John Bytheway: 00:00 Keep listening to part two with Sister Whitney Johnson Doctrine and Covenant Sections 58 and 59.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 00:07 Couple of other things that I wanted to think about and reflect on is the Sabbath days, section 59 verse 10. For verily, this is the day appointed unto you to rest from your labors and to pay thy devotions unto the most High. He was talking about keeping the Sabbath day holy. I came across a quote a few years ago, which I really loved. This is from Tiffany Shlain, and she wrote a book called 24 6. She said, what if we thought of rest, thinking about the Sabbath day so she practices a technology Shabbat once a week. What if we thought of rest as technology? The promise of technology is that it makes things efficient, it saves time, and it allows us to get things done. It’s incredibly simple. It literally requires you to do nothing. Rest is one of the most effective technologies there is. By giving you a complete day off each week from screens, from responsibilities, from being available, which isn’t true in the church, we’re very available.

01:05But letting you reflect and connect, text Shabbat becomes the ultimate technology. It’s like a system update to keep you running in our always on world, the Sabbath day actually gives us stability. We partake of the sacrament every week. We go to the temple as frequently as possible. We read our scriptures. We pray every day. These are all things that give us rest. Think about the Sabbath day as a technology and think about it as a way to give us stability so that that we can deal with the disruption and things that are happening around us. I want to talk about gratitude. So if you go to verse 15, it says, inasmuch as you do these things with thanksgiving, with cheerful hearts and countenance, not with much laughter, but the good kind of laughter from John, for this is sin, but with a glad heart and cheerful countenance.

01:53I wanted to come back to this idea of gratitude and a little bit back to the place where we started of the saints arriving in Independence. I thought a lot about the word and gratitude because I think for a lot of my life I would hear you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit. And there’s a verse in here where the Lord says, if you’re not grateful, you’re going to invoke my wrath. I was like, really? Does he really feel that way? But then I thought about this and I thought, okay, I had in 2012, so I talked earlier about my brother taking his life. In 2012, my husband had a small cancer scare. I had a really challenging year professionally. In that year, I had this epiphany, this understanding that God was not telling me to be grateful because he needed me to be grateful.

02:42He was telling me to be grateful because I needed to be grateful because if I wasn’t grateful, I would become bitter. And if I would become bitter, the bitterness would consume me. If I look at all the research on gratitude, what produces neurotransmitters, it diminishes symptoms of depression and anxiety. All these wonderful neurophysiological things that happen when we’re grateful. There’s one wonderful quote that I love from Wallace D. Wattles who says, the law of gratitude is that action and reaction. So opposition in all things, are always equal and opposite directions like physics. If your gratitude is strong and constant, the reaction is strong and continuous. The movement of the things you want will always be towards you. You cannot exercise much power without gratitude because it is gratitude that keeps you connected to power. This is secular, but still, I think it’s powerful. But the value does not consist solely of being more blessed with what you want in the future. Without gratitude, you cannot keep from being dissatisfied with things as they are back to independence. Because as you focus on what you don’t like, what you aren’t grateful for, more of that comes to you too. That’s really beautiful and powerful of the importance of gratitude. And back to our fellow saints in Independence, Missouri of this was really hard. The Lord was just saying, focus on what’s good. It’s going to be better. Gratitude for us oftentimes becomes a lifeline. Those were my thoughts on these two sections.

Hank Smith: 04:19 Yeah. And they can come together, can’t they? Sabbath day and gratitude. You can almost say to yourself, I am going to take the Sabbath day to focus on my gratitude. And I can imagine the blessings. The Lord would say, yes. Right? You’ve got it.

John Bytheway: 04:40 I’m still looking at verse 15. Thanksgiving, cheerful hearts countenance. Not much Laughter. I think we talked before about there’s lightheartedness and there’s lightmindedness and they’re not the same thing. Glad heart, cheerful countenance in all of your comings and goings, Hank and Whitney. I’ll bet we could all say some of the happiest people that we’ve met were spiritual people.

Hank Smith: 05:05 Oh, yes.

John Bytheway: 05:06 We could also say, and their lives were not easy. It’s always an amazing lesson to me to meet somebody, to have the cheerfulness that they choose to have not seem to be connected to their life circumstances.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 05:25 What’s the quote from President Nelson about the joy that we feel has nothing to do,

John Bytheway: 05:30 It has less to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. Gratitude is a cure-all almost. There are so many. We talked about this Hank, gratitude, it’s kind of a twin sister of humility.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 05:46 Mm.

