Follow Him Podcast: Episode 27, Part 2–D&C 71-75 with guest Brad Wilcox | Our Turtle House

welcome to part two of this week's podcast well let's go to section 73 and here we see something that again speaks to our day look at verse 3 i say unto you my servants joseph smith jr and sidney rigdon saith the lord it is expedient to translate again so he had called them on this little mission to try to calm the storm that had arisen because of these letters written by ezra booth and now he's saying others can do that there are others who can do that and let's get you back to doing what you alone can do and he said you you need to translate again these are the words i love verse 4 it is expedient to continue the work of translation until it be finished five and let this be a pattern unto the elders until further knowledge even as it is written so he's saying this is a pattern and i think it's a pattern for all return missionaries we have so many young men and women who come back from their missions and then they go through this big transition home and i remember that i remember coming home after serving as a mission president and waking up every day and thinking nothing i am doing means anything i mean how many i can't tell you how many return missionaries have been in my class and said i feel like i have no purpose yeah because suddenly they're saying i was doing something important and now what am i doing i'm just going to school i just have a job i'm dating it just doesn't seem that important and whenever i hear that from a missionary i always turn to this verse and let this be the pattern it is expedient to continue the work so your mission doesn't mean you're not involved with the work anymore it just means the work takes a different shape it takes a different form going to school is part of the work working and earning money to pay the bills is part of the work serving in your calling in your ward is part of the work dating nurturing your marriage that's part of the work and if we see the work as more than just the the limited work that we were privileged to do as a missionary if we see the work in a bigger picture then we don't face this transition that says oh i was a missionary and people needed me well guess what there's people who need you right now they just just might be your mom it might be your wife and she doesn't need you to come and give her a blessing or say a prayer or give a talk in church she needs you to go out there and mow the lawn she needs to go out that's what i was doing this morning um she needs you to go to go help get those trees trimmed and those plants planted that's part of the work if we expand our vision of the work then we realize that just as joseph was told it's time for you to go back to a different part of the work i called you on a mission you did it and now it's time for you to go back and do what you were doing before the lord uses a great word in verse four as mu as it is practicable to preach in the region's round about i i i really just i really like that where joseph and sydney were out teaching he says okay now we're done teaching we're going to translate again if you want to keep teaching great do what's what do what's practical right do how would you describe what the lord is saying there do what's what fits do what works do what you can but just realize that as a missionary you're juggling one ball and you're juggling it all day long and now it's time for you to juggle lots of balls and keep a lot of balls in the air and that's all part of the work yeah i like that i like the lord saying yeah i know you like teaching that's good but we've got other things we have to do as well uh practicable i'm gonna have to look up the definition of that you guys yeah that's i had not noticed that word there's a hyphen there so i hadn't noticed it but practicable that's that's great and i i want to add same thing hank i've got students i feel so selfish all i'm doing is working on myself on my studies and when i was on a mission it was all about others and i'm like hey this is this is your time to prepare for greater things but i love what you've said brad that this is a pattern uh you're not done the the mission goes on and uh and the pat the pattern that you've set there just keeps going yeah think about study on a mission missionaries can have hours of study time and then they come home and that time is eaten up by other things and they say oh i miss that i wish i could have it and you can almost imagine the lord saying to them well do as much study as you can yeah what's brett's back to kabu but you've also gotta you've also gotta have a job and you've also got to have a social life and these are also important things i admire these early saints so much because they were juggling i know new okay whitney are running a store but now i want you to do this too and and it's going to become like the lord's store and and uh oh and leave your family and go on a mission for five years and the things that i just marvel at them and uh the things these early saints were able to do make me think uh i complain too much looking up this word practicable it's um we i think more likely today we're going to use the term possible or feasible i love that the lord is saying that right inasmuch as it is feasible to preach in the reasons round about great that's in as much as it is feasible to continue your gospel study great but if you have if you can't devote two hours a day to it anymore that's all right because there's other things that are also important no i love that brad i love it yeah well let's take a look at section 74 and here we see some of the fruits of the joseph smith translation because he's translating and he's saying gosh if i look at first corinthians 7 14 as i look at that verse i am able to be inspired to know what that's talking about he is specifically speaking of verse 14 in first corinthians 7 it says for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband elsewhere your children unclean but now are they holy