"... having been born of goodly parents,

therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days."

Nephi was a big fan of learning, and record-keeping. I myself am a big fan of learning, at least the things I consider interesting (which is most often useless trivia). Unlike me, Nephi was deeply concerned with why it was so important to learn all you could, and to keep accurate records: he was trying to learn and live the word of God (quite successfully, as it turns out), and to pass that knowledge onto his descendants (somewhat less successful there, but not his fault), and ultimately to me (success yet to be determined, but once again, not his fault).

One of his many educational efforts concerned trying yet again (and he never gave up) to get his wayward family members to pay attention to the scriptures, and actually think about how they applied (or could be applied) to their lives. He did this by showing them that the scriptures were actually addressed to them, as part of the House of Israel, and by using examples from the scriptures that paralleled the actual challenges and trials they were facing. Regarding this technique he said: " I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning."

The Lord knows (and He finds ways of reminding me) that I could profit from some learning, especially as it has to do with keeping His commandments (I'm pretty sure I know all the important ones... I just don't do much with them). I've started this page in the hopes that the Lord's promised blessings poured out upon our family as my brother does His work might splash just a bit onto me. In the spirit of "likening the scriptures" I've re-written (not paraphrased, because I'm not nearly as... anything as Nephi was) the very first lines of The Book of Mormon, adapted to my own life experience:

I, Brent, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father, no matter how hard I struggled against it; and having seen a few, mostly self-inflicted afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having mostly ignored great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days. 

And I pray that I have not yet procrastinated the day of my salvation until it is everlastingly too late.

On my mission (Colorado Denver South, 1996-1998 Presidents Fleming and Charsley... best mission in the world!), I had the opportunity to meet and teach a truly wonderful man, intelligent, educated, and staunchly Catholic. His name was Albert, and every time we met he'd split a 12oz can of Sprite evenly between me and my companion and himself, pouring it carefully into small glasses before we began to teach him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That was really our first mistake, Albert knew all about the Gospel; taught me more than I ever taught him, and asked a lot of easy questions that I consistently failed to answer with the truths that he and I both knew (I was a coward).

He loved the writing in The Book of Mormon, he praised the translation as "educated, even scholarly, and very well written" (He was Polish "And Polish means Catholic!", so we had given him the Polish translation). His major problem with the book was Nephi... Nephi was too good. Albert believed strongly that Isaiah was the greatest prophet who ever lived. Nephi agreed whole-heartedly with Albert on this point, and quoted Isaiah at length, which Albert loved. What he didn't love was that Nephi, in his visions of Christ's birth, had seen and described his mother, Mary... and had called her by name.

Albert was unwilling to accept that this hitherto unknown prophet from a book he'd barely heard of (and had heard nothing good about) was not only in the same league as Isaiah, but had trumped him in the "prophecies of Christ" competition (which I'm sure neither Isaiah or Nephi was aware they were competing in). It all seemed a little too "hindsight is 20/20" to Albert... which is the only really practical option other than the truth: Nephi was a real prophet who really lived and really did all those amazingly awesome things that he writes about as if he was simply living his life and the Lord stepped in from time to time to chat... which yeah, He did.

Nephi is the first person you "meet" in The Book of Mormon (especially true if you skip over the Title Page) and given that quite a few young members try (and fail) multiple times to read The Book of Mormon, he's probably one of the people you know best. Mormon himself only shows up at the very end, although he has some nice editorial asides throughout, and his son Moroni gets top billing in all the accounts of the coming forth of The Book of Mormon, and most people's memory of Alma is "that's where I stopped reading".

But Nephi you remember. Because he's awesome.

Chief Captain Moroni, and Helaman, (and the entirety of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies) were arguably equally awesome, but when a prophet of God says "...if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever..." it just tends to move a person out of my "I can be like him" category and into my "I only wish I could be like him" category. Which just goes to show I'm still a coward. Honestly, even Nephi is so far beyond where I'm at right now that the Adversary has little trouble convincing me that I'm terminally outclassed... but I'm working really hard to ignore his lies.

Sam I like, I like him a lot. He was faithful to his brother, to the Gospel, and to God. In the end Sam and his descendants were given the same blessings and promises as Nephi and his descendants, because while he didn't do the same things Nephi did, he always did what the Lord required of him... and really, that's all we're asked to do. Sam is someone I think I could be like, not that what he did was any easier than what his brother did, but because he just seems like a regular guy, and I'm a very regular guy myself. I seriously considered naming this page after Sam, but for several reasons (which probably only make sense to me) I decided that Sam is too much like the person I'm trying to be... too close to home, if that makes any sense at all. Also, there's precious little about him in the scriptures, and I hope to be doing a lot more "likening" as this goes on, so I really need good quotes.