Ammon made a long-term commitment to stay in the land with the Ishmaelites and to serve their king. Overall, he would not return home for fourteen years. Today, when missionaries go into a city, they know that they are not going to be there for very long. However, it is important that they connect with the people in their mission area and serve them in love, as if they would be there forever. It is also good for missionaries later to remember the people among whom they served and to continue to have contact with them and with their missionary companions, even after their mission. In modern times, we do not have the same kind of stability in our lives that people did in the ancient world. We move around a lot for school and career. But building and maintaining long-term commitments to other people as friends is always beneficial—even if the only time you stay in touch is when you write your annual Christmas cards.
Ammon had a sincere interest in those he met on his mission and that built a strong relationship with the Lamanite people—evidenced by the fact that later, in order to save the lives of many of his converts, they followed him to the land of Jershon and became a new people with a new identity as the people of Ammon or Anti-Nephi-Lehies.