Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Helaman 1-6 Part 2 • Jenae Nelson • August 26 - September 1 • Come Follow Me

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Dr. Jenae Nelson continues to discuss Helaman 1-6, including the power of gratitude for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Great “Coming Back” to the Church.SHOW NOTES/TRANSCRIPTSEnglish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM35ENFrench: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM35FRGerman: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM35DEPortuguese: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM35PTSpanish: https://tinyurl.com/podcastBM35ESYOUTUBEhttps://youtu.be/5LUQ4NA0j08ALL EPISODES/SHOW NOTESfollowHIM website: https://www.followHIMpodcast.comFREE PDF DOWNLOADS OF followHIM QUOTE BOOKSNew Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastNTBookOld Testament: https://tinyurl.com/PodcastOTBookWEEKLY NEWSLETTERhttps://tinyurl.com/followHIMnewsletterSOCIAL MEDIAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followHIMpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastTIMECODE00:00 Part II– Dr. Jenae Nelson00:38 Helaman 3:27 - Things are amazing and dark06:24 Helaman 3:35 - Gratitude, pride, and religiosity11:25 How to increase gratitude?15:15 Gratitude builds relationships19:41 Helaman 3:35 - Yielding your heart and prosperity within the Church21:43 Helaman 4:12 - Vices and oppression of the poor24:00 Helaman 5 - Jesus as our foundation26:47 Helaman 5:12 - Dr. Nelson shares a story of a storm and a tent29:38 The Great Coming Back33:37 A member leaves but his descendents are found36:58 Helaman 6:32-36 - Where are our hearts?40:14 Intrinsic motivations and the Savior as refuge45:10 How do we stay hopeful and of good cheer?51:26  End of Part II– Dr. Jenae NelsonThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Cofounder, Executive Producer, SponsorDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Welcome to part two with Dr. Jenae Nelson, Healman chapters one through six. Healman three, this synopsis is really good. Nephites migrate to the land northward. They build houses of cement. When the Book of Mormon was published, that was an anachronism. Now it's an evidence. Tens of thousands are converted and baptized. The Word of God leads to salvation. I mean, it's too good. Towards the end of Helaman 3, we have some really great verses that come up, and that's not storyline, that's some great doctrine. So, I'm going to let Janaye hit those towards the end of Helaman 3. I love that. So, I mentioned that I had a friend of mine from Baylor who's not a member of the

church participate in reading this and then give me feedback on the scriptures and this was really awesome to see his perspective. He pointed out starting with 27, thus we may see that the Lord is merciful unto all who will with sincerity of hearts, there's the heart again, call upon his holy name. Yes, thus we see that the gate of heaven is open unto all, even to those who will believe on the name of Jesus Christ who is the Son of God. Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God." And it keeps going, the word of God is quick and powerful, which can divide asunder the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil.

But what he pointed out to me was this is really inclusive. This is inclusive eschatology in that you have this idea that it's open to all. It's available to all. It's not just the select and the elect. It's whoever wants to. We do believe that. It is so good, isn't it? Anybody that wants to is invited. I love that about our faith. I love that this is the kind of God that I serve is the kind of God that says everyone is welcome. Everyone is invited.

Chapter 3 feels so real. Because you've got, wow, things are so great. Well, actually things are not great. There's these problems all over, but really things are great the high priests it says are astonished beyond measure of how great the church is doing how it's prospering yet Mormon is keeping us abreast of well there's actually some contention here some contention there some war here some pride there I feel that that's what's going on now there are a lot of people who find here, some contention there, some war here, some pride there. I feel that that's what's going on now. There are a lot of people who find

themselves in despair and how perilous our day is. People have been saying that for a long time, but it feels especially real in our day. The darkness feels darker than ever. The reason why we can rejoice when there are hard times and genuinely feel this kind of joy and happiness, despite all of the chaos that is happening around us, is because of the joy and the peace that we have in the gospel. And also this contrast that Mormon is teaching us is expanding on the principle that there's opposition in all things. So if you have a lot of darkness and wickedness, you can bet that there's gonna be a lot of righteousness growing and a lot of light growing at the same time.

I get excited about that. When President Nelson has said his now infamous quote about that we will see the greatest miracles from now until the coming of the Lord. Because we are living in such a dark time, we also get to participate in this incredible work where we get to see the most incredible miracles that have ever been.

And it's real, it's happening right now. And I wanna be a part of the miracles. I wanna be part of that virtue building and the coming unto Christ and bringing people and part of the gathering, the greatest work that we've ever had. That's the part that I want to focus on in the latter days. I don't want to focus on all of the chaos that is certainly there and the perilous times that we're certainly in.

