On this week's episode of Inklings we go over the talk by Peter M. Johnson: The Power of Ministering to the One

Welcome to Inklings. I am Emily Bell Freeman and I'm so excited to welcome you to a space where you and I get to experience a hint of something more together. This is a community where we lean into discussions that will help us obtain a bedrock understanding of the doctrines of Christ. Not overnight, but every day better. Strength gathered over time. There is a place for you here. Looking forward to spending the semester with you as we embark on a journey focused on becoming his. Good morning everyone. Welcome to Inklings. Happy Thursday. So happy you are here. This is such a sweet talk. So we are going to be so happy about our talk. Let me get our friend. It's going to be Amy today. And such a good talk. I'm trying to get my scriptures off the ground. This was such a good talk and such a good topic. And I picked Dr. Covenant 6, but we could have gone so many places, including the women at the well, which we might. And I'm trying to remember where else you took us that was so good. Just so many good insights today that I'm excited to talk about and see what we're going to learn. And before we even get there, I love sometimes to just pause and go through the very beginning and where were we headed? What were we trying to learn as we started this six months, this time? And the lessons, the big lesson that we wanted to be focusing on. And as we think about that, those lessons, we talked a lot about how we would see families throughout what we were studying this semester. And that each of these little lessons that we were learning would somehow point back to those family relationships. Whether you have family living under your roof or not, all of us are in a family of some sort. And it might be our ward family. It might be a large extended family. It actually might be people living in your roof just depending on, I mean, under your roof, depending on what your life looks like. And as I was thinking about that, I thought it's so interesting to go back to each of these talks and just see, here's what we've been learning and here's what we've been thinking about and some of these lessons that we've been learning. Amy, if you're trying to get on, I think you maybe don't have enough internet where you are. And so try going off of Wi-Fi or moving to a spot that has better reception. Because I'm not seeing you come up on my end when I try and send the invitation. And usually it's an internet thing. Sometimes it's an Instagram thing. So let's hope it's not that. Oh, good. There. You made it. I just was thinking quickly before we dive in about just our overall, like, what were we trying to learn this semester? And there's two things that I've been thinking a lot about. One is how everything we're learning is teaching us about family and just that large circle of family, God's family. And as I've gone through each of the talks to just pause and think, okay, how is it pointing me gently in that direction? And what are we learning? And always when we get to this point of inklings, it starts being the time where I want to be like capturing, okay, what have we done? And how am I feeling different about where I am and where we've gotten ourselves to? And so I was just going to read through things that we've kind of looked at and learned about. And we've talked about families embrace doctrine and families ask for heavenly assistance. Families watch for the love of Heavenly Father. Families find strength in affliction. Families teach the purpose of life. Families teach the true source of joy. Families teach kindness. Families teach forgiveness. Families teach self-control. Families teach the value of education. Families practice love and patience. Families follow Christ together. Families serve one another. Families discover knowledge. Families do meaningful things together. Families prepare for missionary service. Families learn as a group. And then today's is families counsel together on concerns. and I love as you think about each of these these truths that we have just gently been pointed toward how it's it's um changing us just a little bit changing the way we think about things and I keep going back over and over and over again and I actually was telling my girls last week that this phrase has become so impactful in my life. I know you've had the same experience where like this phrase is becoming for me so prophetic. And it was just such a small part of his talk at the very end where he just was like, almost as if he looked back over everything he had taught us and then just paused and was like, this is real and let us be a part of it. And I found myself wishing over and over again, I wish this was hanging in my house somewhere, this little just like reminder of where we are, but also where are we going in that list. those attributes I read were on this page of our study journal. Everyone don't mind that I marked mine all up, but in the Inklings workbook that's free, it's the table of contents, is just reminding you where we're going. But then that thought of just, this is real. And isn't it interesting that it feels like in six months, I mean, we felt like this before, but I feel like it has been compounded. And Amy, you and I have talked about this in so much detail that you kind of are waking up all the time and being like, wait, is that real? And is this real? And between the news and AI, that has actually become part of our culture right now to be asking, is this real? And I think it would be awesome to just start right there with just that thought and some of those conversations you and I have had about that one line and say who you are I always forget to have you introduce yourself say who you are to start off with thanks Emily oh I'm so grateful that you um just had the insight to be able to put that on the cover this this year because ever since you did that that line has just every single day has been just the forefront of my head and I love that it came from our prophet in the very first talk that he gave after President Nelson died the very last thing he said was everything about what I'm saying is