The following transcript is intended to aid in your study. However, while we try to go through the transcript, our transcripts are primarily computer-generated and often contain errors. Please forgive the transcripts’ imperfections.

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[00:00:00] Tammy Uzelac Hall: So one of my closest friends lost her father during COVID and then her mother only a few weeks ago, another dear friend who has longed all of her adult life for a child. And after many IVF treatments, she became pregnant and then unexpectedly lost her baby boy and buried him before the holidays. A very close cousin is currently awaiting the results of an MRI to see if her son's cancer has returned.

With all the heartache, suffering, and devastation going on in the world, I can't help but wonder the question, why do bad things happen to good people? Listen, I know the church answer and I understand that. And I've read the scriptures, but for reals. I have been thinking about this for months.

And then I read the introduction to this week's come follow me lesson, which challenged my thinking instead of asking, why do bad things happen to good people? What if instead we ask, what do good people do when bad things happen? So that is the approach we're going to take as we study and learn from first Nephi chapter 16 through 22, which is filled with bad things happening to good people.

And out of this approach, it might be seen that when those bad things do happen, it is the place that we are most likely to meet God. And if bad things happening is a requirement for meeting God then many of you have met him a hundred times over. Welcome to the Sunday on Monday study group, a Deseret bookshelf plus original brought to you by LDS living where we take the come follow me lesson for the week.

And we really dig into the scriptures together. I'm your host, Tammy. Use a black call. Now, if you're new to our study group, I'm Tammy. Please follow the link in our description that will explain how you can best use this podcast to enhance your come follow me study. Just like a few of my friends from education week, I just have to give you all a shout out.

Thank you for saying hello to me. We have Jennifer Emery, Julie Wolfenden, Colleen Magleby, Cheryl V. Barney, Brinley Cecil, Melanie Lang, Christy Rogers, Sherry Butler, and Anne Beckett. Ladies. I loved meeting you. Thank you. Now, another awesome thing about my study group is each week we're joined by two of our friends.

And so it's a little bit different each week. And I am so excited about today because we have, okay, we've got an old timer. We love her. She's not old, but she's been on and she's a regular. We should say.

I'm old.

[00:02:21] Jalyn Peterson: That's fine.

[00:02:22] Tammy Uzelac Hall: All right. You are. We're both old. Who are we kidding? We've passed the mark.

It's Jalyn Peterson. Hello. Hello. Hello.

[00:02:29] Jalyn Peterson: Hello. Hello.

[00:02:30] Tammy Uzelac Hall: How you doing? Oh, I miss your face. I just

[00:02:32] Jalyn Peterson: love you.

I know. Quick story. I was at my work Christmas party and there's a new coworker and he has these little boys, like maybe, I don't know, this kid's probably three or four, right? And he walks past, and now that I've just let the hair go gray and plus I'm really tall, so I'm thinking it was the tall thing.

But he walked past me and I was like, Hey. And he was like, wow, how old are you? I know, real old. Real old kid. Mom was so embarrassed. And she was so embarrassed, but I laughed so hard. I'm like, really old. I'm super old.

[00:03:07] Tammy Uzelac Hall: I'm a real old timer. Oh, that's awesome. I know. Oh my gosh, Jalyn. I love you. Okay. Jalyn and I, we are thrilled to introduce you to our new guest because when I told Jalyn about it, she was like, Oh my gosh, that is awesome.

Like you were as excited as I am. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. This is who it is. We have Naelly Lavanda. Now I asked her to actually say, Naelly, say your name for us because it's much more beautiful in your dialect.

[00:03:31] Naelly Lavanda: Hi everybody. I'm Naelly Lavanda. By the way, Lavanda, it's a lavender in English.

Oh,

[00:03:38] Jalyn Peterson: how I

[00:03:42] Tammy Uzelac Hall: love you.

Okay. I met Naelly through the podcast and Naelly, tell us a little bit about yourself. Where do you live? What do you do? What's your story?

[00:03:50] Naelly Lavanda: I was born in Ecuador, but I currently living in Milan in Italy and I've been living here. since I was six years old. So I'm basically more Italian than Ecuadorian, and I've been living here all, all of my life.

I've met here the church, I met here the missionaries, everything happened here, so my heart is here in Italy. And I'm 23 years old. I am a young adult here in, in Italy, and I started recently a podcast in Italian. It is the first podcast by, run by a member of the church here in Italy. And I got to know the Sunday or Monday podcast through a friend that I met in Prague.

And they told me about Tammy. And so I said, maybe I can write to her and ask her some advices. And she was so kind that she told me not only I will help you, but I will have you on my podcast. So I was very excited when I read that message and I'm very excited to be here with

[00:04:52] Tammy Uzelac Hall: you. Oh

you are so generous.

I invited her because now she's going to see how the magic happens. Or the mess, whatever you want to call it.

[00:05:01] Jalyn Peterson: But how cool that like you're the first, like you're in Italy doing the same thing we're doing here, like that. I love that. And for those of you who go online and look, because Naelly is beautiful.

Oh,

[00:05:15] Tammy Uzelac Hall: beautiful. Yeah. Okay. You, you can just tell it's going to be such a fun discussion. We have so many different aspects, so many different opinions, viewpoints. I really am looking forward to this, especially the way we started this idea because we've all wondered why do bad things happen to good people.

But this idea what do good people do when bad things happen is just the perfect way to study first Nephi chapter 16 through 22. So grab your scriptures and whether you are studying alone with family or friends, let's all dig into first Nephi chapter 16 through 22 K you two, I ask at the beginning of every episode, what did the Holy Ghost teach you this week as you read and studied first Nephi chapter 16 through 22.

[00:05:56] Naelly Lavanda: So while I was reading this these chapters for this week, I was reading this, the first one, the 16, and I got really interested in the two different point of view that we can see here. At the beginning of the chapter it says that they were obviously having difficult times in the wilderness, and I cannot imagine how bad was it I'm living in a really good comfort life, so I cannot imagine how bad it was for them.

And we see that the brothers of Nephi, Laman and Lemuel, start to murmur. Instead, Nephi starts to have faith. And I find really interesting this because these are the two options that we can have when we are going through bad moments. We can either, either decides to murmur against our difficulties against God, or we can choose to have faith and actually be humble and say, okay, what can I learn from this?

And I think that we can really learn from Nephi, second point of view about trials and difficulties.

[00:07:03] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Maybe. Thank you. You're absolutely spot on with those reactions. Thank you for sharing that. What about you, Jalyn?

[00:07:11] Jalyn Peterson: I love this block of scripture, right? When, especially when Nephi's commanded to go build the ship.

And the thing that comes back again to me is how much faith they had to have. Just in the first place to where in first Nephi 16 verse 7 It talks about that They took the daughters of Ishmael the wife and they just I just thought how much faith it took for them They're out in the wilderness. They don't know where they're going, but they're still gonna marry and have kids right And the other thing about it is throughout these scriptures, there's a few times where it's, we just learned it is God's ways are not man's ways.

When they build the ship, he says, he said, I'm going to teach you to make a ship that's not after the manner of men, and then in chapter 19 verse seven. It says the things which some men esteem to be of great worth, both to the body and soul, others said it not, and trample under their feet.

Yea, even the very God of Israel do men trample under their feet. And I think there's so many, you know me, I'm a self help junkie. And there's so many things where you can look to the world and as to how to live and how to conduct our lives and, how to make it through difficult times.

But. God's ways are not man's ways. And if we're searching too far outside of our own faith and the book of scriptures we already have and the prophets we've been given we're not really getting to the heart of it or being led to. The higher way that could actually be a better way to solve the problems that we face.

And I think as God's ways and man's ways are just ever increasingly diverging, right? And so I think those will get further and further apart, right? As we've been. Taught they will. And that's all Nephi did the whole time. He just, every time Laman and Lemuel would forget, like they'd seen an angel for crying out loud.

They'd been, and he still had to quote scripture and keep them in remembrance of all those things. So if we're not doing that, then life is going to be a lot harder.

[00:09:27] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I like how you brought that up. And that God's ways are not man's ways. That's a great perspective to have as we study the hard things that people are going through and our own hard things, because that is what's so striking about this is that God doesn't cause bad things to happen at all, but it's with these bad things that we get to learn God's ways.

