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Good music, Brandt. It’s real good music. Good morning, everyone.
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Thanks for joining us this morning at an earlier time for our Come Follow Me lesson for our podcast.
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My name is Jenny Noonan Dye. I am joining from Utah along with my co-host and friend Brandt Malone from Detroit. Hello, Brandt.
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Hello, Jenny. Wow. You know, just when we thought 20, 20 couldn’t get any worse, what do we now have? We have widespread Internet outages throughout the United States. We can’t get technology to work. But I guess we’re here and we’ve got each other right. It’s true.
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And we’ve got Jundah here next to me behind the scenes trying to get everything to work and make people look not pixellated or there is.
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So thanks, everyone, for joining us especially. Thank you. For those of you who are joining us from wherever you may be joining us from at this earlier time. Sorry that I. I think I mentioned last week that I would put it on Facebook and things have been happening. We mentioned we’ve been spending the week moving and everything that goes along with that rant started back up with school.
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And long story short, too late. Sorry, guys.
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Thanks for being patient with us as we as we figure all of this out, as we get to what we’re going to do and how this is going to go to today’s lesson is, of course, healing in chapters seven through twelve today being Sunday on his thirtieth twenty twenty. The name of the lesson is Remember the Lord.
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So, Brad, you mentioned that there is a nationwide Internet outage and right now your your brain frozen your screen.
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You can hear us.
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I can. I can hear you. Can you hear me. Yeah.
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It just looks like you’re praying and it’s very reverent and very. It’s great. It looks great. And yeah, you may pop back in.
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Have I missed anything as far as opening exercises and everything here?
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Well, considering we do have this nationwide Internet outage happening, CenturyLink has been having some major issues and it’s actually taking down a lot of major places, Amazon, Hulu, etc.. We think the church’s website might have been affected by that earlier because I know that you couldn’t access it. Obviously, we’re having some struggles over here. So if we do get interrupted, just know that you can always find our come follow me lessons. If you’re a subscriber to our podcast, just search us Mormon news report and you’ll be able to find there.
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So that’s number one. Number two, I noticed, Jenny, as always, you are dressed to the nines. You and John both look fabulous, but today you look extra fabulous. Is there something important going on today that you both look extra fabulous for?
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Well, I don’t know about you, Brent, but Sunday for our family is a special day. It’s not a special day like Saturday’s special day.
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But yeah, that’s actually why we are doing this lesson earlier. Like I mentioned, we moved and we have our new ward and our new neighborhood and our new home meets at at the time when we would normally be recording.
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So usually we record at 10:00 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time. And yeah, so our new ward and we’re going to we’re going to go. We understand that precautions have been put in place for distancing. And so we’re going to we’re going to try it up today, attending our our new ward as soon as we’re done recording here.
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And I don’t know if you could tell Jenny, but I do have a visitor in my little home office in our little home studio right now. She’s very excited to be here. This is my oldest. So please do not get too distracted from her because we will have a very great lesson today. But she was very excited when she saw I don’t know if I told you this on our weekly podcast. She told me she wants to do a podcast of her own.
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And I said, why would you ever want to subject yourself to that? So we have a visitor, but very I’m sure, Jenny, speaking of our weekly podcast, I’m sure we’re going to hear a thorough rundown of what your experience was like heading back to church. I know more people are going back, which is interesting, I think for for our purposes, for our purposes. Being the Mormon news report, we’re still going to continue to do our weekly come follow me lessons.
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I know that we’ve got a lot of people that really enjoy it. As a matter of fact, Brenda mentioned today that she said it’s been a hard week and she’s really enjoying and anticipating listening to us. So, Brenda, I just know that our thoughts are with you during this difficult time. And we’re hoping that we can give you something, some spiritual nourishment as we talk about a very well. Jenny, I don’t know what road you want to go down, but we’re kind of getting to a.
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Part of the Book of Mormon, aren’t we? We are, I don’t. Yeah, well, we’ll see where this lesson goes, but I know John and I are with you that. We’re glad that you’re here. Bella, of course. And Helen and Sandy and Bob, I guess they’re traveling and some new friends, too. We’ve got another from Toronto and I’m going to say cell from the Philippines. So good evening. Where you are.
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Yeah.
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So like we said, today’s lesson is Helaman chapters seven through 12, and it’s called Remember the Lord.
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So I guess first thing we could talk about kind of the roles and responsibilities of prophets.
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Of someone asked Chris, you ask a really good question, is this going to be the new time going forward? Could be we still need to have a counsel about it.
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We’ll see how it goes, because we we really do want to do what’s best for for everyone or for most.
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So we will see what we can do.
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He will have you log back in if you can’t see a split real to see if it comes up on here. Sorry. Thanks, everyone, for your patience as you’re OK. So well, OK, Brandon, it looks like you’re live, but we can’t. OK, we’ll just keep going. Yeah.
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Can you hear us, Jenny. John. We’ll do it live. Excellent. There you are. Look at that. OK, so back to the lesson, the role of prophets. I will actually have to pull this over here. So I’m kind of looking the same again.
