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Unit 13: Day 1 - Mosiah 18

Abinadi's death was not in vain.  Even though most did not believed in what he said, one person did; that was Alma.  With a splinter group, Alma fled from the wicked Noah and begin prospering at the place of Mormon.  What this place ends up being famous for is baptism at the Waters of Mormon.  Alma taught and baptized in droves as people continue to repent of their past sins and exercised faith in Jesus Christ.  Which then comes verse 8 thru 11, probably one of the scriptures that I share the most on my mission, particularly in preparation for helping investigators before they get baptized.  These verse are great when getting trying to understand how covenant works.  We are going get into greater details this Friday so I'm going to keep it light here.  But in short, a covenant is a basically a two way promise between you and God.  When I was young, I always make these "deals" with God as I pray.  It would go something like "if I do such and such a thing, then will you bless me with this thing that I want".  Needless to say it doesn't work that way.  The key difference is that He sets the terms.  We are going to look closer into this Friday with a specific focus on what exactly is the baptismal covenants (i.e. what are the terms?).

I'm grateful for my baptismal covenants.  I was baptized as a convert at the age of 11.  I needed a lot of help from other member families to really teach and show me what it really means to keep the baptismal covenants as my immediate family didn't get baptized (my mother did however about a year ago!).  As my ward family diligently takes me and provide me rides to Church every week, I had the opportunity to partake and pass and bless the sacrament.  I also had the opportunity to perform my priesthood duties such as collect fast offerings, provide the sacrament, go home teaching, and etc.  Those are tasks I think sometimes we take for granted but really, they are the very essence of what it means to keep our end of the covenant.  In returned I was simply blessed, beyond what I even asked for.  Now don't get confused with blessings as in temporal wealth.  I didn't get an X-box from the Lord.  But looking back and compare to what I've been blessed with now, I have 3 awesome children with a beautiful wife who supports me in every way and counsels with me daily.  I attribute every bit of these blessings back to when I first started making and keeping my baptismal covenants since I was 11 years old. 

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