Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - 3 Nephi 27 - 4 Nephi Part 2 • Dr. Rebecca Clarke • October 21 - 27 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Dr. Rebecca Clarke continues to elucidate the Savior’s visit to the Americas and what creates a community of the happiest, covenant-keeping people in the world.SHOW NOTES/TRANSCRIPTSEnglish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM43ENFrench: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM43FRGerman: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM43DEPortuguese: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM43PTSpanish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM43ESYOUTUBEhttps://youtu.be/e5pCQzfHwaQALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIMpodcast.comFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookWEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletterSOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE00:00 Part II - Dr. Rebecca Clarke00:07 President Monson changes missionary service age01:20 Three Nephites and David Whitmer04:55 3 Nephi 29:1-9 - God’s power and covenants06:03 3 Nephi 30:1-5 - Hearken08:17 What are the Gentiles going to do?09:30 4 Nephi - Happiness and relationships with Jesus Christ11:06 4 Nephi 1:16 - A list of ‘Nos’14:11 Depression and helping others17:36 A Guatemalan sister shows gratitude 21:48 1 Nephi 17:2-3, 20-21 - Same situation, different attitude24:56 Is happiness in our DNA?27:34 Contention in marriage29:24 4 Nephi 39 - Taught to hate the children of God31:12 The Four Horsemen that are problematic in a relationship37:06 4 Nephi - Power in how we see others (and chickens)41:53 The Beginner’s Mind44:16 Malcolm Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers48:29 Seeing our children as objects50:54 A writing assignment53:39 Jason Carroll’s BYU talk on the Proclamation56:04 President Nelson’s three identities58:21 4 Nephi 1:24-25, 46 - Inclusion1:00:7 4 Nephi 1:15, 28 - Satan hold of their hearts1:02:09 Dr. Clarke shares her testimony of Jesus1:05:37 End of Part 2 - Dr. Rebecca ClarkeThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Welcome to part two with Dr. Rebecca Clark, third Nephi, 27 to fourth Nephi. Something that happened when President Monson altered the age for missionaries was that a lot of sister missionaries entered the field. Many more, of course, than we'd ever had before. Yet there were some of these young women who went to the Lord and said, I want to do what you want me to do. And he said, a mission's not for you. Maybe it's a stretch, but I can see this playing out where some of these young women, John and I both teach, I'm sure Rebecca, you teach them as well.

They feel almost like these three fell like, Oh, I don't think I want the right thing or I don't think I'm doing the right thing. Sometimes they're treated that way. Sometimes we treat these young women who don't go on missions as if they did something wrong. There are some really good ways to live righteously, and we get to see that it's not always our exact way has to be the only way or the best way. I really like that

application. It's really cool to see in this chapter these desires, these righteous desires of these three come to pass. We get to see their power and all the things they overcame. The three Nephites have always seemed pretty magical to me. Their natures were changed. They became more holy. If I were to title this chapter, I would call it, when we have the spirit, we're way more amazing than when we don't. Listen to what they overcame. Cast into prisons, they're cast into pits, and they're delivered. Three times they're cast into furnaces. Two times they escape wild

beasts. This is just the beginning. I haven't had to escape any beasts lately, but I think about these ideas of like a deep pit. I've certainly had those types of experiences in my life. We can look at the three Nephites as modeling how much more power we have when we are connected to Jesus Christ. We're going to face opposition. If we're sanctified like these men were, the powers of earth couldn't hold them. And I think in a way, the powers of the earth can't hold us either. Despair, it can't hold us forever if we can enter into that relationship, that saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Sadness, all of this, all of the desolation, we can be empowered to climb out of those pits. But to wrap this section up, I would love to hear three Nephite stories.

Brushes with Fame. Brushes with Fame, I love it. I don't have any. I don't think I've ever met them. The one story that comes to mind about the three Nephites. I don't know if anybody's ever said, hey, that was the three Nephites, but you both remember that David Whitmer is thinking of going down to Harmony to help Joseph. Well, as soon as you sow plaster of Paris in the field, I thought plaster of Paris is what I made sculptures out of in paper plates in sixth grade. Why do you sow that in a field?

I guess it's some sort of fertilizer. Sorry, I didn't grow up on a farm. And then when they wake up in the morning, it's all been sewn. Is it Peter Whitmer Sr. that says, there's an overriding hand in this? And I think one of the accounts says there were three men and the children said I never saw men work so fast. Hank, who is it that has a podcast about these kind of stories?

Oh, our friend Chris Blythe. Chris was with us last year in our book of Revelation and he's a scholar of folklore. Chris, if you're out there, I think you're going to need to add a bunch more three Nephite stories to your podcast. That's really fun. We should say that those of you who are teaching this week, I think you do what Rebecca did. Teach the wonderful doctrines and principles in these, and then maybe at the very end say, I got a three Nephites story for you. But don't make the lesson about the people who disappear from the backseat of the car. My friend Steve, he said that he was one of the first people

called to the Navajo Nation. He got there and they already had copies of the Book of Mormon. And he said, where did you get these? This is the first time we've had it. And I said, oh, this guy came by six months ago and brought us all these copies of the Book of Mormon. We're all ready to be baptized. And he's sure. He's like, that's gotta be. Perfect. Only if he would have signed them, right, before he left, that old man. Nephi-ha, right? Then we could have known their names. I frequently tell my students that I've memorized the names of the 12. You have a one in four chance. So if you ever think you're meeting one of the three Nephites, just yell out one of the names.