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All the technicalities. We’re professionals, everyone. So the in the Guide to the Scriptures, the definition of prophet is a person who has been called by and speaks for God as a messenger of God. A prophet receives commandments, prophecies and revelations from God. His responsibility is to make known God’s will and true character to mankind and to show the meaning of his dealings with them. A prophet denounces sin and foretells its consequences. He is a preacher of righteousness.
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On occasion, prophets may be inspired to foretell the future for the benefit of mankind.
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His primary responsibility, however, is to bear witness of Christ, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints as God’s prophet on the Earth. Today, members of the first presidency and the Twelve Apostles are sustained as prophets Sears and the leaders.
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So I have it’s interesting that I had a kind of an ongoing conversation with a friend this week about prophets and the roles of prophets and kind of where kind of delineating, I guess, between when a prophet is speaking as a prophet and when a prophet is speaking as themselves, as a human, as someone with their own cultural and personal worldview and background and stuff.
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And so I think I think those are good things to consider when we’re when we’re talking about prophets, but also that this definition, the part where his primary responsibility is to bear witness of Christ. Any thoughts on that?
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Yeah, I think that that’s always been the the most difficult part, especially now that we have the the written word and we can spend some time going through and looking back on what not only ancient prophets have said, modern prophets, it that that area, them speaking for themselves versus them directly speaking for God is something that is it is something that’s cool, because I think that we can look at times, even in our modern history, and I’ll just go ahead and acknowledge it when it comes to discussions on race with the church, that we can definitely see that there are things that are being said that are man made interpretations of potentially a divine.
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I don’t want to call them really divine inspiration. I think there are many interpretations of the world around us but but are given a glean or given a veneer of coming from God. At the same time. We can also look at some very concrete, thus say, in the Lord type prophecies that come from prophets. And so I think that’s the hardest part is is trying to find where is where is the individual speaking as a prophet and where is the individual speaking as an individual?
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And it’s hard because it would be so great if there was a stay, if the Lord delineation to say, OK, now we know that this is officially from God, but we don’t always have that, do we?
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No, and and I think that can sometimes get conflated, not as much when we’re reading the Scriptures, but maybe more with modern day prophets, because we can tend to hear hear their stories and hear their messages that they’re sharing. And sometimes what they’re sharing is personal experience. And sometimes what they’re sharing is personal opinion.
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But often what they’re sharing is in their role as prophet is in their role as apostle and therefore is is in their role of being the messenger. So and we do have some ways of of interpreting some of that. We do have the different levels of canon, if you will. I believe that if it’s set in general conference, we could put that much higher up. The canonical scale then compared to, I don’t know, elder Okta or visited my state conference and said this.
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But but that’s that’s also the other thing you mentioned. We don’t necessarily see it with ancient prophets in the scriptures as much. And I agree with you. I also wonder if it’s also because of the sheer volume that we have now. If you look at the scriptures, the scriptures are a contained book, and that’s something that has passed through thousands of years. Whereas in our situation now we can have let’s just take someone like Rudaw. You can have someone who talks to talk in the hallways at the temple, someone who saw at a state conference, someone who heard Elder speak at a BYU devotional at a mission president seminar and then at a conference.
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And I think that all five of those situations could be varying scales, but I think that it makes it difficult. Then when you have all that content of what they’re saying to them, say, OK, so which one was speaking directly for God? And I think that’s why it’s important to say when it comes to something like general conference, we could be very confident that there is not a lot of manmade interpretation or individual personal views being espoused or a lot of that is divine inspiration.
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Right, right, and like you mentioned, someone seeing President Dorf in the halls of the temple or something or running into Elder and at Costco or whatever it is, they’re also humans are also men on Earth.
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And so we need to allow for for that experience and not everything that they say is a prophecy or a revelation.
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So really quickly, to to kind of take that another step further, there are some people that view the way that some of our our highest leaders in the church act and do things in their everyday lives and then want to take that. And I think it’s with the best of intentions. But they want to take that that next step further to say, well, you know, I saw Elder Hollum and he shops at Costco. He doesn’t shop at Sam’s Club.
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So that must mean that Costco is buying wholesale warehouse club store to go.
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I mean, some people do genuinely take it and I’m using a silly example. But to go back to one of the old standbys.
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Well, I’ve never seen a member of the CORB when when I went to Costco, I didn’t see elder Holland with Diet Coke in his in his shopping cart or, you know, I saw a door with a whole lot of Diet Coke. And so therefore and we do things like that because we want to take those everyday actions, as I don’t know how you describe divine divine appropriateness, a divine acceptability versus the I don’t know if I’m going too far out on a limb, but to say there are specific times and places when that prophetic divinity comes through and that’s what we should be paying attention for, not the everyday lives.
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And I would be intrigued to to have a very honest and sincere conversation with a member of the Quorum of the Twelve to ask them, is it is it all the time that you feel this this prophetic divinity flowing through you to make these prophecies that your you are communing with God, or is it rare? Right.
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And I think I don’t know that they’re talking about that is actually going too far, especially in here in the United States in this season, which is, of course, we are approaching a presidential election.
