It's

interesting that President Nelson used these very stories to say in 2018, I'm inviting every young woman and every young man between the ages of 12 and 18 in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to enlist in the youth battalion of the Lord to help gather Israel, which is the greatest challenge, the greatest cause, the greatest work on earth today. I'm glad you brought that up. Here's President Nelson saying the youth are going to help us do this and inviting them to be a modern group of stripling warriors.

Chapter 58, we get another one of these similar types of stories. This is a little different than last time because the last story, the Nephites started out in this place of advantage and then were taken by surprise. And this one it's different. They're really getting neglected. They're not getting the supplies they need. They're not getting support the government. And they're just hanging on by their fingernails, basically. In verse 6, the Lamanites were sallying forth against us from time to time, resolving by stratagem to destroy us. Nevertheless, we could not come to battle with them because their retreats and their strongholds. And it came to pass that we did wait in these difficult circumstances for the space of many months, even until we were about to perish for the want of food. They're in a bad situation, losing ground, they're trying the best they can to hold on. Now again, think about being like this in your life, being at these times in your life where you're just barely surviving. In verse 9, And now the cause of these our embarrassments, or the cause of why they did not send more strength unto us, we knew not. Therefore we were grieved and also filled with fear, lest by any means the judgments of God should come upon our land to our overthrow and utter destruction. A lot of discouragement here, but their way of dealing with it is really important. Therefore, we did pour out our souls in prayer to God, that He would strengthen us and deliver us out of the hands of our enemies, yea, and also give us strength that we might retain our cities and our lands and our possessions for the support of our people. So they are begging God, we don t know how this is going to go, we can't see how it's going to get solved, but we're trusting you. And in the process of that, they get a spiritual confirmation. Yea, it came to pass that the Lord our God did visit us with assurances that He would deliver us. Yea, insomuch that He did speak peace to our souls and did grant unto us great faith and did cause us that we should hope for our deliverance in him. And we did take courage with our small force which we had received and we fixed with the determination to conquer our enemies and to maintain our lands and our possessions and our wives and our children the cause of our liberty." Even though the external circumstances aren't good, they choose to make the best of it and focus on controlling the things that they can, which is their faith. That

spiritual witness turns into a fixed determination. I really love that little connection. I'm barely holding on here. Pour out my soul to God. He speaks assurance, peace, faith, and hope, and I turn that into a fixed determination to keep going. It's a great model on how to take on big time struggle. I

think too, Hank and Justin, there's a lot of times in life when all of us feel like we're running out, we haven't got strength, we haven't got energy, we haven't got what it takes. And I think verse 11, I underlined, it could be one of the most beautiful verses in the war chapters. Assurance, deliverance, peace, faith, hope, deliverance. That's a lot of really wonderful words in just a short verse. That causes them to hang on. Now

we get more of that in verse 32. Our armies are small. We can't maintain. There's too many cities. We're spread too thin. But we trust in our God who has given us victory over those lands. So we've had these victories in the past. This chapter has another story of a great strategy where they lure the Lamanites out and sneak back and take the city and so on. This is the constant story, battle after battle. And sometimes they feel confident and other times they're overwhelmed. The last real portion that we get about the stripling warriors in verse 39, and those sons of the people of Ammon, of whom I have so highly spoken, are with me in the city of Manti. And the Lord has supported them, yea, and kept them from falling by the sword, in so much that even one soul has not been slain. After all these battles, still not a one of them. But behold, they have received many wounds. Nevertheless, they stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has made them free. And they are strict to remember the Lord their God from day to day. Yea, they do observe to keep his statutes and his judgments, and his commandments continually. And their faith is strong in the prophecies concerning that which is to come. This is the story of the Stripling Warriors. Again and again and again, they win when they shouldn't. They're outnumbered. They're not experienced. They have no business doing so well. I was in Washington, DC recently and I went to the World War II Memorial there on the mall and it's divided into two parts. There's the European Theater and the Pacific Theater. And on the side of the Pacific Theater, there's a quote that I think really applies well to the Stripling Warriors. It's actually a quote about the Battle of Midway. Now, if you know the Battle of Midway, this is one of those similar types of stories where, man, the United States had no right when that battle. Way outnumbered, better technology, better forces, but a series of miracles come into play. The Allied forces are able to defeat the Japanese there and it really, really changes the course of the war. And there's a quote in that memorial, and this is by an author named Walter Lord. It said, they had no right to win, yet they did. And in doing so, they changed the course of a war, even against the greatest of odds. There is something in the human spirit, a magic blend of skill, faith, and valor that can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory. And I would suggest to add to that, that it's not just the human spirit. It's when that human spirit comes in contact with divine spirit, and the soul is able to communicate with the divine and to be nourished by God's love and grace and find that courage that helps them push through when it's hard. And that applies not just to battle, not just to physical battle, but to all of these struggles that we go through in our lives. Accessing the grace of God, that's the answer.

