Samuel was a Prophet

This week we learned all about Samuel the Lamanite.  I've never payed too much attention to Samuel, I just saw him as another prophet the Lord sent to preach the gospel.  When I heard his name, my mind automatically pictured him standing on the wall with arrows all around unable to touch him.  Brother Griffin was able to open my eyes and help me see him in a whole new light.  He pointed out four different things about him that I hadn't noticed before.  Number one, Samuel is the only lamanite whose preachings were recorded in the Book of Mormon. Second, his prophesys were specific.  While many other prophets would tell of things to come, Samuel was able to give an exact number of days.  The third thing he pointed out was that Samuel was a nobody.  The only other nobody we see in the Book of Mormon was Abinidi.  Aside from the two of them, we always know their heritage and where they come from.  The final thing we noticed was the Samuel's doctrine was deep.  All of these things together helped establish a whole new view of Samuel for me.  He was an excellent prophet who worked hard to please the Lord.  If we can strive to follow the gospel in the same manner that Samuel did, we will be blessed in our lives.

The Dangers of Pride

Any of you who know much about the Book of Mormon, have heard about the pride cycle. For those who don't, I have included a picture and i'll briefly describe it.  The pride cycle is the pattern that the people in the Book of Mormon often follow.  They start out as a righteous people, and because they are righteous, they recieve blessings from God.  After revieving blessings, they think they are better than their bretheren and become prideful.  Because of the pride, they begin to be wicked and sin.  This sinning leads God to destroy what they have until they have again become humble and willing to listen to the word of God.  Then the cycle repeats itself.  In class, we went more in depth than I have before, and learned more about this cycle and the other cycles within it.  Our teacher referred to this main cycle as the Terrestrial cycle. It is the medium ground.  Eventually, the people go back to being good, but they don't stay their for long.  On the other hand, some people stay in the bad half of the cycle.  After their pride has led to wickedness and destruction, they are angry with God and go back to being prideful.  This is considered the Telestial cycle.  The cycle we want to be in is the Celestial cycle.  This means that after we are righteous and blessed, we go straight to being humble and trusting in the lord.  Seeing this drawn out was interesting.  It made me want to make sure I never reach the telestial part of the cycle.  Pride is difficult to avoid, but if we make sure to recognize that without God, we are nothing, we will be able to remain humble.

He Always has a Plan

This week in BOM was awesome.  We started reading in Helaman, chapters 1-4. Chapter one is about the three brothers, Pahoran, Paanchi, and Pacumeni.  Pahoran is appointed to the judgement seat, and while Pacumeni supports him, Paanchi gets jealous.  Paanchi tries to drag the people away from his brother and because of this, he is condemned to death.  When this happens, one of his followers, Kishkumen, murderes Pahoran.  Pacumeni is then appointed to the judgement seat.  We talked about  why Pahoran was killed while Pacumeni got to live and rule.  The teacher told us:

"No righteous man is ever taken before his time."

 I loved this quote.  I've seen quite a few wonderful people die, and I always feel like it wasn't their time yet.  Through reading stories like this, we can see that while Pahoran was a just man, and probably would have made a good ruler, he was needed in heaven.  Because of this, Kishkumen was allowed to kill him.  Thinking about it, Heavenly Father has the power to save any mans life.  If it is his desire, we can live forever.  We see that earlier in the Book of Mormon when we read about the sons of Mosiah.  Many times their lives were threatened, but the Lord had promised Mosiah that he would protect them so they were never killed.  The Lord is all powerful.  If we lose someone in our lives, it is because Heavenly Father was ready for them to return to heaven.  He loves us all and even if the loss is hard for others, he will always be there for us to help us and comfort us.