s one of the ways that I hope that we can do it as we go through these stories, and some of these stories you’ll know pretty well, some of them you may not be as familiar with, but they’re awesome. As we go through I want us to look at what’s called point of view, and that’s which character are you seeing the story through. When I was a kid, I always saw myself as the hero of the story, and as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized I’m a little bit more villainous than some of these stories, I’m not as good as I thought I was.

  10:02 In these stories you’re going to see people from all over, you’re going to see the Lamanites, you’re going to see the missionaries, you’re going to see people that are converts, you’re going to see the Nephites that are going to accept them back in, and everybody in between. That’s what I’m hoping to do, is take these stories and look at them through those lenses and maybe through fresh eyes and say, what point of view are we going to do?

John Bytheway: 10:22 Awesome.

Hank Smith: 10:23 We could also take the point of view of Mormon who’s writing the story and seeing it from a distance.

Prof. Lori Denning: 10:30 That’s a really good segue, thank you, Hank. There are some of these literary techniques and I want to try to call them out. That’s one you’ll see, Mormon talks, and you know when he’s talking when he uses this phrase called, “Thus we see,” and he has about four of these in this scriptural block. It’s like a little aside, in a movie or something when they turn to the camera and says, “And thus we see,” he makes a little conclusion. These kinds of conclusions are popular in scripture, you see them in the Gospels, in John, and this is when the people didn’t understand that Jesus was doing this. You see them in Nehemiah, you see them all over the place, that they do them. But Mormon, Hank, to your point, does them a lot. He’s carefully selected these scriptures, and then in case you missed the point, he writes a little, “Thus we see.”

  11:16 A great challenge or a great project to do with your family, or yourself as you’re studying Come, Follow Me, is go look for them and study them and see what conclusions Mormon is making from the story that he chose. Alma is also writing most of this, and Mormon’s picking Alma’s writings. You can also say, even though Alma isn’t in all of the story, Alma the Younger is also one of the narrators of the story. He’s telling his story and his friends’ stories. That’s a really great way to do it, and it kind of enlivens the story, let me look at it through a perspective.

John Bytheway: 11:48 Some editors try to be invisible so you don’t know that they’re there, and maybe that’s the goal of some kind of editing, but when we get a, “Thus we see,” we’re getting Mormon going, this is why I put this in here.

Hank Smith: 12:02 John, you’re right on there, Mormon frequently tells us, I can only write a hundredth part of what I have. And sometimes I think, you could have written us 200th if you’d stopped telling us you could only write 100th part.

Prof. Lori Denning: 12:15 You could have slipped in something right there.

Hank Smith: 12:17 Yeah. When he tells us a story, in theory he didn’t tell us 99 other stories. Each part of this has got to stand out. I noticed, Lori, that we’re flying through history for a while, and then we get to Alma, it’s the longest book, but it only covers 40 years of history, where you had a tiny little book of Omni that covered hundreds of years of history, here’s this book where we really slow down. It’s the first 40 years of the reign of the judges, and I guess that switch in government really changed society quite a bit.

Prof. Lori Denning: 12:53 It is, it’s kind of a slow-mo, we zoom in and we get to know these characters. I think one of the things that’s beautiful and powerful about the Book of Mormon is how much we actually get to know these people, and we get to hear their inner thoughts and they’re going to write and tell us some of these things, and they’re going to do some of them in poems and they’re going to do some of them in their journals and speeches, and we’ll do some of that in part two. That’s a little unique. A lot of times, like John said, we don’t always hear the voice or the narrator. In this one you hear Mormon, but you also hear Alma, you hear each of their personalities and what they’re concerned about, and that is beautiful and powerful, I wonder why it’s so different except that it changes me, I get so much more involved in the story.

  13:36 There’s a study, and I’ll link it down in the show notes, because I really wanted to point this out, but there is a neuroscience on how stories work. Before we get into the story, this is pretty cool, all the ways that the Lord could choose to convey an idea to us, he’s chosen stories. Stories make up probably 50, 60% of scripture, rather than poetry or speeches or some other kind of type of literature. Stories, in this neuroscience, this Dr. Zak’s did a bunch of MRIs, and they did all these studies of people listening to stories, and it happens, only here, it doesn’t happen if I give you a laundry list of thou shalt nots, but you envision yourself experiencing the story, and your brain acts the same whether you’re hearing and envisioning a story as much as you’re doing it. So like an athlete who’s visualizing crossing the finish line or throwing a basketball, you are visualizing it.

  14:30 By experiencing these events with Alma, or with Anti-Nephi-Lehi, the King, or with whomever in the story, our brain doesn’t know the difference, so we are becoming stronger and better and we become more like them when we put ourself in the events of the story. That’s why we slow down. I think that’s why we get this awesome peer into their souls and hear their thoughts and slow down and go through their lives with them, so that we can become more like Alma and Ammon and Amulek and Lamoni and the oh so pithy name of King Anti-Nephi-Lehi in the story.

John Bytheway: 15:14 I have learned by sad experience that if I can tell a story, I don’t have to say you should, you ought, we need to. We tell a story of somebody who embodies a principle or a trait and then we can all just listen and go, wow, we will supply our own. I should be that way. If you’re saying it, it doesn’t work as well, but we love to hear stories of somebody that’s heroic and then we can go, there’s some traits in there that I like, so that’s why I like stories.

Hank Smith: 15:48 That’s fantastic. Lori, I think you’re right on here. I can remember stories I’ve been told decades ago. That’s why I loved John Bytheway talks. I think everybody loved, what was it, John, Mafia to Mormon? I still can remember that talk.

John Bytheway: 16:06 Mario Facione.

Hank Smith: 16:07 Stories that President Monson told, and of course the Savior’s parables, they have a lasting power. Whenever I train teachers I’ll say that, if you have a choice between a lecture and a story, go with the story. In speaking to youth I’ve started to get into the lecture mode, and you can kind of see the energy drop. And all of a sudden you start telling a story, and that energy picks back up and they’re engaged in, oh, you’re telling me this story. And even youth years later will say, “I remember that story.”

Prof. Lori Denning: 16:41 Mm-hmm, that story. Today’s about our conversion, about being true to covenant. And we can say, I’ve been practicing all along because I’ve been reading their stories and I want to be like them. Maybe we should jump into the story.

