“From our experience as parents it is our feeling that parent-child interviews should be conducted separately with each child, one on one and one by one, even as Alma did. The Savior set the pattern for this idea as recorded in 3 Nephi, when Jesus ’took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them’ (3 Nephi 17:21; emphasis added). The principle of individual attention and concern is an important guideline for all parents. Having interviews with our children is one of the best ways to apply this principle in order to reap its rewards.” (D. E. Brinley & D. K. Judd, Eternal Families, “Parent-Child Interviews”)
“In the beginning of marriage and family life, Lucy [Mack Smith] had led the way for the Smith family’s search for religion, studying the Bible and discussing their findings. Many years later, when Father Smith lay dying, the tender family circle about him showed the literal pattern of their lifestyle according to the Word. Just before he died Father Smith followed the exemplary pattern of bestowing a father’s blessing upon each child individually and having it recorded as did Jacob of old, and Alma, who ’caused that his sons should be gathered together, that he might give unto them every one his charge, separately, concerning the things pertaining unto righteousness’ (Alma 35:16).” (Heroines of the Restoration, p. 7)
Alma 36 Alma’s counsel to his son Helaman
Alma 36 is the beginning of a powerful section in the Book of Mormon. Like Lehi had done 500 years earlier, Alma gathers his sons that he might give unto them every one his charge, separately (Alma 35:16). Accordingly, the next seven chapters deal with his advice and commandments to his three sons, Helaman, Shiblon, and Corianton. Helaman as the oldest was entrusted with the records; Shiblon was so righteous that Alma had relatively little in the way of advice for him; and Corianton gets an earful. For four chapters Alma counsels and instructs this third son on the evil of his ways. The main focus is that the sinner will not escape punishment in the resurrection. In these seven chapters, many priceless gems of doctrinal insight are given. We should be thankful to Alma for his diligence in teaching his sons. We should follow his example of fatherhood in teaching our own. And we should make these writings a regular course of study.
Heber J. Grant
"The Book of Mormon has a very warm place in my heart because of one of its chapters (Alma 36).
"I had a wayward brother who took no interest whatever in the Church until he was between thirty-five and forty years of age. I received a letter from him, telling me that on account of [financial failures, he intended] to kill himself.
"He went out into the woods intending to kill himself; but he got to thinking what a cowardly, dastardly act it would be for him to leave his wife and children destitute. So, instead of killing himself, he knelt down and prayed: ’O God, if there is a God.’
"He got up weeping for joy, and he wrote me that he had become convinced of two things: that there is a God, and that there is a devil, one leading to life and the other to death. He sealed his letter, and then the influence came over him: ’You have now ruined your brother (Heber had given him large sums of money which he lost), and now you are trying to make amends by telling him you have commenced to pray.’
"He threw the letter into his trunk. He wrote me letters every day for about a week, all landing in his trunk, but finally he mailed one.
"He struggled with the influence: ’Your brother, when he gets that letter, will write and tell you to be baptized, and if you do so you will be a hypocrite.’
"After lying awake all one night, he went at five o’clock in the morning and got the letter. But he finally sent me another. When I got it, instead of writing him as the adversary impressed him that I would, I wrote him: ’Some day you will know the gospel is true. Don’t think I want you to be baptized, if you feel that you would be a hypocrite.’
"I went out and bought him a Book of Mormon, went into my office, shut the door, and told the Lord I wanted to open the book to the chapter that would do a wayward and careless brother of mine the most good; and this is the chapter to which I opened [the thirty-sixth chapter of Alma]. Anyone who knows the contents of the book will admit that he cannot find another chapter comparable with the thirty-sixth chapter of Alma, nor more appropriate for sending to a wayward boy.
“…I love that chapter. Why? Because, when that wayward brother of mine read it, he wrote: ’Heber, I do not know the gospel is true, but I pledge the Lord, if He ever gives me, as He gave Alma of old, a knowledge of the divinity of the gospel, that I will labor as Alma of old labored, to bring souls to a knowledge of the truth.’ And, thank the Lord, he obtained the knowledge, and thank the Lord also, he has kept his pledge.” (Gospel Standards, p. 323-5)