John Bytheway: 00:02 Welcome to Part Two with Dr. Shalise Adams, Moroni 1-6.

Hank Smith: 00:07 I would encourage all of our listeners to do a close reading this week of chapter 4 verse 3 and chapter 5 verse 2. We can’t do it here. We can’t go through every word here. We’d be here for hours and hours, but it’s a really neat experience to do this. When we read this as a family, I like to have either my wife or my daughter. I say, “Can you read this?” I remember once my daughter, Madelynn, we were reading through as a family and I’m like, “Maddy, will you read this verse?” And she finished. She’s like, “I’ve always wanted to do that.” A big smile on her face.

  00:42 If I’m maybe reading the sacrament prayer or giving the sacrament prayer, I might mix up a little bit of the pauses and tones and cadence. It seems to be that I hear it in kind of the same manner. I don’t want it to be a distraction, but we don’t have to read it with the pauses in the same place. I’ve noticed before when a young man will read it and it’s different. He uses a different emphasis in different places, helps it stand out.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 01:11 There is value to reading it out loud and hearing it in your own voice. It did something different. When I was studying this and would read it out loud, I feel like there is something different about reading it. When we hear something in a voice that’s familiar, whether it be your own or somebody else’s, it’s special. It’s different.

Hank Smith: 01:32 Shalise, I think this would be appropriate in personal study to change the pronouns from we to me, I, that I can have His spirit to be with me, that I witness. You could probably spend a lot of time on personal study in just those two verses.

John Bytheway: 01:51 There’s a statement that President Gordon B. Hinckley made years ago. He was talking to the young men and I thought, “Wow, that is sobering.” He said, “When you as a priest kneel at the sacrament table and offer up the prayer, which came by revelation, you place the entire congregation under covenant with the Lord. Is this a small thing? It is a most important and remarkable thing,” and then he kept going. “Now, my dear young brethren, if we are to administer the emblems of the sacrifice of our Lord, we must be worthy to do so. It is totally wrong for you to indulge in filthy and unseemly talk at school or work and then kneel at the sacrament table on Sunday.” It was helpful to me to hear. How cool is that? We’ve got maybe 15-, 16-, 17-year-olds placing the entire congregation under covenant. That’s impressive.

Hank Smith: 02:45 I really like that. It’s the same voice, the same voice that is going to school.

John Bytheway: 02:51 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 02:52 Saying good things, I hope, is the same voice.

John Bytheway: 02:55 Is it in the book of James in the New Testament, you guys? Where out of the same mouth, proceedeth both blessing and cursing. Brethren, these things ought not so to be.

Hank Smith: 03:02 Ought not so to be.

  03:07 Now, Shalise, as you and I have been talking over the last few months, I know you were excited about chapter six, which made me excited about chapter six, so talk to me here. What are you so excited about?

Dr. Shalise Adams: 03:20 I love chapter six. He starts by recapping everything that he already talked about. He talks to us about how to be a church and how to participate in a community of saints that helps one another and keeps each other in the right way. There’s value to that. I feel like we don’t place enough value on our church worship and service sometimes.

Hank Smith: 03:42 Okay, I’m ready.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 03:43 Let’s read verse four.

Hank Smith: 03:46 This is Moroni 6:4. And after they had been received unto baptism and were wrought upon and cleansed by the power of the Holy Ghost, they were numbered among the people of the Church of Christ and their names were taken that they might be remembered and nourished by the good word of God to keep them in the right way, to keep them continually watchful unto prayer, relying alone upon the merits of Christ who was the author and finisher of their faith. Beautiful.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 04:16 There’s a lot in there. I feel like there’s so much in there, but did you notice that all of this is past tense? I wonder if it’s maybe longing for Moroni. This is how it is to be done. These are the good things. After he talks about these members that are baptized, he says, “You’re numbered among the church.” I think it’s interesting that that was an ancient practice, as well. I don’t think numbered means necessarily a tick on the board. We’re not trying to get to a certain number. It’s more about we number you, so we know where you’re at, so that if we don’t see you, we can find you.