You can really quickly lose hope when that's all that you focus on and when you don't have your eyes focused on Christ, you're going to miss all of the miracles and the wonder and the incredible work that we can participate in right now in our day. Wow, I love how you said that. This is today. Things are amazing and things are dark. An interesting tidbit from psychology is that our brain is wired in such a way that negative events have more weight in our mind. We remember them more. And that's why it takes five compliments to undo one criticism. It's not an exact number, but you get the point. The negative things are stickier in our brain.

So it's a lot easier for us in these days to be focused on all the negative things we hear in the news and all the bad stuff that is coming into us on social media or whatever. It's going to be so much easier to only see that. But then you miss out on the joy of the ongoing restoration. You miss out on the miracles that are pouring out from heaven. President Nelson has told us, heavens are open. We get to be a part of this. It's exciting. It's happy. We don't have to walk around sad and in despair in the latter days. We can find joy, happiness, peace. President Nelson is telling us all of these things, that this is possible. The other thing that I want to point out in this chapter, especially in light of the pride cycle, there's also at the same time where pride is growing in the church, there's also humility that is growing in the church. So in verse 35, chapter 3,

nevertheless, they did fast and pray oft and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility. This is that building growing up in the Lord and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea even to the purifying and sanctification of their hearts. Which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God." So going back to the heart, going back to the center, we need to have this kind of humility where we recognize that Heavenly Father is a good Father and that He gives us all of the good things in our life. We show gratitude. We feel our sense of indebtedness. All of these things can lead and build our humility.

It's one of those verses that has even beautiful cadence to it. You mentioned gratitude here. The word gratitude isn't said in verse 35, but you can definitely see it in verse 35 in humility and filling their souls with joy and consolation. They want to be sanctified. So what have you seen with gratitude and religiosity? This is a major part of your research. And it's very relevant right now because even when you contrast this with the people here in the Book of Mormon, the Nephites who are battling pride, they're battling entitlement, they have all these riches,

they're growing in prosperity in worldly ways. With this type of prosperity also often comes entitlement and ingratitude. People expect certain things. It's often why poor people are the happiest people in the world because they're so grateful for anything that they get. They don't have entitlement. They don't have that expectation that they should be getting certain things. This is why I started studying indebtedness to God. I took a page out of King Benjamin's sermon because he talks about how we're eternally indebted to God. This is what he shares with the people right before they had this mass conversion. The idea that everything you have comes from God, being aware of that and understanding you can never repay God for everything that He's given you. He's too good. You can't ever get ahead of the Lord because then He will immediately bless you.

There's no getting even with the Lord and it's not supposed to be that way. He wants to be in an asymmetrical relationship with us because He loves us. We're His children. That's how it works with a father and his children. He pours out these blessings. Once you have that realization that, wow, God has done so much for me, it prepares your heart to be humble. I'm sure you guys have also had this realization, I'm not making it to heaven on my own. I'm too sinful. We're all too sinful. All of us make mistakes. We're in this fallen world. We're never going to make it on our own merit. But God gives liberally to us, and that should make us

feel so grateful that He's willing to remain in a relationship with us. We're never going to be profitable servants. The scriptures say we're unprofitable servants, but that's not what it's about. The relationship is about love. We want our young people to realize that. We want our young people to not try to earn their way to salvation, but we also don't want them to be feeling entitled. If I do these things, I should be able to get this and this and this blessing from God. What gratitude does, it acknowledges a sense of, I'm dependent on God. I need Him. I need Jesus Christ in my life. I'm not making it without Him. That's an encouraging thing because He wants to see us succeed.

I interviewed a bunch of BYU students when I was doing my research on indebtedness. I asked one individual, I'll never forget what he said, what do you think about being indebted to God? Does that make you uncomfortable? Typically when we think of indebtedness, it feels uncomfortable to be in debt. We're like, oh, I want to pay it off. I don't want to be in debt anymore. So I asked him, what do you think about being indebted to God? This young man said, I love that I'm indebted to God because he's the one that I want to serve. He's a good master. He's the best master and I want to serve him. This young man had so much humility and I realized it takes humility to accept the goodness of God in your life. It takes humility to say I'm never making it on my own,

but that you were worth that sacrifice because God loves you and wants to see you succeed. My son is on a mission in Brazil right now. He's teaching a new convert. She started praying, but a couple of years ago, she had gotten in a really bad accident and hurt her leg and she had really bad back problems. And because of this she wasn't able to kneel and pray. And this humble, humble woman wanted nothing more than to be able to get on her knees to pray to her heavenly father. One day my son was over at her house. He was able to witness a miracle where this woman was able,

for the first time in years, to get down on her knees and she said a prayer. He said that that prayer was so sweet. The humility, the desire to get on her knees before her Maker was so life-changing for him. And when he told me the story, I felt that. I felt her faith. I felt her humility. Sometimes I can't even be bothered to roll out of bed to say my nighttime prayer. I'm so grateful for the humble and meek followers of the Lamb, as the scriptures say. It's a beautiful example to me. Jina, can I follow up with a question? So, gratitude leads to well-being. I want that.

