As Alma, apparently in the performance of his duties as the Presiding High Priest of God’s Church, journeyed southward from the Land of Gideon, where he had been preaching the Gospel of Christ, to the Land of Manti, the most southernly of all the Nephite Lands, he was astonished to meet the sons of King Mosiah II returning from the Land of Nephi where they had been preaching to the Lamanites the wonderful Ways of the Lord.
The meeting of Alma and Mosiah’s sons brought to each one of them recollections of those never-to-be-forgotten days when as youths they joined a group that went about persecuting the Saints in and around Zarahemla. Those memories stirred up within Alma the highest joys and the greatest satisfaction when he realized that the work his erstwhile companions had done in the mission field was well done.
Alma contrasted the follies of their youth with the wisdom that comes throughout the years. He remembered his own weaknesses and faults. Thoughts of the time when he, accompanied by them, journeyed forth from place to place bent upon grievously annoying the members of God’s Church, and to destroy, they thought, the Work of the Lord. He also remembered how little they had cared for the pleadings of their fathers—their father who was king and his own who was the Presiding High Priest. He thought of the day when they went on their way fomenting troubles in which they took delight, and of the angel from Heaven which stood in their way, and stopped their blasphemous gaiety with a voice of thunder, the reverberations of which shook the solid earth beneath their feet. Alma remembered the rebuke of the angel and it filled his soul with sorrow, sorrow because of his misdeeds, yet thanksgiving and joy because the Lord had interceded to stop their wilful behavior. He thought of how he had fallen to the ground, unable to speak or to move. He had wished that he was dead, and therein become extinct. So terrible were the holy promptings of the angel, and so exquisite were the pains they brought, that Alma languished, it seemed in hell, for three days. The prayers of his father and the combined faith of the Saints restored Alma to his proper health and strength, and he arose from his bed of affliction praising God and thanking Him for His mercy in saving him from a justly deserved, though ignominious end.
Alma remembered, too, that it was Mosiah’s sons who tenderly carried him to his father and explained to him just what had happened. He remembered hearing about how his father humbly rejoiced at the condition of his greatly beloved son, and how he declared it to be the power of God acting in answer to his prayers. These same men now stood gloriously before him. They had experienced a change within their hearts, therefore there was a change without. They sought no more to hinder the Lord’s Work nor His righteousness, but His Kingdom upon the earth was their sole desire. Ever since the angel’s visit they had courageously sought to atone for the wrongs they had done.
Alma, in retrospect, saw these same men as they were then, and as he saw them now. O what a gap between them! What they once loved they now despise, and what they were once indifferent to had now become the thing for which they most greatly strived. To bring Salvation in the Kingdom of God to the benighted Lamanites was the goal to which they trod, and the satisfaction of which was their highest ideal. Alma’s thoughts of them were many and his conclusions bold: they would not rest from their labors, nor slacken their zeal, until the last effort of human wickedness was subdued; they would follow the path of duty and loyalty to its end, even though it cost all they held dear. In the resolve they made they would neither flinch nor fear any onslaught of evil because they knew the Lord was with them.
The names of Mosiah’s sons were, beginning at the eldest: Aaron, Ammon, Omner, and Himni. The four had other companions who had gone on the mission with them, and whom they had chosen because of their faith in Christ and their devotion to His cause. When the brothers first decided upon their noble, but perilous venture to convert the Lamanites they had sought help from Above, and companions equal to the task were given to them. The names of two of these missionary co-laborers were Muloki and Ammah. If there were others, the Sacred Record gives no account of them, and it is only by incidental mention of Muloki and Ammah that we have any recital at all of their work. It is only in the account of the mission of Mosiah’s sons that mention is made of them in the Book of Mormon.
The meeting of Alma and Mosiah’s sons was unarranged and totally unexpected by them. However, it added joy to their satisfaction that they had accomplished much in their labors among the Lamanites. It appears to have been the crowning event of their missions. For them to meet the Presiding High Priest of the whole Church as they were returning from the Land of Nephi to their homes in Zarahemla, was in itself a benediction, sanctifying unto the Lord all those things, which with his help divine they had been able to accomplish. Alma blessed each one of them and pronounced as crowns upon their heads their joys and their sorrows, their long hours in dungeons for the Gospel’s sake, their successes and failures, but above all he sealed upon them the Gift of Eternal Life in God’s Kingdom, for had they not, to the honor and glory of God, led many through its gates?
Alma saw that the companions of his youth had become men of great understanding. By much prayer and fasting they had gained the spirit of prophecy and of revelation; by their diligence in seeking the Lord they had grown in His grace and in the knowledge of Him who created all things; they had received the Gift of Discernment that they now could discern right from wrong, and had power to choose good or evil. They also knew that which was just and true.
Alma rejoiced with them in the great measure of success their venture had produced. He listened to them while they rehearsed before him the wonderful events that surrounded every effort which they had made to dispel the darkness that enshrouded those to whom the “Lamp of Truth” had been denied. They had “by the power of their words” brought many to a knowledge of God.
Truly, Alma saw that the pains the missionaries had endured, their imprisonments, their rewards and pleasures, were not merely what he might have called “the accidents of man” but instead, were the inspirations of God; he perceived, as he silently thanked The Great Giver of All Good that the incidents of their fourteen year exile were not just chance, but were the leadings and the guidings of Him whose servants they had chosen to be.
In considering their long service among God’s children who had lost their way, they remembered the words of their grandfather, King Benjamin, which were written upon the Plates of Nephi, “... when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.” (Mosiah 2:17)