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Enos–Words of Mormon — “He Worketh in Me to Do According to His Will”

Come, Follow Me — April 15–21, 2024

Official reading: Enos–Words of Mormon
Official title: “He Worketh in Me to Do According to His Will”
The official manual joins Enos’s soul-hunger to Mormon’s willingness to follow a prompting he did not fully understand: sincere prayer helps us know God’s will, and knowing His will enables us to do it.¹

← Previous: Jacob 5–7 — The Allegory of the Olive Tree | Next: Mosiah 1–3 — Filled with Love towards God and All Men →

Key Verse

“And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will.” — Words of Mormon 1:7

Why These Little Books Belong Together

This week covers only four canonical chapters, but they span almost a thousand years of sacred history. Enos begins alone in a forest, trying to make his inherited religion his own. Jarom and the first writers in Omni preserve a thinning record through generations of warfare and uneven faith. Amaleki ends the small plates by inviting readers to “offer [their] whole souls” to Christ. Then Mormon speaks from centuries later, explaining that he felt prompted to preserve those small plates even though he did not know why.

The chapters belong together because they trace one long movement:

A father’s words sink into a son → the son prays for future readers → record keepers preserve the witness → Mormon obeys a quiet prompting → God’s children receive the record.

Enos prays that the record will someday reach the Lamanites. Jarom through Amaleki keep passing it on. Mormon includes it. Joseph Smith translates it after the loss of the 116 pages. We read it. The answer to Enos’s prayer is not confined to one dramatic night; it unfolds through centuries of ordinary stewardship.

The memorable image for the week is therefore not only a wrestler in the woods. It is also a relay team carrying a fragile baton through the dark. Some runners are eloquent; some contribute only a few lines. The race continues because each one hands the record to the next.

What to Watch for While Reading

• Mark every verb Enos uses for prayer: hungered, knelt, cried, raised, poured out, struggled, prayed, labored.
• Follow the widening circles of Enos’s concern: his own soul → the Nephites → the Lamanites → the future record.
• Notice how often these writers admit limits: “I write but a little,” “I know of no revelation,” and “I do not know all things.”
• Ask what makes a people “prosper.” Jarom and Omni describe military survival, spiritual obedience, records, language, unity, and Christ-centered leadership—not merely wealth.
• Track the record-keeping verbs: write, engrave, preserve, deliver, search, find, take, put, hand down.
• Compare Enos 1:4, “my soul hungered,” with Enos 1:17, “my soul did rest.” What happens between hunger and rest?
• Look for Christ in books often treated as mere historical transition: faith makes Enos whole; prophets teach the law’s intent; Amaleki invites the whole soul; Mormon preserves prophecies of Christ.

Historical and Literary Context

The small plates are a testimony record

Nephi made two records with confusingly similar names. The large plates of Nephi carried the broader history—reigns, wars, migrations, and public affairs. The small plates of Nephi emphasized ministry, prophecy, revelation, and the things of God (see 1 Nephi 9:2–6). By Jarom and Omni, the writers repeatedly acknowledge that fuller history exists elsewhere. Their brevity is not evidence that nothing happened; it reflects limited plate space, the existence of another record, and the specialized sacred purpose of this one.²

Nearly a millennium in four chapters

Book	Approximate setting	Principal writer(s)	What the record preserves
Enos	Fifth century BC	Enos, son of Jacob	Conversion, prayer, covenant for the record, ministry
Jarom	Fourth–third centuries BC	Jarom, son of Enos	Faith amid warfare; prophets explain the law’s intent
Omni	Third–second centuries BC	Omni, Amaron, Chemish, Abinadom, Amaleki	Rapid succession, migration to Zarahemla, records and language, Amaleki’s invitation
Words of Mormon 1:1–11	About AD 385	Mormon	Why he included the small plates after abridging the large plates to Benjamin’s reign
Words of Mormon 1:12–18	Returns to Benjamin’s era	Canonically part of Words of Mormon	Benjamin’s conflict, prophetic labor, and establishment of peace

The sudden jump from Amaleki to Mormon is deliberate. Mormon is not the next keeper in Amaleki’s family line. He is the latter-day compiler who found these older plates among the records entrusted to him and attached them to his larger abridgment.³

A record can preserve identity

Omni gives a controlled comparison. Mosiah’s refugees arrive in Zarahemla carrying the brass plates. The people of Zarahemla descend from another group that left Jerusalem, but they brought no records. Over generations, their language changed and their knowledge of God deteriorated (Omni 1:17). The text does not claim that literacy alone creates righteousness. It does demonstrate that a community without durable memory becomes vulnerable to losing both language and covenant identity.

Think of records as a spiritual seed bank. A field may fail for a season, but preserved seed can begin another harvest. Enos knows his generation may not persuade the Lamanites, so he prays for the record to outlive the failed season. The plates carry seed farther than his voice can travel.