real um so I'm Amy Antonelli I I run a non-profit organization called HXP or humanitarian experience and we take teenagers all around the world to try and help them through service to understand who they are and who they were created to become in the light of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, yeah, Emily, President Freeman, you and I have been talking a lot about this, the power of that idea and how, especially the impact it has on the youth and the young men and the young women, because I, you know, I became a mom almost a year ago now for the first time, And I have two 13-year-old twins. And so it's been incredibly profound through, we get up in the mornings and we do devotionals at 630 because that's when we can figure out how to do it. And sometimes they're just like so exhausted and so, you know, not wanting to do it. But they get up and they study and they and we have these discussions as a family about the gospel of Jesus Christ and about worshiping God and what that looks like in their day to day life in middle school. And I'm so grateful for the counsel that we've gotten from our leaders to do that, to counsel together in families, because inevitably every day I learn from them and I feel like they get stuff from us about what it looks like to live the gospel of Jesus Christ and the reality of what that is. And I think it's such a beautiful contrast between what they experience sometimes in school when they go in and this is what's popular. This is what's cool. This is what matters. This is what's important versus what they hear in the morning when they make God's voice the first voice in their head in our family councils. And they think, no, this is real. This is who I am. This is who I was created to become. Yeah, that is so good. And as we get into this talk, I wanted to start there because as you think about these real moments, all of a sudden you start seeing change in people. And this idea of ministering, it kind of has to do with that. I was with a group of young single adults. We're going to be studying the power of ministering to the one. um that's the talk that we're going to be studying and um i was over at my sister's house on sunday night and it just a group of kids her kids age were had were gathering because like they do and i was there and they were like we want to do a um q a we want we want to ask you some questions and um so i was like okay fun i ran out to my car and got my scriptures and um and we decided we would do that for a few minutes and so as we were talking one of the boys who was there asked the most interesting question i'm trying to remember the word he used because i'm not going to get it right um what is it when you tell someone your own experience and so sometimes you use a word it starts with an a and i can't think what it is but you say oh anecdotal oh yeah um uh he had asked a question of how do you base faith now everybody think about this i want you to think how you would have answered this because i'm so intrigued like he his question has impacted my life in such a dramatic way this week um he said um can you base faith on the anecdotal experience of one person. That was his question. And I sat there for a minute because I was trying to think in my mind if you could or not. It was such a smart question. And then it was so interesting because I just picked up my scriptures and I was like, okay everyone is this true are these anecdotal experiences of one person and one person and one person and one person that someone has just stitched together and and this becomes really anecdotal experiences where somebody saw Jesus show up and then all of them put together is what is becoming the evidence of who he is. It's not just one person who was like, okay, this is my experience. Everyone learn from my experience. Like God just chose the best experience and was like, you will be the model. Instead, it actually really is all of these like little vignettes that we are basing our faith on all of these anecdotal experiences that somebody stitched together and I was telling them I had the most interesting experience in Africa when we were there because we had gone and you know this is true in any of you who have been in Africa, but you walk down the streets and there's people who are just standing on the side of the road with these funny little carts and machetes and they're chopping off the top of coconuts for you. And they'll just stick a straw in and you, you just drink them. And I don't know why, but coconut water in Africa tastes so much better than it does from so good. It's like, It is not the same experience. And it takes a long time because they like, they use the knife to get all the fur off or whatever you want to call that stuff. But you know, the fur on a coconut. And then they chop off the top. And so it takes a long time. And there were four of us. And so it was taking a long time to get ours. And while he was doing that, I looked over on this chair that was right next to his cart and his scriptures were on there. And I love, does anyone else love this? Because this is like, I love when you can tell someone has been reading their scriptures. Like you look at them and they're just so well used, you know, and worn. And just like, you could tell he was reading those scriptures everywhere in the dirt, in the dark, in the, you know, they just were like, had been with him. I could see his journey just by looking at his scriptures. And so as he was cutting the coconuts, I was like, can I look at your scriptures? Would you mind if I looked at your scriptures? And he was like oh no no you know get them out And I was just thumbing through them because sometimes you can learn something about someone just by opening their scriptures And so I said to him as I was looking through which is your favorite story in here I was in the Bible. It was a Bible. Which is your favorite story in here? I was just flipping through. And he looked at me for a minute, and then he said to me, gods. and I was like it never like isn't that so interesting that this is actually God's story and it's like he was like and then let me show you what happened on this day with this