Episode 55: The Nephite disciples become as white as Jesus!

3 Nephi 17-20

Jesus's bowels are filled with compassion

17 ^1-3 After Jesus finished speaking about his various flocks of sheep, he said, "It's time for me to go now. I can see that you didn't understand what I was talking about. So go home and think about it. Ask the Father in my name to help you understand, and to prepare your minds for what I'm going to say tomorrow.”

⁴ Jesus says that he's got to go to the Father, and to show himself to the lost tribes of Israel, which are not really lost. The Father knows where he put them.

^5-6 Jesus cast his eyes round about and saw that the people had tears in their eyes and looked like they'd like him to stay a bit longer. So he told them that his bowels were filled with compassion.

^7-8 Jesus asked the people if they knew anyone who was sick, lame, blind, halt (?), maimed, leprous, withered, deaf, or who have any other kind of problems. If so, he told them to bring them to him, because his bowels are completely filled with mercy. He can see that they'd all like to see the same things people saw in Jerusalem, and he says their faith is strong enough for him to heal them. ⁹ So the people brought all their sick, lame, blind, dumb, and otherwise afflicted, and Jesus healed them all. No sweat. Then everyone came and kissed Jesus's feet and bathed them with their tears.

¹¹ Then Jesus told the people to bring all their little children. So they rounded up the children and sat them down in front of him. Jesus told everyone to kneel and then he groaned within himself, and said, "Father, it bothers me that the people of the house of Israel are so wicked."

^15-23 Then Jesus knelt down and prayed in front of everyone. He said great and marvelous things that no one can say and can't be written down. The people who heard it were happier than anyone could ever imagine. Then Jesus stood up and told everyone else to do the same. He told the people that they were blessed because of their faith, and he was full of joy. Then he blessed the children, cried, and said, "Look at your children. Aren't they cute?"

^24-25 The people cast their eyes toward heaven and saw the heavens open. Angels came down, surrounded with fire, and ministered to the children. There were about 2500 people who saw these events and everything that they saw was perfectly true.

Jesus institutes the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

18 ^1-34 Jesus asked for some bread and wine and showed his disciples how to administer the Blessed Sacrament. ^35-39 After Jesus finished teaching his disciples to say Mass, he said that for their sakes he was going back to the Father. Before leaving, he touched each of his disciples with his hand. Then a cloud came down and covered Jesus, so that no one could see him. While he was still hidden in the cloud, he went up to heaven.

The Nephite disciples become as white as Jesus!

19 ¹ After Jesus returned to heaven to spend the night with the Father, all of the people returned to their homes. ^2-3 But it was noised abroad that Jesus would be visiting again tomorrow, so an exceedingly great number of people labored exceedingly hard all night so they could be there the next day when Jesus showed himself again.

⁴ When the crowd gathered the next day to see Jesus, the twelve Nephite disciples were there with them. One of the twelve was Nephi's brother, Timothy, whom Nephi raised from the dead (3 Nephi 7:19). These are the names of the other eleven disciples: Nephi, Jonas, Mathoni, Mathonihah, Kumen, Kumenonhi, Jeremiah, Shemnon, Jonas, Zedekiah, and Isaiah.

^5-9 The crowd was so big that they had to separate it into twelve groups. Each group was told to kneel down and start praying to the Father in the name of Jesus. The disciples taught the people the exact words that Jesus had spoken, not missing a single word. Then everyone prayed again to the Father in the name of Jesus. After they finished with that, everyone prayed for what they most wanted -- the Holy Ghost.

^10-14 After the prayers, everyone went down to the water's edge, where Nephi baptized himself and then the other disciples. As soon as all the disciples were baptized, the Holy Ghost fell upon them, and they were filled with fire and the Holy Ghost. Then a fire came down from heaven, along with some angels.

^15-18 When everyone was filled with fire and the Holy Ghost and the angels had come down from heaven, Jesus made his appearance. He told everyone to kneel down and pray some more. So everyone did that, praying to Jesus like he was God or something.

^19-23 Then Jesus left for a while, going over to talk to the Father. He told the Father how glad he was that the Father gave the Holy Ghost to the people who believe whatever he says. He says he hopes the Father will give the Holy Ghost to whoever believes whatever the people who believe whatever he says tell them to believe. He then repeats the same thing over a couple more times.

²⁴ When Jesus finished repeating his prayer, the disciples continued to pray without ceasing, but without repeating any prayers, since they were taught by Jesus what prayers to repeat.

²⁵ After they were blessed by Jesus, the disciples became as white as Jesus, whiter than anything else on earth.

^26-29 Jesus told the people to keep on praying while he went a little way away again to pray again to the Father. He told the Father how glad he was that the Father had purified the disciples, so that he and they can all be purified together.

³⁰ Jesus finished up his prayers to the Father and came over to his disciples who were busily praying without ceasing to him. Jesus smiled at them and behold the disciples were white -- as white as Jesus!

^31-34 After Jesus inspected his whitened disciples, he went off to pray again. The words that he used were so great and marvelous that they can't be spoken or written, but the crowd was close enough that they could hear what he said, and they understood with their hearts.

^35-36 Then Jesus made an end of his praying and told the Nephites that they were much better than the Jews. Jesus couldn't show the Jews the cool miracles that he had shown them. And he couldn't say as many things to them either. The Jews were just too disbelieving. His Nephite disciples were way better than his Jewish ones.

Jesus presents the doctrine of transubstantiation

20 ^1-2 Jesus told the crowd to stand up and stop praying out loud but keep praying in their hearts. ^3-7 Then he gave bread and wine to his disciples and then the disciples gave it to the rest of the people. No one brought any bread or wine; Jesus had enough for everyone.

⁸ Jesus said that whoever eats the bread is eating his body and whoever drinks the wine is drinking his blood. And whoever eats his body and drinks his blood will never hunger or thirst again but will always be filled.

⁹ When the people had finished eating and drinking, they were filled with the Spirit and cried out with one voice, giving glory to Jesus.

^10-13 After the people gave Jesus glory, Jesus explained the words of Isaiah and reviewed the geographical distribution of the remnants of the house of Israel. He told the people to read the Book of Isaiah, which will be fulfilled with the covenant of the Father with the house of Israel. Then the scattered remnants will be gathered and brought to the knowledge of God.

¹⁴ Jesus said the Father told him to give the Nephites the New World for their inheritance.

^16-19 Jesus begins quoting from chapters 4 and 5 of the Book of Micah, adding or changing a few words here and there. ^23-26 Then he read from the Book of Acts, which didn't exist at the time.

^27-46 Jesus ran out of scriptures to read from the King James Version, so he rambled on for another twenty verses or so, talking about the house of Jacob, the Gentiles, the house of Israel, the land of Jerusalem, the uncircumcised, the unclean, the captive daughter of Zion, and beautiful feet. Inspiring stuff. But it all makes perfect sense to Mormons. You just have to get out your seer stones.

Jesus gave America (the new house of Israel) to the Nephites; the Gentiles (non-Mormon Americans) will kill the Native Americans (Lamanites) and take their land; the Gentiles and the house of Jacob (the Jews) will convert to Mormonism and join the LDS church (Zion) after reading the Book of Mormon, which will be brought to them by young boys with beautiful feet (Mormon Missionaries). It's all clear once you've de-coded Jesus's secret combinations.