Hank Smith: 04:52 That is crucial. One time I walked into Elders Quorum, I believe it was, and there were way a lot more chairs than usual, and we all sat down and there were a lot of empty chairs. I thought, “This is weird,” and then the Elders Quorum President said, I decided to set up a chair, not for everyone who attends, but for everyone on the roll. All of a sudden, I realized, what used to look like a full Elders Quorum we’re missing people. I like what he said that they might be remembered.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 05:29 So, are we doing a good job of remembering? Remembering is the hard part of the church. We can have a calling and feel like we have love for these people, but Elder Hirst, in this last conference, he says, “Being loved is not the same as feeling loved,” and I think that’s what we got to do when we remember somebody. We might love them, but we have to make them feel that love. They’re not going to want to be at church if they don’t feel love from the people that they’re around.

John Bytheway: 05:56 He had a beautiful English accent.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 05:59 Yes, yes.

John Bytheway: 06:00 He talked about his kids passing out before they gave a talk or something.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 06:04 Oh, yeah.

Hank Smith: 06:04 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 06:06 I walk into my class and there’s this sister there student who has a beautiful English accent and her name is Darcy Hirst. I walked up to her after General Conference and I said, “Is that you that passed out during a talk? How did you make that connection? I listened to your accent. That’s how.” Yeah, I remember that was a great talk.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 06:31 It was a great talk and I think the Savior teaches us about this. When he comes to the people and he tells them he will heal any that are afflicted in any manner, he does that very individually. He wants a personal connection with each of those people. He could have said, “I heal you all,” and it could be done. That could have happened. It would’ve saved some time, but he wanted to heal people individually and then he leaves and he says, “I’m going to come back,” and all of those people that were healed then want to go find everybody else and bring them there. That’s exactly what the church is about. It’s about us finding healing for ourselves and then going and getting someone else and saying, “Come, this is where you will find what you need.”

Hank Smith: 07:17 So, you’re connecting third Nephi.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 07:20 17.

Hank Smith: 07:21 Where the Savior heals them and they go get others, “Come and be healed.” Wow.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 07:30 But don’t you think that that’s what church is, come be healed? Church is also the school to become like Jesus. We talk about we want to live with Jesus again, but we can’t do that unless we live the lifestyle of Jesus and the church provides that education. We can’t do that all by ourselves. With the church, we’re allowed to practice loving. We’re allowed to practice trying over and over. We’re learning to serve and learn together, but also, the church is the only place the priesthood and the ordinances can exist. We need a church.

Hank Smith: 08:03 Right, to implement these important ordinances. You reminded me of a thought Joseph B. Wirthlin. “The church is not a place where perfect people gather to say perfect things or have perfect thoughts or have perfect feelings. The church is a place where imperfect people gather to provide encouragement, support, and service to each other.” I think Elder Uchtdorf likened the church to a hospital.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 08:31 Elder Renlund talked about, in this last conference, he talked about the gospel in the church and he talked about dynamite nitroglycerin and the kieselguhr that you mix it together and then it could be something useful and how the gospel is perfect, but the church is the vehicle to get us to that place. He says, the combination… This is Elder Renlund. He says, “the combination of the gospel of Jesus and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides powerful and transformative benefits for us. The gospel is perfect, but a divinely commissioned church is required to preach it, maintain its purity, and administer its sacred ordinances with the Savior’s power and authority. The church is simply ordinary people, disciples of Jesus Christ, gathered and organized into divinely appointed structure that helps the Lord accomplish His purposes.”

Hank Smith: 09:22 Wow.

John Bytheway: 09:23 In our handbook today, we have different names for everything. We used to call it home teaching. Now, we call it ministering, but you see that right there. Their names were taken. We know who you are that they might be remembered. We want you to be remembered, then that phrase nourished by the good word of God. Do you remember President Hinckley’s statement that became so important that every new member of the church needs a friend, a responsibility, and to be nourished by the good word of God? One time, I was in a training meeting and Elder Von Keetch told the coolest story. He said he was on a plane and he sat next to somebody who was a search and rescue technician in Oregon. Elder Keetch was just said, “So, what do you do?” And the guy was telling him, “Well, I rescue a lot of people on Mount Hood and usually by the time I get to them, they don’t want to be rescued.”

