Why did Ammon consider himself an unworthy servant? Mosiah 21:33

Why did Ammon consider himself an unworthy servant? Mosiah 21:33

Ammon (Book of Mormon Explorer) apparently did not feel worthy enough to baptize people. Lots of the people wanted to be baptized but "there was none in the land that had authority from God. And Ammon declined doing this thing, considering himself an unworthy servant."

The majority of mankind has lived in a time and place where there was no physical access to priesthood authority. Baptism and all other ordinances performed without it are not valid, though I am not convinced they are meaningless or worthless.

Jesus Christ compared the kingdom of heaven to leaven, aka yeast. A woman took a bit of yeast and put it in three measures of meal, which supposedly equates to something like 2 gallons (7.3 liters). That's a lot of flour. You aren't going to use that much flour when you make your daily bread. Trust me.

She waited, and after a long time the entire thing was leavened. 

Yeah, this totally does work, by the way. She's basically making sourdough starter. Yeast is all around us. Super weird, fascinating substance.

The series of parables that Christ is talking about in Matthew 13 are all about the kingdom of heaven on earth. In other words, they describe what his church looks like. The parable of the wheat and the tares show us that we don't get to decide who is "good" or "bad", but we have to learn to live with it and Christ himself will judge in the end. The parable of the mustard seed shows that small and simple things can bring to pass great things. The parable of the pearl of great price is to show how valuable it is when somebody finds the gospel - the true gospel of Jesus Christ - and recognizes it for what it is, he will sacrifice everything to obtain it. The parable of the treasure found in the field is similar, but it's also about how becoming a member of God's church in the correct, proper way requires going all in. The man found some treasure in a field that he didn't own. He wanted the treasure so to obtain it properly he sold everything that he had and bought the field. It requires drastic life changes to decide to commit yourself to the church.

The leaven is about how God's church may be small at first but eventually it will fill the earth. This is the same meaning of the dream that Daniel saw, by the way, when he saw the stone cut out of the mountain without hands. I think "fill the earth" means both that there will be a church presence in every nation on earth (there is not today) but of far greater importance, I think it is referring to the promise that every human soul who has ever lived will have their temple ordinances performed for them either live or by proxy. That is what the leaven filling all three measures of meal means to me. 

Answer:

I don't know why Ammon felt like he was unworthy. I suppose he felt like he did not have the authority from God. Maybe he did not have the priesthood authority. Maybe he felt like he was not worthy of it. It doesn't work if you are not worthy anyway. 

What kind of land must it have been for them to have lost the trail in 2 days? Mosiah 22:16

What kind of land must it have been for them to have lost the trail in 2 days? Mosiah 22:16

The Lamanites are pursuing the people of Limhi but they can't find their tracks after two days, so they give up the search.

How good are you at tracking?

If you are one of my children, you wouldn't even be able to find your way home, let alone pursue people who were actively trying not to be followed.

Answer:

I think it's safe to assume that the terrain included some waterways (hard to track travel in river or a stream), some forests (easy to hide), and possibly some other hills or interesting terrain. The traditional site for the Book of Mormon lands is somewhere in the Yucatan. Lots and lots of people have lots of theories. I have no idea what I think except that God sure values protecting our agency. It would be so much easier to have answers about things like dinosaurs and the geography of the Book of Mormon, but physical evidence is not what faith is about. Neither is faith incompatible with these ideas, or science in general. It will be so nice to have clear answers someday, though.

Thoughts about the Outdoors

Perhaps one reason why 'The Lord of the Rings' appeals so deeply to the men in my life, ranging from my dear husband to one of those guys (yeah, there are several! Ugh...) I dated-but-didn't-really-date-because-he-refused-to-let-me-win-him, to my older brother is because all of these men were also greatly fond of the outdoors.

I have read 90% of the trilogy before - I stopped somewhere three quarters through the third book about six or seven years ago, and so by now it's better to just read it again starting from the beginning. I have been listening to the audiobook with my 9 year old daughter. Audiobooks are fantastic. They allow me to actually participate in the world of books while getting the every day things done which need to get done. The reader for this book is excellent: a very easy to listen to British accent, which is a must for this series, of course. By now the recording is about 25 years old.