We're going to share a really cool quote later on about how these things help us to become like our heavenly parents. So you are spot on both of you with what you shared. It's just a great. Introduction then to these chapters. And so in the next segment, we are going to do this. We're just going to dive into these chapters and start discussing all of the things that are going on in these family members lives and what they do with it.

So we'll start that next.

Segment 2

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[00:10:19] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Okay. So first Nephi chapter 16, the entire this is probably one of my favorite chapters in the book of Mormon, when it comes to Hebraisms. Now we've talked about this word before, but it's something from the Hebrew language. That is in this book that there's no way Joseph Smith would have known. And it is so cool.

And I want to show it to you. So grab a highlighter or something to mark your scriptures. Okay. And here's what I want you to do. Starting in first Nephi chapter 16 verse one, I'm going to tell you what to highlight. It says, and now it came to pass highlight. It came to pass. We did this five years ago, but it's worth doing again for anybody who's new that didn't hear this.

Now scan your eyes throughout the chapter. And every time you see it came to pass, I want you to highlight it. Okay. And it's going to be a lot. So just go. And I will even guide you through it's in verse two. Okay. Then it's in verse four. There it is again. Verse five, verse seven, verse nine, verse 10, verse 11, verse 12, verse 13, and 14, and 15.

Do those.

Then you're going to find it again in 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. Look at that. Just go.

[00:11:49] Naelly Lavanda: Highlight them. So many

[00:11:51] Tammy Uzelac Hall: of them, but we're not done. Then you go to verse 30 and you're going to see it again in 30, 31, 32. There's two in 32, just FYI, 33, 34, 35. And then your last one is in verse 39.

Okay. This chapter in the Book of Mormon has the most, and it came to pass references. There are 31 times it said in 39 verses. Now we joke a lot. In fact, there is a fun quote by Mark Twain, and he said that if you took out all of the, it came to passes, the Book of Mormon would be a pamphlet.

[00:12:32] Naelly Lavanda: That is so funny.

That is true.

[00:12:34] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Mark Twain. When I was starting to read the scriptures, the one time as a family, we read the book of Mormon all the way through, Lily was really little and she wanted to read, but she couldn't read. And so she was our, it came to pass ambassador. And any time we'd point to her and she would say it came to the past, like a little kid voice.

It came to pass.

[00:12:55] Jalyn Peterson: Oh my gosh. I can just see you're doing it. That's

[00:12:57] Tammy Uzelac Hall: so cute. So cute.

So cute. Now this is crazy. Cause you're like, why is it so many times and why is it so prolific throughout the book of Mormon? It is everywhere in the book of Mormon. Now here's what you want to know. This is so cool.

So it's estimated that the phrase, it came to pass. Appears over 700 times in the King James version of the Bible, but in the actual Hebrew Bible, it appears over 1, 200 times. It's a very common phrase. Now, why is there a discrepancy? Because when the translators of the King James version of the Bible noticed the redundance of the phrase, it came to pass, they were actually at the liberty to draw from a multitude of similar expressions such as, and it happened or, and it became so, or, and it was that in the day.

So they just fix it. Cause they were like, yeah, that's a lot of it came to passes. And I often wonder when Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were translating the plates did Oliver, who was a teacher. Did he ever questioned this superfluous use? Was he like a serious Joseph? We're going to use it that many times in this chapter.

I, I want to know, I, what does he ever like Joseph, let's just put a different thing in. And Joseph was like, I can't, it says it came to pass. We're just putting exactly what I'm told to put in. And so they put in all of these, it came to pass. Now. Why is it so often in first Nephi chapter 16? This is what's so cool.

The phrase that came to pass appears in narratives. It's used as a device for telling a story, which is exactly what first Nephi chapter 16 is. It's Nephi telling the story of his family and it came to pass. It came to pass. You are not going to find it came to pass in Hebrew poetry, literary, or prophetic writings.

So I wanted to test this theory. So I turned to second Nephi chapter four verses 16 through 35, and we're going to study that in a couple of weeks. This is the Psalm of Nephi, a Psalm or a poem. You will not find it came to pass anywhere in that entire Psalm. So again, how could Joseph Smith have known that there's no way he wrote the Book of Mormon.

Things like this just give me more, a stronger testimony of who the prophet Joseph Smith is. And so Nephi's psalm is consistent with the use of, it came to pass and I really like this. Now I remember another way that someone once taught me, it came to pass. And this was fun before I knew this Hebrew version I had in my scriptures, it came to pass.

It did not come to stay. So every time they tell their stories, everything that Nephi is about to tell us is hardship. It is yuck. It is difficulty. And I liked the idea that it did come to pass, like it didn't stay. It did pass away. It did get better. The Lord helped them in all of their things. And so then when I go back and read some of the stories in the Old Testament where they use it came to pass, there usually are situations that were difficult and it came to pass that there was a woman who couldn't have a child.

And I've read so many stories that start difficulty with it came to pass. So there's our little Hebraism. Go ahead, Jalyn.

To

[00:15:58] Jalyn Peterson: me, I always thought it was like they're, yadda, yadda, yadda . If I said in these block of scriptures of they had so much trials, they couldn't even write, a portion of it.

We only get a portion of what's in there. And so you know how when you're telling a story, you're You know, unless you're my sister, Jennifer, who will like, and then she was wearing a purple dress. And then, there were these behind her. And I'm like, how does this relate to the story? Just get me to the story, right?

Just get me to the point of it. And so I always feel like that's what they're doing is and here, stuff happened, but here's the important part of it.

[00:16:30] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh, that's a great way to look at that too. Yeah. Because he uses these to set up each one of the stories he's about to tell us and it came to pass.

Here's what happened. Wow.

[00:16:40] Naelly Lavanda: Yeah. I really love the way you said Tammy, like it is a story that he told us, but it was maybe a bad story, but they went through it and with God, especially now. So it's really cool to see that, when we read those, it came to pass. Because we can remember that. That they went through it.

And it is the same with us in all our trials. And it came to pass in my life, this and this, but I went through it. So I love that. Thank you for sharing that.

[00:17:06] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Yes. In fact, let's try this in your own lives. Is there something you could start the story with? It came to pass. Just right now in your own many times

[00:17:16] Naelly Lavanda: since the beginning.

Let's try this. I

can go first. My father left my mom when I was three months old. So and he came to pass it and I grew up without my mom for four years. I grew up with my grandma and it came to pass that I came here in Italy and I had to, rebuild a life with my mom because I didn't know she was my mom.

I was so little that I didn't know that, and so it came to pass that I need to met her and met her new husband and it came to pass to start a new life here. So as I told you since the beginning, I can say that. And it came to pass, but I'm here and I know that all those moments helped me to be who I am now.

And especially with my faith with my journey with God, it helped me a lot. So I'm very grateful for those moments, even though they were very sad. And it's still sad to remember those now, but I'm glad that I went through

[00:18:12] Tammy Uzelac Hall: those.

[00:18:15] Jalyn Peterson: That is a perfect example. It was. It was a great example. And I thought about it like in telling my own life story, that is the connector where you'd go.

For Naelly, you'd be like, and it came to pass. She joined the church and it came to pass. She started a podcast and she went on a mission and there's those things of some of the minutiae maybe isn't as important, but it does it connects those important periods of your life, good or bad.

[00:18:40] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Great examples. Those are so fun examples. So there's our phrase. It came to pass. I hope everyone highlights that. Teach that please. People teach that to the people you know and love because again, it, for me, Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. There's just no other way. To deny it. Other first Nephi 16 is the one that taught me that.

So thank you. Okay. So here's what we're going to do then in the next segment, we are going to discover what exactly came to pass and what first Nephi 16 can teach us.

Segment 3

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[00:19:16] Tammy Uzelac Hall: So think back to the intro. Cause I mentioned some really difficult things that people I love are going through right now. Just take a brief moment and can you guys add any hardships to that list? Are there anyone, is there anybody, in love and maybe what they're going through?

