"Upon arriving at both lands of Bountiful, did Laman and Lemuel really think that such good navigating was mere happenstance? Perhaps Nephi had merely "guessed right" (see Hel. 16:16). Their ingratitude for the Liahona raises the question: What did Laman and Lemuel really think of that remarkable instrument? Was it just a convenient gadget or merely standard equipment on every ship?" (Neal Maxwell, October 2, 1999, 10AM Session Conference Report)

The Bountiful of the Old World

Of what two lands of Bountiful was Brother Maxwell speaking? One of these lands of Bountiful was in the Old World. After receiving the Liahona, Lehi’s group traveled in the wilderness for eight years, being lead by the Liahona, the compass instrument from God that worked by faith. During that time the wives of the married sons of Lehi, the married sons of Ishmael, and of Zoram bore children, all grandchildren to Lehi. When they arrived at the edge of the sea or ocean of many waters they called it Irreantum. This seaside land, they called Bountiful. (1 Nephi 17:4-5) This was one of the lands of Bountiful they arrived in of which Brother Maxwell spoke. After the broken bow incident and during their eight years journey, Laman and Lemuel had began to bear their journeyings without murmuring. After many days in this fruitful and ‘Bountiful’ land, the Lord instructed Nephi to build a ship, so they could continue their journey to the promised land, thus leaving this ‘first’ land of Bountiful.

The Bountiful of the New World

With the idea of building a ship and leaving this pleasant land of Bountiful, Laman and Lemuel began again to murmur and initially refused to help in the construction of the ship. Even when they did leave this ‘first’ Bountiful to sail to the Promised Land, they rebelled at sea and bound Nephi until fear of perishing from the storm brought them to repentance and they loosed Nephi. Where upon the storm subsided and the Liahona again began to work, guiding them to the Promised Land. When they reached the Promised Land, they arrived at the ‘second’ land of Bountiful of which Brother Maxwell spoke in his conference report. It too was a ‘Bountiful’ land, but no where in the Book of Mormon as we have it today, is that landing site directly called Bountiful. Not until the Nephites returned again to the original site of their landing does the pages of the Book of Mormon record the name of that part of the land as being Bountiful and as being part of the Land of Zarahemla. It was likely always known to the Nephites as the land Bountiful, the land of their landing in the Promised Land, but why, in the record of the Book of Mormon, wasn’t it so called earlier? Even the summary of the two landings of Mulek and Lehi in the book of Helaman does it report that the land north was named Mulek and the land south was called Lehi, that would be overall names for the two lands north and south of the narrow neck.

The answer may lie in various fateful events in the construction of and the manner of the bring forth of the Book of Mormon as we have it today, revolving around the fact that it is not a complete history but a very abbreviated history spanning hundreds of years. Nephi records this fact in the first verses of chapter 19 of 1 Nephi when he points out that a more detailed record of their journeys in the Promised Land was not had upon the small plates but where given on the Large Plates of Nephi. The few verses which do describe the site where they landed are sketchy, and merely calls the entire land ‘the Promised Land.’ (1 Nephi 18:22-25) The fact that they called the region at the site of their landing ‘Bountiful’ is obscured in the Book of Mormon. This is perhaps due to a combination of reasons such as: 1) due to the parties relatively ‘quick’ removal from their original short lived landing site, 2) due to Nephi’s abbreviated small plates account which is the only account we have today of that time frame, 3) due to Mormon’s abridgment of the Large Plates of Nephi, and 4) due to the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon of which the Small Plates of Nephi took the place of. The very brief description of Nephi on the small plates does say that the seeds they planted there for that first season, before they continued their journey into the wilderness in the new land, did ‘grow exceedingly’ and that they where ‘blessed in abundance.’ Truly the site of their landing and first colonial season was in a ‘Bountiful’ land, a land that would later be designated in the Book of Mormon by its name, the Land of Bountiful.

This land of Bountiful, as denoted later, was bounded by and likely a part of the wilderness of Hermounts, that ran North of and West of the central land of Zarahemla. If Lehi’s colony landed in the Land Bountiful of the nation of Zarahemla, Lehi’s party would have to travel south through this land of ‘Hermounts’ which was a land of wild beasts. The description of the wilderness that Lehi’s colony traveled through gives only brief but revealing statements of information in Nephi’s small plates. It was a land where beast where in the forest of every kind both domestic and wild animals where in the forest there. There was the cow, ox, ass, horse, and goat, as well as all manner of wild animals. This was not an arid desert land, it was a tropical forested land with all manner of beast and wild animals in it. The book of Alma reveals through implication from where these domestic animals had wandered. Alma 22:31, ". . . Thus the land on the northward was called Desolation, and the land on the southward was called Bountiful , it being the wilderness which is filled with all manner of wild animals of every kind, a part of which had come from the land northward for food." In only two places is this exact phrase of ’all manner of wild animals’ used in the Book of Mormon, in Alma 22:31 in describing the land of Bountiful, and in 1 Nephi 18:25 in describing the land and wilderness of Lehi’s journeys after his landing.

So why were animals leaving the land northward for want of food exactly at the time that Lehi landed, making them timely available for Lehi’s colony? A great war, a war of annihilation and destruction, was being carried out between the people of Shiz and the people of Coriantumr of the Jaredites on the Land North, leaving it desolate of life. Shiz would sweep the land clean before him, as he would attack the people of Corinatumr, making it void of sustenance. The animals that escaped the sweeping clean would find no food left for them in the land north, and they would migrate to the land south by way of the narrow neck of land, seeking and finding the food they needed. And there they would be found, ready for use by the landing Colony of Lehi and also Mulek.

