Hank Smith:                      00:03                   Welcome to followHIM Favorites. This is where John and I share a single story to go with each week’s Come, Follow Me lesson. John, we are in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and I have a story for you. A couple of stories, actually. It says in Ecclesiastes chapter three that there is a time to laugh.

John Bytheway:               00:19                   I’m so glad.

Hank Smith:                      00:20                   I love this phrase. We should just do a full segment every week, John, called A Time to Laugh. You and I both, we love to laugh. I’m going to tell you a story from Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, then I’m going to tell you a time to laugh story about one of my friends. So here’s the Joseph B. Wirthlin story. It’s in Come What May and Love It. He talks about you have to learn to laugh, right, in life. He said, “I remember when one of our daughters went on a blind date. She was all dressed up waiting for her date to arrive when the doorbell rang. In walked a man who seemed a little old, but she tried to be polite. She introduced him to me and my wife and to the other children, then she put on her coat and went out to the door. We watched, she got into the car, but the car didn’t move. Eventually, she got out of the car and red-faced, ran back into the house.

                                           01:08                   The man that she thought was her blind date had actually come to pick up another of our daughters who had agreed to be a babysitter for him and his wife. He said we had a good laugh over that. In fact, we couldn’t stop laughing. Later when our daughter’s real blind date showed up, I couldn’t come out to meet him because I was still in the kitchen laughing.” Now, this is the part I love. “Our daughter could have been upset and embarrassed and humiliated, but she laughed with us.” Well, I have a story just like that about one of my friends. Her name is Holland. And she told me a story and instead of being embarrassed or frustrated, she laughed and I laughed. And so I’m hoping, John, that this one might make you laugh.

                                           01:51                   My friend Holland, when she was a brand new temple goer, so she had gone through the temple for the first time in December. Well, a week later, her aunt and uncle were getting sealed in the temple and so she wanted to go. Her parents couldn’t make it there, so she was going to go on her own. And she was not very versed in temple lingo. She showed up late and on the way over, she was on the bus, she was searching her purse for her temple recommend. It was all going wrong. You have to think that she’s kind of new at the temple to understand how this story is so funny to me. She gets there late. The sealing is at 12:30 and she arrives right at 12:30. Now, most people know you’ve got to be there early and right, she was running late and she runs into the temple, goes to the entry desk there and says, “I…” She says, she says, “My sealing is right now and I don’t have my temple recommend. You’re going to need to look me up.”

                                           02:53                   The person at the desk was kind of startled and he said – Your sealing? He said, “Your sealing is right now and just…” She said, “Yes, like in the next two minutes. And I don’t have my temple recommend, you’re going to need to look me up.” To which the man at the recommend desk said, “Is your fiance here?” Now, my friend Holland does not connect what she said to what he said, right? Again, she’s brand new at this. And she said, uh, I don’t know. Because she doesn’t have a fiance, so he could be there.

John Bytheway:               03:28                   Maybe.

Hank Smith:                      03:29                   So she said, “I don’t, I don’t know.” And he said to her, “Okay, you don’t know if your fiance is here. Okay.” and he said, now, you’ll understand this a little bit later, John, so go with me on this. He said, “Are you sure that you’ve been, gone through the endowment? Are you sure you’re endowed?” And she said, “Yes, what? Of course.” Now, luckily, there was a friend of hers there who said, “Yeah, she’s endowed. I was at her session, you know, last week.” They finally got it worked out that, “Oh, it’s not your sealing.” Now, to be fair, we talk about, like, my session, right, our session. Right, right. So she just figured my sealing, our sealing. He said, “Well, you are in sealing room two. You know, you got to go around the corner.” She went around the corner, the sealing doors are shut, which usually means, “Hey, don’t come in.” But she doesn’t know that, right?