  10:12 Hypothermia has set in. They finally feel warm, although they’re really in danger, and he said, “I find that at that point, I have to do three things, so I get out my satellite phone because cell service doesn’t work there. I introduce myself, I find out their name, I make friends with them, then I get out my satellite phone and I give them something to do. I’m like, you need to call your family and tell them where you are and that I’m here with you and that I’m going to get you out of this, and then I get some hot chocolate and I give them some nourishment,” and Elder Keetch said, “Did you hear what he just said? I find somebody on Mount Hood. I give him a friend. That’s me. I give him a responsibility. Call your family and I give him some nourishment.” He said, “What if somebody doesn’t want to be rescued? What do you do?” Same thing as President Hinckley, be a friend.

Hank Smith: 11:06 I’d never heard that. That’s great.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 11:09 In that same talk, President Hinckley says, “We would lose far less people if we took better care of them.” I don’t know exactly how he said it, but that’s why we’re numbered and remembered. Sometimes, we’re the ones that need to be taken care of and sometimes, we’re the ones that do the caring and it’s okay to be both.

Hank Smith: 11:27 I know that sometimes, I have been someone who just wants to go to church, sit, listen, and go home. I don’t know if he’d say, “Yeah, that’s what I was after.” I think he might say, “Did you remember people? Did you nourish them? Did you talk with them and uplift them?”

Dr. Shalise Adams: 11:52 I remember a time when I was transitioning from the YSA ward to the family ward, I did not want to be either place. I didn’t want to be in the YSA ward because I was too old and I didn’t fit in there. I did not want to be in the family ward because I didn’t have a family and I didn’t fit in there. So, I would sit in the back and leave because I didn’t belong and I didn’t want to be anywhere. I knew church was important. I had a testimony of the gospel, obviously, not a strong enough one, but it was hard because I didn’t feel like I fit in and then somebody snagged me and put me with the young women and that changed my life because I had somebody to love. I had somebody to serve and all of a sudden, I had a purpose. That’s why we need those callings is we need a purpose. We need something that makes us feel valued and like we belong somewhere.

Hank Smith: 12:50 Shalise, that’s beautiful.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 12:53 Verses five and six. Five and six says, the church did meet together oft to fast and to pray and to speak with one another concerning the welfare of their soul. Don’t you love that this is still what we do today? It is the very same thing that they were doing then. It is exactly what we’re doing now. There’s something beautiful about that. This hasn’t changed. This is still the Savior’s way. This is still how he wants us to do things. I had an experience while I was in Palmyra this last summer and I have never been before and it was a beautiful place.

Hank Smith: 13:25 Oh, yeah. We ran into each other. I remember that.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 13:27 At the Sacred Grove. This is what I’m going to talk about. I knew I was going to be at the Sacred Grove two different times. I had good experiences both places, but they were very different. So, the first experience I went and as we’re driving over there, I am excited to go because this is a place I have a testimony of and I know of what happened there. I thought in my head, “I want to have a good experience,” but that’s as much thought as I think I really put into it. So, we go there and there is a stillness and a peace that’s there that is tangible and beautiful and I had a good experience. It was wonderful, but I did not see an angel. I did not hear a voice or get an answer to my life’s problems. It was a good experience, but that’s as far as it went.

  14:16 Second time I went, I was with a group, millennial choirs and orchestras, and we were there for the purpose of making a video that could be shared, a video that shared our testimony of Jesus Christ and God the Father appearing to Joseph Smith. So, as we are there, everyone is dressed beautifully, their words are memorized and their music is learned. As we sat there at that Sacred Grove getting ready to sing, I could still feel the peace. I could still feel the goodness of the place, but as we shared our testimonies, as we raised our voices in song, it was a different experience because 2000 people were there sharing a testimony of Jesus Christ and the spirit was there, changed me. It will be something that I never, never forget, but it was because there was testimony there. So, I think that the church is no different. The church is a beautiful place where sacred things happen, but when we combine it with testimonies of one another, that’s where the power comes. That’s why we need a church.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 15:16 President Oaks said this in 2021. He says, “Years ago, I changed my attitude about going to church. No longer do I go to church for my sake, but to think of others. I make it a point to say hello to people who sit alone, to welcome visitors, to volunteer for an assignment. In short, I go to church each week with the intent of being active and not passive and making a positive difference in people’s lives.” I get not knowing where you fit. As a single member of the church, we hear often that half of the church membership is single, and I hate that statistic. I hate it because I’m like, but that doesn’t describe me. That talks about these missionaries that are young and still have their whole lives to lead and that talks about these people that have had a family and a spouse and are alone at the end of their lives, but I didn’t ever feel like it described me.

