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Book of Mormon LESSON #4
(1NEPHI 12-14)
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"THE THINGS WHICH I SAW WHILE I WAS CARRIED AWAY IN THE SPIRIT"
by Ted L. Gibbons
 QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
I bless you with increased understanding of the Book of Mormon. I promise you that from this moment forward, if [you] will daily sup from its pages and abide by its precepts, God will pour out upon each child of Zion and the Church a blessing hitherto unknown. (Pres. Ezra Taft Benson, Ensign, May 1986, p. 78)
INTRODUCTION:
Can you feel Nephi’s heartache from the following verse? O the pain, and the anguish of my soul for the loss of the slain of my people! For I, Nephi, have seen it, and it well nigh consumeth me before the presence of the Lord; but I must cry unto my God: Thy ways are just (2 Nephi 26:7).
In the visions of 1 Nephi 12 and 13, Nephi saw the future of the promised land. He saw the Nephites and the Lamanites and the Gentiles. Among other things, he saw that
. . . the seed of my brethren did contend against my seed, according to the word of the angel; and because of the pride of my seed, and the temptations of the devil, I beheld that the seed of my brethren did overpower the people of my seed (1 Nephi 12:19).
Can you imagine your own feelings if you were to discover by revelation that the descendants of your siblings would one day destroy your own posterity?
But Nephi never stumbles. His confidence that the ways of God are just is absolute. He continues on throughout his life doing what has to be done when it has to be done. The understanding of what will be done by the descendants of Laman and Lemuel never restrains him from loving them and preaching to them and encouraging them. I stand in awe at the power of this prophet, and his unfaltering willingness to do the right thing.
Nephi also saw us in our day. He saw the formation of the Great and Abominable church, and the triumph of the Kingdom of God in the last days.
> Read the Entire Book of Mormon Lesson
 DESERT BLOSSOMS #121
by Ted L. Gibbons
Joseph Fielding Smith was the oldest man to be called to serve as President of the Church. He was sustained President when he was 93 years old. Lorenzo Snow was the next oldest—84, and Wilford Woodruff next, at 82. President David O. McKay was the oldest to occupy the presidency; he served some four months beyond his ninety‑sixth birthday. President Smith died just seventeen days short of his ninety‑sixth birthday (“The Soul of a Prophet,” Ensign, August 1972, pp. 42-46).
He was born on July 19, 1876, and died July 2, 1972. He was a child of promise and of prophetic potential:
President Smith was born as a child of promise. Asked recently in my presence how he got his name, he said, “I came by it honestly.” The fact is that his father, President Joseph F. Smith, had three of his five wives at the time, and had promised Julina Lambson that her first son would be named Joseph Fielding, Jr.
Julina had three daughters but no sons, and so she went before the Lord and, like Hannah of old, “vowed a vow.” Her promise: that if the Lord would give her a son, “she would do all in her power to help him be a credit to the Lord and to his father.” The Lord hearkened to her prayers, and she kept her promise to him; and he also manifest to her, before the birth of the man child, that her son would be called to serve in the Council of the Twelve (Bruce R. McConkie, “Joseph Fielding Smith: Apostle, Prophet, Father in Israel,” Ensign, Aug. 1972, 29).
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