now if you look in first corinthians at verse 13 it's paul is teaching and the woman which hath and husband that believeth not and he is pleased to dwell with her let her not leave him now remember i told you that these verse these sections have a lot to do with today how many women out there are suddenly dealing with the fact that their husband has gone inactive how many men out there are suddenly dealing with the fact that their wife has decided to leave the church and paul is saying don't that's not necessarily a reason for divorce because if you will stay with that unbelieving spouse who's struggling right now you might be part of the sanctification process as that spouse learns and grows and progresses so just because somebody in the family has left the church we don't say okay we're done with that person instead we continue in love and we continue to try to be part of the sanctification process look here where it says your children unclean now joseph finds out in this section that that's talking about circumcision and people are thinking well if i've obeyed the law of moses and if i'm circums is circumcised then everything's good and he's saying no it's more than just the performance of the outward law it's what's inside as well and the sanctification is not just about uh you know becoming uh clean but it's also about becoming holy now we know that he goes on in this section to say that children are sanctified by the lord and i love that because in reality if we stop and think about it [Music] we know that little children don't sin we know little children are going straight to the celestial kingdom so then one of my students comes to me and says so wouldn't it be better if i just died before i was eight i mean if god really loved me why didn't he just take me before i was eight years old and that could seem like a legitimate question until you understand sanctification we have to be more than justified to become like god and our heavenly mother we need to be more than clean we need to be holy the book of mormon teaches about how little children who die before the age of accountability are saved through the grace of christ they need no test in this life and they need no test in the life hereafter the grace of christ is not just seen in his ability to save these little children but it's also seen in another teaching of joseph smith and that teaching was that little children would be resurrected as little children and that they would have the chance to be raised by the parents who lost them so this student's question gosh wouldn't it be better if we all died before we turned eight no because although we would be clean we would not be ready to become like god we still need sanctification and the grace of jesus christ also provides for that maybe these little children who will be resurrected as children during the millennium and raised by their parents what an amazing teaching these little children maybe they didn't need the tests of life maybe they didn't need repentance but they needed love they needed nurturing they needed experience and all of those things they will also be able to get because of the grace of jesus christ that's seen not just in their justification but in their sanctification yeah what i hear from your student is i don't think god is just i don't think he loves me as much as he loves others and we know both of those things aren't true god is just and he loves all of his children and so we we don't need to worry and see it's not a competition it's an individualized plan of salvation and some of us will have the chance to be sanctified in this life some of us will continue that process in the next life and these little children will also be able to continue their learning and sanctifying process that is a blessing of the grace of christ and that's what this section is talking about if if i could add something i i love the uh the scriptural phrase um originally i mean first time i aware of it psalms 24 3 and 4 who shall ascended to the hill of the lord who shall stand in his holy place he that hath clean hands justified and a pure heart and through the grace of christ we go through this purifying process of sanctification and um i think that uh president dallin h oaks this is my favorite example that i just thought oh that's so visual that's so easy to understand uh he said imagine a tree that bends deeply in the time of a storm and it soils the leaves he said if all we do is focus on cleaning the leaves clean hands then the weakness in the tree that allowed it to bend may remain so what happens when another storm comes the same thing the tree must be strengthened and i've always loved that idea of uh cleansing clean hands pure heart of changing uh i love what what brad has taught uh tell him brad people say are you saved by grace and you say have you been changed by grace because salvation isn't complete until it includes transformation one of my students wrote me an email and said why not have sex with my boyfriend why not we can always repent later and i wrote her back and i said i'm so glad you know you can repent i'm so glad you know you can be cleansed see those leaves john that have bent and gotten dirty i'm so glad you realize that you can be clean but becoming like god is more than cleanliness cleanliness is only one of god's many attributes so yes can we repent can we repent as many times as we need to yes yes yes but as we look at the true goal of not just being clean but becoming like our heavenly father becoming more like the savior as we look at that true goal then we understand that we need more than cleanliness we need to grow we need like that tree we need to grow and be strengthened we need to be transformed and that's also a promise that's that's offered to us from the lord um there's a part in verse seven it says the little children are holy being sanctified through the atonement of jesus christ that is available to everyone being sanctified through the atonement of jesus christ um i i i can't tell you how many