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And so lots of people like to use their religion as sort of justification for or a reasoning why not to or why to vote a certain way.
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And as those who are leaders of the church, who are when they cast their vote, they’re not doing so as prophets. They are doing so as citizens. That being said, when we hear them at the pulpit at general conference, the prophets like like like President Monson, he was beloved because of, not because of, but largely in part of because of the stories that he would share. They were relatable and they were sweet. And all that is is so great.
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At the end of the day, though, and when you really pay attention, those those stories are memorable and they can teach wonderful lessons.
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But again, going back to a prophet’s main goal, main job to do is to testify about the savior.
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That’s when we that’s the part that we need to to pay attention to and and give heed to. The stories are great. There are some speakers at conference who can tend to be more engaging or more and always say energetic, but yeah, just engaging than than others might be typically.
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And and those those that energy and those stories, they do have value. At the same time, not every prophet as we know historically has been a great public speaker. It doesn’t mean that we don’t need to heat their words. Is primary responsibility, as we’ve read, is to bear witness of Christ. And so when we when we are listening to the prophets studying and reading their words, that’s the part that we need to that we need to focus on.
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And and just as not as an aside, but in addition, you know, Brendan brings up a good point that I was going to mention, too, and then it escaped me. So I’m glad that you did. Brenda says, I firmly believe that this is where individual revelation and inspiration are key, knowing what is given to a prophet or an apostle as the word of God versus.
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Personal inspired feelings is critical to keeping ourselves safe from being misled. We have to stay worthy at all times as best we can so that we can trust the personal revelation that we receive as revelation that has come from God and not the adversary. So thank you for that, Brenda. And you’re absolutely right that I mean, that is exactly one reason why it’s important for us to do the things that we need to do to be in tune with the spirit to know what is true for us.
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And that’s another thing that we are encouraged to do by the prophets.
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Jenny, really quickly, a Wistow in his book, Evidences and Reconciliation’s gets into a little bit more detail behind the term that we have in the church as a profit seer and revelator. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to read just a small snippet of it, specifically the word prophet. He says a prophet is a teacher. That is the essential meaning of the word. He teaches the body of truth. The Gospel revere revealed by the Lord to man and under inspiration explains it to the understanding of the people.
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He is an expander of truth. Moreover, he shows the way to human happiness is through obedience to God’s law. He calls to repentance those who wander away from the truth. He also says a prophet also receives revelations from the Lord. These may be explanations of truths already received or new truths not formally possessed by man. In the course of time, the word prophet has come to mean, perhaps chiefly a man who receives revelations and directions from the Lord.
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The principal business of the Prophet has been mistakenly been thought to foretell coming events to utter prophecies, which is only one of the several prophetic functions. And I really like this part that I like that part that he talks about that a prophet is a teacher. And perhaps that might be the the key essence of what we’re getting into here. And as we start looking at some of the things that Nephi was doing in these early parts of the Book of Hilman, that is what he was truly trying to do.
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He was trying to teach the people to remember what was going on. And that idea of remembering that’s something we had a long talk with our kids today, and that is something that does need to be taught to people as he goes up. And John showed the there you go, John shows the picture of Nephi up on his tower in his garden, pleading to God. That is a teaching moment. And that’s a great moment that to keep in mind for what these prophets are trying to do.
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They are trying to teach and trying to expound on truth. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Brett, that’s such a good point, because often it’s, you know, profits are not fortune tellers. That’s not their role. But all the things that you just said, thank you for reading that and for sharing that.
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I want to talk a minute about what you are talking about, the boldness that Nephi spoke with at the beginning of or in, I guess on Chapter seven, in verses eleven through twenty nine.
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There are warnings that if I gave and there are reasons he had to be bold in giving them.
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So he I’ll just if that if it’s OK, I’m just going to start reading here and we’ll we’ll see where it goes in Human Seven starting in verse 11. And it came to pass that there were certain men passing by and saw Nephi as he was pouring out his soul to God upon the tower, and they ran and told the people what they had seen. And the people came together in multitudes that they might know the cause of so great mourning for the wickedness of the people.
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And now and if I arose, he beheld the multitudes of people who had gathered together.
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And it came to pass that he opened his mouth and said to them, Behold, why have you gathered yourselves together? That that I may tell you of your iniquities. Yeah, because I have got upon my tower that I might pour out my soul onto my God because of the sorrow of my heart, which is because of your iniquities and because of my mourning and lamentation. You have gathered yourselves together and do marvel and you have great need to marvel.
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Got to Marvel because you are given away that the devil has got so great a hold upon your hearts yet.
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How could you have how could you have given way to the enticing of him who is seeking to hurl away your souls down to everlasting misery and endless woe.
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Oh repent ye repent e why will you die? Turn me turn you into unto the Lord your God. Why has he forsaken you? It is because you have hardened your hearts.
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You will not hearken unto the voice of the Good Shepherd. You have provoked him to anger against you and behold instead of gathering you. Except you will repent. Behold, he shall scatter you forth that you shall become meat for dogs and wild beasts.