Oh,

[00:19:32] Jalyn Peterson: people who I think about my clients and getting Alzheimer's and dementia trying to find out how that, where they're going to live, how I have clients who are failing in health and they've been living in their house for.

Something like 60 years. And so how do they get rid of these things that are so precious to them to downsize into like long term care? So just the aging process, right? My head, my face is sliding off my skull little by little, it's melting, that's not a real hardship.

But you have

[00:20:15] Tammy Uzelac Hall: clients who've lost everything, all their money and everything.

[00:20:20] Jalyn Peterson: Yeah. Especially when you look back to 2008, right? Like they, when we had the global financial crisis and they lost a lot and had to like, rebuild everything back. People with mental health struggles, people who the not being able to have kids when or where, how you want to relationships, losing them.

To love is to be hurt and that all comes along with, it's the opposition in all things, which is such a good, these chapters are very perfect at showing us of even in the face of opposition, right? There's these good things that come out of it. You just don't know that in the moment, right?

When you're heart's aching for those hardships, right?

[00:21:09] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Yeah. Naelly, what could you add to that list?

[00:21:11] Naelly Lavanda: I was the first people that came to my mind is actually this woman that I know since I was eight. She's like a second mom to me and she's going through a very hard divorce and I've been seeing her through these two years where she's going through it and it's very hard to see her because she's always been very happy and very confident.

And now seeing her in a very different way has I don't know. It's very hard to me. And also her daughters that are my best friends going through that, like losing their dad. And it's just very sad to see that. And living with them, those trials is very hard. And, you can ask why did that happen?

And she, when she married him she knew that he will be her eternal husband and now everything is ruined. And she keeps asking herself why this is happening. And so it's very hard also, because you don't know how to help those people in that exact moment, because they also, I think they need to understand by themselves first.

We can help them. We can support them. But until then they started the process, the personal process, it will be easier for them to also listen to our councils and our advices.

[00:22:28] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Thank you. Okay. Thanks for adding to your list. So here's what I want to show you when it comes to the list of hardships and sufferings.

If you have your come follow me manual, go straight to today's lesson. If you don't. I want you to do this. Go to the gospel library app. Okay. Click on that app on your phone. When you're in the app onto the button that says library, it's the little books down below, click library. And when you're in the library, then go click the come follow me button.

That'll pull up the come follow me manuals. Then you wanted to tap on the home and church book of Mormon 2024. That should be the very first icon. Then you're going to want to go to the month of February. And then click on our lesson today, which is first Nephi chapter 16 through 22. Okay. Now, once you're on that page, just scroll down until you get to the very first bullet, the very first lesson.

It should say the savior will help me face life's challenges. Do you guys see that? Yes. Okay. Now here's a kind of a fun fact. Do you see the little set of blue scriptures that are right there next to the title Uhhuh? ? Yes. So here's what you wanna know about the blue scripture for anyone, for everyone listening who's in a teaching position that little blue scripture means this is so cool.

It indicates that it's an activity or a lesson that's especially relevant to the youth. So if you're the type of purpose, I know it's not neat. They purposely put that in the manual this year. Every lesson will have a little set of blue scriptures for one main point that you need to teach the youth. So for anyone that teach, I don't even know if there's anybody listening that's planning their lesson while they're in sacrament meeting.

I am a teacher

[00:24:18] Naelly Lavanda: of the youth, so this is very helpful for me.

[00:24:21] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Okay. That's what you want to teach them when you get to this lesson. That's the, of all the lessons there are, that's going to be the most important thing that the Sunday school presidency decided teach this to the youth. So here's my question for you then, because I thought this was so interesting and I'd love to know your ideas.

Why do you think that this lesson, the savior will help me face life's challenges? Especially relevant to youth.

Oh,

[00:24:45] Jalyn Peterson: geez. The challenges youth have that just, I know I'm, I sound so old and this is why I am old, is because the, you look back and you're like, I couldn't have made it. I like the things I couldn't have gone through middle school and high school with social media.

I don't, I have no clue how they do it. And just the fact that we don't even let kids be kids anymore, right? . You got to know what college you're going to from the time you're a freshman and you better start getting A's on everything and take every prep class and, the ACT, it was like, are you going to go take it or you I guess we got to take it if we're going to go to college.

All right, I'll drive. And just we hopped in. Yes. Nobody you didn't know if you wanted to go to college, you just applied and you got in.

I got a

[00:25:33] Tammy Uzelac Hall: 12, I got a 12 on my ACT and my counselor called me and he's you're going to need to read. He showed me my score and I go, did I do good?

And he goes no, you did very bad.

[00:25:43] Jalyn Peterson: Very bad. You're going to need to retake it. 12 out of 10. Yeah. I did pretty good. I'm not sure how. I'm not sure how. It was like taking number two pencil and show up. Yeah. BYU on this day. So the challenges they are going to have to face that they do face daily. And the mental and emotional toll that must take on a young soul is just.

Honestly, I know, I'll say it again. I know I'm old. I walked a mile up, but it's still like when I look at what they have to go through, it is just, it's a whole different set of problems than what I had to deal with at their age. Yeah.

[00:26:31] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Naelly. What about you? Why would this lesson be relevant to the youth you teach?

[00:26:36] Naelly Lavanda: I think when we're young, we don't have much of experience. So everything can be, has a difficult time as a trial because we're not prepared for it. And when you're like, Much older, you already know that feeling. And so you're like, okay, I can go through this.

But when you're young, you don't know that. And so everything just hits you a lot. And it's been like, for me, I'm, I think I'm still very young. I still need to experience many things in life. It's just a way for us to gain that experience that we will have. And it will help us. Through our lives, and I think it's really important to know to rely on God during those times because when we were young, it's very easy to forget that part of our lives.

It's very easy because it's not our priority. We're not grew up with people like I, I was the only member of the church in my high school and it's pretty common here in Italy because. the church is not very big here. So it is very common for our youth to be the only member of the church. And that is really hard because it's true you can be a light, but surrounded by people that don't believe the same things as you, it's really difficult to go through those moments.

And so if you have God, if you remember that you have a God, because it's something that you also need to remember because he always be there. But sometimes you need to remember that because as I said before, it's easy to forget that he will help you through these. I love the scriptures in Alma seven, when it says that he went through all our trials, like all the trials, because he could understand us.

And so that's really important for us to remember that. Everything that we go going through, he will understand us and he will know how to help us because he came here.

[00:28:29] Tammy Uzelac Hall: That is awesome. Okay. So I'm going to quote you nearly at the very end of this segment, but I'm going to go back to what Jalyn said, because Jalyn, you said it takes an emotional toll on the young soul.

All of this stuff that we're going through, every person listening can recount something in their life that took an emotional toll on their little young soul. And that is exactly what's going on in first Nephi chapter 16 through 18. So I asked my guest to do this ahead of time. And for those of you listening, Grab two colors.

Now the colors I chose were blue and pink because blue to me meant hardship or bad things. And pink means good things. And so I asked my guests to go through first Nephi chapter 16 through 18 and just make a list of all the bad things that are happening to these people. Give me hit it. What did you

[00:29:17] Jalyn Peterson: find?

First off, they live in a tent and have to hunt for their own food. Let's just start with they live in a tent. They left. Yeah, no comfort at all. Laman and Lemuel's bows have already lost their spring and Nephi breaks his even though it was constructed of steel. So now they can't get food, which I'm always like, why were Lehman and Lemuel yelling at him?

Your bows have lost their spring. What did you do to do that? Cause they're like, can't believe you lost the broke the boat. And then Even their dad murmurs, and I think this is the only time we have any record of Lehigh actually going, what in the world have, God, what are we doing here? So then, Naelly said, there's no comfort.

They're out of food, the daughters of Ishmael, their dad dies they spend eight years in the wilderness. Yeah. Eight.

[00:30:11] Naelly Lavanda: The women having children in the wilderness I'm not a mother, but I think that was really hard for them, like the struggle of the women.

[00:30:20] Tammy Uzelac Hall: So hard. You're doing great. Keep going.

What other hard things did they have to do or go through?

[00:30:27] Naelly Lavanda: In general I brought loneliness for Nephi especially because he didn't have any support from his family during that time. I think that he was the as he's related to all these stories, he says that he was the only one having faith and like relying on God and everybody was murmuring with him and God.