Is part of your research teaching, how do I be more grateful? I want to be more grateful. Can you teach me how to be more grateful? Absolutely. I'm so glad you asked that question. There are different types of gratitude, which kind of surprises people when you talk about it. There's gratitude that you see on social media where it's hashtag blessed. You're showing off, oh, I got this new Tesla hashtag blessed. And it's about your stuff. You're showing like, look how blessed I am. It's self-promotion and it's all about your stuff. And this is what we call shallow gratitude. There's no benefactor, there's no giver other than the self. You are showing off the stuff that you have.

And oftentimes with our kids, when they're writing their little gratitude list, Thanksgiving or any other time, it's typical for people to write the things they're grateful for. Here's all the stuff I have. The reason why that's problematic is that if you only list the stuff that you have and you don't identify the giver of the good gifts, you're kind of missing the point of gratitude. What we want for our kids is to develop this kind of gratitude, this rich gratitude,

where you're looking to the giver, you're acknowledging, all these good things that I have came from God. King Benjamin really teaches us how to do this. He gives us our very breath. There's nothing that we can get on our own merits. What we need to do with our kids is we need to make sure that when they're writing their gratitude list or when they're any type of gratitude practice that you ask them where did that come from? Who gave that to you? Because gratitude is supposed to be pro-social. What that means is it's supposed to motivate people to build relationships. is supposed to motivate people to build relationships. We have commandeered gratitude.

Positive psychology has commandeered gratitude as a therapeutic intervention to make the individual feel good. And it does, it works. It does make you feel good. But the real function of gratitude is to build relationships. So you did this thing for me. I acknowledge you did this for me. Thank you. Now I want to do something. So you did this thing for me. I acknowledge you did this for me.

Thank you. Now I want to do something nice for you. And it creates a relationship of giving and receiving and it becomes another virtuous cycle where within the relationship we build love because we acknowledge the good things that people have done for us. So this can be interpersonal in our relationships from mom and dad, it can be from teachers.

There are all kinds of people that are giving to our kids, pointing them to the people in their lives that are blessing them. And then of course, importantly, in our prayers, not just having this be this rote thing, thank you for our home, thank you for our food. Really take a moment in your prayer. Think about something that God did for you today. Think about something that maybe was unique to this day and write that down. President Eyring says that he would write down in his journal every day something that God had done for him. That's an amazing gratitude practice. And not only is that building relationships, but if you are doing that where you're recognizing the hand of the Lord in your life, you're building your testimony. And that can become the foundation of your testimony

as you're looking to Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father as the source of the good things in your life instead of you as a source. Within Helaman we're seeing this, the reason why the riches became a problem is because it said they made idols out of them. They started worshiping their things, instead of worshiping the God who is the giver of good things. I've heard that, that in our day we love things and use people when we ought to love people and use things. You're the gratitude expert. You've studied it. How do you practice? Because it's a virtuous site building cycle, you start off with something that may be more concrete

like President Eyring did. Every day I'm going to write down something the Lord did for me, and then I'm going to think about three things that other people did for me. Then I'm'm gonna think about three things that other people did for me. Then I'm gonna think about some things I can do for other people. This is reciprocal relationship. So I'm receiving, now how can I give? So that gratitude becomes virtuous because it's not that you feel gratitude,

but now you're expressing gratitude. It can be a very concrete practice where it's a journaling, or I'm gonna text five people this week and tell them thank you for something I noticed that they did that helped me. But eventually it becomes second nature because if you're intentionally doing this whether it's writing a journal, texting people, writing thank you letters, as long as you're doing it interpersonally it starts to become a habit in such a way that it becomes a filter. Right now, I don't have a gratitude practice. For years, I did. I had a journal where I would write things down. But now it's become part of my