I am pretty sure that the first time I actually read it, I was actually listening to Danny read it aloud to me then, too. He read a lot of books out loud to me when we were first married. It was nice. There is no time for that kind of thing now because of his school work. He has been doing very well with it, but I think the poor man will be so much happier when he can have time to find and pursue his own interests and hobbies again. It has been about two years since he started this program. His hobby before that time was finishing our basement, which he did himself: framed, wired, floored (okay, I helped with that a lot), sheet rocked (we should have done that; we would have done a better job!), and painted. Before that, we lived in Houston and his hobby was his commute. It was 1 hour and 15 minutes there, 1 hour and 15 minutes home. Pretty miserable, if you ask me. That is why we moved.

Danny has it hard now, but I think I would literally wither and die without an outlet for my interests.

Once, when I was feeling particularly miserable because the editing process was so painfully dull, frustrating, and impossible, and I had been editing the first (and so far only) piece of writing which I have ever held in my hands as a book, I mentioned to my friend something like, "I'm never going to write anything ever again." His response made me feel so happy. Something like, "What!? Nooo!!" It feels good that people exist out there who want to read my thoughts and ideas. Even if they didn't, though, I would still have to share them. It's just part of me. I love to write.

Editing, on the other hand, especially co-editing...

Tolkien wrote long. His sentences are beautiful and full of descriptive language, but he's not just telling the story - he is really painting the setting itself in how he tells it. You feel like you are there. It helps a lot that I have in the background of my mind images of the characters, and a gorgeous New Zealand tapestry - but the movies just really don't have the space/ability to do the books justice because it's precisely the slowness, the wordiness, the how-ness, that makes this book so fun. Several times in our 2.5 hour car drive today I found myself just grinning uncontrollably because of some funny nuance in the language (the names of the hobbit families, for example). I had to stop the book to have Jane think about the sentence, “I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”

That boy who I dated-without-dating called the collective works of J. R. R. Tolkien "literary masturbation" which forever gave me permission to not like them, aka to voice the inner frustration I had always found with them before. I think he did like these books, but they were just too long for him. All the other men in my life who love LOTR are deeply hurt by this colorful phrase. Perhaps it's because this series is the one thing that is not at all tainted by sexuality. Period. Or perhaps because their feelings for the series were deeply tied to feelings of loyalty to their boyhoods. I'm not sure.

It's not like I hadn't tried to read them before. I idolized my brother growing up, and he created an Elvish-esque alphabet and word for his name which he not only wood-burned into a beautiful plaque which he hung above the door of his room - the room in which we spent many long hours talking into the night about European history and fantasy/sci-fi literature - but also wrote onto the sides of all of my future hand-me-down school books along with VASICEK. There wasn't a chance I would grow up without longing to try Tolkien.

It's just that...well...I was always (and still am) a lot better at collecting books than reading them.

I like people.

And also, I guess another reason I never let Tolkien into my childhood was that somehow I got it into my mind to start with the Silmarillion. I should've gone with the Hobbit! Duh. I was an adult by the the time I finally enjoyed it as a book. Not as a movie series. Haha. Dunno, I could only stomach one of them.

I, too, loved (and still love) the outdoors. I didn't (and will not likely ever) have the same kind of relationship that the men in my life have had with nature because, well, unfortunately that wasn't an option. If I could have gone on camp outs, overnight treks, fishing trips, canoeing adventures - I would have. At least I had the great fortune of growing up in a part of the world that is forested. Our house abutted...well, here is a picture.

Was the quarry smaller 20 years ago? This is actually the first I have ever really studied the aerial view of this place. That was not the style or pace of things when I was growing up, to google a place and view it from all angles except perhaps the experiential one, the one which actually matters most. 

I knew the paths in those woods very well. I walked there alone quite often, or sometimes with my brother or even rarely, a sister. I liked it best to be alone there, though. There were some canal ruins by the creek, and an old waterfall. There were places where the water was really deep and still and you could see fish. I remember seeing deer and foxes there, too. And people riding dirt bikes. And suddenly you're looking down at the quarry, or you're in the middle of the burned out area (did Myst model the landscape after this place!? I used to wonder). 

