How Captain Moroni placed his armies

When the Nephites were about to be attacked by the combined Zoramite and Lamanite armies, there is this neat place that talks about Captain Moroni’s placing of his armies.  Something about it jumped out at me recently.

31 Therefore, he divided his army and brought a part over into the valley, and concealed them on the east, and on the south of the hill Riplah;

32 And the remainder he concealed in the west valley, on the west of the river Sidon, and so down into the borders of the land Manti.

33 And thus having placed his army according to his desire, he was prepared to meet them. (Alma 43:31-33, emphasis added)

That last verse there makes me think that if Captain Moroni knew how to place his armies so they could have the greatest advantage and effect against the Lamanites and Zoramites, so our Heavenly Father knows how to place His Saints where He wants so that if they are faithful they will have the greatest effect in the war against evil.

Sometimes it may seem like we are the only ones fighting where we are. And that might be the case, but there may be more of the Lord’s servants placed and concealed nearby, helping or about to help. Or we may be the equivalent of a one-man army.

I'll give you an example that I found in my journal from about eight years ago of how the Lord can place us.

Today in chemistry a guy from my chem lab sat down next to me. During lecture he noticed my wedding ring and asked me in a whisper if I was really married. Yeah. He congratulated me and asked me for how long. I told him 6 years. He thought that was awesome. He wanted to know how old I was. 28. He was amazed. A little later he pointed out to me two other people in the room who were married too. I'm not sure why he thought this was worth noting.

After class he told me it was his birthday today and he was 21 years old. I congratulated him in the most excited way. He seemed to take my excitement to mean that I was fully aware of the meaning of the 21st birthday as the beginning of legal drinking ago and told me with great anticipation that he was looking forward to a 6-pack on the weekend and he was trying to be patient until then. I was a little shocked at his excitement [internally] and though I couldn't approve of it and I certainly would not condemn him, I did my best to place before him the right way. I told him that I was not a drinker and that I had never tasted alcohol ever. He was astonished and he had to question me further. Nope, no alcohol, no tobacco. Never. He wanted to know why, so I told him about the Word of Wisdom and what it said. He wanted to know what I ate and I told him as succinctly as I could how I tried to eat and how I had been blessed for it....

After this conversation he wanted to go find the chemistry tutors because he found the material very confusing, so I walked him over to the tutoring center and left him there.

 It was years later that I read back over my journal and realized that Heavenly Father had placed me in that situation and meant for me to be some sort of argument to this fellow to not to make drinking alcohol part of his lifestyle. The guy's attempt to be patient indicates that at some level he followed the rules, and I think Heavenly Father really wanted to preserve that and hoped he would make better choices if a better way was presented.  I do not know whether who I was and what I said was effective, but I am thankful Heavenly Father placed me there where I got to play that part. 

It is funny to me that I was so clueless at the time that Heavenly Father was using me that way.   Sometimes we can be a soldier for the Lord in the right place and not even know it. 
 

The important thing is not to give up, to keep fighting for the right, to trust in the Lord.