So I think that he had felt very lonely in that moment. So I think that was really hard for him.

[00:30:53] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Ooh. I

[00:30:53] Jalyn Peterson: like that.

That's a really good one. Yeah. Cause I really think that is one of, especially when we're talking about youth, I think that's one of the biggest emotional hurdles that they have.

And so if they know where to look because Nephi always knew, even if his dad failed, he went and asked God, he always knew where to go for truth and where to go, get that, but definitely loneliness. And then in 17 verse six, it says, We had suffered many affliction and much difficulty, yay, even so much that we cannot write them all.

Then they, then in chapter 17, Nephi's asked to build a ship. He doesn't have tools. And now, and they're being given instruction on how to do it. They don't even, they're not even building it in the way they know how to build it. Yeah. And just the arguing and the contention all the time, right?

Like much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like nightly said like just that being like man, am I the only one that's Trying to do the right things. We all saw the angel. How come I'm the only one who's, that, that had to be really

[00:32:02] Tammy Uzelac Hall: hard.

I found in first Nephi Ishmael died. And so that like the deaths they experienced in the wilderness having to bury their father and they were so sad.

And so now we're going to add grief to this whole experience in the wilderness, trying to find food, trying to build a ship. Then the ship gets built and we go to 1st Nephi 18 and what could we add to our list of hardship there? What'd you find in there, Naelly?

[00:32:30] Naelly Lavanda: Laman and Lemuel going against Nephi in fact, things were so hard that Lehi had to say this about it in chapter 18, in the verse 17, he says, Now my father Lehi has said many things unto them and also unto the sons of Ishmael.

But behold, they did breath out much threatening against anyone that should speak for me. And my parents being stricken in years and having suffered much grief because of their children, they were brought down. Yeah, even upon their sick beds. Yeah I think that it was very hard for them living with these people going very.

Against them and like the word of God and the things that they always have learned during their own life. And also if you have people that are disturbing you, you cannot go anywhere there in that moment because you're in a ship, so you need to live with that. And so it was very hard, I think, for them, also in the ship.

[00:33:28] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Yeah, oh, go ahead, Jalyn.

[00:33:30] Jalyn Peterson: One of the things I just thought of when you're talking about that, when we're talking about Nephi's brothers on the ship, actually tying him up, and then there's a big storm for four days and now they don't know yeah, they've been given the Liahona, but it's not working because they've tied him up and Nephi's it's, first of all.

A lot of times, even though we're righteous, we suffer at the hands of wicked people because we all have agency. God allows that. But the second thing is sometimes those people are your family, right? And it's hard, like that has to be so hard of we all grew up, we all learned the same things, but now people don't even believe the same as I do there.

They don't support me in the same. Spiritual things that we were all taught.

[00:34:17] Naelly Lavanda: I remember feeling like some way that you were describing now right after my mission because I came after like I was a new person after my mission, but I went back to the back home, like the whole home.

So my parents were the same, my siblings were the same, and they weren't like as much spiritual as I was in that moment. So it was very hard for me to living with them Accepting their point of views and their agency, as you said, and knowing that maybe you shouldn't do that, or maybe, I don't know, and you just trying to be the best of yourself in that environment is not very easy, especially when there's no one's.

Understanding you and supporting you in those moments. Wow.

[00:35:05] Tammy Uzelac Hall: As both of you were speaking about that at the end, I think so many of us can relate to that. I think back to how you said, Jalyn, an emotional toll on a young soul. Cause I'm going through a similar experience and it is emotionally heartbreaking and sorrowful and difficult.

And so when we take all of this stuff, all of the yuck, all of the hardships in our life, And we look at the story of Lehi, Sariah, and their families. And how difficult it was. There are so many bad things happening to good people. So then we have to flip it and we're going to do what we talked about at the beginning.

Now let's see what good people do when bad things happen. And so we're going to do that in the next segment.

Segment 4

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[00:35:53] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Okay. So Naelly, I said I was going to come back to what you said because I really like how you said that it's easy sometimes where we forget and we need to remember that if, and you said it just like this, remember that if you have God, he will help you. That's the message. And so tell me, cause I also assigned you guys the topic of going through these chapters and now telling me what did these good people do when a bad thing happened?

Give me some examples that we could use in our everyday life. How were they able to remember and how did God help them? What'd you find?

[00:36:26] Naelly Lavanda: The first thing we can find it in the chapter 16, the verse 5, when they say that they did humble themselves before the Lord. And I think that this is the very first step that we need to do during those moments.

Remember that we're not alone, and to it's not easy to be humble and like to accept those moments, but it is the actually first step that will go, that will help us go through that moment, like being humble and remember that God is there and we can rely on him.

[00:36:57] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh, these are good. Okay. I'm going to write everything down.

You guys say, as if we were in a class, if we had a blackboard, so I'm just going to, if you hear this writing sound, that's what I'm doing. I'm writing down your answers. That was so good. Naelly. Okay. So first Nephi 16, five, they were humble. Ooh, I like that. Keep going.

[00:37:14] Jalyn Peterson: They also remembered their commandments.

And kept them. If you go to, I think the, a good verse for this is in chapter 17, verse three, after we've just learned about the women and how hard they've been and, they've lost their dad and they've had to have babies in the wilderness and Laman and Lemuel. Their husbands, some of them are like, they want to murder everybody and just go back to Jerusalem, which they're hungry.

So I'm not going to pass too much judgment because I'm not my best self and I'm hungry either. No judgment passed.

[00:37:50] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Read verse 3 for us.

[00:37:51] Jalyn Peterson: It's such a good verse. And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God, he doth nourish them and strengthen them and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them.

So one of those if then statements, right? They follow those if then, if we remember the commandments, right? I

[00:38:13] Tammy Uzelac Hall: love that you brought up an if then.

[00:38:16] Jalyn Peterson: Yeah, and they relied on scripture, right? They had those the five books of Moses, right? And so they would go back. To scripture,

[00:38:25] Naelly Lavanda: in fact, after, right after these verses starting from the 23, there is Nephi actually relating to all stories from the scriptures that he had.

So I really like that, that he tried to remind to his brothers, all the things that God have done for the people in the in Israel back then, so they could actually remember that if he did that. During that time, he can do it right now for me to

[00:38:54] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Beautiful connections.

[00:38:55] Jalyn Peterson: They exercised faith.

They kept going in despite of it, right? They've been there eight years, they, and the reason if I has to, quote Moses and that whole thing, they're just about to go on the same kind of journey, right? They've been on the same journey as the Israelites the faith. You really have to believe hard, right?

We can, I can say I have faith, right? But like to say I have faith enough That I can build a ship because throughout these scriptures The thing that I have marked so much is how many times the lord speaks directly to them and in very specific manner very specific instructions and They had the faith to go ask And to believe hard that they were going to get that answer in the manner that in such specificity that you know, I In my life, I'm not great at relying on that specificity.

They're saying, look if Moses could part the red seat and so can I. I don't know that I believe that. If God. Could I part the Red Sea? I don't know. I don't think I, God doesn't speak to me in that way, right? That's why I'm always like, with the Liahona, they talk about it's, small and simple things.

I'm like, it's not small and simple that they walked outside and there was a ball and it had specific things written on it. Which I'm always like, what did it say on the ball when he got it? I wanna know what did it say? Yeah, what were the words? But, it's, they expected the big things. They'd expected that they had that kind of faith that

[00:40:37] Tammy Uzelac Hall: I have to say this, that so here's what the Holy ghost taught me, which I had never known when I was studying because you brought this up to Lynn for eight years, right?

And you can find the eight year reference in first Nephi chapter 17, verse four. That's where it says they were there for eight years. So I'm imagining you're right. And we, everything we said, they're in the wilderness. They're giving birth in the wilderness. The wilderness is, it is filled. We learned this a couple of weeks ago.

It's dry, it's hot. It's filled with marauders. Their life is, it's not comfortable Naelly. Like you said, it is so hard. They're having the faith to do this, right? So here they are. They're walking along. They have all this faith. And then we in chapter 17 verse five, I've never noticed this. It says, so they were there for eight years.

