Which Dad Do I Remember?

Dad passed away yesterday. Right now we’re busy with the burial ceremonies, so I won’t have a ton of time to write.

This whole thing is really weird for me; I have a lot of mixed feelings. Most of growing up, Dad was amazing. He was this tough dude that would go out on the dangerous caravan trading routes and bring home riches. He was always kind to me too. I really looked up to him. Then he started listening to those weird apostates like Jeremiah who were attacking our religion and God’s chosen leaders. Once he joined that clique, he only ever seemed to be disappointed with me.

And then for the last twelve years, he’s brought nothing but increasing hardship on our family. And he thinks I’m the problem! He was warned in a vision that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, and then once we get to this new land, he’s also informed via a vision that Jerusalem was destroyed. He offered that as proof that he did the right thing in destroying so much of what our family had worked to build. But if his first vision was crazy (or possibly a deception by evil spirits who tempt proud men like Jeremiah to rise up and condemn the rest of the leaders), then his second vision was likely also inaccurate. Then at the end of all of this, after I followed him out here against my better judgment, and put up with Nephi constantly trying to outdo the rest of us, after all of that, he tells my kids I’m wicked and that their curse will rest upon my head. He’s basically teaching them to not honor their father and mother.

So yeah, the part of me that’s still the kid back in Jerusalem is sad to see Dad go. But adult me has seen nothing but hardship and difficulty from Dad’s decisions, and so I hope our family can turn over a new leaf now where we won’t be led into suffering through the whimsies of Dad’s dreams. Laman might be a bit harsh at times, but he’s essentially a very practical guy. The challenge that’s coming will be Nephi. It’s clear he wants to be in charge, and his leadership would be just as poorly thought through as Dad’s, but it would have an added problem: he has a chip on his shoulder because he wants to be in charge, but he’s the younger brother. So who knows what he’d resort to if he thought he had a chance to take charge.

"Long live the king"

Anyway, over the next few days, we’ll finish up with the ceremonies for Dad. I’m going to try to focus on the good times before everything went south (literally).

Betrayed

As bothered as I was at the end of my last post, I’m more annoyed today. This morning, Dad called in Laman’s kids to his tent for some parting words. Then he called in mine. I listened in to what he was saying (since they’re my kids, I have a right to know what he’s telling them). He basically told them that they’re great, but they have rotten parents who are going to bring cursings down on them. He then said he’d bless them anyway so their curse would land on my head. Yeah, he undermined me in the worst way directly to my own children.

Again, thanks Dad.

Really gonna miss ya.

What dad brings upon our family

What I bring upon our family

I don’t know how else to address this topic because I’ve covered this sooo many times already. I’ve worked my butt off trying to keep this family alive while accommodating Dad, Nephi, and their whims. They cast their opinions as unassailable truths and refuse to see any legitimacy in the viewpoints of others. Then, anyone who disagrees with them is so evil that they’ll seek to turn that person’s children against them.

Dad's Parting Words

Sorry it’s been so long since the last post. We’re planting again and getting ready for another year. Dad’s health has been really bad, so we’re taking care of him too. Obviously Mom does the most for him, but I’ve really been trying to help out wherever possible to. It’s just frustrating because it seems like he doesn’t notice.

For example, yesterday he called Laman and me into his tent and reamed us out about what happened on the boat. That was over a year ago now. Laman and I have both been working our tails off to help the whole family survive since then, but there’s no recognition of that. Just drudging up old mistakes we’ve made.

He then echoed a bunch of stuff Nephi said about prophecies of our descendants in this land. Then he wrapped up pulling the biggest guilt trip ever. “Hear the words of your trembling parent whose about to lay in the grave, from where no traveler can return. I only have a few days left. So awake from your deep sleep of hell, and shake off the chains that bind you and will bring you down to eternal misery.”

He then went on to explain that we need to obey Nephi, which bothered me of course, but I could tell really ticked off Laman (although he didn’t say a word). He then pointed out that if it weren’t for Nephi, we’d have starved in the wilderness south of Judah. But what he forgot to mention is that he and Nephi were the very reason we were starving in the wilderness in the first place.