character in the sense of I'm noticing people. But you do have to start off with a habit formation with a concrete practice. Oftentimes, that's how habits are built, but then the habit turns into the character. And now it's a filter in which I view the whole world. I see everything as a gift instead of something that I should have gotten or an entitlement or something I earned. I just think, wow, that didn't have to happen. I love when our guest, John, opened up new insights I've never thought about. Gratitude builds relationships. We all want stronger relationships with our children, with our spouse, with the Lord, with our friends, with our Lord. Gratitude is what you call pro-social. Pro-social, yeah, it should be. It's not always. That's why I'm saying there's two different kinds. There's shallow gratitude that is just for the

self, and then there's this other gratitude which is relational and virtuous and builds. Even within these different character traits, we're seeing these two different cycles, right? The virtuous and vicious cycle. And the focus always almost lies on, are you looking outward? And are you looking upward? Or are you only focusing on yourself? And are you only focusing on yourself and are you only focusing on your needs or are you looking outward to reach out to others? Well let me just say I'm grateful for my co-host, I am grateful for our guest

this week, Janaye, I'm grateful for our producers. Wow, this is really working. I can feel our relationships. There was a sister, her name was Barbara Jones, and she used to speak at Education Week. I think it was before she joined the church, I'm not sure, but she used to train the Miss America contestants. She would be hired. One thing I remember that was so interesting to me was these young women would spend a month with her preparing for these pageants and one of her things was to have them write five thank you notes a day. Different people every day.

You might think, what does that have to do with anything? And she actually believed it changed their appearance if they were gracious. We all know Moroni's promise is Moroni 10-4. But if you miss Moroni 10-3, this is really cool because okay, when you receive these things, I'm paraphrasing, remember how merciful God has been since the creation of Adam until the time you receive these things and ponder it in your hearts. The result of that is gratitude. And then ask God, been since the very beginning. And what would that fill you with?

Gratitude. And you mentioned humility here and I feel like they're like twinners because humility is the realization that I'm getting blessings I didn't deserve. Can I just say something about that word at the end of verse 35, yielding their hearts unto God? My youngest Bethany just got her driver's license. What is a yield sign? It's not a stop sign, but it says, let other traffic go first, right? Let other traffic prevail. If you ask President Nelson, he might say, yielding is to let God prevail. The humble and the meek are comfortable with their weakness

because they know that weakness is where the miracles happen. Weakness is where grace is made alive in Christ in our lives. God can use us in our weakness. It's the joy of the gospel. I remember learning some things about Joseph Smith early on in my testimony and thinking, oh man, I don't know what I feel about that. That to me, I can seem like a weakness or something that I thought prophets were supposed to be perfect. At this point, I was naive and immature in my faith, but I realized that what the Spirit taught me was, isn't it a miracle that the Lord can use us in our weakness? It's a miracle that the Lord makes weak things strong.

One more thing from chapter three that we can learn about prosperity. In the same year there was exceedingly great prosperity in the church. We have a tendency to automatically think money, but listen to what it says, "...in so much that there were thousands who did join themselves unto the church and were baptized unto repentance. And so great was the prosperity of the church, and so many blessings which report upon the people, that even the high priests and the teachers themselves were astonished beyond measure." We talked about that already. But then it says in 26, it came to pass,

the work of the Lord did prosper unto the baptizing and uniting to the Church of God. There's lots of different ways to prosper and here we see it's in the number of souls. That's the best kind of prospering. We're growing in the Lord, we're bringing more people to Christ. That's something to kind of prospering. We're growing in the Lord. We're bringing more people to Christ. That's something to keep in mind. All right, we've introduced the concept of the pride cycle, that there are different interpretations of prosperity, but in verse 12 in Helaman 4, it really does say it was because of the pride of their hearts, because of their exceeding riches. This is where riches becomes problematic. It was because of

their oppression to the poor, withholding their food from the hungry, withholding their clothing from the naked and smiting the humble brethren upon the cheek, making a mock of that which was sacred, denying the spirit of prophecy and of revelation, murdering, plundering, lying, stealing, committing adultery, rising up in great contention. So we just listed a bunch of vices here. Yeah. This started with a little bit of pride like we talked about. What I really think is happening that's really interesting is not just that pride is growing,

but that charity is decreasing. Their hearts were not on God. Their hearts were not on their fellow men. Their hearts were upon their riches. Later later on says that they made idols of them in chapter six. The point being here is that they were lacking charity. When we talk about what is going on in the people, it's not just that pride is growing, but that charity is going down. Wow. An antidote to pride is humility, love, charity, gratitude. You sound like President Benson.

Yeah. Speaking of President Benson, pride is the universal sin and it's listed first in verse 12 and then that laundry list. And I just feel like every sin has pride as its root because you're saying, I want to do what I want to do. And that's maybe why it's at the top of the list. And then everything that comes after it is just another flare up of pride. Sometimes words like pride, charity, these words that we use a lot in the gospel lose their meaning because we say them so much, helps to have synonyms.

