Jaredite Stories

I am a Jaredite warrior. I fought for my father (earthly father), to help free him from captivity.

My older brother, Shim, took my father and many of my family and friends into captivity. I do not understand what happened to Shim, why he became so hateful. He was raised by loving parents who taught him about Jesus Christ. As he was in his 20s, he connected with some friends (and I use that term loosely, I would not consider them friends) who allowed pride and greed to take over their lives. They desired wealth and would do anything they could to obtain wealth, even if that meant taking advantage of others. Even though they became wealthy, their greediness caused them seek even more wealth. They lost all sense of consciousness. They did not care if someone else was hurt because of their evil doings.

These friends knew Shim and my family for years, but specifically wanted him in their group because he was the son of a king. Not only did they want additional wealth, they wanted power. They slowly enticed Shim into their group; they did it slowly because Shim, at one time, was an exceptionally righteous man. They were slow, yet very deliberate. They started out with a beautiful woman. Wow, she was stunning, but evil! They occasionally drugged his food and drink, which began to affect his mind. The drugging was so subtle, that my brother was not aware that anything happened, but we knew; we could slowly see changes. My parents warned Shim about his friends and what they were attempting to do, but he just did not see it, nor would he see it.

For a very long time after Shim connected with these friends, he continued to attend church, continued to believe in the coming of Christ, but gradually pulled away. He began arguing with our parents. He pulled away from us. He spent more and more time with his new friends, especially his beautiful girlfriend, until he decided that he didn’t want anything to do with our family. He tried enticing some of my brothers and sisters to go with him, and unfortunately, some wen. We were heartbroken. My parents were heart broken. They knew some of the people that Shim associated with and knew they were evil.

Shim was very handsome and charismatic. He began to draw away many from our people to follow him. He was very careful who he chose at first, but because of his charming personality, many more wanted to associate with him. Shim was an excellent orator and could easily convince people that his ways were right. He became wealthy and would use his money to bribe others to follow him. He drew more and more away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as he was able to convince them that there would be no Christ.

Eventually, Shim gained thousands of followers and decided that he wanted to be king. Of course, his friends helped to convince him of that; they wanted the power. Shim knew that he had enough people who would fight for him to become their king. They loved my brother, well, at least they thought they loved my brother. They were enamored with him.

It took time, in fact many years, for Shim to gather enough people, and flatter them enough and convince them that he should be the king; that he was worth fighting for, worth giving their lives for. Oh, the hatred and the lies that he spewed forth about my father, our father. He lost all light and became so dark. My parents were heartbroken at what they needed to do; which was to gather an army to defend themselves and those who followed Jesus Christ, against my brother. Thankfully, there were many who still believed in my father and the good man that he was, and came running to help him.

We gathered together a large army. We armed ourselves with the best weapons of our time, but so did Shim and his army. We fasted and prayed and put our faith and trust in God. We tried communicating with Shim to talk him out of war, to negotiate and to compromise, as much as we could compromise without offending our God. His pure heart was gone; replaced with darkness.

(This will be continued…)