Hey, Qim'anon, hi. Shem'nan! And if he turns, you could say, I knew it! I knew it! And you'd be like... Rebecca, we've covered 27 and 28. We have two more chapters in 3rd Nephi. What do you want to do with these? We see in chapter 29, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon will be a sign to people that God is remembering his covenants, that he's begun to gather Israel. There's this incredible power that we get to see in chapter 29. In fact, in verse 9, 3rd Nephi, chapter 29, verse 9, I'd love to have us read that. Think about God's power

and His willingness to keep His promises to us. We get to see again this relationality of how God interacts with us. He's perfectly consistent. He's perfectly reliable. He's perfectly loving. If He says something, He's going to do it. We can put all of our trust in Him. If we could read verse 9, I think that's a beautiful illustration of God's incredible power. Okay, 3rd Nephi 29.9, Therefore, ye need not suppose that ye can turn the right hand of the Lord unto the left, that he may not execute judgment unto fulfilling of the covenant which he hath made unto the house of Israel." Yeah. We see that nothing can stop God from keeping his covenants or promises with us. We've seen it anciently. We've seen them in the rear view mirror. We've seen his covenants come

to pass. But if we make covenants with God and we have that covenant relationship with him, we can fully trust in it. Those promises will be kept. And it's really exciting. This chapter is saying, look, to us, the second coming is near. Then we move into chapter 30, which is the shortest chapter in the Book of Mormon. It is two verses long. It opens with this invitation to us from Mormon. Harken. What does it mean to hearken? Harken means to give me your eyes, turn towards me. I've got something for you. If I were to say, kids listen to me, they might glance over, right? Kids hearken, stop what you're doing and look at me. This is important.

You're going to have to follow through on what I tell you. I'm giving you some instruction that's not just going to be empty words. This is instruction to listen to and to do something. Verse two is that instruction. This verse, I feel like, is written directly to us because we've been set in time in terms of when the Book of Mormon comes forth, buckle up because I'm keeping my promises. Then verse 2 is so cool because it is yet another verse telling us to live the gospel. Turn or repent. We bring our imperfections to Jesus Christ. Be baptized in my name. We enter into that covenant relationship with Jesus Christ and into a relationship of service and love with each other. And then we can have the Spirit and we can be made holy and happy.

Up next is where we get to see the results of people who have chosen to live this gospel. I love it. I had always been taught that hearken means to hear and obey. If my mom said, clean your room. Yeah, I heard it. I had always been taught that hearken means to hear and obey. If my mom said clean your room, yeah, I heard you. If my mom says clean your room and I hearkened, I think that means that I cleaned my room. Oh, that's good. Hearkened means I did it. Before we move on, I wanted to mention two things. One is this seems to be an extension of the discussion we had with Dr. Baron last week, understanding what the covenant is.

It's almost as if Mormon turns to the reader and says, all right Gentiles, what are you going to do? One other thing is, if you look in chapter 30, this is Mormon speaking as you said, Rebecca, and look what has happened to our narrator. Back when he started, he said things like this, and Mosiah began to reign in his father's stead. He began to reign in the 30th year of his age, making in whole about 476 years from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem. That was our narrator in the beginning. Rebekah, I'm sure you've seen this. In the process of writing, in the actual putting the pen to paper or whatever he was using, the stylus to plate.

The stylus to malleable gold alloy. He has become something different. Does that sound like the same guy? Harken, O ye Gentiles, and hear the words of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. Turn, O ye Gentiles, from your wicked ways. He's gone from historian to prophet in the process of writing the book. What do you want to do with fourth Nephi? I think this is the shortest book in the Book of Mormon.

If not, it's close to. I know you love it, Rebecca. I love it. I want to dive in and talk about happiness and how they got there, how we can apply that to our lives and be maybe even happier, and then talk about how they lost it. That's instructive as well, but we'll talk mostly about happiness, the nature of it, how we can get more of it in our lives and in our relationships. Back in part one, we talked about how happiness is based more

on the quality of our relationships than on anything else. When Christ is talking to the Twelve in 3 Nephi chapter 27, He even mentions that His happiness is tied to His relationship with us. He says, My joy is great, even unto fullness, because of you, and even the Father rejoiceeth, and also all the holy angels because of you. We get to see heaven on earth in this book. We've talked about a glimpse of what that looked like, but I'm just going to repeat some of those things, some of those features of this happy people. No contention, no disputations. They dealt justly. They had all things in common, great and marvelous works done by the disciples of Jesus Christ.

The Lord did prosper them exceedingly in the land. They built cities again. They waxed strong. They multiplied exceedingly fast. They were creators. They were doers and builders. They became an exceedingly fair and delightsome people. They marry and they are blessed.

They fast and pray and meet together often. The love of God is in their hearts. In fact, if someone could read 16. Okay, this is 4th Nephi 1, 16. And there were no envying, nor strife, no tumult, nor hordums, nor lying, nor murders, nor any manner of lasciviousness. And surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God." Yep.

There we have it. That's something that we, I think, want. We all want that, right? And we learn in verse 17, there's no robbers, murderers, and there's no aites. Let's break this down a little bit. Look at happiness for a second. That's the good news. I want to quickly address the fact that maybe all of this talk of happiness might be causing some of us to ask, why am I not happier? I feel like I'm following this recipe. Am I not living the gospel fully enough? Why am I not walking around in total bliss all of the time, like these people. As we talk about happiness, we need to allow other

people their agency. We can't step into this place of saying, if they would just do exactly what I asked of them, then I would be happy. I had a friend say the other day, something great. She said, if I could just move my son around like a chess piece, life would be so great for all of us. Sometimes we slip into that thinking, if I could control other people, then I could be happy. We also need to allow for seasons of life to be more joyful or less joyful than others. Some things are just plain hard, and we have to get through them. We're going to experience loss. It's interesting to note that these people, even though they were the happiest people, just from the timeframe that span lasted for 200 years, we know they experienced loss. We know they lost loved ones.

