One imagines that Helaman is wondering by this time why his father is rehearsing all this ancient history about their ancestors and the Liahona. Alma gets to the heart of it in verse 43, when he suggests that the Liahona story is a “shadow” of an important additional compass. He doesn’t want his son to ever become “slothful” in attending to the will of God. As Grant Hardy points out, it’s no coincidence that this conversation occurs in the context of the transference of the sacred records from father to son. The scriptures are to be another Liahona, or compass, to guide people to truth.