We did come to the land, which we call Bountiful because of its much fruit and also wild honey. Okay, that's crazy. So now they're, they come upon this line that has so much fruit and honey. They didn't know it was there. And it says, and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish.

But long before, think of hundreds of years before Lehi and his family are even to come here. The Lord prepared on this piece of land, trees to grow, fruit to grow, beehives to exist, flowers to exist. Like the Lord prepared the most beautiful fertile land. Way before Lehi and his family, whoever come here, they happen upon it.

And it's, Oh, the Lord prepared this for you because he knew you would be here. And it makes me just think of all the yuck we go through, all the hardships in my life when I'm going through, I don't have that perspective and I need to remember like right now is so hard, but could it be that the Lord has prepared a land of bountiful for me?

And that if I just keep pushing forward, if I just keep exercising faith and moving forward, I am eventually going to get to that bountiful. And I am, I have a 1000 percent testimony that is true. Every single one of my, it came to passes did pass. And I found my land of Bountiful and it was far greater than anything I could have imagined for myself.

Far greater.

[00:42:40] Jalyn Peterson: It is. It is so hard to remember when you're eight years in the wilderness living on raw meat and you can't even have fire.

[00:42:47] Tammy Uzelac Hall: And all you want is some fruit, and all you want some fruit.

[00:42:50] Jalyn Peterson: And then but that is exactly like your whole point of gosh, we don't even know how great it could be, and so to remember that when you're. In the eight year stretch of, because that's also what we learned too, is it's God's timing. Yeah. Who knows if who knows if they could have got there quicker, if Layman and Lemuel would have, we don't know, came to pass. And it came to pass, it was eight years.

[00:43:15] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Yeah. Okay. I want to share these two quotes from Harold Kushner. So Harold Kushner is an American, sorry, was, he passed away last year. He was an American rabbi. He was an author and a lecturer. He's actually the author of a book called When Bad Things Happen to Good People. And he wrote it right after the death of his 14 year old son, Aaron.

So he's grieving and he writes this book. Here's a quote that I think is just a beautiful thought in answer to this question of why bad things happen to good people. Angelin, will you read this for us? Sure.

[00:43:49] Jalyn Peterson: I don't know why one person gets sick and another does not, but I can only assume that some natural laws which we don't understand are at work.

I cannot believe that God sends illness to a specific person for a specific reason. I don't believe in a God who has a weekly quota of malignant tumors. to distribute and consult his computer to find out who deserves one most or who could just handle it best. What did I do to deserve this is an understandable outcry from a sick and suffering person, but it is really the wrong question.

Being sick or being healthy is not a matter of what God decides that we deserve. The better question is if this has happened to me, what do I do now and who is there to help me do it?

[00:44:31] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Okay. And then we have one more quote under it.

[00:44:33] Jalyn Peterson: And When we reach the limits of our own strength and courage, something unexpected happens.

We find reinforcement coming from a source outside of ourselves and in the knowledge that we are not alone, that God is on our side, we managed to go on.

[00:44:50] Tammy Uzelac Hall: What struck you or stood out to you as you read those?

[00:44:54] Jalyn Peterson: I have a client who lost her husband this year and and this happened, I remember my mom saying this when my dad passed away when I was a senior in high school of it's exactly this of, people always ask how do you get through it? And she said this and she was like you don't have a choice. What else?

There's no choice. You just have to keep going on. And I said there actually is a choice because there's a lot of people Who decide not to there's a lot of people who just curl up in bed and I'm not there's no shame to how people Deal, everybody deals with things differently, right? But I think when you have faith and with when you Understand right then you are able to get through it because you do know That when I've reached my own strength in our own courage, right?

There's other people to help And the most important one is Jesus Christ when we are on our knees and pray. And sometimes we are the help that is sent to other people. So but that just with the knowledge that we are not alone, that God is on our side, we can manage to go on. The one thing that I wrote down in my scriptures as we were going through this, you know The Lord in great detail provides everything and over in first Nephi 19 verses kind of 12 through 17 is the Lord has given us prophets that testify of his atonement and This is what I wrote in my scriptures and his plans for the world.

We know exactly how it ends. Verse 17 says, yay, and all the earth shall see the salvation of the Lord. So we know we have a profit. We have a profit of this day, right? Not only just how, the examples of all those who came before, but we have a profit for our time, for our exact. Trials and struggles that we go through and we know how it all ends.

We know that we'll win eventually. And my good friend Tamar one time, Mark in one in my book of Mormon, even though there's an effectual struggle to be made, we are delivered. We will be delivered if we follow his commandments.

[00:47:14] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Thank you for that witness. Jalyn felt the spirit when you said that it is true.

It is true. Jump in. Naelly. Any thoughts from those quotes?

[00:47:27] Naelly Lavanda: I really love the first the first part of this quote when he says, I don't believe that God has this series of illness for each people, and I can never, that can remind me of, I think at the beginning of these episodes, you said, tell me that during these difficult times with The right question is not why me, why these things happens to bad people, but the right question is, how do we do it?

Like with God? How do we go through those moments with God? Do we do it with God? How do you say Jalyn or without him? And that's there that we can find our answer, has, I really love what Jalyn said about actually having the knowledge of going through these moments with God. And sometimes, as we said through all these episodes, it's not easy to remember that, but when we do it, we receive that comfort that we need, and we receive that strength that we need to go through it.

For anyone who's struggling right now, just, I know it's easy to say just have faith, and it's Pretty much harder to believe it when you're going through those moments. But I know that when we humble ourselves and we rely on God, as Jalyn said, we will go through them. And because we will not be alone, we will be joked with him.

He promised that to us when he came to this earth. He said, just give me all your choice and we will go through it through them together. You're not you're not going to be alone. I will be by your side. And I really believe in that. And I hope that everybody listening now it's believing it because it's true.

[00:49:02] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Naelly, do you have a specific incident in your life where you felt God with you, or you turned to him and he helped you?

[00:49:09] Naelly Lavanda: I I can recall a moment where I didn't have any physical difficult moment, any difficult trial like physical, but it was more spiritual. And I think that when you go through those moments, it's harder than a physical one.

Because at least for me everything that I was believing in, I was crashing with all my doubts and. I felt that I was alone and I knew inside of me that God was there, but I couldn't feel him. I don't know why I still don't know why, but it was hard for me to feel him close to me. And so I started asking myself, but is there really a God?

And I remember that one day I was just I was started off asking and not receiving anything and because I remember that I will pray every night and I will ask, What are you because I cannot feel you right now. And I wouldn't feel anything. And I remember that I was done with I said one day.

Okay, I'm done. I'm not receiving anything and I'm, I don't have any hope. So why do I keep trying. But then I remember this this quote that I listened that I heard in my mission, it was about God is in the details of our lives. And so in that moment I said, okay, maybe I'm not receiving what I want specifically, but I can try to look out for him in other ways.

And I discovered that actually he was there the whole time, not in the way that I was asking for, but in many ways that he knew I needed. So he was in the in the loving hug of a friend or in the scriptures that I needed right after in that moment when I was open randomly my scriptures. And during that moment that was really hard for me spiritually.

I remember that I started to see God in the white butterflies and I have a story about this. I remember during my mission, I was in Sicily. And it was very hot, it was in summer, and I was complaining about the missionary work and the hotness and everything that was happening that day. And I remember that my companion Kylie that time said to me Sister, just hold yourself for a second and look at this white butterfly that is here next to us.

And just remember that this is a creation of God and deacons these can remind us about God's love. And so I remember in that very hard moment in my life while I was struggling with my faith, I remember that moment and I started to notice more those little white butterflies. And I remember that, Was like a sign from God that was telling me, Naeli, I'm here, maybe you're not feeling me, but look at me, I'm here in this little white butterfly, so that helped me a lot through that moment, because I will start noticing them all over everywhere around me, and I'm so grateful for that, and for the details that God used in our lives to show him his hand in our lives.

[00:52:21] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh, and you look to him. I love that too. Okay. Let's finish. Let's finish this discussion. Go to first Nephi chapter 18 and we're just going to read verse 16 because here is, I think Nephi's experience wondering if God hears him. And he's praying and he's come on like I know where you need us to go.

