Post by Helam –
Permit me to share the account of our bondage and brutal treatment by Amulon.
When we felt safe, we settled into a beautiful land and began to build a city. The land was called after me, the land of Helam. The city we built was called the city of Helam. That choice was not my choice, but I am complimented by the people’s respect.
We began to prosper exceedingly. We grew and were very blessed. But as I mentioned in an earlier post, we had rejected Abinadi when he first called us to repentance. Abinadi had warned us that if we did not repent we would be in bondage. The Lord’s promises are always kept and we indeed were placed in bondage. It is clear that the Lord saw fit to chasten us, His people. He tried our patience and our faith.
Yet He promises that those who put their trust in him will be lifted up at the last day. This post will lead to us being lifted up at the last day. The Lord did deliver us and showed forth His mighty power for which we rejoiced.
While we were in the land of Helam, outside the city of Helam, while tilling the land, an army of the Lamanites was in the borders of the land.
We fled from our fields, and gathered ourselves together in the city of Helam. Alma did his best telling us we should not be frightened, but that we should remember the Lord our God and he would deliver us.
We began to cry unto the Lord that he would soften the hearts of the Lamanites, that they would spare us, and our wives, and our children. The Lord did soften the hearts of the Lamanites. Alma and a few of us went out and delivered ourselves into their hands; and the Lamanites took possession of the land of Helam.
I questioned the Lord’s irony. Of all the armies of the Lamanites that could find and enslave us, this army would be the army that pursued after the remainder of the people of Lemhi when they were led out of bondage by Ammon and his brethren. They not only found us, but they found the evil priests of king Noah led by the worst of the worst – Amulon.
Amulon and his fellow priests had kidnapped and married several of the Lamanite girls, which caused plenty of bloodshed all by its self. That is part of an earlier story. Because these daughters of the Lamanites were the wives of the wicked priests, the Lamanites showed compassion and did not destroy Amulon and his fellow priests. Amulon and his brethren joined with the Lamanites and they were traveling in the wilderness searching for the land of Nephi when they stumbled upon us in the land of Helam.
The Lamanites promised us that if we showed them the way to the land of Nephi we would be given our freedom. After we showed them the way, they did not keep their promise. They set guards around us. The rest of them went to the land of Nephi and brought back their families to help guard us. Now here is the irony. The king of the Lamanites granted to Amulon that he would be the king over us. So where we who had repented were now in bondage as Abinadi had prophesied, Amulon, who never repented in his life is now the king and ruler over us.