Chapter 48: The Story of Ether, the Optimistic Pen Pal (Ether 12-15)

Ether 12:4 Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God.

Ether’s people were scared of death and of each other. They were fighting and killing and dying. And the war grew and grew and everyone joined in and fought and died until there was just one person left alive. One person, besides Ether. And the whole time, Ether could only watch as the world fell apart. And while he watched, he wrote down everything he saw on metal paper so that the stories would last long after he was gone. By the end, Ether had written several books containing the sorrow and loss and destruction he had seen from his hideout on the mountain. And before Ether died, he set the books out in the open hoping that someday someone would find them.

And that’s just what happened. They ended up in the hands of the Nephites. And they were handed down from family to family for seven hundred years until, as you remember, Mormon gave all his books to Mo…