In 3 Nephi 9, the Nephites deal with the aftermath of the great destruction that occurred at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. As they sit in total darkness, the voice of Christ is heard across the land by all of the people. Jesus points out that all of the destruction is the result of the sins of the people — He then tells them how they need to proceed at this point in order to be forgiven of their sins. Now that Jesus has served as the final sacrifice, the Law of Moses has been fulfilled and sacrifices will no longer be necessary. Instead, the people are now instructed to make a different type of sacrifice:

"And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost" (3 Nephi 9:20)

What are a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and what do they have to do with serving God?

Today, we're going to go over some steps you need to take in the event of a power failure in your home. What do you do when the lights go out?

Step 1: Determine whether there has been a power failure.

Look around you. What do you see? If nothing, then you can be reasonably certain there has been a power failure.

Step 2: Seek an alternative source of light.

If you have candles or flashlights in your home, now is the time to use them. If you don't have any of these — well, think about the parable of the five wise virgins and the five foolish virgins (Matthew 25) and decide which of those you're identifying with right now.

In 3 Nephi 7, the government that has been in effect since the time of Mosiah shuts down, as the chief judge is murdered once again and the Nephite people split up into various separate communities (or tribes), each with its own laws. Each tribe considers itself an entity unto itself — all other tribes are enemies — and nobody is willing to take direction from anyone else.

Nephi, perhaps assisted by his brother Timothy, goes among the people to preach repentance and faith in Christ to them. Miracles are performed so the people can witness the power of Christ. Yet, they are unmoved and, in fact, become very angry. They even take Timothy and stone him to death! Nephi responds by raising his brother from the dead!!

Now, it would be a nice ending to say that the people were converted after witnessing such an obvious display of the power of God — someone being raised from the dead. However, that's not what happens. Other than a few who are converted, the people continue down the evil path that leads to their eventual destruction in the next chapter. Sad to see people so enslaved by the enemy that even witnessing the raising of the dead can't free them.

In 3 Nephi 6, with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ drawing nearer, efforts intensify to reach out to the sinful people of the Nephite community:

"There began to be men inspired from heaven and sent forth … preaching and testifying boldly of the sins and iniquities of the people, and testifying unto them concerning the redemption which the Lord would make for his people." (3 Nephi 6:20)

Not surprisingly, the sinful people do not receive this message well, becoming "exceeding angry because of those who testified of these things" (verse 21). It turns out that some number of these people are associated with the legal profession — lawyers and judges — and they actually use their positions to arrest many of those who are preaching God's message and then arrange for them to illegally be put to death.

In 3 Nephi 5, the narrative continues with the imprisonment of the defeated Gadianton robbers. In a merciful move, the Nephites preach the word of God to the prisoners — all who repent of their crimes and enter into a covenant to serve God are freed and become part of the society; those who refuse to repent are punished for their crimes.

After sharing the above story with us, the editor of the narrative notes that so many things happened during the first 25 years after the birth of Jesus Christ that not even one percent of them can be recorded in this book. He then introduces himself to us:

"Behold, I am called Mormon…I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life" (3 Nephi 5:12-13)

Today, we're continuing Sister Alena's series on women of the Bible in lieu of our regularly scheduled Miracle Monday, which we will resume in August.

Queen Esther has always been a favorite of mine, an easy example of a courageous woman who stood up for what she believed in — a woman who did all of this and got a happy ending, no less.

A lot could be said of Esther, a lot of people have talked about how brave she was or how cunning or trusting. But I want to highlight something I think gets overlooked sometimes, and that is her sense of self.

Esther was not only true to her people, but to herself.

There’s a key difference.

Being true to her people meant that she saved them; she made a stand for them.

But the way she did it? That was her own personality; that was her person coming through for God’s plan. 

Some years ago, I went to see a stage play that was later made into a movie. It was a silly story about a nerdy florist who has a Venus flytrap in his shop that eats people. The more it eats, the bigger it gets. It also develops a voice and starts demanding that the florist bring more victims, forcing the florist to take appropriate action. The most memorable part of the show is hearing the plant shouting, “Feed me! FEED ME!!”

In 3 Nephi 4, the Gadianton robbers come into the Nephite land to do battle. The Nephites have followed the plan that God revealed in the previous chapter, so they have gathered together in one location with all of their armies and all of their supplies. When the robbers arrive, they are horrified to find that most of the Nephite lands are completely deserted, including all flocks and herds and anything that could have been used for food.

Today, we're continuing Sister Alena's series on women of the Bible in lieu of our regularly scheduled Miracle Monday, which we will resume in August.