They were living a mortal experience. Even though there couldn't have been a happier people on the whole, we've got to know that there are going to be ups and downs and moments in our lives. Do you guys have any thoughts about that if people aren't feeling as happy as they wish they were? I go all the way back to 2nd Nephi chapter 2 and Lehi talking about opposition and all things. Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy. But then in the pearl of great price it says because that Adam fell we are and we are made partakers of misery and a whoa sometimes you have second Nephi

225 days and sometimes you have Moses 648 days but that was this whole point of opposition and all things and do you guys remember a musical years ago you can never know the good if you've never known the bad, you can never be happy if you've never been sad. That whole idea of we rejoice in the happy times because we know this too shall pass. I remember one day in high school, I was having a bad time and my dad said to me,

this too shall pass. And I remember month, a year later, I was having a great time and my dad said, this too shall pass." And I remember a month, a year later, I was having a great time and my dad said, this too shall pass. I think of Mosiah 18, where the people get their baptismal covenant, which is mourn with those who mourn, comfort those that stand in need of comfort and willing to bear one another's burdens, which I think inherent in that commitment is that there are going to be people who are mourning and who are going to have burdens that are too heavy for themselves to bear.

If that's you, you're not doing something wrong. The Lord planned on that happening, which is part of why we have our church community. To my teenage friends, I usually say, look, three to four days of being sad, that's not depression. But if someone is feeling a constant state of despair, and there really is no reason, right? There's really nothing that's happening that should make you have this pit in your stomach of fear and despair. This is where your social circle can come in. Talk to someone. It is becoming, as you both know, more and more prevalent, especially among youth to feel this way.

Please reach out. Please reach out to someone. I'm a huge fan of therapy and medication and treatment that can help people be happier. That's my research, my professional background. I believe in it. Medication is needed to help you feel what you need. Then it should be used.

If therapy can help unlock things for you or see things in a new way, then grab hold of that and participate in it. Often these tools can free us up to see more clearly what the gospel has to offer us and sometimes we need that help. Gone are the days of just pray more. Just go to the temple. Yeah, just pray. When you look at the lives of the living prophets, they're not constant bliss. They're losing spouses and children. They are all going through mortality just like we are. Don't get the impression that everybody around you has it easy. Some of us hide it better than others. That's true. Since you brought it up,

a lot of people don't realize that George Albert Smith, the president of the church, suffered from severe anxiety and depression. It would left him shattered and weakened at times. This is in a biography of his shortly after pleading with God to let him die. He had several remarkable spiritual experiences that restored his confidence and gave him strength to endure. So you're right, John. Depression never fully left him despite his hard-won improvements, but he pressed on to fulfill his duties and care for his family. There's nothing wrong with you. You're what scientists call alive, right? You're what scientists call human.

alive, right? You're what scientists call human. We will talk about ways that we can improve our chances of being happy, but that's not to say that you're not doing it right if you're not happy. I want to talk just a moment about gratitude, about how gratitude can help us shift our focus and can sometimes help in terms of helping us be happier. Elder Sabin said in a recent general conference, you'll never be happier than you are grateful. I think there's a lot of truth to that. That's an application piece that many of us can use. There was a woman on my mission in Guatemala who taught me some really important lessons on gratitude. Jimena was 21 years old. I was about that age when I was teaching her. She had three kids. We were in really different life situations.

She couldn't read or write. She had a really mean husband. When we taught her to pray, we showed her the flip charts, outlined the steps of prayer, but she couldn't read it. The steps for prayer included give thanks for blessings and then ask for blessings we might need. When Jimena would pray, she would only say, Te damos gracias por, like over and over, I give thee thanks for, we give thee thanks for, and then fill in the blank. And I thought maybe she was doing it this way because she couldn't read the flip chart instructions. We re-explained it and she made it clear that she only wanted to say thank you to God for her many, many blessings. One morning, my companion and I saw Ximena out, it was early-ish,

and she said she was looking for food for her family and she was looking in the gutter. If there is someone who would qualify to petition for God's blessings, it would be her. But I never heard her give Heavenly Father anything but thanks. Now this is not to say that we need to follow this model, but it was a beautiful thing to me to hear her focus so much on her gratitude. I think it maybe saved her life really, how focused she was on that. Jimena thanked Heavenly Father for her children. She thanked him for the way the sunlight came in through an opening in her home and would shine a pretty pattern on her walls, which were made of cardboard. She found joy and she was grateful for so many things that I would never even consider.

Gratitude can help get us through. We know these people in 4th Nephi face challenges, but I think how we look at them can really be life-changing for us. One of the most haunting kind of Book of Mormon verses for me on the power of perspective is way back in 1st Nephi, and it's when Nephi is commanded to build a ship. Laman and Lemuel really fall apart over this, and they say, you can't do that because you're weak and you're foolish. Just like dad, everyone's been suffering. We've been suffering. This has been terrible. And then in 1 Nephi 1721, it says this,

Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance, yay, and we might have been happy. That idea of we might have been happy if we need to really be thoughtful about our perspective on our lives. Are we waiting for something to happen? I will be happy when. This is so haunting to me because we might have been happy. It's true. They could have been happy. Human beings, we are built to notice the negative. It's salient. And it's a matter of survival that we actually do this. And yet Christ has told us that we're not built to live like this

eternally. We're not supposed to continually forecast the bad weather, only the bad weather. There's good weather too. Just like we can forecast sorrow and look for the sorrow, we can focus on forecasting more happiness in our lives. There's a great quote by the Roman philosopher Seneca who wrote, we suffer more often in imagination than in reality. We are in the habit of exaggerating or imagining or anticipating sorrow. I feel like I fall into that sometimes where I'm actually thinking about all the many things that can go wrong. You know what? A lot of times they don't. A lot of times it goes pretty well. And especially if we're grateful. President Monson was quoting someone else, but he talked about tending two secret gardens, and it's up to us which secret garden we will tend, that we have parallel things competing for our attention in our lives, and we can choose

which one we want to focus on. As we start to talk about happiness and relationships, keep that in mind that we don't have a lot of tons of control over our circumstances, but we have a lot of control over how we view those. I love it. Hank, I've heard you quote that exact same verse, we might have been happy when we put a condition on it. And Hank, I really want our audience to hear you talk about people who keep putting a deadline on their happiness because it's so funny. That's a great chapter, Rebecca, you brought up. It's 1 Nephi 17. You read verses 20 and 21. You have almost the exact same length of Nephi describing his situation in verse 2 and 3. Now they're living the

exact same experience. I'm sure that the tent next door, same ship, same parents. Nephi describes it this way. He says, So great were the blessings of the Lord upon us, that while we did live upon raw meat in the wilderness, our women did plenty of suck for their children. They were strong, like unto the men. They began to bear their journeyings without murmuring. And thus we see the commandments of God must be fulfilled. If the children of men keep the commandments of God, He nourishes them, He strengthens them, He provides means that they can accomplish the thing which He commanded them. He did provide means for us while we did sojourn in the wilderness. It's almost the exact reverse of what layman said.

