2.181 They Had Established a Church in That Land

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, a bold reminder that our lives are meant to carry his flavor, his truth, and his love to the world. Join me each day to explore one verse of scripture and one thought, striving to stay full of savor and truly live as savory salt. Hello, my friends.

It's great to have you with me. Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. My friends, if you listen to this podcast with somebody else, turn to them right now and give them a high five.

If you listen to this podcast alone, put both hands in front of you and give yourself a high five. This week, I mentioned it a little bit last week, but this week, we formally crossed the 50% line. So, thanks for tuning in.

We're going to get right into this. We're going to get right into this. So, thanks for tuning in.

We're going to get right into this. We're going to get right into this. You're not only halfway through the Doctrine and Covenants, you're halfway through the.

And if you started listening to Savory Salt in the first season, you're halfway through the Book of Mormon for the second time. Congratulations on sticking with your day-to-day study. I hope you take some time to reflect personally on what your individual scripture study does for you.

If you believe Savory Salt is meant to be something outside of your own personal scripture study, make sure you are taking time for you and the Lord inside of the scriptures. That is vitally important. We're reading this week Doctrine and Covenants sections 71 to 75, as well as Alma chapters 20 through 24.

I know last week I left us with just a couple of Alma verses, and so I actually decided to dive into Alma chapter 20 today on the front end of the week. So, we get to Doctrine and Covenants, but we're going to start in Alma chapter 20. I think it's interesting if you go back to Alma 17, when all the bros are getting back together again, right, and all the missionaries are back together again.

The story immediately, the first story it goes straight into is Ammon. I think there's something to learn there, but let's do our verse for today and then come back into it. Ammon's story, by the way: Missionary 101.

If you want to be an effective, amazing missionary, spend some time inside of Alma 17 through 20. Yeah, let's go there just to start because that's the first experience with him and King Lamoni. Alma 20, verse 1 is our verse for today.

It seems quite insignificant until you get it into the perspective of what's happening in that day. It says, And it came to pass that when they had established a church in that land, that King Lamoni desired that Ammon should go with him to the land of Nephi, that he might show him unto his father. Now, as I mentioned on the surface, not too much significance there until you pause and realize the beginning of that verse says when they had established a church in the land.

This is the land of Nephite enemies. This is the land of the hardened, hateful, distrustful Lamanites. This is the land of the ferocious peoples.

And yet here it mentions it as if like, oh yeah, and you know, because Ammon does the work of the Lord. And so they established a church. And then King Lamoni, who happened to be a king of the Lamanites, who was converted to the Lord, wanted to share the gospel too with his dad.

That's how this kind of comes across. This is monumental. I love that Alma 17 starts their story with Ammon because it's put me kind of in my place a little bit.

You see, when I tell missionary stories and when I hear a lot of other missionaries tell stories, they focus on the crazy stories. They focus on the crazy adventures of temperature or the crazy adventures of food or the crazy adventures that they had with rocks thrown at them or like whatever it is. They focus on the crazy stories of their.

And it's fun. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. But my friends, something that stuck out to me this time is Ammon, they get together and Ammon says, I got to tell you guys about establishing a church in the land of our enemies.

And then he goes and tells some of these fantastic conversion stories. My friends, for me, it's an opportunity to remember that some of the best stories I have to share with my family and friends—these are not just conversion stories of those I was able to share the gospel with, but just stories of teaching about Jesus Christ and the plan of salvation. I should remember to teach my kids not just the fun and the funny stories of Mongolia, but the opportunities I had to teach a widower and his son and daughter who were just 12 and 10 years old.

They should know that story. So my friends, those of you that are missionaries, have been missionaries, returned missionaries, currently missionaries, whatever it is, take time to share the stories where you got to share your testimony. Because in doing so, those same feelings are going to come back around to you.

And you're going to be able to remember and recall and testify again that Jesus Christ is real. I'm so grateful that Ammon bore his testimony on the front end of reuniting with his friends, at least based on the way this story is written. And I hope that we can all remember to do that as such going forward with our friends as well.

That's all for today, my friends. Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave unto the covenants you have made, and together we will be Savory Salt. For more information, visit us at www.FEMA.org.