  16:54 Let’s jump into 23. There are lots of different ways the scholars approach these, mine is obviously what we call literary theory, or literary criticism, and that is how stories work. I’m going to pop in occasionally and show you some of these, and you might not have seen them before, but they’re little techniques that authors use, things like repetition and rhyme and things, and there’s some weird ones that you might not have heard about, but like we just said, thus we see, you’ll see that one.

  17:21 Some patterns, and I want to point them out, because once you see them, they can become more powerful. There’s one kicker though, one cool thing about how literary techniques work, you don’t have to know them for them to work, they just work. When we tell a story, we love a story, but if you tell a good story, we just know it’s a good story. But if we said, well, why was that a good story? You might not know. I’m going to point some out, I think it’s a great way to study scripture. I think Mormon is a brilliant author, he is using these to help us remember, to help them sink deep into our hearts, to touch us on an emotional and spiritual level, I want to call out some of them.

  17:58 Also, as a nerdy aside, I love that we find these ancient scriptural ideas and techniques in the Book of Mormon. There’s no way that Joseph Smith would be like, hey, in 65 working days I snuck all these in, and I didn’t even know they existed, and neither did literary theorists until 20 years ago, but I knew them and I snuck them in. No, we don’t get a testimony of the Book of Mormon because they’re here, but I sure love that they’re here and find them endlessly fascinating. If I’m on the show, the nerd word of the day is literary. I made a chart of these as well, of some things that I found in the last few days studying this, there’s not certainly all of them, and we’ll put it in the show notes.

Hank Smith: 18:37 So everybody knows, John, I don’t think I’ve said this in a while, come over to the website, followhim.c-o, followhim.co, and you’ll find all the show notes over there, along with a bunch of extras, so come on over.

Prof. Lori Denning: 18:49 Let’s jump to Alma 23, let’s do one and two, and when we read it, I want to tell you two things I want you to watch for as we go through it. The first thing is it starts actually what’s called a resumptive repetition. He’s going to say, “There was this proclamation.” We’re picking up in the middle of a story, a resumptive repetition is a little clause that’s like the parentheses is ending and you’re going back to the sentence, and there was a proclamation that the Lamanite king was going to make, and then the chapter before it, like half of it is this aside, oh, blah, blah, blah, and this other thing happened. Okay, and back to the story, and let’s jump in and just find out what’s going on.

John Bytheway: 19:24 Alma 23:1, “Behold now it came to pass that the king of the Lamanites sent a proclamation among all his people that they should not lay their hands on Ammon, or Aaron, or Omner, or Himni, nor either of their brethren who should go forth preaching the word of God in whatsoever place they should be in any part of their land. Yea, he sent a decree among them that they should not lay their hands on them to bind them or to cast them into prison; neither should they spit upon them, nor smite them, nor cast them out of their synagogues, nor scourge them; neither should they cast stones at them, but that they should have free access to their houses, and also their temples, and their sanctuaries.”

Prof. Lori Denning: 20:03 We made a proclamation of a long list of things that you guys don’t do. What do we think was probably happening to them? Every one of these things. Every one of them. The English here is really clunky, very listy, you could say comma and make a list. Here’s a literary term for you, this is called anataxis, it’s when you make a list like that and you put and in between, or or. So in the first one you’ll see the brothers on Ammon, or Aaron, on Omner, or Himni. You could have just said the brothers, or you could have just said a, comma, but they put the or in there.

  20:38 You’ll see it a lot with and, and there are a lot of examples of these. And then you’re going to see it again with this list of all the things they shouldn’t be doing, so they sent a decree and they should not lay your hands, or bind them, or cast them, or spit on them, nor smite them, nor cast them, nor scourge jump, and you’re like, okay, got it. No, got to do a few more, no cast stones. That’s that listy thing.

Hank Smith: 20:59 I sense in this one the repetition is, he could say, “Don’t hurt him, you don’t get to hurt him,” but this is a list, and then each one becomes more pronounced with that little conjunction.

Prof. Lori Denning: 21:14 Yeah, you’re exactly right, the rhythmic effect kind of does an emphasis. It’s, maybe this was the law, and we had to be very specific because they were jerks and they were doing all of those things to the four missionaries. What I think it does is it emphasizes and it builds and it’s like, wow, this was really terrible. In this example they were doing this and this and this and this. One way to get the feeling, remember, we’re going to get the feeling of these stories so it sinks into our heart and it changes us, is to read it out loud. Read it out loud, because you’ll hear it and you’ll feel it a little differently than if you read it in your head.

Hank Smith: 21:52 Now you’re a Hebrew Bible expert. If I remember right from our Old Testament year, they often told us, they’re meant to be heard.

Prof. Lori Denning: 22:01 Mm-hmm.

Hank Smith: 22:01 It changes the feel of scripture when you realize a lot of this was meant to be orally transmitted. Does that fit here, Lori?

Prof. Lori Denning: 22:09 Yeah, Hank, you’re so humble, of course that is the answer, and you know that too because you’re an expert as well. But remember, it’s usually in a congregation or in community, they’re read out loud and then you hear them and then you remember them. So one thing it does is it gives the emotion of it, and it also, it helps you remember it. You remember them because it’s got this little rhythm to them. Let’s say you’re sitting down on the bench and you’re a deacon, or whatever of the day, and you’re sitting down there, you’re like, and smite them, and, and, and. You’re like, yeah, I got the list, right? I’m going to go home and I’m going to smite and beat you, you just know that’s what you’d be thinking. So yeah, they would’ve been meant to be read out loud.

  22:46 It also helps it to be heard, convey your voice to the back of the room. In fact, Hebrew and things like Arabic are actually chanted, they’re sung, so they actually have a chant sing to them. The language itself has that rhythm to it, the rhyming sometimes at the middle of the words, but the rhythm of that anataxis. You’ll see it a lot with and is the other one, that you’re like in English it’s an awkward phrase and we go, and Omner, and Himni. It’s not very succinct, we don’t like that, but they loved it.

  23:15 Here’s another one that I think is really powerful, it’s the first word of the chapter. This is a word that helps us change your views. You think of watching a movie and the scene is going to change scenes. So you’re watching a car chase and then you change scenes and now you’re watching the driver’s face as he’s driving the car really fast, it changes the view, it changes the scene. Behold literally means look, check it out, check it. You’ll see behold, or look, the angel talking to Nephi in the dream says look a lot, same idea, they’re changing the narrator, Mormon or Alma in this case, this is probably Alma actually, but he’s telling us to zoom into a new scene. Whenever you see behold, you’re kind of changing scenes slightly, zooming in, zooming out, going into the past, going into the future, showing a different group. Or you’ll see it sometimes with the prophet, he’s trying to emphasize it, behold. When you see those, it’s not just a weird archaic phrase of like, and thus he sayeth, it’s check it. Think of it zooming in on a screen.

