After the Manner of Happiness

In general conference Elder Scott gave us four tools that we should use in our lives to protect us from the power of the adversary and find peace and happiness: prayer, scripture study, family home evening, and temple worship.  These four are basic to our personal worship, and they match well what we learn in 2 Nephi 5 about living “after the manner of happiness.”  In that chapter we see all of these principles lived by Nephi and his people.  Nephi “did cry much unto the Lord” because of his challenges, and because of this the Lord warned him and preserved the people (2 Nephi 5:1).  Prayer was clearly an essential part of Nephi’s life.  Scriptures too were central to their society: He wrote that he “had also brought the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass” (2 Nephi 5:12).  Nephi obviously had a great love for the scriptures and would spend much of the remainder of his record simply quoting from the book of Isaiah as he taught his people.  He must have studied about the Jerusalem temple in the scriptures as well, for he “did build a temple” and did “construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon” (2 Nephi 5:16).  We don’t know much about temple worship among the Nephites we see clearly that it was important and played a critical role among Nephi’s people.  Lastly, we see that the family was paramount for Nephi and the group that followed him.  In this chapter as Nephi was inspired to leave Laman and Lemuel and those who followed them, he told us, “I, Nephi, did take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters” (2 Nephi 5:6). Clearly Nephi was greatly concerned for his family and did everything he could to keep them together.  It caused him great grief to have to leave his wicked brothers, for despite all they had done to cause problems in the family, they were still family to Nephi.  So we see all of these principles that Elder Scott discussed in the formula given in 2 Nephi 5 for living after the manner of happiness: prayer, scripture study, temple worship, and a focus on the family.  That second witness—among so many others—should motivate us even more to follow Elder Scott's counsel and seek to improve in each of these areas of our lives.