times in the scriptures we've seen wash your garments in the blood of the lamb right you can be clean as a little child they're not i sometimes i've heard that same thing brad like oh i wish i just would have died before i was eight you can have the exact same blessing of being sanctified through the atonement it's readily available to you right in front of you right now when we speak about little children dying before eight we realize what a trial that is for parents we realize the heartbreak that comes with that for parents and that's why i love to testify of joseph smith's additional teaching that they will have the chance to raise that child that child is going to be able to go through all the experiences and have all the love and all the teaching that parents can give parents will be able to read stories with those kids and kneel in prayer with those kids and help those kids learn how to tie their shoes and help those kids learn how to ride a bike all those things they think they missed are part of the blessing that is talked about here as he says those little children will be sanctified and parents will be part of that sanctification process that is beautiful i don't know if you guys have seen and i hope i get the story right but the uh the church movie where joseph smith is in uh translating the book of mormon and as you know he lost he and emma lost uh is it five children yeah that they sorry many of their children and uh that he comes is he doing moroni chapter eight i can't remember but he stops and if i remembering the movie right oliver caldery's like where are you going because he reads these verses and he runs out to emma to tell her oh man it's uh do you remember the movie i'm talking oh it's oh yeah good yeah it's part of the the harmony site type yeah it's harmony that's where it is he runs out to tell emma what he just learned uh from the scriptures and if you'll notice the footnote right there footnote 7b on uh on section 74 it says moroni 8 8. so where he was learning uh about the same uh some of the same things about children are sanctified through the atonement i circled verse 7 and just put the point here's the point of this whole section the seventh verse yeah and that's the point that joseph brings us to in in seven this is what the lord is teaching him look at verse seven but little children are wholly being sanctified through the atonement of jesus christ and this is what the scriptures mean that's why he had to do that joseph smith translation he had to learn through the spirit what those scriptures meant and he's sharing that with us here well let's take a look at section 75 and a lot of people say oh this is the scripture this is the section that talks about calling 50 billion people on a mission and he just calls all these people on a mission and yeah it we could summarize it that way but there's so much more to it and especially remember i said these sections have a lot to do with today you're going to be amazed at how this relates look at the at verse 2 go forth to proclaim my gospel look at verse 5 if ye are faithful ye shall be laden with many sheaves and crowned with honor and glory and immortality and eternal life beautiful long-term eternal perspective saying that what you're doing matters don't get discouraged you may not see all those things now you may not see tons of converts and you may not see tons of honor and glory but as you keep an eternal perspective you'll see these things and then he calls he says i call my servant william e mcclellan and i revoke the commission which i gave unto him to go to the eastern countries and i give unto him a new commission boy i'm not sure if i say this is the first modified mission but this is certainly one of the first modified missions john tell us a little bit about your modified mission well uh it was very interesting because i received my mission call being timeless from president uh wilford no it was his hebrew jay grant no it's just he was just across the desk from me and uh no it was uh under the uh or over the signature of spencer w kimball for a period of 24 months and there was a very short period of time in the early 80s where they changed uh elders mission calls from 24 months to 18 months now my call said 24 but they made this change and they left it up to missionaries who were out after longer than 18 months if they wanted to return home or finish and go a full 24. some stayed some didn't i'm grateful to one who stayed became my my new companion in the philippines and uh then as the mission progressed they changed uh they changed that rule back later on but not during my mission my mission president said could i persuade to stay for one more so i did so my call said 24 but then they changed to 18 and then it ended up serving for 19. so i love that the talk that elder bednar gave about notice the wording of the mission call it's you are called to serve that's its own phrase and you are assigned to labor here right and here we're giving william is given an assignment to labor in a different place i'm glad you brought that up brad because there's a lot that wonder well how come i got my call said this and then i went here and how come and you're still called to serve and even service missions you're called to serve and uh the fact that you wanted to and that your heart wants to serve is is the most wonderful part of the whole thing and look how many missionaries at the end of 2020 or at the beginning of 2020 they all came back to the united states and then some of them were reassigned some of them were told no you're done you're you're done your mission is modified and some people go out on a mission and they're called to serve and then they have health problems mental health problems physical problems and they are told okay your mission's over now and they feel like oh no you know now i'm an early return missionary and that's a scarlet letter that i wear no you're a missionary who returned earlier than you planned your mission was modified and we see an example