  24:19 That’s a lot of literary nerdiness, but I think it really helps us say, when we read these stories with fresh eyes, they can really sink into our hearts, or they give you a way to study it differently and say, I’m going to find all the beholds, I’m going to find all those little repetitive weirdness things and see how it makes me feel.

Hank Smith: 24:36 In my house, well, I have a lot of boys, we do some of the voices, some of the back and forth, “You be Anti-Nephi-Lehi and I’ll be Ammon,” and we’d switch that up back and forth so that it’s easier to visualize. And I do the voice of Sherem who’s like, “Brother Jacob, I wanted…” It just helps, I think, my kids visualize what’s happening. Sometimes parents turn their personalities off when they read scripture.

Prof. Lori Denning: 25:04 If we were thinking of it like casting a movie, or making a movie of these, what would you do? And that’s what Alma or Mormon is trying to do, is paint the picture and tell us. But if we read it like that, then you’d say, well, I would put this in a city. No, I would put this, there would be a montage of them being smitten and scoured and in prison, I would film it like that.

John Bytheway: 25:25 It doesn’t really say in verse two that these things had all happened to them, but where else would he get that list? Okay, no more of this and no more of this and no more of this.

Hank Smith: 25:37 He looks over at the missionaries and they kind of nod, you got it, that was the list.

John Bytheway: 25:42 Thank you, get the don’t spit on us part in there too, yeah, thank you, okay.

Hank Smith: 25:43 Yeah.

Prof. Lori Denning: 25:45 If you leave any opening, it’s happened to him. But it does set an interesting tone. If Alma’s telling this story, the first thing we get is what? Behold, this was really rough, this is a super challenging mission. Who wants to sign up for a mission where you’re gone for 14 years and your people say, “You should just kill them, these people are impossible.” Or, and you get there and then they just beat you up and they scourge you and they spit on you and they throw you in prison, wow, why would anyone do that?

Hank Smith: 26:16 On your list it would say, do not throw sandwiches at them.

Prof. Lori Denning: 26:22 Don’t throw sandwiches with mustard that would hit them. Thank you for remembering my story, Hank.

Hank Smith: 26:26 That was from our interview last year, Lori was in Spain, right?

Prof. Lori Denning: 26:31 Yeah, yeah, Barcelona.

Hank Smith: 26:32 And got hit by a-

Prof. Lori Denning: 26:33 A flying sandwich. Yeah, I got stoned by a sandwich. I got stoned by a sandwich. It’s not quite as gruesome as being thrown into jail, but it really hurt my feelings, and it ruined my shirt.

Hank Smith: 26:45 Everyone should go find last year’s episode, and that was a story, look at that, Lori.

John Bytheway: 26:50 Yeah, we remembered.

Prof. Lori Denning: 26:51 And you remembered it, because it was a story.

John Bytheway: 26:52 “No more of that,” says verse two.

Prof. Lori Denning: 26:54 No more of that. And then it prompts the question, if it’s so terrible, why are they doing it? Who would go do this thing, and why wouldn’t anybody do it? Because it sounds terrible, so that anataxis now this terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. But here’s why, and we’re going to see something powerful of why. John, would you mind running us through verse three?

John Bytheway: 27:16 “And thus they might go forth and preach the word according to their desires, for the king had been converted unto the Lord, and all his household. Therefore, he sent his proclamation throughout the land unto his people that the word of God might have no obstruction, but that it might go forth throughout all the land that his people might be convinced concerning the wicked traditions of their fathers, and that they might be convinced that they were all brethren, and that they ought not to murder, nor to plunder, nor to steal, nor to commit adultery, nor to commit any manner of wickedness.”

Prof. Lori Denning: 27:49 Awesome, thank you. After we hear all those terrible things that happened is the answer of why the missionaries and the king are willing to go to all this trouble is in there.

John Bytheway: 28:01 For the king had been converted unto the Lord and all his household.

Prof. Lori Denning: 28:05 Wow, and how did that affect them in the story, since you’re our Book of Mormon expert. I mean, was that a big change for them? Was that kind of a no big deal? How would that story go?

Hank Smith: 28:14 This one convert changes everything about the mission. And if you even backtrack further, Lori, it was because this king saw the goodness, the love that Ammon had for his son, so that single act, that single moment where he says, “You really love my son,” that turns into this.

Prof. Lori Denning: 28:35 Opening up the mission field, say that conversion, that change, that become something different is so monumental, and I’m reading between the lines here, I want that for my people. I’m not going to make you do it, you have to feel this, you got to meet these guys and understand that conversion, that change. Wow, you go, well, wow, what happened to them, and how do I get that from me? And that’s when we meet a whole group of people.

  29:01 Jump in a little bit farther into the story here, we know that there is a section where the missionaries go out, the brothers, and they start to teach. They have this free pass now, now you can go teach, and they start teaching. They raise up some more teachers, they have some other teachers that they teach, the gospel goes like wildfire. People are being converted and they’re building churches and they’re like, wow, it’s working, it’s working. Isn’t this the dream of every missionary, formal missionary, is that you’re going to have an impact. That’s what happens to these people.

John Bytheway: 29:33 I have a literary nerd thing at the end of verse three, the list of commandments, “Convinced they were all brethren, they ought not to murder, nor to plunder, nor to steal, nor to commit adultery, nor to commit any manner of wickedness.” That same list in that same order is in King Benjamin’s speech. So where King Benjamin says, “Neither have I suffered that you should be confined in dungeons, nor that you should make slaves one of another, nor that you should murder, or plunder, or steal, or commit adultery, nor even have I suffered that you should commit any manner of wickedness.” Same phrases, same order, and John Welch noticed that and I thought, oh, that’s pretty cool, that King Benjamin’s speech is still having an impact.