These many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions in the land of our inheritance, we might have been happy. Our listeners could take 1 Nephi 17, compare verses 2 and 3 to verses 20 and 21. It's definitely not your circumstances. It seems like for laymen, happiness is always somewhere else. Like you said, Rebecca, happiness is back in Jerusalem. I've said we grow up this way. When we're younger, we think I'll be happy when I'm as old as my brothers and sisters, that I can do the things they do. And then it's I'll be happy when I'm out of this house when you're a teenager. And then I'll be happy when I'm on my mission. And then I'll be happy when I'm back off of my mission. And then it's I'd be happy if I was married. I've heard students say that. I'd be happier if I was married. And then I'd be happier if we had kids. And then it's, I'm going to be happy when all of these kids move out. I'm sure then I'll be happy. Right?

And then pretty soon it's, I'll be, I bet I'll be happy when I retire. And this is not a joke. My own grandmother said to me in her 90s, she said, Hank, I think after I die, I think if I were dead, I'd be happier. When does this stop? I'm convinced there's people in the spirit world that say, as soon as I'm resurrected, I'm going to be happy. Happiness is always somewhere else. And that's a dangerous place because you're never going to get there. It's always going to be a little bit further down the road. It never is. Cultivating happiness now is what we're after, not wishing for different times.

And we see people in the Book of Mormon doing that. Do you remember Nephi, John? Oh, that I had lived during the days of… Oh, those were the days. Yeah, it was so great. It's like, are we reading the same book? Those days didn't sound very good. Nephi says, wait, what are you talking about?

It should be said that some of our happiness, right, Rebecca, is just in our DNA. Yes, that's very true. We come with a temperament. I like that Joseph Smith spoke of his native cheery disposition. I've always wondered what that means and where you order that. Maybe native cheery disposition.com or something. Rebecca, you are right. Not a lot of our happiness comes from our circumstances.

There's a little bit. The research shows two things, health and and poverty If I can change those circumstances I can impact your happiness, but not your not your weight Not what car you drive. I remember I told one woman Talking about happiness and I said at a certain point Income stops making you happy. It's not as much as people would think Kind of levels out. Obviously, if you don't have any income, getting more income significantly changes your happiness because you have a place to live and your stress goes down. You have medicine, you have food. Oh, up around where you take care of your needs, that's where money stops really having a lot of

impact. And she said to me, she said, that's not true. Those people just don't know where to shop. Right? She just could not believe it. Didn't you say this earlier, Rebecca, right? When we started, we're not very good at predicting. Yeah. Humans aren't. I've heard this repeated so often from president Nelson,

the joy we feel has less to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. And that was that focused on Christ message. Yeah, that's beautiful. We know that happiness is not so much based on our circumstances, but one of the defining features, and we brought this up earlier, the element that is mentioned more than anything else in this description of the happiest people is that they did not have contention. That

is worth paying attention to because friction is the stuff of human relationships. Tell me that in 200 years time all the married couples agreed on how to handle household issues and parenting and money. Our parents and children were totally in sync about curfews and chores. These people were living a mortal life. Conflict is inevitable. That's not a bad thing. Research shows strong marriages increase in trust when they work through conflict.

Well, they can disagree on something, have an argument or work through it, and then they end up with even more trust. They report feeling happier with each other. Weak marriages work in the opposite direction with conflict, so we have to be careful about saying, well, it's a great thing, but we do see that conflict is inevitable, but contention is a choice.

Contention comes into play when we are handling conflict in ways that are not in keeping with how Jesus Christ acted or related to us. We can have love in our hearts and disagree on things, but we can't have a loving heart and be contentious. Those can't coexist. Dr. John and Julie Gottman are scholars of relationships. They study marriages and they've done some really neat, insightful research on predicting divorce. They brought married couples into their lab

and just asked them to discuss a topic of conflict for 15 minutes. Then the researchers would watch the tape back and just look for patterns. And the Gott's got to the point where they could predict a divorce within the next five years for a couple with a Really high degree of accuracy like 85 percent. They tuned into four problematic Communication patterns and they called them the four horsemen of the apocalypse Because left unchecked they spelled the end of the

relationship, right? The characteristic most problematic and most predictive of divorce was a pattern of contempt. Everyone has moments like this in their marriages and close relationships. You are not going to automatically get a divorce if you slip into these behaviors. But unchecked consistent patterns of contempt are harmful. Really watching videos of couples engaging in contempt is is quite upsetting. It's husbands, it's wives putting each other down, belittling the other person. It is, it is, it's tough. One thing that we can learn from 4th Nephi about this is we read something really fascinating about contention or contempt. 4th Nephi, verse 39, it says, They were taught to hate the children

of God. So this is when they start to lose their happiness. Even as the Lamanites were taught to hate the children of Nephi from the beginning. I'm really struck by that phrase, taught to hate. And that's a strong phrase. But I think that it's interesting that we can be taught, we can learn mindsets about how to interact with the world and how to be in the world. It's depressing, but probably worthwhile to consider how would people be taught to hate. It would be unlikely that I would ever try to purposely teach my child to hate. And yet this happened in this time. It's possible that we could say something, for example, about groups of other people or other people, just even in the presence of our kids, that could teach them or model them a mindset of contention or contempt. In terms of application and contention, I think we need to be really careful about what we model to our kids and to the people that we love in our lives. When

we set people up as competitors or rivals, speak of them in terms of less than, we start to lose our happiness. Wasn't that Mosiah 10? They taught their children to hate, that they were wronged. We were wronged in the wilderness. We were wronged in crossing the sea. We were wronged in the land of our first inheritance. That went on for centuries. What would be the natural consequence of that?