Dad then went on to say that Nephi was only “sharp” with us because the sharpness came from God. I feel like that’s only half the story here though. You could say he’s just using the sharpness of God, or you could say he lacks empathy and humility. He refuses to see the other side of issues when we disagree, and I think that’s the root cause of the contention.

Mine and Laban's destined position

He wrapped up by saying that if we don’t listen to Nephi, he’s going to remove his blessing from us. So yeah, apparently everything Laman and I have done to support this family doesn’t matter one bit if we aren’t willing to bow to Nephi.

You now, it’s hard to deal with the impending loss of Dad. But he makes it so much harder when I now realize that I never really had him in the first place. To him, he was always Nephi’s dad, and he apparently wishes he wasn't mine.

The Interpreter

Sorry it’s been awhile since the last update. Our promised land (assuming we don’t have to move again) is fertile, but also takes a lot of work. We just finished our first harvest and we’re going to be having a big feast in a couple days to celebrate.

The locals I mentioned in the last post gave us some pointers on prepping our fields, and then nearly all of our seeds took to this soil really well, and so the harvest was much better than we expected. God has definitely blessed us here.

Yesterday I finished building an altar. Given our harvest is a gift from God, it’s important that we offer sacrifices of thanksgiving as part of our feast. I’ve never built an altar before, but given the materials and tools I had on hand, I gotta say, I did quite well.

Dad asked Nephi to teach the family as part of the celebration, and Nephi seems ecstatic. Dad’s been pretty sick, and so Nephi has been taking over a lot of Dad’s duties which rubs some people (read: Laban) the wrong way. I’ll be honest, it kinda bugs me too. Partially because he’s my little brother, but mostly because of the way he goes about it. He’s so confident in his interpretation of the scriptures. In my experience there are kind of 6 levels of support the scriptures can give to a person's interpretation.

1. The scriptures explicitly support an interpretation. At this point, it’s not really even an interpretation. For example, the scriptures plainly state that Abraham received a covenant from God regarding his posterity (us).
2. The scriptures implicitly support an interpretation. The scriptures don’t come right out and say it, but the stories told, or the statements made make a lot more sense if the interpretation is true. For example, it’s my own personal view that the practice of taking multiple wives is just a horrible idea. Now the scriptures don’t come right out and say that, in fact we have stories of Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon all having more than one wife. However, not one of those stories goes well. Abraham and Jacob both experience tons of drama because of it. David and Solomon pretty much lose their souls because of it. So my interpretation of the scriptures is that multiple wives is a horrible idea. None of the prophets say it, but I think the scriptures implicitly support my interpretation.
3. The scriptures neither support nor refute an interpretation. Sometimes the prophets say things that are just kind of open or it’s not explained what they’re talking about. For example, when Zenos talks about an olive tree and the grafting back and forth of branches from tame and wild olive trees, he doesn’t come right out and explain exactly what he means. Dad and Nephi have both offered their interpretations of what Zenos’ story means. And as I’ve looked at what he’s saying, it appears to me that their interpretation is consistent with his story, but is by no means the only possible interpretation. Other interpretations that the prophets taught back in Jerusalem are also consistent with the story. So who’s right? I’m still in the process of trying to figure out some principles/rules that can help me answer that question. My operating rule before was to listen to the priests and prophets God had appointed to lead His people. But the last decade of experiences has destroyed that operating rule for me.
4. A roughly equal number of passages support an interpretation as refute it. This one is tricky, and it’s the source of another conflict I’ve had with Dad and Nephi. There are so many passages where the Lord promises He will protect and flourish our people. Yet Dad and Nephi have a roughly equal number of passages they often cite to indicate Jerusalem was ripe for destruction. So again, how do you determine who’s right? Well I have no idea. As I stated above, my operating rule on stuff like this has been pretty well smashed.
5. The scriptures only support an interpretation if you pull some serious mental gymnastics. This generally involves taking a passage and reinterpreting certain words to mean something different than those words are commonly understood to mean. Then using those reinterpreted words to make the passage support an interpretation.
6. One passage on its own supports an interpretation, but you have to ignore lots of other scriptures that refute that interpretation. Back to the multiple wives example, the law does allow for taking more than one wife, and so people think it’s okay. But to do that, you have to ignore all the stories of heartache and salvation lost among those who have taken more than one wife. It’s just a bad idea.