Prof. Lori Denning: 30:20 Yeah, resonating. Mosiah 2:13 is that reference. That’s also called a literary motif, if you’re going to go through these nerd words where you see a phrase or a symbol thing and it’s going to follow through. You’re going to find these patterns, or motifs, and if they get bigger, they become a theme. As they get bigger and bigger these patterns of repeating, repeating, repeating, you’re supposed to carry them through. If you see those, especially when they’re weird phrases, sometimes they’re odd phrases and you’re like, well, that’s a weird phrase, you can trace it. That’s a brilliant call out, way to go Brother Welch on that one.

Hank Smith: 30:52 We should have all the, what’d you call them? All the literary nerds, come on to YouTube and also tell us if you are a literary nerd. I refuse to join this gang. If you’re a literary nerd, come on to YouTube.

Prof. Lori Denning: 31:05 You can join our gang, that’s right.

Hank Smith: 31:06 Yeah, let Lori know, Lori and John, let them both know.

Prof. Lori Denning: 31:10 It’s like music, the words and the way they’re written, and how they just change you, is this beautiful tapestry in the words. And we always get into the history, and we get into the commandments, and those are fantastic, there’s nothing wrong, I’m not trying to downplay that. But this other part of it is how we receive the scripture, and I’m like, it’s embossed on my soul, these words and these conveyance. Thank you, Mormon, for putting together such a beautiful story that can change me. I don’t even have to go outside the house, I can just read this story and become a better person. Yeah, the nerd words are rad, and don’t be downtalking them. So you could be part of our club anyway.

John Bytheway: 31:50 Yeah, and what’s cool, this is Mosiah 2:13, here we are in Alma 23:3, and it also shows up in Alma 30:10, and in Helaman 3:14, and in Helaman 6:23, and in Helaman 7:21, and in Ether 8:16, that same list in the same order.

Prof. Lori Denning: 32:10 A literary motif.

John Bytheway: 32:13 A motif grew into, what did you call it? A theme.

Prof. Lori Denning: 32:16 It’s a pattern that just keeps going and going. You’ll see mostly with words, you can also see with images. We’re going to see some with their swords, their swords are going to be stained and their swords are going to be bright, you’re going to see that motif.

Hank Smith: 32:27 Wow, the Book of Mormon is turning out to be quite a theme park.

Prof. Lori Denning: 32:33 That hurt my eyeball. My teeth hurt now after that one. All right, the church grows, fantastic. So even though it was so challenging, it begins to take root, and they begin to be converted.

  32:47 No matter where we are in our lives, and I want to point out something about these stories before we go any farther. While these stories tend to take formal missionaries, however they did it in Nephite times, they’re called, they go out, they don’t come home for 14 years. We often look at these and we only look at them from a formal missionary story, I was on a two-year mission, I was on a service mission, I was a senior missionary. The gathering of Israel isn’t just formal missionary work with a badge on your chest, it’s so much broader. So if you get to these chapters and you’re like, well, I didn’t serve a mission, or my mission wasn’t great, or I never had a chance, whatever it is, these stories are for all of us, because missionary work, think of it as the gathering of Israel, which is much broader.

John Bytheway: 33:32 You say to your 11-year-old, “You need to gather Israel.” “Huh?” But President Nelson, that’s been a theme, but then he gave this wonderful statement where he talked about anytime you do anything that helps anyone on either side of the veil, like how he expanded it, take a step toward making covenants, even take a little bit closer than they were yesterday, you are helping to gather Israel. That was that talk Hope of Israel in 2018. Anybody can understand that, anytime you do anything that helps anyone on either side of the veil even get a little closer, you’re helping to gather Israel. And I’m glad you said that, we have a lot of service missionaries, my parents-in-law are on a senior mission having the time of their lives, they’re helping people get a step closer. As President Nelson said, they’re gathering.

Prof. Lori Denning: 34:25 I love that, a step closer. That’s really powerful, because I don’t think that many times in our lives are we actually on a formal mission, or we even have an opportunity to be on a formal mission. We can apply these stories to whatever we’re working on in our corner of the kingdom, maybe it’s the primary lesson this week, maybe it’s raising a child, maybe it’s being kind to our coworkers, which really hard. Or maybe it’s a formal mission, it’s all of gathering Israel.

  34:49 This is huge, and these stories, we can apply them anywhere. Here we say, hey, we might’ve been in a really tough spot, and you can think, when was I in a really tough spot where I was trying to help others come unto Christ and it was really tough, they were spitting on me, or whatever your story is, and then things got a little better, or how do I get there? How do I get them converted? And then we can read about that in the very next verse. In verse six we start to learn what’s going to happen. Let’s do six and seven. Hank, will you read that for us?

Hank Smith: 35:21 Sure. Alma 23:6-7, “And as sure as the Lord liveth, so sure as many as believed, or as many as were brought to the knowledge of the truth through the preaching of Ammon and his brethren according to the spirit of revelation and of prophecy, and the power of God working miracles in them, yea I say unto you, as the Lord liveth, as many of the Lamanites as believed in their preaching, and were converted unto the Lord, never did fall away. For they became a righteous people. They did lay down their weapons of their rebellion that they did not fight against God anymore, neither against any of their brethren.”

Prof. Lori Denning: 35:58 Whoa, that would be the best missionary homecoming talk, we don’t have those homecomings anymore, but that’s what you would come, you’re like, “Well, the people I converted never did fall away and they became a righteous people,” and you’re like, “Wow, where did you go? That sounds amazing.” What a promise. Who’s talking here? It could be Mormon, and I think it might be Alma. It’s one of the narrators, he’s like, I lifted this story, hey, who was the Book of Mormon for? Was it for the Nephites? No, it’s for us. I’ve seen you, I know your workings, and I am writing this to you right now. This is your story. Maybe the people that need to be converted that never fall away are ourselves.

Hank Smith: 36:44 Yeah, the reader.

Prof. Lori Denning: 36:45 Whatever the application, he’s saying here is an amazing, miraculous story where this conversion sunk deep into their hearts and changed them so radically they became something new. They became a new creature, as Paul says. They’re risen in life to something new and they never go back, and I’m like, oh, I want that. How do I get that? And he’s going to show us how they did it in the next few chapters.

  37:15 Now, here is a great exercise, go through and write anytime you see the word converted, or any of the blessings of the conversion. Those are going to be the hints of what made this so successful.

John Bytheway: 37:28 We talked about it last week, but I love that the object of conversion is always to the Lord. It’s not converts to the church, Book of Mormon doesn’t use that language, and here I’m seeing it four times on this page. For those of you using ancient page versions, I’m on page 267, I see converted unto the Lord in verse three, converted unto the Lord in verse six, converted unto the Lord in verse eight, and converted unto the Lord in verse 13. The object of our conversion is to the Lord, and Lori, you said they became, verse seven. It’s not even what you do, it’s what we’re becoming, as President Oaks taught us.