I think what I loved about the outdoors as a child was the fact that it was a place where I could go and not think, but still think. The only inside place that is remotely similar is music. It's like...you can be thinking your thoughts, but your senses are overwhelmed with noticing other things, like the smell of moss or the sound of birds calling, or the stink of skunkweed which you accidentally stepped on - these things suddenly call your mind away abruptly to faraway places like, "What did the Indians who used to live here think of this?" or "can I walk across the creek on that log without falling in?" or other things like that. When I listen to music, it's like surrendering a piece of my brain to something else, letting it steer. It's like that for the outdoors, too. Both can be so calming.

As an adult, what is calming about being in the countryside in nature is the lack of worry. There's a huge field and the kids can run very far away. You can still see them, but they are free! There isn't a constant nagging fear about cars running them over or strangers talking to them or kidnapping them (!) or etc. It's just wide open skies, trees, fields - so comforting, so much relief.

Growing up is hard. I don't really know from experience what it must have been like to grow up in a male mind or body. It seems stressful in some specific ways that I did not have to deal with (while other things were probably much harder the other way around). Perhaps the strong emphasis on outdoor programming for boys (and not girls) in my church was for good reasons. I can be happy for the men in my life for having such wonderful experiences with scouting. To marry an eagle scout was always my naive wish - fulfilled, too. Though, I am not sure if I can do it without a hint of sadness that can sometimes be masked by regretful, defensive bitterness. I personally do think there were good reasons - along with some painfully stupid ones - for the way scouting worked. 

But I am just one person. What can I do against a problem that is bigger than a church culture, especially when it's as big as the entire world's culture? When I am brought up to believe in and strongly value positive discourse but the world teaches that criticism and campaigning is the only valid way to make your voice heard? What can I do when I see, feel, and experience a problem but do not have the tools to name it or even speak about it? 

Pray. That's pretty much it.

That is another reason why The Lord of the Rings is such an appealing story: the theme of the small and simple struggling to do what is right, and eventually even succeeding.

Will I ever write something great? Something that is read, shared, beloved, turned into a major motion picture, stained with teardrops on the pages, something so cherished and treasured that the names of my characters become names of generations of children? My forays into fiction have been unsteady. My only semi-successful writing has been in these small bursts (like blog posts) of concerted energy - disconnected ideas and thoughts, and none of it fiction; what compels me to write seems to be the lure of a possible reader. I know that I can write about Czech Genealogy, the Czech Language,  my faith, or even just dip the bucket into my inner pool of thoughts and splash it onto the screen. Could I ever hope to aspire to something even greater, though?

Perhaps. 

I wonder what would happen if I took my laptop into the outdoors and tried. The fact is, my life is tied up with caring for others, and though that is not a bad thing at all, it does make some logistics tricky. Me + the outdoors is tricky. It's not a casual thing in my life. It's a planned adventure. 

But I've learned that there are no easy paths for anyone. None. 

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

The best we can hope to find are worthwhile quests and steady friends with whom to share them, and I feel lucky that I have a small handful of those.

There is only one friend that I have who can truly understand me, though, and for the time being he is not at all as tangible as I would like. Still, I feel a closeness to God when I am paying attention. Perhaps most of all when I am alone (at least in my head) in a beautiful place outdoors.

But why their feet? Mosiah 15:15

But why their feet? Mosiah 15:15

Abinadi is preaching to the wicked priests. He remarks, "These are they who have published peace...and O how beautiful upon the mountains were their feet!"

Actually, this is a super common Old Testament saying, found laced all throughout Isaiah.

Feet aren't really that beautiful, per se. I mean, they are hardly a popular sexy body part. They can get pretty nasty, especially if you are a hard worker or wear shoes all day. So why are they beautiful?

I think feet are a symbol for going and doing.

There's actually a whole lesson about this exact topic here.

TLDR: Feet are a symbol of missionary work.

Answer:
People who accept the gospel of Jesus Christ and become converted really appreciate the love shown to them by the messengers who brought them the gospel.

