1nephi 12-16

1 nephi 12: vision continued.
nephi sees his descendants, and wars between the people of the lamanties and the nephites.
vs 6 sees coming of christ, 12 apostles and 12 disciples. purposes in judgement.

vs 16-18 direct decoding of some specific parts of the tree of life vision.
there's a loit of abrahamaic covenant stuff or language like that in this chapter.

1 nephi 13: vs 5 we are introduced to the agreat and abominable church.
vs 12: columbus' voyage
vs 13 age of exploration.
vs 13-16 pilgrims
vs 17 england
vs 18 revolutionary war
vs 19 usa established
vs 20 the bible shows up
vs 24-29 more on the bible. it once contained the fulness of the gospelm, but it has been altered and many plain and simple things were removed from the text. in vs 29 it says without these plain and precious things, many STUMBLE. i liked the word chouce there of stumble, its how we travle in the dark, the trus dark, not the dark int he city where there is stilllight from the buildings or street lampos. but the dark out int he woods, or out in the middle of nowhere... we stumble around desperate to find a lightswitch, a match, flashlight and thin of our relief when we find that match or flashlight. we gather around it, we bask in the little light we have. so without those plain trusth many stumble, wandering in the dark...
vs 34-36 purpose of tha plates is made clear. book of mormon
vs 39-42 book of mormon and other books of forthcoming revelations? article of faith number 9, check it out.


1 nephi 14:25-26 the vision is being continued, . The angel speaks of jophn the revelator, and how when john wrote the revelation downi t was easy to understand. this would indicate that it was altered, meddled with and changed. rarely do you ever hear that revelation ise asy to understand.
vs 25 nephi is shown the same revelation but told not to write it down.
then in 26 the angel says that others have seen the same revelation and have been commanded to write their visions to maintain its purity truth and to be revealed at a laterlter time.

1 nephi 15:9 laman andlemuel are complaining because they dont understand a revelation or a lesson given by their father (about an olive tree) and Nephi asks them, Have you asked? and they reply, NO he makes no such things known unto us.
doubting that God would even reveal to them what it means, doubting god's ability or willingness to guide them. Why wouldn't he make such things known?

vs 12-18 note the similarities to the allegory of the olive tree in jacob 5.

1 nephi chapter 16
vs 1-3 nephi is teaching his elder brothers. they took the words to be hard. the wicked take them to be hard things.
but then in vs 3... nephi comments that if only you were able or willling to righteous and willing to hearken to the truth you would not take them to be hard.. so righteousness is in our attitudes. in our humility.... in our willngness to be gentle.. someties wethink that somene is just righteous but we dontthink that is an active thing, we are tryign to be righteous or not being righteous in our attitude. think back tot he saints who had to go through such trials, those were hard things one could say, but to others, theyw ere willing, it was because they wanted to be righteous.

vs 5 nephi had had a vision of the wickedess of his brother's seed, but even here he still had hope.

vs. 10 the liahona shows up. refer back to 1nephi 3:7. how does the liahona work? and we see that God will make certain there is a way to get those things accomplished as he needs. observe how it worked.

vs 16. liahona directed them where to hunt. if it is important to uis, the spirit will guide us. hunting mays eem like a little thing, but if it is important for whatever reason, we can be guided....

vs 18-25 nephi and his brothersgo hunting for food for the families. nephi's steel bow breaks. his brothers' bow strings have lost their spring. everyone save nephi complains. this includes lehi. nephi goes and gets a straight stick tio make into an arrow and then he makes a bow. then he goes to lehi his father (who'd just been complaining mind you) and says, ask the lord wher ei hsould go to find food. that shows humility in nephi, it als shows that even prophets have bad days. nephi woulc have asked god himself, but he knew the hierarchy. he shows respect to lehi by asking him to ask for him... it also remindslehi of his calling and of the humility he needs to have.