Prof. Lori Denning: 38:02 Powerful.

Hank Smith: 38:03 John, you’ve mentioned that a few times on our show, and it really has hit me hard, that if you never want to fall away, if you’re saying in your heart of hearts I hope I never fall away, I think Mormon is giving you the recipe here. You have to be converted to the Lord. There’s so many things we could be converted to, we could be converted to the doctrine, we could be converted to the temple, we could be converted to the social setting, sometimes people are converted to the missionary. Those aren’t terrible things, but it seems that conversion to the Lord is what has staying power.

  38:40 Occasionally when I have a friend who leaves the church, good people, very good people, occasionally I’ll get a resume of someone who’s left the church, I served a mission, I went to BYU, I served in the bishopric, I was Relief Society president, I read every manual. I have yet to hear someone say, I came to know the Lord through the Book of Mormon, and even I fell away. These are not bad people in any way, but it seems the staying power is I came to know the Lord, I had my own experience with the Lord. Because once you have your own experience, a person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an opinion. Once you have an experience with the Lord, and then you have those over and over, continuing experiences, you become converted to him. You feel like Joseph Smith, I knew it, I knew that God knew it, I could not deny it.

John Bytheway: 39:44 Hank, I love that so much. I’ve heard you say it in a different way another time, that I have felt the power of Jesus Christ in my heart, or in my life. That’s being converted unto the Lord, the object of my conversion is my eyes are on Christ. When that happens, you can see all sorts of ups and downs and imperfections in everything else going around. But your conversion isn’t on those other things, your conversion is to the Lord, and the Book of Mormon is so consistent with that phrase. That’s a powerful thing to me, that the Book of Mormon is very consistent, our conversion is unto the Lord.

Prof. Lori Denning: 40:20 Beautiful. I love as well what you said there about becoming, and how those feelings, we can’t really take away those ideas. Alma says it in Alma 5 a way I just absolutely love, he says, “Have you felt to sing the song of redeeming love?” And you think, oh, I remember those times, and maybe you think of those times. And then he says, “And can you feel so now?” And I always think that’s a clue, I remember those experiences.

  40:47 Can I share a story? I had lived out of state, and then I’d moved to a different state, and when I got to that new state, I didn’t really get attached to a ward. I didn’t even know what ward I was in, and I didn’t know what time we met. It was before, this is how old I am, it was before the, you can log on and find a chapel on the website. It was easy to not go for quite a few months. I was living in northern California at the time. And finally one day I was like, I’d like to go to church. I figured out and I go to the ward. I’m sitting in the back, right? Because I’m like, I’m the heathen who hasn’t been here, I’m sure my records have been here for a while, and I haven’t been to church for a while. It wasn’t like I was rebellious or something.

  41:26 And I sat in the very back on that row, there’s the big gap, so you’re just like, I can flee at any moment if it just gets boring, or whatever. I don’t know anybody, I’m sitting in the carpeted room that looks so familiar. I just don’t feel at place. We get to the sacrament hymn, we sing In Humility, I feel the power of the Savior. All those feelings that I had had, and I still now sing that hymn with that feeling comes back of like, hey, you belong here. And I just remember singing, and I’m a terrible singer, and I’m singing in the back. And you know you don’t really belt out the sacrament hymns, I was like, I remember, how did I forget this? Why did I think I didn’t belong?

  42:09 Even today, In Humility, it’s my favorite sacrament hymn, because it teaches me of the Savior and that feeling of him welcoming me. Also, just because it tied back to all those feelings that I had built of the song of redeeming love from before, my conversion from before.

John Bytheway: 42:27 Isn’t that a great question? He asks, you felt this, it made you want to sing, can you feel so now? It’s a good gut check for all of us who are like, yeah, I was a little more fired up back in this time in my past, I need that fired up feeling again and think celestial and get on the covenant path, and it’s such a good question, isn’t it?

Prof. Lori Denning: 42:47 It’s a good question, and one that I think we can always go back to. Link enough of those together and it’s bright again.

John Bytheway: 42:53 “They became a righteous people,” verse seven. They became, I love it.

Prof. Lori Denning: 42:58 They had to work at it though, right? That become makes me feel like there’s something involved.

John Bytheway: 43:02 Yeah, we don’t know how long that took.

Prof. Lori Denning: 43:04 There was something beautiful, beautiful. And it changes them. And this is part of the story that we know so well, that it talks about these, they’re these seven cities. They’re more than that, actually, before. It’s a little poem in this next section, then it talks about the seven cities. The people, some of the people, not the whole city, but some of the people are converted, and it lists seven, which is literary. And there are a couple more cities earlier that it lists and it’s like, well, maybe they didn’t have people converted, but my guess is it’s trying to remind us of that seven perfection, God’s hand in it, that they were-

John Bytheway: 43:35 Fullness.

Prof. Lori Denning: 43:36 Fullness, they were fully converted. There’s the idea again, fully converted right there. They go through and they tell us that they were converted unto the Lord, and then in verse 13, this most miraculous result of what happens to these people when they become fully converted to the Lord. Would you read that for us, John, 23:13.

John Bytheway: 43:57 “And these are the names of the cities of the Lamanites which were converted unto the Lord, and these are they that laid down the weapons of their rebellion, yea all their weapons of war, and they were all Lamanites.”

Prof. Lori Denning: 44:11 What? There’s a reference here in 26 about how when the brothers are going to go, and they say, “We’re going to go do a mission,” and they’re like, “Hey, we want to go teach the Lamanites,” and the Nephites, their family and friends, this is their response to that really great idea.

John Bytheway: 44:25 Alma 26:25, “And moreover they did say, let us take up arms against them that we destroy them and their iniquity out of the land, less they overrun us and destroy us.”

Prof. Lori Denning: 44:36 Well, it’s not going to be a good mission. You would be more successful to go kill them. Those people are never going to be converted, never be converted. Then you go, oh, wait a minute, we go back to this story, and they are so converted that they are like, “We’re going to set down our weapons.” Our weapons, the thing that defined us. It’s like our superpower skill that we have been developing for years and years, and we are willing to say that was wrong and we are going to bury our weapons.