John Bytheway: 05:47 If you’re grateful, you know, I didn’t earn this. I was just blessed with this. That’s gratitude. You’re humbled by your blessings and I think they go together. What a nice verse there. And then the Lord tells us what to be grateful for too. When you read 16 through 19, I just get this feeling, wow, the Lord’s so generous. We talked about raspberries earlier, and I know they are in here somewhere. Inasmuch as you do this, the fullness of the earth is yours. The beast of the field, the fouls of the air, that which climbeth upon trees and walketh upon the earth. Yea, in the herb and the good things which come of the earth, whether for food or for raiment, for houses, or for barns, for orchards, for gardens, or for vineyards. Yea all the things which come of the earth in the season thereof are made for the benefit and the use of man. Listen to this both, to please the eye and to gladden the heart. Yea for food and for raiment, for taste. Oh, raspberries. Thank you. And for smell, to strengthen the body and to enliven the soul. And it pleaseth God, that he hath given all these things unto man for unto this end were they made to be used. It’s like he loves blessing us and giving us this stuff. Those verses changed my focus a little bit, just reading that right?

Hank Smith: 07:07 In my New Testament class this year, I want to hear what both of you think about this. We were reading the story of the 10 lepers and how Jesus heals them. And one returns, I think this is in Luke 19, Jesus says to the 10, you’re cleansed. He says to the one you’ll be made whole. The one who comes back. So I ask my students, kind of set them up. What’s the difference? They’ll say, gratitude. And I’ll ask, don’t you think the other nine felt grateful? I don’t think if you asked them, you’re grateful for Jesus. Not really. I liked being a leper. They all are grateful. The difference for me doesn’t seem to be gratitude. It seems to be expressing gratitude. Actually saying the words.

John Bytheway: 07:53 He turned around.

Hank Smith: 07:54 That seems to be what makes someone whole. So what we did in our class, and I maybe anybody could do this, is I said, I want you to take out your phone and I want you to text someone how grateful you are. Don’t just feel it. Don’t be like, oh, I’m so grateful. I want you to take out your phone and text them the things I got back. Tell me what you got back. Oh, my mom said she was having a really hard day and that just uplifted her. Oh, my mission companion said, I can’t believe you texted me today. I was just really struggling and they ended up going to lunch. What I realized it’s yes, it’s perhaps I’m made whole, but through expressing gratitude, relationships can be made whole. It really happened. And they were excited. The students were excited about, I want to do that again. Right? So they took out their phone and did it again. It seems to me that if I want to help a relationship grow, expressing gratitude, genuine gratitude, sincere gratitude is one way to put fertilizer on a relationship.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 08:57 Two thoughts come to me on this. One is when you think about feelings, when someone’s talking about something that hasn’t worked in particular, but I think that goes to what does work as well, is it’s really important to name it, to say, this is how I’m feeling. I’m experiencing this. Because when you start to name it, you feel a sense of control or power over it. So back to the sense of agency, by naming it and by being precise, then your body makes it conscious or all of you makes it conscious and then actionable. That’s a scientific piece. But then I’m going to go back to the Candle of the Lord from Elder Packer again and he said, it is one thing to receive a witness from what you have read or what another has said. That is a necessary beginning. It is quite another to have the Spirit confirm to you in your bosom that what you have testified is true. Can you not see that it will be supplied as you share it, as you give that which you have there is a replacement with increase. And so that builds really beautifully on what you just described, Hank.

Hank Smith: 10:02 I was pleasantly surprised by the student’s reaction to wow that actually worked. That really worked. It was neat to watch them say, I just got closer to my mom. I just got closer to my dad, my sibling.

John Bytheway: 10:21 Yeah. It’s so simple. Take a post-it out. It’s not expensive. Thanks for being my mom.

Hank Smith: 10:29 John, didn’t you get a post-it note once and I think you put it on the cover of your book?