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Oh, how could you have forgotten your God in the very day that he has delivered you? But behold, it is to get gain, to be praise of men, and that you might get gold and silver. And you have set your hearts upon the riches and the vain things of this world for.
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For the, for the which you do murder and plunder and steal and bear false witness against your neighbor and do all manner of iniquity. And for this cause woe shall come on to you, except you shall repent for if you will not repent, behold this great city.
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And also all those great cities which are roundabout, which are in the land of our possession, shall be taken away. That you shall have no place for them. For Behold, the Lord will not grant unto you strength as he has hitherto done to withstand against your enemies for behold. Thus that the Lord, I will not show unto the wicked of my strength to one more than the other. Save it, be unto those who repent of their sins.
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And Hakin onto my words now. Therefore I would the E should behold my brethren, that it shall be better for the laminator than for you. Except you shall repent. For behold, they are more righteous than you, for they have not sinned against the great knowledge which you have received. Therefore, the Lord will be merciful, and to them He will lengthen out their days and increase their seed, even when thou shalt be utterly destroyed. Except thou shalt repent.
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Yay! Woe be on to you because of that great abomination which has come among you and you of united yourselves on to it. To the secret band which was established by Ghadi.
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Anton Yambo shall come unto you because of that pride which you have suffered to enter your hearts, which has lifted you up beyond that, which is good because of your exceedingly great riches. Yay! Woe be on to you because of your wickedness and abominations and accept you repent, you shall perish. Even your lands shall be taken from you and you shall be destroyed from off the face of the earth. Behold. Now, I do not say that these things shall be of myself because.
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Because it is not of myself that I know these things. But behold, I know that these things are true because the Lord God has made them known unto me. Therefore I testify that they shall be. So that was a lot. Thank you for being patient. I read almost 20 verses there, but I’m Jenny. Yeah, yeah.
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I mean, that was very bold and, you know. We like we just said about how profits are not fortune tellers, right?
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However, what he’s doing here is that filling again, that back to that definition that we read at the beginning, a profit denounces sin and foretells its consequences. Foretelling consequences of sin is not the same as fortunetelling. Right.
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I just want to make that very clear.
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And I think it’s so important to recognize how many times in those verses he uses phrases like accept you repent and repent ye. And it is calling his people to repentance because that is that is a way that he testifies of the savior, testifies of what the savior can do when we when we do repent. Yeah, and I think that and I think that that’s a really important part was it wasn’t a matter of these things are going to happen. It’s there is a way out.
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And from my reading of the scriptures, I think that’s always been the thing. There is always a way out. And that’s something that we really need to be stressing so much more. It’s it is. And I. I wonder how much more differently we might think of of some of the bold, perhaps brash former church leaders, and I’m thinking of someone like a Bruce R. McConkey, if that would have been the overriding message with everything is to stress the importance of repentance and the lack of a better term the way back, because that is what I was trying to do when he’s when he’s talking about, you know, basically your your bodies are going to be meat for wild dogs.
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Boy, you want to talk about bold and brash. I mean, that’s it right there. But it was always couched in. But we can change this. And I think that that’s what stood out to me was it did truly sound like a pleading. We can change. We can do this. We can do this. Yes, exactly, expressing the the severity of the path that they’re on and where it’s going to lead for sure.
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So I want to share this quickly.
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I think this was from nineteen ninety nine from Eldard, Neil Anderson. So twenty one years ago, he shared this experience just about ignoring warnings.
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He says those who choose to serve the Lord will always listened attentively and specifically to the prophet. Let me illustrate with an experience. Our family lived for many years in the state of Florida because Florida has a high concentration of sand lawns there are planted with large broad leaf grass. We call St. Augustine a formidable enemy of a Florida lawn as a small brown insect called a mole cricket. One evening, as my neighbor and I stood on the front steps, he noticed a little bug crossing my sidewalk.
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You’ve got to spray your lawn, he warned. There goes a mole cricket. I had sprayed the lawn with insecticide not too many weeks previously, and I hardly felt that I had the time or money to do it again so soon. In the light of the next morning, I examined my lawn closely. It was lush and beautifully green. I looked down into the grass to see if I could see any of the little bugs. I could see none.
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I remember thinking, well, maybe that little mole cricket was just passing through my yard on the way to my neighbor’s yard.
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The story, however, has a sad ending. I came out the front door one morning, about ten days after the conversation with my neighbor, shockingly, as if it is as if it had happened overnight. Brown spots covered my lawn. I ran to the garden store, bought the insecticide and sprayed immediately.
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But it was too late. The lawn was ruined and to return it to its former state required a new crop of sod, long hours of work and large expense. My neighbors warning was central to my son’s welfare. He saw things I could not see. He knew something I did not know. He knew that mole crickets live underground and are active only at night, making my daytime examinations ineffective.
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He knew that more crickets did not eat the leaves of the grass, but rather found nourishment in the roots. He knew that these little inch long creatures could eat a lot of roots. Before I would ever see the effect above the ground, I paid a dear price for my smug independence.