Major Themes

1. Inherited faith must become encountered faith

Enos’s conversion begins with his father’s words. Jacob had spoken “concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints,” and those words finally “sunk deep” (Enos 1:3). The delay matters. Parents and teachers do not control the hour when truth germinates. They can place words where the Spirit may later bring them alive.

followHIM’s Gerrit Dirkmaat stresses that Jacob’s teaching was not wasted merely because Enos had not yet fully converted. When Enos finally asks ultimate questions in solitude, his father’s language becomes something he can “grab ahold of.”⁴ Unshaken develops the same generational problem: children may first inherit gospel practices and only later gain the spiritual experience that made those practices meaningful to their parents.⁵

Teaching illustration — the delayed echo: Call into a canyon and the echo does not return at the instant of speaking. The silence between voice and echo does not mean the sound vanished. Enos is Jacob’s delayed echo—but when the word returns, it becomes Enos’s own voice.

2. Prayer turns inward healing into outward charity

Enos does not remain preoccupied with himself. His prayer expands in ordered circles:

Movement	Verses	Desire
Personal	Enos 1:2–8	Remission of his sins; wholeness through faith in Christ
Family and people	Enos 1:9–10	Welfare of the Nephites
Enemies and estranged kin	Enos 1:11–18	Salvation of the Lamanites and preservation of the record
Lifelong ministry	Enos 1:19–27	Public witness, labor, and final rest with the Redeemer

Dirkmaat compares this widening concern to Lehi after tasting the fruit: he immediately looks around for his family. Conversion that is genuinely centered in Christ enlarges, rather than contracts, the soul.⁴ Jared Halverson describes the movement vividly: Enos’s hungry, emptied soul receives grace until it overflows, and then he pours that newly filled soul out for others.⁵

This does not mean that forgiven people instantly feel warm toward everyone who harmed them. Enos still needs “many long strugglings” to pray for the Lamanites. Charity may be both gift and labor. The significant change is that their salvation has become one of his desires.

3. “Before God” is not “against God”

Enos says he will tell of “the wrestle which I had before God” (Enos 1:2). Don’t Miss This emphasizes the preposition: Enos brings his struggle into God’s presence rather than treating God as the opponent.⁶

A scholarly reading by Matthew Bowen suggests that Enos’s language deliberately recalls Jacob wrestling in Genesis 32:24–30, followed by Jacob’s reconciliation with Esau in Genesis 33. The father named Jacob, the son’s wrestle, seeing God’s “face,” and movement toward estranged brethren form a possible literary network.⁷ This is a thoughtful literary proposal, not an official statement about Enos’s source language. Whether or not every wordplay is accepted, the narrative parallel is illuminating: wrestling before God can prepare a person to face a brother differently.

4. Forgiveness is received through faith in Christ

The center of Enos’s story is not the duration of his prayer. It is the Lord’s answer:

“Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast never before heard nor seen. … Wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole” (Enos 1:8).

Enos asks, “Lord, how is it done?” The answer does not offer a mechanical theory of atonement. It directs him to Christ. Unshaken observes that Enos learns to trust the result of grace—his guilt has been swept away—even without mastering every mechanism of salvation.⁵ This is not anti-intellectual; Enos keeps asking and learning. It is a reminder that forgiveness is ultimately an encounter with the truthful Redeemer, not merely a successful analysis of oneself.

Link this to the Atonement: repentance is not pretending sin was harmless. It is trusting that Christ’s mercy is stronger than confessed and forsaken sin. The adversary first minimizes sin and then, after repentance begins, magnifies shame. The Lord names sin truthfully and then makes the repentant sinner whole.⁴

5. Prophets teach both commandments and their intent

Jarom says the people were taught the law of Moses and “the intent for which it was given,” persuading them to “look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in him to come as though he already was” (Jarom 1:11). This is one of the week’s most important teaching principles.

A commandment without covenant purpose can feel like an arbitrary fence. A commandment understood through Christ becomes part of a path. Jarom’s prophets do not discard the law; they disclose its center. The law points forward to the Redeemer.

6. Small stewardship is still real stewardship

Omni openly calls himself “a wicked man” and says he did not keep the Lord’s statutes as he should (Omni 1:2). Yet he still obeys one entrusted command: he passes the plates to Amaron. His short entry should not be romanticized—he regrets real spiritual failure—but neither should we miss the mercy in the handoff.

The relay continues through writers who seem less impressive than Nephi, Jacob, or Enos. Sacred history is often preserved by people whose discipleship is incomplete. God’s work does not require us to pretend we are flawless; it requires us to give Him the next faithful act.

7. “Offer your whole souls” is availability, not theatricality

Amaleki’s final sermon gathers the entire small-plates tradition into one invitation:

“Come unto Christ … and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end” (Omni 1:26).