person and let me show you what happened on this day with this person and at the end of the day it it may be for all of us anecdotal moments, but for him, it is the story of who he is. The story of faith is his, actually. And isn't that so interesting to think that those moments at their bare minimum, like at the very roots, are just someone's example of how they were minister to. That's actually what they are. Isn't that interesting? That's such a beautiful way of saying that. It's literally a pattern he's just laid out for us. Yeah. And it's this pattern of connection and it's this pattern of family and it's this pattern of relationship and it's this pattern of looking out for each other. That's God's story. That's what his story actually is. sometimes we forget that when we're reading the old testament because it's um it's you know there's there's highs and lows in the old testament but it's important to remember that at the end of the day god is going to resolve all of it um i love that someone just wrote in here it's god's journal don't you want to call scriptures that from now on that is really i love that yes that's so awesome. And it's true. I mean, in sacrament meeting on Sunday, this woman gave a talk and almost entirely her talk was journal experiences that she had had where she had been taught by God in different experiences. And the talk was on something specific, but she used her own personal experiences from her journal with God. And I love in this talk, Elder Johnson uses three different scriptural experiences to talk about God and how he showed up in these people's stories. But then he also adds his own incredibly powerful story that if anyone is struggling with really kind of complicated, hard things in the church, go and like rip this off apart, like every single line digested and see what it does to help you because it is so powerful. That is exactly what I was thinking that for, I was like that he has done, like, that's what he's done for us is he's taken all these accounts. When I was reading last night, Greg was like, what is taking you so long? And I was like, because he sent us to so many places. He has president Nelson's every best quote he's ever given. Did anyone think that when you were reading it? He has these three great stories from scripture. How do you even choose which one is going to be the best? Um, then he has his story then he's talking about the doctrine of christ then he's teaching us about the holy ghost like i was like how did he fit all of this into however many words it is my guess is 1500 or less how did he do that so well so then i was like we are going to be spending so much time in here and weave it all together in a way that like makes perfect sense right i mean we i i printed out the talk this morning for a little family devotional so my kids we all like went through it and it was amazing Emily because President Freeman I love calling you that you can call me Emily on it's so nice it makes me so happy but it was so cool because each one of my kids took those scriptures and those stories that he had he had talked about and then they added their own like Elsie's talking about her little experience at junior high and how this is her now her story and her scriptural like understanding of what it looks like to live the gospel of Jesus Christ through ministering and ordinances and it's just like exponential you know like we take these stories one by one and then they become ours and then we add to the canon of powerful witnesses of Jesus Christ it's so good it's such a good God you know like yeah I guess he could have sent us all here with like perfect knowledge but instead he uses each other's experiences and our own experiences to help us to become. Yes. And I love that someone just said in the scriptures, we don't learn about perfect families. We learn about real ones that brought God into their family life. And maybe that is why we love those stories so much is, I mean, they really are anecdotal, but like they really are. Totally. Like Elsie this morning was not talking about the story of the woman of the well. She was talking about, you know, Timberline junior high and what she was going to experience this morning. That was now her story because of what she learned at the woman of the well. And I just learned the most interesting thing about the woman at the well. Can we just take a little pause? You guys are going to die over this, but this morning I did not sleep good last night and we have not been sleeping good for lots of nights at our house. and I was up at three in the morning, just like you do sometimes. And then I remembered that Grace was doing a morning side this morning at seminary. And I was like, I'm going to go, which is, was such a bad health decision, but such a good spiritual decision. And so I woke up at six and we went and Grace and her fiance Trenton were teaching and, um, they were teaching on what it means to be, if you are, I'm going to get it not quite right. And then you're going to wish they were teaching you, but they, they talked about to be well, well, well understood, like well, well known. Yeah. Fully known. Yes. That is fully known and fully loved. That's what Trenton was teaching. And he used the story of the woman at the well, which I was so interested in because I was like, oh, I've been thinking about that all week. So it is so interesting that like, I just showed up here and now you're going to teach me this. And then he taught me something I have never thought of before in my life. You guys see if this was as profound for you as it was for me, because he, he said, one of the things he likes to do is think of what is the first thing Jesus says to someone. And he's like, he does it always when he's in scripture, which I was like, oh, I want to start doing that. That's such an interesting, like, don't you want to just go through and be like, yeah, what are the first things he says to someone? And he was like, think about like, usually the first thing you say to someone is going to be like, how was your day? Or how are you doing? Or tell me your name? Or, you know, these kinds of things. And he's like, this guy shows up and is