                                           04:28                   She doesn’t know that. So she opens the door, and there’s the sealer, and he’s speaking. And he looks at her like, “Oh, okay, hi.” She said, “I’m sorry I’m late,” you know, and she came in and there’s no chairs, John, there’s no chairs. So he says, “Oh, no problem, no problem. Let’s just have you sit here.” And he had the bride and groom with their parents, you know, on the little couch there, had them move over. So he just said, “We’ll have you sit right here.” So they all, you know, kind of moved down and she sat there on the little loveseat, which again, she doesn’t know would be an odd thing. Well, as she’s sitting there, the sealer resumes his, what he’s doing. As she’s sitting there, she looks around the room going, “I don’t know these people.” And she looks down at the bride and groom thinking she’d see her aunt and uncle, and the bride and groom are looking at her and she says –

John Bytheway:               05:23                   Who are you?

Hank Smith:                      05:23                   Don’t know them either. Okay, now she doesn’t know what to do. Again, she’s brand new at this. So she stands up again and the sealer stops again and looks at her. She did not know what to say, John. She’s just, she’s the most wonderful girl. She was embarrassed. She did not know what to say. So she looked at the bride and groom and the sealer and said, “Congratulations.” And turned around and left. John, she found the correct sealing room and it was open still. She went to the wrong one.

John Bytheway:               05:56                   Oh, good. Right.

Hank Smith:                      05:57                   Yes. And her aunt and uncle are there and all of her family saying, “Where have you been?” She said, “I’m, you know, I’m so sorry.” And she sat down. Now, John, at that point, I though the story was over.

John Bytheway:               06:09                   You mean it isn’t?

Hank Smith:                      06:09                   The story’s not over. The story’s not over. On her way out of the sealing, her uncle Shane grabs her, pulls her aside and says, “Hey, why is your mouth bright blue?”

John Bytheway:               06:21                   Oh, no.

Hank Smith:                      06:23                   And she said, “What?” He said, “Your mouth, it, your teeth, your tongue, your lips, they’re all blue. Why are they all blue?” And she said, “No, they’re not.” And she found a mirror and sure enough, her lips and teeth and tongue were very, very bright blue because as she was searching for her temple recommend, she had found like a, like a blue candy, you know, a, a blue raspberry fruit roll up, something that in her purse that as she just, you know, she was so hungry she put it in her mouth and it turned her mouth bright blue. Now, John, let’s review the entire story knowing what we now know. She ran into the temple with a bright blue mouth and said to the man at the temple at the desk, “My sealing is in, is right now, but I don’t have my temple recommend, so you’re going to have to look me up.” Then I can see why he said, Are you sure that you’re supposed to be right?

                                           07:20                   Are you sure you’re endowed? Then she went to the wrong sealing room with a bright blue mouth. Bright blue teeth, sat on the couch with the family.

John Bytheway:               07:31                   With the couple. Oh, man.

Hank Smith:                      07:34                   Did not know who they were, stood up. Everyone looked at her and she said, “Congratulations.” And turned around and laughed. I am crying as she’s telling me this story. I am laughing so hard and she is laughing with me. Like it, she is having fun too. She’s like, “Isn’t that just the most wild thing?” Oh, John, we laughed and laughed about it. And, I still laugh. I think about it, you know when I go to a temple sealing, I think, what would it be like for a girl to walk in with bright blue lips and say, “Congratulations.” And then turn around and leave. But the reason I love it is because the, as Ecclesiastes says here, there is a time to laugh. You know, President Hinckley was really good at this. He said “In all of living, have much fun and laughter.” Do you remember him saying that? “Life is to be enjoyed,” he would say.

John Bytheway:               08:27                   One time after a conference talk, he said, “And after my remarks, we will sing Where Can I Turn for Peace.” And then he went, “It makes you wonder who came up with this program to think I was going to stir up trouble.”

Hank Smith:                      08:40                   He was so good. He was so good at that. So we hope this week you take a time to laugh. Now, come join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. We are with Dr. Adam Miller this week. He is a philosopher. A world-class philosopher. And what he does with these chapters is not only fun, but just mind expanding. You’ll see things you, you’ve never seen before. You’ll think of life, honestly, in a way you never have before. And then come back here next week. We’ll do another followHIM Favorites.