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There are spiritual mole crickets that burrow under our protective walls and invade our delicate roots. Many of these insects of wickedness appear small, at times almost invisible. Let us not follow the pattern I showed in dealing with my Florida mole crickets. Let us never ignore the warnings. Let us never be smug in our independence. Let us always be listening and learning in humility and faith, anxious to repent should it be necessary.
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So Brent, I read that before as I was studying this lesson and I thought, OK, but your neighbor wasn’t a prophet, right?
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But at the same time, I mean, I think it’s a really good it speaks to expertise.
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I guess I would say he didn’t say so.
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But I’m guessing it’s something where his neighbor knew all those things. Maybe his neighbor had lived there longer and so had more experience with that sort of thing. I can tell you as someone we we just moved into a house that is about forty five years old.
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A lot of things have needed updating and we have learned by that experience, I would say for ourselves lessons where it’s like, OK, we just spent some time doing what we thought we could figure out and this is going to require an expert. That may have been wandering too far off, but but when we when we think about it, when we are sustaining the profits as those who reveal the will of God. You know, I think we could safely say that they have the expertise for what we are trying to to do with our lives and as you just mentioned, the what was the meat of dogs?
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All that that is that’s pretty that’s pretty bold. I think it’s important to recognize, as you were saying, Brent, that those can be seemingly harsh messages are coming out of or coming out of love.
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Yeah, I do think so, and Jenny, if we take your analogy one step further and we take Ed Anderson’s analogy one step further, we’re not talking about the some of the basics. You know, it’s it’s not. And I know you you and John very well. It’s not as though you guys are saying we need to replace light bulbs. I’ve never replaced a light bulb before. What kind of light bulb cost? Ten dollars. And so we need to get a professional in here.
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It’s it’s one light bulb. It’s one light bulb. What could it cost? Right. This is this is almost a an area of of unique experience and expertise that you would need an expert in for your house. It’s the same thing when it comes to the lawn. I’m sure Elder Anderson knows the basics of lawn care. But this instance with these there were crickets or bugs or something like that that takes a little more expertise. And I wonder if that’s where we begin to realize that that’s where the profits can really be beneficial.
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And if we want to look at some of the things that are going on right now in the year, twenty, twenty, there’s a lot of things that none of us have experience. Unless you’re around 100 years old and you experienced the Spanish the Spanish flu of 1918, or unless you’re I don’t know, again, around one hundred years old and experienced the Great Depression, we’ve not gone through this recently. And that’s why I think it’s valuable to be listening to what the prophets say in this instance when it comes to.
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If I could be so bold when it comes to things like the way that they’re taking a cautious approach to reopening churches and things like that, and while I’ve disagreed with what some individuals have said regarding the reopening of certain things, Jenny, I know you know what I’m talking about.
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I think that what we can see from the slow opening of churches and the slow opening of temples is we’re trying to do this correctly. And I will defer to the leaders of the church when it comes to how we’re going to reopen things and how we’re going to re-engage, because this is an area of again, to go back to your example, I don’t I’m not an epidemiologist. I’m not an expert in this. I’d rather rely on someone who’s going to rely on a higher power than my quick 15 minutes of watching a YouTube video and reading a Facebook group and thinking that I know all the answers on things.
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Sure. Can I add one thing, Jon, with add one thing. So, yeah.
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That you know, I just looked this up really quickly, obviously.
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But, you know, often times prophets are called the watchmen on the tower. Interestingly enough, Nephi was on a tower right when he was when he was praying.
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And kind of begs the question, traditionally, we’re told when you pray, go into your closets.
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It’s kind of interesting. So the question in my mind is, did me if I want to be heard of others, right. Because if this was right next to the main thoroughfare, which it was.
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But anyway, back to prophets, the watchmen on the tower protecting us from spiritual dangers we may not see.
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So again, just like the mole cricket was something he he didn’t live in Florida that long.
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His friend had. Right. His friend had lived there for multiple years. He had the expertise. He knew what was happening.
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Prophets are watchmen on the tower.
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They see things we cannot write. They have communication that we don’t have. And because of that, they are able to see and help guide us through things.
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So I think Watchmen on the Tower is a great analogy that is used to talk about prophets.
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Can I make a left turn here? OK, so I read verse seven and verse seven really stood out to me, so verse seven in chapter. In Chapter seven of Hilman, is is Nephi lamenting and he says, oh, that I could have my days in the days when my father, Nephi, first came out the land of Jerusalem, that I could have joined with him in the promised land, that there were his people easy to be entreated, firm to keep the commandments of God and slow to be led to iniquity.
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And they were quick to Harkonnen to the words of the Lord. If my days could have been in those days, then would my soul have joy in the righteousness of my brother and the behold I’m consigned. These are my days, and that my soul should be filled with sorrow because of the wickedness of my brethren. And here’s where I want to take the left turn. I understand where he’s going with that, but I don’t think if Nephi really understands what it was like during that time and we’re seeing also an interesting human side of him, I think this is a human side of all of us to look back on on times past and say, oh, it was probably so much better then, aside from the fact that his brothers almost killed him and there was continual fighting between the army fights in the laminitis once they finally separated.
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And who knows what else, all the the difficulties of starting a new civilization in a new world.