  16:31 The beauty of the church is that we really actually can belong anywhere, but sometimes, it has to be the hard choice to put yourself out there like President Oaks is talking about. “I go not only for me, but I go to make somebody else’s life better,” but I think when that happens, when we serve one another, that changes our hearts. I feel like some of my most favorite friends are the people I have come in contact with because we served together in a calling. We served for the benefit of somebody else and that made us better, but that also made our relationship with one another stronger because it was founded in Jesus Christ. I remember a time I was in the YSA ward and I was asked to be the Relief Society President and I didn’t know who to call and I saw this beautiful person and I was like, “That’s her.”

  17:22 But I didn’t know her. I didn’t even know her name and I can count on one hand probably the times I felt like the Lord said, “This is exactly what you need to do,” but this was one of them. I called her and we served together and she’s one of my most favorite friends out there, but when I talked to her, she also had a similar thought like, “I’m not sure about this. I’m not sure I want to do this,” but that relationship has made us better. I feel like that happens time and time again with BYS, the youth program that I was involved in. These people that I served with year after year for the benefit of the youth, all volunteer, those are the people that are my family. Those are the people that I love because I know their hearts and I know where their testimony is and I know that they love Jesus Christ and because of that, we’ve created a family. That’s been important in my life is finding those people that I belong to.

Hank Smith: 18:16 That is beautiful.

John Bytheway: 18:18 Perfect. In verse five that just that subtle little way this is worded and to speak one with another. You’re in a ward family. One week, this person will give a talk. Another week, this person will give a talk and then this person will get this calling and this person will get this calling and a few months later, we’ll play musical callings and everything will be shuffled up again. There’s not a professional who does it every week, but we speak one with another. I love that and I recall a time I was in an Elders Quorum in Provo and at the end of the regular priesthood lesson, which I cannot even remember what it was about, this brother who had recently come back to the church, put his hands in his face and started to sob and he said, “Brothers, I need your help.” And we sat with him for a half an hour and talked about the challenge he was going through and I will never forget that meeting and it always reminds me, that verse always reminds me of we’re going to speak one with another.

  19:15 I don’t just go to listen and go home. We’re going to help each other concerning the welfare of our souls. And like I said, I can’t remember what the lesson was about, but boy do I remember that Elders Quorum meeting.

Hank Smith: 19:29 I remember as a young father sitting in Elders Quorum, it just felt so good to have people ahead of me in life talking. It was like a mentor session of, how do I do what you’re doing?

Dr. Shalise Adams: 19:45 Don’t you think there comes some vulnerability there, where we have to tell people where we’re at or we have to ask for that advice or we have to say, “This is where I’m struggling.” We have to be a little bit more open. It’s easy to say, “I’m fine. I’m fine. I don’t need anything. I’m fine.” But sometimes, we actually do.

Hank Smith: 20:06 Latter-day Saints get together a couple times a week to lie to each other about how they’re doing. “How are you?” “I’m doing great.” “How are you?” “Fine, loving life.” But yet, we do have our challenges that we’re not sharing.

John Bytheway: 20:18 Yeah. And what a group of mentors that we are surrounded with. I love what you said, Hank, those that are maybe a little older, raising their families, whatever, and you get to hear their experiences and their wisdom. That’s a really good point. I love the idea of mentors and I think that’s why there are young men’s leaders and young women’s leaders and so forth that you’ve got to speak one with another concerning the welfare of their souls. Isn’t it cool that Moroni had this whole church organization described here in so few verses?

Dr. Shalise Adams: 20:51 Verse seven, we talk about the standards that are there that we don’t have any iniquity and I think there has to be a line. There has to be some boundaries, but verse eight says, but as oft as they repented and sought forgiveness with real intent, they were forgiven. That promise of return is pretty limitless as often as we wish. We mess up every day, but we can come back every day, and that’s awesome.

Hank Smith: 21:21 As oft as they repented, which means it was often, right?

John Bytheway: 21:26 Yeah.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 21:26 It should be. We should recognize that.