Anyway, numbers 3 and 4 have been a constant source of disagreement between me and Nephi. And it doesn’t bother me necessarily that we have different interpretations. Instead what’s annoying is his complete confidence in his interpretation and an unwillingness to entertain the possibility that my interpretation might also be valid.

So yeah, that’s what I have to look forward to when Nephi takes center stage in a couple days. I think instead I’ll try to focus on the cool altar that I built.

NOW We Made It to the Great Valley

Whew! Been busy. After landing, we had to pack up everything and head to wherever Dad and Nephi believed we should settle down. I was worried we were in for another eight year journey. Luckily after about a month of travel we got to a place they were happy with.

Also, I should mention, we didn’t have our camels anymore to haul all our stuff. I was thinking since we were carrying enough gear that we needed camels to transport it all, we’d better plant our roots near the seashore or this is going to be a total pain. So none of us could believe it when Dad said we needed to haul everything farther inland. Luckily it turns out, Sam is some sort of animal whisperer. We came across some kind of beasts of burden that were tame enough that he could get them and break them. Not sure what they were doing hanging out in the middle of nowhere, but I won’t complain.

We’re in a beautiful valley now. There’s only one navigable entrance into the valley on the south. A river runs into it from the north, but the mountains there are steep and the canyon too narrow to traverse. We’ve planted our seeds and are hoping they’ll grow here in this new, foreign soil. And, Nephi has been gathering ore to build tools. By the time harvest season comes around, we should be properly decked out.

I Guess My Dad's a Prophet

We buried Ishmael yesterday. He died two days ago, the night after we reached Nahom. Like I said, his passing has been really hard on everyone. All of his daughters loved him a lot. So much so that at the burial ceremony, things got a bit heated. Zilpah and Jael both gave Dad a piece of their minds, and I wasn’t too inclined to intervene. They had a point. Their dad is dead (not exactly a sign of God’s approval of our trek), they’re exhausted, pregnant, starving, and although we have meat right now, that whole starvation incident might happen again if we continue on in our present course of action. They wanted to return to Jerusalem but Dad wasn’t really willing to talk about it at that time. Instead he said we need to focus on Ishmael’s burial for the time being, and deal with other issues afterward. So Zilpah and Jael stormed off, and weren’t even there for the final parts of the burial ceremony.

Laman was pretty bothered by the whole thing. He’s now the patriarch of his own family, and yet he's dragging them out somewhere they don’t want to be. Later on, Hoshea and Ahijah and me were a couple ris outside of camp when Laman came up to us and initiated the following conversation. I’ll warn you ahead of time, this conversation goes to a weird place, but just keep in mind we’ve all kind of been in a weird place lately. It’s hard to make sense of things.

Laman: We gotta get back to Jerusalem, guys.

Hoshea: And how are we going to do that? We don’t have the right gear to split up into two parties, and there’s no way you’ll ever get Lehi, Sam, and Nephi to come along with us.

Laman: Well, I don’t think we should split into two parties. Doing that basically ensures our moms and sisters die along with those three fools.

Me: Look, I wanna get back too. We all do. But, I’m starting to wonder though, like…that director. I have no idea how that thing works, but it seems to be from God, and it's telling us to keep going.

Ahijah: It does seem to be evidence that our Dads aren’t totally crazy...

Laman: Listen to yourselves! Who is the only one in our family that can make something like that director?!

Me: uhhh...

Laman: Nephi, you moron! Look, one thing Nephi has going for him is that he is a genius at creating stuff. A couple weeks before we left, his master was telling me he's excelling in his apprenticeship faster than any apprentice he’s ever seen. Ever notice how the writing on the ball never changes when any of us look at it? It’s only when Dad or Nephi are using it. Nephi is seriously cunning, and he rigged up the thing so the needles point the direction he wants them to go, and he swaps out the writing periodically. He’s trying to get us to think that God is leading us.

