Bob Rucker stood in front of the Relief Society room, watching his class take their seats. It was a beautiful fall day, and the sun beamed through the windows to his left. There was a whiteboard at his back and a small table to his side, where he had put his class notes and a bag of candy. Although in his sixties, he still had a full head of black hair. Handsome and well-groomed, he looked good in his dark, pin-striped suit, and striped tie. (And white shirt, of course.)
When Brother Rucker saw that the room was mostly full, he pointed his index finger at the middle of the class and asked, “So, who was Helaman’s father?”
He immediately had everyone’s attention. Even though the Gospel Doctrine class wouldn’t start for five minutes, almost everyone was there. For many of them, this was their favorite part of the hour. Brother Rucker enjoyed it too. Sometimes he hit it out of the park with his lesson; sometimes he struck out. But rewarding his students with a piece of candy was always a hit.
Pretty, middle-aged Ariel Franklin looked at Brother Rucker, smiled, and said, “Alma the Younger.”
“Good!” Brother Rucker threw her a small candy bar.
She looked at the candy and said, “Oh, I love Snickers; they’re my favorite, ya know!”
Brother Rucker cocked his head slightly to one side and said, “We have them on sale next week.” He winked at her. Then, looking at the class, he asked, “Who was the general of all the Nephite armies?”
“Moroni,” said George Morrison, in his forties, and a vice-president of the Miletus bank. Tall and slim, he was dressed much like Brother Rucker, but not quite as well.
“Right!” Brother Rucker threw him a candy bar.
After asking several more questions, Brother Rucker said, ”So, now, our review question. When King Limhi and his people were in bondage, two people rescued them. One was Ammon. Who was the other man?” He scanned the class from left to right. No one answered; no one raised their hand. Brother Rucker was secretly pleased; he enjoyed stumping his class. “Hmm,” he said, “That must be a tough one. Anybody want to take a stab at it?” He grinned again. Holding up his hand with two fingers extended, he said, “Two candy bars for a correct answer.”
Evelyn Fredrickson, an attractive woman in her sixties and the Relief Society president, reluctantly raised her hand and said, “Gideon.”
“Perfect.” Brother Rucker threw her a Snickers bar.
When he didn’t throw her another one, she scowled at him, coughed, and said, “You only gave me one bar!”
He chuckled and threw Evelyn another piece of candy.
Brother Rucker put his bag of candy down on the table and picked up his notes. “I’m sure you all remember that Ammon converted a group of Lamanites to the Church. They had been vicious warriors before they became followers of Christ. So what did they do?”
“They vowed never to kill again,” said Ariel. She preferred paper scriptures to her iPhone, and her quad lay open on her lap.
“Not even to defend themselves when attacked?”
“No.”
“So, how do you feel about that?” asked Brother Rucker, as he looked over the class.
Just then, Bishop Meyers slipped into the room. He was young, in his thirties, slim, and of medium height. He spotted his wife sitting in the front row and was disappointed that there wasn’t an empty seat beside her. He slid into the second row and sat down behind her. Holding their baby, she turned and smiled at him. He smiled back.
The bishop seldom made it to Gospel Doctrine class. He had squeezed it in today because the class was going to discuss Helaman’s warriors. He liked the story, and Helaman was the new name he’d received in the temple.
“So, how do you feel about these Lamanites being pacifists? Didn’t they have the right to defend themselves?” asked Brother Rucker.
The class was untypically silent. Then Ariel said, “Of course, they had the right to defend themselves, but, ya know, they didn’t want to kill anymore.”
George sat up straight to say something, but the sun got in his eyes, so he shaded them with his hand and slouched back down a bit. “Even more than that,” he said, “they couldn’t kill anymore and remain Christ’s disciples. If an alcoholic takes even one drink, he can’t stop. I imagine the repentant Lamanites were like that. I mean, they had killed so much that if they ever took up arms again, for any reason, they would have reverted to bloodthirsty killers. It was the only way they could truly repent of their sins.”
Both Brother Rucker and Ariel nodded in agreement.
