Hank Smith: 00:02 Hello, my friends. Welcome to followHIM Favorites. This year we are telling a single story. Last year we answered a single question from this week’s lesson. This year, we’re going to tell a single story from this week’s lesson. John, we are in First Nephi 6 through 10. The center of the lesson being the Tree of Life, Lehi’s dream. What story comes to mind?

John Bytheway: 00:25 Oh, so many Hank, but the one that stands out to me, Sister Elaine Dalton, in April conference of 2008, she gave this talk called At All Times In All Things and In All places, and she talked about a young man named Jess who was a student body president at a large university. He went back to Chicago to some sort of a student body president convention council and thing like that, and they had a get to know you game at the beginning, and we’ve done those at EFY and FSY. And this get to know you game, they’re in an open area with grass. They have four trees with a sign in front of each one, strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree. They start throwing out issues facing today’s youth and everybody’s running to the tree. And you get to know, “Oh, I like that too,” as you’re running to each tree. I was surprised they would do this, but they threw out, “Pre-marital sexual relations are okay. Go”. And here’s Jess, member of the church, he runs to strongly disagree, and he gets there and he turns around, and guess?

Hank Smith: 01:26 He’s the only one there, I’m guessing.

John Bytheway: 01:29 That’s exactly what she said. He was the only one there. And she said that other kids were laughing and pointing, “Are you serious?” or, “Did you hear the question?”

Hank Smith: 01:39 He must not have heard the question, right?

John Bytheway: 01:41 He’s like, “No, no, I’m serious. This is how I feel.” And she said there was stunned silence, which I love because that’s a chance for the conscience to say something. There was stunned silence that they went on. But I’m laughing going, “Okay, so here’s a kid standing alone by a tree, while other people are laughing and pointing. Does this remind you of anything?”

  02:05 And so he goes through that and Sister Dalton, she makes it really profound. She said he felt alone and he felt weird, but Sister Dalton said he wasn’t weird. He was right and he wasn’t alone. She said during the rest of the week, several of the student leaders came to him privately and said, “Oh, I wish I’d known that years earlier.” I love this story. The phrase Lehi uses, “The tree by which I stood.” Stay by the tree. Even some people that are laughing and mocking might inside be going, “Ooh, I wonder if he’s right about this?” That’s the story that comes to my mind.

Hank Smith: 02:45 Absolutely perfect. I picture Nephi there at the tree just eating. He’s making tree of life jam, tree of life pie. That’s all he cares about. That’s all he cares about. People are mocking him. And he’s like, “Do you want some fruit?” “No.” “Okay, I’m just going to stay here.”

John Bytheway: 02:59 “You’re crazy. This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. You should come.”

Hank Smith: 03:03 “You should get over here. You should get over here.” I love that story, John.

  03:08 Come join us for our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. Come back next week. We’ll do another followHIM Favorite story.