like you've had five husbands and the guy you're sleeping with now is not your husband and he's like how many of us right off the bat would have been like that was like a like an odd way to come out of the gate is just listing this my worst thing the thing i don't want people to know the reason why i go to the well at noon is so no one talks to me about this part of my life that I'm keeping hidden. And people maybe know about it, but they whisper about it. Nobody like comes straight out. And that's like within the first five things someone says to you, it's to call out the very worst, most embarrassing part of your life. And Trenton said she could have felt judged in that moment. She could have felt angry in that moment that, you know, that is what he wanted to talk about. Or he said she could have felt known. And the fact that he was still sitting there asking for water from her and intentional about a conversation that they were having. And he let her know right away, I know you, so you don't need to pretend in front of me. And I still think you're valuable. I think you're worth sitting by. I think you're worth this conversation is a really powerful lesson. And I was like, I have never thought about that before in my life. In fact, I usually skip over that part because it feels so like out of place to me. We're talking about living water. We're talking about the temple and a synagogue. We're talking about I am the Messiah. And in the middle of it, you all of a sudden get these five husbands out of nowhere. And all of a sudden I was like, that just became my favorite part of this story is the fact that he was like, Hey, let me just tell you, I know who you are. I know what your life has looked like. and I still want to sit at this well with you and have this really important conversation. What does that teach us about ministry? I know, and that is the God I believe in. That is the Jesus Christ that I worship, like the one who knows me completely. I don't have to hide any little piece of me that I'm embarrassed about or ashamed of. I just know that he shows up, and there is so much love in his eyes, And he's like, hey, Amy, I know every single little corner of you and I love you so much. And guess what? Like with the woman of the well, like you're the one I'm going to pick to testify. I want you. Yes. You know, and imagine the like level of self-hatred and disgust that she must have felt for herself because that's what everybody around her chose to see. And all of a sudden he's like, no, it's your voice that I need. And then because she felt seen by him, I think she was able to see other people and she could go run into the place, the town, and be like, hey, I see you and he's here. And they believed her. Yes, and that's what Trenton taught at the end, which I also have never thought about. Because do you know when she goes into the town, the very first thing she says, come see a man that told me everything that I ever did. And Trenton was like, And they were like, yeah, we've all been talking about this. We know what you've been doing. And this is what we talk about at this well in the mornings is everything you ever did. But the fact that she was like, come see a man that told me everything I ever did and still could change me and still loved me and still made time for me. Like that's the ministering story is the fact that that is her. the first words out of her mouth, which I had never noticed is come see a man that called me out. Come see a man that said to my face, what all of you have been saying in the corner and loved me anyway. Totally. And that's that man. That's the part, right? And that's the minister. I mean, that's the heart. That's the power of this story of this talk. I think is like you live the gospel, which means you really understand what it feels like to be fully known and truly loved by Jesus Christ. And then you're able, you're able to see other people and you don't judge them and you don't take their sins and their mistakes and the things that they hate about themselves into account. You just love them. And sometimes I think, man, sometimes you, you choose to show up that way for someone and like we tell our kids I saw Grace live this this summer in in on her trip when I went and visit her in the Dominican Republic like she had some kids on her trip that I swear it was the first time in years that anybody had looked at them the way that Grace looked at them because she looked at them and she saw like majesty she saw kings and queens in embryo and And when somebody looks at you like that, sometimes it just changes everything for you because suddenly you can see yourself the way they see themselves. And I think Elder Johnson talks about that in this. Yes. I don't know where you're going with this. Yeah, go. Yeah, go. Take us in. But when he talks about his own experience and he describes legitimate feelings, He talks about how he was feeling, you know, these feelings of like anger, confusion, doubt, and fear, and how those feelings were so intense that they literally made him lose his ability to recognize the Holy Ghost for a season. And it was this companion. It was Kevin Vick, this companion, who looked at him the way Grace looked at those kids, the way that Christ looked at the woman at the well and said, I love you. I see you and I love you. And Elder Johnson, when he says, when he talks about the impact that that had on him, like that just absolute unconditional, nonjudgmental love. And then he had to choose to accept it. And I think that the sermon that he teaches just in that paragraph is so unbelievably powerful because that to me is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's choosing to love perfectly, unconditionally, no matter what. And it's choosing to accept that love the same way. That's so good. and um one thought that i had that was so interesting about the three that i put so this is one thing that i've done this year that i actually have loved i i did it the last conference and then i did it this conference um because rio who we love has set us up so well so we can and so i print off the thing that megan is helping all of you who don't have one yet um the