Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Doctrine & Covenants 93 Part 2 • Bro. Steven Lund • Aug 25 - 31 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

President Lund continues to unpack Section 93’s call to fill life with “light and truth,” warning against "poison by degrees,” sharing personal experiences of obedience and balance, and inviting today’s youth to see themselves as a preparatory generation for the Savior’s return.SHOW NOTES/TRANSCRIPTSEnglish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastDC235ENFrench: https://tinyurl.com/podcastDC235FRGerman: https://tinyurl.com/podcastDC235DEPortuguese: https://tinyurl.com/podcastDC235PTSpanish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastDC235ESYOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/5cDK4qTTv0UALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIMpodcast.comFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookBook of Mormon: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastBMBookWEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletterSOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE00:00 Part 2 - Brother Steven Lund00:07 Elder Echo Hawk and increasing capacity02:09 The 10-page marinade03:04 The Spirit transforms a young man07:22 Iocaine powder09:49 Prescription for Elder Holland10:41 President Lund speeches change your life12:18 Bad advice from Uncle Jack15:31 Building an immersive, Spirit-filled life17:57 A missionary airport connection21:45 Spilled juice, a $2 bill, and President’s Nelson’s nature26:12 Our first duty is in our homes32:43 The Lord calls them, “friends”34:30 The Spirit can tell us to go home36:21 President Oaks’s “Good, Better, Best”37:59 A call to serve in the military for President Lund44:18 Answering a prompting and a powerful people47:47 Elder Anderson and reminder about the Priesthood Restoration50:29 Gratitude for President Lund52:11 Changes in terms and processes54:11 Joy and light57:47  End of Part 2 - Brother Steven LundThanks 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 NotesWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsAmelia Kabwika: Portuguese TranscriptsHeather Barlow: Communications DirectorIride Gonzalez: Social Media, Graphic Design"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

And now on to part two with Brother Stephen Lund, Doctrine in Covenants 93. One of my heroes is Elder Larry Echo Hock, who is the General Authority, 70. He grew up on a reservation, and somehow, out of pure talent work, ends up at BYU as a football player and as a student and ends up going to law school, ends up being the attorney general, the state of Idaho, ends up being, I think, the undersecretary of the interior for Indian affairs, 60,000 employees working for him. I was chatting with him one day and I asked you, how do you do that? How do you manage an organization like that and find time for your family and for scholarship and all the other things you do? And he said, oh, that comes down to one thing I do when I got to BYU, saw the workload and saw the football. With everything I was doing there,

I knew I didn't have the capacity to do it. I made a promise that I was going to avail myself of the help of heaven. I'm not saying this in his words. This is my recollection of his impression. He said, I decided that I was going to read 10 pages of the Book of Mormon every day to get centered and to get strengthened. Read 10 pages or until I felt the spirit, whichever came last. Having done that, he said, it empowered me to do all the other things that I needed to do. Then he said something very much like this. I don't have it written down, but he said, I found that on any given day, The most important thing that I did in that day was that, the reading of the scriptures.

Having done that, everything else was secondary, but having done that important thing, then I had the help of having to do the stuff that was beyond me that I needed to do during the day. That's your verse 39 prevention antidote right there. If you don't want verse 39, wow, that's a great story. He's a great man. I don't read 10 pages in the book of Mormon every day, but that's on my mind every time I pick up the scriptures. I need to read at least until I feel the spirit.

That'd be better if I read 10 pages. I know it sounds simple, but if I have a friend or a student who says, you know, I just don't feel what I used to feel, it seems the answer in this section is fill your life with light and truth. John, you've talked about the principle of the marinade. Marinate in light and truth. truth. The Lord has given us so much that we could go and listen to, read, attend, then listen to and read and attend.

Fill your life with light and truth. It seems that light chases the darkness away. If only we had a way to have access to. To, yeah, to light and truth. I mean, maybe somebody to read it to us even, whatever we wanted. If only we had something like that. if only we weren't constantly being confronted by darkness there's that too isn't there yeah that same device we had a kid in our ward who got up to give his farewell talk a few years ago i didn't know this kid knew how to talk i he'd grown up together with his kids and ours and in the air you couldn't quite see his eyes he got up to give his farewell talk i didn't

recognizing he had a haircut and realized who he was. And his farewell talk was, I'm happy to be going on a mission. I'm going to do my best in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. That was virtually what he said, but that many words, some different combination. About two years later, I'm sitting a second meeting. This sunbeam shows up on the stage, this kid in a white shirt and a tie and square shoulders and resolute gaze. I said to my wife, who's that with the high counselor? And he says, oh, it's that kid, I'm going to do my best. And he gets up to give his talk, and he's got the whole journal of discourses stacked on the pulpit, the scriptures, and he's reading stuff. And he gets the most amazing discourse.

