Chapter Eight - The Mission to the Lamanites

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Mission to the Lamanites

ALMA 17–27

The sons of Mosiah, once enemies of the church, now set out to do the impossible:
Preach to the Lamanites.

The people are shocked.
These are the violent enemies.
They’ve hated the Nephites for generations.

But the sons go anyway.
They fast.
They pray.
They split up.

Ammon goes to the land of Ishmael.
He offers to be a servant.
He ends up protecting the king’s flocks.

A band of Lamanite thieves attacks.
Ammon fights.
He cuts off their arms.
One by one.

The servants bring the arms back as proof.

The king, Lamoni, is stunned.

He thinks Ammon is a god.
Ammon says no.
He’s a servant of the true God.

Lamoni listens.
He believes.

He falls to the ground, overcome.
So does his wife.
So do his servants.

They all rise, changed.
Baptized.
Converted.

Lamoni’s father hears about it.
He’s furious.
He tries to kill Ammon.

Ammon defends himself.
Could kill him, but spares him.

The king’s heart breaks open.

“I will give up all I possess, even my kingdom, if I can know this God.”

He believes.
He sends out proclamations.
The preaching spreads.

Tens of thousands of Lamanites convert.
They drop their weapons.
They bury them deep, never to use them again.
Even if it means death.

They call themselves the Anti-Nephi-Lehies.
Not because they’re “anti” Nephi, but because they reject violence and old hatred.

When their enemies come to kill them, they do not fight back.

They kneel.
They pray.
They die.

Over a thousand are slaughtered.

But the killers, seeing such faith, begin to question everything.

Many of them convert too.

Eventually, the survivors flee to Nephite territory.
They’re given land.
They are protected.
They refuse to take up weapons. Ever.

Their sons, however, young boys who never broke the oath, will fight later.

They’ll be known as the stripling warriors.

But that’s still ahead.