Nephi's testimony and his gifts

So I was reading the last book of 2 Nephi today; still on the hunt for the greatest testimonies of the great men of God. This is the quest that started my journey writing in here. Makay challenged me to search the scriptures for gifts and what I could learn, but I knew that I had to first start by hunting for the great testimonies of the great prophets of God.

I found Nephi's testimony. Powerful stuff.

10 And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good. 11 And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye- for Christ will show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at the last day; and you and I shall stand face to face before his bar; and ye shall know that I have been commanded of him to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness...14 And you that will not partake of the goodness of God, and respect the words of the Jews, and also my words, and the words which shall proceed forth out of the mouth of the Lamb of God, behold I bid you an everlasting farewell, for these words shall condemn you at the last day.

Nephi had a hard life. First it's the wilderness, losing his wealth, getting abused and bullied much, then getting to the Americas and having his life, and the life of his people be at risk. Not to mention the joy of starting a civilization from scratch. Food, housing - it all had to be created from scratch. Not a terribly enjoyable life.

I also noticed that Nephi handed the plates to Enos, rather than one of his sons. Maybe his sons rebelled too? What a sad life that would be. If so, he could say he left his life with nothing. No posterity to carry truth on, few material possessions if any. At the same time, his life was pure greatness; he qualified himself for all gifts of God, and blessed generations for thousands of years to come. I think he'd say that was a success.

One thing that handing leadership to Jacob does - it takes away the claim his errant brothers made that he did everything for power. He gave the mantle of power to his brother. Of course, that didn't change the story that the Lamanites told themselves at all - they just changed the narrative so they could continue to justify themselves in their hating.

We do that.

In any case, I'm about gifts - it's something that I focus on. Not sure why, it just fascinates me. I see that Nephi laments that he can't talk to us, because he knows that he's better with the spoken word than written. He feels that the spoken word comes with the spirit better than the written word. I'm thinking that there is more communication that happens when a word is spoken by a powerful man - back in the day they told me in my communications classes that the actual words used were less than 50% of the meaning. Nephi could use the power of his soul to communicate more than just the words. On the other hand, the spirit can accompany written words just as well as spoken words - but the reception of those words has more to do with the readiness and gifts of the receiver than the gifts of the speaker/writer.

In any case, Nephi shows humility. He acknowledges that there are gifts he doesn't have. He's not dejected or angry about that, he just rolls with it. He doesn't feel less than someone else for not having a gift that he can see he doesn't have. He makes with his gift set what he can make of it. He does the best he can, and relies on the Lord to make up the difference. That's what we all should be doing.