John Bytheway: 10:33 I did. My wife, somebody called and Hey, will you come down to this place and speak? And I had one of those Southwest Airlines flight that leaves at like six. And so I had to get up at 4:30. There was a note on the shower door that my wife left saying, I just want you to know how much I appreciate the heroic lengths you go to to provide for us. And I laughed. I thought she thinks I’m getting paid. And it completely changed the mood that I was in about going down to this place to speak. I actually kept the note, and that’s why you’ve seen it, Hank. I scanned it because it was like, oh, here’s a spiral pad. Rip it off there, jot it down really quick. It wasn’t expensive, it wasn’t time consuming, but it changed my whole day.

11:32Now here we are talking about it 20 years later, but in fact, it reminds me Hank and Whitney of there was a sister, Barbara Barrington Jones. Before she was a member of the church, she used to do a continuing education camp called Be The Best You. That’s what it was. She used to train young women who were going to be in pageants. I thought this was so fascinating. Before she was a member of the church, some of these young women would come and spend weeks with her. A month. She would have them write five thank you notes a day. How does that help you compete? Barbara’s opinion was, it changes the way you look when you’re gracious. It changes your personality and eventually changes your countenance. If you’re a gracious person. She had them write five thank you notes a day. Is that fascinating?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 12:27 Fascinating.

Hank Smith: 12:28 Love it. And there it is right there. Much Thanksgiving, cheerful hearts and countenance. Whitney, I like what you said. The Lord said, I don’t need gratitude. You need gratitude. Whitney, before we started recording, you asked me to briefly share this story of Polly Knight. If our listeners have been paying strict attention, the Knights are one of the very first families to believe in Joseph Smith, outside of his own family. Even before the Whitmers, the Knights lived out by Emma Hale. That’s how he met them. Same time he met Emma. They’re part of these Colesville saints. As Whitney taught us, they went to Leman Copley farm and they were there for a week, couple weeks, and he moved them out and they ended up in Independence. And on the way, here’s the Come, Follow Me, Manual. As they traveled, Polly’s health began to decline, but she was determined to see Zion before she died. She had been in Missouri only a few days when she passed away. Doctrine and Covenants 59 was received on the day of her passing, and it may refer specifically to her. First person to be buried in Zion as we know it.

John Bytheway: 13:40 I’m just going to read from Saints. This is starting on page 132 for those of us who have an ancient device called books that have page numbers at the bottom. Okay. On a plot west of the courthouse in Independence, Joseph carefully laid a single stone to mark the corner of the future temple. Someone then opened the Bible and read from the 87th Psalm. The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of thee O city of God. A few days later, Polly died praising the Lord for supporting her in her suffering. The prophet preached the funeral sermon and her husband buried her body in a patch of woods not far from the temple site. She was the first saint laid to rest in Zion. As you said, Hank the same day, Joseph received another revelation here, section 59, verse one and two. Blessed saith the Lord, are they who have come up unto this land with an eye single to my glory according to my commandments. For those that live shall inherit the earth and those that die shall rest from all their labors. Wow.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 14:45 That’s perfect. I think the reason I wanted to end on this is just I mentioned earlier about my mother who’s close to the end of her life and how Elder Uchtdorf in that video on the Gospel library talks about doubt not, fear not, she was single-minded. She knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to die in Zion, we’re all going to die. What if we could be more single-minded about dying in Zion even though we don’t know when we’re going to die? There was just something about it that was very tender and very sweet to me about how do we help ourselves be focused on dying in Zion even when it’s not imminent, so that when it’s five years or 10 years or 15 or 25 years away or 50 years away, we still are in that place. I was listening to Elder Gerard, quote Joseph F. Smith, who said, the greatest achievement we can make in this world is to familiarize ourselves with divine truth so thoroughly. Back to the young men’s motto so perfectly that the example or conduct of no creature living in the world can ever turn them away from the knowledge that they have obtained their knowledge, that they’re children of God and that God has a work for us to do, just was beautiful and powerful to me.

Hank Smith: 16:06 You spent a lot of time in the secular world. Have you seen that play out? Is that single-mindedness for people? What would you say? How important is that?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 16:15 It’s very important. I mean, I think it’s one of the reasons we talk so much about focus. I think it’s one of the challenges of social media is that people are very distractible. We can’t stay focused. I mean, I think it’s probably one of the reasons that conference talks are shorter because people can’t pay attention for a very long time. Talking about that anxiety piece. When you get sort of agitated, you’re not focusing on one thing, and I think life can agitate us. The ability to discipline ourselves enough to be single-minded about God, about Jesus Christ, about our purpose here on earth. It’s tremendously difficult. Knowing that you’re going to die, I think focuses people. The challenge is, is that to be focused, even when we don’t know that we’re going to die.