Moses’ mother, Jochebed, is not one of the women that I’ve ever really noticed before. She sends Moses down the river in a basket, praying for his safe deliverance away from Pharoah’s infanticide, and instead, God delivered him into the heart of it.

In Exodus, the Bible just says that she put him in a basket after hiding him for three months. This is a woman of immense faith.

This is a woman of action.

The use of a rubber stamp as a business tool dates back to the late 1800s. Such stamps had raised rubber letters that spelled out words and could be pressed onto an inkpad and then pressed on a piece of paper such that the words would then appear on the paper. One typical use would be to have a rubber stamp with the word "Approved," which could then be used to indicate approval of a written request.

The process was simple — stamp on inkpad, stamp on paper, next request, stamp on inkpad, stamp on paper, etc. Using this method, many requests could be quickly approved and sent on their way. As you can imagine, the ease of the process made it tempting to just approve a bunch of requests without even reading them — stamp on inkpad, stamp on paper, next request, etc.

This must have happened fairly frequently since the process gave birth to an idiom that still exists today — a person is referred to as a "rubber stamp" if he is responsible for approving requests and just does so automatically without paying much attention to what is actually being requested.

For the remainder of the month of July, we are going to pause Miracle Monday and continue with Sister Alena's series on women of the Bible. In August, we will resume our regularly scheduled Miracle Mondays, where we share testimonies and experiences from our readers.

Leah’s story has always been an interesting one to me. Here was a woman who built Israel and yet still felt unloved. I am reminded of a scene in a popular TV show where one character says that he must be the *only* rich and famous person to still be alone and missing something.

You can read Leah’s story in Genesis chapters 29 to 35, but essentially, she does everything she can to be the love of her husband Jacob’s life — and still she is not.

She is overlooked, reduced to a seemingly desperate wife. But she is so much more.

It happens in our homes when someone is able to recall — perhaps in great detail — things that happened a year ago but can't remember that you asked him yesterday to take out the trash.

It happens in politics when people enthusiastically cheer their favorite politician's position on a certain issue, somehow forgetting that the same politician espoused the exact opposite view on that same issue just a few years ago.

It can even happen in our own recall of certain events in our lives, as we remember our own role in a much more favorable light than what actually occurred.

It's called "selective memory," which is defined as the ability to remember some facts while apparently forgetting others, especially those that are somehow inconvenient at the current time.

A congregation of Christian believers was holding a worship service in a country where Christianity is illegal. They kept the location of their meeting secret due to the risk involved. Suddenly, the door swung open and four men with rifles entered the room. The leader of the men announced to the room, "We are prepared to execute every Christian believer in the room. If you don't want to be shot to death right here, you need to denounce your belief in Christ by leaving this room right now. All who remain will be killed."

Immediately, several people in the room got up and left the room. When the last of these had departed, the leader looked at those who were left and said, "Last chance. Anybody else want to leave and save their lives?" Nobody else moved — they each prepared themselves to die for their faith. The leader nodded his head, and the four men put down their rifles. He then announced, "OK, now we know who the true believers are. Let's continue with our worship of the Lord."

One of the parables of Jesus was the Parable of the Sower. (See Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8.) In this parable, the sower scatters seeds with the intention of growing fruit. The seeds are all good, but the results vary significantly, depending on where they land. The seeds that fall on good ground grow fruit as intended, but the seeds that fall in other places produce less desirable results.

Jesus explains that the seeds in the parable represent the word of God or the message of the gospel. The message is good, but the results vary for different people — some will accept it and become part of the family of God; some will seemingly accept it for a time but then slip away; others will reject it outright.

In Helaman 15, Samuel the Lamanite continues to preach repentance to the Nephites. He points out that the Lamanites, who have historically opposed the things of God, are now in God's good graces, as they have repented and are now keeping His commandments. He states several times that God "prolonged the days" of the Lamanites in order to allow them enough time for this to occur.

In this particular case, he meant that God prolonged their existence as a class of people in order to fulfill His promises — see Alma 9:16. This prolonging continues to this day, as we await the fulfillment of God's promises to Israel.

A popular method of communicating with people who are deaf or hard of hearing is through a system known as sign language. In this language, words or expressions are represented by specific hand gestures, known as signs. When people learn what the various signs mean, they can then receive messages from other people who know the signs. This communication system allows someone who would otherwise not be in a position to receive communications — whether because of deafness, or being across a crowded room, or for whatever reason — to still be able to receive messages from others.

In Helaman 14, Samuel the Lamanite speaks to the Nephite people in the land of the Americas about the coming of Jesus Christ. Whereas the people living in and around Jerusalem will be in a position to witness the various events in the life of Christ — His birth, His miracles, His preaching, His death and resurrection — the Nephite people on the other side of the world will not be in a position to witness any of it.