I am just slack-jod. That boy was something else. And afterwards, we went to it. We don't do homecoming receptions in our church. But they had a little barbecue in their backyard that Sunday night, and we went by the house. my wife was in the youth programs and knew this boy well and loved him even before his mission she knew who he was but I was amazed and I said so what happened I remember who you were as a teenager and I see the astonishingly impressive guy you are today and he saw Shucks what changed and he says

well I'll tell you what changed music he says I had a hobby in my youth I listened to a certain kind of music that was very dark and very nihilistic and I loved it and I had something plugged in my ear constantly feeding that into my brain. And the biggest shock of my life, the struggle of my life was when I went to the MTC, I couldn't take that with me. I'm sitting in the MTC without it. I started feeling things. I had felt since I was 13 years old because that music. He says, I spent every dollar that I earned in all of my part-time jobs growing up on that kind of music when I got home from my mission

once I discovered the spirit then I couldn't get enough of it I've really worked hard to try to make up lost time but I got home the first thing it is I came home I loaded all of that music you know this time the music was on cassettes and on DVDs and stuff and he said I put him in a black trash bag

I tied a knot in it them because there was a lot of it and hauled them down to Day's Market and throw them into the trash bin behind Day's Market that every productive dollar I made in my life was in those bags. And I just threw them away. And I said, well, gee, seems like he could have sold them and at least recovered something. Then he got very, he barked back at me and said, no, that music stole my childhood.

I would not subject anybody to what was in those bags. We need to do spirit attracting things. We need to avoid spirit repelling things. And the world, we need to be selective. about what we put in our heads. Yeah. It happened so gradually. I wish I wasn't this way.

I wish I was more like you both. But occasionally we'll pick up a show on Netflix or something and we'll watch it. And after a season or two, we're all of a sudden watching things that we never would have started with. But it just happens so gradually that it's almost like the dimming of a light so slowly that you don't even notice that it's got. have you noticed that the real moral decay doesn't occur until about the third episode of the series yeah so you're kind of hooked you kind of fall in love with these characters and you kind are interested in where they're going and then they start doing stuff you're willing to tolerate because you love them now and there's nothing diabolical about that is there yeah i probably

shouldn't laugh at this but i had a student once way back in my seminary days and we were talking about music. She said, you know, when I first started listening to this really, really hard, dark music, she said, I felt really, really bad about it. But I just kept listening. And eventually that feeling went away. I had a thought this morning about this. You remember in the Princess Bride? They're having the little contest of mines. And they're switching the glasses back and forth. And there's the poison going on. And it turns out the Princess Bride guy had been taking Iocaine in small doses until he'd build it. The Princess Bride Iocaine powder story is a false analogy.

Can we just get that out there? Taking poison or evil in small doses does not make you stronger. It makes you dead. It makes you, it poisons you. It kills you. Building tolerance for unclean things just makes you unclean. Yeah. It's poisoned by degrees, John.

I know you love that story. I was thinking, this is Amalekiah. This is, come down from your mountain just a little bit. If you won't come down, I'll come up, and I'll say, come down just a little bit. What I love to say about that story, Mormon, the awesome abridger of the record, could have said the servant of Amalekiah killed Lantai, factually accurate. But instead, he said he poisoned him by degrees. If I come at you with a knife or a javelin or a spear or a scimiter,

you know my intention. but if I come at you with a refreshing beverage, I can poison you by degrees and you don't even know it's happening. And that is so crazy about that story is thank you for that extra detail, Mormon, that he poisoned him. He didn't know it was happening

because it was by degrees. Yeah. It wasn't even him. It was his servants. He calls it his servants. Yeah. Because you think you're still in command. Do you think you're in charge?

I mean, that's all part of the story. You stay here and your commander in chief tent, Lahontai, And here, we'll bring you another refreshing beverage. John, both you and I think often of the people listening who are in sorrow, despair. They feel hurting. If we have a listener out there who's sitting at their kitchen table, just how am I going to make it? I think this section says, as hard as it is, you've got to fill your life with light and truth, wherever you can find it.

really like president lund said you have got to avoid even the smallest doses of darkness that strive to be app that has the youth music that the church makes every year yeah the whole library full of good stuff so that on the machine yeah i think it was one of my students who was struggling he said what do you think i should do i said here's what i want you to do i want you to go find every talk elder holland has ever given and listen to one a day there's probably 50. There's probably 60 of them out there. Just go listen to a talk from general conference or who's one of your favorite speakers. President Irene can listen to a present iron talk every single day. You see it gradually over time. They come out of that darkness. You know, a few years ago,

somebody in the church in our department contacted President Nelson and said, we see that your next conference talk is going to be your hundredth talk. So that's a benchmark not many people get. Maybe we should make something to that. He said, no, no, this is only 98 because two of the talks that you're counting there, I gave in forums other than general conference, so they don't count. But he knew. He knew. Wow. You know, he's given a hundred. I imagine Elder Holland's probably given something close to that. Yeah. Counting BYUu devotionals and go listen to a Steve loaned general conference talk. There's a few of them. Go listen to those BYU's speeches. Put on the good music. Turn off. It seems like every night sometimes we watch murder, right? The kids are in bed.