“So,” Brother Rucker said, “the Nephites moved them to a location where they could protect the repentant Lamanites. Then war broke out, and the Lamanites were troubled to see others giving their lives to protect them and were tempted to break their vow. But they had two thousand sons, who had never taken this vow. So these young men fought in their stead. Many of the two thousand were wounded, but none of them were killed.”
“The Lord always provides a solution, doesn’t He?” said Ariel. She patted her quad.
“Yes,” Brother Rucker said, “But how did this happen? How could all the stripling warriors have survived the war?”
“Their mothers promised them that if they had faith, they wouldn’t die in battle, and, ya know, they did have faith,” said Ariel.
Olive Martin was confused. She looked first at Ariel and then at Brother Rucker. A clerk at Walmart and mother of two children, she and her husband had been baptized less than two months ago. She took her membership in her new faith seriously and didn’t want to miss anything. “What’s stripling mean?” she asked.
Brother Rucker looked perplexed for a moment and then said, “That’s a good question. Hmm, big and strong, I think.”
Joan Meyers, the bishop’s wife, was tall and slim. As she shifted her daughter from her right to her left shoulder, she caught Brother Rucker’s eye. Feeling uncomfortable correcting him, she pulled her head down into her shoulders. Looking apprehensive, she said, “Umm, I believe you have stripling confused with strapping. The words sound a lot alike. Strapping means big and strong. Stripling means young men, boys who just got the first bit of peach fuzz on their upper lip.”
“Exactly,” interjected Ariel, as she closed her scriptures. “That’s what’s so marvelous about the story. The two thousand stripling warriors were mere boys, but the Lord protected them. It shows what faith can do.”
“But why did the Lord protect the stripling warriors? Other Nephite soldiers died in the same war,” said Brother Rucker.
“Ya know, it’s because the stripling warriors had more faith; they were righteous,” Ariel replied.
“Umm,” countered Joan, “Abinadi died a horrible death; he was righteous, he had faith, but the Lord didn’t protect him.”
After shifting his chair again to avoid the sunlight, George cleared his throat and, speaking in a voice that brooked no rebuttal, said, “Their mothers promised them that if they had faith, they would be spared. And they believed their mothers. I mean, this story tells us what faith can do. They were just boys, and Helaman was a prophet. I mean, he wasn’t a soldier. We can do things like they did if we just have a little faith.”
Despite her diffidence, Joan wasn’t intimidated by his tone and demeanor. She pulled her head up away from her shoulders and said, “What you say may be correct. Umm, this story may be like the story of Gideon in the Old Testament, where the Lord kept making the army smaller, so it would be clear that their victory was due to the Lord, not Israel’s military prowess. But I wonder? The Book of Mormon says they were strong and athletic. So they were old enough to be good soldiers. Despite what I said, they probably had full beards.” Her daughter, who was asleep with her head on Joan’s shoulder, stirred but immediately went back to sleep. Joan continued, “Perhaps we sometimes make it into a bigger miracle than it was. I’m sure the Lord is happy when we are overawed by what he can do, but I don’t think we need to make more of the warriors than they were. Umm, they were young, but perhaps not that young. They could have been young men in their prime. And Helaman’s being a prophet doesn’t mean he didn’t have military experience or ability. Mormon and Moroni were prophets and great generals.”
Brother Rucker put his hands in his pants pockets and leaned against the table. “I’m not an expert on military tactics,” he said, “but Helaman moved the stripling warriors all over the place. He seemed to be outgeneraling the Lamanites.”
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” said George, once again, shifting to his left to avoid the sunlight, “but even if Helaman was an experienced military leader, and his soldiers were fully grown, strong men, I’ve never heard of anything comparable to what they did.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, to be perfectly honest, if I hadn’t read it in the Book of Mormon, I’d have a little trouble believing it.”
“What about that?” Brother Rucker asked. “Anyone ever hear of somethin’ like this happening?”
Evelyn, sitting in the back, raised her hand. When Brother Rucker nodded toward her, she coughed for several seconds. “Sorry,” she said as she popped a Life Savers into her mouth. “This is an allergic cough—I don’t have the plague or anything. At any rate, George Washington was having a rough time of it. He was down and out. He had about two thousand young soldiers, many of them in their teens, but they were fiercely loyal to him. On Christmas night, they crossed the Delaware River and surprised a garrison of Hessian soldiers. They took the garrison without suffering a fatality. A couple of his soldiers may have died from exposure, but not from combat. There are, of course, some differences between Washington’s men and Helaman’s. Washington’s men only survived one battle. Still, there are some remarkable similarities.” She coughed again.
George gave her a suspicious look. “Why haven’t I ever heard that story before?”
Brother Rucker smiled. “Some of you probably don’t know that Evelyn is an outstandin’ historian.”
“I know she teaches at the college,” George said, still suspicious.
“Look,” Joan said, “I don’t want to discount what the Lord did, or the importance of how the stripling warriors were raised, but sometimes the Lord helps those who help themselves. Umm, I keep thinking of Socrates. We think of him as a philosopher, but he was also a remarkable soldier. He not only fought bravely, but he also inspired others to fight well. Alcibiades, a Greek general, said that Socrates was not the kind of man to die in battle. Whenever an enemy soldier saw him, he could tell that Socrates would give him a good, tough fight, and it was better to avoid him. Umm, I wonder if that might be true of Helaman’s two thousand warriors as well.”
Ariel shook her head and placed both hands firmly on her quad, “You guys, it’s preposterous to compare some Greek philosopher to the young men in the Book of Mormon.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Evelyn. She coughed again. She looked down at her roll of candy and shook her head. “These Life Savers aren’t much good.”
Brother Rucker went to the back of the room, took a box of Fisherman’s Friends out of his pocket, and handed them to Evelyn. “Try one of these,” he said, “you won’t cough again for an hour or so.”
Unfamiliar with the lozenges, she looked dubious.
“I guarantee them,” Brother Rucker said, as he made his way back to the front of the room.
Evelyn popped the cough drop in her mouth. “As I was saying, I’m not so sure. Helaman’s soldiers had more than their lives to fight for. Their families had made enormous changes in their lives. These young men were fighting to show that their extraordinary decision not to defend themselves was a brave choice, not a cowardly one.”
George got up and pulled the blinds shut. While still standing, he sighed and then said, “Look, I don’t see the point to all this speculation about the stripling warriors. I mean, what we need to learn from them is that if our faith is strong, we can do anything.” He slipped back into his seat.
Joan raised her hand. “It’s exciting to hear about people doing extraordinary things, but, umm, perhaps we shouldn’t attempt to jump tall buildings in a single leap.” Her baby snuggled closer to her.
George shook his head. “My mother always told me, ‘I can’t is a sluggard, too lazy to work.’ There’s nothing we can’t accomplish if we have faith in the Lord. I mean, nothing! We can be just like Helaman’s stripling warriors. We can have that baby, the doctor tells us we can’t. We can get that raise even though the economy is bad. We can have a lawn that is free of crabgrass.” George chuckled.
Olive, the recent convert, raised her hand, obviously troubled. “I can’t. I can’t do all them things. Tom and I barely make what we gotta have for our family. I wonder if there’s a place for me in this church.”
George’s attempt to shut the Venetian blinds hadn’t worked, but he ignored the sun, and his countenance quickly changed to one of concern. “Of course, you belong in the Church. The Lord just wants you to know that you have more potential than you realize.”
Noticing that Bishop Meyers looked troubled, Brother Rucker nodded toward him and said, “Bishop?”
Bishop Meyers said, “We can’t all be ten feet tall; in fact, none of us is ten feet tall.
“We don’t have to go to the scriptures to find remarkable people doing remarkable things. Our ward is small and far from the center of the Church. But there are certainly some extraordinary people in this ward. Our teacher started out working part-time in a grocery store and now owns a chain of supermarkets. He did all of that without the benefit of an MBA from the Wharton School. A few minutes ago, Brother Rucker said Evelyn was a good historian. She’s more than that. She wrote a book that won a Pulitzer. Only one such prize is given a year. She’s one of the best historians in the country.”
Evelyn grimaced as she shook her head.