Me: You just blew my mind...

Ahijah: It kind of makes sense, I guess.

Laman: Oh, it makes even more sense than that. Nephi’s also claiming that God talks to him, and angels minister to him. Well isn’t that convenient? “Hey guys, God led us to this ‘promised land,’ so now it’s time to set up our little community that God has given us. Oh, and God talks to me, so I better tell you all how to run this place since God gave it to us.” God talks to him?! God speaks to the prophets, the men he gave authority to to lead us. But he’s trying to usurp that authority by setting himself up as a light for our family. It’s basically just priestcraft. He’s wants to be in charge, to be a king, regardless of how small his kingdom is. He’s always wanted to be on top. That’s why he always talks down to us. He’s trying to put us in our place—below him.

Hoshea: So I guess it’s safe to say you don’t think God is leading us then?

Me: [chuckle chuckle] Yeah, tell us how you really feel. No, kidding. But seriously, you kinda have a point here. But my question is, so what? What are we going to do?

Laman: Lemuel, who’s responsible for protecting Jael?

Me: … uhhh, me. Where are going with—

Laman: —And if Jael’s threatened, what’s your job?

Me: …uhhh, protect her? Take out the threat.

Laman: Okay, now why is Ishmael dead?

Hoshea: Because we are trying to survive in a desert...and apparently we’re not very good at it.

Laman: Okay, now Ishmael isn’t going to be the last one to die out here. The pregnant women will probably not make it either. You have to realize that the biggest threats right now to your wives are Dad and Nephi.

Me: So you’re saying that we should—

Laman: I’m saying it’s time to be a man and do what it takes to protect your family.

Ahijah: But Nephi would die before he lets us take everyone back to Jerusalem!

Laman: Then maybe we take him up on that offer. Look Lemuel, Nephi’s my brother too, and I don’t want to be talking like this, but things have changed now. My responsibilities have changed now, and Lemuel, so have yours.

Me: Yeah, I guess...

Laman: Look we don’t have to kill him. I’d prefer we don’t. What we do is we simply take control of the situation. We go back to camp, we announce we’re headed back and start the preparations. If they resist, we escalate and show we’re in control. Hopefully Dad and Nephi don’t do anything dumb, and we can all head back and move on with our lives.

Lemuel: I think you’ve got realize that escalation is guaranteed. It’s 4 against 4 here. Dad, Nephi, Sam and Zoram against the 4 of us. We’re not going to be able to “just take charge” here.

Ahijah: And your dad’s may not be a young guy anymore, but he definitely still has some fight in him.

Hoshea: So then I guess we have to strike first. Let’s say Nephi can’t put up a fight anymore, then that definitely swings the odds in our favor, and discourages the others from trying to stop us.

Laman: Hoshea’s ri—

And then the wind started. The weird thing was, there was no wind. Just the sound of a VERY. LOUD. WIND. We all stopped talking, then the wind sound died down, and then…Well, I don’t know how to explain it to all you guys. We all like…felt…or…heard…or something...a voice.

Not what it looked like, but definitely what it sounded and felt like.

Voice: Laman and Lemuel, arise and hearken to My words!

[Shocked and unsure what was going on, I just kinda sat there dumbfounded.]

Voice: Laman and Lemuel, arise and hearken to My word, even the word of the God of Israel!!

[This time I figured it out and complied.]

Voice: Why do you seek the blood of your father and your brother, Nephi? For I, the Lord, have said: Inasmuch as you keep my commandments, you shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands. And I have blessed Nephi, because of his faith, and because he has sought me diligently, with lowliness of heart. And inasmuch as you shall rebel against Nephi, you shall be cut off from my presence. And now behold, if you rebel against me, I will curse you, even with a sore curse. Now I say unto you: Go, and remember the captivity of your fathers in the land of Egypt, and remember how great things I have done for them; for they were in bondage, and I delivered them. And now I say unto you, Laman, Lemuel, Hoshea, and Ahijah, go your way, and seek to destroy your father and brother no more, that I may fulfill my covenant with them, and this even if you will of yourself be cast off.

