What Book of Mormon heroes teach us about curiosity, seeking, and finding the life you were made for.

By Lawrance Nai  |  LN Education  |  March 2026

There is a moment near the opening of the Book of Mormon that most readers pass over too quickly.

Nephi is young. His father has just shared a vision that has shaken the whole family. His brothers, Laman and Lemuel, are murmuring — frustrated, skeptical, unwilling to engage. But Nephi does something different. He says, almost simply:

— 1 Nephi 11:1

He didn't have the answers. He didn't have a plan. He had a question — and a willingness to sit with it long enough for something to open.

That is curiosity. And the Book of Mormon is full of it.

This post is for young people who feel pressure to have life figured out. The heroes of the Book of Mormon didn't arrive knowing everything. They arrived asking. And in that asking — in that holy, persistent curiosity — they discovered who they were and what they were made to do.

Nephi: "I Will Go and Do"

Before Nephi became the builder of ships, the leader of a people, the keeper of sacred records — he was a teenager with a father who heard voices and a family in crisis.

What made Nephi remarkable wasn't that he had answers. It was that he kept asking.

— 1 Nephi 2:16

"Great desires to know." That phrase is worth sitting with. Nephi wasn't passively waiting to be told what to believe or who to be. He was actively, persistently, hungrily curious.

And what did that curiosity produce? He received the same vision his father had — and more. He built boats he had never seen built before. He navigated oceans he had never sailed. He led a people across a wilderness with no map.

He didn't wait for a complete blueprint. He asked the next question. And then the next. That is how a path is built — one curious question at a time.

The Brother of Jared: Curiosity That Moved the Hand of God

Few stories in scripture are as stunning as the brother of Jared at Mount Shelem.

He is preparing his people for an ocean crossing. The barges are built. But they have a problem: they are dark inside — no windows, no light. And instead of waiting to be told what to do, he goes to God with something remarkable: a proposed solution.

— Ether 3:4

He didn't come with complaints. He came with curiosity that had already done the work — he thought through the problem, imagined a solution, crafted sixteen small stones, and then brought them before God.

The result? The finger of the Lord touched the stones. And then — because of the brother of Jared's extraordinary faith and prepared mind — the veil was parted and he saw the premortal Christ.

This is not a coincidence. Throughout the scriptures, the Lord consistently responds to those who have already been thinking — who come with questions that show they have wrestled with the problem themselves.

Curiosity, in this sense, is an act of faith. It says: I believe there is an answer, and I am willing to seek it.

Enos: When Curiosity Becomes a Wrestle

The account of Enos is one of the most psychologically honest passages in the entire Book of Mormon.

He goes into the forest to hunt. While he's there, something shifts. The words his father had taught him — words about eternal life and the joy of the saints — begin to sink in. And he wants to know for himself.

— Enos 1:2–3

All day. Into the night. A wrestle.

This is what genuine curiosity sometimes looks like — not a quick search, not a surface skim, but sustained engagement with a question that actually matters.

Enos wasn't just curious about whether God existed. He was curious about himself — about his standing before God, about what his life could mean. And he stayed in that question until he had his answer.

Young people: this story matters for you not just spiritually but personally. The things you were made to care about — they usually require this kind of wrestling to find. Not passive waiting. Not a quick Google search. A genuine, sustained, sometimes uncomfortable wrestle.

What question in your life is worth that kind of effort?

Moroni: Finishing Well When No One is Watching

By the time Moroni writes his final chapters, he is alone. His people are gone. He is wandering, hiding, completing a record he may never see used.

He could have stopped. He had every excuse to.

But he kept going — kept writing, kept preserving, kept asking what else he could add that might be useful for people he would never meet.

— Moroni 10:3–5

His final gift to us was an invitation to be curious. To ask. To not simply accept or reject — but to genuinely seek.

That is a remarkable legacy from a man who had lost everything except his faith and his pen.

What These Stories Teach About Finding Your Path

The Book of Mormon heroes didn't have GPS. They didn't have five-year plans or LinkedIn profiles. What they had was:

•        A genuine hunger to know — not just to be told.

•        A willingness to ask questions, even hard ones.

•        The courage to act on incomplete information while trusting the next step would come.

•        Patience to stay in a question long enough for an answer to develop.

•        Faith that God would meet them in the seeking.

These are not just spiritual virtues. They are the same qualities that lead young people to discover what they are made to do in the world — their gifts, their calling, their contribution.

You don't find your purpose by waiting for it to be handed to you. You find it the way Nephi found it — by asking the next question, taking the next step, and trusting that what you need will be provided as you move.

✦  A Practical Challenge  ✦

For the Young Person Reading This

Take one hour this week and do what Nephi did: sit and ponder.

Not scroll. Not listen to music. Sit — maybe in nature, maybe in your room — and ask yourself honestly:

•        What am I genuinely curious about right now?

•        What question keeps coming back to me, even when I try to ignore it?

•        If I could spend a whole day learning about anything, what would it be?

•        What kind of person do I want to become — not what job, but what kind of person?

Then, like Enos, take that wondering to God. Ask Him to help you see what He sees in you. Ask for the desires of your heart to be made clear.

He answers those kinds of questions. The whole Book of Mormon is evidence of that.

Stay curious. Keep asking.

The Lord doesn't expect you to arrive knowing everything. He expects you to seek. And in the seeking — if you are honest and persistent and willing — you will find more than you thought possible.

— James 1:5

That promise was given to a young man in a grove of trees who had a question and the courage to ask it.

It belongs to you too.

— Lawrance Nai

Educator | Coach | Navy Veteran | Founder, LN Education

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