And now here I am, I'm bound on this ship. And this was such a real moment for Nephi that all those years later, when he came back and wrote this account, he made sure to write this specific thing on the plates. Like it was real for him. My wrists are exceedingly swollen. My ankles, much swollen.

This great was the soreness thereof. The way I love the way he details that, like he's been tied up so tight, he's swollen, he's pain, all of that. Wondering where is God in this? That's what I would be thinking. But he never does. And then finally we come to verse 16 because he has his brothers for the space of four days.

This happens. And then I think for 16 so powerful, Jalyn, we read that for us.

[00:53:27] Jalyn Peterson: Yeah. Nevertheless, I did look unto my God and I did praise him all the day long and I did not murmur against the Lord because of mine afflictions.

[00:53:36] Tammy Uzelac Hall: I just think that's so cool in like in Naelly's story. The word look, I did look unto my God and he just looked for things that reminded him of him.

And I think that is one of the ways that's what good people do and bad things happen. We just try to find God and look and keep our eyes open. And Naelly, your butterfly story, I'm going to draw a butterfly right next to 16 and I'm putting your name there.

[00:54:00] Jalyn Peterson: Wow. I also love that he says, my God, right?

Because for Naelly, it was personal in a white butterfly for me and maybe, like it, God is very personal to each of us.

[00:54:13] Tammy Uzelac Hall: So yeah, I love that. Thank you. Okay. So in the next segment, then we're going to see what Nephi encourages us to do with all of these stories that we've been studying, as well as what he wants us to do with the rest of the book of Mormon.

We'll do that next.

Segment 5

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[00:54:36] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Okay. So will you two please turn with me to first Nephi chapter 19. There's so much we still have to cover. We don't have time. So we're just going to go to a challenge that Nephi gives us. First Nephi chapter 19 highlight versus 23 and 24. Because Nephi is talking in chapter 19 about these plates, those plates, we've already learned about that.

If you want to cross reference that back to first Nephi chapter nine and chapter six, we'll give you the explanation of that. And he's talking to us. He's giving us so much great scripture. And then he comes into this challenge. First Nephi chapter 19 verses 23 and 24. And I will read these. And after I'm done reading it, I want you guys to tell me what does Nephi want us to do?

And I did read many things unto them, which were written in the books of Moses, but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord, their redeemer. I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah. For I did liken all scripture unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning.

Wherefore I speak unto them, saying, Hear ye the words of the prophet, ye who are a remnant of the house of Israel, a branch who have been broken off. Hear ye the words of the prophet, which are written unto all the house of Israel, and liken them unto yourselves, that ye may have hope as well as your brethren, from whom ye have been broken off.

For after this matter has the prophet written. What does he want us to do with scripture?

[00:55:59] Jalyn Peterson: Liken it unto ourselves.

[00:56:02] Naelly Lavanda: To liken them in our lives, like to actually put them in practice. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:56:09] Tammy Uzelac Hall: To link them in our lives. Okay. This is so awesome. So highlight that like in scriptures unto us and liken them unto ourselves.

That's what we're going to do. And here's what had me thinking. I read these and then we get right into first Nephi chapter 20 and 21, which is Isaiah 48 and 49. And I thought, okay, of all the scripture. That he could have quoted. Why did he choose Isaiah 48 to immediately liken unto us like that had me reeling and I loved studying this.

So before we even get into this, I did have a question though, for you to, because out of all the scriptures that you guys know, what is one that you would share with someone who was struggling or having a hard time? What scripture would you want them to like into themselves?

[00:56:54] Jalyn Peterson: Mine is Romans 8 35 through 39.

Ooh. And I found this actually on 9 11. Oh, wow. But it says this, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

And it says, nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, I get goosebumps every time I read this, I might cry, for I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And I just, that is just so just like we learned with Lehi's family of you can go through all of this stuff, right? And you can even murmur against the Lord, right? You can like not handle some of it but there is nothing. You are worthy of God's love through Jesus Christ just because you are born and part of the family and in this, on this earth, right?

That is so even when I mess up, even when, and knowing what's to come in the latter days to know that there's, we are more than conquerors through Christ. I just, I love the, that block of scriptures.

[00:58:26] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Thank you. Thank you, Jalyn. Powerful. Powerful. Perfect. Thank you. Naelly, what's your scripture?

[00:58:38] Naelly Lavanda: This is very hard to choose just one. I have many, but the first one that came to my mind was it is in through Nephi in chapter 22 I'm reading in the verse seven and eight. And I really like these scriptures. I remember a time when I was probably 14 or 15 and I was going through a bad moment.

I don't remember the moment. It wasn't probably that big, but in that moment it came too fast. And I remember that one day I was just opening my scriptures and I found these two verses. And from that moment it followed me through all my trials. And so I thought about this. And this is obviously Jesus Christ that is preaching to the Nephites when he went to the Americas.

And he said, For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I did, I hid my face from the, from thee for a moment. But with everlasting kindness, will I have mercy on thee? Say the Lord thy Redeemer. And I really love that every time that I'm going through a bad moment and I feel lonely and I feel that God is not there.

I just go to these verses and I remember. Maybe it's just for a little moment, but he will came to me with his everlasting mercy and kindness, and he will hug me and he will come for me and he will have me going through this. So I really love these two verses.

[01:00:14] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh, wow. Okay. I am freaking out right now because everyone listening, I did not know that these are the scriptures they would choose and you couldn't have chosen more perfect scriptures.

That apply exactly to what the Isaiah chapters are that Nephi chose. Okay. You are going to love this. Let's connect this to what you guys just shared. Turned with me to first Nephi chapter 20. I'm going to go through this institute style. So grab something to mark your scriptures with, and you're going to mark this up and I'm going to tell you what these verses mean and how they connect to the scriptures you guys shared.

This is so cool. It's so beautiful. Okay. First things first in first Nephi chapter 20 verse one, the very first word we see is hearken. Highlight that word hearken. This is a really important word. You're going to see it several times throughout chapter 20 and 21. It's an important Hebrew word. In Hebrew, the word hearken is shema, spelled S H E M A.

Now, this word means to hear, to listen, but it also means to obey. It's a twofold word in Hebrew. In fact, many scholars believe there is no separate word for obey. It's the word Shema. And here's what our prophet said in April of 2020. He said this about the word hearken, and this will be in our show notes.

He said the very first word in the doctrine and covenants is hearken. And it really is. If you go to doctrine and covenant section one verse one, it says very first hearken. Then the prophet says, it means to listen with the intent to obey. To hearken means to hear him, to hear what the savior says, and then heed his counsel.

In those two words, hear him. God gives us the pattern for success, happiness, and joy in this life. We are to hear the words of the Lord, hearken to them and heed what he has told us. So hearken, he'd obey right there. So that's the first thing he's saying, Harkin and here, Oh, house of Israel highlight house of Israel.

That is us. We learned that from our old Testament year. Anytime you read the house of Israel, he is talking about members of the church today and anybody that gets baptized is automatically adopted into the house of Israel. And we learned that the kinsmen, the head of the house is God. Okay. So he's talking to us.

He says, who are called by the name of Israel and are come forth out of the waters of Judah or out of the waters of baptism. Raise your hand if you've been baptized. Okay. So he's talking to all of us who've been baptized. Good job. And then he says, who swear by the name of the Lord. Now highlight or circle the word, swear, draw a line to the side and write covenants.

When it says, when it talks about swearing in the Bible, it doesn't mean saying naughty words. It literally is a connection to the word making covenants or making an oath with the Lord. So he says, those of us who came out of the waters of baptism, who made covenants by the name of the Lord. So baptismal covenants.

Temple covenants and make mention of the God of Israel yet. Now highlight that in a color. You don't like Yet they swear not in truth nor in righteousness. So that means they're breaking their covenants. So he's talking to those of us who have made covenants and we're breaking our covenants. He says in verse two, nevertheless, they call themselves of the holy city, but they do not stay themselves upon the God of Israel.

They do not. Don't you like how it says that they do not stay?

