Hank Smith: 00:00:00 Coming up in this episode on FollowHIM.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:00:02 I’ll give you an example, 1983 World Gymnastics Championships in Budapest, Hungary going into the horizontal bar finals I was in second place. I was ahead of all the Russian and Chinese gymnasts. There was one great gymnast from Japan ahead of me. I had a certain combination of skills that I developed that was my trademark at the time, that’s what got me into the finals. I made it successfully, and now I have a chance to become the world champion on the high bar.

Hank Smith: 00:00:31 Hello my friends. Welcome to another episode of FollowHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I am your host. I’m here with my co-host John Bytheway, who does not mind being my equal. He does this, not grudgingly. John, that is Doctrine & Covenants Section 70. The Lord says he wants the saints to be equal and this not grudgingly. That is you John. You don’t mind me being your equal.

John Bytheway: 00:00:58 I’m just happy to be here.

Hank Smith: 00:01:01 It’s pretty incredible to me. When I was 12 years old, I sat and listened to John Bytheway, at Youth Conference, and if you would have told me one day you’re going to do a podcast with that guy, I would have first asked what in the world is a podcast?

John Bytheway: 00:01:18 And I was only 13 at the time.

Hank Smith: 00:01:21 Yeah, yeah. 12 and 13. John, we are joined today by Brother Peter Vidmar, who needs no introduction. For those who don’t know, I am very nervous to have Brother Vidmar here. I know you’re not John, because you and he are friends.

John Bytheway: 00:01:36 We are. We sit together on the Young Men’s Advisory Council. They used to call it the Young Men’s General Board. Maybe it sounded too much like young men are generally board, so they changed it to the Young Men’s Advisory Council.

Hank Smith: 00:01:52 Welcome Brother Vidmar. Welcome to FollowHIM.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:01:55 It’s a thrill to be here. I feel sub-equal here with both of you. I still wonder, how did I get on this podcast? I listen to it and I watch it and I think I’m not a scholar. I don’t have that, that spiritual gray matter, but I’m going to do my best today. I’m thrilled to be with you and yes, John is a dear friend. I’ve admired him for many years. I just pinch myself that we get to serve together. It’s been an absolute joy.

Hank Smith: 00:02:21 Yeah. Well, when John and I talk about potential guests, your name is in lights for John. It’s just short of idolatry, I think. Alright, John, let’s continue in the Doctrine and Covenants here. We’re in Hirum, Ohio. The church is what, a little over a year and a half old. When you think this young church, brand new in Ohio, not even there a whole year, what comes to mind?

John Bytheway: 00:02:48 Some of these early missionary efforts come to mind, how that must have been. You might have some printed revelations. You might not, but you’re going to go out. I was talking with my family about this last night. People were hungering for this New Testament church when they heard about a restoration. Those missionaries were so excited to go out and tell people about it.

Hank Smith: 00:03:14 As we’ve looked at before, as those missionaries hit Kirtland, Hiram, Thompson, Ohio, the church blossoms with growth in Ohio and we move to Ohio. Brother Vidmar, Peter, as we’re looking at these three sections, what are you looking forward to?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:03:32 At the beginning in 67, the Lord talks about the prophet’s weaknesses. In verse four, he says, I the Lord give unto you a testimony of the truth. The Lord’s bearing testimony of the truth of this work. He says, which are lying before you. Your eyes have been upon my servant Joseph Smith Jr. and his language you’ve known and his imperfections you’ve known and you sought in your hearts knowledge that you might express beyond his language. This, you also know. He’s basically acknowledging. I know he’s not perfect. Isn’t that great? What a support for all of us. We all know of our imperfections. I know of my imperfections. Yet the Lord still allows us to serve him, allows us to do all we can in his church and in his gospel. Even with our weaknesses, maybe we can do some good. In my previous life as a gymnast, I mean, I was always overwhelmed with my inadequacies. That’s why I tried to get better was because I would do something and it wasn’t very good and I do it again, it wasn’t very good. I do it again, it wasn’t very good. Eventually, I started to get the hang of it. Pretty soon, those weaker things became stronger. That progression, I think is something that’s universal. It’s physical. It’s also spiritual. He’s teaching us that in Section 67.

Hank Smith: 00:04:49 Fantastic. John, there may be a handful of our listeners who don’t know who Peter Vidmar is. Maybe they’ve already Googled it. Now they know. But for those who don’t have the internet in front of them, give us a bio.

John Bytheway: 00:05:04 I have a short bio. It doesn’t do him justice. I may keep adding. Peter Glenn Vidmar. He served as a ward mission leader, public affairs specialist, early morning seminary teacher, Bishop, Stake presidency counselor, mission president in the Australia, Melbourne Mission. Did I say it right?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:05:23 You don’t pronounce the r’s. Melbourne.

John Bytheway: 00:05:25 Melbourne. Melbourne Mission. He’s volunteered at a number of sports community organizations. Received a bachelor of arts degree from UCLA in economics. He also had an internationally competitive career in gymnastics. Okay. That’s an understatement. After I finish the bio, I’m going to come back to that. He became a professional speaker at corporate meetings and events. He was born in Los Angeles to John Redd Vidmar and Doris Marilyn Neely Vidmar. He and his wife Donna, who is awesome, have five children, nine grandchildren. They live in Heber area.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:05:58 As of last week. 10 grandchildren now. Yeah. Little Romy Vidmar was born. Yep.

John Bytheway: 00:06:04 So cool. Here’s what I remember because I got home from my mission in late 83. In 84 I’m watching the Summer Olympics. People are saying that guy’s a Latter-day Saint. That guy’s a Latter-day Saint. We’re watching Peter Vidmar win a gold medal, and a team for the gymnastics team. A silver in the all around and a gold on the pommel horse. Maybe people can YouTube some of these and watch. Peter, can you tell us what score you got on the pommel horse there?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:06:36 Li Ning, who was the great gymnast from China, he and I were tied for first place going into the finals on the pommel horse. Back in those days, the scores carried over. Your previous score was added to the final score. Nowadays, it’s one shot. You go out there and whoever wins that one performance wins the gold medal. Here was an accumulation of your compulsory score, your optional score, and then your final score. I was tied with Li Ning and he went up before me and he scored a perfect 10. I’m pretty good at math, so I knew that to tie in for the gold medal, I had to score a perfect 10. I was fortunate that I did.

Hank Smith: 00:07:12 What a moment.

John Bytheway: 00:07:13 I’ve seen the video. Peter is surprised when he sees the 10 in lights there, but it is such a cool moment. Hank, we talk about this. How long is a routine on a pommel horse? How many seconds is that?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:07:27 I dunno. 30 seconds.

