Take a moment and place your hand over your heart. How is your heart today? If it could talk, what would it say? Have you ever heard the sound of your own or a loved one’s beating heart on a stethoscope or ultrasound? Of all the things to hear, it is the heart that connects you to life because it is life. And for today’s discussion of Mormon 1–6, the heart dictated life for the Nephite people. Let’s dive into the impact their hearts had not only on themselves but also on our lives today.
Segment 1
Scriptures:
Mormon 1:15 (Knew the goodness of Jesus)
Mormon 5:23 (In the hands of God)
Segment 2
Scriptures:
Mormon 1:13-17 (Hard hearts)
Words of the General Authorities:
Seek and expect miracles…Few things will accelerate your spiritual momentum more than realizing the Lord is helping you to move a mountain in your life. (Russell M. Nelson, “The Power of Spiritual Momentum”, April 2022 General Conference)
Segment 3
Scriptures:
Mormon 2:12-15 (Sorrow leading to repentance)
Words of the General Authorities:
In perhaps the most chilling line he ever wrote, Mormon asserted simply, ‘I saw that the day of grace was passed with them, both temporally and spiritually.’ His people had learned that most fateful of all lessons—that the Spirit of God will not always strive with man; that it is possible, collectively as well as individually, to have time run out. The day of repentance can pass, and it had passed for the Nephites. Their numbers were being ‘hewn down in open rebellion against their God,’ and in a metaphor almost too vivid in its moral commentary, they were being ‘heaped up as dung upon the face of the land’ (Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant, 319)
Segment 4
Scriptures:
Mormon 2:19-20, 26-27 (Mormon’s sorrow)
Mormon 3:2-3 (The Lord is who spared them)
Mormon 3:11-12 (Mormon quits the people, but stays in love)
Alma 34:31 (DO NOT harden your heart)
Segment 5
Scriptures:
Mormon 5:8-9 (Mormon abridges the worse parts)
Mormon 4:11,14 (War and prisoners)
Mormon 5:16-17 (Delightsome with Christ)
Quotes:
Happily, we are not only needy sheep but also lucky sheep, because we have a shepherd. And not just any shepherd, but the Good Shepherd. The Best Shepherd. This is one of the names of Jesus—a name that shows us how He can and does care for each of the individual wants, needs, hopes, and dreams of us, His sheep. “Wherefore, I am in your midst, and I am the good shepherd” (D&C 50:44). David Butler, Redeemer)
Segment 6
Scriptures:
Mormon 6:17-22 (Mormon pours out his heart)
Hebraism:
Mormon 6:10-15 ex. With their ten thousand (ten thousand means a great multitude)
Study Helps:
Additional evidence for the derivation of Nephi’s name from Egyptian nfr and its association with “good” and “goodness” surfaces…Since the meaning of Nephi’s name as nfr — especially in the senses of “good, fair” (of character) and “beautiful, fair” (of appearance) — has implications for the derived gentilic term “Nephites,” … Mormon’s lament in Mormon 6 with its plaintive refrain “O ye fair ones” constitutes a wordplay on (or a play on the meaning of) the name Nephi and its gentilic derivative “Nephites”. (Matthew L. Bowen, “O Ye Fair Ones — Revisited”, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship)
View transcript here.