So like self-centeredness is a great synonym for pride. Because you can do a lot of things out of self-centeredness. Pride can become kind of nebulous. What does that mean? But like we can do our ministering because we want to be seen of other people, extrinsic rewards. You can't be self-centered and grow up in the Lord. Center of the universe syndrome. Janay, you've mentioned that Helaman 5 is the jewel of this section. It really is the jewel. I'm so excited. Not just because I'm passionate about Jesus Christ being our foundation, but because of my passion for the prophets and the apostles and His restored church.

I am so excited to testify of these other pieces of our foundation. We were really blessed by our most recent conference talk by Elder Bednar, how he opened up some things to our mind that maybe we never noticed before. And he said that Christ is the rock, but not the foundation. Did anybody else say, wait, have I been paying attention all of these years? I thought Christ was the foundation. But he said, no, Christ is the rock that we build our foundation on. I love this talk by President Hinckley. I don't think we talk about it enough, but President Hinckley actually tells us those four cornerstones. We have Christ at the bottom.

He is the bedrock of our foundation at the bottom, at the core of our testimonies. But listen to what President Hinckley said are the four cornerstones. This is from his talk, Four Cornerstones of Faith, February 2004. The first one is the reality and the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Second, the sublime vision given to the prophet Joseph Smith, ushering in the dispensation of the fullness of times. You need to have a testimony of the first vision. The third, the Book of Mormon as the Word of God, speaking in and declaring the divinity of the Savior, and then fourth is the priesthood of God, divinely conferred to be exercised in righteousness for the blessing of

our Father's children. The reason why I'm so passionate about this is because I lost a best friend who had the strongest testimony of Jesus Christ, but did not have a testimony of the apostles and the prophets. It's so foundational. As you follow the prophets and the apostles and your local leaders, you will come to know your Savior better, because that's where the covenants, the ordinances, the temple, the power of the priesthood is all contained within the restoration of the church.

The relationship with Christ is what matters. The church facilitates that relationship. The prophets and the apostles are accelerant on that relationship. How many of us have received a calling, I can't do that. How many of us have heard commandments, covenants, I can't do that. Well, you're right. But what if we were to bind ourselves to someone who can't, bind ourselves by covenant to Christ. He can do it. In the Book of Mormon, it never uses the language converts to the church. It always said converted unto the Lord. Over and over and over and over. At least 10 times I found, and you just quoted

35, 28, 25, Janee that says they were converted unto the Lord and united unto the Church of Christ. The object of our conversion is Christ, but we unite with the Church. It's not multiple choice. It's do both of those for power. Exactly. When I think of this scripture, I think of an experience I had at Bear Lake with my family. We got there, the weather was great, the forecast was wonderful. We set up our tent and we didn't stake it down because the forecast was fine. We thought we would be okay and we were in a rush to go play in the water. While we were down and playing in the water, this storm came up literally out of nowhere. All of a

sudden, there were tents flying away. We ran up the hill to get to our tent. Our kids get in the tent. They're little at this time. They're screaming because things are flying away. They're so scared that they're going gonna fly away to Oz or something. They're in the middle of the tent, my husband and I, because we hadn't anchored our tent down, we had to go outside and each take a corner of the tent and then our brother and sister-in-law, whose tent had already flown away, saw that the predicament we were in. So they came and they held the other sides. So we had four people holding down each side of this tent and just praying.

This storm was so long. I'm sure it was probably like maybe 15 minutes, but it felt like an hour. It was like so long. We're holding the tent down. And I'll never forget that image in my mind. The rock is no good if you're not anchored to it. You need to anchor yourself to Christ to keep us safe during the storm. You don't think they're coming and you don't see them coming.

They come. They come to everybody. And thinking of the stewardship that we have to make sure that we really have our homes anchored, that we've created a place of refuge for our kids. We were willing to be out there standing in the storm in order to protect our kids because at that moment that was all that mattered. And spiritually we should have that same kind of energy and protection of our children and desire to anchor down into Christ. That's a perfect segue. Janaye, the church is hit by a major storm. We

were doing really well. Things were great. And now chapter four, things start falling apart. And here comes two prophets, Nephi and Lehi. I love how it says they did preach with great power. And it said they did to confound many of those dissenters and this is where I said this is the great coming back who had gone over from the Nephites in so much that they came forth and did confess their sins and were baptized unto repentance and immediately returned to the Nephites to endeavor to repair unto them the wrongs which they had done. Now we see this is true repentance because they weren't just afraid of being weak. This is a situation where they actually wanted to repair the wrongs that they had done.