Don’t Miss This illustrates this kind of consecration with Joseph Millett, who was available when a neighbor needed flour. “Whole soul” need not mean seeking a dramatic assignment. It means withholding no protected compartment from Christ: time, attention, resources, wounds, ambitions, and ordinary capacity become available for His use.⁶

That invitation prepares for Mormon’s statement, “he worketh in me.” God does not erase Mormon’s agency. Mormon offers it. Divine work and human willingness cooperate.

8. Obedience sometimes precedes explanation

Nephi made the small plates for a “wise purpose” he did not know (1 Nephi 9:5–6). Centuries later, Mormon found them after completing his abridgment to Benjamin’s reign and felt prompted to include them, again without knowing the full purpose. Still later, the loss of the 116 manuscript pages made their preservation providentially crucial (see Doctrine and Covenants 10:38–45). The official manual presents this as a central example of God working through a person who follows spiritual guidance.¹

This is not permission to label every impulse revelation. Mormon identifies the prompting as consistent with the Spirit, with the Christ-centered content of the plates, and with his stewardship over the record. The lesson is not “stop thinking.” It is: faithful action sometimes must begin before finite understanding catches up.

Verse-by-Verse Commentary

Enos

Enos 1:1: A father’s words become a son’s inheritance

“Knowing my father that he was a just man—for he taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

Enos opens in a pattern reminiscent of Nephi: identity, parentage, language, teaching. “Nurture and admonition” holds tenderness and correction together. Jacob’s success is not that Enos never struggled. It is that when Enos did struggle, he had received truthful words about where to turn.

Restoration parallel: Alma 36:17–20 follows a similar pattern: Alma remembers his father’s words about Jesus Christ, cries for mercy, and moves from anguish to joy.

Come, Follow Me connection: Teach words worth remembering, even when immediate response is small.

Enos 1:2–4: Hunger interrupts the hunt

“I will tell you of the wrestle which I had before God. … My soul hungered.”

The setting turns physical appetite into a spiritual metaphor. Enos enters the forest to hunt beasts, but another hunger overtakes him. His prayer is embodied and active: he kneels, cries in mighty prayer, prays through the day, and continues into the night. The point is not that valid prayer must last a prescribed number of hours. The official manual explicitly notes that less dramatic prayers need not be less meaningful.¹ The point is undivided desire.

His father’s words “sunk deep” before Enos kneels. Prayer does not manufacture truth out of emotional intensity; it responds to a remembered word and seeks God.

Come, Follow Me connection: What noise must become quiet long enough for the soul’s hunger to be heard?

Enos 1:5–8: Named, forgiven, made whole

“Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee. … Lord, how is it done? … Because of thy faith in Christ.”

The Lord calls Enos by name. Forgiveness is personal, not anonymous. Enos accepts the declaration because “God could not lie,” and his guilt is “swept away.” He does not claim sin never occurred; guilt’s condemning claim is removed by Christ.

followHIM notes a striking Restoration parallel: Joseph Smith’s 1832 First Vision account records the Lord addressing him and declaring his sins forgiven. The parallel does not make the experiences identical, but both place divine forgiveness near the beginning of a prophetic life.⁴

“Thy faith hath made thee whole” echoes Jesus’s healings in the New Testament (for example, Mark 5:34; Luke 17:19). Enos’s wholeness is not self-generated confidence. It is the fruit of faith directed toward the future Messiah.

Come, Follow Me connection: After sincere repentance, do I believe the Lord’s truthful promise more than the accusing voice that says change is impossible?

Enos 1:9–10: Grace immediately looks outward

“I began to feel a desire for the welfare of my brethren, the Nephites.”

The word began marks conversion as a new direction. Enos’s first answered prayer does not end prayer; it changes its subject. The voice of the Lord now comes “into [his] mind,” showing that revelation in the same chapter can be experienced both as direct address and as communication to thought.

Come, Follow Me connection: One test of spiritual experience is the kind of neighbor it helps us become.

Enos 1:11–18: Prayer for enemies becomes a covenant for a record

“I prayed unto him with many long strugglings for my brethren, the Lamanites.”

Enos calls those at war with his people “brethren.” His desire is not naïve about conflict; later verses describe violence and hardened hatred. Yet he asks that if his own people are destroyed, their record might be preserved and brought to the Lamanites “that perhaps they might be brought unto salvation.”

His faith “began to be unshaken” as his desire aligned with earlier promises already made to his fathers. The Lord’s covenant answer is, “I will grant unto thee according to thy desires, because of thy faith.” God does not merely approve Enos’s private spirituality; He recruits his desire into a multi-generational work.

The records therefore become an instrument of enemy-love. Enos cannot force immediate reconciliation. He can preserve a future witness.

