Lessons on the Book of Mormon
Lesson No. Twenty-Four
A Latter Day Example of the Sons of Mosiah Among the Lamanites - Mosiah 17-22
The Book of Mormon describes the relationship between the Nephites and the Lamanites:
The attitude of the Nephites towards the Lamanites was that they were a “stiffnecked people whose hearts delight in the shedding of blood; whose days have been spent in the grossest iniquity; whose ways have been the ways of a transgressor from the beginning…And moreover they did say: Let us take up arms against them, that we destroy them and their iniquity out of the land, lest they overrun us and destroy us” (Alma 26:24-25).
The attitude of the Lamanites towards the Nephites was “that they were wronged in the wilderness…and they were also wronged while crossing the sea; And again, that they were wronged while in the land of their first inheritance”…and they were “wroth with him (Nephi) upon the waters…And again, they were wroth with him when they arrived in the promised land…and they sought to kill him (Mosiah 10:12-16).
They both taught their children to hate – What was said about the Lamanites also applied to the Nephites: “And thus they have taught their children that they should hate them, and that they should murder them, and that they should rob and plunder them, and do all they could to destroy them; therefore they have an eternal hatred towards the children of Nephi” (Mosiah 10:17).
The sons of Mosiah’s service among the Lamanites turned hatred into love (please study Alma 17-22) – They did this by not only serving the Lamanites but they also lived with them, and ate with them, and considered them brothers and sisters, children of the same Heavenly Parents.
An opportunity to learn to love people of another culture – In July 1990, our family moved to Louisville Kentucky and I began my service as president of the Kentucky Louisville Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Shortly after we arrived the Church started a media campaign. People were invited to call and ask for a free Book of Mormon or a video presentation about the Church. These were delivered by missionaries. As a result we received hundreds of “media referrals” mostly from the inner cities of Louisville and Cincinnati. In living and working with these good people our missionaries learned that love and service, even though cultures and backgrounds are very different, changed their hearts, and the hearts of those they loved and served.
Love and service brings blessings – When missionaries began calling on media referrals, their white shirts and ties identified them as not belonging in the area. But when the “locals” saw that our missionaries were friendly, and desired to serve them, and lived in their neighborhoods, and were anxious to eat and be with them, and were kind to their children, they were invited into many homes. They played basketball with the young men of the area, and rather than being a threat to them, their new friends became their defenders. (Compare Ammon’s experiences as recorded in Alma 17)
Our missionaries won the hearts of many good people “by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge…without hypocrisy, and without guile” (D&C 121:41-42).
They came to love the people and they felt just as did Ammon, one of the sons of Mosiah: “Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen” (Alma 26:37).
Just as the sons of Mosiah had great missionary success among the Lamanites, our missionaries had great missionary success among the people of they worked with. Thriving branches of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were established in the inner cities of both Louisville and Cincinnati.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the NAACP, two organizations with different yet similar histories, have come together and entreat all to follow the principals we learned in Kentucky: “Unitedly we declare that the answers to racism, prejudice, discrimination and hate will not come from government or law enforcement alone. Solutions will come as we open our hearts to those whose lives are different than our own, as we work to build bonds of genuine friendship, and as we see each other as the brothers and sisters we are — for we are all children of a loving God” (Joint statement to the media, June 8, 2020).