Hank Smith: 17:02 Right? When there’s not a pressing.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 17:04 Mm-hmm. There’s not a due date. There’s not an expiration date.

Hank Smith: 17:07 Yeah, and it might come back to, you can learn to focus using that Sabbath day. It can be a time to practice focus.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 17:16 For sure.

Hank Smith: 17:17 Whitney, we know we have to let you go soon. So before that happens, we’d like to ask you a few questions. One is for our listeners out there who are discouraged, we talked about this earlier, we have listeners who are all over the world. We even have listeners, John in prison systems. Our podcast is one of those that’s allowed in some prisons. When someone is down, Whitney, maybe not with a specific trial, they’re just down. For those of you out there who are not familiar with Whitney, she is a go-getter. When you talk to her, you all of a sudden feel your heart rate rising like, we can do this. So Whitney, what do you say to others when they’re down? Or even, what do you say to yourself when you get a little discouraged?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 18:09 I, when I get discouraged will try to remind myself, because when I really get discouraged, it’s because I’ve somehow gotten a film or something that’s blocking me feeling like God loves me. I will do some things and sometimes, you know, I’ll try to read my scriptures and go to church. Sometimes that’s not always enough, but I think two things that I have found really helps me move the discouragement out is one, to go to the temple. But the other thing that has always made a huge, huge, huge difference for me are priesthood blessings. When I can receive a priesthood blessing, and I actually feel sad for a lot of the men in our church because I feel like you don’t ask for blessings enough. It’s in that moment when I ask for a blessing, and it’s usually almost always from my husband that I feel like, okay, God loves me. God knows who I am. I can do this. I’ll be okay. It’s going to be okay. I would encourage anybody who’s listening to this, you don’t have to be a member of our faith. So if you’re not a member of our faith and you’re listening and you want a priesthood blessing, I would do that because it’s an opportunity for you to feel in a really intimate, beautiful way. The power of the priesthood and the power of how God feels about you. That’s probably my go-to when I’m feeling the most discouraged.

Hank Smith: 19:41 That’s beautiful. We don’t talk about that enough do we John and I think she’s absolutely right. As someone who gives priesthood blessings, I don’t ask for many.

John Bytheway: 19:51 Yeah. I think too, talking about expectations, the prophet Isaiah blessed all of us when he described Jesus as a man of sorrows who was acquainted with grief. We may have sorrows and grief as well. Then I love that when he did publicly hear from the Father, what did the father say? This is my beloved son. I am so pleased. And then go back to being a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Maybe if we think every day’s going to be great, well it’s, we’ll, we’ll be disrupted.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 20:28 You just reminded me of something that I’d like to share because I think it might be helpful to someone. I remember when I was released from the calling in the Stake Relief Society, the calling that I didn’t want. I really did try to serve well. I remember when I was released, our stake president made an effort to reach out to me and have a conversation with me. It was very spirit filled where he said, God is pleased with what you did. He’s happy with your work and your sacrifice. I want to make a plea for everybody who’s listening to this, who is releasing people from callings. To use that as an opportunity to really ask the Spirit and God, what does this person need to hear from you through me? To know that their sacrifice is accepted.

Hank Smith: 21:18 That’s beautiful. You can offer someone

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 21:21 So much.

Hank Smith: 21:22 something that will maybe push them towards their next S-curve.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 21:25 Mm-hmm.

Hank Smith: 21:26 Where they think, I like my calling. I’m good where I am. Whitney, one last question. Where I live and in my career, I’m surrounded by believing Latter-day Saints. I work at BYU with what I think are the best young adults in the world. You, on the other hand, you work with a lot of incredible people who are not Latter-day Saints, and as John told us in your bio, some of the most influential thought leaders in the world. Our listeners would be interested in wow, with all that experience you’re having, and then also as a a church member, a wife and a mother, why do you believe?

