Week 4
Moroni is such a boss. He is so bold it would be frightening to disagree with him. The raging letter he sends to Pahoran is scathing. Moroni loves freedom more than anything other than God. He will do anything to defend freedom even if it means death. Moroni is also super intelligent. The strategies he continues to come up with are so amazing and fun to read about. He continues to destroy the Lamanites with his cunning skills. Moroni fortifies the weakest cities the most and turns them into the greatest strongholds. When the Lamanites come to attack they are surprised at how strong the previously weakest cities are. This can be applies to Satan's tactics today. He tried to exploit our weaknesses. If we work on those and fortify them then Satan will have no power over us. Another part of this reading is Teancum killing of Ammoron. Teancum is also bold and a bit rash it seems. It is never wise to make decisions when you're emotional. We obviously don't know if Teancum made this decision solely on anger or that it was a bad decision or that he wouldn't have died if he had thought about it more deliberately but we can take this lesson from it. He and Moroni are the perfect duo to incite fear among the Lamanites. Another lesson I took from the reading is to choose to not be offended. Pahoran could've been offended by the false accusations of Moroni, but he didn't. A saying my mom always says is "he who takes offense when offense isn't intended is a fool. He who takes offense when offense is intended is usually a fool." We can choose whether or not we take offense. It is entirely up to us. I liked the quote in the institute manual that talked about all of us having times when we are embarrassed by something or we feel insulted or mistreated. That is part of life! Whether it happened on purpose or not is does happen. To everyone. We can't let it get to us. We have to be mature and get over it. We can't let it get in the way of our relationship with God. We have to be like Pahoran and say "it mattereth not." The last thing that I think is super cool is that President Joseph F. Smith tells the people from New Zealand that they are descendants of Hagoth! That is so cool! It blew my mind leaning about that for the first time!