So where did Lehi land in the New World? Lehi landed in the Land Bountiful, a little south of the Narrow Neck of Land. It was near enough that the domestic animals of the Jaredites had wandered there for the want of food. It is near the same site from whence Hagoth much later, in Alma 63:5, would again set his ships to sail into the great ocean of Irreantum or the Sea West from whence Lehi’s colony had arrived. And just where is this landing and departure site located in terms of modern topology? From the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith we find "...Lehi went down by the Red Sea to the great Southern Ocean, and crossed over to this land, and landed a little south of the Isthmus of Darien,..." (Joseph Smith, TPJS p. 267). The Isthmus of Darien is associated with the Panama Canal. Darien itself is the most southern county or province of the nation of Panama today. According to the Prophet Joseph Smith, Lehi landed a little south of the narrow neck of land we know today as the Isthmus of Darien. In the Book of Mormon Hagoth set sail from this general area on the border of the land Bountiful and the land Desolation (Alma 63:5) in an exceedingly large ship. The Hagoth launched forth into the west sea, by the narrow neck which led into the land northward. The Nephites seemed to know and understand that this was the Land Bountiful, which Lehi had landed in. Thus it is not ironic that Hagoth sails from the same area, but likely to be a planned launching from the same general site that Lehi had landed some 550 years prior.

Now here seems to be a great key to the Book of Mormon Geography for those who would grasp it. Lehi traveled in the Old World wilderness eight years before reaching the ‘first’ Bountiful spoken of by Brother Maxwell. Lehi sailed across the expanse of the great ocean they called Irreantum, known by us today as the Pacific Ocean. Then he arrived at the ‘second’ Bountiful of which Brother Maxwell speaks. From Bountiful to Bountiful he traveled. That this is the same Bountiful of the Land of Zarahemla is apparent from the words of the Book of Mormon itself, and from the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Colombia Matches Zarahemla

From thence other implications can be made. The great river Sidon can be associated with the Magdalena River of Colombia as Elder George Reynolds has stated. Hermounts (her – mounts) can be associated with the two mountain ranges of the Western and Middle Cordilleras of Colombia. The eastern plains of Colombia can be associated with the eastern plains of the national lands of Zarahemla upon which the great City of Nephihah was built and upon which Moroni of the Book of Alma would confront the invading armies of the Lamanites mixed with the Zoramites. The head waters of the Magdalena River and the area of St. Augustin can be associated with the land of Manti, where the advancing Lamanite-Zoramite armies where caught in a trap set by Moroni and Lehi, thus safeguarding the land of Manti from the combines Lamanite army invasion. The lost expedition of Limhi can be seen going up the Cauca Valley in error, thus bypassing the Magdalena River valley, as did the lost explorers of the Spanish once did. The Limhi expedition in err continued their exploration all the way to and by way the narrow neck into the land of Desolation finding the 24 golden plates of Ether and returned many, many days later to report their fears that the Nephites of the north lay in total destruction. And why didn't the Lamanites ever attempt a west coatal assult of the Nephite national lands of Zarahemla? Could it be, is it not, due to the prohibitive everglades and swamp lands of the western west coast of Colombia which inhibited their way? How did Captain Moroni beat the Lamanites armies to that land of Manti? Was it not from the plains between Jershon and Antionum trough the passage valley of Gideon (of Bogota) and north along the eastern banks of the Sidon; while the Lamanite army had to divert 'round and about' that 'mountian and foothill' land of Orhidah, the place of arms that Lehonti later fled to, known today as Sierra De La Macarena whose national park acts as a refuge land to the rebels of Colombia?

The description of the land fits. Perhaps it does not fit like a glove in every respect? Great changes of the era of destruction at the death of the Savior completely changed all of the land northward’s appearance and much of the land southward’s arrangement, throughing up 'high mountians' in places that had been low, even possibly sentiment sea beds like are atop the plateau of Bogota. And sinking lands into the depths of 'the sea'. These details are not ours to be had. But the scriptures speak, the prophets speak, geography speaks, and they can be seen speaking in unison. The land of Zarahemla was a forested land. Various cities of Zarahemla burnt to the ground. The people there built primarily with timber in the Land of Zarahemla as were the defenses of Moroni made of timbers and mounds of earth. And thus the record pointedly states of their diversion from such a norm, when it says that when they went into the land of Desolation, they had to build there with cement and mortar. They there erected many of those great edifices of Central America of today which where erected primarily with stone and cement mortar. Perhaps, having moved from and having lost their possession in the land south to the Lamanites, they would name some of their places by the same name. But the historical Zarahemla of the Book of Mormon was south of the Isthmus of Darien according to the Teachings of Joseph Smith and from sited indications of the Book of Mormon. It was in South America. Lehi was brought to and landed in the land south (Helaman 6:10), and Mulek’s party initially landed in the land north where they found Coriantumur. He was the last survivor known of the Jaredites, and then Mulek’s party traveled south into the Land of Zarahemla which was south of the narrow neck or Isthmus of land which divided the land north from the land south (Alma 22:30-31).

From Bountiful to Bountiful

It seems fitting that the departure site of Lehi’s party in the Old World was called Bountiful, and that the arrival site of their landing in the New World was also called Bountiful. So Lehi’s party sailed from Bountiful to Bountiful, from one Bountiful land of plenty in the Old World to another Bountiful land of plenty in the New World. I believe that Brother Maxwell is correct about both lands of Bountiful. I believe the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith are correct about the landing site of Lehi being just a little south of the Isthmus of Darien. I believe that great Book of Mormon scholar, Elder George Reynolds, is correct about the Magdalena River being the same as the River Sidon of the Book of Mormon. To understand the geography of the Book of Mormon does not make the least bit of difference to the truthfulness of that great volume of scripture. But it does help me to envision the physical settings in which the Nephites and Lamanites lived, and it does bring real life environments to the pages of the Book of Mormon.

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