Hank Smith: 21:29 Yeah. Those rare times when they needed to repent, they were forgiven. It’s like, no, it was often and it was okay that it’s often.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 21:39 I love Sister Reyna Aburto. She says, “The church is more than the buildings and the ecclesiastical structure. The church is us. The church is the members.” Don’t you feel that every time you go somewhere to church that you haven’t been like a different location? I remember going to church in Switzerland a few years ago. I couldn’t understand a thing that was said, but I felt comfortable there. I was happy, it was home, but we have this experience. If you go to church in a different town, it still feels the same or it should because the Spirit is there and because the church is us, it’s the members.

Hank Smith: 22:27 Recently, I went to church in a little town in Wyoming, McKinnon, Wyoming. Sat there with my family, a tiny little chapel, just not a large chapel, and my kids were looking around going, “Hey, look at this.” But it felt like home. I felt like I was among friends.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 22:51 Because you were.

Hank Smith: 22:52 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 22:53 Yeah. I attended a sacrament meeting in Portland, Maine and I heard a couple of exceptionally beautiful talks there, but had that feeling. You walk in and you felt like, “Hey, this is family. We’re brothers and sisters.” Amen to what you just said.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 23:12 We end with verse nine. It says, and their meetings were conducted by the church after the manner of the workings of the Spirit. We’ve talked so much about the Holy Ghost and how it helps us in our lives, but do you have any thoughts about how we should conduct meetings that way?

Hank Smith: 23:27 Yeah, look at that Spirit. Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost. I think he’s trying to emphasize something.

John Bytheway: 23:32 Yeah. I don’t know if you guys have ever experienced this. Have you ever had a visiting authority like in a stake conference, who tosses the agenda and starts picking on people and doing different things? And everybody starts looking down like, “Don’t pick me.”

Hank Smith: 23:48 “Don’t call on me.”

Dr. Shalise Adams: 23:48 I had a good stake president that did this.

John Bytheway: 23:53 I’ve seen that happen before. Yeah, whoever’s presiding has the keys to do that. I’ve seen meetings happen that way. Way back when I was a student at BYU, kids used to decide to stand up in the middle of a hymn and then everybody else in the congregation would see that, “Oh, yeah. That’s fun. Let’s stand up, too.” It happened a lot. People would just stand up. One time, I was in a training meeting in the Marriott center, and Elder M. Russell Ballard was there, and this happened. A bunch of people just stood up and Elder Ballard got up after that hymn and he said, “I want to teach you a principle. I noticed that a lot of you stood up during the hymn,” and then he said, “Watch the presiding authority and you’ll know that I had never stood up.” And then he taught us that the members don’t take control of the meeting, the Spirit does, and there’s an order of things, and the presiding authority decides that I would just never forget that, and that thing stopped after that, where he said, “You watch the presiding authority.”

Dr. Shalise Adams: 25:00 I would like to close with this thought. President McKay said, “The principal reason that the church was organized was to make life sweeter today, to give contentment to the heart today, to bring salvation today. Some of us look forward to a time in the future, salvation and exaltation in the world to come, but today is part of eternity,” and I feel like that’s why we have a church, so that we can be happy today and we can find comfort today. In the end of Moroni, we’re invited to come unto Him. The beginning of Moroni is how we do that. That’s how we hear Him. These chapters are what brings us to Jesus Christ and how we strengthen our resolve to follow Him. We come to the sacrament table each week to recommit and to renew our covenants that we’re willing to remember Jesus, but that brings healing. We find wholeness and belonging in church and that’s why we go.

John Bytheway: 25:55 We might not feel the Spirit every time I go to church, but I feel like if we don’t attend, we’re less likely to feel it in other parts of our lives because that’s where we go, and you’ve said it so beautifully today, Shalise, that’s where the ordinances are. That’s where we go to continue this covenant relationship with Christ. We are not only willing to take upon us His name, we are honored. We are thrilled to get back to that sacrament table and to have Him give us another chance another week.

Hank Smith: 26:27 Shalise, I don’t want to let you go without asking you a couple of questions.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 26:32 Ask away.

Hank Smith: 26:34 You talked about being a single adult in the church. You’re not a missionary who’s just got home or you’re not someone who raised a family but is now maybe a widow or a widower. So, in your mind, we have plenty of ward leaders who listen and wonder, what should I do? How can I do better? So, in your opinion, how could we improve?