  45:06 I love that. That change, I can’t think of a lot of stories that have fundamentally changed someone so much that they took what defined them and gave it up. This is amazing, which gives me hope that if they can change, so can I. The Lord can change me. Even the darkest corners, the places I hope no one finds about my worst habits, my worst thoughts, my worst behaviors, I can become righteous. If he could do it to them, he can do it to me.

Hank Smith: 45:44 I’m sure both of you have heard this little Abraham Lincoln story. I don’t know if it’s true, it’s on the internet so it must be true, right?

John Bytheway: 45:52 Have you seen that thing on the internet that says, “Don’t believe everything you see on the internet? -Abraham Lincoln”.

Hank Smith: 45:59 That was a good quote of his, I think that was in the Gettysburg Address.

John Bytheway: 46:03 Yeah, four score and dot, dot, dot.

Hank Smith: 46:06 It says that an older woman rebuked Lincoln for his conciliatory attitude towards the south. She felt that they should be destroyed after the Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln replied, “Madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” It kind of fits with what you were saying there, Lori, some people wanted them destroyed. They did, in theory, get rid of the Lamanites because they’re no longer Lamanites.

John Bytheway: 46:35 No longer enemies.

Prof. Lori Denning: 46:37 Yeah, they become counted among the Nephites. Such a powerful story. I’ve often heard this story as we apply it as we’re always looking at ourselves as the Nephites. And that point of view that we talked about at the beginning when we say, we’re like the Nephites and we’re the good guys. And then sometimes you’re one of the missionaries, even though they’re also converted, you’re the good guys. I think the story is extra powerful when we look at it from those who were converted, whether they were Lamanites, or Lamoni, or Anti-Nephi-Lehi, the king, or the people, you think, you know what? That’s my story, I have been converted, and what am I willing to do? And they spend so much time, we spend chapters learning about these people and hearing their voices and getting to know them, and I think, that’s my story. I think I have a lot more in common sometimes with these people who have messed up and aren’t really super successful than the ones who were awesomely successful.

  47:32 If you think about the book of Alma and Mosiah, it’s like 99% about people who screwed up and the Lord forgave and saved them, from Alma the Younger, to the sons of Mosiah, to the Anti-Nephi-Lehis, Zeezrom, they’re these people that rebound. I have an inkling, a little clue, that Mormon’s like, hey, this story is your story. You’re not a Nephite, Lori, you’re a little bit like these converts, learning to become converted unto the Lord. Yeah, so pretty cool. But I definitely have some foibles, I’m still becoming, I’m still converting to the Lord.

Hank Smith: 48:09 We all, Lori, at one point in our lives we’re all converted, whether it be a missionary comes into our life and we’re a convert, as you might say, or we were born and raised in the church, but we still need to become a convert, and there are still things that you and I need to give up. What did you say? It’s their identity, is that what you said? Their weapons represent who they are.

Prof. Lori Denning: 48:36 I feel like it is. If you think about it, these people are almost like professional warriors. They’re like ninja warrior people. Some have theorized too that this was part of human sacrifice, it was part of their behavior. But whatever it was, their warring behavior and these murders that they say they committed, it was who they were so much to the core that they were like, wow, we have to give that up to become something new. I don’t know how often that happens at this scale as far as the scope, how big it is in our lives, that we have to kind of redefine ourselves so completely that we have to walk away from everything that they were, or we were, we have to give up that portion of our identity for a new one. They changed their name.

  49:20 Let’s go on in the story, let’s find out what they do next. It’s certainly not something everybody has to do, but it’s something that these guys decided to coincide with this change. The brothers go, raise up more teachers and priests and they do more teaching, and the church catches on, we read about these seven cities, and then wow, there’s this whole group of people that have now joined the Lord and have been converted. And then they go, hey, as part of this conversion we got to change, we got to change something big about ourselves, and that’s where we pick up the story.

  49:50 Since we’ve been talking about different styles of writing there’s this narrative that we’ve been doing, story, story, story, and some dialogue, there is a speech in 24:7-16, is a speech. We call that rhetoric. Those styles are different, so we have King Benjamin’s speech, and this is King Anti-Nephi-Lehi. Such a catchy name that they’ve chosen here. He gives a speech to his people, a great way to study is to go and look at these different speeches and see their patterns and what happens with them. King Benjamin has a speech, this is one of the most brilliant speeches I’ve ever seen, Samuel Lamanite has quite the speech, and then Third Nephi has a speech to the people. Captain Moroni, with his title of liberty, he gives an impromptu speech.

  50:36 So you see these times when speeches come up, and they are brilliant, and they have their own cadence and their own style. Anti-Nephi-Lehi is doing the same thing with his people, we need to change, and he calls them to continue to make this change. Before we hear about his speech though, let’s talk about they decide to change their name. Is that common, weird, strange? Remind us of anything you guys? Are there other examples of people in the scriptures changing their names?

Hank Smith: 51:10 Happens frequently.

Prof. Lori Denning: 51:11 It does, doesn’t it, Hank? It’s remarkably common. Why do we do that? Why are people changing their names? What about that coincides with this spiritual change that they’ve had?

John Bytheway: 51:23 Yeah, it’s like a new start, a new identity.

Prof. Lori Denning: 51:27 Oh, new identity. It’s about a change in our identity. When you get married a lot of times you’ll change your name. When we take upon us the name of Christ, we become Christian, we become his sons and daughters. We take on a new identity. Oh, that’s powerful, John, I love that.

John Bytheway: 51:45 We all love that verse of Fourth Nephi, “There were no more Lamanites and Nephites, they were the children of Christ,” and it’s this higher unifying identity that, it was President Nelson recently with the YSAs. We’ve said it a dozen times, right, Hank? You are a child of God, a child of the covenant, a disciple of Christ. That’s how we introduced you, Lori, a disciple of Christ.

Prof. Lori Denning: 52:08 I hope so.

John Bytheway: 52:09 My dad had a wood shop and he could fix anything, and he worked on our cars every Saturday, and in the wood shop. And for years I thought my name was Intheway, because he always told me, “You’re in the way, you’re in the way.” And then later I learned it was Bytheway, I thought, oh okay, I used to be in the way.

Hank Smith: 52:18 Used to be in the way.

