READING PLAN
Women and Families in the Book of Mormon
A 10-day plan bringing the women, mothers, and family relationships of the Book of Mormon into focus — for parents, women, and families studying together.
The women and families of the Book of Mormon are not background characters.
Critics of the Book of Mormon sometimes note that women are rarely named in the record. That observation is accurate — and worth sitting with. But it is not the full story. The women who do appear are consequential: Sariah's faith shapes the opening chapters of the record. Abish's courageous decision changes the trajectory of Ammon's mission. The unnamed mothers of the stripling warriors are credited by name — not by their sons' courage, but by their sons' testimony — with producing men who could face death without fear.
This plan also follows family relationships throughout the record, because the Book of Mormon is, among other things, a family document. It opens with a family — Lehi's family — being called out of a city. It closes with a father and son — Mormon and Moroni — separated by war, writing to each other in letters preserved in the record. The stories of families facing hard things, transmitting faith, and holding together under pressure are some of the most useful texts in the Book of Mormon for parents and families studying together.
For family study
This plan works well for family scripture study. Consider assigning different family members to answer different reflection questions, then discussing together. Days 5, 8, and 10 are especially well-suited for family conversation.
Eve's Choice — The First Woman of the Record
Read
2 Nephi 2:15-30 (Lehi's theological discussion of the Fall, including Eve's role, and the meaning of human freedom and joy).
What to Look For
The Book of Mormon's treatment of Eve is notably different from some traditional interpretations. Lehi frames her choice — and Adam's — not as a tragic mistake but as a necessary step in the plan: "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy." Eve is not punished for wisdom. Her choice opens the possibility of human experience, opposition, growth, and ultimately redemption. Watch for the phrase "men are, that they might have joy" and trace where it comes from.
Key Verse
"Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy."
2 Nephi 2:25
Reflect
The Book of Mormon places joy — not obedience, not perfection, not survival — at the center of the purpose of human life. How does framing Eve's choice as opening the door to joy rather than introducing punishment change how you understand your own choices and their consequences? See the verse study at 2 Nephi 2:25.
Lehi gives this teaching to his son Jacob — a child born in the wilderness, who knew suffering from birth. The theological content is also comfort for Jacob personally: you were not born into a mistake. The world you entered, with all its opposition and difficulty, was designed to produce joy. That is the framework the Book of Mormon opens with, and it belongs to every person who carries it forward.
Sariah in the Wilderness — A Mother's Faith Tested
Read
1 Nephi 5:1-22 (Sariah's grief and complaint, her husband's response, and her testimony when her sons return) and 1 Nephi 8:2-18 (Lehi's vision of his family at the tree of life).
What to Look For
In Lehi's vision of the tree of life, his first act after reaching the tree is to call his family. He "cast his eyes round about, desirous that his family should partake with him." In chapter 5, when Sariah's sons return safely, her testimony is immediate and specific. Watch how a mother's love and a mother's faith are both expressed through the same source: profound desire for her family to arrive where she has arrived.
Key Verse
"Now I know of a surety that the Lord hath commanded my husband to flee into the wilderness; yea, and I also know of a surety that the Lord hath protected my sons, and delivered them out of the hands of Laban, and given them power whereby they could accomplish the thing which the Lord hath commanded them."
1 Nephi 5:8
Reflect
Sariah's testimony is not "I trust in the Lord" in the abstract. It is "I know of a surety" — specific, first-hand, grounded in watching what happened to her sons. How does your own testimony resemble Sariah's? What specific experiences have moved you from hoping to knowing? See the character study at Sariah.
Sariah is the first named woman in the Book of Mormon. She does not make it into the record by staying quiet and compliant — she makes it in by voicing her fear, being answered, and then testifying of what she saw. That is a model worth following for any parent: bring the fear to God honestly, then testify of what He did with it.
King Benjamin's Family Covenant — Fathers Who Gather Their Households
Read
Mosiah 2:1-9 (how Benjamin gathers his people — and the explicit mention of families gathering together with their tents) and Mosiah 4:1-16 (the people's response and Benjamin's teaching about teaching children).
What to Look For
Notice that families came to Benjamin's sermon as households, with their tents pitched so their door faced the temple. The gathering is explicitly a family act. Then in chapter 4, Benjamin gives specific instruction for parents: "ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness" — not just bringing them to the sermon but continuing the teaching at home. The sermon is not the end of the process. It is the starting point for what parents do next.
Key Verse
"And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the spirit who hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness. But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness."
Mosiah 4:14-15
Reflect
Benjamin places the responsibility for children's spiritual formation explicitly on parents. That responsibility is not delegated to the sermon or the institution — it lives at home. What are the specific "ways of truth and soberness" you are teaching or want to teach to the people in your care? Name them concretely.
King Benjamin's farewell address is one of the great speeches in all of scripture. But notice that he doesn't gather his people in an auditorium and tell the families to get a summary later. He gathers the families, plants them in front of the temple with their households, and then teaches them — together, as a unit. The family is the context for the covenant. See the full character study at King Benjamin.