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But that was interesting to me as well, because I think sometimes we fall into that. We fall into that in so many different ways. Oh, you know what? It would have been so much easier if we lived back in the nineteen fifties with the white picket fences and the mom that stayed at home and the dad that went to work. Aside from the fact that things like domestic violence ran rampant and that racism was still very truly a big part of things and that sexism happened a ton, all these different things there, it’s not always that things back then were better.
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And I think it’s interesting to see Nivi going through that, because I think we all have that feeling.
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We all go through that. It’s it’s natural. It’s a human instinct for us to feel that way. I notice that as my kids have gotten older and this is the silly a silly aside.
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Tried to introduce my children, Jenny, to a Saturday morning cartoons that you and I grew up with and I talked a little bit about nostalgia on the show, the thing with Mr. Alja is nostalgia is one heck of a drug because you think it’s great until you actually go back there and you realize it’s not that great. And I say that because I’ve tried to reintroduce them things like the original Muppet Babies cartoon show. Do you know that that cartoon show quality wise, it just wasn’t very good and shows in the 1980s and 90s that we grew up with while we were watching Saturday morning cartoons.
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The quality is not that good, but that’s what we want to do. We want to go back because that’s when we were younger. That’s when we think that things were better and we hear the great stories, but we don’t always sit through and think through that. The reason I bring all that up is I know that a lot of us have a tendency to do it now, especially in turbulent times. And I’m glad it’s in here because it gives us something to talk about.
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But I always appreciated someone like President Hinckley, who was always quick to acknowledge that we live in a very good time now that we have so many opportunities. And you can look at some metrics of the world. Slavery, slavery is down. It’s at the lowest point ever in human history. The fact that we have access to things like running water, Gennie, something I know that you’ve been heavily involved with, running water is available more in more places, in more parts of the world than ever.
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And that is such a huge component, vaccines and the ability to be inoculated from from disease. We live in a good time. And yes, while there were some things back then that were better, for example, I think it’s awesome that that 20 or 30 years ago, people could let their kids just go and run and not have to worry about always something going to happen to them. But you know what?
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I’ve also noticed with my kids, I’ve noticed that my kids are so much more accepting of all types of of different people, which wouldn’t have happened 20 or 30 years ago, because if you were different, you either didn’t go out that much or you were sometimes shunned and ostracized. So there’s good things about the time that we live in. And that’s why I’ve always appreciated people like President Hinckley who wanted to make sure that we remembered and understood that we live in a good time.
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There were things that were good and bad about the past and things that are good and bad about the present. And I’m not one that’s going to sit here and want to say, well, it was better now than it was then or it was better then than it is. It just is.
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Yeah, no, you’re right. And and the like you said that think we want us to remember which ties into Nephi saying how could you have forgotten your God. Remembering is important. We read the word remember so often in the scriptures.
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I want to go back really quickly to what how that story of Elder Nelson and his lawn and the more crickets like like you said, Brent, you know, he’s not a dummy.
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He knew how to care for a lawn.
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But it’s again, it’s that expertise of where you are. His neighbor probably had more experience with a Florida law. And it reminds me of the book The Poisonwood Bible, where the family travels to Africa and and the father can’t understand why his crops aren’t growing until he finally realizes it’s the lack of bees. Like that’s you know, the just the climate is is different. And and at the end of what Elder Anderson said in his talk back in ninety nine, he said, Let us always be listening and learning in humility and faith.
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Anxious to repent, should it be necessary, but but the the listening and learning in humility and in faith, I of course, yesterday we all got yesterday or the day before Friday, we got the news about Chadwick Boseman. Is that how you say his name? The actor who portrayed Black Panther, he passed away. He’s 43. He was forty three years old. I’m forty three. It’s that scary for me to to think about.
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And he passed away from colon cancer. And that isn’t something that he made part of his public narrative.
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It took everyone by surprise.
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One part of the conversation, of course, yesterday, though, that I saw online that was very interesting, brought attention to the fact that he was some people were were criticizing him publicly over the past couple of years because he was losing weight.
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And and just being critical of that, and now, of course, we know it was because he was very, very ill.
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As a matter of fact, I remember seeing one of the pictures that compared the what he looked like as as Black Panther and then one of his most recent Instagram pictures. And some people were making jokes that he looked like, in their words, it looked like Black Panther versus Crack Panther. And I hope those jokes now realize. Yeah, there you go, Johns bringing it up here. The picture there on the left. I hope those that were making jokes now realized he was probably suffering a lot with colon cancer at that point.
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Yes.
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And that’s that’s what I wanted to bring up and relate it to this lesson, which is just the idea that we I think we should we should try to get away from the idea that we need to have all the answers and all the information before showing compassion, because how easy would it have been for him to say, oh, well, I have cancer, that that’s why I’m losing weight.
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Newsflash, I have cancer. And I’m not saying that would be easy.
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I’m saying that that would be an answer. It would be an explanation. And we don’t always need to know in order to move. And I tie that in with what Elder Anderson said.
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Let us always be listening and learning in humility and faith, meaning Nephi is praying for the people. MiFi is pleading with the people to repent, to change their ways.