right here in the scriptures that that's not something we have to be sad about that's not something we have to be embarrassed about uh john doesn't have to hang his head and say i never served a 24-month mission we just have to be grateful that he served grateful for the good that did and grateful for the repercussions of that in john's life through out his entire life and brad we could do this better as a culture of saying you're as much as a return missionary as any other returning commissioner for going yeah good for you for choosing to serve and if your mission was modified because of things that were out of your hands then so was so was william mcclellan's mission his mission was modified too yeah um i can't tell you how it breaks my heart that someone who feels very at home in the church for 18 or 19 or 20 years all of a sudden feels like an outsider because something happened and even if they have to come home off their mission because they made some some serious errors right all of a sudden now this person feels like they don't belong that somehow they're a second-class citizen in the home the church they were raised in right this is your home this is your church uh this is you belong with us right there there's no scarlet letters in this church and instead of going up to a young man or a young woman who comes home earlier than planned and saying what happened why did you come home are you going back out those shouldn't be our first responses our first responses should be it is so good to see you again and we are so grateful for your service welcome home welcome home tell us about some of the things you've learned on your mission that needs to be our knee-jerk response uh and and you're right hank as a culture we can learn to do that better because the lord has been modifying missions for a long time and i i love to use the book of mormon in this case in alma chapter eight where alma goes to ammonite ha and when i teach it i always add after the words am and i ha i always add wee wee wee because it's such a scary place eminem has the knee and it's a scary place and ammon goes there or alma goes there and when he's leaving alma 8 14 while he was journeying thither being weighed down with sorrow waiting through much tribulation and anguish his soul because of the wickedness of the people who were in the city of ammonia it came to pass while elmo was thus way down with sorrow an angel of the lord appeared unto him saying now notice he got spit on he got kicked out he didn't feel like a successful missionary verse 15 blessed art thou alma therefore lift up thy head and rejoice for thou has great cause to rejoice semi-colon now he could have stopped there and he could have said why they hated me i've had zero baptisms in ammonia right and the angel goes on and says thou has been faithful in keeping the commandments of god from the time that thou which thou receive us thy first message from him and that's what you modified missionaries did you were willing to serve and you went and if something got modified and you came home differently or earlier or whatever but you did what you were asked to do and then my very favorite part of this my very favorite part of this this is alma the younger who was knocked flat by an angel in mosiah 27 right and the four sons of mosiah were there but alma was the only one that was unconscious and they had to carry him back to mom and dad and the angels i just love that when mormon edited this he left this in here this last line he said you've been faithful in keeping the commandments of god from the time thou received us thy first message from him and then behold i am he that delivered it unto you i just i like that was me do you remember me i scared you so bad i scared you you were shaking but you've done so well now now go back in you're going to meet your new companion i got a surprise arranged for you go back into town i mean it's such an awesome story but i love to emphasize that part it wasn't what you think it was you have great cause to rejoice because you did what you were asked to do you know every modified missionary to hear that well and listen to what it says right here in the doctrine of covenants verse 7 of 75 and i give unto him a new commission go ye at the bottom of the verse to the south countries so he's saying i'm giving you a new commission isn't that what happens to us throughout our whole lives i was serving as a wee below leader and then i got called as a mission president my next calling was to serve as an advisor in the priest quorum then i served as i mean we'd go from calling to calling to calling throughout our entire lives and so he says i give unto i i give unto him a new commission and the lord is continually giving us new commissions new places to serve that's the very verse i read to a young man in my ward when he was called to south africa right in the middle of coved and then reassigned as you said john reassigned to serve in north dakota and he was like what's with that and i said listen to what it says in verse 7 i give unto him a new commission i said you've just been given a dev another assignment and if things open up and you have a chance to serve in south africa great and if you don't great because you're doing what you've been asked to do and where you serve is not nearly as important as how you serve and you think this is your only mission you don't think you can get back to south africa on another mission down the road yeah i think we have to keep that eternal perspective that's what he's teaching us in verse five keep that eternal perspective well then we see other mission calls come so this is the verse i read to that young man i give unto him a new commission and that new commission can take many different forms if there's a young man who doesn't choose to serve a mission does that mean that he can't be used by god the rest of his life if there's a young woman who doesn't choose to serve a mission does that mean that she can't serve other missions sometimes we limit a