John Bytheway: 00:07:29 30 seconds. How many years of preparation? How many hours, years of workouts for that 30 seconds. You know?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:07:37 Malcolm Gladwell in his book, the Tipping Point, talks about the 10,000 hours that that’s how long it takes to become world class or something. I did my math when it was all over, and I think for me it was about 20,000 hours in the gym.

John Bytheway: 00:07:50 How cool is that?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:07:52 It is what it is. I’m no different than any other athlete that’s trying to make it. You just gotta put in the time. There’s no magic formula.

John Bytheway: 00:07:59 Peter, when you were a mission leader, did missionaries ever ask you to, you know, do a routine or do a handstand or something ?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:08:07 Well, I’m dressed as a mission president every day, so I’m in a suit. I actually performed on the pommel horse for audiences up until age 52. I tried to stay in shape on it. Then I realized that eventually I’m going to start falling off the pommel horse in front of audiences and they’re going to say, now there’s an old guy clinging to his past. I decided just to stop on the mission. When I arrived, I had a Elder Meniere, a wonderful Elder. I think he’s from Perth. Everybody’s bigger than me, but he was bigger than me. He looks at me and says, President, I heard you were a gymnast. I said, yeah, I was a gymnast. Well, can you do a handstand? And I said, of course I can do a handstand. He said, you want to have a contest? This was the mission leader council. He’s one of the zone leaders. And I said, yeah, I’ll have a contest. Well, when? I said, right now. Really? Yeah. Right now, and he said, okay. So he takes his coat off, I take my coat off, and then they’ll do Stanton Weiser from Ogden, Utah walks up, hey, can I do it too? I look at him, he wasn’t a big kid. He was a little guy like me, looked pretty fit. I eyed him up and said, yeah, you can do that. Yeah.

  00:09:14 Now we kick up to a handstand. Elder Meniere will admit he didn’t last very long. He falls down. Then all I hear as I’m holding the handstand is, come on, Elder Weiser. Come on, Elder Weiser. I said, is he still up? He’s still up President. Wow. Now, I hadn’t trained for this. Okay. I hadn’t been doing handstands as mission prep. I can do a handstand, but now I’m getting tired. I keep hearing, come on, Elder Weiser. I’m wondering why they’re not cheering for me. But yeah, why are they finally Elder Weiser falls down. Now, of course, I’m still up there, but I probably had 10 seconds left in me if that.

Hank Smith: 00:09:51 Wow.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:09:52 But I acted like I had 10 minutes left in me when I got down. But I’m thinking to myself, man, I’m going to be so sore tomorrow because that was everything I had. Elder Weiser. Bless his heart, we would have a challenge at every zone conference after that, he beat me every time.

John Bytheway: 00:10:08 Wow. Really?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:10:09 I started training. I would get up in the morning, I’d do my little morning run off, and then I would do a series of handstands. Hold it for a minute, rest for a minute. Hold it for… thinking he’s not going to beat me this time, and he’d beat me. I hated that but he’s such a great young man that I thought, all right. All right. It was a fun little tradition at the Zone Conferences anybody that wanted to have a handstand contest with President Vidmar.

Hank Smith: 00:10:29 Oh, that’s great.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:10:31 Because that’s the only thing I could beat them at. They’re all big rugby players, a lot of them. I’m not going to challenge them to rugby, that’s for sure.

Hank Smith: 00:10:39 It reminds me a little bit of, John, have you ever heard the Wilford Woodruff story where he wrote in his journal. He said, today was a hard day. I got out shucked by my grandson, shucking corn. He’s 90 shucking the corn. Well, let’s get underway here. I’ll read from the Come, Follow Me manual then, Peter, let’s see where you’re going to take us. This is how it starts. From 1828 to 1831, the prophet Joseph Smith received many revelations from the Lord, including divine counsel for individuals, instructions on governing the church, visions of the latter days and many inspiring truths of eternity. But many of the saints hadn’t read them. The revelations weren’t yet published, and the few available copies were handwritten on loose sheets that were circulated among members and carried around by missionaries. Then in November, 1831, Joseph called the Council of Church Leaders to discuss publishing the revelations.

  00:11:34 After seeking the Lord’s will, these leaders made plans to publish the Book of Commandments, the precursor to today’s Doctrine and Covenants. Soon everyone would be able to read for themselves the word of God revealed through a living prophet. Vivid evidence that the keys of the mysteries of the kingdom of our Savior are again entrusted to man. For these and many other reasons, saints then and now consider these revelations to be worth the riches of the whole Earth. John, isn’t this where section one comes into play that we talked about in the beginning of the year?

John Bytheway: 00:12:08 Yeah. Right around this area, because they were thinking, if we’re going to publish this, let’s write a preface. They make a few attempts and they’re just not good. Boy. Joseph, doesn’t he walk over to the window, starts dictating section one, which is awesome. Mind blowing. Go back and read it sometime. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:12:27 Wow. Peter, what do you want to do from here?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:12:30 In that preface, as you talked about some of the people going out with copies and pages to teach and preach the gospel, imagine the enthusiasm they had that that’s all they had, but they still wanted to take it with them and go share it with others. Something that we could learn in terms of missionary zeal. If I could go back a little bit, talk about my personal family history. I mentioned this to John a while ago in that my great-great-grandfather, Solomon Chamberlain, was baptized by the prophet Joseph in Seneca Lake. He wrote a little autobiography. He talked about when he was growing up that he didn’t feel like he lived a good life. He’d been praying for forgiveness when he was about 19 years old. He said like Enos of old, I felt like my sins were forgiven because I’d prayed so earnestly to be forgiven.

  00:13:17 He said that. Then he had a vision of three heavens and their glories. These are his own words, and the third one far exceeded the others, and then he went from church to church sharing what he thought was the truth that he’d been given to much disdain, of course, and ridicule. But he also said that he received a vision and impression that the Lord would soon, in his words, he said this, raise up a church. That would be after the apostolic order, that there would be in it the same powers and gifts that were in the days of Christ and that I should live to see the day. Get this, and there would a book come forth like unto the Bible and the people would be guided by it as well as the Bible. Then he says the next sentence in his biography, this was the year 1816.

