Hank Smith: 00:00 My friends, welcome to followHIM Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I’m the co-host of a podcast called followHIM. And every week we’d like to do a small little clip called followHIM Favorites, where we pick out our favorites from this week’s lesson. This week, we’re in section 88 of the doctrine and covenants. I’m here with my co-host John, by the way. And you might notice a third person on our first followHIM Favorite. We’re including our guest for our longer podcast, Dr. Tony Sweat. So, welcome to the both of you, John and Tony.

Dr. Tony Sweat: 00:36 I’m so happy to be on followHIM Favorites. It’s like I get to be a first time again. First guest, again, on your-

Hank Smith: 00:43 That’s true. You are our first podcast guest. You’re now our first followHIM Favorite guest. John we’re in one section, section 88. You get to tell us your followHIM Favorite.

John Bytheway: 00:55 This is hard. There’s a 141 verses here and picking one wasn’t very easy, but I know that both of you have heard stories and I’ve heard stories about people that seem to have a light in their eyes. And in October of 2005, you can look this up, president Faust gave this talk and he told a few of these and there are dozens of them. But he talks about students at the BYU Jerusalem center, how difficult it was to get permission to build that place and so forth. And he said, one of our friends in Jerusalem, after we made this agreement that the students wouldn’t proselyte, they wouldn’t go around and try to share the gospel in Israel, that was something they’re not supposed to do, but what if, he said, one of our friends in Jerusalem wrote us and said, okay, we know you’re young people aren’t going to proselyte, but what are you going to do about that shining in their eyes?

John Bytheway: 01:42 And I said, it was so interesting. Let’s look at verse 11. There’s a lot of things about the light of Christ here and how he is the light of everything. Verse 11 says, “The light which shyness, which give you light is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light, that quickeneth with your understandings.” And you’ve probably heard stories like that yourself. And I think when you get older, you recognize it in so many people. You see the young people that we work with and you see, look at that wonderful sparkle in their eyes. But I think it’s really a thing. There’s just too many stories, including some in general conference, about how that’s a thing, these people that have this light in their eyes.

Hank Smith: 02:26 My brother-in-law, John, is a secret service agent. And at one point he was assigned to the Olympics here in Salt Lake City to do security. And he said, the agents, the other agents from all around the country, when they came with him, they would say things like that to him. They’d say, what is it with the people here? Everyone here has just got this glow, this aura. They said, I see these beautiful women with seven little ducklings behind them, following them around. They’re like, what is it with these people here? And Derek would be like, I don’t know. They’re just-

John Bytheway: 03:07 Section 88, verse 11, he would say.

Hank Smith: 03:08 Yeah. They’re doing their best. My followHIM Favorite is going to come towards the end of the section in verses 118 and 119. I’m kind of stealing this from Dr. Sweat in our full podcast. And those of you who are either just been through the temple or who are about to go through the temple, I hope you’ll take time to listen to the full podcast because Dr. Sweat really shows us the temple in this section. But the Lord says, I want you to seek wisdom from the best books. Well, for my kids, my little kids, the best books are the Harry Potter books. They love. If they were going to say, oh, the Lord wants us to study Harry Potter. That’s what they would get out of 118.

Dr. Tony Sweat: 03:54 My little daughter, Hank, sorry to interrupt, when my daughter was little, she was like eight and she read Harry Potter for the first time, we found a little sign that she put up in her room that said, read Harry Potter. It will change your life.

Hank Smith: 04:05 Yeah. Right? Yeah. That’s exactly my kids. Well, those of you who are Harry Potter fans, if you remember the Order of The Phoenix. The Order of The Phoenix was a special group, picked out among people to fight against evil. Right? That they were going to make it kind of their full-time thing was going to fight the evil force of Lord Voldemort. Right? Well, in verse 119, the Lord kind of starting this school of the prophets, which will eventually turn into kind of the temple endowment, he calls it a house of order. That’s not necessarily meaning organized and things are in their right place, but this house or this temple is going to put you into an order. So if you’ve ever dreamed of being part of the Order Of The Phoenix, this is going to be the closest you’re going to get to it. The Lord is inviting you into a group to fight against evil. And he wants you to be a part of it. Dr. Sweat, you get to tell us your followHIM Favorite.