The world's against me. Yeah, you can only imagine. In the Gottman's work, the four communication patterns that were particularly problematic are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. If you're trying to connect on something, so you have a moment in your marriage where you're really trying to work something out and then this is the pattern that you go to, that can be problematic. The first communication pattern of criticism means I'm criticizing you. I'm putting you down. Rather than dealing with the issue at hand, I'm going to attack you with some kind of critique. It might even be something where I attack your character.

You might need something from me, need to change something and instead of saying, okay, I'll take that to heart, I'll try to change this, maybe I overspent. I would say, you don't make enough money. It hurts even to say these examples, but it's being critical and that doesn't bring connection. Then there is contempt and that is the most pernicious of the four horsemen. Contempt has an element, a kind of a flavor of hate and disdain and this is the most problematic of the four horsemen. It's the most predictive of divorce. Contempt indicates a one-up and a one-down a one down position.

It indicates that I'm not even seeing you as worthy of my time. These videos are hard to watch. You see people just belittling their spouse. Probably rolling their eyes, right? Yes, rolling their eyes like this again. Of course, that's not going to be helpful to a relationship. And there's defensiveness. Defensiveness is where I try to deflect.

Maybe my spouse comes to me with an issue and instead of saying, I hear you, I want to try to work through this with you. Well, that wasn't my fault. I'm going to just deflect it. That's something you should have done. You should have told me or you should have reminded me or whatever the situation is and being unwilling to face up to my participation in whatever the conflict is that we're having. The last horseman of the apocalypse is stonewalling and that just shutting down, not

participating at all. Males have a kind of a primary go-to horsemen and females do too. We can all do all of these of course, but women tend to criticize more than men and men tend to stonewall more than women. Men will back away and shut down and then women will sometimes attack and approach. Now this is really fascinating to me. The stonewalling on behalf of men, many times men are actually trying to do something good for the relationship in these moments. They are trying to avoid attacking. We know that in marriage conflict, in marital conflict, men get more physiologically aroused when there is conflict than women do. It hurts them actually, physically. They get more upset, discussing relational issues. It's harder for them to

decompress. Sometimes they'll put up a wall. If you hear them talk about it, they'll say things like, I didn't want to make things worse. I didn't want to escalate things. where their wives will be saying things like, he never talks to me about this, he just shuts down, he just tunes me out. That is an interesting piece of this. And women with their criticism will sometimes be on the attack. They're trying to connect in their own way. It's not a great way, but they are at least approaching the relationship conflict and trying to resolve it. Maybe that criticism is not an effective way to do so, but those four horsemen can come together into a constellation of behaviors that can be really troublesome for marriages. But again, the strongest one is contempt. We need to watch for all of that in our communication. Contempt has the difficult addition of a mindset, of a feeling behind it,

that's not really working for the relationship. These other behaviors, defensiveness can be protective, criticism can be an approach, try to figure something out, stonewalling can be trying to keep things cool, but contempt really doesn't have positive benefit, I don't think. It comes from a place of seeing the other as less than. Let's tie it back to fourth Nephi then, because it seems like praise instead of criticism

would it be respect and love instead of contempt? Defensiveness, what would the opposite of defensiveness be? Defensiveness would be taking responsibility. It's saying, you know, I understand that I'm a part of this. I am not trying to offload the responsibility for this whole thing onto you. You do that too. Yeah, you do that too. Like that's the red herring as we argue. Just look over there. Praise, respect, taking responsibility. And the opposite of stonewalling would maybe be openness?

Yeah, I think so. With stonewalling, it can be really helpful for relationships and marriages if they're dealing with conflict. If a partner is feeling emotionally dysregulated, it can be really great to take a break. I gotta go process this. Just give me a second.

That's the antidote to that. Contempt, the antidote is love. You've got to change your mindset. Just like you can learn, be taught to hate or learn to hate, I think you can learn to love. And I want to look at that actually too. I think you're right on. I can sense maybe not those exact words are used in Fourth Nephi, the four horsemen versus the four antidotes as we called them there. I don't know, you can kind of sense the four horsemen creep up in the second half. They had the four antidotes, they were working and then these four horsemen crept up on them. Pride, exercising power and authority. Those aren't the same words, but that's contempt. That's criticism. but that's contempt, that's criticism. Yeah, it really is. And I think there's so much power in how we see other people. I think that's one thing we learn in

4th Nephi is how we see other people. When we are seen and we are loved for who we are, which is something Christ does perfectly for us, doesn't mean he wants us to stay in a state of imperfection. He doesn't want that either, but he loves us for who we are. That can be really motivating to us in relationships when we are seen. Anyone who spent any amount of time with a toddler knows that innate refrain of, watch me, watch me, look at me, watch me. And I don't think we ever fully grow out of that. One of the most loving gifts we can give in our relationships and to each other is to really see the other person. And that can take time. When I met with couples in marital therapy, I learned that lesson of how powerful it is for partners to feel seen. In fact,

that's what the work of a lot of marital therapy is, slowing things down so that they can hear each other and see each other rather than they get into these spaces with the four horsemen that muddies the waters. People are looking everywhere but at their real partner and what they really are going through. Seeing each other clearly is a celestial principle. In Doctrine and Covenants, in section 76 verse 94, we read about those in the celestial kingdom. And it says, and they see as they are seen, and they know as they are known, being noticed has such power. I was talking the other day with Owen, my oldest son, who's 17.

has such power. I was talking the other day with Owen, my oldest son, who's 17. I asked him, when have you felt most loved by me or dad? He pointed quickly to a family walk we had taken some weeks prior, again up the canyon on a Sunday afternoon. He was having a really difficult day, difficult weekend, difficult day. He didn't want to be there. He's lagging behind us. And here I am trying to keep everyone motivated and I'm walking up ahead and charging ahead. But Sam, my husband, turned around, just looked back at Owen. He stopped him and gave him a hug. And that was it. He didn't say anything magical or healing. In fact, he didn't say anything at all. He just hugged him. As Owen was telling me this, he got choked up. He said, I felt so relieved. And then he said, just having dad notice was what mattered. How we see each other is of vital

importance. If we don't see each other clearly, we can't connect. That's when disconnection, I think, really starts. Sometimes we're blind to our own blindness. We see what we think we already know is there. We had chickens for about two decades at our house. They were all layer hens and we would periodically refresh the batch. And one spring we got five chickens, which the kids named Clam, Carrot, Katie, Zebra and Star. Sam and I noticed early on that Star, the chicken, she was really picking on the other chickens and she was bossy and she was loud. And not only that, but she was gargantuan.

