Hank Smith: 00:02 Hello, my friends. Welcome to another followHIM favorites. My name’s Hank Smith. I’m here with the wonderful John Bytheway. Hi, John.

John Bytheway: 00:09 Hi Hank.

Hank Smith: 00:10 John, you know the drill. We’re going to take one question from this week’s lesson in Come, Follow Me. The question this week comes from these stories about Paul. John he is so bold in his testimony, how can we be more bold like Paul in sharing the gospel in testifying?

John Bytheway: 00:27 That’s a good question because I tend to keep that kind of private, but I like how Paul would just say things, and I think one of the examples I love is just when someone says, how’s your weekend? Just to say, it was really good. We had the best time at church, and it’s just throw it out because you did and you loved it and you were there, and why not, it doesn’t have to be about Saturday. You could say, we had a really good lesson Sunday, I loved it. And you can just be matter of fact and just say, people don’t get offended at that. I think it’s a beautiful way to maybe start that conversation.

Hank Smith: 01:00 Absolutely. Also, with our families, John, sometimes we’re a little bit timid or awkward with our own family, and we’ve got to come up with ways to get past that. Especially as parents, if parents are not willing to share their testimony, how they got their testimony, their experiences with God, who else is going to, who are we going to look to to say, Hey, tell my children about your testimony, because they need to hear it. So we could work past that in a variety of ways and where it does become a natural thing to talk about the gospel with our children, and to bear testimony, maybe not in formal ways, I think Elder Bednar would say there are times to bear formal testimonies, but at home they can be normal, natural ways of just talking about your life.

John Bytheway: 01:44 Oh, you know what you just said there? You say to your kid that reminds me, what’s that parable? It was about this and this, and boy, that’s true. That’s bearing your testimony right there.

Hank Smith: 01:51 Yeah. My wife will frequently say, something will happen and she’ll say, “There’s a spiritual lesson in that.” My kids will even do something and they’ll say, “Let me guess, there’s a spiritual lesson in this?” Yes, there actually is a spiritual lesson in this. That’s one way of doing it.

John Bytheway: 02:07 And that’s an occupational hazard that we have, Hank. We even see a movie that’s about something else and have to pause it and go, you know what, that thought right there, that was really good.

Hank Smith: 02:18 Yep. I remember doing that with Endgame. I said, one guy, Iron Man, one guy has to sacrifice himself so everybody else can live and Jesus is the iron rod. And my kids are like, why’d you ruin it for us? But this can be ways that we can be more bold and getting up in testimony meeting, getting up there, and sharing a simple testimony. It can be a very powerful experience for all of our neighbors.

John Bytheway: 02:43 Yeah. Just tell people how you feel. Like Elder Holland said, don’t be embarrassed if you only feel you can say, I believe, remember that story Elder Holland said, A boy apologized for saying only, I believe. He said, I hugged him until his eyes bugged out, right?

Hank Smith: 02:58 Yeah. Because belief is the basis of everything. And we don’t let fear make decisions for us, right? If I’m sitting in Sacrament meeting and I don’t want to go up there and bear my testimony and it’s all based on fear, then I can overcome that and I can say, you know what, I’m going to act opposite to fear, and I’m going to go do it anyway. I’m going to feel the fear and do it anyway.

  03:19 We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. This week we’re joined by Dr. Scott Woodward. We think you’re going to love what Scott does with these chapters. Then come back and join us next week for another followHIM Favorites.