Week 11

Mormon 3:12 is a super interesting verse to me. Mormon is leading the wicked Nephites to battle and even after seeing them curse God and watching how they delight in bloodshed and wickedness he still loves them. Not only did he just love them a little bit but he loved them with all his heart. This is an important lesson that I can learn a lot from. Sometimes it's really hard for me to love people. Before I went on my mission that was something that I was really worried about. Every returned missionary talks about how much they grew to love the people that they were with so so much. The advice they give you is just to love the people. Love everyone. When I got that advice I was really nervous that I wouldn't be able to love the people as much as I should or wanted to. I've never been one to just love people instantly. It takes me time to develop that love for them. I think the phrase that says he loved them according to the love of God which was in him is a really key line in this verse. Sometimes people do things to me, to themselves or to others that make me feel like I can't love them. But the important thing I know it true is that God loves them and that He can give me some of the love that He has for them. If I'm not able to come up with the love for them myself, I can pray to feel love for them and Heavenly Father can give me that love when I don't have any. The second thing that sticks out to me in this verse is when it says that Mormon prayed without faith for the Nephites. What? Why was he praying without faith? Isn't that what all the prophets tell us? To pray with faith or else our prayer is in vain. The lesson that I got from this however is that there are two things our faith cannot do: take away the agency of others and force God to comply with our desires. Mormon understood this and knew that his prayer couldn't change the future. To me the verse implies that he lost faith in the wicked people not in God.