Prof. Lori Denning: 52:18 The jokes aside, the people come and they say, “We have so radically changed. We’ve changed our identities, who we are, how we see ourselves, that we want to change our names.” They meet with Ammon and it says, “And their priest.” This is a spiritual thing. And they say, “What should we go by?” And then they come up with this in 23:17, “And it came to pass that they called their names Anti-Nephi-Lehies, and they were called by this name and they were no more called Lamanites.” We don’t want to associate with that.

  52:59 Lots of theories of what this means, if we said anti it would be like against Nephi-Lehi. In Egyptian the letters seem to be of, or bi, or something one of. Yeah, so something like they have very much Egyptian or none, something like of Nephi and Lehi. But I love they’re going back to that original family, they’re not Lamanites, it’s a mouthful, I’m guessing in whatever language they spoke it was better, but maybe not.

  53:23 And then later the Nephites call them the people of Ammon. And I love that the King, Lamoni’s brother, changes his name to the same thing, like his regal name, his covenant name. This is such a big difference, and I wonder how often we take those identities that we’re given, daughter of God, child of Christ, member of the church, or our first names, our last names, member of the kingdom and say, that’s my identity. My identity isn’t what I do or my desires or what I ate this week or what football team I like, my fundamental identity is this, is my spiritual recognition to the Lord. Maybe I’ll start signing my paychecks with that, Lori Denning, Disciple of Christ.

John Bytheway: 54:07 And when we take upon us the name of Christ, that’s what we’re representing. And I did some reading up on the Anti-Nephi-Lehi thing, and you’re right, the Egyptian N-T-Y means he of, or the one of. It helped my students a lot, and me too, because I thought anti sounds like against, but how many names in the Book of Mormon are anti? Antiparah, Antiomno, the Mount Antipas. So Antiomno isn’t I’m against those Omnos, that’s a name, it’s a proper name. So Anti-Nephi-Lehi, I think anti maybe is a name, that helps me to see, especially if that Egyptian interpretation is true, we are one of Lehi and Nephi.

Prof. Lori Denning: 54:48 Oh that’s beautiful.

Hank Smith: 54:49 Taylor Halverson pointed out to me that remember one is a description, antichrist, it’s not a name, one is an actual name, Anti-Nephi-Lehi.

John Bytheway: 55:02 Like Antiparah or Antipas.

Prof. Lori Denning: 55:04 Yeah, they have a lot of those, like Grace, Patience. There were a lot of virtues there for a while in the 1600s and 1700s, so their names were Thankful, Patience, Humility. I think those would always be really great wrestling names, is like Puffy Pants Denning or something, and you’re like, sounds really tough, but it’s goofy.

Hank Smith: 55:24 Puffy Pants Denning.

Prof. Lori Denning: 55:26 Flower Child Lori, and then you’re like a tough guy.

Hank Smith: 55:29 So when you say thankful, it could be a description, but it also can be a proper name, and they’re different things.

Prof. Lori Denning: 55:36 I love that.

Prof. Lori Denning: 55:37 My twin and I are adopted, and so we were given names at birth and then my parents when they adopted us, gave us new names. They pondered Stacey and Tracy. I’m glad they went with Lori and Lisa. There are lots of different names and then on my mission I was Hermana Denning. We just have different titles and I think about how those identities change and are given to us by different people where we take on the name of Christ. That’s that ultimate definition of who we are.

  56:03 Like you said, John, it just brings us up a level. We’re not Lamanites and Lemuelites, but we are children of Christ and that helps me understand what they were doing. They were trying to change who they were, name that reflected how they felt and what they had become as they became converted to the Lord. And so maybe if you did have to come up with your own name or just as an idea, I think it’s a great thought exercise is to say, “Outside of being a child of Christ or a disciple of Christ, what name would you hope to give yourself?”

  56:33 Would you be Thankful Lori? Would you be Patient Hank? What would you be, Son of Thunder John? What nickname or identity are you hoping to be known by? Because these people picked something really strong and particular to them and they were so strong about it they said they were no more called Lamanites. They completely abandoned that definition of themselves because it didn’t reflect who they were. That’s how different this conversion was for them. How poignant joining the gospel of Jesus Christ was.

  57:05 The next thing then is the New King, Anti-Nephi-Lehi, he takes on that name and he gives the speech. After he gives a speech. They’re like, “You guys, we need to take a vow. We need to make a covenant that will keep us from falling back on these old behaviors.” And the behavior and the issue or identity that they wanted to distance themselves from is war, they say murders.

John Bytheway: 57:28 Yeah. In verse 17 it says, “They took their swords and all the weapons which were used for the shedding of man’s blood and they did bury them up deep in the earth. And this they did it being in their view, a testimony to God and also to men that they never would use weapons again for the shedding of man’s blood, and this they did vouching and covenanting with God that rather than shed the blood of their brethren, they would give up their own lives. And rather than take away from a brother, they would give unto him, and rather than spend their days in idleness, they would labor abundantly with their hands.”

Prof. Lori Denning: 58:02 There are a couple of things that just jumped out at me. Just little phrase in verse 18. In their view, a testimony, this was something that they didn’t have to do. This was so important to them that they wanted to say this was a witness. This was a testimony of that conversion to God, but also to men. We are different. They’re going to take their swords. I brought a sword today, this was the first sword I brought home from Spain from my mission. It was kind of tiny actually. It’s called the Colander. I’m not sure. They had this kind of sword, right? They might’ve had an obsidian sword, but their weapons were so important to them that they were going to get rid of them so far that they couldn’t go get them. They didn’t keep them in the closet or sell them at the swap meet. They bury them.

  58:51 They bury them, and I’m like, wow, what if though they have to go to war? What if something bad happens? These are like ninjas. This is their special skill. Maybe they could use it for good. And they’re like, “No. No matter what happens, we will never do it again.” And we’re going to see over and over again where they’re going to be tested immediately.

Hank Smith: 59:14 Lori, I see in this chapter that word deep, “They did bury them deep in the earth.” I see it again 16 and 17. I have written in my scriptures here that part of repentance is trying or making it so that your sins are inaccessible. Here comes this war and they’re like, “You know what? Forget about our promise. Let’s get our weapons. Where are they?” “Oh, they’re 30 feet down.” My sin is inaccessible. They didn’t hang the weapons on the wall and go, “We’ll never use those again.” Even if I am tempted, it’s not available to me.