Come, Follow Me connection: When direct influence seems fruitless “at present,” what truthful seed can I preserve without trying to control another person’s timetable?

Enos 1:19–23: A prophet’s tenderness and a people’s hardness

“There was nothing save it was exceeding harshness … and continual reminding them of death … and the judgments and the power of God.”

Enos spends the rest of his life testifying and laboring. His description of the preaching required among the Nephites is severe. Jared Halverson cautions readers to attend to the rhetorical situation: nurture and admonition are both needed, and sharp language may be required for hardened hearers, but it should not become a preacher’s preferred personality.⁵

Enos’s language about the Lamanites in verse 20 also reflects inherited Nephite hostility and should not be treated as a neutral ethnography. The text lets readers hear both his prayerful brotherhood and the limitations of a wartime description.

Come, Follow Me connection: Am I speaking strongly because the Spirit and the hearer’s need require it—or because harshness feels powerful?

Enos 1:24–27: From wrestling to rest

“I rejoice in the day when my mortal shall put on immortality, and shall stand before him; then shall I see his face with pleasure.”

Enos’s chapter begins with a hungry soul and ends with a resting soul. His rest is not passivity. It follows a lifetime of preaching, prophesying, and covenant labor. “Then shall I see his face with pleasure” transforms the fear of judgment into anticipated reunion with “my Redeemer.”

Bowen’s proposed Genesis echo is especially suggestive here. Jacob names the place of wrestling Peniel because he had seen God “face to face” (Genesis 32:30); Enos ends his own wrestle-story expecting to see the Redeemer’s face with pleasure.⁷

Come, Follow Me connection: Christian rest is not escape from discipleship; it is confidence about whose face waits at the end of it.

Jarom

Jarom 1:1–2: “What could I write more?”

“These plates are small … I shall not write the things of my prophesying, nor of my revelations.”

Jarom’s brevity is editorial restraint, not spiritual emptiness. He has prophecies and revelations but judges that his predecessors have already revealed the plan of salvation sufficiently. The line shows both humility and the cost of limited media: every engraved word displaces another.

John W. Welch’s study of the small-plate writers, curated in the BYU Studies index, emphasizes their continuing duty to write personally, preserve the record, focus on sacred rather than comprehensive history, and pass the plates onward.⁸

Come, Follow Me connection: Spiritual maturity includes knowing when to add a word and when to preserve an earlier witness.

Jarom 1:3–4: Hard hearts do not describe everyone

“There are many among us who have many revelations … and have communion with the Holy Spirit.”

Jarom first laments widespread hardness and then refuses to universalize it. “They are not all stiffnecked.” Quiet revelation continues among many faithful people even in an era summarized by wars.

“Communion” suggests participation and fellowship, not merely information. The Holy Spirit manifests according to faith, creating a covenant community inside a troubled society.

Come, Follow Me connection: Do not let the loudest evidence of decline erase the quieter evidence of grace.

Jarom 1:5–8: Prosperity is covenantal capacity

“Inasmuch as ye will keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land.”

Jarom describes observance of the Sabbath, law of Moses, avoidance of profanity, military preparation, craftsmanship, and fortification. “Prosper” here cannot mean effortless comfort: the people labor intensely and face repeated war. Prosperity means that the Lord gives sufficient capacity to remain a covenant people in their promised stewardship.

The manual asks readers to compare worldly definitions of prosperity with the Lord’s definition.¹ Jarom’s people prosper while digging, building, defending, repenting, and listening.

Come, Follow Me connection: Measure prosperity by covenant faithfulness and God-given capacity, not only by ease or accumulation.

Jarom 1:9–12: The law’s intent is Christ

“They … persuaded them to look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in him to come as though he already was.”

Military success is attributed not merely to weapons but to prophets who “pricked their hearts with the word.” Jarom’s phrase “the intent for which [the law] was given” keeps religious practice from becoming self-justifying performance. Sacrifice, Sabbath, and commandment lead to Christ.

Believing in the Messiah “as though he already was” is covenant time: Christ’s future Atonement is reliable enough to organize present life. Compare Mosiah 3:13, where people before Christ may receive remission through faith that He will come.

Come, Follow Me connection: When teaching a commandment, always answer, “How does this help us receive and become like Christ?”

Jarom 1:13–15: A faithful handoff

“I deliver these plates into the hands of my son Omni.”

Jarom closes with warfare, royal records, and a simple transfer. The handoff is itself a sacred act. He cannot guarantee what Omni will become, but he can deliver the record and the command attached to it.

Come, Follow Me connection: We pass testimony to the next generation without controlling what the next generation writes.

Omni

Omni 1:1–3: An imperfect keeper keeps one command

“I of myself am a wicked man, and I have not kept the statutes and the commandments of the Lord as I ought to have done.”

