Book of Mormon Stories. No. 1. / Adapted to the Capacity of Young Children, and Designed for Use in Sabbath Schools, Primary Associations, and for Home Reading

by George Q. Cannon

LEHI AND HIS SONS
NEPHI'S VISION.

While Lehi was in the wilderness the Lord showed him in visions many things that would happen in the world a long time afterwards. A vision is something like a dream in which a person sees things as they really are or as they will be. When a vision is from the Lord that which is shown is something that has or will really happen. The way the Lord tells His prophets about what is going to take place is often by showing them a vision or a dream in which they see what is going to happen just as it will be when it takes place.

When Lehi had these visions he told about them to his children. Nephi was so interested or pleased with what his father told him that he wanted to see the visions for himself. So he prayed often to the Lord and asked Him to show him the things that his father Lehi saw. Nephi had such strong faith that he was enabled to receive an answer to his prayers.

At one time, when Nephi was thinking about what his father had seen, a vision of the Lord came to him. In this vision he was taken up into a high mountain. An angel of the Lord spoke to him and asked him what he desired. Nephi said he wished to see what his father had seen. The angel said to Nephi "Look!" Nephi looked and he saw Jerusalem as it would appear in six hundred years to come. Then he saw other cities. In the city of Nazareth which was near Jerusalem he saw a very beautiful virgin or young woman. The angel said this was the mother of the Savior.

NEPHI'S VISION.

Soon after he looked again and saw this beautiful young woman with a child in her arms. The angel told Nephi that the child was the Savior, and that after many years from that time He would be born and live upon the earth. Nephi then saw the Savior grown to manhood, and He went to John the baptist to be baptized. After this the Spirit of God, or the Holy Ghost rested upon the Savior and He went about teaching the people the gospel, telling them how they should live. He also healed the sick, and the blind and the lame, and raised dead persons to life. Nephi continued to look upon the vision and he saw the Savior taken by the wicked people and nailed to a cross and left there to die. The angel explained to Nephi that in this way the Savior would die for the sins of the world.

Afterwards appeared the Savior's apostles and then he saw that the wicked people in the world fought against the church the Savior started on the earth, and killed the saints who belonged to the church; then the people in the world were left for a long time without the gospel.

Many other things that have happened in the world since that time were seen by Nephi. He also saw things that have happened in this time when we live.

All the things which Nephi saw in this great vision came to pass just as he saw them many hundreds of years before. The Savior was born six hundred years after Nephi saw Him in this vision. His mother lived in the city of Nazareth where Nephi saw her. The Savior was baptized and went about teaching the people, healing the sick, the blind and the lame, and raising the dead. He was crucified, too, just as Nephi saw He would be; and the church which He started was destroyed on the earth, the saints being put to death by wicked men.