workbook which we always put out the week after conference and rio is so good it is like days after conference She gives us this whole workbook that she puts together with all the conference talks, with places where we can be writing. But then I take my conference journal and I rip it out because it can tear out now. And so right after conference is over, after Rio makes all of our things for free and we download them and I full punch them, then I rip up my whole conference notes. and stick them in because you guys I would have lost this journal by now Does anyone else lose your conference notes Because for like two weeks I carry them around and then I can never find them again But now, look, I can just rip them out. And I have them, which I'm so happy about because I had forgotten that when I read this talk and you think about those parts, like what you're talking about right now, it is so interesting that on one hand, the ministering to that one person was important. It was. Like you just said, what that companion did for that companion was a significant moment. He knows it. He remembers it. It was a one-on-one moment. But look who he is now and how he is using that one-on-one moment as a 70 in the church of Jesus Christ to teach what that ministering moment did for him, that I started thinking to myself, it's so interesting in each of the stories he talked about, the woman at the well, the man on the steps in Acts 3, and his own personal story in each of those things, that one moment, like that, that's a great story. His story, great story. Acts 3, great story. John 4, great story but what i captured that i would have forgotten is he ministered to the one in john 4 and as a result the whole town came um peter ministered to the man on the steps and as a result he entered into covenant relationship you know whatever that looked like back then with the lord he entered the temple this man had this moment where somebody helped him reclaim his ability to feel and recognize the holy ghost and remember right and as a result he could stand up and testify in the conference center to how many people and isn't it interesting that like it all of a sudden in his talk, I started thinking about what is the result of a ministering moment? What is the result of that moment? And in the moment, it feels like a one-on-one, you know, that word that we talked about at the beginning. Why can't I need to write it now? Because I keep forgetting about it. Anecdotal. Anecdotal. Yeah. We think about it like that. And it is that that's the beauty of it. It is. But also the result of that moment can have this like effect. Exponential. Yeah. Yes. That's multiplies. Yeah. That's, you know, I'm so interested in that because honestly that moment in this talk, if you, if you read it, but if you go back and listen to it, that moment when he holds up the Book of Mormon and he says, I love this book. I mean, you can feel it, you know, like he has to actually pause and get himself together for a second because he feels the power of what he's saying so much. And when he testifies of it, and can you imagine if we'd lost, if we'd lost Elder Johnson, if we'd lost that power, that conviction of reminding us that the principles in that book, that pattern in that book lead to so much joy and you could see it in his face and yes and that goes back to that moment i love that question what's the power of a ministering moment like if you show up every single day in your life asking like how can i see people without judgment how can i love them the way that you love them you you can literally change i mean millions and millions of people just heard elder vic because I mean, Elder Johnson because of Kevin Vick and because of the love that he showed. Yes. Isn't that crazy? That's such a powerful thing. I'm thinking about that so much. And as we think about, you know, what he's teaching us, these little, he's just giving us these little vignettes. But I want to think about that Book of Mormon, what you were just talking about. Because did this happen to anyone but me? Because it might have just been God was trying to teach me a lesson. But I had this overwhelming desire that I had forgotten about to get into the Book of Mormon. He made me want to say, and I love the Book of Mormon, but I love all scripture. So I'm generally in all scripture all the time, randomly, not like focused. and he he had given me this desire to like get a book of mormon put it by my bed and and be having a check-in with the book of mormon you know every single night did anybody else have that moment or am i was i just was god trying to be like you could read the book of mormon more than you are right now no it i totally had the same experience because i'm so i'm so obsessed in love with the Old Testament right now. Everything we're learning about, about who this God is, this God that always keeps his promises. I'm just loving that he's always been that God since the beginning. But then it made me remember that quote from President Nelson when he said, I promise you is that if you prayerfully study the Book of Mormon every day, you will make better decisions. I promise that as you ponder what you study, the window of heaven will open. You will receive answers to your own questions and direction for your own life. And then he says, as you study, you can be immunized against the evils of the day. And even the gripping plague of pornography and other mind-numbing addictions. And these things that pull us away from understanding what's real, understanding who God is, understanding who we truly are in his eyes. The Book of Mormon is literally the antidote for that. And I just love the Emily. I love what you just said about just keep it open. You taught me that I think years ago, I think you said something. I just love having my scriptures open next to my bed. And I've done that ever since because I feel like it's like, yeah, I'm not going to not, I'm not going to ignore a book that is sitting open. Yes. It's such an invitation, isn't it? It's so crazy but just that simple thing is such an invitation yeah so i loved that part of what he was um teaching us um can i just say one more thing about