The Fulness of Mine Intent

Nephi wrote that "the fulness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto (God)."    (1 Nephi 6:4).

What is the fulness of mine intent?  What is yours?

The fulness of mine intent is to keep the covenants and the commandments of God, and to do all in my power to insure that every member of my family does the same.  Most of my service and all of my writing is directed to my family.  My prayers are invariably directed toward blessing my family as well.

Nephi's intent was broader.  He realized that his writings were destined to affect the world across thousands of years.  He was, therefore, not "particular to give a full account of all the things of (his) father" (1 Nephi 6:3), but rather to focus on sacred things.  His purpose was not to tell a story, but to write only that which was sacred.  (1 Nephi 19:5-6).

Consequently there are holes in the Nephite record that we wish were filled.  There are things we don't know about Nephi and his proceedings, but they are things that Nephi did not consider essential to his record.  For instance, in just four verses (1 Nephi 17:1-4) he sums up the family's eight-year sojourn in the wilderness.  There is also a paucity of information about how the ship was built.  We have no idea what it looked like.  Nor are we told anything about the journey across the sea except that there was rebellion in the family, and that they endured a four-day cyclone.  We are told nothing about the route or the length of the trip.

We would like to know more about Nephi's family, too, but are only given hints.  In the promised land Nephi was warned by the Lord to depart into the wilderness and to flee from his brethren.      (2 Nephi 5:5).  Was the departure done secretly and at night, or done in full sight of his brothers?  He took with him all those "who believed in the warnings and the revelations of God."  They included his "sisters."  (2 Nephi 5:6).  This is the only time in the whole record that we're given any indication that Lehi and Sariah had anything other than six boys.  Who were these girls?

Nephi's sisters were apparently not with the family when Lehi first left Jerusalem because Nephi plainly stated that his father's family "consisted of my mother, Sariah, and my elder brothers, who were Laman, Lemuel, and Sam."  (1 Nephi 2:5).  If any girls had been present then, he would have mentioned them.

So where did the sisters come from?  They had to have either been born during the eight-year crossing of the Arabian Peninsula, or else they joined the family with Ishmael's group.  It's not likely that they were born during the sojourn in the wilderness, as Jacob and Joseph were, because Sariah was surely at the end of her child-bearing years.

The most likely thing is that the girls joined the group with Ishmael's family.  Erastus Snow, an early Apostle in the restored Church, gave a sermon in Logan, Utah, 6 May 1882.  Elder Snow said: "The Prophet Joseph Smith informed us that the record of Lehi was contained on the 116 pages that were first translated and subsequently stolen, and of which an abridgment is given us in the First Book of Nephi, which is the record of Nephi individually, he himself being of the lineage of Manasseh; but that Ishmael was of the lineage of Ephraim, and that his sons married into Lehi's family, and Lehi's sons married Ishmael's daughters."  (Sidney B. Sperry, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, 4/1 (1995), 235-238).

If that is the case, then we can begin to understand more about why the Lamanites were so wroth about Nephi leaving.  The wives of the sons of Ishmael left their husbands!  Lehi's daughters chose to follow righteousness rather than to follow their wayward spouses.  Did they leave alone, or did they take some of their children?  Their boys would probably have chosen to stay with their fathers, but their girls and smaller children might have been another matter.  It was a hard time for everyone.

It is interesting that individuals from the same background can end up in such widely differing destinations.

I was studying a map one day when I noticed a most unusual thing.  I noticed that the Snake, Green, and Yellowstone Rivers all originate within just a few miles of one another.  The Snake River flows west to join the Columbia River, and drains into the Pacific Ocean.  The Green River flows south to join the Colorado River, and drains into the Gulf of California.  The Yellowstone River flows east to join the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and drains into the Gulf of Mexico whose waters are part of the Atlantic Ocean.  Two or three drops of rain might fall just feet or inches apart; but depending upon which side of the Continental Divide they fall, they might end up a continent apart, and in different oceans.

I'm reading David McCullough's biography of Wilbur and Orville Wright.  Wilbur was a genius, and was thinking of going to Yale University.  All such plans were dropped when he was accidentally or purposely hit in the mouth with a hockey stick.  His teeth were knocked out, and years of pain and recuperation followed.  The wielder of the bat was a young bully who grew up in the same neighborhood as Wilbur.  Wilbur and his brother, Orville, invented the airplane, and changed the world.  The other boy, coming from the same neighborhood and background, became a mass murderer.  It was said of him that he "never was without the wish to inflict pain or at least discomfort on others."  (The Wright Brothers, pg. 14).

Laman and Lemuel and that young man were on the wrong side of the Divide.  Early on it would have been a simple matter for any of them to step to the other side.  That's done with repentance, work, and real intent.  The fulness of their intent, however, was not to be good and to do good, but to inflict pain and to be rebellious.

Once one has reached the ocean that is his destination, it's way too late to try to retrace one's steps.