mission to just the time we spend with a name tag on our chess and we've got to realize that there are lots of commissions that we are given and our prophet right now is a wonderful example of that uh president nelson didn't have the chance to serve as a young man a full-time mission but think of all of the missions he has served throughout his life can you imagine god saying to him i give unto you a new commission i'm going to give you a different commission and after that i'll give you a different commission and i love it in the book glimpses that sherry do wrote where she talks about how he was assigned to go back and talk to the leaders of government when they were saying that they weren't going to give tax credit to the latter-day saints for mission donations because they said it's not it's a required part of their culture so it's not a it's not a donation it's not a voluntary donation and it was president nelson that went back and said i'm an apostle and i didn't serve a full-time mission and they said well that shows you right there that it is a voluntary donation and that it's not part of a requirement of their culture and and so the very fact that he didn't serve ended up being a blessing we have to remember that missions are important and god wants us to serve missions but those missions can also take many forms and those missions can continue throughout our lives and we see that right here in verse seven i give unto him a new commission well then we go on and we see him calling others luke johnson orson hyde samuel h smith lyman johnson orson pratt and then we read many many more names but i thought it'd be interesting to learn a little bit about some of these men who served as apostles later in their lives because this can give us a great deal of hope and for every parent out there who says well my kid served a mission but now he's struggling in the church my daughter served a mission and now she's saying she wants to leave the church we see here some others who served missions who struggled but we also see hope because so many of them came back now william mcclellan was in the quorum of the 12 but he didn't come back but listen to this this was in an article i read by larry porter who wrote an article in the byu studies journal in 1970 and he said that even though william mcclellan never came back to the church he muddled around in several splinter groups for many years but he never did return to full activity in the church but when asked about the book of mormon he said you might just as well fight against the rocky mountains as the book of mormon he was better off for having gone even though later he left he was better off for having gone in the first place and that testimony there was a core of his testimony that he simply could not deny because of these early experiences that he had let's take a look at luke johnson this is the son of elsa johnson and john johnson who we talked about earlier well i love luke johnson because not only was he a zealous and passionate missionary but he was humorous he used humor some missionaries go on their mission and they think oh now i have to be stoic and i have to be sober and serious all the time and we forget that we can use humor listen to this this comes from an article by darrell loosley uh called luke s and lyman e johnson apostles passing by the home of ezekiel on his way home from a council meeting late at night he sighted a ladder leaning against the side of ezekiel's house it happened to be close to the window of ezekiel's upstairs bedroom luke immediately ceased upon the thought that this would be an opportune time to have ezekiel's wish for a voice a voice from the unknown fulfilled climbing up the ladder he proceeded with a low-pitched voice ezekiel ezekiel ezekiel repent repent repent it is said that ezekiel did his best to do as the voice had commanded so was never informed of the true source [Laughter] that's great well i just love this guy now he went on to become an apostle and then he got caught up in the financials uh speculation of the kirtland era and he fought against the prophet but later in 1846 he returned he said i have stopped by the wayside and stood aloof from the work of the lord but my heart is with this people i want to be associated with the saints and he was re-baptized in 1846 by orson hyde and he was with the first group of pioneers who went into the salt lake valley now that was a quote that i got from the church news in november 19 1960 so that's where his words came from but i just love that i have stopped by the wayside and stood aloof from the work of the lord we've got a lot of people in the church today who are doing that and people get nervous and say oh this is the first time we've had so many people leave the church no these were apostles who were leaving the church but we don't give up hope because william mcclellan kept his testimony luke johnson came back into the church and he was able to preside as a bishop in the in utah when he was here now in the quorum of the 12 in this in this section we read about orson hyde we read about samuel smith we read about lyman johnson and orson pratt now samuel smith was never called to the apostleship but he was faithful throughout his whole life well yay for those young people who can stay faithful their whole lives but let's don't give up on the ones who are struggling because orson hyde struggled he had um signed an affidavit in 1838 vilifying the prophet that he came back and was actually able to be an apostle still and he went on to dedicate jerusalem lymon johnson called to the quorum of the twelve he lost money in a financial venture and in the journal of discourses 19 page 42 it says i was full of joy and gladness he's talking about when he was a member of the church and he says i was full of joy and gladness my dreams were pleasant i was happy by day and by night full of peace joy and thanksgiving but now it is darkness i have never since seen a happy moment while ralph waldo emerson said experience is the