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He’s even saying you are on this path and the consequences are this and their dire pleas. Repent, accept, you repent.
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This is what lies ahead of you and being people who now we hear warnings from prophets, we hear guidance from them. And how often do we find ourselves in a position to say, OK, but why? I know that I do.
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I know that there’s a lot of times when I hear something, when I hear counsel or a policy change or something being put into place, and I’m like, I don’t understand why.
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And sometimes it’s because I just don’t have the experience. But I can choose to listen and learn and go forward in faith and humility. And sometimes, yeah, I mean, there are lots of different reasons. I want to there’s some people who have been really generous. We’ve got a second to get this one. Genesis, before I want to address some comments exactly we were talking about before. I think we have to understand that when prophets and apostles speak, sometimes they speak to the church as a whole and sometimes they may speak to us personally.
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Either way, we have been given the agency and intelligence to know for ourselves by asking God for confirmation. And that’s absolutely true. I would remind us all that, for instance, after President Johnson passed away and President Nelson was the same as Prophet, one thing we were explicitly invited to do was to pray, to know for ourselves. It’s important that we know for ourselves. It’s important that we have those testimonies of ourselves or for ourselves, rather.
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Brenda also shared something that gets to what you were talking about. She says, my mom is eighty eight. Her parents went through the Spanish flu. She lived through the Great Depression as a child. As a result, she raised my brother and I as if we had lived through those things as well. This is what prophets do for us. They teach us how to live through and overcome things we would likely never have had personal experience to draw and learn from.
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They are our shortcut to that wisdom. That’s a great problem. It really is. And then the same here. Chris brings up a great point, there’s a lot going on in the world, and I’m grateful for the technology, we have to continue to hear from our leaders, especially our profit. I’ve been able to return to church since July, but only every other week. So things like this podcast are truly blessed. And thank you for saying that, Chris.
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I and and when you were talking about the kind of it’s it we can tend to kind of almost feel sorry for ourselves and say, oh, well, if I only had only lived in the good old days not realizing the struggles that they went through before. I mean, if you think about the pandemic, the Spanish flu and the people passing away in 1918 and the lack of widespread communication, they had to even share the information needed for mass health care affected that the number of deaths and illnesses for sure.
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And that is something where nowadays technology, we always say it’s a blessing and a curse, but it really has helped a lot because it has helped people like Chris mentioned, hopefully not feel so isolated. In addition to that, the sharing of information. Yeah, absolutely.
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Especially for for a lot of us to be able to to be to have access to the information, to see where spreads are happening, where outbreaks are happening. I mean, that’s vital. And I think the reason why it gets me a little feisty is because then I hear some people that are complaining about everything going on just because, frankly, they’re bored. And it just it bothers me a little bit. But at the same time, that’s where, yeah, we need to look at things.
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The fact that we were still able to do general conference, we were able to do everything remotely. The fact that a lot of our local wards and congregations have been able to do virtual devotional or sacrament type meetings, services to still maintain that level of worship. That’s where we are incredibly blessed. And just how how would things be different if this were to happen back in 1984 when I was born to to say, yeah, you don’t have any of this.
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Maybe we can maybe we can get access to a local radio station to maybe get some of our content out there, do a local church service, but it probably wouldn’t have happened. And so we do live in a great time and we need to acknowledge there’s good, there’s bad, just like there was good and there’s bad. When I was a young child back and back in the late eighties, back when John was a young child in the late in the early 1950s and back in the back in the 1920s when we were younger.
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Yeah, yeah. It’s true. It can be easy to just to look at any other time or even place. I mean, it’s a version of the grass always being greener. Right. And I think to me that he he went through this lament. But I think the thing that also stands out to me because I’ve been I was reading that and it hit me like, man, we hear that a lot. I think the thing that was different about it was he had that happen and it just happened in one paragraph.
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And then he went out and he did something about it. It was almost like, look, you can let you can let yourself have these feelings, but don’t just sit there and ruminate in your feelings. And that’s why I keep going back to this idea of nostalgia being almost like a drug, because you want to just stay in this world and not look at the world around you. And for him, she did something. She went up to his tower and began to pray.
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And the more I think about it, John, I think you might be right. He might have been doing that for a specific reason to say, I’m going to I’m going to create a scene and I want people to ask me what I’m doing to give me the opportunity to tell them, guys, look at what’s going on here, all that stuff that Jenny right.
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That’s the stuff that he said to the multitudes that were gathering around him, because what’s he doing up there in the in the tower room just to see what’s going on? And so it’s interesting to me that he did something about it instead of just sitting and stewing about it’s not what I thought it was going to be.
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Well, and I mean, I kind of liken it a little bit to being a parent. I mean, there are things that, you know, as parents, we do kind of behind the scenes, of course, we set things up for our children to succeed. We we pray for them. We counsel with them. We counsel them and get right. And so sometimes I mean, just the other night, John and I had to sit down, sat a couple of our kids down and just basically have a come to Jesus and about about something.