that yeah about that um that experience that he shared he because he does he goes back and he talks about how he was really powerfully converted to the gospel of jesus christ he decided to go on a mission he was so excited about it he You literally had a moment where he prayed. He talks about it later where he fasted and prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was real and the prophet Joseph was a prophet of God. But then he found out about the history of the church with blacks in the priesthood, and it just caused so much consternation for him. And I love how open and real he was about that because I feel like that's just such a real experience that so many of us have and I think that what Satan has gotten so good at especially in our day especially with our kids is making them stop there when they feel these things they experience these feelings of anger confusion doubt fear they stop they're like I'm out this isn't for me and I love what um Elder Johnson was teaching us in this moment was like don't stop there like have those feelings experience them but then you have to kind of choose to be open to feeling the love of the people around you the feeling the love of of the savior and and then he says he uses words like i gained the courage to pray to heavenly father in the name of jesus christ and as i prayed i remembered but it actually takes some courage i think to be feeling those kinds of feelings and challenged in the ways that we are challenged in our day and age and to open yourself up to the love around you because oh my gosh there's so much love around us especially in this gospel especially in this church you can choose to see the hard things you can choose to see the the the one-off hypocrisy here and there but choose instead to see the just the unbelievable love that surrounds you and choose to have the courage to lean into the love and choose to have the courage to lean into the faith because God, God will show up in that space so much easier than he will show up in the doubts. Yeah, that's so good. And I, um, I love someone just put in the comments and I had, this is in my notes also, um, that idea of just simply saying, I love you. how powerful that actually is for someone you know just that that it was so simple like his companion didn't sit down and say here let me go back and tell you what happened here and what happened here and the scripture is gonna say this here and this is gonna happen here and this is you know he didn't do that he just every night said I love you I see where you are and and guess what i'm still so glad i'm your companion i'm still so happy to get out with you every day i mean it really is that woman at well moment trenton was talking about of i see you having the biggest wrestle of your life and i'm sitting here i'm still here i'm with you in this you know and and i love you like i don't i don't see you as less than um in the wrestle that i'm willing to sit with you as you're going through that um what i just i think that's so powerful i do too and i think that's the whole message of what he's saying he really goes back to the simple teachings of the live what it looks like to live the gospel of jesus christ and it starts first it starts first with faith like and faith means having the ability to choose to see this Jesus who we learn about who is the perfect example of love and then to try to do what he did that's it that's all it is and when we take out the judgment we take out the reservations like I love you but you're gay so I don't know if I really want to like no or I love you, but there's this thing about, I don't know, women in the priesthood or women. Yes. Just show up with love. I feel like the spirit can teach through the hard things and give us real conviction of who he is. And then once we understand that, who we are and who we are to become. And that, that is the gospel of joy. I think that is so true. And I love, someone's just saying, remind us the question that the boy asked. And remember the question was, is it really faith or is it just an anecdotal experience? And, and can the answer be yes? Like both. It is an anecdotal experience. And that's actually the fact that a God was so big would reach down to someone and, and, you know, the fact that the Messiah would show up at a well at noon because he must needs go that way. Um, that those anecdotal moments, that is what is the power of faith. And I love that in, um, the doctrine and covenants six, which is the scripture that of all the scriptures, I was like, I'm actually so intrigued by this one, even though they're all so good but I love in that moment when um he's having this uh they're having this moment and this revelation comes to Joseph and to Oliver and it's it starts out saying in 14 um blessed are you for what you have done because you have inquired of me and as often as you have inquired as many times as you've asked um then you've received instruction by the spirit and if that hadn't been true, each of those moments, you wouldn't be back here asking again, is what he tells them. Doctrine and Covenants 6, that's verse 14. And then I love this pattern. I've started collecting this pattern all over in scripture. You notice it first in Moses. Do you Remember Moses when he says, I am the Lord God Almighty, and you are my son, and I have a work for you, Moses, my son. There is this moment, and I love when he does this. I am this, and you are this. And then why is he doing that? I'm so intrigued by it. He does it to Emma in 25. hearken unto the Lord your God while I speak unto you Emma Smith my daughter he is like helping us see he does it to Peter in Caesarea Philippi that's exact same thing where he's like remember who I am remember who you are well it happens right here in Doctrine and Covenants 6 behold in verse 20 thou art oliver and i have spoken unto you because of your desires and um so he tells him that and then in 21 he says behold i am jesus christ like i love that he is like okay this is who you are this is who i am this is actually critically important this this understanding for some reason of relationship is really important for us. And, and I can't decide if it's