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 22:05 One of the things that’s been really beautiful, I’ll talk about why I believe in just a second, but that’s been really beautiful, is especially since President Nelson asked us to call the church by its actual name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because I’ve been willing to do that than I more self-identify as a Christian. As opposed to before it was like I’m a Mormon. I found that as a consequence of that, I have been able to find more people who are people of faith. What’s beautiful is there are a lot of people in this world who are people of faith and they’ve just gone underground. I’ll give you an example. So every once in a while, you know, I’ll give a keynote. It’s like 45 or 50 minutes, and when I finish with the keynote or during the course of the keynote, I’ll talk about using I am statements to help people change.

22:53I’ll say this offhandedly, you know, it’s notable to me that Christ whose name was I am that those words have tremendous creative power. So when you say I am, you’re invoking this creative power. Every single time I have several people walk up to me and say, thank you for saying that you’re a Christian, that you’re a person of faith. I think that’s the first thing that I want to say is that there are so many people in this world who believe, if we’re willing to just say that we’re believers, it’s beautiful. That’s something I think it’s important. I would say it’s definitely a challenge. I remember growing up when I would talk to my friends, it wasn’t ever like, do you believe in God? It was like, so which church do you go to? Are you Methodist? Are you Presbyterian? Are you Catholic? It wasn’t, do you believe in God or not?

23:43Now it really is, and I taught women for a while, like, do they believe in God or not? I would say that some of the challenges are is that within the architecture of the church and the societal biases, sometimes as a woman in a church, in the church, it feels a little bit difficult. I’ve had to really wrestle with that of like, does God actually love me as much as he loves his sons and I’ve come to, yes, he does, and I certainly have had experiences where I think sometimes, okay, is this really true? Like, is this really true? And then it’s so helpful to be able to rely on, but I trust Elder Holland and I trust Elder Cook and I trust President Nelson. When I hear them talk, that helps me. But then there are some other more personal experiences of like, I remember being on my mission and asking that same question and walking across this field and just having this experience of like remembering being in the temple, and I think that’s one of the reasons why the temple is so important and why the prophet wants us to go there is because it allows us to be like, this is real.

24:46It gives us this physical, tangible reminder that it’s real. I believe because of the priesthood blessings that I shared with you, I believe I’ve actually been studying Reiki, which is energy work and helps you understand like the energy around your body. That’s helped me believe even more about like the power of our bodies to heal and who we are. I believe when I read the scriptures or when I go to church and I listen to General Conference and I hear the Tabernacle Choir sing It Is Well With My Soul, that was just so beautiful. I just mostly believe, because when I think about if I don’t believe or not, I just remember what Oliver Cowdery and the Lord said to Oliver Cowdery, did I not speak peace unto your soul? I feel peace and I think about, you know what Peter said, where else would I go? It’s just all of those experiences, some of them are tangible, some of their are intangible. That’s why I believe.

Hank Smith: 25:39 That is wonderful. John, don’t you love that? There’s Whitney Johnson’s out there. They’re almost like the John the Baptist for the missionaries here. They are teaching right behind them. One day will come the missionaries and that seed has already been planted in someone’s heart. That’s the hope. Now they felt something.

John Bytheway: 25:57 The thought that came to my mind was, if you want to disrupt your life, talk to those elders and sisters out there. Yeah.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 26:04 Well said. That is disruption. For sure.

Hank Smith: 26:08 That is disruption. Yeah. Whitney, it has been so wonderful to have you here. For everyone listening, getting on Whitney’s calendar is a little difficult, but I was able to do it. I do believe in miracles. It’s been wonderful. Thank you.

Sis. Whitney Johnson: 26:23 Aw, thank you. This has been, I can’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon is having this, talking about the things that matter most to us.

Hank Smith: 26:30 Yeah. Ah, it’s, it’s been wonderful. In fact, section 59 verse seven says, thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things, and I’m thankful for you, Whitney, and for the insight you offered us. I’m never going to forget the price of a new self is the old self. Wow. With that, we want to thank Whitney Johnson for being with us today. We want to thank our executive producer Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen, and every episode we remember our founder Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We need to talk a little bit more about Missouri on followHIM. Thank you for joining us on today’s episode. Do you or someone you know speak Spanish, Portuguese, or French? You can now watch and listen to our podcast in those languages. Links are in the description below. Today’s show notes and transcript are on our website. Follow him.co. That’s follow him.co. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwika, Irides Gonzalez, and Annabelle Sorensen.