Hank Smith: 00:02 Hello everyone. Welcome to FollowHIM Favorites. We’re doing a single story out of each week’s lesson this year. John, we’re in 1st Nephi 14 today, and I want to show you a verse, verse 12, and I’m going to tell you a story. Nephi says, “I see the Church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few.” It’s an interesting point right there where you want him to say its numbers were great-

John Bytheway: 00:28 Huge. And huge.

Hank Smith: 00:29 Yeah. He says its numbers were few. It reminds me of Jacob 5, he called the servants and they were-

John Bytheway: 00:36 Few.

Hank Smith: 00:37 You’re hoping for a different word. I thought about this word and I want to share with you a story and maybe bring out this idea of it’s okay to be one of the few. Here’s the story, John. I have a friend named Phil, Phil Reschke, who told me a story about his brother Dave. They were living in Colorado where Phil said Dave, his older brother, was really popular and a student body officer and really loved by the high school. And Phil was a sophomore, a younger one, kind of the one that’s in the background sometimes. He said it was after a football game where everybody went to this big pizza place and standing room only everybody in the high school kind of floods this pizza joint after a game.

  01:21 Phil said at one point a cheerleader had said, “Hey everyone, everyone listen to me.” And so the place got quiet and everyone’s looking up at this girl and she said, “Everyone, it’s Dave Reschke’s 18th birthday today. We want to celebrate. He’s an adult.” Or something like that. And at that time, I don’t know the laws, John, but you could drink alcohol when you turn 18. One of the servers brings out a huge frosty mug of beer and everybody’s watching and they sing happy birthday. And right at the end of the song, they hand this mug of beer to Dave, and Phil is sitting at a booth a ways away and he’s just watching knowing that he and his brother are the only members of the church in this restaurant. And he’s watching him. And he said, “My brother stood up and held this mug up really high with a big smile on his face.” And Phil, for a second thought, oh no-

John Bytheway: 02:16 Is he going to drink it?

Hank Smith: 02:18 Is he going to drink this? And he said, my brother with such confidence stood up and said, you guys, thank you so much for remembering my birthday. He said, you know, I love you and you know that I love this school and everybody’s cheering, woo. And he said, but you know me better than that. And he sat it down on the table and went back to what he was doing. Went back to chatting, and having a great time. And Phil told me, he said, “I was sitting in that booth going, I know now who I want to be.” Phil told me on the way home, he asked his brother, he said, “Dave, I thought you were going to drink that for a second.” And he said, Dave got after him. And he said-

John Bytheway: 02:59 I thought you knew me better than that too.

Hank Smith: 03:00 Yeah. He said, Phil, I didn’t make that decision tonight. You need to make decisions long before those moments come. When I read that verse, I saw the saints and their numbers were few. We encourage all of our listeners, you might be alone, but you’ll be okay. You’re not truly alone.

John Bytheway: 03:20 It reminds me of the Old Testament story, they that be with us are more than they that be with them. You can’t see them, but we’re okay.

Hank Smith: 03:27 But they’re there. Beautiful. Join us next week. We’ll be back for another FollowHIM Favorites stories.