Several hundred people observed the miraculous events surrounding the imprisonment of Lehi and Nephi. Aminadab, a Nephite dissenter, became a spiritual as well as a physical witness of these events and as a consequence preached to the others.
Under the influence of the Spirit, Aminadab urged the others to pray to the voice they had heard until they could obtain a faith in Christ. Faith comes as a gift of God only when the initial desire is nurtured and nourished (see Alma 32:27).
“Faith is a gift of God,” wrote Elder Orson Pratt.
“In what manner does He impart this gift to the mind by the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit independent of any other means? Does He bestow it unsought for and irrespective of the preparation of the mind? Does He confer it independent of the agency of man? To say that man obtains this gift without preparing himself, or without the exercise of any agency, is to deprive him of all responsibility in regard to whether he has faith or not.”
(In The True Faith, p. 8.)