Let's sit down. Let's watch murder. And I bet they figure it out. Like, did last night right like we get used to that we get used to watching a violent show and all the sudden wonder why we're not feeling the light well you know something's got it some ain't i was born with it had to get used to it yeah so sometimes you got to go to mayberry yeah but hank i think some people immediately the idea i think that the idea of balance i think there's a there's a right way to think about balance. There's a really odd and wrong way to think about balance. You know, I need to have just enough evil so that, you know, I don't think that's what balance means. One of the interesting things that we can be defensive with and say, well,

that really doesn't offend me or that really doesn't bother me. But I was kind of cut to the quick when I'm reading for the strength of youth. And it's saying don't participate in entertainment that offends the Holy Ghost. I'm like, oh, it's not about what offends me. It's about what offends the Holy Ghost because I made a covenant at the sacrament table that I would keep his commandment so that I could always have his spirit to be with me. That's a different way to think of it. What offends the Holy Ghost? You guys are so insightful. We were talking earlier about intelligence. I mentioned that I have a brother who's a PhD physicist. I have an uncle, my dad's brother, who quit going to church when he was a teenager back in the depression, but grew up to be a medical doctor.

They lived on the East Coast and we lived on the West Coast, so we really didn't see very much of Uncle Jack through the years. But late in life, along the way, he became a Protestant and a good man, and he was learning about his church, about the Mormon church, as he called it. one day he wrote my brother a letter and he said mark we didn't know each other well he'd really lived his life apart out there but he says congratulations on your degree and all the things you're doing your education he says it occurs to me that you and i are the most educated people in our genealogy therefore it's incumbent upon us to help the other members of our family not to fall victim to the anti-intellectual and incomprehensible ridiculousness of the Book of Mormon. I bet if we work on this together, we can bring everybody around.

My brother, of course, he's a return missionary, and Agamund Church wrote a letter back to him, and he says, Uncle Jack, what you should know about me is that I have spent more hours of my life on my knees praying to understand the Book of Mormon than ever I have spent studying physics. and it is God's honest truth. Wow. But to me, a powerful and inspiring testament. Wow. Yeah.

Your story there, present fits right in with 1st Corinthians 2. Here's verse 14. Paul, the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. Nor can he even know them for they're spiritually discerned. I've noticed that. Those of us who love the Book of Mormon and love the church and have spent our time in it, the idea that someone can look at it and not see it seems outrageous to us,

yet flip it around. And the idea that someone from the outside looks in and goes, the fact that you spend your time there and you see wisdom in the Book of Mormon and then the church, that's crazy to them. It's a fascinating spectrum. I think it was written on the wall of a school room I was in in my youth somewhere that said a statement that said, read the best books first or you won't have time to read them at all. The opportunity cost. Hank, you were talking about the spiritual man and the natural, they can't seem to talk to each other.

I was at the BYU-Prin services place. This is decades ago, Hank. There was a poster on the wall and had some guy dancing around a train track looking strange. and the poster said, those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music. It just reminds me of a conference talk about the music of the gospel. It seems strange, but if you hear it, it's awesome. And how do we help people hear it, right? How do you help people hear it?

That might bring us to our next topic when we talk about children. The Lord says in verse 40, I want you to bring your children up in light and truth. To me, maybe I'm being too simple here, but moms and dads create an environment where there's plenty of light and truth. You don't have to force light and truth on someone if you just fill the house with light and truth. It marinates. Hank, it's always a good idea to go on a road trip, lock the doors, and put on a Hank Smith CD, and then nobody can leave. Yep. Because, you know, you're doing 65 down the freeway, and they have to listen.

Yeah. John, we laugh, but how many times have you and I heard my eight-year-old falls asleep to your voice? At first, I thought, well, that's not so good. But then I think to myself, when someone feels that light and truth, it's a safe place, you know, you can play the scriptures or the primary songs off the app. In the morning, when you're getting ready for school, you could play. strive to be yeah play the music fill your house with light and truth this is members of the first presidency he's saying this too this is frederick g william sydney rickdon jose smith new o k whitney bishop of the church raise up your children in light and truth president i can't remember

if i've ever told you this story but both of you know dallan balas who's played hiram a lot and lots of different parts he gets up and sings bring him home and bring him home and bring the house down. It was amazing. I have to get up and speak after that. We get on the plane and I ask him, what are you doing? Are you touring? Because he was the phantom of phantom of the opera or something. He says, no, I'm teaching seminary. And I said, how did this happen? He said, my mentor told me, regardless of your original intention, you will eventually become what you surround yourself with. I had to stop it. Whoa, go, whoa, whoa, say that again. You mentioned, Hank, that parable of the marinate, that's the story.

You can fight hard, but eventually that the principle, the idea was you become what you surround yourself with, so be careful what you surround yourself with. We're getting that in verse 40. Missionaries go out and spend all day every day, studying in turn in the morning, and serving throughout the day and applying the things they've learned, and they're repenting every day, they pray like no one, they get close to the heavens, I had a missionary say to a journalist once who was interviewing him. When you're on a mission, it seems like you can see forever. And that's how they are.

I ran into a missionary at an airport in Amsterdam. I was going someplace and he was coming home from his mission in England and came through. He said basically, President, can I ask you a question? I've learned so much, I've gained so much on my mission. How do I not lose it as I go home? How do I keep my forward momentum here? My first thought was to say, you're great, just keep doing what you're done. But then the impression I had was to just look at and say, look at you.

