Around the time that I was finishing high school, my parents ran into some financial difficulties. Everyone goes through something like that at one point or another. Since there were still 3 children living at home, food was something that was essential, especially since two of us were teenagers. One day, my mom asked me if I wanted to go grocery shopping with her. I was a little confused that we didn’t take the turn to the Wal-mart, but instead headed towards a western part of town. We went to a white building that didn’t really look like anything special. When we got into the building, it was like a mini grocery store. I asked my mom what this place was, to which she replied, “It’s called  the bishop’s storehouse.” She went on to explain that a bishop’s storehouse is run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes mistakenly called the Mormon Church). When families or individuals of the Church are going through hard times, they can meet with their bishop (the leader of a congregation) and put together a list of basic foods and supplies they need.

The private contributions of other members of the LDS Church make the bishop’s storehouse possible. One Sunday a month, the members of the The Church of Jesus Christ are asked to fast for two meals. The money that they would have spent on those meals is given as a fast offering to the bishop of their ward. With these finances, the bishop helps provide for those who don’t have enough money to cover their expenses at that time. The Church owns ranches for meat and large farms and orchards. Food grown on these farms is canned by volunteers. 

The welfare program of the Church is well known throughout the world. People from all walks of life travel to Church headquarters to see firsthand how the Church cares for the poor and needy without creating dependency on the part of those who receive or bitterness on the part of those who give. A president of a country, after visiting Welfare Square, canceled the remainder of his appointments for the day. “There is something here that is more important than anything else I have on my schedule,” he said. “I must stay and learn more” (“Inspired Church Welfare,” Ensign, May 1999, 76).  

Workers in the bishop’s storehouse are all unpaid volunteers. I wanted to help out when we were getting food from the Church, so I volunteered to help out at the Storehouse. It was such a wonderful experience to give back to the Church and the Lord when they were providing for me and my family. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,not only provides food for families, but it can also provide clothes and job counseling. Deseret Industries is a thrift store owned by the Church that trains people and teaches them essential skills to help them find a job. 

Knowing that the Church will always be there for me, if I am ever in need, is a feeling that I cannot express. I know that nothing comes free, though. Volunteering to help the Church can provide many blessings in your life. I love paying fast offerings and working at the Storehouse, just having the feeling that I’ve done something good for others, and that I’m a part of something that works so well to help others.

Nephi subdues his brothers in the Book of Mormon.

When I was in drama classes, everyone tried out for the starring roles. No one wanted to have a small walk on role with no lines to say. However, every writer knows that every character in a story is absolutely important to the story. Writers never put anyone into a story who doesn’t have an important job to do. Leave out the smallest character and the entire book can fall apart. The same is true for the scriptures.

The same is true for real life.

Let’s look at one Book of Mormon person who had a small part to play in the stories told and see if we can learn some things that will apply to our own lives, especially if we’re the quiet type and not the flashy hero type.

The Book of Mormon begins with a teenager named Nephi. Nephi is pretty much your typical hero type of teenager. He’s probably about fourteen when the Book of Mormon story starts and he was the first author. He didn’t write about his life until he was much older, but it’s mostly from his point of view. He was tall for his age, a good hunter, athletic, strong, self-confident…you know the type, right?

Nephi was the youngest of four brothers. His two oldest brothers were brats. They had a bad habit of beating up Nephi and his next oldest brother Sam. Later, as adults, they’d even try to kill them. But Nephi, sometimes with the help of angels, always wins out over them.

But Nephi isn’t the star of this article. In this article we’re dealing with Sam, who is mentioned only a few times in the entire story of Nephi’s life. What do we know about him? He was a middle child—the third of the boys. There were some sisters too, but we think they were already married and living elsewhere by the time the story begins. Like Nephi, he was righteous, which means he tried to do what God wanted him to do. He obeyed his parents, was nice to his younger brother…that’s pretty much all we have in the way of facts. But if we read between the lines, we might see that Sam is a quiet hero.