There was something right that happened in their heart, and it was because of the power of Nephi and Lehi, which I think is a testimony to them and how they had grown up in the Lord and the work that they had done in order to have that kind of power and authority. This is fascinating. I've never seen, what'd you call it there, the great coming back. The dissenters who had left are now coming back because of these two prophets. I can't wait for that day. There's a podcast called Come Back with incredible stories and it's happening, but I can't wait to see people who have left come back in great numbers. I think that is going to be one of the mightiest miracles that maybe perhaps President

Nelson was prophesying about. You've heard of it raining cats and dogs. Well, at one time there was a rain of judges. No, just kidding. The R-E-I-G-N, the rain of the judges. It's such an interesting storyline because Mosiah has four sons, King Mosiah. They are knocked flat by an angel. King Mosiah has nobody to give the kingdom to because they all want to go back to the land of Nephi and be missionaries. I'm oversimplifying, but he's like, let's start a new form of government. We'll call it the reign of the judges. Alma, you are unconscious the longest. You are the first chief judge. When he sets that thing up, Mosiah gives them laws inspired by God. They are God-given laws. In Helaman 422, when things start to go south, it says,

they had altered and trampled under their feet the laws of Mosiah or that which the Lord commanded him to give unto the people, and they saw their laws had become corrupted." And then we go over to Helaman 5 2, as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction. The footnote to Helaman 5.2 takes you back to Mosiah 29.25 when King Mosiah organized it. And he was like, this will work as long as the voice of the people chooses good.

But as soon as the majority chooses evil, behold, brace for impact. And Helaman 5.2 is telling us right there, okay, here we go. If that template is true that this is the latter days, wow, are we getting to a place where we're close, where more choosing evil than good? And that's where this gets a little bit chilling, doesn't it? It does. I had a friend that was really in despair. This is around COVID when a lot of us were in despair. And she was like, I just wish the Lord would come already and make everything right.

In that moment, the Spirit said to me, God has already come. Jesus has already come. He already made it right. Ultimately, we can have faith in a God who has already prepared the way. This is how we have hope in the latter days. Again, this idea of hope in the darkness comes from trusting and believing in the rock of our salvation, that he already came, he already made all this right, he will come again, he's already victorious over the grave, over sin, and we know that in the end,

he wins, we know the way that this ends. And Elder Bednar says, the central recurring theme of the Book of Mormon is the invitation to come unto Christ. Come to him, and then you don't have to worry so much about when he comes again, because you're already there. Here in Helaman 5, as we're looking at the dissenters and people who have left, I hope to continue giving hope.

The story is for that purpose. I have a great, great, great grandfather named William Atkins Gein, who was a convert to the church at the time of Joseph Smith. He was in Nauvoo, built a home that still stands in Nauvoo. The Nauvoo temple is right there in the center of his view from his bedroom window, and he helped to build that temple. He died before the temple was built, sadly, but he had children and a wonderful wife. After the prophet Joseph Smith was martyred, his wife and some of his children went with Brigham Young and they crossed the plains. Eventually, one of the descendants of the Skeen family is Spencer W. Kimball. Well, one of William Atkin's sons, Thomas Keene, is my grandpa. And he did not go west with the Saints. He joined a splinter apostate group. Then he ended up marrying

a Native American woman, and this is in my Native American side of my family. He ended up serving in the Civil War. He survived Andersonville, which is one of the most brutal Civil War prisons of the time. Survived that. But then on the way home, he died in a steamboat explosion. And he left his wife a widow and left his daughter fatherless. And the gospel was completely lost to that family. Four generations later, my grandpa, he's Native American, got a Book of Mormon in his hands. Four generations later, he opened the Book of Mormon, read the Book of Mormon, and he said, this is true, and these are my

people, and I am part of the covenant. And he joined the covenant community of Christ. He was baptized. We thought that we were a family of converts. We didn't think that there was any pioneer heritage in our family. But we're from this family where the gospel was lost, but it was restored four generations later. Going back to that, God plays the long game. It may not be our generation, the next generation, or the next generation,

but eventually, God has a way of healing families. He wants to heal families, and He does these kinds of miracles if we can just wait and trust his plan, trust the long game that he's playing for our behalf. How did you find out this family history in Nauvoo and everything? How did you find out how that all hooked up? That's pretty cool. My grandpa was really into family history. I remember when he found out and he told me, I was just like, so you mean we're descendants of someone who wasn't faithful? Who chose not to follow the prophet? It is a cautionary tale to me because I want to be the one that chose to follow the prophet.