because there's part of it where he is like, you are mortal and I am God. So as we're working through this in your life, let's just remember what kind of power is on your side right now. Or if he's saying, I realize you feel like you are nothing and I am, you know, up here, but do you notice I'm sitting with you right now? Like I'm in your story. I'm like, I love that he is just like calling out what seems so obvious to us, but must be really important because there's such a pattern of it happening in scripture and why I've been thinking about that. But anyways, he's doing this. And then he says this in verse 22. And, and I just, this is where I want to think about that idea of anecdotal where it like it really has caught a hold of me because he says to him verily verily i say unto you if you desire a further witness cast your mind upon that night that you cried unto me in your heart that you might know concerning the truth of these things And I want to be like this what night? What was happening on that night? Where were you on that night? What is the story of that night? Because it must have been powerful because what he says to him is, go back to that anecdotal moment. Go back. That's where your strength is going to come. Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God? And I love that teaching moment of like those tiny moments. Like we don't even know what happened on that night. We don't know where Oliver was on that night. We don't know what questions he was asking or what answers came. We actually know nothing about that night. But it is for Oliver something that will allow him to lay hold on his faith. And someone's saying, it's the victory moment. And that is exactly what it is. We all have that, that night moment that we go back to and we're like, okay, this, this moment where the Lord ministered to me, I'm going to hold on to that because I think that's what's going to help me get through this. Oh my gosh. I love that so much because I think, I think that he does that he shows up and he does that in this in this talk with Elder Johnson in a way that is just so beautiful it does the exact same thing and even remember President Nelson said I believe if the Lord were to appear to you right now the very first thing he would say to you is your true identity he would say like I'm God this is who you really are and remember I've been here before I know exactly you've been here before too I've talked to you I know you we have this experience and I think that I think that that's what um Elder Johnson goes on to talk about in the rest of the talk is like okay how so how do you show up for people in a way that helps them to be seen and to feel like love and and he talks about just the simplicity of living the gospel like living and I um so we have you know we have this um this program where we we have about 2,000 kids every year that apply to be trip leaders for us so they can take out the youth on these trips and we're really careful about who we choose as trip leaders because these kids really can have generational impact on the teenagers that they take and so even in um almost every single interview for the last 10 years, and I've probably interviewed, I don't know, 5,000 kids at this point to be trip leaders. Every single interview, either I or one of my leaders has asked them the question, tell me who you are in the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it's a 90 second answer. They have no time to craft a really articulate answer. It's a fast thing. So they have 90 seconds to answer they have to go to the next one and emily ever since every every single time i hear people say i'm thinking about stepping back from the church i'm thinking about walking away i wish that they could have been in my office for the last 10 years because what i have seen in that moment is literally what living the gospel of jesus christ produces which is which is truly a clarity of identity that with 90 seconds to answer probably the most basic question of the human existence like who are you almost every single one of them with different stories and different experiences will respond me by saying I'm a son of God or I'm a daughter of God and I think I can't I don't know of any other organization on earth that produces that kind of understanding of who God is and who you are. And I think that the product of this faith is the evidence of it. That's so good. So living it is what produces that. Just living it, like reading the Book of Mormon, showing up, going to minister with love regardless of what people circums, just doing what we're taught to do, it produces something so powerful. that's so good um and i love um i love this idea of that the evidences the evidences might be smaller than we anticipated but it's all of them it's all of them stitched together these ones but also like your testimony and my testimony and you know each of us listening to someone else say here's where the lord has shown up in my life and ministered to me that is this evidence someone wrote from hagar um the god who sees me el roy um that's that is faith and it's because he ministered to us. That is where our faith is born out of, is he ministered to us. And I love what he showed us in these stories is, it's interesting because these people weren't easy to minister to. None of them were. The woman at the well, no, no one even spent time with her. Imagine how many years she had gone to that well at noon by herself. You know, you think about that. The man who had laid on those steps for years before somebody fastened their eyes on him and ministered to him. And like him, Elder Johnson, he couldn't have been easy to minister to in those moments. He couldn't have been. He was so angry. And you know what his work was? The work he didn't want to be doing. The work he didn't believe in. So it wasn't like he could just go to a construction job or go to sit at a computer and type. he was actually having to teach about the thing he was so angry about as his real life job every day. That could not have been easy. And I think he taught us a really important lesson about ministering, not just when it's easy, but ministering in the hard places, You