Hank Smith: 00:03 Hello, welcome to followHIM Favorites. John and I are sharing a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, we have a bunch of sections of the Doctrine & Covenants this week, 30 through 36. They’re all about missionary work and this phrase comes up over and over. Open your mouth. In all of these sections. Open your mouth. You’ve told me that you have a story for that phrase.

John Bytheway: 00:25 Oh, Hank, you’re just not going to believe this. Years ago I did a tape. Remember cassette tapes?

Hank Smith: 00:30 I remember those.

John Bytheway: 00:32 About meeting people from the Book of Mormon because they say, I will meet you. I mean, it’s going to happen. Nephi says, one day you’ll meet me. This kid said, I was working at a car dealership and I was listening to that tape on my Walkman on a bus, and I fell asleep. And that is usually the impact my tapes have on young people. He said, I fell asleep. I woke up and this man was looking at me and he said, who’s Nephi? And I was like, why? And he said, you in your sleep, I guess you were asleep, you said, hi, Nephi And he was like, oh, well it’s this person in the Book of Mormon. It’s this book called The Book of Mormon. And he started telling this guy and he gave him his seminary scriptures, this kid, and told him all about who Nephi was. He sent me an email about this and he was so excited. He said, I met that man later and he had joined the church and I’m like, okay, if a kid can say two words in his sleep, imagine what we could do when we’re awake. And all he said was, hi Nephi.

Hank Smith: 01:43 Hi Nephi. That was it.

John Bytheway: 01:45 I love this chapter too, Hank, because when I entered the MTC, the first talk we were given by Elder Joe J. Christensen, the MTC President, he went through this section, section 33, just open your mouths and they will be filled.

Hank Smith: 02:00 Open your mouth, start talking about it in normal and natural ways.

John Bytheway: 02:05 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 02:05 It’s totally fine to talk about your church. You wouldn’t be upset if one of your friends talked about their church. You wouldn’t go, Hey, you can’t talk about that. So why can’t we do that with others? I remember once in seminary, our seminary teacher said, what if on the other side someone comes up to you and says, why didn’t you tell me you knew? Why didn’t you tell me? Well, I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. Why would that ruin our friendship? Well, I didn’t want to offend you. What kind of friend was I that you thought might be offended by that? And it helped me go, you know what? I can say something. Doesn’t mean you have to call them to repentance. Just means you can open your mouth.

John Bytheway: 02:42 And the everyday missionaries ideas. If somebody says, how was your weekend? Don’t think about Saturday, think about Sunday.

Hank Smith: 02:48 Sunday.

John Bytheway: 02:49 Normal, natural. Oh, we had the best lesson. It was about…

Hank Smith: 02:52 Yeah, I love my church because I have all these friends there. Anything like that.

John Bytheway: 02:57 Yeah. How would you like a couple of hundred friends? Come with me next time.

Hank Smith: 03:01 Come on over. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it anywhere you get your podcast. We’re with Mark Beecher this week. He’s serving a mission soon. So he’s perfect for these sections. You’re going to love what he has to say and then come back here next week. We’ll do another followHIM Favorites.