Hank Smith: 00:14:06 Wow.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:14:07 This was four years before the first vision. I’ll just share one paragraph, then we’ll move on, but he said about that time that Joseph Smith found the gold record, I began to feel that the time was drawing near that the Lord would in some shape or other bring forth his church. I made some inquiry through the country where I traveled. If there was any strange work of God, such as had not been on the earth since the days of Christ, I could hear of none. I was living about 20 miles east of where the gold record was found on the Erie Canal. I had occasion to go on a visit into Upper Canada. I took boat for Lockport. Then the boat came to Palmyra. I felt as if some good spirit told me to leave the boat. This was a few miles from where the record was found.

  00:14:53 After leaving the boat, the Spirit manifested to me to travel a south course. I did so for about three miles. I had not as yet heard of the gold Bible so-called, because that’s what some people called it, I guess in that area, the Book of Mormon, nor any of the Joseph Smith family. I was a stranger in that part of the country, a town where I never before had set foot and knew no one in the town. The next day, he ended up essentially feeling to move in a certain direction and knocked on the door of Hyrum Smith and he met Hyrum. That’s when Hyrum shared with him the story of the words of the Book of Mormon, what they knew. But he shared his experiences with Hyrum. He says, who told you this? And he said that the Lord told me these things a number of years ago.

  00:15:39 If you are a visionary house, I wish you would make known some of your discoveries for I think I can bear them. That was his introduction then to the restored gospel. But he said that after I’d been here two days, I went with Hyrum and some others to Palmyra Printing office where they began to print the Book of Mormon, and as soon as they had printed 64 pages, I took them with their leave and pursued my journey to Canada, and I preached all that I knew to all, both high and low, rich and poor, and thus, you see, this was the first that printed Mormonism was preached in this area. That was his experience with the restored gospel. He went through other challenges and trials. He lost his first wife in Winter Quarters. He said essentially, all the happiness in my life had vanished when that occurred, but he stayed faithful. He crossed the plains. Ended up, of course here, those are my gospel and church roots. I revere the sacrifice that Solomon Chamberlain made for what he knew to be true. As you mentioned in the preface that people are just taking pages with them to go share this message before it was even completed, and you see then that inspiration and that impetus for Joseph to say, let’s put all of these revelations together into a book that we can share.

Hank Smith: 00:16:53 Wow. John, I don’t know if our listeners know how rare it is to have family that goes that far back in the history of the church.

John Bytheway: 00:17:03 He has these visions. When Joseph Smith is 11.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:17:08 Yeah. It’s prior to 1816, 4 years before the first vision.

John Bytheway: 00:17:12 He’s being told, Hey, hang on. It’s coming.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:17:15 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:17:17 Goes to Hyrum Smith’s door. Wow, so good. So, it’s Solomon Chamberlain, his name.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:17:25 Yeah, Solomon Chamberlain. You could do your research in church history. There’s a little vignettes about him. His history is published.

Hank Smith: 00:17:33 He is early. Early in the restoration.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:17:36 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:17:36 Pre restoration

John Bytheway: 00:17:38 Pre Restoration.

Hank Smith: 00:17:39 Yeah. That is fantastic. Wow.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:17:41 We don’t know if he was present at the organization of the church in the room, but we’d like to say that he was there.

Hank Smith: 00:17:48 Yeah, Seneca Lake. That’s where the first baptisms were. Why don’t we jump into section 67 together, start pointing out things we want to talk about. This sounds great.

John Bytheway: 00:18:00 I was sitting here looking at verse one thinking I should send this to my son in Uruguay. Listen what the Lord says. Behold and hearken O ye elders of my church who have assembled yourselves together, whose prayers I have heard, whose hearts I know, whose desires have come up before me. Behold and lo mine eyes are upon you.

Hank Smith: 00:18:20 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:18:21 Suddenly these verses you say, listen, apply this right now. The Lord, he’s ga you. He’s watching you. Peter, I’m sure you’ve got so many stories about your missionaries and their families.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:18:32 I had so many missionaries so many times as I would meet with them, I wanted to take my badge off, hand it to them and say, why don’t you run the mission? because there was such a spiritual depth to them. Many of them had endured tremendous hardships just to be a member of the church. Some whose families completely disowned them. Here they were on a mission. Soon after their conversion, you had missionaries from other parts of the world where the church is not officially recognized. Well, the church is recognized in China, for example, and we do have congregations there, but I had a number of missionaries from mainland China that served in Australia. Fantastic missionaries, every one of them. I loved that time to serve with them, and you had missionaries from Taiwan, missionaries from North America, all in the Chinese program, all working together to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, but many of them gave up quite a bit. You cannot do any even shallow dive into church history without finding unbelievable sacrifice. But that goes on today. That still happens today throughout the world. I saw that firsthand with so many of my missionaries and they inspired me. They made me a better person because of their faith. Hank, could you read verse five?

Hank Smith: 00:19:48 Absolutely. This is one we both love huh John. Your eyes have been upon my servant Joseph Smith Jr. His language you have known. His imperfections you have known and you have sought in your heart’s knowledge that you might express beyond his language. This you also know. They don’t like how he’s talking. They’re like, ah, I could probably do a better job than Joseph.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:20:12 Emma said so many times that he did not communicate well. These educated church leaders thought, maybe we can clean this up a bit. Maybe we can make it better.

Hank Smith: 00:20:23 Phelps, Cowdery, McClellan. Sure. I’m more educated. Sure.

John Bytheway: 00:20:28 In the timeline this is about, thank you for bringing that up, Hank, when they were, yeah, let’s write what it turns out to be section one, the sections are not chronological.

Hank Smith: 00:20:38 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:20:38 In the Doctrine and Covenants, mostly they are, but one comes at about this time. Do you know what I love about verse five? What’s the theme for the youth for this year?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:20:50 Doubt not, fear not.

John Bytheway: 00:20:52 Look unto me. Doubt not. Fear not. What I love about this, it reminds me also of section 19 verse, learn of me. Listen to my words. Walk in the meekness of my Spirit. This verse five sounds a little bit like brethren you’re looking at the wrong thing. We’re supposed to look to Christ. When I think of the story of Peter walking on water, how Elder Holland said, while his eyes were fixed upon the Lord, the wind could toss his hair. The spray could drench his robes all was well, he was coming to Christ. It was only when Peter removed his glance from the Savior to look at the furious waves beneath. Look what the Lord’s saying here, you guys, you’re looking at Joseph and his imperfections you’ve known and his language you have known. Then skip ahead to verse nine, but look at the revelations. There is no imperfection in them. There’s no unrighteousness in them. Most of the critics of the church, where do they mostly focus?

Hank Smith: 00:21:49 Yeah. Let’s attack Joseph, his character.

