Hank Smith:                      00:03                   Hey welcome to followHIM Favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, we are studying the Family Proclamation this week, and I have a story for you. This comes from a good friend of mine named Keith. Keith was a teenager growing up in Alaska. He said he and his best friend were strong members of the church. They kept their standards. They had a lot of friends who weren’t members of the church, who didn’t have the same standards, but they were able to uphold each other when some of their friends would do things that, oh, that’s, that’s probably not what we are going to do, right? Hey, we’re gonna go home now, goodbye. And they would always go together. And Keith said his friend was kind of the stronger one of the two he felt, when it came to the gospel. But one evening at one of these parties, his friend, who he said was the stronger of the two, he looked over and he was drinking alcohol. He was kind of shocked by it and didn’t know what to think. And they ended up leaving the party later, and he thought about it all week, like, well, he did that. And he’s, you know, he’s the strong one. My friend Keith made the decision that week that he was going to break the word of wisdom.

John Bytheway:               01:25                   Wow.

Hank Smith:                      01:25                   He was going to drink. So the night comes that they’re gonna go out with their friends again, and he says goodbye to his parents and goes out. And he said, when we got to the house, we had been there not very long, just a few minutes when the phone rings. Now, John, this is back when the phone was attached to the house. If we have a listener out there who says, what, wait, why was the phone attached to the house? You have to ask your grandma. This was, this was a long time ago. It’s not Keith’s house, but the person there says, Hey, Keith, it’s for you. And he’s, for me? Why would the phone be for me at this house? I don’t know. So he gets on the phone and it’s his mom, and she said, Hey, Keith, I’m so sorry to bother you when you’re with your friends, but I really need your help.

                                           02:15                   Would you mind if I came and got you and you could come help me? He’s like, well, yeah sure, sure mom. Of course. Yeah. He hangs up the phone, a few minutes later his mom pulls up and he goes out to the car and he gets in and they start to drive and he said, Hey, mom, well, what’s going on? What do you need my help with? And she said, Keith, please, please, please don’t be upset with me. I knew you were in trouble.

John Bytheway:               02:41                   Wow.

Hank Smith:                      02:41                   And I had to come get you. And he said, in trouble, you know, in trouble? She said, I, I don’t know. I don’t know. Something told me you were in trouble and I had to come get you. Said he sat back kind of in that passenger seat and went, wow.

John Bytheway:               02:58                   Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      02:58                   Wow. He made it very clear when he told this story, he said, I had talked to no one.

John Bytheway:               03:04                   Somebody upstairs knew.

Hank Smith:                      03:06                   Yep. I asked my friend Keith about this recently. He’s a boss of mine at BYU. He said, my mother has passed, and this story and other stories of her inspired influence in my life are some of my greatest treasures. She was a consecrated mother and was in tune with the Spirit to keep her son from falling too far from the covenant path. And I was thinking about that, John, with the Family Proclamation. Not every parent is like this, and not every story is like this. I knew we were studying the Family Proclamation this week, and I thought of this tiny portion of it, husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. And you can see that the Lord will help you.

John Bytheway:               03:56                   Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      03:57                   As you, as you try to love and care for your spouse and children.

John Bytheway:               04:02                   You remember, we talk about Elder Maxwell sometimes. There’s that World War II story where he felt his parents were praying for him and found out a time on an attack on him and his, in his foxhole I think that his mother had said, we need to get outta bed and pray for Neal. Just think, man. That’s amazing.

Hank Smith:                      04:21                   Yeah. There’s parents out there. I remember Keith said to his mom, she said, please don’t be mad at me. Right? For interrupting your evening. And I think then as a teenager and today he’d say, no mom. No. I’m I’m not mad. I love you. I love you.

John Bytheway:               04:40                   Right.

Hank Smith:                      04:41                   Well, we hope you will text your mom right now, or your dad. Let ’em know how much you love them. Tell ’em. Say Hank and John told me to tell you that I love you. Then come join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get any podcast. We’re with Sister Carol Costley this week who walks us through the proclamation. She is a counselor. She has a unique take on the proclamation and then come back here next week. We’ll do another followHIM Favorites.