We're encouraged to study during the down times we have in the temple. So today in the celestial room I studied Alma and felt I must write down what I learned:
To my mind there are 3 very interesting men in the part of Alma we're reading for Sunday School. They all three experienced firsthand what repentance is like and totally changed their lives around.
First of course is Alma with his dramatic conversion and wonderful teachings.
But then there's Amulek. He was wealthy a man of reputation with lots of friends. But I gather he was inactive in the church. When the angel came and told him to receive Alma, his life was changed and he became a good companion to Alma. He says that Alma blessed his women, children, father and kinsfolk in Alma 10:11. (I don't know if his wife and children were burned with the believers or if they later turned against him along with his father and friends.) He suffered with Alma, watching loved ones burned, fearing for his life, being imprisoned for "many" days, beaten, starved, and ridiculed. But at last saved miraculously. So by the time their mission(s) were over and Alma took him home with him for some R and R, he was alone in the world and had forsaken all his wealth. He gave some marvelous sermons and was quoted by future generations.
3 comments:
Cool! Great research! Spent weeks on that lesson and didn't learn all that. Must be the celestial room. And/or you brain is (still) speedier than mine! ;^)
I assumed Amulek's family burned. That would make his request to alma to stop it more poignant
Neil's right, but Alma 16:15 says, "Amulek having forsaken all his gold, and silver, and his precious things, which were in the land of Ammonihah, for the word of God, he being rejected by those who were once his friends and also by his father and his kindred..." It never mentions wife and children, but perhaps they were burned.
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