Laman: [in a very terrified voice at this point] But...my God, are we not already cast off in this place? We have suffered much and will likely die of starvation.

Voice: If you hearken unto me, I will be your guide. I will bless you again with food, that you will not perish. Now go, repent of the evil you have done, and keep my commandments.

Yeah, so basically, Laman tried to argue with God. That guy! Whaddya gonna do?

Anyway, as I said up at the top of this post, this is all kinds of weird. How Nephi and Dad have favor with God when they’re actively rebelling against God’s prophets is beyond me. But who am I to argue with God? (That’s apparently Laman’s job anyway).

So after that, we basically cooled off, got our heads back on our shoulders, and decided that being "cast off" didn’t sound like our preferred life outcomes. So I’m trying to be more humble about this whole thing. Laman and I were chatting afterward and decided that we should probably accept that Dad is a real prophet. If you’ve read my previous posts, you know that creates a lot of cognitive dissonance. I admit, I’m confused about what’s going on here, but I guess God wants me to play ball. So I’m gonna play.

Spiritual or Temporal

I don’t know what just happened. If you read my last post, you know I was planning on talking to Dad about my concerns that he’s abandoned God and His people. After recounting to him the covenants that God established with our people, he didn’t seem to really get what I was talking about. I’ll give you his response to the covenants, and the rest of the conversation as best as I can recall.

Dad: Lemuel, Jerusalem is going to be destroyed, and after -

Me: How can you say that? Didn’t you understand the covenants I just read?

Dad: I’ve seen it, and the prophets foretold it.

Me: No, Jeremiah has foretold it. I know you think he’s a prophet, but why would the Lord call one of the random priests as the prophet to give direction to the high priest and to the people as a whole. It would create only confusion. God works through the leaders he’s chosen. David's last words confirmed that God's house is a house of order.

Dad: Not just Jeremiah, Isaiah has also prophesied that Jerusalem will be destroyed.

Me: Dad, I think you have a tendency to interpret spiritual things as temporal. The prophets love Isaiah the same as you do, but they see his true message—a spiritual message. You, me, Nephi…Israel represents everyone of us. Israel is God’s covenant people, and you and I are possessors of that same covenant. Isaiah is using Jerusalem to talk about what happens when any of us fall away from Jehovah. When that happens, we fall, and our righteousness is scattered. But Jehovah is merciful and provides the Day of Atonement where our righteousness is gathered back in, and we reconcile to God. This is what the prophets teach about Isaiah!

Dad: Oh Lemuel. You don’t see it do you? I’m glad you are likening the scriptures unto yourself, but you need to realize that Isaiah’s prophecies refer not just to things spiritual, but also things temporal. Jerusalem is going to be destroyed, and many Jews will be hauled off to Babylon. Eventually they’ll come back to Jerusalem, and 600 years after our family left the city, the Messiah will be born among the Jews. This Messiah is the Savior and Redeemer of the world, and He is the one who will provide the real atonement you spoke of. This atonement is what will save the whole world from its fallen state.

Dad: He will be preceded by a messenger who will cry from the wilderness saying “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is lighter than I, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.” This messenger will perform mikveh for the Messiah, and bear testimony that the Messiah is the Lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world through His atonement.

Dad: But the Jews will reject and kill the Messiah. And after they do so, he will rise from the dead, and He will begin a ministry to the Gentiles through the Holy Ghost. If you want to really understand what’s going on with our people and our family, “the Lord's people,” I suggest you study Zenos. Just as the branches of the old, corrupt tree needed to be broken off and scattered, so our Lord has broken off our family from the corrupt tree, and is sending us to a promised land. And after all Israel is scattered, then the wild branches (the Gentiles) have a shot at the gospel. Then after the Gentiles receive the fullness of the Gospel, then Israel will be gathered again and come to know the Messiah.

