followHIM - He wasn't weird, he was right • followHIM Favorites • Jan 15 - 21 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Join us for a modern-day Tree of Life experience.Thanks 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 DesignAnnabelle Sorensen: Creative Project ManagerWill 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

Hello, my friends. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. This year, we are telling a single story. Last year, we answered a single question from this week's lesson. This year, we're going to tell a single story from this week's lesson. John, we are in 1 Nephi 6-10, the center of the lesson being the tree of life, Lehi's dream. What story comes to mind? Oh, so many, Hank. But the one that stands out to me, Sister Elaine Dalton, in April conference of 2008, she gave this talk called At All Times and All Things and All Places. And she talked about a young man named Jess, who was a student body president at a large university. And he went back to Chicago to some sort of a student body president convention council and thing like that. And they had a get to know you game at the beginning. And we've done

those at EFY and FSY and this get to know you game, they're in an open area with grass. They have four trees with a sign in front of each one, strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree. And they start throwing out issues facing today's youth and everybody's running to the tree and you get to know, oh, I like that too. You're running to each tree. I was kind of surprised they would do this, but they threw out premarital sexual relations are okay. Go. And here's Jess, member of the church. He runs to strongly disagree and he gets there and he turns around and guess he's the only one there i'm guessing that's exactly what she said he was the only one there and she said that other

kids were laughing and pointing like are you serious or did you hear the question he must not have heard the question right it's like no no i'm serious this is how i feel and she said there was stunned silence which i love because that's a chance for the conscience to say something there was stunned silence then they went on but i'm laughing going okay so here's a kid standing alone by a tree while other people are laughing and pointing does this remind you of anything? And so he goes through that and Sister Dalton, she makes it really profound. She said he felt alone and he felt weird, but Sister Dalton said he wasn't weird. He was right. And he wasn't alone. She said during the rest of the week, several of the student leaders came to him privately and said, oh, I wish I had known that years earlier. I love this story.

The phrase Lehi uses, the tree by which I stood. Stay by the tree. Even some people that are laughing and mocking might inside be going, ooh, I wonder if he's right about this. That's the story that comes to my mind. Absolutely perfect. I picture Nephi there at the tree just eating, right? He's making tree of life jam, tree of life pie. That's all he cares about.

That's all he cares about. People are mocking him and he's like, do you want some fruit? No, no. Okay, I'm just going to stay here. You're crazy. This is the most, this is the best thing I've ever tasted. You should come.

You should get over here. You should get over here. You should get over here. I love that story, John. Come join us for our full podcast. It's called Follow Him. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. Come back next week. We'll do another Follow Him favorite story. © transcript Emily Beynon