You almost glow in the dark, you're so filled with the spirit. How did you get that way? It was from this pattern of study and love and Christ-like behavior and prayer, and then more prayer. Go do that. Don't listen to those who, when you get home, will tell you, okay, welcome home. Now, you need to take some time and decompress. you got a little too much missionary in you and go decompress don't ever decompress and you'll be fine we went our ways and I didn't think about him again until I was writing a conference talk and then wrote

that up I didn't even have his name and I wasn't even sure where he was from the conversation was that fleeting but what I remembered about him was these eyes just this Christ-like demeanor and the question was so sincere so I thought you know what someday I'm going to give this talk in general conference, someplace in the world, this boy is going to hear himself talked about. I bet someday I'll run into him. Sure enough, it was a couple years later. I was walking across the Boy campus, going to an FSY conference. And I was talking on the phone, and there was his hand on my shoulder. And he said, President Land, I said, you're him, aren't you? He says, yeah, it was me. I got off the phone, and we chatted for a minute. He said, yeah, I was actually, I'd been watching

conference at my mom's house, and I was driving home. And I had gone someplace, and I was driving home, and I didn't get back in time for the next session to start. And then I heard your talk on my car radio and knew that that was me. I said, well, that's pretty fun. So how's it going? And you got quiet for a moment. And he said, well, if I'm going to be honest with you,

I'll tell you that I made a decision when I heard that talk. And every Saturday morning I listen to your talk and ask myself that question, how am I doing? He's doing fine. Keep going. Keep going. Boy, like you were saying, Hank, get some talks out and listen to him. Yeah. Whatever it is, fill your house with light. Listen to this from Joseph Smith.

We consider that God has created man, and we would add women, with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect, and that the nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyment, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin,

and like the ancients, arrives at a point of faith where he is wrapped in the power and glory of his maker and is caught up to dwell with him. Can I tell you what that looks like? We don't accrue all this light so that we can be bright. we accrue all this light because it helps us to live better lives and to be better people.

I've had this little insight that one of the best ways to know who somebody really is by seeing how they behave in an unexpected moment. We're all pretty good when we're sitting in church. But when you're out there and hard things happen to you, somebody turns around and hits you with a two before in the head or something. Then our true character, somebody cut you off in traffic, you know, our true character reveals itself. I've told the story a few times. When we were mission leaders in Georgia, President Nelson was then elder Nelson. A member of the Corps of the 12th came and visited our mission on a mission tour and stayed in our mission home. And we were a little nervous about that because, well, it was Russell L. Nelson staying in our home.

We didn't want him to discover that he had children running this mission that he set out there. We're trying to put our best foot forward. He got in late one night, and the next morning, Colleen got up early, early, and she made this amazing breakfast, cariff of orange juice filled with crushed ice. We all come down to eat. He comes and sits down and we're waiting. But our little 14-year-old Kelsey is upstairs and she's late. She can't find something. Finally, we're a little impatient. We've got an apostle at the table. Finally, we hear her clumphing down the stairs and she runs around the corner and the carpet slides under her feet and she comes around the corner. She's down, so I'm so sorry. I couldn't find my something

scrunchy or whatever. And then she reaches for the pancakes when this happens. And her elbow hits that two liters of orange juice filled with crushed ice and then time slowed down as we watched this picture slowly turn over and empty itself two liters right into the icy lap of Russell Marion Nelson everyone yeah yeah I mean just yeah time stood still in that unexpected moment who is President Nelson elder Nelson At the time, he jumps up and he says, well, that was refreshing. I'll be right back. And he goes running in the other room to change clothes.

We all sat there and staring each other wondering, now what church are we going to go to? Because obviously we can't show our face with this one ever again. A few minutes later, he's changed and he comes back into the room. And we're trying to figure out a little transition speech. Kelsey, in the meantime, I sit in there. demolished. He walks right past office. He sits down in the chair next to Kelsey. He says, if he comes in, he says, Kelsey, I am so sorry. I forgot. Well, I'm in there. I'm remembering tomorrow is your birthday. And I knew this. And I brought you a birthday present. I was going to

give it to you this morning at breakfast because I'm not going to be here tomorrow morning for your birthday. So here it is. And he reached in his pocket and he pulled out a crisp $2 bill. He hands with this $2 bill. They said, this isn't anything of any moment. But it's, hey, just a token, just tell you that I'm thinking about you and I love you and I hope you have a happy birthday and he gave her a squeeze and he kissed her on the forehead and said, I love you and I'll see you later and he left. Now, in that unexpected moment, what was that? That was President Nelson filled with light. First of all, he didn't lose his temper. This was just a momentary, ice water in your lap, that's bad.

Ice orange juice is worse. And he goes under the room and it's just clear to me that he's in their change in clothes and he's thinking, oh, that little girl. is dying a thousand deaths out there. I bet I can help. Before he was even dry, he's in there ministering to our sweet daughter and making her feel okay. How do you think we feel about Russell, Marianne Nelson?

That's what light does. It scatters light everywhere you go. I think it was C.S. Lewis, who President Lund has talked about before, who said that if you turn on the lights suddenly in a dark room, You might discover rats in your cellar. I'm paraphrasing.

He says the light doesn't produce the rats, but the suddenness of it coming on shows what's really there type of a thing. Does that ring a bell? I mean, I've said to Robert Millett once before. I think I've got rats in my cellar. An event that's sudden like that shows what you really are. What a great story. That was refreshing, but even better, to think.