Here’s some background information on the story, in case you haven’t read it. The father of these boys was Lehi and he was pretty rich. The kids had good lives because of that. But then Lehi got called to be a prophet and after that, things got pretty complicated. People got mad at Lehi for telling them to repent and they wanted to kill him. This was in Jerusalem just before it fell. You can read about the fall of Jerusalem in the Bible.

Once things got too dangerous, God told Lehi to take his family and only the things they really needed and get out of Jerusalem forever. They weren’t even suppose to take their gold and silver or any fun possessions. Laman and Lemuel, the two bad brothers, were pretty mad at leaving their comfortable life and heading off on a permanent camping trip. Wealthy to homeless—on purpose. Nope, not their style.

Nephi and Sam, though, trusted their dad when he said this was what God wanted, and they went without complaint. That’s the first sign of a hero—doing the hard stuff without whining, and in the scriptures (and in modern life), a sign of a hero is doing what God wants you to do without whining. So far, Sam qualifies.

After they’d been traveling for a while, God told Lehi to send the boys back to Jerusalem alone. In those days only a few people had copies of the parts of the Bible that had been written so far. Lehi didn’t have one, but his wicked relative Laban did.  The boys were to convince Laban to give them his copy, which also included their family history.

How did each boy react to being sent on this long trip for a book?

Laman and Lemuel whined. It was too far, too hard, too scary. (Laban was really wicked.) No heroes here.

Nephi gave a rousing speech to his father, in which he said he’d go because he knew God would never give them a commandment unless He prepared a way for them to keep it. It’s a great, hero-worthy speech and there have been songs written about it.

Sam…just went. That’s all. He didn’t whine and he didn’t give a speech. He just packed his bags and headed off. Okay, that doesn’t sound too exciting and no one has ever written a song about Sam doing that. But here’s what I think—and this is my own interpretation of it. I think Sam was a teenager who was used to doing the right thing all the time, or at least most of the time. I think he’d worked hard to become obedient and now he didn’t need to think about it or give speeches about it. He was a little older than Nephi so he’d had more practice doing hard things quietly, whereas Nephi, being younger, was still pretty excited to realize he liked obeying God and his parents. Nephi was learning the kind of person he was and so he needed to talk about it. Sam already knew. He didn’t need to announce it to anyone. That’s the first thing that tells me Sam is a quiet hero.

As you can imagine, this trip doesn’t go too well. The brothers politely ask Laban for the records and he threatens to kill them. They even offer to buy them—all that gold and silver they abandoned is still hanging around. Laban takes the money and tries to have them killed without giving them the records. The two older brothers get mad and decide to take it out on Nephi and Sam, seeing as how they were younger and obedient. The beating gets so bad an angel has to show up to rescue them. The angel tells the older brothers to behave and warns them that someday, Nephi is going to be the head of the family, lead the church and rule over them.

Hey, wait a minute! Laman and Lemuel don’t like that one bit. In those days, the oldest son always became the leader when the father died. There is no way they want their baby brother taking over what they thought should be Laman’s job. (Can you imagine the church being led by Laman?)

I’m sure you can understand why God was going to skip over Laman and Lemuel. But he also skipped right over Sam, who was every bit as righteous as Nephi. Why did He do that? We don’t know and chances are, Sam didn’t know either. It would have been pretty understandable if he’d gotten as upset as his older brothers. In fact, he had more right to get upset, since he was worthy of the job. But you know what? He didn’t. Nephi wrote about the reactions Laman and Lemuel had to this, but he doesn’t say one word about Sam’s reaction, which means it was so quiet Nephi didn’t give it much thought. Later, when Nephi is the leader, he has to take his followers to live somewhere else because Laman and Lemuel want to kill him. Sam goes with Nephi.

Throughout the rest of the story, the few times Sam is mentioned he is always following the leader, either his father or Nephi. We don’t know if he went home and prayed to know why he wasn’t chosen. All we know is that however he might have felt inside at first—and it would be natural to be a little sad over it—he didn’t use it as an excuse to rebel. He just went about his life doing the right thing, just as he always had.