John Bytheway: 00:21:51 Let’s attack Joseph. His weaknesses.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:21:54 Here, the Lord is pointing out the prophet’s imperfections. He’s not a perfect man. But he’s the prophet, he’s supposed to be perfect. That should give you, and I hope because with all of my imperfections that many are aware of, many aren’t aware of, I know my weaknesses. Yet the Lord still allows us to serve him, allows us to do good things to serve in the church and in callings and in the gospel, warts and all that. We still have a chance to try to make a difference and the Lord knows that we don’t measure up to the Savior’s perfect standard. He’s saying, look, even my servant Joseph had little imperfections. It’s okay. Where’s your heart? Keep serving. Don’t pay attention to those things. We know where Joseph’s heart is.

John Bytheway: 00:22:43 And look unto me, look unto Christ. That’s where you should be looking.

Hank Smith: 00:22:48 Exactly. That verse five, your eyes have been upon Joseph. That could be 2025. Joseph Smith is I think, more attacked than ever on a daily basis. I think the Lord would say, look over here. Look to me. Why are you looking at him? Yes, he has imperfections. Yes. His language isn’t perfect. Mine is. I have no imperfections. Look here.

John Bytheway: 00:23:14 We had our stake presidency reorganized. Elder Patrick Kearon came and after we sustained our new stake president, he said, now don’t put him under a microscope. He can’t take that. Neither could you. If his kids do something that makes you raise your eyebrows, put them back down. He was so delightful. Our eyes are supposed to be fixed on Christ. I love how the Lord says, don’t look in the wrong place. Look at the revelations. Look at me. Look at me. Yep.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:23:48 Let’s take a look at verse 10. He says, and again verily I say unto you that it is your privilege and a promise I give unto you that have been ordained unto this ministry. That inasmuch as you strip yourselves from jealousies and fears and humble yourselves before me, for you are not sufficiently humble. The veil shall be rent and you shall see me and know that I am not with the carnal, neither natural mind, but with the spiritual. I wonder if that’s not also a message for us today because social media is filled with jealousies, fear and envy. We only see everyone’s best day, their best experience. We only see their best part of their life. They create an impression that’s not real. That life is always like this. What do we get from that? Sometimes our youth especially will say, well, my life doesn’t look like that. They wish their life was different. They’re envious. They’re jealous of what they see, but they’re not really seeing the bigger picture. Heavenly Father and the Savior is telling us, Hey, forget about those things. Don’t have fear. Don’t be jealous. Be humble. Blessings will come.

Hank Smith: 00:25:03 I have a question for you, Peter, because of your athletic background, that’s very difficult to do as an athlete. Strip yourself from jealousy.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:25:13 Oh yeah. It was there. I really, really wanted to be good and I trained hard. Half of the United States Olympic team came from my gymnasium. Three of the six members of the team came from UCLA. They’re dear friends of mine, Tim Daggett and Mitch Gaylord. My standard, what I was shooting for was across the gym from me. When I’d see someone do something amazing, I think, oh wow, that was amazing. I can’t do that and it was great because it motivated me, made me want to work harder,

Hank Smith: 00:25:42 Right right.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:25:43 But then they’d have success. Maybe I’d fall off the pommel horse or fall off the high bar at the next competition and ugh, made me want to try harder. It’s amazing how I evolved from trying to compare myself with them knowing full well that they had strengths that I could not ever match up to. I had strengths that maybe stood out that maybe they couldn’t do as well. Once I realized, wait a second, I’ve got to be the best that I can be. My job is to try to do perfect gymnastics, perfect what I’m trying to focus on. Then what happens is you start to go from envying your teammate to celebrating your teammate’s success. Those little petty jealousies that weren’t real and natural. We’re in our twenties, we’re 20-year-old kids. We’re trying to all make it to the same level. To reach my goal I’ve got to defeat my best friend, so I won the gold in pommel horse and Tim Daggett, who I was just talking to yesterday, won the bronze medal on the pommel horse.

  00:26:47 He wanted to win the gold. I know that, but it didn’t take away from our friendship. As time evolved as a team, by the time we got to the Olympic Games, we really were together. We were a team. We desperately wanted our teammates to have great success and do well because we kinda had a little chat before the Olympic games and said, if we can all hit our routines, if we could win this team gold medal for the rest of our lives, every one of us can say, I’m an Olympic champion. Instead of saying, well, I was on a team in which we had a champion here and a champion there because they put a gold medal on every team member’s neck. We got up on the victory stand, each one of us got a gold medal. All six of us can say I’m an Olympic gold medalist. That team victory was far more important than what followed the individual accomplishments. After that, we realized that. We realized that fortunately before the games began, and we really pulled together and it was a magical moment for us. But no, those feelings, those are real, but we have to not compare ourselves with others.

Hank Smith: 00:27:48 John, having known you for many, many years now, you are one of the most humble people ever. How do you not get jealous? You just don’t. You don’t get jealous. John, I know you. You love to see other people succeed.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:28:03 Hank, I’ll back you up a hundred percent on that. I’ve always admired that most about John because I look up to him so much. He’s just, yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:28:13 Okay, new topic now. This is awesome. This goes with this. Alma’s getting home from his mission. He could have looked at the four sons of Mosiah and went, wow, you guys did a lot better than I did. I’m in Alma 29:14. I do not joy in my own success alone. I’m thinking of you, Peter, looking at your teammates, but my joy is more full because of the success of my brethren. He says, when I think of the success of these, my brethren, he’s like almost has an out of body experience. He’s so happy for them. When the Book of Mormon people are always … falling down, they’re out for a few days. That model of being happy for the success of others is I guess what we all aspire to. But I love Peter that you could share that and that you could say we were in this together and felt that friendship. I watched lots of sporting events and I see in, particularly in gymnastics, watch the competitors cheer for each other. It’s pretty cool to see that.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:29:21 Remember that while I’m competing with my teammate, I am simultaneously competing against him for the individual honors. You genuinely want them to do well. It showed also in the gymnastics training environment because I’m going to give Tim advice. He’s going to give me advice saying, Peter, why don’t you try doing it this way or that way that advice he’s giving me might be exactly what I needed to defeat him in the competition. I would do the same for him.

John Bytheway: 00:29:49 Incredible.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:29:50 That’s something that we were able to push aside and really pull together for the betterment of the team. Not easy to do in my sport.

Hank Smith: 00:29:58 I’m sure both of you will remember April 2012, Elder Holland gave this talk on the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. How some of these laborers get really jealous of what happens. They look sideways. I’m going to read just three paragraphs. I wish I could read the whole thing. He summarizes the parable and then he says, it is with that reading of the story that I feel the grumbling of the first laborers must be seen as the householder in the parable tells them, I paraphrase only slightly, my friends, I’m not being unfair to you. You agreed to the wage for the day, a good wage. You were very happy to get the work and I’m very happy with the way you served. You are paid in full. Take your pay and enjoy the blessing. As for the others, surely I am free to do what I like with my own money.