I don't want her to remember this only as I spilled. And to come out and redirect that with happy birthday, oh my goodness, that's beautiful. Sweet, sweet memory. Good, good, man. Yeah. I have a question for you both. The rest of the section seems to be that these men, Frederick G. Williams, Sydney, Joseph, No, K. Whitney, they are outdoing their callings. They are doing work.

And the Lord reminds them that their first duty is their home. He says it to Frederick G. Williams. There are things that are not right in your house. He says it to Sydney. You set in an order thy house. Joseph, the same thing. The new O.K. Whitney, be more diligent and concerned at home. President, you've had quite a few priesthood callings in the church and you've trained.

How does one, I don't know if the right word is balance, but how does one not allow a church calling to take over their life? and their family is neglected. Is that something that you've seen? Yeah, it's something I've lived too. I find this so fascinating that the end of this magisterial discourse on the nature of God and time and the plan of happiness,

that then it turns to this. From verse 41, almost to 52, he's talking about families. And first, it feels a little hodgepaggy, but as you think about it, it all connects up because what is the most important imperative, as we're looking at Christ-like behavior and accruing goodness and so forth, we're going to come as families if or we're not coming at all is the doctrine. And so I found it interesting in one of the copies that are extent of Section 93 was the Newell K. Whitney version that he took the transcribed copy that he took home with him. apparently. On the back of it, he had written revelation to Joseph, Sidney, Frederick, and Newell himself by chastisement, and also relative to the father and the son. To us, it feels like this little chastisement was an appendage. He was stung by it. It was front of mind to him. We just got laid into, as I've read through that, I would assume that there must have been something going on in the their lives. At least Joseph talked about, I didn't ever do anything really seriously wrong, but I was light-minded and I did some stuff. He must have been referring to some of that

behavior. As you look at it carefully, it seems like what Heavenly Father is criticizing is your question, that lack of balance. Yeah, you're doing the work, but you're ignoring your family. You've got to go home and teach your family these things. It was about life balance. They were doing lots of good, lots of good things, but not family. When I was a new bishop, of a singles ward, of a student ward, it was having this amazing experience where you go into that office and there's a list of names on the door

and people sign up and they come in and these young people who are, they desperately want to live better lives. They come in and lay out the most important issues of their lives, the most painful, the most important things of their lives. And Bishop sits and listens, I would sit and listen

and be a little apprehensive because I don't know what to tell them. By the time they got through explaining what they're concerned as, I would discover that I didn't know what to tell them, that I was having impressions, and I would tell them things. It would feel to me like I was in an innocent third party in this conversation between these good members of the church and the Lord, and that would go on all day and I would get home.

Church would get out, and I would rush to the bishop's office from the sacrament meeting room. That would go on until 10 o'clock at night because it was a student ward and we had stuff going on. I would go home again alive with this spiritual experience I'd had

all day and that went on for a while and one day my wife caught me at 10 o'clock I'm coming home. This amazing feeling. She said, I wish you could be here and hear the conversations going on in our house while you're down doing that.

What do you mean? Well, what our kids said. our children would be asking, where's dad? When's he coming home? Who is he talking to? Was he coming home today? And she said, I don't think that's what you want your kids to remember you for. So we changed things.

And I started coming home after a sacrament meeting and we would have dinner together. I would take a break and we would eat later on. And then I started doing stuff on Wednesday nights in order to make that work. And it made a huge difference. I mean, the stuff I was doing was so valuable and so important, not that I was doing it, but I was there for these things that I was, like, I was all this, everything that they're being criticized for. I was that, and I can understand how can you imagine what the thrill of the restoration going on around them, how they would be called to that. I'm really glad that I had a wife to tell me about it rather than having it called out in a section of the Doctrine and Covenants. Canonized.

The toddlers to the world. Yeah. But we're talking about 200 years later. This was better. In any calling in the church, they are very good things. You could allow it. You could keep going. There's always more that you could do.

Is it appropriate for me to say there's going to be a boundary where I have this time set for this? Then I'm going to go be with my family. When we say go be with your family, it doesn't mean go home and watch. football while your family is at home. If you're really going to go home and be with family, then go home and be with your family. I think this is a good, better, best issue. Maybe it's different every situation. I appreciate President Lund's story because my wife helped me see things I couldn't see

and helped me see that balance. Just like you, President, we had that conversation a lot. And I was called to be a bishop. I had six children from 11 down to two. There's wives that listen that are thinking, you know, he's saving the world, and I love it. Love that he's saving the world. We're losing here. I think that the Lord knows this is hard stuff.

I love the way he presents this. He uses the word friends. I've learned like seven times in the Doctrine of Covenants, and two of those times were right here. I called you servants for the world's sake and you are their servants for my sake therefore I say in you my friends let my servant Sidney go on his journey these are my friends

I had this impression in thinking about this when Jesus was on the earth in his mortal ministry who were his friends those apostles were his friends and he found himself from time to time and regularly having to say hard stuff to him I think it was like you know how sometimes you say no

you know I love you I'm about to tell you something hard are you ready to hear something hard it seems to be what he's doing here now you know you're my friends you know that I love you you got to take care of your family better there's just a sweetness to that that I could feel what they might have felt what would it be to have the savior of mankind say you're my friends that's something I heard somebody say once when somebody really knows you love them it's almost impossible to offend them you can say things boldly and directly because they know you love them. Like you said, maybe that's where he's starting.