I want to pass that legacy down to my family that I anchor to Christ by following the prophet. That's the way that Jesus Christ has established his pattern on earth, to follow his prophets, partake of his goodness through the ordinances and the priesthood that he has established in his church. Beautiful. Junaid, you've pointed out this really feels like a parallel to our day. There's political upheaval,

there is war, there is the church is prospering, pride in both in and out of the church is growing. It's both wonderful and scary. Oh, I'm thinking the Book of Helaman was written for us. And here comes these prophets and dissenters who left are coming back. A lot of really good news and bad news in these chapters. What happens in chapter six then? I like that we end where we started with this focus back on the heart. Here, symbolically, we're seeing a weakness in the heart, in our homes and in our heart. Nine times the word heart is mentioned in chapter 6. Clearly Mormon is asking us to look inside our hearts. What do we place our heart on? Do we place

our heart on riches? Are we placing our heart on God? Are we placing our heart on the poor and the needy? Where is our heart? And then asking us to do some introspection. Yes, there's political structure that leads to the downfall of the Nephites, but it begins, like we talked about, in a family with three brothers. From the family proclamation, it says, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets. If it's going to be the disintegration of the family, the disintegration of the heart, then we really need to be looking at our hearts, and we need to be looking at our relationships within our home.

If only we had a prophet who knew something about hearts. I think God is that good. Like, I actually think he's that good. That's elegant. That was good. That was symmetrical. That was real nice. This is the last virtuous and vicious cycle that we're going to see in 34. It says, the Nephites did dwindle in unbelief and they grow in wickedness and abomination, while the Lamanites began to grow exceedingly in the knowledge of their God. So these two paths, these two cycles, that one growing in wickedness, one growing in the knowledge of God. And then in 35, the spirit began to withdraw from the Nephites because of the wickedness and the hardness of their hearts. It's the condition of their heart that's the problem. It's not society at large

that is a problem. It's clearly the hardness of their hearts that's causing the problem. And then in 36, the very opposite what you just read, the Lord began to pour out his spirit upon the Lamanites, the exact opposite, because of their easiness and willingness to believe in his words. The contrast. We can choose a life of virtue or we can choose a life of vice. The choice is simple. In the small and simple things that we do every single day, the things that we continually do can lead to continuous peace.

We've talked a lot today about intrinsic motivation. That seems to be what's in Nephi and Lehi, doesn't it? They're really working hard here and suffering quite a bit, but they don't quit. They don't, and that's what gets you through the hard things when we talk about being built upon the foundation of Christ. It is having a relationship with Him, and because you have a relationship with Him such that you trust Him, you know He's going to come through for you. You have a history of knowing that He has been there for you in the past.

You can draw on that and say, I don't know how things are gonna work out, but I just know that they will because God has never let me down before and He's not about to let me down now. But that comes from creating a history with God. God is always at work in our lives, but we're really bad at noticing it sometimes. This is what gratitude does for us. Gratitude is a remembering practice.

In chapter 5, we didn't mention this, but remember, remember, remember. It's like throughout the whole chapter, gratitude helps us remember the good things that God has done for us. And then as we build this history, if we build this story of God's mercy in our life, we have this beautiful well that we can draw on, those rays of light that build a pillar, that pillar of fire that encircles us, that can keep us strong and can give us hope. It is absurd to have hope in times like ours. We're smiling and we're happy and we have hope because of who we are founded upon. We're founded upon Jesus Christ who gives us hope.

Love it. One of the fun things that perhaps parents could do with their kids with Hedem in 512 is talk about some of the not so good foundations out there that the world's telling them to build on and then explore that. What if it tells you to build on your appearance? How long is that going to last? Or will you constantly be looking at mirrors or whatever? What if it tells you to build on your wealth? What are all those false foundations? And I also love the word not if in there

But when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, it's like it's coming It's not if it's when and don't be surprised when it comes because welcome to earth life But it will have no power over you to drag you down There's been a hundred talks given on that verse and there could be a hundred more But it will have no power over you to drag you down. There's been a hundred talks given on that verse and there could be a hundred more. Those cornerstones of faith are tested. Do I really believe in the first vision? Do I really believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God?

Do I really believe the priesthood was restored? Do I really believe the temple is what it purports to be? And do I really believe the prophet when he asked me to do things that I don't agree with? We're all going to be tested on those pieces. I get discouraged sometimes with my own wandering, my own ups and downs of my faith. I just want to share my favorite hymn, do a shout out for it. I can't believe it was ever removed from the hymn book, but it's back and we can all be so happy. Come thou fount of every blessing. I'm so happy. So I just want to share this with you because it's my testimony and I think that it gives us hope.

Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God. He to rescue me from danger interposed his precious blood. Oh to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter, find my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above." I'm really grateful that we have a sure foundation. Christ studies me, and I have had a lot of storms, we all have. And I'm really grateful that in the storm I have a refuge, that He's my fortress.

My testimony is so firmly planted on Jesus Christ and His church because He has rescued me. And because of the restored church has been a refuge for me throughout my life. The prophets and the apostles, those are the sure cornerstones. When the wind comes and the wind blows, those anchor us to Christ. You've hit the message of Helaman 1-6. Things are getting dark. We don't have to be blind to that. There is corruption. There is war. There are serious problems all around us. As you're reading chapter 6, it makes your blood pressure go up. And the amount of power that Satan has over the people feels

astronomical. But yet the Lord seems one step ahead, always. It's always, yes, things look dark, but very similar to maybe Jesus in the storm. Carest thou not that we perish? O ye of little faith, I've got this under control. Junaid, one last question for you. Let's say I'm in my car commuting or I'm gardening or I am out for a jog and I'm thinking to myself as I'm listening to you teach. I'm scared for this world. I'm nervous. Mormon writes in such a, thus we see they were ripening for an everlasting destruction. You're like, oh man, it feels that way. What keeps you hopeful? What keeps you smiling and hopeful and excited?

I love that you said that, Hank, because I think we all have moments of despair. I think it's okay. It even talks about Nephi and Lehi were weary because of the dissensions. It's okay that we're weary. We don't have to be happy smiling all the time when there's really hard things going on. I think it's okay to say, like Elder Word then said, Mom, I'm having a hard time. But also his counsel and advice is come what may and love it. And the reason why we can love it is because we know that God is in charge. We worship a loving God. Like I shared with you today, I didn't always believe that, but God is loving. He is even in the hard times. He's especially in the hard times. That's when we feel Him the most.

It's in those hard times. That brings me joy and happiness, true, true happiness. I just want to share this with everybody so they can feel God's love in the way that I feel it. Not because I'm special or different or better, but just because I have tasted of His love and He heals us. He's the healer. He truly, truly has our best interest at heart. He has a plan. He knows what he's doing. If your life is falling apart, he knows it. And he has a plan to put it back together

in the most beautiful way. And same with our culture, our society, things that might be scary that are happening that we don't understand. It's okay to feel that. It's okay to lean into that. We can have empathy for those who are suffering. We can be sad in our own suffering. I don't want to invalidate real sad feelings. That's the beauty of a sunset. It's this beautiful burst of color right before the dark. It's God saying, you don't have to worry. The sun is going to come up again. I know it. I felt it. I've seen it throughout my life. I know that he feels that way about everyone. He cares about everyone to the same degree with the same intensity and the same focus. He has a plan for you.

Even though my story, my example might be one of those that's kind of extraordinary. He has the same kind of interest in the little things in our lives that seem to be going wrong. He will save us. He's good at his job. He's good at being a savior. I love it. If you're a listener and you're

in your own little Helaman one through six, I think Janaye is telling us that 3511 is coming. Just hold on. 3511 is coming. It may look dark now, but the light is coming. Janaye, thank you for your time today. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you for walking us through these chapters. We've been lucky to have you here. We have for having me. Yeah, thank you for walking us through these chapters. We've been lucky to have you here. We have changed my life. I am going to go back and look at the dissenters and how they came back. I am so excited about that. Janay, thank you. Yeah, and gratitude builds relationships. Man, just love it. We want to thank Dr. Janay Nelson for being with us today. It has been an absolute treat.

To walk through these first six chapters of Helaman with her, we want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen. Our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. And every episode, we remember our founder who loved Helaman 512, Steve Swanson, we hope you'll join us next week. We've got more of the Book of Helaman coming up on Follow Him. Before you skip to the next episode, I have some important information. This episode's transcript and show notes are available on our website, followhim.co. That's followhim.co. On our website, you'll also find our two free books, Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament and Finding Jesus Christ in the New Testament. Both books are full of short and powerful quotes and insights from all our episodes from the Old and New Testaments.

The digital copies of these books are absolutely free. You can watch the podcast on YouTube. Also, our Facebook and Instagram accounts have videos and extras you won't find anywhere else. If you'd like to know how you can help us, if you could subscribe to, rate, review, and comment on the podcast, that will make us easier to find. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nilsen, Will Stoketon, Crystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, and Annabel Sorensen. Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Turn to Him. Follow Him.