A good nap, while all your prisoners escape!

Alright, here we are with Moroni, remember him, the good guy:) Moroni and the Nephites have been having some hefty battles and fighting very hard for the cause of their freedom. It is very interesting to note that whenever it mentions in the scriptures the reasons why everyone is fighting this war, it is always due to oppression from one side or the other.

So the leaders of both sides are tired of the fighting, tired of the loss of their brethren and mostly out of men, might, and motivation. So they write epistles to each other. It was kinda like email chat except took much longer and wasn't quite as fun.

So Ammoron( He is the leader of the people who don't believe in God, it used to be Amalikiah, but he was stabbed in the heart with a javelin. Just a heads up) sends his letter to Moroni which says:

"And now it came to pass in the commencement of the twenty and ninth year of the judges, that Ammoron sent unto Moroni desiring that he would exchange prisoners." -Alma 54:1

So yeah, Ammoron keeps it pretty short and simple. That's nice, but he then sent it to Moroni....now that guy is a novelist. Moroni starts him out real slow. He says:

Well actually what he says takes up a good long page and a half in the Book of Mormon, so I will paraphrase. 

"Well Ammoron, I'd like to help you with this whole exchange the prisoner thing, I really would, but you know very well that we're not very well matched against each other. All of our prisoners of yours are all men. We didn't take any of your women or children. However you have many of our women and children. So I'm only going to trade you prisoners if you will trade one family for one man. Also I think you are child of Hell and do not abide by the precepts of God and unless you repent, you are probably going to Hell. I am Moroni, leader of the Nephites." -Paraphrased version of Alma 54:5-15

So obviously the conversation is going quite well at this point. Well this makes Ammoron mad, and he gets really hissy and says he doesn't really need to exchange prisoners, and they are going to keep fighting them, because they believe they are the rightful rulers, and so on and so forth. Plus he was slightly offended that Moroni called him a child of Hell.

After all this, Moroni refuses to exchange prisoners, and comes up with a brilliant plan!

So he makes a search through all his people, finds some of Lamanite decent, send them with wine to the Lamanites fortress, and tell them to lie to the Lamanites. 

He says tell them you escaped from us, and you brought them wine to celebrate:) So they do. 

"And it came to pass that they did take of the wine freely; and it was pleasant to their taste, therefore they took of it more freely; and it was strong, having been prepared in its strength.

And it came to pass they did drink and were merry, and by and by they were all drunken."

Well, morale of the story, Dont Get Drunk On The Job! 

All of the prisoners were given weapons and when the Lamanites woke up, they surrendered:) I'm sure you would too if all your prisoners had all the weapons.

I love this story, not because it is hillarious, although it really is, but because of what it teaches us. We don't ever take the easy way out! You keep your standards high and you fight hard. Like I said last post, we are living in the war zone, the spiritual war zone! We don't give up and arrange to trade prisoners! We keep fighting, and we arm ourselves from within. We do those things that give us power spiritually and that fortify our minds and ready us to take on Satan when he comes and offers us the easy way out.

Brothers and sisters, don't take easy way out! Fight hard! For the Cause of the Christians!

Thank you for you time!

 Next week we

get into some really fun stuff! #Discoverthebook!!