“By Small and Simple Things Are Great Things Brought to Pass”
Alma 37:6–9
6 Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.
7 And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.
8 And now, it has hitherto been wisdom in God that these things should be preserved; for behold, they have enlarged the memory of this people, yea, and convinced many of the error of their ways, and brought them to the knowledge of their God unto the salvation of their souls.
9 Yea, I say unto you, were it not for these things that these records do contain, which are on these plates, Ammon and his brethren could not have convinced so many thousands of the Lamanites of the incorrect tradition of their fathers; yea, these records and their words brought them unto repentance; that is, they brought them to the knowledge of the Lord their God, and to rejoice in Jesus Christ their Redeemer.
President Wilford Woodruff said:
“I have never spent any of my time more profitably for the benefit of mankind than in my journal writing, for a great portion of the Church history has been compiled from my journals and some of the most glorious gospel sermons, truths, and revelations that were given from God to this people through the mouth of the Prophets Joseph and Brigham, Heber and the Twelve could not be found upon the earth on record only in my journals and they are compiled in the Church history and transmitted to the Saints of God in all future generations. Does not this pay me for my troubles? It does.”
(Wilford Woodruff’s “Diary,” Mar. 17, 1857, quoted in Dean C. Jessee, “The Kirtland Diary of President Wilford Woodruff,” in BYU Studies 12, no. 4 [1971–72].)
