Hank Smith: 00:00 Hello everyone. My name is Hank Smith. I am the host of a podcast called followHIM. I’m here with my co-host, the wonderful John Bytheway. John, every week we do a followHIM favorite where we take the full lesson and just say, you gotta choose one thing. The lesson this week is on sections 77 through 80 of the Doctrine and Covenants, and you get to choose one followHIM favorite. So, what is it?

John Bytheway: 00:26 Okay, I’m gonna choose, and it’s always hard, but I’m gonna choose a section that is so short, I probably had skimmed right past it before. And that’s section 80. And there’s a couple of mission calls here, Steven Burnett and Eden Smith. But there’s a verse here. I’m gonna tell you a story and then I’m gonna read the verse. So, we have a homecoming in my ward. I’ll just tell you his first name ’cause I don’t have his permission. But a return missionary named Cole gets up and he says–oh, I’m sorry I’m losing my headphones.

Hank Smith: 00:56 You do you want me to start over? Do you wanna just do this? This will be fun.

John Bytheway: 00:59 I’ll do this. Okay.

Hank Smith: 01:00 Yeah, people will be like…

John Bytheway: 01:03 This is live television folks. So, Cole gets up and he just began his homecoming–we call it a homecoming–in such a wonderful way. He said, I had the privilege of serving during a worldwide pandemic. And I thought, right away, I thought, man, the Lord’s blessed him. He’s got the right attitude. He said, I went to South Africa and then Covid hit and we were inside. And then I went back home and I didn’t even know how long or will I get recalled? What’s gonna happen? He said, I started working as a security guard, started training as an EMT, wondering what’s the deal. And then he said, I got recalled to New Mexico–Farmington, New Mexico. And he went on Indian reservation, what he called an Indian reservation. And he said that he spent a lot of time there using the skills that he had learned as a security guard and EMT. He thought he was so blessed ’cause I just learned how to do this. And I don’t know exactly what happened, but he ended up learning those skills. And then just as he was getting comfortable there, got called back to South Africa and he said at the end of his talk, my mission was not what I expected, but it turned out more beautiful than I planned.

Hank Smith: 02:09 Oh.

John Bytheway: 02:11 And look at this verse, section 80 verse three, wherefore go, ye preach my gospel, whether to the north or to the south or to the east or to the west, it mattereth not for ye cannot go amiss.

Hank Smith: 02:23 Hmm.

John Bytheway: 02:23 And I thought of Cole in my ward and thought that–it didn’t go the way I expected, that it was more beautiful than I planned.

Hank Smith: 02:30 Wow. What a fantastic attitude.

John Bytheway: 02:33 I know.

Hank Smith: 02:34 Yeah. That’s absolutely wonderful. I wish I could be more like Cole. My followHIM favorite is section 78, verse 19. The Lord says, he–and we could add she–who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious. I grew up, my teenage years were spent listening to Gordon B. Hinkley. And I remember him saying frequently the habit of saying thank you–his hand would go up and down. And he said, the habit of saying thank you is the mark of an educated person. The habit of saying thank you is the mark of an educated person. And so in our house sometimes we’ll sit down and we’ll start eating dinner and I’ll say, Hey, how do you tell if someone’s smart? And all my kids will go, thank you mom. Thank you mom, thank you for dinner. Because the way you can tell if someone’s smart is if they have the habit of saying thank you. So…

John Bytheway: 03:26 You know what I love? I love about that too, Hank. Is it’s receiving all things, even a trial, a hard time.

Hank Smith: 03:34 Right. All things, that’s a pretty high percentage word.

John Bytheway: 03:36 That you come around in the end and say, okay, I learned something. Thank you for that.

Hank Smith: 03:41 Yeah. And that ties into what Cole said, doesn’t it? Right? He received his changes in his mission with thankfulness. When that’s hard to do, and it’s hard to do even if you headphones keep falling out.

John Bytheway: 03:52 Yeah. Or even if you move your arms and they like pop out and you’re not expecting it. Yeah. But you just keep talking like nothing happened. You know?

Hank Smith: 04:01 Hey, we want you to join us on our full podcast because we do this the whole time. If you’re really, if you’re like, these guys are weird, I want to watch more, you can join us. it’s called followHIM. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. So, we hope you’ll join us soon.