Omni’s self-assessment is painful and unusually candid. He has fought to preserve his people physically but confesses spiritual failure. Still, he writes and passes the record. The verse neither excuses disobedience nor declares a flawed person useless.

Come, Follow Me connection: If a whole life feels spiritually inconsistent, identify the next entrusted act and do not withhold it because you are ashamed.

Omni 1:4–7: Amaron reads national history through covenant

“The more wicked part of the Nephites were destroyed.”

Amaron interprets survival through the promised-land warning: rebellion brings judgment, while the Lord spares the righteous. Read this as his theological interpretation of history, not a license for modern readers to assume every victim of disaster was more wicked. The Book of Mormon itself complicates simplistic suffering equations; Abinadi, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, and Christ all suffer while righteous.

Come, Follow Me connection: Covenant consequences are real, but humility forbids turning another person’s suffering into an easy moral verdict.

Omni 1:8–11: Chemish and Abinadom preserve a narrowing record

“After this manner we keep the records, for it is according to the commandments of our fathers.”

Chemish describes seeing his brother write, suggesting direct, witnessed transfer. Abinadom reports war and says he knows of no revelation beyond what is already written. The entries feel thin, but the chain holds.

Come, Follow Me connection: A season with little novelty may still be a season of faithful preservation.

Omni 1:12–15: Mosiah leaves the land of Nephi

“As many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord should also depart out of the land with him.”

Amaleki’s entry suddenly widens the camera. Mosiah is warned to flee the ancestral land of Nephi. Those who heed the warning enter the wilderness and are led “by many preachings and prophesyings” until they reach Zarahemla.

Leaving is an act of faith because the familiar land carries history and identity. The divine warning does not give every detail before departure. Guidance unfolds on the road.

Come, Follow Me connection: Sometimes preserving a covenant community requires releasing a place or pattern that once served it.

Omni 1:16–18: The people of Zarahemla and the cost of recordlessness

“Their language had become corrupted; and they had brought no records with them.”

The people of Zarahemla also came from Jerusalem, at the time Zedekiah was carried captive. They rejoice that Mosiah brings the brass plates. Mosiah teaches them his language, and the two peoples unite under him.

The passage links records, language, memory, and worship. The people of Zarahemla are not portrayed as less intelligent; they have endured a different transmission history. Without durable records, communal memory drifted. Mosiah’s response is education and union, not contempt.

Come, Follow Me connection: When someone lacks inherited gospel language, teach for understanding and belonging rather than assuming rebellion.

Omni 1:19–22: Coriantumr enters the story

“There was a large stone brought unto him with engravings on it.”

Mosiah interprets the stone by the gift and power of God. It tells of Coriantumr and a destroyed people, foreshadowing the Jaredite record in Ether. Omni thus introduces both the people of Zarahemla and the final Jaredite survivor in a few verses.

The juxtaposition is sobering: one people without records loses language and religious memory; another civilization leaves a fragmentary witness of complete destruction. Records cannot force faithfulness, but they can warn future readers.

Come, Follow Me connection: What warning from a past community should our community refuse to forget?

Omni 1:23–26: Amaleki’s whole life becomes one invitation

“Come unto Christ … and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him.”

Amaleki transfers the plates to King Benjamin because he has no descendants and knows Benjamin to be just. His closing invitation names faith in prophecy, revelation, angels, tongues, interpretation, and “all things which are good.” Spiritual gifts lead to Christ, not spectacle.

The “whole soul” invitation includes fasting, prayer, and endurance. Consecration is sustained covenant practice, not one burst of emotion.

Come, Follow Me connection: Ask not only “What must I give up?” but “What part of me have I not yet made available to Christ?”

Omni 1:27–30: A departure without an ending

“A certain number … took their journey again into the wilderness.”

Amaleki reports a failed expedition to return to the land of Nephi, followed by a second departure whose fate he does not know. This unresolved thread prepares for Zeniff’s colony and the stories later recounted in Mosiah.

Come, Follow Me connection: Scripture sometimes leaves a journey unresolved because another record—and another week—will disclose the consequence.

Words of Mormon

Words of Mormon 1:1–2: Mormon writes from the end of a civilization

“I have witnessed almost all the destruction of my people.”

The reader moves abruptly from about 130 BC to roughly AD 385. Mormon expects Moroni to witness the final destruction and hopes his son will survive to write “somewhat concerning Christ.” The compiler is not arranging records in a quiet archive. He works under the grief of national collapse.

His first concern remains future profit: perhaps these words will bless the descendants of the very peoples whose long conflict fills the record.

Come, Follow Me connection: Sacred work can be done faithfully without optimism about immediate circumstances.

Words of Mormon 1:3–6: Mormon finds the small plates

“I searched among the records which had been delivered into my hands, and I found these plates.”