“Nevertheless, my grandfather told me about a friend he had in graduate school,” the bishop continued, “He was studying engineering when Granddad knew him, but he had graduated from the Juilliard School. One day, Granddad asked him why he had abandoned music. He was from Brazil, and he told Granddad that when he left to go to Juilliard, he was the second-best violinist in the country. When he got to Juilliard, he discovered a lot of violinists who were better than he was. Then, one day, as he was waiting for a lesson, he could hear someone playing. He thought, I can never play that well. If I practice all day for the rest of my life, I’ll never be that good. In a few minutes, a ten-year-old boy walked out of the room.
“I’m never going to be as good a scholar as Sister Frederickson. Few people are. No matter how much I work, no matter how much I pray, no matter how strong my faith is, I’m not going to be as good a scholar as she is.”
Evelyn raised her hand, and Brother Rucker nodded toward her. The look on her face said that a great injustice had been done. She glared reproachfully at the bishop and said, “You left out your wife! I’ve talked to mathematicians at the college. She’s solving math problems while she’s raising three kids.”
“It isn’t that remarkable to solve a math problem, is it?” asked George.
Evelyn grinned. “These aren’t just any math problems. These are problems that no one has solved before, and not because other smart people haven’t tried. It’s something that none of the mathematicians at the college have done since they wrote their dissertations. She’s brilliant.
“Brother Rucker, I know you’re justifiably proud of your accomplishments in the grocery business. I’m sure Joan gets satisfaction from solving math problems. I was pleased to be honored for my historical work. It made me happy. It still makes me happy. But they give you an award, and you wake up the next morning, the same Evelyn Frederickson. You take out the garbage. Your daughter tells you her problems; you listen, but you can’t help her. There’s no big change in your life.
“Last week, I visited Sister McCarthy in her nursing home. The bishop and I have assumed that because she’s in a home, she doesn’t have any welfare needs. But she goes to her son’s house on Thanksgiving. She told me her son couldn’t afford to buy a turkey. I asked the bishop if we could get her one, and he said, of course. I asked her what she’d like for Thanksgiving dinner. A turkey? A ham? A beef roast? Her eyes grew large as she said she hadn’t had a beef roast since her mother died. So I told her we’d get her a turkey for Thanksgiving and a beef roast for Christmas.
“Getting this woman a turkey and a beef roast made me feel so good. I don’t think I’m going to be the same after I did that. And what I did was standard fare for a Relief Society president. We all do things like that all the time.”
Brother Rucker looked at Evelyn. “You said it was nice to get an award, but it didn’t help you live the rest of your life. I guess the same thing was true for Helaman’s warriors. They were heroes, all two thousand of them, but when the war was over, they had to go back to the tedium of everyday living. They got married; they had children. Living with someone, raising kids, aren’t easy things to do. They faced temptations. You wonder if they all remained faithful. The Book of Mormon doesn’t tell us that.”
Brother Rucker turned his head and looked at the bishop. “You’re right. We can’t all do miraculous things.” He looked back at Evelyn. “I agree with you, it isn’t even important to do remarkable things. I’ve worked hard, but it wasn’t that difficult for me to do well in the grocery business. I usually saw what to do and how to do it. I made some mistakes, of course, but usually things worked out.
“On the other hand, I’ve faced the same problems the Stripling Warriors faced, that we all face. Being kind to people hasn’t always been so easy.” Brother Rucker looked down and shook his head. “There were times when I could have been nicer to my friends and my family. Sometimes it’s hard to get along with people. I could certainly do a lot better with that. He turned and took a step toward Olive. Looking at her, he said, “I don’t think the Lord cares whether you become the CEO of Walmart or not, Olive. What will make Him happy is when, at the end of a long, tedious day, you cheerfully help a grumpy customer find the rock salt. You can do that.” He looked down at his class notes for a moment. Then he looked back up at Olive. “I can do it too. It won’t always be easy. But we can both do it.”
Edward R. Hogan is a retired professor of mathematics. Irreantum first published his fiction in 2002, the story “The Salvation of Audrey Johnson.”