After that, we discussed a few of Isaiah’s prophecies, and I guess I can see where Dad is getting tripped up now. With Zenos, Isaiah, and the others, he and I just disagree on whether the message is spiritual or temporal. I stand with the prophets who teach that the message is spiritual; it’s an analogy to talk about the fall and redemption of the soul. Dad rejects the prophet’s teachings and thinks that Isaiah and Zenos are speaking of temporal things.

I’ll be honest, I’m still not persuaded by Dad’s take on it though. The more I think about it, the more it seems like his interpretation creates too many paradoxes in God’s word. He says we’ll possess the gates of our enemies, and that they’ll flee from before us. So how then can Isaiah’s words about our destruction be interpreted literally??? I think the prophets are right on this one, but I still don’t know how to help Dad understand my point. Again, if you guys have any ideas of things on how to resolve this, please share in the comments below. I think I’ll go talk to Laman and see if he has any ideas. I’d like to include Nephi in our discussion, but I saw him heading out of camp somewhere, so maybe when he gets back.

God's Covenant People

You know how sometimes you feel like you’re trying really hard to please someone even though that someone doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, and they seem totally oblivious to everything you’re trying to do for them? Today I feel like that’s what’s happening with me and Dad. He had another dream last night and the message he took away is basically that I’m a bad person who doesn’t love God. In his dream, there was a tree (that may or may not be the olive tree he talked about a few weeks ago, I don’t really get it) and it had some fruit. And Dad, Mom, Nephi, and Sam ate the fruit. But, shocker, Laman and I didn’t. Also, there were a bunch of people in a big building making fun of those who ate the fruit. So Dad spent quite awhile telling us that he was afraid we’d be cut off from God and that we needed to keep God's commandments.

What do the swirl's mean? Probably nothing.

What do I even do with that??? First, it’s just a dream. I have weird dreams about food too lately because we’re in the desert, and I’m hungry more often than I used to be. I’ve always been kind of wary of people who read too much into their dreams. Sometimes dreams are just dreams. In fact, most of the time, dreams are just dreams. I'm sure it's different for prophets, but for people like us, it's best to be cautious.

Second, I’ve done everything Dad has asked, just like Nephi has. I followed Dad out here, I went back and risked my life to get the plates, I went back again to get Ishmael’s family. And yeah, Nephi and I had disagreements that escalated; that’s kind of what brothers do. So for Dad to say, “Oh Nephi (who is apparently my favorite son now) ate the fruit, and Lemuel, you’re lame and didn’t eat the fruit in my trippy dream. That means Lemuel is going to hell, but good job Nephi, God loves you.” It’s like he’s completely unaware of everything I’ve done up to this point. This is a REAL sacrifice, and it’s not easy for me. Which leads into my third point about why this is not easy for me...

This isn’t easy for me because I doubt that we’re really obeying God's commands in this “adventure.” Here’s my problem with this whole thing: I actually believe what God has taught through his prophets. We are the Lord's people. His covenants with Abraham (a prophet) describe the blessings and protections we receive. Moses (a prophet) gave us the law—a law which we the Jews still keep, by the way. Our current political system can be traced back to Samuel (also a prophet). Here’s a list of very specific things from the prophets that Dad and the rest of the Jeremiah faction seem to ignore:

• God promised this of Canaan to Abraham’s seed (that’s us, not the Babylonians). This promise was restated to Isaac, Jacob, and Moses.
• God promised Abraham that his seed will possess the gate of their enemies and those that hate them (in our day, that would be Babylon).
• Furthermore, He promised "I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land."
• Oh, and Israel will possess greater nations that are mightier than Israel themselves. No man will be able to stand before Israel. (quick note, while the nation of Israel has been destroyed, the true ruler of Israel as identified by Jacob is Judah. That same Judah that was protected from Assyria by God. The same Judah that has preserved the line of David.)

Finally, the Jeremiah faction likes to dwell on the perceived weaknesses of our leaders. They say these “sins” are leading to our destruction. I’m the first to admit, the leaders aren’t perfect. Of course they make mistakes. That’s why we observe the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement. It cleanses all our sins before the Lord and allows us to regain our oneness with him.