Mormon has already abridged the large plates down to Benjamin’s reign. Then he searches his archive and finds the small record from Nephi through Amaleki. He values it because of its prophecies of Christ and chooses to place it with the rest of his record.

followHIM calls attention to Mormon as a source-based historian: he searches records, selects a tiny portion, narrates, and sometimes explains his editorial judgment.⁴ His work is inspired, but it is also recognizably archival and literary.

Come, Follow Me connection: Revelation often works through careful searching rather than bypassing it.

Words of Mormon 1:7: The whisper and the wise purpose

“I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come.”

This is the week’s hinge. Mormon’s humility is epistemic—he does not know—and active—he acts on what he does know. The prompting is described as a whisper according to the Spirit’s workings “in” him. Compare Philippians 2:13: “it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

Nephi’s earlier “wise purpose” language and Mormon’s statement mirror each other (1 Nephi 9:5–6; Words of Mormon 1:7). Neither keeper sees the 1828 manuscript crisis. The Lord’s foresight does not eliminate their labor; it makes their willing labor part of the answer.

Come, Follow Me connection: What good, stewardship-consistent prompting can I obey even though I cannot yet narrate its final purpose?

Words of Mormon 1:8–11: Records preserved for judgment and mercy

“I pray to God that they may be preserved from this time henceforth.”

Mormon’s prayer echoes Enos’s prayer. Both ask that a record survive its civilization. Mormon says the writings will participate in judgment at the last day. A witness can comfort, invite, and also hold accountable.

The chain is now visible: Jacob commanded preservation; Enos obtained a covenant; descendants passed the plates; Amaleki entrusted them to Benjamin; they came down through royal and prophetic custodians; Mormon found and included them.

Come, Follow Me connection: Preservation is not passive storage. It keeps a witness available for a future moral encounter.

Words of Mormon 1:12–18: Benjamin and the seam into Mosiah

“King Benjamin … did fight with the strength of his own arm, with the sword of Laban.”

The narrative returns to Benjamin’s era. He faces Lamanite war and internal false Christs, false prophets, and false preachers. With holy prophets, he labors “with all the might of his body and the faculty of his whole soul” until peace is restored.

In the received text, these verses bridge naturally from Amaleki to Mosiah: they explain how Benjamin inherited a divided situation and prepared the peaceful setting for his address. Jack Lyon and Kent Minson propose a manuscript-based alternative: verses 12–18 may originally have been the surviving conclusion of Mosiah chapter 2 and became attached to Words of Mormon when the small-plates translation was placed before the surviving manuscript after the 116 pages were lost.⁹ Their evidence includes the early manuscript’s “Chapter III” heading at the beginning of present Mosiah 1. This is a scholarly reconstruction, not official doctrine, and other readers treat all eighteen verses as Mormon’s intentional bridge.

Either reading highlights a meaningful seam. The small-plates record does not fade into abstraction; it arrives at Benjamin, a leader who gives his whole soul and establishes peace through Christ-centered prophetic labor.

Come, Follow Me connection: A whole-soul offering is not only inward devotion. Benjamin’s devotion becomes public courage, discernment, labor, and peace-making.

A Christ-Centered Synthesis

Apparent subject	Christ-centered reality
Enos’s long prayer	Faith in Christ makes him whole and enlarges his charity
Jarom’s commandments	The law’s intent is to look forward to the Messiah
Omni’s fragmentary record	Even imperfect hands can preserve a witness that leads to Christ
Mosiah’s migration	The Lord leads a covenant remnant by word and prophecy
Amaleki’s farewell	Come unto Christ and offer the whole soul
Mormon’s editorial decision	The Spirit works in a willing disciple to preserve prophecies of Christ
The lost 116 pages	God’s foreknowledge prepares a faithful witness without erasing human agency

Teaching Illustrations

The relay baton

Bring an object to represent the plates and hand it from person to person while reading the writer sequence: Jacob → Enos → Jarom → Omni → Amaron → Chemish → Abinadom → Amaleki → Benjamin → later custodians → Mormon → Moroni. Give some participants a paragraph to read and others only one sentence. Then ask: Which runner mattered? Every one who kept the baton moving.

Application: discipleship is not measured only by how much visible material a person produces. A faithful transfer can be a life-saving contribution.

The seed bank

Show seeds or an image of a seed vault. Enos’s preaching among the Lamanites appears “vain” in the present, but he asks God to preserve a future seed—the record. Later readers can receive what immediate hearers reject.

Application: preserve truthful family stories, testimony, and scripture markings without using them to pressure someone. Plant for a future season you may not see.

The map you cannot yet unfold

Ask someone to take three safe steps under guidance before showing them the destination. Then compare Nephi making the small plates, Mormon attaching them, and Mosiah leaving Nephi. None receives the whole map at the beginning.

Caution: this illustration applies to promptings consistent with God’s commandments and one’s actual stewardship. It does not sanctify impulsiveness, secrecy, coercion, or disregard for wise counsel.

