2 Nephi 1-2

"And now, Zoram, I speak unto you...though art a true friend unto my son, Nephi, forever. Wherefore, because thou hast been faithful thy seed shall be blessed" 2 Nephi 1:30-31

When we think of the story of 1 and 2 Nephi, we often overlook Zoram. He must have had a tremendous amount of faith to leave Jerusalem with Nephi, who just killed Laban. If someone killed my boss, my first thought wouldn't be to flee into the wilderness with him. Not a chance! But here we see that Zoram is righteous and that his posterity will be blessed with Nephi's. Zoram is an example of faith.

“And thou hast beheld in thy youth his glory” -2 Nephi 2:4

Is this scripture telling us that Jacob actually saw Christ? I believe he did. Over the summer, while I was in Kirtland, Ohio, we learned that Joseph Smith doesn’t distinguish between actual visits from Christ and visions. I think Lehi is telling us that it was a vision of Christ. I’m not sure if we will ever know whether Christ actually appeared to Jacob, or if it was a vision, but what we do know is that Jacob must have been a very righteous boy. We should all follow his example of righteousness.

"Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin" -2 Nephi 2:7

How many times have we heard this phrase: "sacrifice for sin"? Probably hundreds of times. But how often do we really stop to think about it? Christ sacrificed himself for the sins of the world. For me and for you. What will you be willing to sacrifice to overcome sin? Christ has done so much for us. We owe it to him to try harder to be better.

“For it must needs be that there is an opposition in all things” -2 Nephi 2:11

If there needs to be sadness in order for us to feel happiness, will we have trials in the Celestial Kingdom? As far as I know there are no scriptures that teach us that we are going to feel sorrow in the Celestial Kingdom. D&C 76, which is one of the best sources to go to regarding the Celestial Kingdom, and it doesn’t say anything about sadness. My guess is that we are feeling our sadness now so that we can enjoy the blessings of the Celestial Kingdom later on. I am unsure of this because I know that God is saddened when we do bad things. If we are striving to become Gods ourselves, does that mean that we will feel sorrow for what our children do? Maybe there isn’t a for sure answer about this and we just need to trust God and follow his plan.