Hank Smith: 00:02 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another followHIM Favorites. This is where John and I are sharing a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, we’re in the book of Mormon in The Book of Mormon. There’s a three-word phrase that I want to tell a story about. Ammaron comes to this little boy, Mormon. He’s 10-years-old. He says, “You’re a sober child and you are…” three words, “Quick to observe.”

  00:26 John, I have a story about a man who was not quick to observe. All right. I’m hoping you’ll get a good laugh out of this. It was told by President Hinckley in conference years and years ago.

John Bytheway: 00:39 Oh, does it involve bricks in a bucket?

Hank Smith: 00:42 It does. It does. Here we go.

John Bytheway: 00:44 I can’t wait.

Hank Smith: 00:45 It appeared that a company in England owned a property, a building in the West Indies. A violent storm damaged one of the buildings, and a man was sent to make repairs. Of his experience, he wrote to the manager as follows.

  00:59 “Dear Sir, when I got to the building, I found that the hurricane had knocked some of the bricks off the top. So I rigged up a beam with a pulley at the top of the building and hoisted up a couple of barrels full of bricks.”

  01:12 So if you don’t know what a pulley is, it’s like a wheel. You put the rope through and you can pull on one side of the rope and it raises up the other. He used that and he pulled up some barrels of bricks.

  01:21 “I fixed the building, but there was a lot of bricks left over. So I pulled the barrel all the way up again and tied the line at the bottom, and then went up, and I filled this barrel that’s hanging from this rope with all the extra bricks. Then I went to the bottom and I untied the rope. Unfortunately, the barrel of bricks was heavier than I was. Before I knew what was happening, the barrel started down, jerking me off the ground. I decided to hang on. Halfway up, I met the barrel coming down and received a severe blow on the shoulder. I then continued all the way to the top, banging my head against the beam, and getting my finger jammed in the pulley.”

John Bytheway: 02:06 Oh.

Hank Smith: 02:07 “When the barrel hit the ground, it burst apart, allowing the bricks to spill out. I was now heavier than the barrel and started down again at high speed. Halfway down, I met the barrel coming up and received severe injuries to my shins. When I hit the ground, I landed on the bricks, getting several painful cuts from the sharp edges. At this point, I must have lost my presence of mind because I let go of the rope.”

John Bytheway: 02:42 So here comes what?

Hank Smith: 02:44 “The barrel came down, giving me another heavy blow on the head and putting me in the hospital.” Then he finishes. “I respectfully request sick leave.”

  02:56 So Ammaron says to Mormon, you are quick to observe.

  03:00 You can either be like Mormon and be quick to observe, or you can be like our friend here and not be so quick to observe. What would that be? Slow. Slow to realize.

  03:10 Slow to observe.

John Bytheway: 03:11 I guess.

Hank Smith: 03:12 Slow to observe and have a lot of pain in consequence. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We’re with Dr. Larry Nelson this week, he walks us through the life of Mormon from 10-years-old to 70-something-years-old.

John Bytheway: 03:30 You’ll love what he does with the stories.

Hank Smith: 03:32 And then come back here next week, we’ll do another followHIM Favorites.