From hunger to rest

Write HUNGER on one side of a board and REST on the other. Let the class build Enos’s path between them from verses 4–17: remembered word → sincere prayer → divine answer → faith in Christ → forgiveness → concern for others → covenant promise → rest.

Application: rest is not achieved by shrinking life to the self. Enos rests as grace turns him outward.

Covenant Application

1. Name the hunger. Before asking for an answer, identify what the soul is actually seeking: forgiveness, truth, belonging, direction, reconciliation, or courage.
2. Pray before God. Bring the real wrestle into His presence. Avoid polishing it into a performance.
3. Receive Christ’s answer. If repentance is sincere and complete, do not treat endless self-condemnation as superior humility.
4. Let concern widen. Ask who enters your prayers after your own need is met. Include someone difficult without pretending the difficulty is unreal.
5. Preserve a witness. Write one thing worth handing forward: an answered prayer, a Christ-centered insight, a family memory, or a reason for hope.
6. Teach the intent. For one commandment you practice, articulate how it points to Christ.
7. Offer availability. Pray, “What can Thou work in me today?” Then act on a bounded, good, stewardship-appropriate prompting.
8. Trust without claiming omniscience. Mormon’s model is not “I understand everything.” It is “I know enough about the Lord and this stewardship to take the next faithful step.”

Discussion and Personal-Study Questions

1. Which words from a parent, teacher, or scripture sank deep only years after you first heard them?
2. What is the difference between wrestling before God and treating God as the opponent?
3. How does Enos move from hunger to rest? Which part of that path do you most need now?
4. Why might the ability to accept forgiveness be necessary before we can extend mercy to others?
5. Who occupies the outer circle of your concern—the person or group for whom prayer still requires “long strugglings”?
6. What does Jarom’s phrase “the intent for which [the law] was given” change about the way we teach commandments?
7. In what sense did Jarom’s people prosper even while they faced work, danger, and war?
8. What do the people of Zarahemla teach about records, language, and collective memory?
9. Which small-plates keeper do you identify with most: Enos the wrestler, Jarom the restrained teacher, Omni the regretful custodian, Amaleki the final inviter, or Mormon the prompted editor?
10. What is the difference between offering the whole soul and seeking a dramatic spiritual assignment?
11. What good prompting have you delayed because you wanted the Lord to explain the entire outcome first?
12. How can you preserve testimony for another person without using the record to control that person?
13. What does the alternate manuscript proposal about Words of Mormon 1:12–18 illuminate, even if you do not accept it?
14. Where do you see the Lord working in a person rather than merely doing something for that person?

Gospel Library Scripture Links

Assigned reading

• Enos 1
• Jarom 1
• Omni 1
• Words of Mormon 1

Key parallel passages

• Genesis 32:24–30 — Jacob wrestles and sees God face to face
• Genesis 33:1–11 — Jacob and Esau are reconciled
• 1 Nephi 9:2–6 — two sets of plates and a wise purpose
• 2 Nephi 25:23–26 — the law and faith in Christ
• Alma 36:17–20 — remembered words, prayer, forgiveness, joy
• Mosiah 3:13 — believing in Christ before His coming
• Doctrine and Covenants 10:38–45 — the Lord’s preparation after the lost manuscript
• Philippians 2:12–13 — God worketh in you to will and to do

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← Previous: Jacob 5–7 — The Allegory of the Olive Tree | Next: Mosiah 1–3 — Filled with Love towards God and All Men →

Annotated Source Guide

Official Come, Follow Me manual

The official lesson supplies the exact title and the interpretive frame joining Enos’s sincere prayer to Mormon’s Spirit-led action. Its main home-study prompts emphasize prayer, family influence, forgiveness through faith in Christ, covenant prosperity, coming unto Christ, and following guidance without complete foreknowledge.¹

BYU Studies Come, Follow Me index

The index was checked first for this lesson and provides a substantial chapter-organized research map. Particularly useful entries include Matthew Bowen on Enos and Genesis 32–33; David Seely and Dennis Largey on Enos’s conversion and message; John Welch on the small-plates record-keeping command; Cheryl Brown and Eldin Ricks on Mormon’s compilation; and Jack Lyon and Kent Minson on the manuscript seam at Words of Mormon 1:12–18.⁸

followHIM — Gerrit Dirkmaat (2024)

The local proofread PDF and companion text cover the entire assigned unit. Unique contributions used here include the hunger-to-rest teaching frame; Enos’s widening prayer sequence; the parallel with Joseph Smith’s 1832 forgiveness account; the distinct purposes of the large and small plates; Omni’s introduction of Zarahemla, the people later called Mulekites, and Coriantumr; and Mormon as a careful, Spirit-led compiler.⁴