You know we're friends. Because if you're not friends, you just say, oh, you're fine. But if you really love them, you might be willing to have a harder conversation. Is that fair? Elmer used to say to general authorities, if you see something going wrong and you don't do something about it, you're just being selfish. It's more important to you to protect. your little relationship with these folks than it is to help them to correct their lives.

I like that you brought that up, President, my friends. He says it in 45. He says it again in 51. When I'm serving in my calling, men or women, mom or dad, I think I have to be this close to the Lord where he can in my calling. I can hear him say, enough's enough. Go home. And sometimes when I'm at home, might say, this person over here needs you. It's time to go that way because it's really hard for the three of us to say, here's when you should put this one first. Here's when you should put this one first. You have to be close enough to where he can direct you and tell you where you need to be. It's probably good to keep in mind that quote, John, you'll know who it's from. No one on their deathbed ever says, you know, I just wish I would have spent more time at work.

It's a related statement to that idea. What a tragedy to spend your whole life, climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. So you're like, what wall am I leaning against? All right, but in fairness, sometimes we do regret not having spent more time in the office on tax day. Yeah. That's that one day.

Then the bills are coming due. There's huge pressures that drive us to those places. Yeah. Because you're a provider that says right there in the proclamation, I'm supposed to provide, preside, and protect. It's an interesting discussion to have. I think you're right about having the Holy Ghost tell you something. No, actually, you should go over there and not trying to make a blanket statement for everybody. Keep the spirit with you. When you're needed, where you're needed. I think it would be probably a good addition to your study this week in Section 93 to read Good, Better, Best from President Oaks.

Listen to this paragraph. In choosing how we spend time as a family, we should be careful not to exhaust our available time on things that are merely good and leave little time for that which is better or best. A friend took his young family on a series of summer vacation trips, including visits to memorable historic sites. At the end of the summer, he asked his teenage son, which of the best? these good summer activities he enjoyed most. The father learned from the reply.

And so did those he told of it. The thing I liked best this summer, the boy replied, was the night you and I laid on the lawn and looked at the stars and talked. Super family activities may be good for children, but they are not always better than one-on-one time with a loving parent. One of my favorite memories of my dad was building speakerbox. for the car I bought after my mission, just in the workshop, sawing and measuring and cutting. Isn't that strange? That's the thing.

You know, our lost son, he was such an active kid. He always wanted to be doing stuff. I was that dad who had a really busy business life. And often, you don't know how quickly that window closes. And it always closes faster than you think. A two-year-old's only a two-year-old for a minute. And then their hands are slipping out of your hands sooner and sooner when you go to grab them. It's a sensitive subject to all of our listeners out there who are saying I'm trying. So are we. So are we. Keep at it.

Keep trying. After my mission, I had just a very strong, powerful impression, one of the few times in my life where I just got some real direct instruction. I should go join the military. I did. So I ended up joining the army against my will. It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. But I went and did it.

And I found myself, you know, I went through basic combat training and did all the training and ended up in my first permanent station out in Fort Stewart, Georgia, which is a huge army base out there, 26 miles, I think, every direction of swamp. It is the hottest, steamyest, swampiest place. We had a little orientation when we came in, and they said, okay, first thing you got to be careful of is you need to know that every puddle of water on this army base has a resident water moccasin and alligator. Don't be hanging out there. There were mosquitoes. There were bugs. There were sounds in the night.

It was quite a place. I was the company clerk of a combat engineer battalion. To be a combat engineer, the Army Handbook said, you just have to have one attribute, strong back. That's the only criterion. I lived in an open bay billets, 20 bunks and 20 wall walkers in a row in one big open room without air conditioning, concrete slab floor. with some of the wildest people that I have ever known. I grew up in Northern California, and I grew up with hippies. And I'd been on a mission.

I'd seen a lot, but these guys were something else. They're just the most profane, hilarious, hard-living guys that you'll ever meet, and this was my life. But on Sunday mornings, I would get up, my buddy across post would come and pick me up and we'd drive, it seems like, 20 or 30 miles, too. Ludawiki, Georgia, let me think, no. Because I was a return missionary, and because I think it was part of the design, I got to serve in the Elder's Corps Presidency, and I got to be an assistant

award clerk. I was also a stake missionary and a ward mission leader, and I was in the Sunday School Presidency, like all at the same time. So I got like six years of church experience in one year. I'd go to church early in the morning, probably teach a couple of lessons, and then afterwards I'm a stake missionary, so we would do a little training for our ward missionaries, and then we would go out and do some missionary. and I would get home, you know, at 8 or 9 or 10 o'clock at night. I would show up.