She was almost twice as big as the other hens. All the chickens were wandering around in our yard one day. And so it's well into the summer. They've almost grown. Our neighbor, Brother Young, came over to visit, and he was familiar with raising chickens. We started talking to him about our troubles with Star. And it was like, Star was exhibiting all of this, her bad behavior right there. I'll never forget this rhetorical question that he asked us that day after looking at the chickens and looking at us and looking at the chickens and looking at us he said well you guys can see that stars a rooster right as he said it we started laughing for the first time star has a comb star is cock-a-doodle-dooing waking

us up every morning trying to be the the rooster the in charge of the other chickens even though it was completely clear to us in the rooster, the in charge of the other chickens, even though it was completely clear to us in the moment when he said it, because we'd been told at the store that they were all hens, we missed it. We simply didn't look for the possibility of anything else. Sometimes we fail to see the realities of other people, people around us even. Of course they should be happy, of course this, of course that. But if we take the moment to say to people and to be with them and to try to see them, what is it that you want? Like Christ said to them, what is it that you desire? That would be a

great conversation starter in any familial relationship. Where are you right now? How do you feel emotionally? That is one of the great relationship lessons I take from 4th Nephi. Two thoughts came to mind. One, I know in dialectical behavior therapy, there's a practice called beginner's mind, where you come into a situation trying to not have those previous ideas set of what people are, who they are. One of my favorite examples of this in the scriptures is Luke chapter 7, where a woman comes in, Savior's at dinner with a Pharisee, and a woman comes in. Everybody sees her. She interrupts the meal. Simon the Pharisee in his mind says, this is a sinner. Jesus turns to Simon, you've got to be careful with your thoughts I think if Jesus is in the room.

He can just read your thoughts. Gotcha. So Simon, I have a question. He does. He said, Simon, I have a question for you. And it fits right in with what you're telling us, Rebecca. He said, Simon, seeest now this woman. And it's obvious that everyone sees her. But what you're saying is this is more than seeing someone. This is, are you really trying to see who they are instead of the label or the what you think you see? Or what you wish you would see.

We do that a lot of times in our relationships. I wish my husband were always happy with his wife and all of the things that I bring to the relationship. I wish that. So maybe I won't ask because I don't want to find out that what he really needs or wants and I think it's wonderful to attend and to try to to map people and to try to understand where they are. We know that in parenting there's two great parts of parenting and that's to love your kids and then also to have boundaries and expectations and monitoring behaviors, knowing where they are, not just where they are at what friend's house, but how they feel about that friend,

how they feel about that relationship, being with people. We do this and we see this in 4th Nephi on a larger scale where they're talking about this communal love and peace and happiness. They got good at not Iting people. We're gonna make that into a verb for a second, not aiting people, not seeing them as a monolith or as other than, not having contempt or contention with them. I love this quote by Malcolm Gladwell in his book called Talking to Strangers and it's looking at people that we don't know, so moving away from family relationships for a second, he says, we think we can see easily into the hearts of others based on the flimsiest of clues. We jump at the chance to judge strangers.

We would never do that to ourselves, of course. We are nuanced and complex and enigmatic, but the stranger is easy. If I can convince you, then he's talking about his book, of one thing in this book, let it be this, strangers are not easy. Fourth Nephi teaches us that how we see each other has a profound impact on our happiness. Early in my marriage, I was a student at graduate program for marriage and family therapy, and I was learning how to be part of my marriage right when I was taking classes on what made marriages happiest. And I was an attentive student. And I'll never forget one class in particular, I was rushing out the door to get to school on time. I was inconvenienced by one of our cars not working,

and Sam was scheduled to have fixed it, and it wasn't done. As I left, I said some sharp words to Sam, and I punctuated my comments by a really immature, newlywed move, and I slammed the door behind me. I walk into the lecture late, and I'm self-righteous, simmering. Right as my professor said this, and I have this in my notes, she said, love is opening up space so that your partner can arise as a legitimate other. I had to sit in my classroom desk for the entirety of that period, knowing that I had delegitimized my husband. I had closed up space for him. I hadn't seen him

as a person with wants and needs and a schedule of his own. I had to wait until I could get home and say that I was sorry. This was just one of many important lessons I learned about relationships and marriage in my marriage and family therapy program. One of the neatest things I learned about relationships and marriage in my Marriage and Family Therapy program. One of the neatest things I learned was about this way that we see each other. An Austrian Jewish philosopher named Martin Buber, he did work on how we relate to each other, how we see the other. He theorized that we see each other in one of two ways. We either see other people in our lives as in an I-it orientation. I see you as an it, an object, a thing. Either you're going to benefit me or you're going to be in my way somehow. Or we see each other as a vow. He was religious and used religious language. In this orientation, we see other people as divine. We actually understand there is divinity in

them. The I part in the I-it orientation, I am the most important part of that type of perspective. If I move through my life and my relationships, where it's really all about me, then other people are never going to be quite real to me. We can easily slip into this IIT way of seeing people and not realize that we're doing it. We can be blind to it like we didn't know to look for a rooster in the pack of hens that we had, the little flock of hens that we had. But when I see my husband as an IIT, as a fixer of my broken car, as a paycheck, someone to pick up the kids, I've slipped into the I it thinking and made him into an object. If he sees me as a dinner maker, or some sort of obstacle in how much I'm going to roll my eyes and how much is she going to spend this month, or a reminder of all the things he needs to fix. If he sees me that way, then we've I-It-ed each other. Even if I see my children as like a

project, even if I see them as the source of my personal worth, that's I-It as well. Social media is flooded with this I-It perspective built on treating people like objects, creating idols or caricatures out of real human beings. Sometimes in our public discourse we speak of entire groups of people as if they're barely human. If we have a strange relationship that might be a place to look. If we are treating someone as an object then maybe we don't know what's really in their hearts. We're not looking at their reality or their divinity. Can I ask you to follow up on one of those? And that is parents who see children as objects, because I can be blinded by the fact,

and it is a fact, that I want the best for them. Yes. But it can still be an I it. Mm-hmm. I think you want the best for people in the I thou stance. I think if you are wanting the best for someone, you're automatically departing from the I it.