I’m thinking I’ll take these concerns to Dad. He thinks I’m rebelling against God, but I worry the same about him. Maybe going through the scriptures and helping him better understand our status as the Lord's special, covenant people might clear up some things. Please let me know in the comments if I’ve missed any scriptures or teachings from our recent prophets that could help get Dad back on the right track.

They're Coming with Us (and some prophetic words)

This update is coming sooner than I expected. The good news is I’m not in prison. Also, Ishmael’s place is pretty nice; we’re staying here to help him and his family get geared up to head out. And yes, that means he's going with us. Nephi did all the talking, which made sense. I still haven’t really drank Dad’s Kool-aid so I’m not a very effective representative of his views on this matter. Nephi on the other hand really sells it.

I dunno, maybe I’m being too hard on Nephi. That angel seemed to like him, and he did get the plates. So in spite of his weaknesses, I have to remind myself that he’s got some redeeming qualities. That’s hard to remember though, because I really don’t get what’s going on with him and Dad. They seem to be doing everything wrong, and yet God hasn’t stopped them yet. They criticize our leaders and our people, when it’s obvious that we’re keeping the Law of Moses. Yeah, we’re not perfect, but neither are Jeremiah's followers. Shortly before we left, I heard one of the prophets teach the following:

"Too many people think Jews and their leaders should be perfect or nearly perfect. They forget that the the Lord's grace is sufficient to accomplish His work through mortals. Our leaders have the best intentions, but sometimes we make mistakes. This is not unique to our faith, as the same thing occurs in our relationships among friends, neighbors, and workplace associates and even between spouses and in families.

Looking for human weakness in others is rather easy. However, we make a serious mistake by noticing only the human nature of one another and then failing to see God’s hand working through those He has called.

Focusing on how the Lord inspires His chosen leaders and how He moves Israel to do remarkable and extraordinary things despite their humanity is one way that we hold on to the Law and stay safely within the Good Caravan Israel."

Why do Dad and Nephi have to be so negative? Isaiah was pretty clear when he said, “How beautiful up on the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!…Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for Jehovah hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem.” Don’t they know what these words mean? Why would they rather be negative and criticize others instead of be counted among those who bring good tidings?

Anyway, sorry for the tangent, but it’s just something that’s been on my mind lately as I'm trying to figure this thing out. I admit I’m still at a loss.

Anyway, back to the main point, Ishmael and Nephi really hit it off. So Mr. Charisma apparently isn’t as awkward as I thought. He just gels with certain types of people. With Zoram and now Ishmael, I’m worried we might have too many of Nephi's “type” pretty soon.

Luckily they're balanced out by Ishmael’s sons and a couple of his daughters who seem to be a bit more practical. Both of Ishmael’s sons have one young kid, and his oldest son, Hoshea, will be getting a second kid soon. His wife, Ashtaroth, is about six months along. Sheerah, Ahijah’s wife (Ahijah is Ishmael’s second son), just had a baby two months ago. So needless to say, neither Hoshea nor Ahijah are all that pumped about abandoning everything to live in the desert. It was one thing for our family to do it with all of us kids being a bit older. But taking a newborn out to live the life of a nomad…well, I can see why his two sons are ticked at us.

Last night, I could see how unhappy Hoshea and Ahijah were with their Dad, so I pulled them aside and kind of gave them the run down. I let them know that most of us weren’t excited about it either, but it’s like Dad and Nephi are on a different planet. I told them to store their stuff somewhere secure because eventually our Dads and Nephi would come back to earth when the reality of the situation (read: potentially starving in the desert) set in. We just gotta get through this until Dad and Ishmael have had time to cool off and feel it’s safe to return. I don’t know if this helped them settle down or not, but at least they’re cool with me now and realize we’re on the same side.

Same goes for Zilpah and Jael, two of Ishmael’s daughters, who were there when I was trying to calm their brothers. They don’t have circumstances that cause the same level of concern as their brothers, but they’re rightfully concerned anyway. Zilpah’s worried that her dad is full on apostate now. He’s no longer just reading and listening to the Jeremiah faction, but now he’s abandoning Israel. I totally get where she’s coming from. I didn’t really have a good answer to help her out because…well…I worry about the same thing.