We lived in this little building that was out in a wooded area off on one corner of the post, and it was dark. There was no lighting around it. There was just a little six-by-six-foot cement slab and a door, and then you'd go in. I remember several times showing up that door awash with the spirit, having been serving and doing and being rewarded the way that we are when we're trying to look out for each other. And putting my hand on the doorknob to go in and think,

okay, I'm going back into the world now. I would swing that door open and walk inside. It was like from the door to my bunk, I could just feel the spirit wash away because the spirit couldn't live in that environment. The vocabulary and the music and whatever is going on. That difference between light and darkness light attracts light and darkness attracts darkness was these were good people living really bad lives

I loved one day they were going out on a Saturday night and I was laying on my bunk I remember I was reading biography of Brigham Young of all things in the middle of chaos a couple of these guys go out and say line we're going out drinking you should come with us you know why come you just stay here all the time you know I wouldn't stay a lot of time once they were gone I'd go find stuff to do But you should come with it. What makes you think you're better than us? Yeah, how come you think you're better than us? They're getting a little bit aggressive.

And finally, all I could do is take a deep breath and say, well, here's the thing. I've made promises, like to God. And I'm just doing my best to keep them. And with that, they got kind of quiet and wandered off. It wasn't right in that moment, but later I ran into one of these guys. He was this big African-American kid from Louisiana. And with a bunch of gold teeth,

He was just this huge personality. But frankly, it mattered to me what he thought of me. There's a charisma about him. He was a wild thing, though. I was walking out of one of the buildings there and ran into him. And he says, so, you know, I used to go to church too. I said, really? He says, yeah.

Oh, yeah. You know, I was in the choir and everything. I've made those promises, too. The only difference between you and me is I haven't kept my And he walked off solemnly And I thought, well, people can feel light too In my simple little way I was home from my mission

And the way I end up in the army as I went to the temple To see if I could get some direction on what I should study I'd been at BYU for a year I hadn't been a good student So I was hoping I could get a little direction So I'm praying Should I be a geologist I want to listen to my mind

and I had this impression. I should go join the military instead. It made no sense. And then I'd find myself a few months later. I'm in Georgia in the middle of this swamp. This made no sense. I had a little index card in the drawer of my desk and the little order of the room I worked in that said, that which does not kill us makes us stronger.

And I would look at that every day and say, okay, I'm not dead yet. So this is working. This is working. And then I get transferred to Germany and looking back on it, I can see a whole bunch of stuff. Six years of church service experience. compressed into a year. And then over there I was the leader of the youth program, the stake interesting adult leader. Got a whole bunch of experience doing that, meeting these amazing people and doing more things. I met my wife there. My wife's dad was a civilian

employee, the Department of Army. I met in church there. I didn't know she would be my wife, but later on when I got back to BYU, we became friends and got married. I can make a long list of things, important things in my life, things that my life would be so much less rich and so much, you know, if I hadn't listened to that prompting, I'm sure I would have been okay, you know, my life would have been okay, but it would not have been this. When Heavenly Father prompts you to do something, especially if it's something you don't want to do, the only appropriate response is, yippee. Heavenly Father does not take stuff away from us unless he's willing to replace it with something better.

So much good grew out of that. Could only have happened by my doing this thing that made no sense whatsoever that I do at the time that he did it, but except that I'd had an impression. Heavenly Father's good to us. If we'll let him, he'll be amazingly generous with us. He says, my friends. Yeah, he's been my friend.

I love what you said, President, how this starts with his amazing theological ideas and ends with family when Newell K. Woodney saw it. He said, first I got chastised, and then we got these other great ideas. But the section reminds me of a couple of paragraphs in one of Sherry Do's books. This is from God Wants of Powerful People. She said, it is the power of the word that converted a professor in a European university. When missionaries knocked on her door, she invited them in, pointed to her various PhD diplomas hanging on the wall, one of which was in theology, and began to talk to the two young men who had a fraction of the knowledge she had. But she accepted the invitation to read the

Book of Mormon. A couple months later was baptized. She told those attending her baptism, the missionaries who had taught her were wonderful, but they hadn't converted her. Since she had met them, Shia had read the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine of Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, all of James E. Talmadge's writings and several other volumes of church doctrine. Then she said in words to this effect, after years of studying philosophy, I picked up the doctrine and covenants, read a few verses that answered some of the greatest questions of Aristotle and Socrates. When I read those verses, I wept. Now, it doesn't say, but I bet those were in 93. What do you think? She concluded, I don't think you know what you have. The world is starving for what you have.

I am like a starving person being led to a feast. And over these eight and a half weeks, I have been able to feast in a way I have never known possible. Quite a church you belong to. I'm intrigued that John the Baptist comes up from time to time throughout this whole text. As the young men president, it's on my mind. John, if we could talk about John the Baptist, since you're a John, would you read some verses here about what we know about John the Baptist? Okay, starting in verse 12. And I, John, saw that he received not of the fullness at the first, but received grace for grace.

And this is talking about Jesus, received not the fullness at first. Verse 13, he received not of the fullness at first, but continued from grace to grace until he received a fullness. And thus he was called the Son of God because he received not of the fullness at the first. And I, John, bear record, and lo, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Ghost descended upon him in the form of a dove, and sat upon him, and there came. a voice out of heaven saying this is my beloved son and I John bear record that he received a fullness of the glory of the father and he received all power both in heaven and on earth and the glory of the father was with him for he dwelt in him wow I was recently in Harmony, Pennsylvania with elder Neil L. Anderson to record a young men organization anniversary celebration broadcast. We had some interesting ideas about how to do that. But when we got to Elder Anderson, who had been assigned to help us, you know, to support this thing, he said, there would be no young men organization at all if it weren't for the restoration of the erronic priesthood. The only reason we have a young men program is to make better deacons, teachers, and priests was sort of his attitude.