Dr. Shalise Adams: 26:57 Talk to those single people in your ward. Ask them what they want to do. The ways that I was most comfortable was when somebody didn’t treat me different because I was single and I didn’t have a family, so probably, I couldn’t be in young women’s or I couldn’t be in Relief Society because I didn’t really understand all those people. We’re all just people. We all have hard stuff. So, I guess that my best advice is don’t necessarily treat them different, just involve them. I feel like I have a lot to offer. Even though I don’t have any knowledge of children, I have nieces and nephews, but I get that it’s not the same. We’re just people. We’re just people like you and everybody else.

Hank Smith: 27:41 I like when you mentioned also that we say single adult, but there’s all sorts of categories of single adult, maybe Shalise in not meaning to, we kind of just scrunch them all together as one.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 27:56 I think that that does happen, and I don’t think it’s intentional. I don’t think it’s vindictive, but sometimes, we think if we’re married, we have it all figured out, and that’s not true. Sometimes, if people think that we’re single, so we should do this A, B and C in order to not be single, and that’s also not correct. It’s just the life that we are at right now. I don’t think me, being single, is a problem to be fixed. It’s not something that anybody needs to be concerned about. Just involve me and help me belong where I’m at and let me offer what I have because that might be something different than somebody else has. That’s where when we meet together like that and we all offer what we can, that’s what makes the friendships and the community that we have, as a church, beautiful.

Hank Smith: 28:50 Oh, I really like that. I can see in my own mind that you have this early-twenty-something-year-old couple come into your ward, and then you have this single person who’s in their 40s and you almost gravitate toward that young couple saying, “Okay, you know what you’re doing,” versus here’s this experienced single adult. But we maybe don’t see that as a, I don’t know, I don’t know what the word is. Someone who can fully contribute, maybe.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 29:19 Be thoughtful and be kind. Don’t ask somebody why they’re not married, because who knows the pain that maybe has gotten us to that spot where we’re single, but that applies more than to just single. It might apply to somebody that can’t have children. Don’t ask them why they don’t have children. That might be something that they have pain about. Be warm and loving and accept people for where they’re at, and that’s okay. People say not mean things, but thoughtless things often that they don’t mean to offend. It comes to me, as well. I have to be careful not to be offended because I think sometimes, that’s really easy. For the most part, people are good and kind, and they don’t mean to make you feel less than you are. The human nature is not to be terrible, so I think it’s a two-way street.

Hank Smith: 30:07 We have listeners from all over the world, so I guarantee there are some mothers and grandmothers out there saying, “I have the boy for her.” So, we love to show our guests who’s listening and where they’re listening from. We haven’t done this in a while. If you’ll come onto YouTube and just leave us a comment. I think Shalise would love to know, “Hey, I’m listening from Orem. I’m listening from Germany.” It’s pretty fun, right, John, to see some of those places.

John Bytheway: 30:38 It’s amazing, too. I’m grateful for technology that makes this kind of thing available.

Hank Smith: 30:45 One last question. We know that you love these six chapters and you’ve shown us that and taught us. I lost count of how many insights I never thought of that you gave. I think our listeners would be interested in your feelings for the entire book. You’re someone who’s very well-educated, getting that doctorate degree. You’ve probably read quite a bit. With all the experience you have and the education you have, how does the Book of Mormon compare against all of that?

Dr. Shalise Adams: 31:18 The Book of Mormon changes everything. The Book of Moroni, it’s been a fun study and I’m eternally grateful that we had a prophet that was given some extra time to write these things, but these things, particularly in the whole Book of Mormon, change our life because they provide ways for us to liken scriptures. They provide ways for us to feel our Heavenly Father’s love, which sometimes we feel like we don’t in the world that we’re in. The Book of Mormon, for me, is something that brings me to the Savior and reminds me who I am and where I want to be and how to get there.

Hank Smith: 31:55 I have been so edified today. I just feel it. This feeling of, wow, this book holds the answers, especially when you have someone like Shalise to help you look through it.

John Bytheway: 32:09 The Book of Mormon starts with one man, Lehi, and then it just grows and there’s this huge group of Nephites, and now, we’re down to one guy, Moroni saying, “We’re about to become extinct. Here’s my last lecture for you.” It’s so powerful. I’m so glad he stuck it out. Shalise, thank you so much for being with us today.

Dr. Shalise Adams: 32:31 Thank you.

Hank Smith: 32:33 And with that, we want to thank Dr. Shalise Adams for joining us today. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. In every episode, we remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. We have two more lessons, John. Just two more lessons coming up on followHim.