The Lamanite Cities Converted

Mormon summarized the missionary successes of the sons of Mosiah among the Lamanites by telling which cities were converted.  He wrote, “Now, these are they who were converted unto the Lord: The people of the Lamanites who were in the land of Ishmael; And also of the people of the Lamanites who were in the land of Middoni; And also of the people of the Lamanites who were in the city of Nephi; And also of the people of the Lamanites who were in the land of Shilom, and who were in the land of Shemlon, and in the city of Lemuel, and in the city of Shimnilom. And these are the names of the places of the Lamanites which were converted unto the Lord” (Alma 23:8-13).  This makes seven places that were converted and which “laid down the weapons of their rebellion, yea, all their weapons of war.”  It appears that not everyone in the cities were converted, though, because “the Amalekites were not converted, save only one; neither were any of the Amulonites; but they did harden their hearts.”  But apparently a large enough portion of the Lamanites repented that Mormon could state that the cities or lands as a whole were converted.  The first city, Ishmael, we know a lot about because it was where Lamoni was from and where Ammon did his preaching.  What do we know about the conversion of the Lamanites in the other six places? 

               The second place, Middoni, was where Aaron, Muloki, and Ammah preached, and they initially had very little success.  We read that “they did preach the word unto many, and few believed on the words which they taught.”  They weren’t just rejected, but “Aaron and a certain number of his brethren were taken and cast into prison” and they “suffered many things” in prison (Alma 21:12-14).  Clearly the work there was much harder than it had been for Ammon in Ishmael, and the people were very opposed to the word.  Eventually Lamoni and Ammon showed up and were able to get the missionaries freed from prison.  We don’t have any more information about what happened specifically in Middoni after this point, but apparently by the end of their mission the people who originally had been so hardened had been converted.  It seems to me that it was most likely the influence of Lamoni on their king Antiomno that made the difference, for it wasn’t until after Lamoni’s visit that the people were converted (though we don’t know how long after).  Lamoni was “a friend” to the king and it may be that the new convert’s influence was what was needed to soften the people’s hearts at Middoni (Alma 20:4).

               Nephi, the third place listed, was the city where the king over all the land resided.  When Aaron departed from Middoni he went to “the land of Nephi, even to the house of the king” who was the father of Lamoni.  The king was miraculously converted, and he certainly facilitated the preaching to the rest of the people there: “He caused that Aaron and his brethren should stand forth in the midst of the multitude, and that they should preach the word unto them” (Alma 22:1, 26).  It appears that it was the influence of a new convert that made the difference in opening the hearts of the rest of the people there in the land of Nephi—the best missionaries are often those who have just been converted.    

            Of the remaining four cities, there is no information about Lemuel or Shimnilom.  We do know a little about Shilom and Shemlon, though.  Shilom was one of the lands originally possessed by Zeniff, and it was near the land of Shemlon which was controlled by the Lamanites (Mosiah 9:6, 11:12).  The Nephites under Limhi departed from Shilom in about 120 BC, and the sons of Mosiah went preaching to the Lamanites about 30 years later.  Certainly there would have been people there who remembered the Nephites possession of the land and perhaps that had some influence on their accepting the gospel.  But what may have been even more influential was the fact that the priests of Noah were “appointed teachers over [the Lamanites], yea, even over the people who were in the land of Shemlon, and in the land of Shilom, and in the land of Amulon” (Alma 24:1).  So the Lamanites in Shilom and Shemlon had been taught by the priests of Noah, and though they surely had not been taught the principles of the gospel, they were undoubtedly exposed to the Nephite culture and language in a preparation for the arrival of the sons of Mosiah.