Mormon 1

In this reading, we begin the days of Mormon, the historian and prophet and warleader. He starts his own record with:

"And now I, Mormon, make a record of the things which I have both seen and heard, and call it the Book of Mormon" (1).

This amazing man. Every time I get to this point in the scriptures, I begin to cry. In about 322 AD, "the whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous almost, as it were the sand of the sea" (7). In in about 401 AD, all of the Nephite people are destroyed and hunted down, Mormon's son Moroni wandered the land by himself (Mormon 8).

80 years.

Then they were gone.



President Gordon B. Hinckley said:

“May I remind you for a moment of the greatness and of the goodness of this man Mormon. He lived on this American continent in the fourth century after Christ. When Mormon was a boy of ten, the historian of the people, whose name was Ammaron, described him as ‘a sober child, and . . . quick to observe’ (Mormon 1:2). Ammaron gave him a charge that when he reached the age of twenty-four, he was to take custody of the records of the generations who had preceded him. 

“The years that followed Mormon’s childhood were years of terrible bloodshed for his nation, the result of a long and vicious and terrible war between those who were called Nephites and those who were called Lamanites. 

“Mormon later became the leader of the armies of the Nephites and witnessed the carnage of his people, making it plain to them that their repeated defeats came because they forsook the Lord and He in turn abandoned them. . . . 

“He wrote to our generation with words of warning and pleading, proclaiming with eloquence his testimony of the resurrected Christ. He warned of calamities to come if we should forsake the ways of the Lord as his own people had done. 

“Knowing that his own life would soon be brought to an end, as his enemies hunted the survivors, he pleaded for our generation to walk with faith, hope, and charity, declaring, ‘Charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him’ (Moroni 7:47). 

“Such was the goodness, the strength, the power, the faith, the prophetic heart of the prophet-leader Mormon” ("Mormon Should Mean 'More Good'").

The Book of Mormon is for us. We are to learn from the records that have been given to us. So much sacrifice was put into getting these scriptures to us. Do we treat them like the precious word of God they are? Are we obedient? Are we listening to God?