Wow, Justin, thanks for bringing up Midway. There were some real miracles. The scout plane whose radio was broken that found the American fleet but couldn't tell anybody about it So it was delayed till he flew back the code that the Americans sent out the af is having trouble with their water condensers Even though they weren't but they thought that af was what the enemy was using to describe Midway It was such a stratagem and it worked. It's hard to look at that and not think they had some divine help with what happened at Midway. So I like that quotation. Justin,

John, before we move on from the Stripling Warriors, I wanted to talk about one thing and see what you both think about it. It's something I've been thinking about over the years of reading the Book of Mormon. seems to me Justin, you can correct me here, that these stripping lawyers changed the trajectory of the war. That Mormon at least is highlighting things were heading in the wrong direction and then this group came in and really turned it around. Even Captain Moroni getting this letter gives him a boost of energy. go back to Ammon, Aaron, Omner, and Himnai saying, We want to go on a mission to the Lamanites. Everyone is saying, You don't want to go on a mission to the Lamanites. It would be better to kill them than to go preach to them. Yet, because those sons of Mosiah went on that mission, they were really saving themselves. They were saving their own children by going on that mission. The way it unfolds is that they children of those they converted or taught end up saving the Nephites. Be thinking about that and I'm going to, I'll tell a quick story that I think both of you already know. And that is that when Parley P. Pratt went on a mission to Toronto, Canada, his wife was sick. He didn't really want to go, I don't think, but he went anyway. He baptized John Taylor and a group of saints up there. When John Taylor moves to Kirtland, Parley P Pratt has lost some confidence or some faith in Joseph Smith. It's John Taylor who kind of grabs Parti P. Pratt and says, get back on board here. So when Parti P. Pratt goes on his mission, he's actually saving himself because he converts John Taylor who then turns his life around. Maybe there's a principle in all of this and neither of you can comment on it that what at first looks like a sacrifice to go on a mission becomes an investment in saving yourself or saving your children or your grandchildren. Any thoughts on that?

He creates these incredible journeys for each of us. And you can't ever tell how it's going to end. What happens at one point may show up again later on. And one of the things that I've loved about being a chaplain is being able to walk with people in their journeys and see this type of thing. Seeds that were planted way back when that seemed like nothing, then come to fruition later on and have incredible impact. This is what it means to have faith in the Lord is that every little thing can matter. Things that we don't even expect can bless our lives in ways we can't anticipate. This is God's grace. The scriptures say that all things work together for our good. And I don't think we fully grasp or appreciate what that all things part means. But God is heavily invested in bringing about our story of grace.

I love the little, the great chess game. John and I have called it this 5D chess where all the pieces have their own agency and he somehow play in this game.

I hope that people listening don't skip over, don't skim over these chapters. Look for these kind of messages because we are all in a spiritual warfare if nothing else. Look at how in verse 40 they're strict to remember the Lord their God from day to day. It's what we've been asked to do is to remember.

Justin, with that, walk us through the rest of the war chapters here. There's an interesting back and forth. Yeah. Moroni's frustrated. I

want to bring out in verse one of chapter 59, this is after Moroni finishes reading the letter. And it says his reaction is mixed, but he's really inspired by the story of the 2000s Tripling Warriors. He tells the armies and the people and it rejuvenates. And we know that these kind of stories have the power to do that. I mean, you remember from World War II, just the picture of the flag being planted on Iwo Jima, the country was getting tired out from the war. And I can only imagine how bad it was for the Nephites in this situation. They used that picture to really regenerate the spiritual energy of the country as a whole. And certainly this story of the Stripling Warriors has that effect on Nephi and his people. What I wish I could fly on a wall for was the people of Ammon when they got those letters. Man alive, can you imagine the gratitude to God on hearing that none of their sons had been killed? It's mind-blowing. People who already had incredible faith, having that confirmed, really powerful. The rest of chapter 59 sets up what you said about Captain Moroni getting frustrated. It's worse. They start losing more ground again, and they're not getting provisions, and you can only hang on by your fingernails so long. Moroni finally gets to the point where he's had it. He's done. In verse 8, he talks about this, that they're losing ground. And their armies were so numerous that the remainder of the people of Nephiha were obliged to flee before them. This is, they're fleeing before the army of the Lamanites. And they came even and joined the army of Moroni. So they're fleeing. And here's this verse we talked about before. And now, as Moroni had supposed that there should be men sent to the city of Nifaiha, to the assistance of the people to maintain that city, and knowing that it was easier to keep the city from following into the hands of the Lamanites than to retake it from them, he supposed that they would easily maintain that city. Moroni, he was under the assumption that Nephiha was in good shape, that they had been reinforced and they should be have enough to maintain their city, but no reinforcements had ever come and so they lost the city and that causes problems because now it's harder to get it back.