  00:30:48 Then this piercing question to anyone who needs to hear it, why are you jealous? because God is kind. Brothers and sisters, there are going to be times in our lives when someone else gets an unexpected blessing or receives some special recognition. May I plead with us not to be hurt and certainly not to feel envious when good fortune comes to another person. We are not diminished when someone else is added upon. We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed. The race we are really in is the race against sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those, and then this made me laugh. Envy is the mistake that keeps on giving. Obviously, we suffer a little when some misfortune befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know. What a bright prospect that is. Downing another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment. To say nothing of the chagrin in the end when we find that God really is both just and merciful, giving to all who stand with him all that he has, as the scripture says. Lesson number one from the Lord’s vineyard, coveting, pouting or tearing others down does not elevate your standing, nor does demeaning someone else improve your self-image. So be kind and be grateful that God is kind. It’s a happy way to live.

John Bytheway: 00:32:23 Do you know what it reminds me of? The quick Stephen Covey analogy of the scarcity mentality says, if life is a pizza and you take a big piece, then there’s less pizza for me. But the abundance mentality says life is a pizza factory. If you’re successful, I can be so happy because there’s infinite pizza out there. What the Book of Mormon described, what you just read is kind of an abundance mentality where we can say, good for you and mean that good for you. I’m so happy for you. You’ve shown us that Peter and your example of your teammates.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:32:58 And the nice thing is that the plan of happiness is not at all like a sport. There isn’t one champion. There isn’t one victor. We all can receive the greatest of all blessings if we simply follow the plan. It’s available to every single one of us. We all have different abilities. We’re all lacking in certain qualities and abilities, and the Lord understands all of it. In verse two, behold and lo, my eyes are upon you. I know you. I know what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, and I’ll work with you. We’re going to be okay if we do our best to follow the plan. I love how Elder Kearon in his last few addresses as the newest apostle, talks about this incredible joyful plan, a plan of joy. Heavenly father wants us to be happy. That’s all he seeks is our happiness. Sometimes I mess it up with my own misconceptions.

John Bytheway: 00:33:55 I have one more athlete question. Okay. I’m not going to hold myself to that. I might have more. In verse 14. Look at this quick statement. Let not your minds turn back. I have a note in my margin don’t dwell on the past. When I think of any athlete, even golf, you’ve got a couple of bogies behind you. How do you not think about the past, Peter, when you get up there? Performance anxiety has always fascinated me how Richie Saunders can get up there and hit a couple of free throws when the pressure is unbelievable. How do you do that? Not look back and say, oh, I’ve messed this up before.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:34:37 Well, I’ll give you an example. 1983 World Gymnastics Championships in Budapest, Hungary going into the horizontal bar finals. I was in second place. I was ahead of all the Russian and Chinese gymnasts. There was one great gymnast from Japan ahead of me. I had a certain combination of skills that I developed that was my trademark at the time. That’s what got me into the finals. I made it successfully and now I have a chance to become the world champion on the high bar. In the warmups, before the competition began, I was having trouble with that combination of skills. I started to panic and I thought, what am I going to do? My coach is trying to help me and I didn’t feel great about it. I decided to go for it anyways. This was my chance, maybe my only chance to be a world champion at anything.

  00:35:20 The gymnast that was in first place blew it, made a mistake. All I have to do now is make my routine successfully. I’ll become the world horizontal bar champion. I made the first skill and then the second skill, I’m coming around to catch the bar. The bar was not there. I dropped about 10 feet to my stomach. I got back up. I finished the routine. I was devastated. I thought to myself, is this who I am? If I make the Olympic team, is this going to happen six months from now? All those doubts crept in. But along with that, I remember when I was walking back from the arena to the hotel, I was alone because no one wanted to talk to me. I said to myself, never again. I will never make that mistake again. I’ve gotta stop taking that skill for granted because I train that skill.

  00:36:09 Like all the other skills we do in gymnastics. You’ve got 150 different skills that comprise all of your performances and you gotta perfect all of them. Every one of them. Some of them are easy, but some are really hard, and that was a really hard one and I didn’t give it the attention that it needed for the next six months. I focused on that skill a little bit more, a little bit extra almost every day. Fortunately for me then at the Olympic Games, I did the exact same routine, essentially scored a perfect 10 on the horizontal bar. I look back and say, I’m so glad I failed. I’m glad I had that mistake because it made me what I needed to be down the road. If we allow mistakes, whether they’re regular old mistakes you make in life or sin, if we allow that to change us to be better, then we can become a stronger person. We can rise far above where we were when that happened. It takes effort. It takes diligence. It takes patience as well because some of these things take time. People don’t ever realize that patience and diligence go hand in hand. Know that something won’t come for a long time, but you still gotta work on it every day. The more I can apply that in more important matters and spiritual matters, the better off I’ll be.

Hank Smith: 00:37:24 This section is so full of applicable bits of counsel. Strip yourselves from jealousy. Humble yourself. We could spend another five hours on how to do that. I wouldn’t be any closer than I am now. Carnal mind versus natural man that’s in there a couple of times. Patience. I would love to ask you both how you have developed patience. I know you’re patient. I’ve seen you be patient in stressful circumstances. How have you learned to control that? Peter, same question to you. I’m sure there are times where you’re competitive and you’re angry. You’re just able to be patient and not dwelling on the past. Verse 14, all of these in this little section, the Lord is saying, Hey, I can give you the right ingredients for a happy life.

John Bytheway: 00:38:17 I like that President Hinckley said that he used to say to himself every morning, and I thought, wow. What would a prophet of God say to himself every morning? He would say, things will work out. Remember that Hank? I’ve been a bishop before. Felt some of the weight of that. When I heard President Hinckley said that I thought, imagine shouldering the weight of the entire church. What do you gotta do? You keep your eyes on Christ and you say things will work out and you do your best. Boy, that was so President Hinckley,

Hank Smith: 00:38:50 You continue in patience.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:38:53 When our missionaries would come into the mission every six weeks, we’d bring them in the first day, they’ve got jet lag. They’re tired, they’re exhausted, but we send them out to the streets with an experienced missionary, have them street contact right away. That’s kind of a shock for them, but the next day we go through the introduction. Welcome to the Australian Melbourne Mission. As we finish all the administrative things, the introductory lessons we give them, I share with them, Joshua 1 from the Old Testament, and you think about Joshua having to replace, to succeed Moses of all people, I love to share this with them. The Lord says to Joshua, Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Then he makes a promise.