I talk about my faith all the time. To my knowledge, I have never been the one to bring somebody into the fold of faith. It just hasn't happened that way for me. I am not holding my breath that it ever will. The main point that I wish my non-believer friends would take away from any attempts I have at sharing the gospel with them is that I am not saying I am better than them because of who I am or what I believe that is different (and you know what? There's way more that's the same, even with atheists). The act of me sharing my testimony is an act of love. It's me saying, "This is something that brings me great joy, and because I love you I want to share this joy with you, too. Won't you try it?" It's about imagining that somebody that I love could be happier than they already are. I guess it could quite easily be misconstrued into something else, but that is the way I perceive missionary work.

Who was king Mormon? Mosiah 18:4

Who was king Mormon? Mosiah 18:4

Alma is starting to preach in private in a place called Mormon.

And it came to pass that as many as did believe him did go forth to a place which was called Mormon, having received its name from the king, being in the borders of the land having been infested, by times or at seasons, by wild beasts.

Oh English. You lovely, ambiguous language, you.

Here "from" could mean that the name of the place was "after" the name of the King. But we know that the king was actually named Noah, so this doesn't hold.

Answer:
It most likely means that King Noah named this place.

Why does Mormon say "they are beautiful to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer"? Mosiah 18:30

Why does Mormon say "they are beautiful to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer"? Mosiah 18:30

The context of this story is that Alma, one of wicked King Noah's priests, flees for his life. He starts preaching in private. He sets forth the covenant of baptism and starts baptizing at the waters of Mormon. He organizes the Church of Christ and ordains righteous priests, who teach the people. Alma leads a group of people away from King Noah into the wilderness.

Centuries later, a historian named Mormon (the namesake of the Book of Mormon) is abridging the record of Alma and his people. This is how Mormon describes what happened:

And now it came to pass that all this was done in Mormon, yea, by the waters of Mormon, in the forest that was near the waters of Mormon; yea, the place of Mormon, the waters of Mormon, the forest of Mormon, how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer; yea, and how blessed are they, for they shall sing to his praise forever.

 Mormon was probably named after this place. He probably grew up hearing about the waters of Mormon, the forest near the waters of Mormon, the place of Mormon. By the way, there's perhaps some kind of parallelism here.

A. In Mormon
B. Waters of Mormon
C. Forest near the waters of Mormon

A. The place of Mormon
B. Waters of Mormon
C. Forest of Mormon

Answer:
When people have powerful spiritual experiences their sensory memories are invoked and they are likely to remember specific details about where they were, who they were with, and what they were doing. This place went down in history probably both because it was objectively a beautiful place, and also because it was associated with strong feelings of peace obtainable only through the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.

You are likely to remember details about your baptism day just like these people did.

Where Men are not Allowed

When I was on a study abroad in Jordan, there were many times when I was not allowed to participate in activities because of the fact that I'm a woman. These ran the gamut between extracurricular activities to merely traveling alone.

I hated it.

We were required to write journal entries about our experience and have them reviewed by the study abroad director. I wrote about how unfair and awful it was that I wasn't allowed to do so many things on the basis of my gender, sometimes in quite colorful language. The director was Kirk Belnap and he was amazingly patient with me. When we met to talk about my journal entries, he pointed out that though there were many places I couldn't go - certainly many more than I was used to having been raised in a western country - there were also places I could go that he and all the other men on the trip would not ever be able to go. Homes in the middle east have a formal sitting room for guests and an informal interior area of the home where only close friends and family are allowed to go. He told me that the fact that I'm female meant I had the ability to see, experience, and participate in conversations of un-veiled women in the inside parts of the home. I hadn't considered that.