I don't think you're looking at them as an object. I it would be I want the best for you because the best for you benefits me. Because it makes me look great. I want you to win the spelling bee because that will make me feel proud and smart. That would be I-it-ing your child to say, I want you to win the spelling bee because I know it means the world to you. So let's practice the words. That is an I-thou because I know it matters to you. It's mapping them. And the cool thing about the I-it-I-thou is that the I is connected with a hyphen in both spaces.

It really reflects on if I'm treating people, I'm connected to how I treat people is what I'm saying. I'm connected to my perspective on who other people are. So if I'm seeing people as a thou, as a child of God, as divine, as real and legitimate. That makes me, that makes the I that is connected to that a little different. I'm moving through the world differently. If we enter into the I-Thou orientation, I will see others as a full and legitimate self. I'll see the divine in people. I'll know what they want because I've asked them. I will understand that they're separate from me, but they have thoughts and needs and desires and wants that are as legitimate as my own are. That when we read about the happy people in 4th Nephi, we see

there are no aites. There are no others. They didn't divide each other into groups based on wealth or gender or accomplishments or whatever, political party, because aites don't exist to Christ. All are alike unto God. This is what we can model. If we can, how do we move into the I Thou perspective? We slip back and forth between the two of them as we go through our lives, but the answer is you just choose to move into the I Thou perspective. I have a friend who taught writing at BYU for years and she created a really powerful assignment for her students and it captures this move from I It to I Thou. She had her students write two papers. The first one was to characterize a group of people, identify like a social or religious or political issue that they disagreed with really strongly. And then write paper number one was describe the characteristics of the people who hold these different views. And then the students had to interview two people who actually held these different views. The second the students had to interview two people who actually held these different views. The second paper was a write-up of what students learned from the

interview. The initial descriptions when students were characterizing other people who believed differently from them had descriptive words in them like, these people are selfish, extreme, defensive, ignorant, short-sighted, and frankly uneducated. Pretty solidly an I-it perspective. The second paper was written after the interview and they were assigned in the interviews just to listen. They just had to ask questions and try to understand. They couldn't try to tell them how it was or teach them a lesson or anything like that. And you can hear this shift, this beautiful shift from I-it to it to I thou. One wrote,

after listening to her, I realized we had much more in common than I thought. Or I learned that she was willing to share her ideas in a kinder way than I believed was possible. And this is really important. I can understand now why he holds this belief. Just by seeing that other peoples were real and legitimate, just by listening, they came to understand that people were real and legitimate and even divine. So, if we catch ourselves doing this to others, we can change the way we see. I noticed something in verse 15 about the no contention. And it said, there was no contention in all the land because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people. So it wasn't necessarily they loved each other, it was I love God so I choose to not have contention. Sometimes I focus in my house too much on loving your sibling and thinking, oh, there won't be any

conflict if you love your sibling. But really, like you said, contention is a choice. I think we choose contention when we don't have a relationship with God sometimes. I noticed that when I come out of the temple, I don't feel like fighting. And that's not because I come out loving others as much as I come out loving God. Right. It's that vertical and horizontal relationship and that when we love God, that is going to probably permeate the rest of our relationships. It's going to move this way laterally as well. I think we can learn how to love. Jason Carroll, BYU professor, gave a fantastic BYU devotional about love in 2019 and he pointed out this I'm going to quote him for just a minute

here because it's beautiful. Did we see the word love appears five times in the proclamation on the family and each time it is linked with action words such as to love and care or to love and serve. Thus the language of the Lord suggests that love falls within the scope of our agency. Love is something we do, something we can control, and ultimately something we can choose. If not, God could not command us to love one another. Although we might not be able to will ourselves into loving other people, this deep love comes from Jesus Christ. Jason Carroll continues in his devotional and he says, we can be endowed with Christ's love and this involves coming to see as

he sees and understand as he understands. I don't think that's something that is out of our purview. That's something we can accomplish in our relationships. Wow. No manner of aights. No manner of aights. This is October 2021, General Conference, Elder Holland talked about 4th Nephi and he said, when the love of God sets the tone for our own lives, for our relationships to each other and ultimately our feeling for all humankind, then old distinctions, limiting labels and artificial divisions begin to pass away and peace increases. That is precisely what happened in our Book of Mormon example. No longer were there Lamanites or Jacobites or Josephites or Zoramites.

There were no Iites at all. The people had taken on just one transcendent identity. They were all it says to be known as the children of Christ. I just thought about a moment on my mission. I served in the Philippines. There were seven elders in this room and I remember looking around and going, I am the only one from the United States. There's an elder from the Philippines, from Australia, from New Zealand, from Canada.

We're not trying to be the same. I love the old saying harmony is being different together. But we all had the name of Jesus Christ on our name tags and that is what brought us in that same room with this united purpose. It was an interesting moment to think of that. I'm just remembering President Nelson's three identities for the young single adults. I'm a child of God, I'm a child of the covenant, I'm a disciple of Christ. And I had that note next to verse 17. Now, we're not asking somebody to abandon their culture or their heritage, but I was in that room with all those people from different countries, but we were united as the children of Christ trying to share the gospel with people. It was a poignant moment for me to remember that.