Abish — The Solitary Witness
Read
Alma 19:1-36 (the conversion of Lamoni's household — including the wife of Lamoni, Abish, and the account of what happens when Abish runs to gather her neighbors).
What to Look For
Abish has been a secret believer — converted by a vision her father had — for an unspecified period of time, living in the king's household with a faith she has apparently not been able to share. When the Spirit falls on the household and everyone collapses, she recognizes what is happening. Watch what she does next: she runs through the town calling people to come and witness. She is the one who gathers the crowd. She is not the missionary — but she makes the mission possible.
Key Verse
"Now, the name of the woman was Abish, she being a Lamanite woman, and having been converted unto the Lord for many years, on account of a remarkable vision of her father — thus, having been converted to the Lord, and never having made it known."
Alma 19:16
Reflect
Abish had been carrying her faith alone, in secret, "for many years." She "had never made it known." Then the moment came to act, and she ran. Have you ever carried faith quietly before an opportunity came to make it known? What was that experience like — and what made the moment of action feel right?
Abish is one of the most remarkable minor characters in the Book of Mormon precisely because she is minor — no title, no lineage, no sermon attributed to her. Just a servant woman who believed privately for years and then, when the moment came, ran. The mission could not have proceeded the way it did without her. Most of the people whose names are not recorded have done more for God's work than many whose names are. Abish is the record's acknowledgment of that.
The Wife of Lamoni — When a Household Turns Together
Read
Alma 18:18-43 (Ammon teaching Lamoni) and Alma 19:1-14 (the wife of Lamoni's faith and her encounter with Ammon).
What to Look For
When Lamoni lies as if dead after his encounter with God, his servants want to bury him. His wife refuses to believe he is dead — "that he stinketh" — and sends for Ammon. When Ammon arrives, she makes a theological statement before Ammon says a word: "they say that thou art a prophet of a holy God, and that thou hast power to do many mighty works in his name." Watch how her faith speaks before it is invited to, and what Ammon says in response: "Blessed art thou because of thy exceeding faith."
Key Verse
"And Ammon said unto her: Blessed art thou because of thy exceeding faith; I say unto thee, woman, there has not been such great faith among all the people of the Nephites."
Alma 19:10
Reflect
Ammon says this woman has greater faith than any Nephite he has encountered. She is a Lamanite queen who is unnamed in the text. What does it tell you about faith that the person with the greatest faith in this part of the record is a woman with no listed credentials, no formal religious training, and no prior connection to the mission? What credentials does faith actually require?
The household of Lamoni converts together: the king, the queen, the servants, Abish, and eventually the king's father. This is one of the most complete family/household conversion stories in the Book of Mormon. It begins with a man's encounter with God and is sustained and broadened by the faith of the women around him. The mission could have stalled at Lamoni's bedside. It didn't, because a queen refused to accept that God was finished.
Alma's Letters to His Sons — Fatherhood as Spiritual Formation
Read
Alma 36:1-4 (Alma's opening to Helaman — "as the Lord liveth, so shall ye") and Alma 38:1-15 (Alma's letter to Shiblon — the one son who needed only encouragement).
What to Look For
Alma writes differently to each of his three sons. The letter to Helaman is a detailed testimony and a charge of significant responsibility. The letter to Shiblon (chapter 38) is warmer and more affirming — Shiblon appears to have stayed the course. Notice what Alma says to Shiblon: "I trust that I shall have great joy in you." A father naming what he sees in a faithful child. Watch for the specific things Alma praises.
Key Verse
"And now, my son, I trust that I shall have great joy in you, because of your steadiness and your faithfulness unto God; for as you have commenced in your youth to look to the Lord your God, even so I hope that you will continue in keeping his commandments; for blessed is he that endureth to the end."
Alma 38:2
Reflect
Alma takes time to write three different letters to three different sons, tailored to each one. What does this tell you about how God's love operates — not uniformly applied but specifically fitted to each person's actual situation? Is there someone in your family who needs a specific word of encouragement from you today?
Alma was a high priest and a general. He was also a father who took his sons' souls seriously enough to write them individual letters that are preserved in scripture. The letters to Helaman, Shiblon, and Corianton are three very different documents because they are written to three very different people. Faithful parenting, in the Book of Mormon, looks less like broadcasting a general message and more like seeing the specific child in front of you.
Alma to Corianton — A Father Confronts a Son's Failure
Read
Alma 39:1-13 (Alma's confrontation of Corianton's serious choices) and Alma 42:22-31 (Alma's explanation of justice and mercy, closing with "let these things not trouble you").
What to Look For
Corianton has abandoned the mission and sought a relationship with Isabel. Alma doesn't minimize the harm — he names it clearly, explains the theological weight of it, and spends three chapters (39-42) working through justice, mercy, and redemption. Watch how the letter ends: not with condemnation but with "let these things not trouble you to distraction, but let them trouble you unto repentance." There is a difference between guilt that destroys and guilt that leads somewhere.
Key Verse
"And now, my son, I desire that ye should let these things trouble you no more, and only let your sins trouble you, with that trouble which shall bring you down unto repentance."
