Hank Smith:                      00:02                   Welcome to followHIM Favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, Doctrine and Covenants 137 and 138, eighty years apart between these two sections, they really do belong side by side. I want to talk about Section 138 John. The year that that was given is 1918, and you know the history of 1918 World War I. There’s a Spanish flu epidemic. There is death everywhere. Joseph F. Smith goes to the Lord and the response becomes section 138. Well, my story has to do with that year 1918, everybody is experiencing death, including Brother George Goates. He’s a farmer who is growing sugar beets in Lehi, Utah that year, 1918. Winter comes early. It froze much of his beet crop in the ground. This story is shared, by the way, John, by President Christofferson way back in the 19 hundreds, 1998.

                                           01:06                   For George and his young son Francis the harvest was slow and difficult. Meanwhile, an influenza epidemic was raging. The dreaded disease claimed the lives of George’s son, Charles and three of Charles’ small children, two little girls and a boy. In the course of only six days, a grieving George Goates made three separate trips from Lehi to Ogden, Utah to bring home bodies for burial.

John Bytheway:               01:39                   Oh man.

Hank Smith:                      01:39                   These are his grandchildren and his child, Charles. At the end of this terrible interlude, George and Francis hitched up their wagon and headed back to the beet field. On the way they passed wagon after wagon, loads of beets being hauled to the factory and driven by neighborhood farmers. As they passed by each driver would wave a greeting. Hi Uncle George. Sure sorry George. You’ve sure got a lot of friends George. On the last wagon, freckled face, Jasper Rolph. He waved a cheery greeting and called out. “That’s all of ’em Uncle George.” Brother Goates turned to Francis and said, oh, I wish it was all of ours. When they arrived at the farm gate, Francis jumped down off the big red beet wagon and opened the gate as his father drove onto the field. George pulled up, stopped the team, and scanned the field. There wasn’t a sugar beet on the whole field. Then it dawned upon him what Jasper Rolph meant when he called out, that’s all of ’em, Uncle George. George got down off the wagon, picked up a handful of the rich brown soil he loved so much, and then a beet top, and he looked for a moment at these symbols of his labor and he could not believe his eyes. Then he sat down on a pile of beet tops. This man brought four of his loved ones home for burial in the course of six days, made the caskets, dug the graves, and even helped with the burial clothing. This amazing man who never faltered nor flinched nor wavered throughout this agonizing ordeal sat down on a pile of beet tops and sobbed like a child.

John Bytheway:               03:24                   Wow.

Hank Smith:                      03:26                   Yeah, he must be exhausted, John, just emotionally and physically. Then he arose, wiped his eyes, looked up to the sky and said, thank you, Father for the elders of our ward.

John Bytheway:               03:41                   Wow.

Hank Smith:                      03:43                   Isn’t that a beautiful, beautiful story of we come together for each other?

John Bytheway:               03:48                   Yeah. My story doesn’t even compare, but you know, you’ve heard me talk about our house fire and how the ward just showed up, unloaded everything. I’ll take that. I’ll take that. Let me get your suit clean. Talk about following the example of the Savior. That’s more than mourning with those that mourn, that’s helping them do what they need to do as well. That’s a great story.

Hank Smith:                      04:13                   It’s farming with those who mourn. Right. Farming for those who mourn.

John Bytheway:               04:17                   Bringing in the harvest. Wow, amazing.

Hank Smith:                      04:21                   This is Zion one mind and one heart, and there was no beets among them.

John Bytheway:               04:26                   Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      04:28                   We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get any of your podcasts. We are with Dr. Lori Wilkinson this week, and she is wonderful. She really highlights the power of these sections and why they were so important to the people who read them at first, and then obviously to us today.