I love that. The love of God, it's a higher unifier. It reaches beyond. These people were unified because they chose to be one in Christ. They didn't introduce ranks. They didn't assign value to things Christ said we ought not value, like had happened previously in 3 Nephi, chapter 6, verse 12, according to their riches or their chances for learning, their education. In 4 Nephi, in verse 3, we see the focus is on what they had in common. It doesn't say that they had to think the same way. It doesn't say that they had to all have the same job or the same number of kids or the same thing for dinner every night. The point is not sameness, but the point is unity in Jesus Christ. Unity like the Father and the Son are unified, unity in purpose and love. Once they stop being unified, things really start to fall apart and they fall apart quickly. When I think about no contention, it's just another way of saying Zion, one heart. And then when that ends, in verse 26, they begin to be divided into classes, just like 3 Nephi 612 you mentioned.

Divided, unified, divided. It's stunning how they lose it. They lose it completely by verse 24. It's so sad. It is so sad. You're thinking why can't you keep this? You did heaven on earth. You were so happy. Why would you let it go? Speaking of inclusios, look at verse 2. The people were all converted unto the Lord. And then go to verse 46, there were none that were righteous. You've got all on one side and none on the other. We go from all to none in one chapter. That is fascinating. That's interesting that you notice that because verse 24 is right where it breaks, and that's almost in the middle

of those two numbers. In verse 24, there began to be among them those who were lifted up in pride, such as the wearing of costly apparel and all manner of fine pearls and the divisions have taken hold and things really start to crumble. In verse 25, their goods and their substance are no more in common among them. That is so interesting. Back in chapter 27, we heard Christ talk about selling him for silver and gold, putting things ahead of relationships. We know from research today that as societies develop and become wealthier, they tend to become less religious. They tend to turn away from God. We know that marriages that are high on levels of materialism are lower on levels of satisfaction. These things can just be a distraction to us. It's kind of interesting to be aware of that.

When things are going well, don't let that start to become our focus. That's one of the big questions here. It's like, how could they have kept it? And it's like, oh, if they just had kept focusing, then by verse 27, they are starting to receive all manner of wickedness. And I think that verb receive, accept, yes, bring it in that there's something kind of willful about that. By verse 31, the non-believers have hardened their hearts and they're seeking to harm the believers. They lost it. They lost the happiness. They didn't have to. I think that's the important part of 4th Nephi. Like we were talking about the very beginning, we can continue that, endure to the end. We can remain in it. We can continue to repent and turn back to Jesus Christ.

we can continue to repent and turn back to Jesus Christ. I noticed you could also compare verse 15 and verse 28. Verse 15, we've read it a couple of times today. There was no contention in the land because of the love of God, which did dwell in the hearts of the people. Look at verse 28. Because of the power of Satan, who did get great hold upon their hearts. The love of God in the hearts of the people, or the power of Satan, takes hold upon their hearts. The love of God in the hearts of the people or the power of Satan takes hold of their heart.

It really is where we focus, how loving we are and choose to be is so important. The gospel of Jesus Christ is one of connection. We can repent and we can reorient ourselves to Christ. We can enter into loving relationships with the divine and with each other and we can keep on repeating that process. When we take the sacrament each week, we partake of the water and the bread. And the water reminds me of the living water, Christ and what He has done for and can do for our spirits. It reaffirms that eternal connection that we have with Him and our reliance on our relationship with Him. But the bread is interesting

to me in this way. Bread reminds me of what Christ did for others while He was here on earth. It has mortal significance. Christ multiplied bread to feed hungry people. He broke bread to be in communion with his friends. He shared this with his fellow man. And when I partake of the bread, it gives me a chance to reevaluate my Christ-like relationship with my fellow men and women. In essence, the sacrament can be a weekly opportunity and a reminder to strengthen relationships both vertically and horizontally. When we learn to love and connect with the divine and each other through living the gospel of Jesus Christ, aiming to become even as Christ is, our relationships are going to be better and we are going to be happy. I love it. Rebecca, thank you so much for walking us through these chapters. I'm

always going to see relationships and I love having a new lens. I think our listeners would be interested in your experience with the entire Book of Mormon in your time teaching English for two decades and now teaching marriage and family. How does the Book of Mormon hold up in those two fields? It's a beautiful thing. I see relationships and relationship advice everywhere I look. I see the most supreme and healing relationship advice in the scriptures and in the Book of Mormon in particular because it reveals to us so clearly the

nature of Jesus Christ and how he interacts with us. I love this little group of chapters, but I think we can extrapolate that to the whole of the Book of Mormon is how can we be connected? We need to let go. We need to lose ourselves, the weak parts, the ego-driven parts. We need to lose ourselves to have the bravery to let that part go, the part that we think

is so important but might not be best for us. And the Book of Mormon encourages us to do that. And it shows us what happens when we're not willing to do it and when Mormon encourages us to do that. And it shows us what happens when we're not willing to do it and when we are willing to do it. That allows us to enter into those relationships with the divine and with each other. I'm so grateful for the Book of Mormon. The way it tells stories of families and cultures and people relationships. I think it's a beautiful place to learn how to love and how to have wonderful relationships with God and with each other. John, isn't it wonderful what a faithful, educated, loving Latter-day Saint can do with this magnificent book? That's what you

and I experience each week, and this week has been no different. Yeah. Another reminder, these were real people with real problems in this book. There's no perfect families in this book, beginning with Lehi and Saria and their interesting assortment going until there's no more Nephites. The lessons are in there. Look for them. Thank you for showing us that. Thanks for being here. Oh, Look for them. Thank you for showing us that. Thanks for being here. Oh, this was wonderful. Thank you. Ardeth, she made you proud.

Woohoo! Molly did it! With that, we want to thank Dr. Rebecca Clark for being with us today. It has been a joy. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Swansonsen, our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen, and every episode we remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. We hope you'll join us next week. We are in the Book of Mormon, in the Book of Mormon, on Follow Him.

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