  00:39:48 Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you as I said unto Moses, jumping ahead to verse five, there shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Then you hear it for the first time, be strong and of a good courage for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which I sware unto their fathers to give them. They’re getting ready to cross over Jordan. Finally, after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, Joshua’s thinking me? I’m the guy? I have to now lead the children of Israel? He says, no, no, be strong. Have courage. In verse seven, he says it again, only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses, my servant commanded thee.

  00:40:37 And then he says this, which is kind of like verse 14. In section 67, he says, let not your minds turn back. He says, turn not from it to the right hand or to the left. Thou mayest prosper whethersoever thou goest. In my mind, I think, don’t get distracted. Don’t look to the right. Don’t look to the left, don’t look back. Look forward where you’re going. Verse 80 says, the book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth. Thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. Then you’ll be prosperous. You’ll have success. I tell them, where do you look? You look in your scriptures. You look in Preach My Gospel. Those are the things you read and focus on. Don’t get distracted.

  00:41:18 And then in verse nine, he says it again, have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of good courage. Be not afraid. Neither be thou dismayed for the Lord thy God is with thee. Whithersoever thou goest. I asked the missionaries, why did he have to tell him three times to be strong and courageous? He was feeling weak and fearful. That’s how missionaries feel. Those first couple weeks in the mission. What am I doing? I’ve thought about this. I’ve sung songs about this, but now I’m actually here. This is different than what I thought. I just remind them to be strong and courageous. Don’t get distracted. Study the things that you’ve been studying. The Lord will give you success. And then you see after that, that Joshua stands up there and with power he starts to lead because he feels that strength that comes from that admonition from the Lord to get rid of your fears. I’m here with you. I’m going to guide you. I’m going to help you. Missionaries need to feel that out in the field, especially those first few weeks and months when they’re, they’re not quite that sure of themselves.

Hank Smith: 00:42:19 This phrase in verse 13, continue in patience was the name of a talk given by President Uchtdorf in 2010. The reason I know it so well is because I decided to listen to it every day for over a month to see if I could somehow develop more patience. Something that I was actually impatient about was me developing patience. He told this story. He said when he was 10, his family became refugees. He said he knew how to speak German and Russian, but now everything was in English. He said, this was hard for me. There were moments when I truly believe my tongue simply was not made to speak English. The curriculum was new and strange and I fell behind. For the first time in my life, I began to wonder, maybe I’m not smart enough for school. Fortunately, I had a teacher who taught me to be patient, to be steady and consistent in my work. Patient persistence, he calls it, and I would learn over time, difficult subjects became clearer, even English. I began to see that if I applied myself consistently, I really could learn. It did not come quickly, but with patience it did come. Peter, have you seen that same thing in your career?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:43:38 I had an incredible coach. His name is Makoto Sakamoto. He was the best gymnast in the United States for many, many years. After finishing his career in the ’72 Olympic Games in Munich, he wanted to start coaching. I was one of his first pupils and I stayed with him for 12 years. He’s still almost like a second father to me. Had some health struggles as of late, I’ve gone to visit him. He taught me patience. He taught me to be consistent. Know that things will take time. I remember when I left for my very first training camp, we went to the University of Nebraska. They had just built, at that time, it was the best gymnastics training facility in the country. They built this spectacular gym with the foam pits that you can fall into. They didn’t have those in my day. It was just the hard floor and a coach who’s hoping he’s going to catch you.

  00:44:24 Well, I thought, oh, I get to go train in a pit. I get to learn some new crazy skills. I’ll never forget before I left because my coach didn’t go to camp with me. He says, Peter, just so you know, when you come back, I don’t care if you learn anything new. I just want you to tell me that you worked harder than everybody there, that you were the hardest working gymnast there. Part of me was going, oh man, but the other part of me knew that he was right. I made it a goal. I was the first one in, last one out. I tried to make sure that whatever conditioning exercises we did, I did a little bit more. I respected him so much. I wanted to be able to look him in the eye when I got back and say, I did what you told me to do, but I wanted to learn something new. I wanted to come home saying, hey, I just learned this new skill or whatever because I had this foam pit to land into. He taught me that those things will come, but the work ethic has to come before anything else. You need to have that work ethic. Part of that work ethic, of course, is having the patience that things are going to take time, to perfect especially.

Hank Smith: 00:45:22 Same thing works in our discipleship. It’s going to take time. The Lord says, be one of the hardest working children I have.

John Bytheway: 00:45:30 I don’t know if we all have the perfect motive. I wanted to be a hundred percent home teacher. Yet we’ve gotta try. The Lord will help us with our motives if they’re not right. I will hear somebody say, well, I’m going to wait until I’m doing it for the right reasons. That could be a really long wait. Yeah, we can’t stagnate. We’ve gotta go. I know my own kids. I’ve got this seminary thing and then they come home. Okay, that was really good. I’m glad I went to that thing. I guess in our discipleship, it can be like that too. Peter, maybe share what your coach has meant to you in your recent contact with him.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:46:10 My coach made tremendous personal sacrifices for me. He taught me there’s a gospel message when you put all of your effort and work into helping someone else, not even thinking about yourself. The first few years that my coach coached me, first couple years, he worked at a bank. He can only coach me in the evenings. I would show up at the Culver City Junior High School girls gymnasium. We would set up the equipment and have to take it down every day. It wasn’t like a permanent facility. Then he ended up getting the assistant coaching job at UCLA when I was a junior in high school, so I knew I wanted to stay with him and that was my choice to go to UCLA so I could stay under his tutelage. But what I didn’t know because he never shared it with me, was for the first few years he had no salary from the university.

  00:46:55 He was a volunteer coach. The way he made extra income was he would translate business journals from Japanese to English or English to Japanese, and he got paid by the character like 2 cents per character or something like that. He would coach me, he’d go home have dinner, and then starting at around seven o’clock at night, eight o’clock at night, he would get down and translate these journals. Would do that till three o’clock, four o’clock in the morning. Then he’d get a few hours of sleep. Then he’d get up and he’d go off and coach. Never complained about it, never talked about it. I can’t repay him for that. I went to see him. He had a little episode. It was in the hospital in Hawaii where he lives now. He coached at BYU, by the way for about 14 years, not a member of the church, but coached at BYU for 14 years and created a number of national champions.

