Hi, friends. Welcome back to Primarily Scripture. I am your host, Cindy Young, and I'm so glad to be with you here this week. Now, for those of you who watch on YouTube, I apologize. There was an issue and the video didn't come through and my choice was to either not do an episode or give it to you like this. So you'll get the closed captioning and you get this lovely still picture of me and no video to go along with this week's episode. Sorry about that. This week, in Come Follow Me, we are in the book of Mormon, which might be a little bit confusing because we've been reading the Book of Mormon all year. But The Book of Mormon itself is a compilation of smaller books, and we are in the book of Mormon, which is within the Book of Mormon. Does that make sense? I hope it does. So, we are in Mormon chapters one through six. In 4th Nephi the people were so happy and peaceful and everybody was following Christ and it was just this beautiful time, but then over the course of a couple hundred years, they started to get wicked again, and eventually, wickedness was everywhere. So that's where we are now. Mormon was told when he was young, ten years old, that he would eventually one day take over writing the history and the prophecies on the plates. He had a lot of spiritual experiences, and one of our study pages this week helps you look at that, about how he did some cool things when he was young. For our study together right now, we're going to jump ahead to chapter six, which is the last chapter in this week's reading, The first five chapters, we learn about Mormon as a child, and we go through several battles, and the Nephites are just doing worse and worse and worse, and they keep forgetting to turn to God, and they don't repent, and when they do win, they think it's because they're so awesome, and they never thank God for helping them, and it's just this recipe for disaster. And in chapter 6...

I have never read Mormon chapter 6 without bawling my eyes out! I cry so much when I read this. Basically, everybody has died. There were 24 people who survived and they all kind of grouped together at the end with Mormon. And absolutely everybody else died. It is so sad! Now, Mormon looks out over his people and he knows that all the Nephites are gone except a handful of them. And he's so sad and he asks some questions. Now nobody's there to answer the questions. So why did he write them down? Why do you think he wrote them down? When there are questions in the scriptures, it's really helpful to pause and answer them. Now he's asking the Nephites, but they're questions that can be relevant for us too. So let's look at a couple of these, and answer questions. Verse 17 has two questions in it. It says, "O ye fair ones," and fair means like chosen, good, beautiful, lovely people. These are his friends and family, right?"Oh ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord? O, you fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus who stood with open arms to receive you?" Now he's not asking how because he wonders how they did it, because he knows how they did it. He watched them be prideful. He watched them not listen to the prophets. He watched them ignore the commandments. He knows exactly what they did to be bad. He's asking them, Why? I don't understand how you could have wanted that! How is that what you want for your life? That's a harder question to answer because it's more personal, right? I have friends who have been active in church and kept the commandments and then at some point decided, you know what, this isn't for me. And I know some of their reasons. They didn't like some of the things that the prophets were saying. They didn't want to obey the commandments. They thought it was more fun to be able to go out and drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes and party with their friends. So I know what their reasons are. I just don't understand it. And I think that's where Mormon was, that he was like, Oh, you guys! But now let's think about it for ourselves. Do you ever do little things that take you away from Jesus Christ? Is there something in your life that maybe needs to change? I bet you thought of something just now. Even if it's a tiny little thing, I bet something came to your mind. And if it didn't, take a second to pray about it. Remember that in order to get the most out of your scripture study, don't just read. We also want to be sure we search, ponder, and pray. So if we search for questions to answer, and then we take some time to ponder those questions and answer them for ourselves, and then pray about what we can do and how it can help us, then our scripture study goes from just reading a story to changing our lives. The title of this lesson is, I would that I could persuade all to repent. And that's one of the things that Mormon says. He really wishes that he could just convince everybody to repent, to turn to Jesus Christ, and he saw exactly what happens when you don't do that. Let's not be like those Nephites who thought they were too good for the commandments. Let's go the other way and find the things that we need to fix now and turn to Jesus right away. President Russell M. Nelson has told us that we should"discover the joy of daily repentance." So every day, try to be a little bit better. And it will bring so much joy and happiness, and then you will be protected and you won't fall away. These are really sad chapters. And that's what happens when you don't repent, is suffering and sadness. And it might not happen right away, but it does happen. The scriptures have taught us that wickedness never was happiness. So if you want to be happy, then repent and follow Jesus. All right, you guys, thanks so much for being here this week. I hope you go study your scriptures and be sure you don't just read. Also search and ponder and pray. I'll see you guys next week. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to Primarily Scripture with Cindy Young. Don't forget you can subscribe to the newsletter and download free worksheets on the website PrimarilyScripture. com. And if you like the channel, be sure to subscribe, like, share, and leave a review. See you next time!