The Brother of Jared

 “While residing in Kirtland Elder Reynolds Cahoon had a son born to him. One day when President Joseph Smith was passing his door, he called the Prophet in and asked him to bless and name the baby. Joseph did so and gave the boy the name of Mahonri Moriancumer. When he had finished the blessing he laid the child on the bed, and turning to Elder Cahoon he said, ‘The name I have given your son is the name of the brother of Jared; the Lord has just shown [or revealed] it to me.’ Elder William F. Cahoon . . . heard the Prophet make this statement to his father; and this was the first time the name of the brother of Jared was known in the Church in this dispensation” (George Reynolds, “The Jaredites,” Juvenile Instructor, 1 May 1892, 282).

Of the brother of Jared, Mahonri Moriancumer the Lord said, “Never has man believed in me as thou hast” (Ether 3:15).

When building barges to cross the great deep, the Lord instructed the brother of Jared regarding a design that would allow them to get air. However, when the brother of Jared asked how to get light so that they might not cross in darkness, the Lord responded in a completely different way. (See Ether 2:23–25.)

Elder Russell M. Nelson said that he has often heard President Gordon B. Hinckley say, “I don’t know how to get anything done except getting on my knees and pleading for help and then getting on my feet and going to work” ( Ensign, Nov. 1997, 16).

Elder Jeffery R. Holland said: “The brother of Jared may not have had great belief in himself, but his belief in God was unprecedented. In that there is hope for us all. His faith was without doubt or limit. . . . Once and for all it was declared that ordinary people with ordinary challenges could rend the veil of unbelief and enter the realms of eternity” (Christ and the New Covenant [1997], 29).