So he says, let's not do those other things. Let's you and I get on a plane. We'll go to harmony. let's talk to the young men of the church about what happened there. I will tell you that standing in that sacred place among the sugar maples next to an apostle as he bore his testimony that this account of John the Baptist describes him as arrived in a cloud of light, this being of light arriving in a cloud of light, something like that.

That happened right here, right near us here someplace. This is not a fable. This is not a story we tell. John the Baptist, who baptized the Savior, came and taught Joseph and Oliver about this. And to hear him say that, I can just share my testimony that I felt it in my bones there in that place. That he was part of this restoration story. President Steve Owen, who I replaced as the, you know, he was the former young men president. His counselors talked about being with Elder Eyring once.

And Elder Eyring walked in to the office, and he says, oh, I've just been reading about John the Baptist this morning. And then he said something really interesting. He said, he said, you know, we refer to the youth of the church as being the rising generation. I've never really loved that term because I don't understand what it means. What's that mean rising generation? He says, I've been reading about John the Baptist. It feels to me like we really ought to refer to them as the priest.

preparatory generation in the sense that John the Baptist was a preparer of the way, this is in fact what they're called to do. I am a beloved son of God and he has a work for me to do. I will help prepare the world for the Savior's return, says our young men theme and the young women theme very much like it. I will help prepare the world for the Savior's return. John the Baptist, he was the restorer and he was also a role model in so many ways who we should be. We're preparers of the way.

President Lund, thank you so much for being here. And on a personal note, over the last five years, I've had four of your young men in the young men's program in my house. You have blessed them immensely, and they don't even know it. That's one of those things. They would see you maybe at the airport and not know. That man has prayed for them, thought about them and served to them. I think that's a beautiful thing. Thank you both for coming on the show today and for giving these last five years.

You and your family. Hank, John, thank you so much. It's been just a joy. We have loved having you. Whatever church assignment you hold next, maybe they'll let you have your favorite one. In our church, you're the bishop today, and you're the nursery leader tomorrow.

Yeah. We're excited to continue to serve. It's a great kingdom. We want to be part of it. Yeah. There is no retirement, I don't think, in the, you know, all of its plan. Yeah, thank you, President. What a joy it has been.

I had the amazing opportunity to serve with President London and some other amazing men on the young men's advisory council. I just used to sit there thinking, what am I doing here? I have a testimony that our young men general president was going. called of God. Some of the things you've said, I was taking notes so fast and was blessed by the beautiful spirit in that room. So often, in your right, Hank, prayers for the young men and their leaders and their bishops

all around the world was the thrill to be there. So thank you personally, president. That young men general advisory board was something historic in nature. You were actually called to be a member of the general board. of the young man. President Nelson uses words with great precision. And just after we recall, he's made the comment that, you know, a board is a decision-making body, and this isn't a decision-making body.

These are advisory physicians who come in and counsel, and it's a think tank, it's a brain trust, and it's a teaching apparatus, but it's not a board. So he changed the name, what he'd do. But you served on both. the general advisory committee has done some historic things that the church in general

won't appreciate this necessarily but the technologies that came out of COVID, Zoom, virtual meeting technologies allowed us to start doing some trainings that we couldn't do before and we have permissions and have John and his colleagues

figured out how to train newly called state young men presidents around the world. so that when somebody was called, they weren't just learning from the guy before him who didn't know what he was doing either because he didn't get trained, who got trained by somebody who didn't get trained, rather, when they would get called, we would get a print out of who got called into a state young men position this year in many areas throughout the world. And then we would arrange training with them and John and his colleagues would actually provide them real-time training with real feedback where they could talk. and exchange and get questions answered. That all culminated. The last set we went through,

the last area that we were able to go through was to go back to John's mission. He was training folks in areas where he served as a missionary. There were some miracles involved in that. You had some conversations that were pretty touching, weren't they? Oh, I saw a last name of Cassinilio

and he put it in the chat. You and my dad were companions. That full circle feeling of, Oh, my goodness, you know. Yeah, it was amazing. What a thrill. A sweet thing. Just one of the ways in which the Lord is using modern technologies to advance the cause

all around the world from Salt Lake City when we have these amazing teachers who can get in and teach so much so quickly. Yeah. Even if it was always in the middle of the night. He would tell me sometime, I got to get up a little earlier today. Yeah, that was awesome. I'd do it again. Well, President, it's been a joy to have you here.

John, as I was looking at this section, that's part of our hope with our show, isn't it? To add a little bit grace for grace to people's lives, line upon line? Just a little bit. I love that we brought that up, line upon line. It's not a light all at once. As Elder Bednar said, it's a little bit like a sunrise that's slow, but a little bit of light every day. And the fact that we get to be part of that, we hope our show brings some of that light and truth. It's working.

I feel a little lighter and a little brighter every time I'm around you, every time I tune in. Thank you for all that you do, truly. Well, we love it. With that, we want to thank President Steve Lund 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. He was full of light. I remember big, beaming, bright smile. Steve Sorensen. We hope you'll join us next week. We've got more of the Doctrine and Covenants on Follow Him.

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