As I have committed to feast and not nibble, I am almost overwhelmed by the amount of significant material I am finding. I find myself wanting to say, "When did they put that in the Book of Mormon?!" For example, this week our Come Follow Me lesson is about the Book of Mormon scriptures dealing with the Savior's atonement, death, and resurrection. Next weekend is General Conference and we have been asked to prepare by studying the restoration. And, as for me, I still have things to cover in the short books before I move on! What a quandary!
While I will likely cover all three before the week is out, for the Covenant Keepers blog, I want to continue with the small books. I will focus on the Easter scriptures the week just before Easter (the Sunday following conference.) I want to put together some primary lessons about the restoration for my great grandchildren. It will be a "thronged" week, in the words of Catherine Marshall.
There are is great resources for teaching children about the First Vision. Search Yahoo or Google images and find many coloring pages like this one. There are videos and stories on YouTube such as those found on a site called Latter-day Kids.
A Story About Sincere Prayer
Of course, the Church website is full of resources. www.churchofjesuschrist.org
I also am attaching a link to a new group of pictures that are special to me because of the artist. The artwork was done by a young friend of mine, Judy Lou Bloomfield. I've watched Judy grow from a little girl who loved to doodle to a lovely, mature young woman with an incredible talent. Her style has become recognizable to me and I frequently see her family posts on Facebook.
The first vision
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OK, back to the small books. Amaleki, the last of the small book writers, introduced us to King Mosiah I., the king of the Nephites. Warfare had become such a constant under continued Lamanite attacks that Mosiah was warned of the Lord that he should flee out of the land of Nephi. (Omni 1:12) He took as many of the Nephites who would follow him, and followed the Lord's counsel. They were led by the Lord down out of the mountains and into the valley where they came upon a civilization living in a land which they called Zarahemla.
There are many opinions as to where the sites in the Book of Mormon are located. I found at least 3. I have chosen the map at the left because it comes closest to what the majority of book of Mormon scholars say fits the clues in the Book itself. The Church has never taken a stand on this issue, so this map is just for comparison purposes. Suffice it to say that the Land of Nephi was in a Mountainous region and the Land of Zarahemla was is in a Valley separated by a wilderness area.
When Mosiah and his people arrive, they find the area already populated by another group of people similar in features. These people called themselves Mulekites. I'll talk more about them in a later post, but even though they had disparate languages and cultures, there were enough similarities that the people of Zarahemla welcomed the newcomers. There was great rejoicing in both groups (see Omni 1:14) Even the leader of the Mulekites, a man named Zarahemla, rejoiced at being found by the Nephites. The people of Zarahemla accepted Mosiah I. as the king over them all, which leads me to believe that this Mosiah must have been an impressive man.
© March 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings
Buntin Danielson
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