  00:47:43 All-Americans, BYU was always about top five in the country in gymnastics until the program was let go. He was an amazing coach. I talked to a bunch of teammates. Guard Young who’s a coach now at BYU was a gymnast that trained at BYU with Mako and he got gymnasts that he was training with at BYU. I got some UCLA gymnasts from way back when. Got some Olympic team members. We did little videos, little messages to cheer up Mako while he is in the hospital. Well, I would sit with him, show video after video after video from all these athletes that he coached over the years. In his own humble way at the end of all of that, before I went to go home, he says, Pete, I think I did some good, which is the biggest understatement in the history of sports. He did more than that. He did so much more. I’m grateful for mentors. Sometimes we don’t say thank you enough. Sometimes they don’t even know the good they’ve done for you until you have mentioned it to them. They just go about doing good because they love people, but they don’t realize the impact they’ve had on people’s lives.

John Bytheway: 00:48:47 I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard in a farewell, I want to thank my parents, my leaders and my coaches. Coaches who teach them good things and perseverance and patience like we’ve been talking about.

Hank Smith: 00:49:03 I remember my high school football coach, coach Bill Jacobson, I loved him. I would run through a wall for that guy. I knew he loved me. I knew he wanted the very best from me. This lowly little nobody high school kid. He saw someone he could help. John, Peter, have you ever had center of the Universe syndrome? This is from President Uchtdorf. Same talk. This is where he says impatience comes from. He says, impatience is a symptom of selfishness. It is a trait of the self-absorbed. Oh man. It arises from the all too prevalent condition called center of the Universe syndrome which leads people to believe that the world revolves around them and that all others are just supporting cast in the Grand Theater of mortality in which only they have the starring role. John, have you ever in your life had center of the universe syndrome? I don’t think you have.

John Bytheway: 00:50:06 When I was a toddler, yeah. That was probably everyone exists to get me my baba.

Hank Smith: 00:50:14 How do we not be impatient when I’m in traffic or something, I get impatient. Where did he say that comes from? It is the trait of the self-absorbed. It is a symptom of selfishness. Peter, any thoughts on that? How do you not be impatient with our children, with strangers, with the church even, or our church leaders? How do I overcome impatience?

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:50:38 I only have two items on my desk. One is the Aaronic priesthood theme. It reminds me of my calling and these wonderful young men in the church, what their potential is and what my potential is. The other one is a photograph of my five-year-old son who’s now 39, so it’s been on my desk for 34 years. I’m driving to soccer practice, my son has like seven cowlicks in his hair. It’s impossible hair to comb. His mission it was awful to try to comb his hair on a mission. She got a part in his hair, she combed it, she got his new little soccer uniform on. He gets the picture where you’re holding the ball and the ball literally is this big compared to his little tiny body. While we’re driving over there, he’s eating a piece of chocolate. He’s eating it and then he’s wiping the chocolate on his jersey.

  00:51:28 Now, instantly the fear that comes into me knowing that my wife’s going to see that I didn’t stop him from wiping the chocolate. I just looked at my son and I said, Timothy, I can’t believe you did… What are you doing? You’re wiping the chocolate on your uniform and your mother got you ready for the picture. We’re going to take the picture in five minutes. How am I going to get the chocolate off? I remember being so impatient with him that I could see these tears just well up in these beautiful little brown eyes and I saw him turn and just feel awful. At that moment, I knew I was the worst father in the world. I felt so condemned by his tears and I thought, I can’t believe I just did this. This kid, he’s my firstborn. Oh, I’m trying to get the parenthood thing right.

  00:52:15 I just looked at him. The rest of the drive was Timothy, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have raised my voice. Timothy, I’m so sorry. Will you forgive me? I felt so bad. The picture came out, no one could see, but I could see the little stain on his shirt. I framed it and I stuck it on my desk and it’s been there for 34 years to remind me to don’t be a lame dad, just be patient. The small things really are small things. Let them go. I’ve failed to take heed to that message many times in my life, but it’s been a constant consistent reminder because I was so ashamed of myself for this sweet little innocent five-year-old boy.

Hank Smith: 00:52:54 What a vulnerable tender story. I don’t know what this feels like, you guys to be an impatient father. This is all new ground for me.

John Bytheway: 00:53:04 We’ve talked about this before Hank the idea of using family prayer to repent in front of your kids so that they know, hey, I’m working on it too. When they can hear you repent, it models that they can do that. One of my favorite evidences of the Lord’s patience is the fact that the sacrament table is bolted to the chapel floor. It’s not wheeled in at Christmas and Easter. The Lord is so patient with us. He’s like, you’re going to need this again in six and a half days. You know you’re going to need it tomorrow probably, but come back here in seven days. Let’s do this again. As we’re talking about Joseph Smith and receiving callings, I remember I did not expect this, but when I saw the hands go up to sustain me to be their bishop, that feeling of with their help, maybe I can do this. Seeing that sustaining vote, that means a lot when you see that. It’s like they knew my faults, they knew my imperfections, but we’ll sustain you in this Bishop. I had to repent in front of them too.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:54:19 Hank, would you not want to be a 15-year-old Aaronic priesthood holder in John Bytheway’s ward as your Bishop ?

John Bytheway: 00:54:27 I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.

Hank Smith: 00:54:29 Well, John asked me to speak once I came to his ward. I was talking to one of the youth, a teenage girl, and I said, how do you like the ward? And she said, John Bytheway is our bishop. How do you think I like the ward? I was like, say no more.

John Bytheway: 00:54:43 Really? She said that? I gotta write that down in my journal.

Hank Smith: 00:54:48 Another talk I tried to listen to dozens of times was The Power of Patience by Robert C. Oaks.

John Bytheway: 00:54:54 General Oaks in the Air Force.

Hank Smith: 00:54:57 Yeah. He told this story: recently I attended the funeral of a lifelong friend. His son told a beautiful story of parental patience. When the son was in his youth, his dad owned a motorcycle dealership. One day they received a shipment of shiny new motorcycles and they lined them all up in the store. The boy did what every boy would like to do. He climbed up on the closest one. He even started it up. Then when he figured he had pushed his luck far enough, he jumped off. To his dismay his dismount knocked the first bike down. Then like a string of dominoes, they all went down one after another. Can you imagine the scratches, John and the dents and the…? Oh. His dad heard the commotion and looked out from behind the partition where he was working. Slowly smiling. He said, well, son we’d better fix one up and sell it so we can pay to fix the rest of them. I think my friend’s response personifies parental patience.