school of fools but some will learn in no other and if you're a parent who's struggling because you've seen your children make choices that have broken your heart and you can see them living out exactly what lyman johnson learned i was happy in the church and now i'm in darkness and you can see it well one day maybe they will see it too just like lyman johnson did and just as he was able to recognize it now orson pratt is another one who's mentioned here he was an apostle he denounced plural marriage he he spoke out against plural marriage see we have a lot of people up tight today and struggling with their testimonies because of gay marriage and they think they're the first people who have wrestled with an issue they think they're the first people who have felt frustrated about something no orson pratt felt frustrated and yet brigham young stood by him brigham young believed in him brigham young didn't give up on him in fact listen to what he said this was in brigham young's office journal and it was written on october 1st 1860. if brother orson were chopped up into inch pieces each inch would cry out the church is true so he's recognizing that orson was struggling with an issue that he didn't fully understand but brigham young believed in him and eventually that support helped orson find his way back into the church and back into the apostleship so when you read this section 75 don't get lost in the list of names don't get lost in the list of names and the mission calls that are being given out instead focus on the hope that's here because some of these men did serve missions some of them struggled after their missions and some of them came back and if you're hurting right now i think of some of my own return missionaries who have wandered away from the church i find great peace in knowing these stories of orson of of orson hyde of orson pratt of luke and lyman johnson i find great hope in these stories because i knew those missionaries when every inch of their body would cry out this church is true and now they're struggling a little bit there are a few of them that are off the path but i don't give up on them i believe in them because i know that ultimately in this life or the next the love of family and the grace of jesus christ will reach into their hearts and they will find it very difficult to turn their backs on the possibility of living eternally with family and the reality of christ's atonement and the transformation that can mean for them some parents say well if i leave my covenants then i have the promise that he'll be saved i think sometimes we push that a little too far if we live our covenants it doesn't take away someone else's free agency but if we live our covenants then we are giving that child who has wandered every motivation he could possibly need to one day turn just as some of these apostles and to come back into the fold and back into the light of the grace of christ again brad there's a great moment in john chapter 11 where everybody thinks lazarus has been gone too long it's been four days right if it had been one day maybe if it had been two days oh it could be possible three days even it could be but four days it's been too long he's too far gone right and the lord says roll away the stone no don't do it don't do it you don't want to see this you don't want to smell this right i've always taken just absolute i don't know hope as you called it in the fact that the lord just calls out his name lazarus and he that was dead came forth right and i i know the same thing can happen i've seen the same thing happen in the lives of those i love where you think no way it's never going to happen they're never they're never coming back to the lord right and then he calls their name and they come back our heavenly father is a successful parent christ is a successful savior we have to trust that they will ultimately be successful in giving everyone every possible opportunity to make the right choice there will be some who turn their backs and rebel but everyone will be given that opportunity of hearing the lord call his or her name i am reminded of one of my favorite verses that we covered a few podcasts ago in section 46 verse 15 where it says it's it's the the section about spiritual gifts but it has this little phrase in there that the lord will be suiting his mercies according to the conditions of the children of men and the the the lord knows exactly the kind of a world he sent us to and i've been sent to a different world my kids have been sent to a different world and our lord who is perfectly just and merciful knows that and it gives me such hope suiting his mercies according to our conditions can i read a quote from elder m russell ballard this is from a 1987 enzyme october he says i feel that judgment for sin is not always as cut and dried as some of us seem to think i feel that the lord also recognizes recognizes differences in intent and circumstances when he does judge us i feel he will take all things into consideration our genetic and chemical makeup our mental state our intellectual capacity the teachings we have received the traditions of our fathers our health and so forth right and this i'm going to share one more j reuben clark 1955 i feel that the savior will give that punishment which is the very least that our transgressions will justify i believe he will bring into his justice all of the infinite love blessing mercy kindness and understanding that he has on the other hand he will give us the maximum that is possible to give as far as rewards for our good conduct having in mind our offense just the mercy of the lord we can have confidence that he is mighty to save he is not puny to save that's what he does he's the savior and what's our part in all of this look at verse 24 the duty of the church to assist and support the families of those and also to support the families of those who are called i look at and i think of the support that we need to be able to give each other and you know we talked about not giving