“The Faithful Mothers of the Stripling Soldiers,” Liahona, June 2024, United States and Canada Section.
The Faithful Mothers of the Stripling Soldiers
The mothers of the stripling soldiers were not just remarkable mothers, nor just remarkable women—they were remarkable disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Mothers of the Stripling Warriors, by Kathleen Peterson
While we know that the mothers of the stripling soldiers taught their sons “that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them” (Alma 56:47), do we know who these women were? Do we understand what their lives were like and what they can teach us? Most of what we know about these women we know from the impact they had on their sons. However, we can learn about them and from them by seeing them within the history of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people.
As part of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people, the mothers of the stripling soldiers likely lived through many of the trials of their people and knew the cost of conversion. Their people had been part of a promise of preservation and knew that God had delivered them. They had been delivered from spiritual death by conversion through the missionary efforts of Ammon and his brethren. They had been delivered from physical death as the Lamanites pursued them in the wilderness. They had been preserved by the Nephite armies during years of war. They had willingly accepted and taken care of refugees, offering to others the preservation they had been granted.
The history of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people suggests that mothers of the stripling soldiers likely had learned from these experiences what they taught their sons about trusting God, keeping the commandments, and doubting not (see Alma 53:21; 56:47–48; 57:26–27).
Often when we experience trials, we can’t always see the end the Lord has prepared. Understanding some of the trials and difficulties these mothers faced can help us draw comfort from their example as we see how the Lord protected and delivered them and their children.
The Beginnings of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies
Thousands of Lamanites who were converted by the missionary work of Ammon, Aaron, and their brethren—along with some later groups of converts—make up the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people (see Alma 23–25). The mothers of the stripling soldiers would have been part of these conversions.
This mass conversion of so many Lamanites created tension between those who converted and those who did not. The unconverted Lamanites became so hostile that they sought to depose the king and armed themselves for battle against the Anti-Nephi-Lehies (see Alma 24:2, 20). Because the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people made a covenant not to shed blood even in defense of their lives, when the unconverted Lamanites came against them, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies did not resist, thereby keeping their covenant (see Alma 24:6–22). Some of the attacking Lamanites were so moved by the willingness of the converts to die rather than take up arms against them that they stopped killing the converts and became converted themselves (see Alma 24:23–26).
It is likely that the mothers of the stripling soldiers saw family members die for their beliefs and knew from personal experience what conversion could cost.
Continued Persecution from the Lamanites
Unfortunately, the Lamanites’ animosity against the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people did not decline. The Anti-Nephi-Lehies, including the mothers of the stripling soldiers, lived through several years of persecution and enmity from their unconverted Lamanite neighbors, including another slaughter of their people (Alma 27:1-2).
Ammon, seeing the severity of their afflictions and fearing that the unconverted Lamanites would destroy the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people, suggested that they move into Nephite lands. But the king of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies was worried that the Nephites would destroy them because their peoples had been enemies for centuries. (See Alma 27:3–6.) When Ammon prayed for instruction, the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people received an amazing promise. The Lord told Ammon, “Get this people out of this land, that they perish not; … and blessed are this people in this generation, for I will preserve them” (Alma 27:12). With faith in the directions from the Lord and a promise of preservation, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies gathered “all their flocks and herds, and departed out of the land” (Alma 27:14).
Not content to let the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people go, an army of Lamanites followed them into the wilderness (see Alma 28:1). During this exodus some of the mothers may have been pregnant, nursing infants, caring for toddlers, and raising the sons who would grow up to be the stripling soldiers.
What must that have been like for these mothers? They had to leave their homes and travel through the wilderness with their young children, flocks, herds, and possessions, all the while being hunted by an army and trusting that the very people who had been their enemies (the Nephites) would instead offer protection and land.
The Mothers of the Stripling Soldiers in Nephite Lands
When the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people arrived in Nephite territory, the Nephites welcomed them and gave them land (see Alma 27:21–24). Knowing that they had made a covenant of non-violence, the Nephites set their armies to defend the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people and drove the Lamanite army out of Nephite land (see Alma 28:2–3).
A few years later, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies accepted refugees who had been forced to leave their homes. In a neighboring area, the Zoramites who had believed in the teachings of Alma and Amulek were cast out of their land (see Alma 35:6, 9). The Anti-Nephi-Lehies willingly accepted the Zoramite refugees. Because most of the Zoramite converts were from the poorer people, they could not have had much to bring with them. Despite political threats, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies “did receive all the poor of the Zoramites … and they did nourish them, and did clothe them, and did give unto them lands for their inheritance” (Alma 35:9). The mothers of the stripling soldiers likely participated in helping preserve the refugees’ freedom to live their conversion.
In part because the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people were willing to receive the refugees, war with the Lamanites became inevitable. The impending war meant that the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people had to relocate once again (see Alma 35:10–13).
After nine years of this war (see Alma 43:3–4), the stripling soldiers organized into an army to fight with the Nephites in the cause of freedom (see Alma 53:16–17; 56:9–10). When the sons chose to take up arms, they “entered into a covenant to fight for the liberty of the Nephites, yea, to protect the land unto the laying down of their lives” (Alma 53:17; emphasis added). The wording of this covenant suggests that although they had complete confidence in the Lord to deliver them as a group, they were individually prepared and willing to die.
Because as readers of the Book of Mormon we know that none of the sons were killed in battle and that the sons believed what their mothers taught about being delivered, we might not appreciate the danger and risk the sons faced by going to war or the faith it took for their mothers to watch them go.
The stripling soldiers “did not fear death” (Alma 56:47), something that they probably learned from their parents. Perhaps their lack of fear was not because physical death was impossible but because spiritual life had already been promised (see Alma 28:12). The faith of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people was sufficient that “they never did look upon death with any degree of terror, for their hope and views of Christ and the resurrection; therefore, death was swallowed up to them by the victory of Christ over it” (Alma 27:28). This may be an example that sometimes the trials the parents endure faithfully are the very things that bring blessings to their children.
Remarkable Disciples
During the years following their conversion, the mothers of the stripling soldiers endured extraordinary hardships. Despite all the trials and suffering they experienced at the hands of unconverted Lamanites—including the difficulties of traveling with their young children through the wilderness and having to start a new life in a new land (twice)—the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people, who “were converted unto the Lord, never did fall away” (Alma 23:6) but remained steadfast and valiant in their testimony of Christ. By seeing them in their history, we can see that the mothers of the stripling soldiers were not just remarkable mothers or just remarkable women, but they were remarkable disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Mormon described the Anti-Nephi-Lehies as being “distinguished for their zeal towards God, … and they were firm in the faith of Christ, even unto the end” (Alma 27:27). When we realize the difficulties that the mothers of the stripling soldiers endured because of their conversion, perhaps we can see how these women knew what they taught their sons. They had learned from their own experiences what it meant to be faithful.
When we feel in our own lives that our conversion to the Lord has come with trials and suffering, they can be examples to us, men and women who are converted and are willing to endure, willing to teach, and willing to trust in the Lord’s deliverance.