My Mormon Moments With the Book of Mormon: Nephi's Leading by Following

      Alright so as I have mentioned before I am taking Book of Mormon at Brigham Young University. It is a required class to graduate for my friends who didn't know! Even if it wasn't I'd still want to take it just saying. As a part of our weekly assignments we as a class have been asked to share what we learned with friends or family, so I thought I'd make a blog post of it this week and we will see how it goes. I will post links and try my best to explain what is going on for my friends who are not familiar with the book.
      In 1 Nephi 4:34 Nephi, an ancient North American Prophet, faithfully admonishes, “Surely the Lord hath commanded us to do this thing; and shall we not be diligent in keeping the commandments of the Lord.” Within the last four chapters Nephi has told his murmurous brothers (Nephi has two older brothers who were complaining about going back to get their records from a leader in their town after Nephi's family had fled the city in hopes of escaping from it to save their father's life) this same thing like 2 other times (the older brothers never wanted to do anything outside their comfort zone and Nephi was the only one to man up). It amazes me how persistent Nephi was in being a leader despite opposition from his family, even his older brothers who should have been examples for him. He does  not give into their petty complainants because he sees the bigger picture and knows the Lord will help him accomplish hard things. What a leader! It is just like in our day God has asked us to keep his commandments, and it takes faith a diligence to stay with it. It also reminds me of a program I was listening to and I think it was one of the apostles talking about the mission age change (the age for mormon missionaries was changed in October so girls could serve at 19 and boys at 18, which is intense considering these young adults give up family and media to serve the Lord for 18 to 24 months) and pretty much what he said was “the new announcement is something tremendous to ask of youth at even a younger age, but the Lord has given the commandment and we as church leaders expect them to rise up and we know they can do it.” I love the expectation our Heavenly Father gives us and the unfailing love and faith he has for us! He knows we as his little children can do hard things especially with Him there to help us. This is a comfort to me knowing as long as I am keeping the commandments and trying hard to draw closer to God, he will take care of me as I am away from home, young, and clueless. Nephi still leaves me in awe because he was all the above and didn't have his family support him and obviously had way more faith.

Nephi and his older brothers (Nephi is the one who looks like a leader)