An Instrument in His Hands

Part 2 Chapter 14

Part 2

74 BC

Chapter 14

Christian missionaries! People were saying that more Christian missionaries were come among us! They were going from house to house both in the city and throughout the valley.

I had yet to meet one. Who were they? Would I know them? Oh! I could not wait to hear them speak!

‘We told them about you, Christian Lady,’ one of my students said. ‘We told them how you go all over the valley and try to live like Christ.’

‘What did they say?’ I asked him breathlessly.

My student smiled. ‘They want to meet you. They said that everyone speaks of you when they mention the Christ.’

I smiled too. ‘Is that so? How might I find them?’

‘They are trying to get everyone to come to the Hill Onidah to hear the leader of the Nephite Christians speak on the Sabbath. Are you going?’

‘Why, I think I will!’ I replied with a larger smile. ‘I think I will.’ Alma! Would he recognize me? Would I dare to make myself known to him? How odd to think of him as head of the church when he had been such a rebel. I hadn’t seen him since… Well, those memories were best not to remember.

I spent the remaining days gathering my people and urging them all to attend the meeting. ‘It won’t matter what you wear. This is a religious gathering that anyone can attend, even I,’ and I twirled about in my old brown robe. My excitement was so infectious that they agreed to attend.

‘I have never asked you to believe as I do, but if what I have demonstrated to you all these years when I have served you means anything at all, please go and hear my friends and what they have to say,’ I urged many. I went house to house in every village and farm that my labors took me to that week.

At last it was the Sabbath. My cheeks showed my feverish excitement as I walked the distance to the Hill Onidah with a large group of my friends. ‘Oh, you are going to love these missionaries,’ I assured them. ‘It will be worth every step that we take today to get there, you will see!’

We came up the back side of the hill, away from the rich Zoramites. I saw that hundreds of my friends were gathered and more were coming in clusters in the valley below. Tears came to my eyes as I watched them. They were coming for me, and for the Christ. After all these years I would have my reward. They would listen to the words of the Lord at last!

I was nearly overcome with joy as I walked up the hill at their head with them all following after. Alma stood at the top facing the Zoramites before him.  I could hear that they were nearly as angry with him as they had been with Korihor.

‘You are no longer our Chief Judge,’ I heard one of them yell.

One of my former students, a young man now grown, came and took my arm. ‘Come, Christian Lady, introduce us to your teachers. Ask them how we can worship without a synagogue.’

We walked on ahead and approached one of Alma’s companions standing guard behind him.

‘Excuse me,’ my student said. ‘We would enquire of the good teacher how we might worship.’

The missionary turned around and I gasped.

He was Aaron.