[01:03:36] Jalyn Peterson: Yeah, I wrote that. I wrote do I stay upon God? How do you stay upon God?

[01:03:42] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh, good question. Okay, let's remember that Jalyn, 'cause we're gonna answer it in a verse coming up. That's so good. How do we stay? Verse four, another example of us breaking covenants, and I did it because I knew that thou our obstinate thy neck is an iron sin you.

That means your neck will not bow if it's an iron sin you. That is the idea that it will not bow to pray and thy brow brass. The image of that is that it will not you. Your mind won't give thoughts to God at all. It's like when you take your finger and hit it against something brass and it goes blink, like nothing's there.

It's hollow. It's not thinking of God. Then in the verse five, it says, and I have, even from the beginning declared to the, before it came to pass, I showed them V and I showed them for fearless. Thou should say, I'll highlight this. Mine idol hath done them and my gray man image and my molten image have commanded them.

So here we are. Non covenant keepers are giving credit to false gods or God's creations. Other things out there that make us just as happy. I don't need covenants. I can still feel the spirit when I'm up in the mountains. I don't need to go to church. I can re worship God while I'm riding my bike. That's what this is talking about,

[01:04:50] Jalyn Peterson: which is, I don't need organized religion.

[01:04:53] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Yes, exactly. I can give credit.

[01:04:55] Jalyn Peterson: I'm a good person.

[01:04:57] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Yes. There's so many other things I can give credit to that make me feel good. Okay. So he's talking to us and then we come to verse eight. And when thou heard us not, yea, thou knew us not, yea, from that time, thine ear was not opened. Okay. We're not hearkening for.

I knew that would still very treacherously and was called a transgressor from the womb. So we're unwilling to hear. He's it's as if you were just evil from the womb, from birth. You have completely forsaken all of your covenants, but now put the word, but next to verse nine in capital letters, because here's what the Lord says to us nevertheless.

For my name's sake, will I defer my anger? Like I'm just going to hold off on my anger. And for my praise, while I refrain from the, that I cut the knot off, underline cut the knot off. That is kinsman wording that we learned old Testament year. And the divine, the kinsman, when you're living with him in his tent, he says, I will protect you.

I will pay your debts. I will feed you. I will fight for you. But you have to remain true to me. You have to enter into a covenant with me. Good example of this. We talked about this Zoram. Zoram entered into an oath with Lehi and his family and Lehi's great, I'm your kinsman. I will protect you. I will take care of you.

But the minute you turn your back on your kinsman, the minute you leave your tribe that you belong to, you're cut off. Essentially, that leader's I can't support you. You've left me now. That's where the wording is right here. He's but I'm going to refrain from me that I cut the knot off for behold, I have refined the, I have chosen the, in the furnace of affliction, like I know what you've gone through.

I know how hard it has been. So I'm not going to leave you. I'm going to be with you. And here's all I want you to do. And I think this goes back to the white butterflies, this idea that no matter what it is, we cannot be separated from God. Go to verse 16 and highlight this. Come ye near unto me. Now, here's a great quote from Joseph Smith about the wording right here.

Come ye near unto me. And this will be in our show notes too. So Jalyn, can you read this quote for us? You bet. In light of the world we're living in today, I think this quote is so appropriate.

[01:07:09] Jalyn Peterson: We know not what we shall be called to pass through before Zion is delivered and established. Therefore, we have great need to live near to God and always to be in strict obedience to all his commandments that we may have a conscience void of offense toward God and man.

Right there.

[01:07:27] Tammy Uzelac Hall: I love how he says we have great need to live near to God. And that instruction, verse 16, coming near unto me, that is this invitation. Let's live near God, live near to him, do whatever it takes to live near unto him. And I like how Julian, you said, will I stay? So I'm just going to connect this to it.

Will you stay? Where will you live? In the winding up scenes before the second coming of Jesus Christ. And so this is cool because both of you have lived in many different places. You have traveled, you have moved many different times. And I had this idea cause I was thinking about it like every time you've moved, what does it take to move and live somewhere else?

[01:08:07] Jalyn Peterson: A lot of sweat and tears and organization and the packing, the unpacking, let's write

[01:08:20] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Organization is effort. Lots of effort. Thank you. I'm going to add that next to that verse. It's effort. It's always easier with more people when we do it together, right?

[01:08:33] Jalyn Peterson: Because the first thing you do after you move. The first thing I do after I move you always look up where you're, what word are you going to be in?

Yes. Because, instantly I will have a group of people I don't have to, hang out at a bar or do something like that to make new friends. I will instantly have, My tribe of people, I know exactly where they are.

[01:08:56] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Ooh. So good. Anything else you wanna add, Naelly?

[01:09:01] Naelly Lavanda: When you asked that question before, the first thing that I thought was all day hopes and the dreams that you have while you move.

You have all these expectations about yourself, but the new place. And sometimes maybe you get delusional or maybe they're better than what you thought, and linking to that, something that I will add is just remember that the small things are the small steps are those steps that will help through those moments.

What do I mean with this is that we don't have to do big things, we just need to do the very easiest and small steps that we know there are the good things to do. And we actually read that this week in the, see, in the chapter 16 and the verse 29 when by the end it says that We see that by small means, the Lord can bring about great things.

And that always happens with us. Also like with new habits, new things in our lives, it just starts with the small steps and the small things.

[01:10:02] Jalyn Peterson: I love that she pointed that out. That was so good because like I wrote when Nephi builds the ship and his first question is, where do I go get the ore to make the tools?

And and I wrote in my scriptures take the first step, right? You don't have to know the whole, he didn't need the whole blueprint. He didn't need everything. Like his first question was, what's the first small step I take? Awesome. Where do I go to get the ore to make the tools, right? Not Oh geez, how am I going to do that?

Where's the tools? Where's the heat? Just where do I get the ore to make the tools? It was the first thing he knew to do and he did it and by small and simple things above that, it says, the ball, the Liahona, the heat and diligence you give it is how you get that. The answers to what's the first step.

What is the first step I need to do?

[01:10:54] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Oh boy, that's brilliant. That is so good. Thank you. Okay. So that's it. How do we live near Jesus? Baby steps. Listen, find the first thing you need to do and then go with that with everything we've said and it's going to be hard and it's going to be better with more people.

So that's what we have to do in these last days. We have to come near unto him and come near unto me and live with Jesus. So good. Thank you both of you. Okay. So I asked you to share a favorite scripture that you is your go to scripture when times are hard. What about a song? We're going to talk about that in the next segment.+

Segment 6

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[01:11:37] Tammy Uzelac Hall: so Nephi asked us to liken scripture, but have you ever considered that he wants us to liken a song? I thought this was really interesting. So really fast though, do either one of you have a go to song you listen to or put on when you're struggling? For instance, when I was 16, I came home one day from school.

All my friends got asked to the high school dance except for me. And I put on Michael McLean's, you're not alone.

[01:11:57] Jalyn Peterson: You were going to say a Michael McLean tune. Why did I know? Oh,

[01:12:05] Tammy Uzelac Hall: he's, I guess it is the soundtrack of my life.

[01:12:08] Jalyn Peterson: I know you Missouri kids. Mine is Abide with me Tis Eventide and the same thing, right?

Cause it feels like your dark night of the soul when you're in the midst of the darkness and all that. It's okay, the evening's coming. Just, can you abide with me?

[01:12:24] Naelly Lavanda: Oh, beautiful one. Mine. It's called Jesus, your blood. It is by rivers and robots. I don't know if you know that song.

[01:12:32] Tammy Uzelac Hall: No, but I'm writing it down. What? Okay. Hold the phone by rivers.

[01:12:40] Naelly Lavanda: Yeah it's strange in name. It's a group of guys that make these Christian music and they mix Christian music with a techno, but it's not techno, but it's robust because it's I don't know what to say

[01:12:52] Tammy Uzelac Hall: this, but, Oh, I'm going to find it.

That is awesome. Why do you like it? It's

[01:12:56] Naelly Lavanda: beautiful. It's. It's basically a poem about the atonement of Jesus Christ, and in the first verse of the song, it says, pierced for my transgressions and wounded for my sins, this man of sorrows came to take my place. And you just go with this, and it just talks about how Jesus Christ came to this earth and sacrifice himself for our sake.