Sam was a quiet hero. Maybe you are too. Maybe no one will write books or songs about your life, but that doesn’t mean you don’t matter. Sam is in the story for a reason. God wanted him there to remind us that you don’t have to be the leader or the star to make a difference in the world. Nephi depended on Sam’s loving loyalty during the hard years ahead. God depended on it, too.

And God is depending on you too. Quiet heroes are as important as the stars of the show.

Read about Sam and his family in the Book of Mormon.

The story of Sam, to be read between the lines.

1. Listen

A lot of times, when we’re talking, we’re busy thinking up what we’re going to say next and we aren’t really listening to what the other person is saying. Listen deeply to what someone else is saying. Ask questions to learn even more. Choose questions that will help you understand what that person is saying, feeling, and thinking. “Were you scared?” “How would you handle that if it were up to you?” You’ll get a reputation for being the world’s best conversationalist and people will know you care about them—making for some great friendships. In the process, you’ll learn more about how others feel about things and this will make you more empathetic.

1. Get to know people who are different from you.

Be careful about this. If you choose friends who drink or use drugs, for instance, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble. Choose good quality friends, but choose them because they aren’t like you sometimes. For instance, if you’ve never had to worry much about whether or not your family will have enough food to get through the week, find someone at school who is in that situation and then spend time really understanding what life is like for that person. Don’t be judgmental—just listen, learn, and if possible, help. If you love to read, find someone who struggles to read. If you’re a great athlete, get to know the kid who is picked last for the team every single time.

1. Read books that show things from a different point of view.

One author wrote two children’s books. They were the same story, but one told it through the eyes of a child who was being bullied and the other book showed the story through the eyes of the bully. Children who read both were able to see both sides of the story and better understood the trials that might lead someone to becoming a bully. It didn’t make bullying right, but the children were able to understand him and to feel sorry for him. A book can give you insights into someone else’s mind, even if it’s fiction.

1. Do volunteer work.

When you are working with people who face a special challenge, you learn a great deal about their lives. If you go into the project with an open mind and loving heart, you’ll begin to develop empathy for them. Helping teach children to read who found it hard gave me empathy for what it’s like to not be able to read. I listened to them talk about their humiliation and their pain and as we worked together, I also learned to celebrate their small steps. Every volunteer project I do teaches me empathy for new things.

1. Imagine.

As a writer, I have to be able to see a story from the point of view of every character in order to make them come to life. Right now I’m struggling to understand a character I don’t really like very much. As I close my eyes and see things the way he does, he becomes a more sympathetic character to me. I like him much more now than I did when he first wandered into my story just because I understand him better. You don’t have to write a story, but try to picture yourself in the situation you don’t have empathy for just yet. How would you feel? What would you be afraid of? How would you want others to treat you? When it’s you, the situation seems different than when it’s someone else.

Okay, to develop real empathy, you’re going to have to get off the computer and out into the world. Have fun!

(Thomas S. Monson, “Our Sacred Priesthood Trust,” Ensign, May 2006, 57)

Every time I read these words of comfort, I can’t help but ask myself a difficult question: How can we have enough humility and faith to let the Lord repair our faults? Humility seems to be one of the most elusive virtues, since if you have it, you will never know. However, when I hear the phrase “humble themselves before me,” I think of countless times in the Book of Mormon when the weak, the sinners, and the oppressed have knelt before God in prayer to ask that their needs be met.

In the Mormon Church, we need to be humble enough to admit that we can’t do it without Heavenly Father, and we need the humility that leads to obedience and worthiness. We need to believe (have faith) that he can and will respond to our pleas, being worthy of the response, and we need to be humble enough not to take the credit for our strength afterward. It is easy to say, “I will never be able to fix everything that is wrong with me,” but the miraculous power of Jesus Christ is with us in our struggles. If we can accept as fact that the Lord will make our weaknesses strong, we can have the faith needed to receive the miracle.

As much as we may doubt our own humility, we must have faith that the Lord is merciful, and that he lets our best efforts be enough. Through the power of the atonement, he can fortify our weakened defenses, reform our broken hearts, and satisfy our most aching hunger. His grace is sufficient that, in all of our weakness, we can still receive if we ask in humility, and believe.