Alma 42:29
Reflect
Alma makes a distinction between guilt that leads to repentance and guilt that leads only to more suffering. He wants his son troubled — but troubled "unto repentance," not "to distraction." How do you distinguish between the two in your own life? What does productive sorrow feel like versus unproductive shame?
The most surprising thing about Alma's letter to Corianton is that it exists at all — and that it is three chapters long and ends with mercy. A father who had been a sinner himself (Alma was Alma the Younger before he was Alma the High Priest) could not write off a son who had failed. He had been found in his own failure. He knew what that letter was for. Corianton is later recorded as returning to the mission. That return began here, in a hard conversation with a father who told the truth in love.
The Stripling Warriors' Mothers — What Teaching Looks Like
Read
Alma 56:41-48 (Helaman's account of the stripling warriors and what they said their mothers taught them) and Alma 57:19-27 (the account of the battle and the miraculous preservation of all 2,000).
What to Look For
Helaman reports a crisis moment — the warriors are in a hopeless military situation — and what they said to each other. They did not cite their training or their courage. They cited their mothers: "our mothers knew it." The mothers had taught them that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them. Then watch the end of the battle: every single warrior who was wounded survived. What the mothers taught literally kept their sons alive.
Key Verse
"Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them."
Alma 56:47
Reflect
The mothers of the stripling warriors are never named. Their words are never quoted directly. What we know is that their sons, in the hardest moment of their lives, said: "our mothers knew it." What do you want the people in your care to say about what you taught them when they face their hardest moment?
These mothers had given up their weapons before their sons were old enough to fight. They had covenanted against violence. And then their sons — too young to have served in the wars, but old enough to choose — volunteered anyway. The mothers could not go with them. What they sent instead was teaching. And the teaching held. There is no more powerful image of parental influence in the Book of Mormon than 2,000 young men under fire, holding steady because of what their mothers knew.
Mormon and Moroni — A Father and Son Separated by War
Read
Mormon 8:1-11 (Moroni describes his father's death and his own situation) and Moroni 9:1-26 (Mormon's letter to his son — written in the middle of war).
What to Look For
Moroni 9 is a letter from a father to a son, written on a battlefield, describing atrocities and collapse. It is one of the darkest passages in the Book of Mormon. Watch how Mormon closes the letter — in the middle of everything falling apart, he ends with: "My son, be faithful in Christ... and may his grace be with you and your father." A father blessing his son from a battlefield. The tenderness is not despite the darkness. It is in the middle of it.
Key Verse
"My son, be faithful in Christ; and may not the things which I have written grieve thee, to weigh thee down unto death; but may Christ lift thee up, and may his sufferings and death, and the showing his body unto our fathers, and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever."
Moroni 9:25
Reflect
Mormon writes to his son about things that might "weigh him down unto death" — the darkness of what he is witnessing. But his closing is full of Christ: "may Christ lift thee up." What do you do, or what do you want to do, when the hard things you carry threaten to weigh you down? How does Christ function as the counter-weight?
This letter should not exist. Mormon is commanding armies in the final days of his civilization. He has no reason to think his son will survive, or that the record will be preserved, or that anyone will ever read what he writes here. And still he writes. He writes to his son. He writes with gentleness in the middle of violence, hope in the middle of despair, and the name of Christ at the center. That is what faithful parenting looks like when everything else is gone. See the character study at Mormon.
The Families of 4 Nephi — What It Looks Like When It Works
Read
4 Nephi 1:1-23 (the description of the Nephite society in the generations immediately following Christ's visit — the closest thing in scripture to a utopian community).
What to Look For
This passage describes a society that lasted for nearly 200 years in peace. Watch the specific descriptions of what made it work: there were no poor, no divisions, no contentions, "because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people." Children were raised in this context for multiple generations. Notice that the text does not describe this as paradise — it describes it as a community of people who chose, consistently, to love God and each other. It was built and sustained by that daily choice.
Key Verse
"And it came to pass that there was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people. And there were no envyings, nor strifes, nor tumults, nor whoredoms, nor lyings, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God."
4 Nephi 1:15-16
Reflect
The text says "surely there could not be a happier people." The source of that happiness is described precisely: the love of God dwelling in their hearts. As a family or individually, what would it look like in your home for "the love of God to dwell in the hearts of the people" who live there? What specifically would change? Connect this to the Be Like Jesus guide for practical next steps.
4 Nephi is the shortest book in the Book of Mormon, and it describes the longest period of peace in the record. It doesn't tell you exactly how they sustained it — only that the source was the love of God in hearts that had encountered the living Christ. Over 10 days, this plan has traced what that looks like in families: a mother who testifies, a father who writes letters, mothers who teach, children who hold to what they were given. The 4 Nephi society was not a miracle imposed from outside. It was the cumulative result of the kind of faith and family practice you have been reading about all week.
Continue your study as a family.
- The Two Great Commandments — Love God and love your neighbor, traced through the Book of Mormon — a natural sequel to the 4 Nephi passage
- Follow Christ Through the Book of Mormon — The 14-day plan tracing Christ's presence across the entire record
- Be Like Jesus — Practical daily application of what this plan has covered
- All Reading Plans — Browse all six thematic study plans