Hank Smith: 00:02 Hello everyone. Welcome to followHIM Favorites. John and I are sharing a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, we’re in Alma 17 through 22, the missionary chapters of Ammon and Aaron, and I know you have a great story for this.

John Bytheway: 00:17 Yeah, I call it the three attitudes, and you may have heard me talk about them before. Sometimes when we hear rules, commandments, guidelines, the first attitude, this is not what we want, is, “How far can I go? How bad can I be?” The next attitude is a little bit better. It’s kind of, “Well, how good do I have to be?” The grunt is important. “How good do I have to be? If there’s a line separating what’s good and bad, show me where the line is. I want to know exactly where the line is. I want to live life right next to it.” The third attitude, here comes the story. I’m in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Hank Smith: 00:54 Arkadelphia.

John Bytheway: 00:56 Arkadelphia. Sounds like Arkansas and Philadelphia got in a collision and, hey, we’re Arkadelphia. It was a small college. I was at a youth conference. I was brand new, a long time ago. Hank, this was probably 30 something years ago.

Hank Smith: 01:08 Okay.

John Bytheway: 01:09 I was new at this sort of thing, and I got asked to give a talk at a youth conference. And I came into this auditorium, a couple of boys came running down, sat in the front. They were all looking white shirt and tie. And I thought, “Well, if I meet these guys, maybe they’ll be nice. Hey, what’s your name?” My memory is it was Aaron and Eric. “Aaron, how old are you, Aaron?” “15.” “How many members of the church in your school?” Because I’m from Salt Lake City, right? He said, “Four.” I said, “Are they all here?” “No, there’s two of them we don’t see very often.”

 01:37 “Oh, how about you? What’s your name?” “Eric.” “How many members of the church in your school?” “Three.” “Are they all here at the youth conference?” “Yeah. The other two are my sisters.” And I was like, “So you represent the church to the whole school, right?” “Yeah.” I said, “Is that hard?” “Yeah, sometimes. They watch us pretty close.”

 01:57 I said, “What time do you go to seminary?”, because I was curious. He said, “5:00.” I went, “In the morning?” And he said, “Well, it starts at 6:00, but we have to drive.” And I thought, “Oh my goodness.”

Hank Smith: 02:11 Wow.

John Bytheway: 02:11 And I said, “Well”… yeah, I know because they pick up other kids, and there’s some saint out there who picks them up and drives them. I thought this was a good question, Hank. I said, “Well, why do you go?” Now, here’s the body language for that’s a dumb question right? Hank, you’ve seen it. It’s like something hits you on the head, like, “What?” He said, “Because I want to.” He said, “I love it. Seminary is the best part of my day.” And then he said, “Jesus was amazing, huh, Brother Bytheway? I want to be like that. I want to think like He did.” And I was like, “Listen kid, why don’t you teach the class? Here’s my scriptures. I’ll sit and learn from you,” right?

 02:52 -And I was just so amazed. His attitude wasn’t a question, “How bad can I be or how good do I have to be?” It was a statement. It was, “I want to be valiant. Is it high class? Is it above average? Is it better than normal? Show me what that is. I want to be valiant.” And you know who reminds me of that, Hank? King Lamoni’s father. Sometimes we call him the Old King. Alma 22:18.

 03:15 This is a Lamanite, not a member investigator. What do we call them? A Lamanite friend saying a prayer, and it’s poetry, it is poetry. “Oh, God. Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me?” And listen to this. “I will give away all my sins to know thee.” He doesn’t say, “How bad can I be and still know thee?” He doesn’t say, “How good do I have to be to know thee” with the grunt? He says, “I will give away all my sins to know thee,” and I think that is beautiful. This guy seems to have been born again in his heart before he’s even baptized as a member. That verse inspires me. It’s one of my top 10 in the whole Book of Mormon, Alma 22:18.

Hank Smith: 04:05 “Show me what to do, I’ll do it. That’s how badly I want it. Whatever you ask, I’m in.” I like what he said there, “I want to do it.” “Jesus was amazing, wasn’t He, Brother Bytheway?”

John Bytheway: 04:16 Yeah. “Seminary is the the best part of my day.” Yeah. “I go because I want to.”

Hank Smith: 04:21 I bet Aaron and Eric are still out there doing great things.

John Bytheway: 04:24 Oh, yeah. They’ve got to be like 45, 50 years old now, but I bet they are, yeah.

Hank Smith: 04:30 They might remember this. Well, we hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We’re with Dr. Brian Mead this week, and you’re just going to love his attitude as he walks us through how to do this type of missionary work, how to teach. And then come back next week, we’ll do another followHIM Favorites.