Hello I know you didn't specifically ask but I am here to 'splain a scripture story- the one I mentioned last night, about Ammon! buckle up 'cause it's a wild one lol XD
First things first the Book of Mormon is a collection of (skillfully abridged (by our boy Mormon >:)) records from the people that lived in the Americas, circa 600 BC- A.D. 400! They're geeenerallyy thought to be predecessors to what we call Mayans and Incans and Aztecs, but we don't technically know that I don't think?
One throughline in Le Book is these two almost-always-opposing peoples, called the Nephites and the Lamanites- because they're descended from two brothers (Nephi and Laman lol, they had more brothers than that but it's not like Lemuel started a whole clan XD) who fought a lot. enough that eventually Nephi had to take his family and ~flee into the wilderness~ so his brothers didn't Actually Kill Him. i digress,,, basically the nephites are generally the more righteous people and lamanites the other way around, but not always!
SO ANYWAYS there's this Nephite kid named Ammon who (has a pretty cool backstory too iirc, and) is called by God to go preach the gospel among the Lamanites. So he goes and ends up getting captured by and becoming a servant of ~King Lamoni~, ooOoOOoO- specifically, his job is to... take care of the king's sheep. and then the horses after. you can imagine that this is not the most glorious of missions lol
He and a few other servants are doin their thing when suddenly bandits show up and scatter the sheep to try to steal them!!! The other servants are very scared, because the last time this happened, the king had the people that lost his sheep EXECUTED. But Ammon thinks GOSPEL MOMENT and goes nah it's okay, just gather them back up and the king won't kill us! So they go find the missing sheep and the king doesn't kill them ^-^
Except that the next day, the same thing happens D: this time Ammon tells the other people to defend the sheep, and basically channels his inner tank like in video games lol- he takes on the bandits all by himself
And during the fight. When a bandit goes to hit him with a club or smth. He just cuts their arm off?? And pretty soon they all run away!
So. The other servants bring the cut-off arms to King Lamoni and go "LOOK WHAT YOUR NEW GUY DID???" and the king is like, welp we have an extremely powerful being on our hands, what do I do about this
After an hour he decides he probably won't be struck down for asking questions so he tells someone to go find Ammon. And they find him taking care of the horses like he was told to do after he finished with the sheep. And now the king is internally going, why is literal god being a better servant than I've ever had?????
So Ammon comes in and gets to explain no, I'm not God, but I can tell you about him, which had to have been a fUn conversation lol- anywayss there's more stuff after that, in true convoluted scripture story fashion, but that's the bit I mentioned! i just think dakota would think that was neat <3 thanks for coming to my ted talk, i hope i got all the details right lolll
(this is Alma 17:19 through the end of Alma 18!!!! >:D)
LOLLL omigoodness this is so coollll!!!!! Ammon sounds like a LOVELY fellow over there, what a delightful story; I love that the first time the sheep get stolen he's like 'Nah it's chill just go get the sheep' and then the second time's like "Okay now two times is just unacceptable" *stab stab stab*; also the servant part is so real, that's one of the things that Christianity is Big Into, so it's awesome that that message is in this story :>
also thanks for explaining the whole sorta background to the Book of Mormon, it was both fascinating and very helpful to understanding the more overall scheme of things :3 It's interesting and also a tad funny that the original brothers are the beginning of like. a massive generational conflict
Overall I absolutely agree, Dakota would both love the Justice! But Second Chances Are Hard When You Do It Intentionally Again aspect of it, and also the Arms Are No More aspect
thank you for this delightful ask :DDD i don't know much about your guys' other book so it's very fun getting to learn about it from you :3