up on those who are struggling well we also need to support those who are in the middle of of the work and when elder iring did the preliminary interview with my wife and me as i was being considered to be called as a mission president he said uh do you have any debt now in my mind i kind of always thought that mission presence had to be self-sustaining they had to be wealthy they had to i always kind of thought that maybe i would never be called because i'm a teacher i have a teacher's salary and and instead he didn't ask me how much i earned he didn't ask me how much money i had he just said do you have any debt and i said well we have uh we have the house and we have one car that's not paid for and he said can you rent the house and cover the mortgage and i said yes we can and he said can you sell the car and i said yes and my wife said no she said all we've ever had are used cars and they always break down and this is finally a dependable car she says i don't want to sell it and i'm looking at my wife going an apostle just asked to sell the car we're selling the car but it's an interesting story because we put the car up for sale and a man in our ward came over and said i'd like to buy the car uh but he says i'll just take over the payments for the car while you're gone and he says instead of transferring the car into my name he says you just keep it in your name and then i will just cover the payments on the car and once the car's paid off then when you get home then you'll have a car that was a man in my ward there was another lady in my ward who would send candy all the way to chile i was just thinking good grief the postage alone could have paid for 19 missionaries but she'd send candy to me because she said i think every mission president should have a candy dish and i want you to put candy in the candy dish so that when the missionaries are discouraged they can get a little piece of candy out of the candy dish and she kept my little candy dish full for my entire three-year mission uh i felt so much support from friends who gave me money i mean once you're on your mission as a mission president you don't need a ton of money because you're living in a church-owned home you're driving a church-home car you have a church credit card to put gas in the church-owned car i mean you don't need a lot of money but we needed money to get out on our mission i had to put clothes i had i had to buy clothes for all my family because we were all going on missions but i had a i had a dear friend who came over and gave me a check for five hundred dollars and this little grandma said to me i was praying this morning and heavenly father said go give brad some money my call had not even been announced my call had not even been announced she wasn't giving me money because she heard i'd been called as a mission president she was giving me money because the heavenly father said go give brad some money and she didn't realize that she was fulfilling this very scripture where we're commanded to support the missionaries and we're commanded it is the duty of the church to support missionaries and their families and i have seen that in very real ways and i've seen it in the lives of my missionaries i got a call from a man who said what do your missionaries need and i said well i said i have some missionaries who have a lot of needs they need shirts they need clothes some of them have gained weight some of them have lost weight i have a i have a missionary who needs size 15 shoes and you can't buy those in chile but i said honestly you can't send them to us because it has such a hard time getting through the customs i said it's just not worth it so you have a great heart and i appreciate your will he says no you don't understand i'm coming to chile i fly a plane i'm a pilot and i'm going to be flying into chile he says and i just do this with my high priest he says i just tell him i'm going to such and such a place and then we call the mission presence say what do you need and all the high priests just pitch in money and we go out and buy whatever's needed and they got the shoes and they got the shirts and they got the ties and the pants and the belts and the blouses and the skirts and the and this pilot shows up at the mission office with boxes of stuff and he didn't just do that for me he and his high priest friends did that everywhere he flew these are the kind of people that fill this church these are the kind of people who take that verse very seriously it is the duty of the church to assist in supporting the missionaries and their families how many restaurant owners give free food to the missionaries over and over and over even restaurant owners who aren't members of the church would feed the missionaries we just see example after example after example whether it's a candy dish or you're bringing supplies on a plane right you don't have to be mr millionaire to support right you can send the candy in the candy dish i love that i don't know how let me say this and then you guys decide if it adds to the discussion or not um my mission president was a very wealthy man and i nobody knew this was happening i wasn't supposed to know but a companion told me that my mission president from the missionaries coming to the philippines and being assigned from our mission area and going to other places in the philippines he would send them to dentists to orthodontists to plastic surgeons if they had things that needed to be done he would make sure they were outfitted with everything nobody knew and one day my companion told me what he was spending every month to do that and i just thought that was the coolest thing because he wouldn't he would tell anybody and i want to make that clear in case some of you know who he is but he was i saw somebody who was fully consecrated that way and was so thrilled to support those missionaries and their families in that way and then they would come home and my mission president started a perpetual education fund before the church did in fact i know