And it's just when I go through bad moments, I just love to listen to this song because it reminds me that there's someone who loves me that much that made that did that. And so I can do it with him.

[01:13:35] Tammy Uzelac Hall: I cannot wait to listen to that. Wow. Okay. Thank you for sharing your songs. The reason I asked that and the reason why we set this up is because what was so surprising to me is in these two chapters that we are supposed to liken unto ourselves, there are two songs.

So I'm going to have you mark them. So the first song is found in first Nephi chapter 20 and it's verses 20 through 22 and it's called the song of flight. So mark that and label it the song of flight versus 20 through 22. The second song is in 1 Nephi chapter 21 verses 1 through 6, so just bracket those off.

That one's called the servant song. It's a song for all of us who are going to serve him. Okay. Now the first song is pretty short. So again, we're going to go Institute style and I'm going to give you some cool things and I'd love to know for this experience, write what you hear, write what this wording speaks to you.

If you were going to hear it in a song, why it would benefit you or how you can liken it to you. So here's the first song. In verse 20, this is the song of flight and we're being asked to flee. Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans. So the word Babylon and Chaldeans is a symbolic word for the world.

Go ye forth from the world, flee from the world. With a voice of singing, declare ye. Tell this utter to the end of the earth, say ye, the Lord hath redeemed his servant, Jacob. Now we are Jacob. That's who he's talking about. And redeemed means to purchase back or to liberate from captivity. The Lord hath redeemed his servant, Jacob, and they thirsted not.

He led them through the deserts. He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them. He claimed the rocket also, and the waters gushed out and not withstanding. He hath done all this and greater also. There is no peace sayeth the Lord unto the wicked. Okay. Let's do that to you. What did you hear in that song?

[01:15:47] Jalyn Peterson: Get out of the world, declare the truthfulness of the gospel because God is great.

[01:15:56] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Bingo. Perfect. Okay. Here's the next song. Naelly. I'm going to ask you to share. Okay. Second song is first Nephi chapter 21 verses one through six. Look, we have, and again, hearken, Oh ye house of Israel. That's us. It goes down verse in the verse.

It'll say, listen, Oh Isles unto me. So listen, everyone, I want every, when it says Isles, it's talking about literally the whole world. Now everyone listened unto me and hearken ye people from afar. And in verse three, he says, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength in naught and in vain.

Surely my judgment is with the Lord and my work with my God. And now saith the Lord that formed me from the womb, that I should be his servant to bring Jacob again. Now this is talking about the gathering to bring in all those who need to be adopted into the house of Israel. Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord.

And my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is a light thing, or a small matter, that thou shouldst be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. And I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, That thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth.

The ends of the earth means everyone. Okay. Tell me what you heard in there.

[01:17:27] Naelly Lavanda: There we all have a mission is to be a light to help others to come closer to Christ. And I love that it says that it's a light thing that those shows be my servant. And I love that because it's very easy to be a light. You don't have to go and preach the gospel entirely.

You just need to be a good example, so it's very easy to do this mission. It doesn't take

[01:17:50] Tammy Uzelac Hall: a lot. Exactly. Oh, Naelly. That was perfect. I like how you connected that. And it is. And that's what we're doing right now. We are living in verses five and six. And the only way we can live in these verses is if we flee the world.

We have to not care. What the world's saying about us and our prophet has done a beautiful job of encouraging everybody to get ready. We're gathering. We are gathering at record numbers. In fact, there was recently in the church news, an article put out, we have the greatest number of missions in the history of the church that are now fully existing.

That's crazy. Something over 400 missions now exist. And so It's just, everyone can do it. We can all be a light. We need to raise up and find the tribes of Israel and gather. Oh boy. Gather. And is it going to be easy? No, we can do it. I think it's great. I like going back to, it's going to require tears and sweat and organization and effort, but the most, more people we have by doing it, it's great.

And it's the small steps that you said, Naelly, the small little things that allow us to serve. So that is first Nephi. Chapter 16 through 20. You guys were awesome. Thank you.

That was a lot of scripture. Okay. So go through everything you wrote down, gather your thoughts and what is your takeaway from today from our discussion?

What will you remember

[01:19:16] Jalyn Peterson: for me? I go back to Naelly's point of when you're, when we're going we know we're going through all these struggles, right? We're no different than Lehi and his family, right? We're all going to go through our particular brand of trials. And that, If we reframe what we're paying attention to during those times if we look for the white butterflies If we look for those evidences of god That we'll find that and it even though we may not be delivered You know, from those trials where we put our attention, we will see God in all things.

It will, it'll get us through our eight years in the wilderness of going through those trials, right? So that we can be delivered to the promised land. So look for the white butterflies. That's my takeaway.

[01:20:15] Naelly Lavanda: That's something that I always say, when every time that I teach, especially the youth, I always teach them this, teach, I always tell them the story of the white butterflies, because I think it's very easy to relate to that kind of story.

And to look for your personal white butterflies, to look for the details that only you know, and only God knows, and he speaks through you. through them. Something that I really stuck out to me, talking to all of you, it's about faith. We cannot start doing these kind of conversations without actually putting first faith.

And I love Nephi's faith. He's my biggest example about faith. I just admire how he was ready to do anything that the Lord will command him. And especially in the moments that we go through when we don't feel his love or when we go through bad moments and difficulties, faith is the first thing and it's the very first thing that we need to do and the very small step that will lead us.

like faith it is the answer through all the bad things that can happen. If we have faith, we will see the Lord in the small things around us. And we will see God in the people that are around us. And we know that we're not alone because we have God and we have others that understand us.

[01:21:40] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Thank you.

Both of you. Thank you for coming prepared today. I appreciate you doing the work so that we could have this discussion. For me, it definitely was the segment when I asked why you think the youth need to understand that the savior will help them face life's challenges. You both testified beautifully of how you've seen that in your own life, and I felt the spirit so strong when you did that.

So thank you. That was my takeaway. I'm never going to forget that moment. And I'm just connecting again to the butterflies. That was so sweet to all of us, find our butterflies. And Jalyn, you testified, you didn't say butterflies, but you testified of what your butterflies were. And I've known you a long time and you have been looking for white butterflies forever.

Yep. And you've been through a lot and I love that about you and I love your example. And when I think about moving and living close to God, having you as my friend is one way that's made it a lot easier and a lot more fun. Everyone needs a Jalyn and now a Naelly.

[01:22:35] Jalyn Peterson: Everyone needs a Naelly. I know, now we have a Naelly.

And now we have a friend in Milan.

[01:22:39] Naelly Lavanda: Yes, I'm from Milan. Yes, come to visit me. Yes.

[01:22:42] Tammy Uzelac Hall: We'll come to Italy. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Oh, I love you both.

[01:22:46] Jalyn Peterson: Awesome. Thanks, Tam. Love you. Thanks so much.

[01:22:50] Tammy Uzelac Hall: Okay. What was your takeaway today? Go join our Facebook or follow us on Instagram to share what you have learned. And you can even ask questions, which I try to answer throughout the week.

And then at the end of the week, on a Saturday, we post a question from this episode. I would love for you to share what the Holy ghost taught you as you studied or anything that you learned while you were studying comment in the post that relates to this lesson. Listen and share your thoughts. You can get to both our Facebook and Instagram by going to the show notes for this episode on ldsliving. com slash Sunday on Monday. And it's not a bad idea to go there anyway, because it's where we're going to have links to all the references, the transcript and this whole discussion. So go check it out. The Sunday on Monday study group is a Deseret Bookshelf plus original brought to you by LDS living.

It's written and hosted by me, Tammy Uzelac Hall. And today our fabulous study group participants were Jalyn Peterson and Naelly Lavanda. And you can find more information about my friends at ldsliving. com slash Sunday on Monday. Our podcast is produced by Cole Wissinger and me. It is edited and mixed by Cole Wissinger and our executive producer is Erin Hallstrom.

Thanks for being here. We'll see you next week. And please remember to look for your white butterflies and know that you are God's favorite.