Hank Smith: 00:00 Hi there, my friends. My name is Hank Smith. I’m the host of a podcast called followHIM. I’m here with my co-host. Each week we do a little clip called followHIM Favorites, where we just pick one piece of the lesson to talk about. And the lesson this week is on section 71 through 75. Little sections, but a lot to choose from. So, John, what is your followHIM favorite this week?

John Bytheway: 00:22 Oh, this is hard to choose. We talked about so many wonderful things today, but I’m just gonna start with section 71 and in the little italicized part before the synopsis, it says, the brethren were to go forth to preach in order to allay the unfriendly feelings that had developed against the Church as a result of the publication of letters written by Ezra Booth, who had apostatized. And I love what the Lord tells him to do in verse one Is expedient in me that you should open your mouths in proclaiming what? You’re wrong? I’m gonna argue with you. Here’s the bullet points of why you’re wrong. No, just teach the gospel. Proclaiming my gospel. What does gospel mean? It’s the good news. It’s the glad tidings. Just open your mouth and tell him the good news. And then I love what it says at the end in verse nine. “…there’s no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper;…if any man lift his voice against you he shall be confounded in mine own due time.” So you just preach the good news. You tell people why you’re so happy and how it works for you, and be at peace with the rest. And don’t worry.

Hank Smith: 01:27 John, I love that. I know I can–you know that I’m a pretty passionate guy sometimes, and I can find myself–well, I’m gonna go point by point on why you’re wrong and right? And I can tell you when those things have happened, I’ve never felt good afterwards. I’ve never said, oh, that was a good thing to do. Right? I can feel the Lord going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, I want you to just teach the gospel. Just proclaim the gospel that’s…

John Bytheway: 01:51 Focus on Christ and the good news.

Hank Smith: 01:53 Faith, repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost.

John Bytheway: 01:56 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:56 Mine actually comes from section 71 as well. So if you wanna, you’re gonna have to come to the podcast if you want to come to these other sections.

John Bytheway: 02:04 Hear the rest. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 02:04 Because mine–I like verse two, he tells Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, he wants them to go preach the gospel, proclaim it, he says, in the regions roundabout and in the church also.

John Bytheway: 02:19 Hmm.

Hank Smith: 02:19 And sometimes we get the idea that missionary work is only dealing with people who aren’t members of the church. When missionary work, if you’re dealing with–we’re gonna go find some people who haven’t come to church in a long time, we’re gonna go find them and try to reactivate them, right? Into the church. That is missionary work. That is missionary work. If you’re gonna just help your family learn the gospel, that is missionary work. So you can do missionary work in the church. You should never feel bad if you’re serving a mission or go on a mission. You’re like, well, all I’m doing is working with members of the church. Well, that’s verse two. You can proclaim the gospel in the church.

John Bytheway: 03:00 Awesome.

Hank Smith: 03:00 Yeah. I just think we need to–just because it’s not a baptism or a number, that has nothing to do with how successful you are as a missionary.

John Bytheway: 03:11 Oh, Hank reminds me of President Nelson. Anytime you do anything that helps anyone on either side of the veil even, just come closer to taking those other steps, you’re helping to gather Israel.

Hank Smith: 03:22 Come to Christ.

John Bytheway: 03:22 So in the church, in the regions roundabout, or across the world.

Hank Smith: 03:26 Beautiful. Well, we hope you join us on our podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts.