Hank Smith: 00:03 Hello, my friends. Welcome to another followHIM Favorites. John and I are sharing a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, we’re in Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon. Tell me a story.

John Bytheway: 00:15 Oh, it’s hard to choose something, but I love the story of Enos, especially the order in which he prays for things. He loses all interest in hunting. He says, “I prayed for my own soul, my soul hungered,” and then as he hears the Lord says, “Thy sins are forgiven.” How is it done? Because of their faith in Christ. Then he says, “I begin to feel a desire for the welfare of my brethren,” and he prays for them, and then he says, “I prayed with many long strugglings for my brethren, the Lamanites.” So it goes from himself to his brothers, to the Lamanites, even the enemies at sometimes, and then he prays for the records, and I just think that progression teaches us something.

  00:55 And it reminds me of one time I was at a youth conference and I remember there was a backstory going on, which one of the leaders shared, there was a rift with the youth in this particular ward or stake, I can’t remember which. It was a problem. We had a really good youth conference and this young sister got up, probably 15 or 16 years old, and I will never forget this, Hank. She got up in the testimony meeting and she said, “You guys, we’ve been talking about Zion in seminary and it sounds to me like we’re supposed to be friends,” and the most wonderful spirit came into that meeting. She got teary and people in the audience put their heads down and then one after another, these kids started coming up and they started saying, “If I’ve offended anybody, I’m really sorry,” and that became the whole thing, “If I’ve offended anybody, I’m sorry.” And there was this very Zion-type one heart, one mind feeling that just entered that room.

  01:59 It was exactly what happened to Enos. Suddenly there were no enemies, just my brother, and we were all brothers and sisters, and somehow they realized it isn’t us versus you, this is the adversary versus all of us, and we have got to be friends, and they did it. I used to love those youth testimony meetings when things like that would happen.

Hank Smith: 02:20 I think we’re supposed to be friends.

John Bytheway: 02:22 I think we’re supposed to be friends. And it was beautiful, and I thought, “Wow. That’s what happened to Enos.” Suddenly, there were no enemies, it’s my brethren and the Lamanites, and preserve the records in the latter days so people can read this, and I bet you’ve had that happen to you too.

Hank Smith: 02:38 Yeah, absolutely. What a difference one brave teenage girl can make to an entire stake, sounds like.

John Bytheway: 02:47 Yeah, took some courage, but she said it and it changed the whole spirit of the whole youth conference, really. It was healing. It was awesome. I still remember her getting up, “It sounds to me like we’re supposed to be friends.”

Hank Smith: 02:59 Man, I love it. I love it. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. And these small little books are the Book of Mormon. We’re with Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and he is quite a guy. He is brilliant and he is funny. So come join us on our full podcast and then come back here next week. We’ll do another followHIM Favorites.