know, showing up in the hard places and teaching there how important that is. Yeah, and it's so beautiful that he did it so simply. He did it with just looking in someone's eyes and saying, I love you. I love you. It's so powerful when, like, one heart feels that from another heart. It just, all of the lies that Satan tells, they can be dispelled by just that one moment of true love. And I think that when we pray for that, when we pray to be able to be that person, we are often given that ability. Because I can't imagine anything that the Savior wants more than for our brothers and sisters around us to feel that love. Yes, yes. in Sunday school on Sunday or in Relief Society we had a woman who it was so powerful the teacher called this woman up in our sisterhood and she I had been on a walk with Clay earlier that week and the woman had driven by us and she just gives us this huge smile and waved by and I just thought man she just made me feel like seeing me was the greatest thing that ever happened to her like that was the best part of her day was seeing my husband and I on our walk and it randomly on Sunday that same woman got pulled up by the teacher and the teacher asked us in our in our Relief Society how many of you have had experiences where you felt seen or loved by this woman and every single hand went up I mean every single hand and I mine was like the first one because I'm kind of new in the ward. And this woman saw me, and she made me feel seen. Not just seen, but, like, loved. Yes. And it makes you want to come. It makes you want to stay. It makes you want to actually live the gospel, because whatever she's figured out about the gospel, I want that, too. Yes, that's so good. And it makes it feel easy, because sometimes why does ministering feel hard? and I love that you were like but also that lady just waving acknowledging that we were on the road like smiling that in and of itself was a profound ministering moment for you and we can do that so that's so it's just so good there are so many good things here this talk you could talk about every day for five days because you just want to get it he what he did was he gave us little bites of like a million sandwiches absolutely tear it apart and literally like cut up every single paragraph and just have a devotional about that paragraph yes so it's especially i think if you're dealing with hard questions and they're pulling you away from the gospel because he literally gives you a step-by-step on how to come back yeah so good so good and if you're not the one who's struggling with the gospel but if you if someone is also a step-by-step of like how to to love them through the process it just oh there's so many things you can pull we didn't even talk about the doctrine of christ what about that whole paragraph you know there's like so many things and I do have to say this, one of my favorite things, and you didn't see it because you guys, at some point I'm going to reclaim my life. Remember I said that last week and it is not happening, but I looked up the Hebrew word for doctrine and why have I never done that before? Because you guys know how much I love doctrine. And now I can't even remember exactly what it was because it was so shocking and I didn't write it down. But it is like something about simply received or something like that. That is doctrine. And it's in that, I put the thing up right before we started. So you'll be able to go back and find the word on Instagram and see it. But I loved that thought of like, I feel like we always want to say doctrine is truth or doctrine points to Jesus or which is true. I mean, all of those are true. Doctrine is, you know, eternal truth. It never changes. We're always defining it from out there. And the very first translation of it was in here. It was what you receive from that, which I had never thought about before. So there's something else to ponder for the whole week is if doctrine is what we're receiving and it's changing in us. And that's what he describes in that part of his talk. What does that look like? So see so many great invitations from this week to just think about. I love that so much. And I just, I feel like at the end of this, just like there's so much power in prayer and so much power and especially us as a sisterhood praying for each other. That's so true. Just maybe think about offering prayers this week for each other and for the hard things that we're going through. Because I just think there's nothing more powerful on this earth than what we as sisters and believers in this faith can do together with our collective love. That's so good. And so, so true. true. And again, just another way of ministering that is so simple, but it's so powerful. But just as we close, I had this experience with a man who taught me something this week. He was at the temple and he was sitting in the very back. And when the man was saying the prayer, he couldn't hear the words. He was trying to hear the words, but he couldn't until they were repeated. And then when all those voices were repeating the words, then he was like, okay, now I can hear. I feel like I'm part of what's happening. But he was teaching me, do you ever think the power of so many people praying together is because it amplifies the loudness of the single prayer? And not that God needs that, but maybe we do. And that's the other thing I've been thinking about all week is just that power of amplified prayer. It made me think of that one verse of scripture that talks about the effectual prayer of many, you know, and how important that is in our lives. So many good things. So many good things, everyone. Spend more time here for the next couple of days because I think it's a lot of good learning for all of us. So have a good week, Amy. Thanks for joining us. That was so good. See you next Thursday. Bye. Thanks for joining me. This podcast is taken from our Thursday Inklings discussions, which happen live on Instagram. at inklings.institute. If you loved being here, I'd love to invite you to go even deeper with me, get reminders, and enjoy first access to all our events and gatherings by going to emilybellfreeman.com backslash inklings. you