Sometimes it is difficult to squeeze information out of young people, such as my grandson serving a mission in Swaziland, South Africa. When the family is successful in doing so, often what does come out is pure wisdom. Because of the few words that were written home at the very beginning of his mission, my daughter decided that she had better ask him questions. In that way, he would have to answer and be reminded of things that he would never have thought of on his own. Recently, she asked him: “Why do we have to have lessons about things we’ve heard a million times, like service?” His response was brief but accurate.
“To remind us, one of the most repeated words said in the Book of Mormon is remember. Anyway, life is good, love you! Alex.”
Nephi, chastising his brothers, said, “Ye are swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God. Ye have seen an angel, and he spake unto you; yea, ye have heard his voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words; wherefore, he has spoken unto you like unto the voice of thunder, which did cause the earth to shake as if it were to divide asunder. (1 Nephi 17:45) We, like Nephi’s brothers, are often slow to remember. We may not have seen an angel, and we may not have heard a voice from heaven that shook the very ground we stand on, but we all may have been blessed to feel the Holy Ghost speak to us. Like Laman and Lemuel we, too, have probably been slow to remember the things of God.
Helaman, too, used the term remember in teaching his sons. In the following statement he used the word ‘remember’ six times (Helaman named his two sons Nephi and Lehi after their forefathers): “Behold, my sons, I desire that ye should remember to keep the commandments of God; and I would that ye should declare unto the people these words. Behold, I have given unto you the names of our first parents who came out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I have done that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good.” (Helaman 5:6) The scriptures do indeed remind us to remember, because as humans living in the world, with the ‘opposition’ ever present, we have many things to distract us. We have to be reminded constantly. We can’t think that we are not like Laman and Lemuel who were quick to forget. I, too, was named after my grandfather, and he was a good man. When I think of my name, maybe I, too, can be reminded of His goodness. In the Book of Mormon times the Lord often had to send the Lamanites against the Nephites to remind them to be faithful. Maybe there are times when we feel like the Lamanites have been sent against us, because blessings are being withheld from us. We, too, need to be reminded to be more faithful.
President Henry B. Eyring used the term “cast my mind over the day” to bring to his remembrance his blessings. “As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done” (President Henry B. Eyring, Ensign, Nov. 2007, 67) That is a very good reason for one to keep a daily journal or as some have said, ‘to sit down at the end of the day and write yourself a letter.’ Remembering and recording events at the end of a day, does in fact, allow God to show us what He has done for us. Bedtime prayers can also serve to remind us of those very same blessings. When we pray it would be good to, among other things, recount each blessing of the day just to remind ourselves of what He has done for us.
King Benjamin counseled his sons to remember the scriptures: “My sons, I would that ye should remember that these sayings are true, and also that these records are true. And behold, also the plates of Nephi, which contains the records and the sayings of our fathers from the time they left Jerusalem until now, and they are true; and we can know of their surety because we have them before our eyes. And now, my sons, I would that ye should remember to search them diligently, that ye may profit thereby; and I would that ye should keep the commandments of God, that ye may prosper in the land according to the promises which the Lord made unto our fathers.” (Mosiah 1:6–7) Remembering to read the scriptures is so important, scriptures, that we, too, have before our very eyes, but yet in our busy lives we sometimes put other things first. “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” (John 5:39)
As my grandson said about why repetition is so important, “to remind us, one of the most repeated words said in the Book of Mormon is, ‘remember.’ Anyway, life is good, love you! Alex.” True, life is good and as we remember the Lord and strive to be good, it only gets better.