John Bytheway: 00:56:00 That’s a good story. Elder Robert C. Oaks, he wrote a little book about some of his experiences in the Air Force. He actually had to eject out of an F111, if I remember right. Broke part of his back. Wow. What a reaction that fast too. Don’t you think you’d have to say, I gotta go in the other room for a minute and punch something? I’ll be back.

Hank Smith: 00:56:28 I’ve noticed for me as I’ve worked on this, being mindful of how I feel inside, being mindful of, oh wow, I’m starting to feel frustrated. I’m starting to feel angry. I’m starting to feel. That helps me. If I’m mindful, I can stay on top of it. I can say, I’ve gotta slip out before something happens, not after. Let me give you a hypothetical of a little league basketball game where an impatient father yells at the other coach, not the refs. The refs are usually just the little teenagers that are doing the best they can. But the other coach, I decided to, well, it wasn’t me. It was a hypothetical where this person decided to yell at the other coach, and the other coach yelled back, and then this person in this hypothetical story finds out that this coach is in his stake. He is the high councilman over his ward. Oh, all right. That’s a complete hypothetical John. Continue in patience the Lord says.

John Bytheway: 00:57:27 We have all heard testimonies that begin with an apology about a ward basketball incident. Right? Ward basketball was invented so that we would learn. Verse 13, keep repenting.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:57:43 My parents were amazing people. My mother was the most responsible person. I was never late for any appointment or any workout. She was so punctual. She felt that was important that you keep your word about things. She passed away too soon. My father was an example of patience to me. My dad was my influence for going into gymnastics. John Vidmar, he was born in Chuquicamata, Chile. My grandfather worked in the mining industry back in South America for an American mining firm. My dad ended up settling in Los Angeles, went to school at Cal Berkeley, got his engineering degree, was in the Navy during the war. Met my mom at AUSO dance in New York.

John Bytheway: 00:58:22 Wow. No kidding.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 00:58:24 My dad did gymnastics when he was a teenager, when he was in high school in Los Angeles. He used to also go down to Muscle Beach down by the Santa Monica Pier. Used to learn gymnastics down there, used to wash dishes at a restaurant in downtown LA in the evenings. He’d have enough money to take the bus down to Santa Monica and and learn gymnastics skills. I never saw my dad do gymnastics because when he was 27, my dad contracted polio. It left a lot of damage to his body. He lost the use of about 30 muscles in his body. My dad’s left arm. The deltoid didn’t work, so he couldn’t raise his left arm and his tricep. But his right arm didn’t work. He couldn’t push with his right arm. His neck wasn’t as strong as it could have been. Where it was really obvious as my dad’s left leg, it was the size of a number two pencil.

  00:59:11 The skin wrapped around the bone. He had a little bit of a contraction of a quadricep. With the help of a brace, he was able to fling his leg forward and lock it into place. My dad walked with a really big limp his whole life, and I’m fully cognizant that so many people have struggled physically with other ailments. Much more severe than my dad. But this is the man that I grew up with. Never complained about what everybody else called a handicap, at least not in front of his kids. When he was now moved back to Los Angeles, working in downtown LA, I was about 10 years old. My father came home from work one day and I heard my mother gasp. She was getting dinner ready. She saw my dad come through the front door and I heard her say, John, what happened? And I jumped off the couch, looked up at my father.

  00:59:52 His glasses were broken. He had dried blood all over his face. And he said, ah, I’ll tell you what happened. I was walking across the street at sixth and Figueroa in downtown, and my good leg got stuck in a pothole. I knew my bum leg. That’s what he called it. I knew my bum leg wasn’t going to support me. I knew I was going down. I just couldn’t get my arms up fast enough. Hit the pavement face first, and I broke my glasses, bloodied up my face. Everybody stopped. Traffic, got outta their cars. They rushed me. They picked me up. They dragged me across the street. Then I had a homeless man walk me to my office and I reached into my pocket to give him some money and he, he wouldn’t take the money. because he said when he was a kid, he was a boy scout.

  01:00:31 That was his good deed for the day. And then my dad started to laugh. He said, I just gotta be more careful next time. The unwritten family motto was that Vidmars don’t quit. My dad had that motto, you just don’t quit. Keep moving forward. I remember a brother or a sister would call home from school having a bad day or a bad week. I could hear my dad in his warm and friendly mechanical engineer tone of voice, say, Uh-huh. Yeah, I know. Okay, now you’re having a bad day. Well, things will always get better. You know what the family motto is? Do the best you can. We’ll talk to you later. We hated that. I told you about my coach, this incredible coach that I had even at a young age. When I got a chance to learn under Mako Sakamoto, the workouts were hard and I wanted to complain, but I had to go home every night to that guy, to John Vidmar.

  01:01:16 And I’m just so grateful for him trying to to be cheerful. Now, at the end of his life, my dad suffered from post-polio syndrome. I belief that Boyd K. Packer struggled with that a bit too. because he was a polio victim earlier in his life. All of his good muscle started to shut down. My dad went from walking with a limp to walking with a cane, to walking with a walker, to sitting in a wheelchair, to finally moving around in an electric wheelchair. Then everything just rather rapidly started to shut down. My dad was, was going, and we knew he was leaving this world, and the family had gathered around him for those last few days. My father had been unconscious for about a day and a half. My niece, Jenny, came in with two of her teenage sons. She walked to the foot of the bed with a very loud voice, said, Hey grandpa, it’s Jenny. I got Steven and Charlie here. Do you have any advice for them? I was just about to say, Jenny dad, can’t hear you. But instead, I saw my father turn his head. He opened his eyes, just slightly looked at his two great-grandsons and said, always say your prayers and never give up. Those are the last words I heard my father speak, and in a way that kinda summed up his life. When he says, always say your prayers, he says, you gotta have faith. Have faith that you can do everything that the Lord has in store for you to do. But at the same time, that’s going to take some effort too. You can never give up. I’m grateful for that. It’s like a motto for me. Say your prayers, don’t give up. It’s simple, but it can be very effective if I really apply it in my life.

Hank Smith: 01:02:55 Coming up in part two of this episode.

Bro. Peter Vidmar: 01:02:58 We always lined up in front of him before and after workout begin and end the workout, and he says, oh, by the way, guys, workouts next week we’re going to start again on Sundays and add a additional workout on Sundays. I just, ugh, I didn’t know what to do. I’m a deacon. I got the priesthood. I’m 12 and a half years old, and I walked up to my coach and I said, I can’t go on Sunday. Oh, this Sunday you can’t. No, I can’t go on any Sundays. Why? Well, because I’m commanded to keep the Sabbath day holy. I just don’t want to do gymnastics on the Sabbath.