Later I returned to Jordan and lived for about four months with the Hammouri family. The only consistent times I was able to leave their house were on trips to school and church. I was rarely alone. The Hammouris literally treated me as one of their own daughters. I slept on a mat in the bedroom with all the other daughters (two of them on mats, two on a queen bed): Alaa2, Senaa2, Hibba (my age), and Momina (younger). The brothers Ahmed and Mohammed (both younger) slept on the internal family room's couches. The house was the lower level of a small apartment building and you probably have the sense that it was not very big - it wasn't. The biggest and nicest room in the house was the guest sitting room, with many fancy chairs and a large table for serving people. There were two bathrooms, but only one with a toilet. I entered the parents' bedroom only once, walking in only a few feet because mama Hammouri wanted to show me something (I can't remember; maybe jewelry?).

Could a man have ever had this kind of experience?

The reason I was able to live with them at all was because they were friends with Nedal, a member of my church from a nearby village. They knew how he lived. They had an implicit trust in me, that I would follow the same moral code that they did, especially no sex or alcohol. They told me this point blank.

The other reason which they didn't tell me but didn't need to was that the ages and genders of their own children were an appropriate match. I was 19 and Ahmed was 15, the only possibly dangerous combination (Mohammed was 10 or so, I think?). Ahmed was tall, very broad shouldered, and just large - I guess I wouldn't say fat. He was also very immature. Some of his friends hadn't gone through puberty. His English was a disaster. He was always playing and telling jokes. He was very nice to me, and I treated him like a brother. I also didn't spend any time with him alone.

There was never a chance I'd exert my very real flirtation energy on Ahmed; there was another Arab guy who I met on campus from a culture (Syrian) that was less stifling - a fellow international student who could relate to me. He spoke lovely Arabic (of course), could put a sentence together in English tolerably well, had some life experience, was physically very attractive, and was extremely kind and sweet to me. I guess I got "the full middle eastern girl" experience, complete with the clandestine on-campus dating. I witnessed this every single day by others.

I participated in a wedding for some cousin or friend when I was there. A few days beforehand all the women did this thing with henna - not the fancy design drawing thing, but something else that I only vaguely remember as "messy". It was inside the private home area of the upstairs neighbor's house.

The Hammouris often had guests. Hijabed women would come in to the house and de-hijab. I visited them dressed in totally normal, ubiquitous looking jeans and t-shirts (long sleeved, but that was the norm). Their beautiful hair. So much attention was placed on their makeup and hair. Sometimes I was really confused about that - I got the eyeliner thing but the hair thing? You're just going to cover it anyway.

I learned how to put on a hijab. I saw my Arab sisters do this every day. They taught me. In fact, most of what I learned was through observation. I was some kind of dissatisfied ethnographer fly on the wall.

It was excellent for language learning, that's for sure.

***

100, 200 years ago in our culture, you'd be able to clearly define the separate roles of men and women in the western world. But now?

Now I live in a world where some of my closest friends are men. How can this be?

Well, it started out when I decided to blog about an extremely niche topic that I didn’t actually know that much about: Czech genealogy. Eventually I realized that because Czech genealogy (more than other kinds of genealogy) is a really fun linguistic puzzle, it would serve me really well to like, actually learn Czech. Haha.

I recently downloaded this videomessaging app at the request of my friend who wanted to message me that way. When I first downloaded it, it connected me to this group which included 9 other women - my sisters in law (plus Jules and Katie who are honorary sisters in law, I guess). These women are gorgeous wives and mothers (except Ella, who is Danny’s 17 year old sister) and I see them a maximum of twice per year.

A fun fact: last time we all hung out together was in 2016 in Las Vegas on a girl’s trip to a resort. They teased me for sitting (in the shade - I didn’t want a sunburn!) by the pool while reading, “Deciphering Handwriting in German Documents.” Yeah, that is objectively a funny contrast. Har. Har. The other funny contrast was that was one of the first times Lukáš decided to text me, ever. The subject? Czech nationalism. 

Can you even imagine these women (who I love) choosing to talk about that? Well, I can’t.

When I opened the group, there were tons of messages from these women - all of them about 10 seconds to 2 minutes long (and none of them about Czech nationalism, predictably). Almost all of the messages were from within their homes or cars. I watched them all, and they really made me smile. It felt good to be included. There were children in almost all of them - some of them were even sent by children.