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And and it was a good opportunity for us not only to to speak and be honest and vulnerable with our kids about our I’m sorry, not not only to to listen to to their side of things, but also to to be honest and vulnerable to them. And I got a little emotional with them. I’m like, you guys, I need you to know that this aspect for me as a mom is hard that I can see further down the road.
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If these things keep happening, things aren’t going to be as great for you as individuals and for us. The family, and it was it was a difficult thing to say, but I know that I said it in love to them and I needed us all to kind of be on the same page. And, of course, like I said, their hours of prayer behind the scenes they don’t even know about.
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But yeah, so we actually are at about almost an hour.
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I want to obviously there’s so much those those chapters seven through 11. Those are really great. Great chapters to learn about the roles of a prophet, and we were able to cover some of those. And I just I want to emphasize again the importance of of always being willing to learn and lesson in humility, but I’d really be willing to take a look at ourselves and our situations and also in faith.
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And, you know, right now is the last Sunday in August. We’ve got about a month before general conference. Maybe it’s maybe it’s a good time to consider getting into that mode of of listening, of of asking, you know, like we talk about like Lord is that I as you know, what can I do? How does this how does this message affect me? What can I do? And to and to act in faith, understanding that we’re not always going to understand every single.
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Every single aspect of it, like we’re talking about with with Chadwicks passing, we don’t we don’t need to have all the answers to it. In that case, it was we don’t need to have all the answers to express compassion or kindness. And in this case, it’s we don’t have to have all the answers to act in in faith. And any other kind of I want to tell you things from you, Johnnyswim, you grant, I’ll say this and then I’ll I’ll turn it over to John for the last word.
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I think that we are we’ve talked about it almost every week. We’ve done this. But this is really where things start escalating because we’ve we saw we didn’t even get into some of the political ramifications of what’s going on in the Book of Mormon. We’ve seen now the murder of a chief judge. The the Getty M10 Group is starting to pull strings behind the scenes. And folks, it gets it gets wilder from here on out. It gets much more severe and much more serious as John’s pulling up a picture of what’s getting out to group might look like is going to get a lot more perilous.
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And I would say that if you are someone who is interested in the political intrigue of what’s going to go on and really the machinations of how awful groups like this can infiltrate and begin to dictate how a society is going to run, we’re going to hit a very interesting point. And the amazing thing about the Book of Mormon, the Book of Mormon really is a tragedy. We hit some obvious, very high points, but those high points come at a very high cost.
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We’re going to hit the high point of Christ coming to the Americas, but that’s going to be when the neophyte civilization is basically on the road to destruction. And that even doesn’t mean that after he comes to America that things are going to be better. So I would just continue to to read this and to keep those things in mind. That is going to get a lot more serious. And we shouldn’t be we can find inspiration. But this is also a book that is it doesn’t have a good ending.
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Yeah, I think that’s that’s really good and sound counsel.
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The last thing that I’ll add and I thought these were a great group of chapters to read, but we’ve heard that the chapters leading up to the appearance of Christ in America portend things that will happen before a second coming.
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And so, as you see the analogous things that may be happening today, it’s, I think, a wake up call. I don’t want to sound alarmist, but we do believe we are the church in the latter days. And so as we think through that, yeah, consider the things that are happening now that may be parallel somewhat to some of the things that happened then. And if nothing else, it should help us have a desire to have a clear desire to want to be better.
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Right. To to, again, not sound alarmist, not sound to too worried or anything like that. But think about what we can do, how we can become better as we consider all of these things, because it does tie into I believe, like you said, Brent, governmental issues that are occurring and things that we see in our everyday life, which are again, very analogous to some things that we may see today.
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You know, when you’re married to somebody and you always finish each other’s sandwiches, which is shoot down.
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So, yeah, John just basically said what I was going to say, which is basically for the for this coming weeks study, which is human chapters 13 through 16, I believe.
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Yeah. That specifically, Samuel delaminate and his prophecies concerning the savior’s birth and crucifixion. And and I guess I just like to extend an invitation or at least the idea that that those things can parallel the things that we’re learning today preceding the savior.
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Second coming. And we don’t know how immediate, of course, that will be because none of us knows that. But it’s still going to happen in the future sometimes. So, yeah, that’s that’s what I want to say. And again, thanks to everyone who joined us who let us know where you’re watching from. We appreciate your insights and your input. Thank you again for being patient with us as we had this earlier meeting time. I think moving forward this time, I, I, I will put on the Facebook page sooner than 20 minutes before the lesson, how we’ll go moving forward.
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But we’d love to hear from you about how this time 9:00 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time works for you. And we will do the best that we can so that we can get all of you to to participate in a if not live and then a later time on the Sabbath or later during the week. That works for you or we’re just glad you’re here. So thanks, everyone, for joining us again. Next week’s lesson when we meet, it will be on Sunday, September 6th.
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The lesson is called Glad Tidings of Great Joy, and the chapters are human chapters 13 through 16. Thank you, Jandi, for all your hard work behind the scenes. You are essentially our producer and everything that you see on the screen there, everyone that that’s all John’s doing. And he puts a lot of time into it. And thanks, Brent, for joining us for the music selection and doing all that. And again, thanks, everyone, and we will see you next week.
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