  59:51 I’ve had college students who struggled on their phone, whether with pornography or time-wasting, so they went and got a flip phone. They turned in their smartphone and got a flip phone and temptation is reduced quite a bit because it’s not available. I buried it deep in the earth and people would ask them, “Hey, why’d you get a flip phone?” And they’ll say, “I’m just trying to manage my time.”

Prof. Lori Denning: 1:00:15 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 1:00:17 It’s maybe not a weapon of war, I guess a phone can be a weapon of war, but I like the idea of they buried them deep in the earth.

Prof. Lori Denning: 1:00:25 Can I share a story about when I had to make a change like this? I don’t come out looking great on these stories, just by the way. But before I served a formal mission in Spain, I was on the debate team, the speech and debate team. I had learned to argue and to use words and language, and I was good at it. I competed in college and got gold medals. And then when I got to Spain, I had always loved the scriptures. I remember them pretty well, and I was pretty good at Spanish. I’m like, “I’ve got these gifts that the Lord has given me so that I think I can teach.” I started to get a little bit prideful.

  1:01:05 There was another group of people in our community from another religion that also proselyte. We started to talk to them. They would run into them all the time and they would talk to us, and at first it was just easy. Well, we started to debate a little. We used to call it bible bashing, and they told us, “Don’t do it.” And I was like, “Oh, well, I’m not doing it. I’m just talking.”

  1:01:25 And then I started to get prouder and prouder of my debate skills and my Bible bashing so much so that I had notes, I started taking notes and practicing at home, even got some of their pamphlets and documents and I would mark them up and I was spending a lot of time, my free time in the evening, preparing for these Bible bashes on the corner. I thought, “I am defending the church. I’m doing this good thing.”

  1:01:51 One day we meet down on this corner. It was a big plaza. There are some basically sister missionaries for this other Faith Community. We’re out on a literal street corner in Europe and I’ve got my name badge on and I’m wearing my skirt and the whole thing, and I’ve got my scriptures and we’re arguing and I’m like flipping, there’s even times when I’m pounding with my finger into the scriptures. “That’s not what that says.” And then you’re like, “This is what it says.”

  1:02:15 And they’re like, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. And I’m going and going and I’m like, “Man, I am debating. I’m navigating. Oh, I am winning every argument.” Goes on for quite a while. I just remember looking down at my scriptures. I was so intense on these points I was making. In the meantime, the elders had shown up on the square because that’s where we usually made street contacts that morning and they see what’s going on, so they come over. I was so engrossed in the conversation that I didn’t even know they were there. And I suddenly feel this insistent poke on my outside shoulder, poke, poke, poke. Then I say in Spanish, “Como? What? What?” And it’s the Elder. And he says in English, “Hermana, Sister. She’s crying.”

  1:02:58 And I look up and I see the woman, of the two women I’m talking to, just looking down and tears are just streaming down her face. And instantly I realized what I had done. I had taken my special gifts and I had weaponized them, and I had made someone else feel terrible. Come to find out she was a brand new convert to that religion, and she was so excited to go out and share about the gospel of Jesus Christ that she came over to just talk about it, and I lay into her.

  1:03:41 As I realize and the guilt washes over me in just a second, I remembered kind of even tilting my shirt back like that name badge, I can’t even represent him in this moment. How have I done this? All those skills that the Lord had blessed me with, I had used for bad, for evil, and I had taken someone’s testimony of the Savior and shattered it.

  1:04:06 I got home that night. “How did I do this? They told us not to do this. They said it never brings the spirit. It’s never a good idea.” Took all my notes and I took the pamphlets and we lived in a high rise apartment so I couldn’t bury them deep, but I had a little pot and I took it out to our little balcony that’s like one foot wide, and I burned them. I was like, “I am never going to do that again. I will never use those talents that the Lord has blessed me with to tear down someone’s testimony of the Savior or their faith in God or anything like that.”

  1:04:41 Now, I have been tempted. There have been times social media love me that you’re like, “Oh, I can answer that.” Or someone’s attacking the church that I would love to wade in, but I remember the vow that I made as I repented, “I will never do this again. I will never weaponize the skills and blessings that I’ve been given to tear down another soul.”

  1:05:09 This story really resonates with me. This is my story. This is what I did, and I’m not able to ever go back and find that woman or talk to her. But I hope that I’ve used my skills for good and to build the kingdom rather than tear down someone else. When I look at these stories again, I’m not always Ammon. I’m not always Alma. I’m the person that has a weapon of war. Someone that brings contention, or a failing or, something that is harmful to myself or others, and I need to bury it deep.

  1:05:46 I need to covenant that I’m not going to do that anymore and change. And the good news is through the Savior, I can become fully converted. I can change my very identity and I can become something new. Now, I’m a teacher of the gospel instead of a basher of others. And so he has made my weapons bright. Instead of being stained, they’ve become skills that I hope to continue to use.

Hank Smith: 1:06:15 It reminds me of Luke chapter nine, when there’s a Samaritan village that refuses to let the Savior stay there and James and John turn to Jesus and say, “Hey, Let’s command fire to consume them.” Jesus gets upset, but he doesn’t get upset at the Samaritan village and he says to James and John, “You know not what manner spirit you are of.” It says simply, “They went to another village. Let it go.”

Prof. Lori Denning: 1:06:45 We live in a society that’s so easy to find contention. My social media feed finds negative things far more than it wants to highlight positive, right? It wants to get a reaction and a rise out of you. Pokes, and pokes, and pokes at all your weaknesses and builds and tells us, “Go after those things.” And that’s righteous, and you can beat people up online or do all these terrible things, and it’s so easy to fall into.

  1:07:09 And here Mormon has selected the scripture to say, “You can change too.” There’s great hope that these people that were, “We should go to war.” “You’ll have more luck with them if you had killed them.” As the Nephites say, and then they’re like the best ones, they’re the best people. And you’re like, “There’s hope for me too.” And that’s the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ, that I can become a new creature.

  1:07:33 I take on his name. I’m not the Lori that fought on that street corner. I’m Disciple Lori. I’m somebody new, and that is exciting. I can take that experience and say, “Don’t do it again. Remember how you feel.” But I am not that person. I’m positive I have never done that again. I’ve buried that deep. It’s unlike swords. It’s right here at the tip of my tongue, pardon the pun. I can’t wait to debate. I can’t wait to use it again.

  1:08:00 I have to be really cautious. But I think these stories are for us and they tell us about how the Savior can change us and He can change our identity and our very Spirits as we become converted to Him, and that gives me great joy.