he had conversations with president hinckley about it and and it was such a wonderful example to to see him doing that so quietly and having that same zion spirit that we have just been talking about as much as we admire men like your mission president who are wealthy and using their wealth to do so much good we have to remember that all of us can do something you know john i remember you sending me a check when i got my mission call to go to chile and you are not wealthy like your mission president but i remember you sending me a check and hank i remember you sending me some notes from a group of youth that you were speaking to and you said brother wilcox just got called as a mission president and you have those youth right notes to me and you sent them to me from the teenagers i mean we're not just talking about what others do because i have seen both of you do this in my life john and i love to to ask our guests a question what's the restoration what's joseph smith what does all this mean to you personally i want to share a quote that i keep in the back of my calendar i have a little list i have a little pile of quotes and papers here that i use and i often will look at them during the sacrament and this is one from elder christopherson he said the savior has not had among mortals a more faithful witness a more obedient disciple a more loyal advocate than joseph smith he said i close with his great witness of the savior making it my own joining it with yours this is the testimony last of all which we give of him that he lives for we saw him now that's from doctrine and covenant section 76 but now listen to elder christopherson's words this is the most significant aspect of our entire existence it is real he is real as i look around myself in this world of today i see so many people who are caught up in the thick of thin things things that simply don't matter things that won't last even good causes that simply will not last because they're not eternal and that's why i love joseph smith because everything i have come to know and treasure about my savior is because of joseph smith it's not in spite of him it's because of him my son served a mission in japan after having lived in chile after learning spanish he gets called to japan and he said dad he said we teach people who have no christian background they don't believe in christmas they don't believe in easter they don't celebrate those holidays they don't know the bible i said how do you ever get them to join the church and he said because they gain a testimony of joseph smith and once they know he's a prophet then they believe whatever being it was who happened to come and talk to joseph smith there are people on this earth who believe in christ because of joseph smith and yet we hear so many in the church say well i believe in jesus but i don't believe in joseph smith i don't believe in joseph smith no i'm like those japanese members that my son taught if it weren't for joseph smith i don't know how i could cut through the confusion of what is today's christianity with over 33 000 different denominations all teaching completely different things about the savior i don't know how i could ever cut through all that and reach christ but because of joseph smith i can because of joseph smith i not only know there is a god i know god i not only know there is a christ i know christ and that's because of the truth this prophet restored because of the picture and window he gave us so many christians are looking through a little window framed by matthew mark luke and john there's the little window and they try so desperately to see christ and to follow him well i have realized that it is one thing to follow him and it is another thing to be led by him because of the bigger window that joseph smith gave us the scriptures of the restoration the temple because of this larger window i can see christ clearly and i can be led by him as i stay close to his living prophets i stand with elder christopherson and i say the savior has not had among mortals a more faithful witness a more obedient disciple a more loyal advocate than joseph smith and because i know that then i hope one day the savior will say brad you've been a faithful witness you've been an obedient disciple you've been a loyal advocate let me introduce you to joseph and i can't wait to meet the man who said i am a lover of the cause of christ because i too am a lover of the cause of christ and i say that in his name amen dr brad wilcox are uh incredible man and also just incredible friend thank you thank you for being with us um we love you love you too you keep up the great work you guys are doing an awesome job so proud of you we have a lot of people besides dr wilcox to thank we have our listeners to thank thank you so much for spending your time with us thank you for your support we want to thank our executive producers some incredibly generous and supportive people steve and shannon sorenson just like the type we talked about today i think hank let me just say i knew steve before his passing i know shannon i know their family i love them so much and i am not surprised at all that they are making this podcast possible i love them i love their family as do we as do we to all the sorensen children and grandchildren we of course extend our love to you we want to also thank our production crew we have a crew that's growing uh david perry lisa spice jamie nielsen kyle nelson will staughton and maria hilton thank you everyone hank i have to interrupt you one more time jamie nelson i taught her in sixth grade [Laughter] i was her sixth grade teacher jamie runs all of our social media so jamie i hope uh you better be able to do some sixth grade math and english because there's going to be a test um thank you so much to all of you we hope you will join us on our next episode of follow him you

Channel: Our Turtle House

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Length: 64min 48sec (3888 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 26 2021