Unshaken — Jared Halverson

The local transcript’s strongest contribution is pastoral: inherited practice must become personal encounter, prayer vocabulary should be richer than routine, grace fills a hungry soul until concern moves outward, and the record can bless estranged children on God’s pace. Halverson’s treatment of Jarom–Words of Mormon is brief and explicitly directs listeners to an older detailed episode, so this guide uses his 2024 material mainly for Enos and the generational handoff.⁵

Don’t Miss This — David Butler and Emily Belle Freeman

This local earlier-series transcript contributes the memorable reading of “before God,” the widening pattern of Enos’s prayer, the relay of record keepers, Jarom’s hopeful leadership, Amaleki’s whole-soul invitation, and the practical image of making oneself available for God to work through.⁶

Matthew L. Bowen — Enos and Genesis wordplay

Bowen’s scholarly proposal gives literary depth to Enos’s “wrestle,” the father Jacob, reconciliation with estranged kin, and the hope of seeing God’s face. The guide labels this as interpretation rather than official doctrine.⁷

Lyon and Minson — “When Pages Collide”

This BYU Studies article presents a documentary hypothesis that Words of Mormon 1:12–18 originated as the surviving end of Mosiah chapter 2. Whether or not the reconstruction is accepted, it calls attention to a real stylistic and chronological seam and to the manuscript history behind the present chapter division.⁹

Footnotes

Footnotes

1. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “April 15–21: ‘He Worketh in Me to Do According to His Will.’ Enos–Words of Mormon,” Come, Follow Me—For Home and Church: Book of Mormon 2024 (2023), official curriculum: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/come-follow-me-for-home-and-church-book-of-mormon-2024/16?lang=eng. Official teaching source. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. See 1 Nephi 9:2–6 and Jarom 1:2, 14. For the recurring duty of the small-plate keepers, see John W. Welch, “The Father’s Command to Keep Records in the Small Plates of Nephi,” FARMS Preliminary Report (1985), indexed at https://byustudies.byu.edu/come-follow-me/book-of-mormon/16 and hosted at https://scripturecentral.org/archive/presentations/report/fathers-command-keep-records-small-plates-nephi-0. Scholarly analysis. ↩

3. Words of Mormon 1:3–7. See also Cheryl Brown, “I Speak Somewhat Concerning That Which I Have Written,” in The Book of Mormon: Jacob through Words of Mormon, To Learn with Joy (Religious Studies Center, 1990), https://rsc.byu.edu/book-mormon-jacob-through-words-mormon-learn-joy/i-speak-somewhat-concerning-which-i-have-written. Historical and literary scholarship. ↩

4. Gerrit J. Dirkmaat with Hank Smith and John Bytheway, “Enos–Words of Mormon,” followHIM: A Come, Follow Me Podcast, episode 16 (2024). Proofread show notes/transcripts and local extraction: BM-16 — Enos–Words of Mormon — followHIM transcript; PDF: Sources/PDFs/followhim_book_of_mormon_2024/BM-16-Dr.-Gerrit-Dirkmaat-Enos-Words-of-Mormon-followHIM-Podcast-SHOW-NOTES.pdf. Devotional commentary with historical analysis; not an official Church publication. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

5. Jared Halverson, “Come Follow Me — Enos — My Soul Hungered,” Unshaken (Book of Mormon series), local transcript: Come Follow Me — Enos — My Soul Hungered. Devotional interpretation. Halverson explicitly labels some reconstruction of Enos’s family experience as speculative; this guide does not present it as biography. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

6. David Butler and Emily Belle Freeman, “Come Follow Me Enos–Words of Mormon (Mar. 23–29),” Don’t Miss This, local transcript: Come Follow Me Enos — Words of Mormon. Earlier-series devotional teaching; useful as a cross-year source, not official curriculum. ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. Matthew L. Bowen, “‘And There Wrestled a Man with Him’ (Genesis 32:24): Enos’s Adaptations of the Onomastic Wordplay of Genesis,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 10 (2014), local source note, canonical article: https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/and-there-wrestled-a-man-with-him-genesis-3224-enoss-adaptations-of-the-onomastic-wordplay-of-genesis. Scholarly literary/onomastic proposal, not official doctrine. ↩ ↩² ↩³

8. BYU Studies, “Come, Follow Me — Book of Mormon, Lesson 16: Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon,” https://byustudies.byu.edu/come-follow-me/book-of-mormon/16. Curated scholarly index, checked 2026-08-07; the index descriptions orient research but do not make each linked interpretation official Church teaching. ↩ ↩²

9. Jack M. Lyon and Kent R. Minson, “When Pages Collide: Dissecting the Words of Mormon,” BYU Studies Quarterly 51, no. 4 (2012), local source note, https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/when-pages-collide-dissecting-the-words-of-mormon. Manuscript-based scholarly reconstruction; disputed and non-doctrinal. ↩ ↩²