ALMA 59-63

Today we finished Alma. What a great book. It is filled with doctrine, wars, peace, great leaders, bad leaders -- everything that would make you want to read it again and again. We read an epistle Captain Moroni sent to Pahoran accusing Pahoran of leaving Moroni and the warriors to fend for themselves. Capatain Moroni had some accusations about Pahoran that just were not true. So....when Pahoran received this epistle, how do you think he felt? How would you feel if someone accused you falsely? In Pahoran's epistle to Captain Moroni he tells him why he hasn't sent him help and then he tells him he is not angry. We can learn a lesson from Pahoran. He definitely would have been "justified" in being angry with Moroni, but instead he was not angry. Maybe we can turn the other cheek more often and remember Pahoran.
We read about a man name Hagoth who made ships and sailed north. In one of the verses it said that "we assume they all drowned". But modern day prophets have taught us about what happened to Hagoth and his people. President Spencer W. Kimball in an area conference in Samoa said, "And so it seems to me rather clear that your ancestors moved northward and crossed a part of the South Pacific. You did not bring your records with you, but you brought much food and provisions. And so we have a great congregation of people in the South Seas who came from the Nephites, and who came from the land southward and went to the land northward which could have been Hawaii. And then the further settlement could have been a move southward again to all of these islands and even to New Zealand. The Lord knows what he is doing when he sends his people from one place to another."
President Joseph F. Smith, when president of the Church, said to the Maori people of New Zealand, "I would like to say to you brethren and sisters from New Zealand, you ARE some of Hagoth's people, and there is NO PERHAPS about it!"