The thought of communicating with my male friends in this way is terrifying to me. Actually, to be honest, there are really three competing voices in my head: “NO! I can’t handle that!” [fear and trembling]. “I shouldn’t, so I want to!” [rebellious Kate?] “I feel like I shouldn’t, but why in the heck is that the case? I videochat with men all the time. I have to figure out why this could be!”

Like, is it the real time, the audio, the video, or something else?

	time delay	audio	video
phone call	real time	yes	no
instant messaging/texting	asynchronous both because there is always a delay between your brain and your keypad/board, and you can choose to respond later	no	no
video chat (skype, hangouts, facebook video)	real time	yes	yes
video messaging (marco polo)	can be both asynchronous or “live” (but really, if the time delay is 10 seconds you would never *actually* know)	yes	yes

This table really makes it seem like there must be additional factors other than real time, audio, and visual at play, since I am equally comfortable video chatting with men as with women. What could they be? Some ideas:

	Is the information saved and viewable later?	Can I be doing something else at the same time?	When do I tend to use it?
phone call	no	yes	typically while cleaning or driving long straight roads when there’s no rain or snow
instant messaging/texting	yes	yes	while breastfeeding, when I should be doing something else - really anytime
video chat (skype, hangouts, facebook video)	no	no	while sitting at my computer or in front of my phone
video messaging (marco polo)	yes	no - but kinda.	pretty random parts of the day doing normal, boring things

My current hypothesis is that for me, somehow, and I don’t really know how or why, I have a separate internal family room where men just are not allowed. I spend most of my day isolated from other adults. The women in my life don’t even usually see this space. They don’t go in my bedroom when they come visit. We don’t spend our time together in real life folding my laundry or cleaning the toilets; that time is intentional. Usually we just sit and talk, or passively watch kids and talk.

I guess the reason why marco polo attracts my demographic is that it can include the young people in our lives that are always around. When I’m texting, it’s all in my head. My voice is not even spoken aloud. It’s just mental, in my mind. My children can’t participate. When I’m sucked into my phone, I’m not paying attention to them.

The other thing is, it’s so fast. The point of no return is record. You can delete messages but not until after they are sent. People can watch you while you are recording (well, I guess nobody would actually know for real if you were speaking in real time, would they. I guess there is likely some tiny delay because why not?). As soon as their message is done, the camera zooms in on you. Super disconcerting when I’m nursing a baby and playing with my phone, which is most of the time. It’s bad enough in google hangouts or skype that I (or my baby) can accidentally hit the “video chat” button - but if I were communicating with a guy friend, that would send. In all its...glory. Ugh.

I fully realize that my guy friends can (and probably do - I know that *I* do) reread our texting conversations later. They often feel really different to me, rereading them. First of all, it’s a whole lot faster. I catch things I didn’t before, “Oh! He probably meant x. I didn’t realize that because I was typing.” It’s usually, but not always an exercise in I-am-such-an-idiot.

But how would I feel if my guy friends could (and probably would) rewatch a video of me? Especially a video of me in my really personal spaces - my bedroom!? I don’t necessarily have to be in my bedroom folding laundry, or standing in front of a pile of dirty dishes, or in the car with my kids, but let’s be honest: that’s probably where I’d be because that’s where I spend most of my time.

What about how I look? I don’t usually make a big fuss about what I look like before I videochat with someone (unless I’m going to be skyping with my in laws; it’s too embarrassing to not look at least a little bit put together in front of my mother in law) but in my personal spaces, I guess I care about that kind of thing even less? Kids constantly touching me all over with their sticky, moist hands. What if the camera angle is funny and gets too much of my body in it or something like that? Sitting in front of my webcam or phone cam is a known quantity - but moving around?

My voice (ie what I say) is definitely different through text vs. real time audio. When I videochat, I sometimes don’t really know what to say, which in me usually manifests in talking too quickly about random things.

There’s only one man on this planet who I can talk to in real time totally freely, and that is my husband. He’s always allowed wherever I am.

It’s okay that my male friends are not allowed in some spaces where my female friends are. It’s just so weird to me to realize that, like in the middle east, I too have an internal area which is only accessible to my female friends and husband. I don’t know why it’s this way, but it is.

Hmm. Weird.