Dr. Tony Sweat: 05:13 All right, I’m going to key off what Hank just said. Look at verse 118. The Lord tells these people at this time, “As thou have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another, words of wisdom. Yeah, seek ye out of the best books, word of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith.” That is just a great line. I’m doing a double favorite because you also need to connect it to verses 79. He tells them to learn of things in the earth and under the earth. Oh no, the Lord just said, learn geology. That’s nerve wracking. Things which are, things which must shortly come to pass, economics, the things which are at home, wars, international relations. The Lord is telling us here, he wants us to learn, he wants us to grow.

Dr. Tony Sweat: 06:12 And kind of, I guess maybe what I’d say to you is sometimes in the church, you hear people say, I felt the spirit. I really feel the spirit. You don’t hear people saying often, I thought the spirit, or I think the spirit. My friend, Scott Woodward up at BYU, Idaho, likes to talk about this. Remember the Lord says, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart. One of the things the Lord wants us to do is to enlighten and expand our minds. So, don’t separate those into two things of, the Holy Ghost is all just emotional or affective. It’s also intellectual. And the Lord, he can expand your mind, but he also wants you to expand your mind. Joseph Smith, one time said, Mormonism is truth. And another time Brigham Young said, Mormonism embraces all truth. Wherever we learn it, wherever we get it. So, you doing well in school, you studying, you learning, you growing your minds is also part of growing your spirit as well, is what I want to say from section 88.

Hank Smith: 07:21 Oh. That’s really nice. I remember reading a book by Henry Eyring, senior, where he talked about his chemistry. He should have been a Nobel prize winning chemist. And he felt that that was part of the gospel. His chemistry work was discovering truth.

Dr. Tony Sweat: 07:38 Study is worship. It’s part of it.

Hank Smith: 07:43 Yeah. That a beautiful idea. And we all know that you can get an A without getting an education.

Dr. Tony Sweat: 07:53 That’s right. Don’t get us started on that.

Hank Smith: 07:53 So yeah. It’s not about getting a good grade as much as it is learning. Right?

Dr. Tony Sweat: 07:59 About expanding your mind. So, next time, if you’re reading something or doing homework or watching a good National Geographic documentary, which I know most of you do on Friday nights at 7:00 PM and your parents say, what are you doing? Say, I’m worshiping.

Hank Smith: 08:14 Yeah. I’m expanding my mind. Like it says do in section 88.

Dr. Tony Sweat: 08:18 I’m expanding my mind. I’m thinking the spirit.

Hank Smith: 08:23 I can hear my kids using this against me on bedtime. Do you not want me to worship? Do you not want me to worship?

Dr. Tony Sweat: 08:29 You don’t want me to worship? Do you not want me to read Harry Potter about Order Of Phoenix and change my life?

Hank Smith: 08:34 Right? And be part of the fight against evil? That’s fine. I’ll go to bed, dad. I’ll go, well, it actually says in this section, “Cease to sleep longer than his needful, retire to thy bed early.”

Dr. Tony Sweat: 08:45 That’s right.

Hank Smith: 08:46 So, yeah. I’ll be using that.

Dr. Tony Sweat: 08:48 And then your kids can go off on a discussion of how early is a relative term.

Hank Smith: 08:52 Great. Now you just gave it to them. Thank you.

John Bytheway: 08:55 Which side of the international dateline? Yeah.

Hank Smith: 08:58 It’s early somewhere. Right? Well, we hope that you’ll join us on our full podcast. But if not, come back next week and we’ll do another followHIM Favorites. Big thank you to Dr. Sweat for being with us today.

Dr. Tony Sweat: 09:11 Thank you.