Psalms 102–150 Part 2 • Dr. Michael Ballam • Aug 31 - Sept 6 • Come, Follow Me

Before we hit record, we got to know Ben a little bit, but we keep bringing him up, but I don't think our listeners know exactly who Ben is. Can you tell us more?

Yes, Ben was born. He was supposed to be born on April 6th, in part in day 1992. I had been asking the Lord for eight months to spare my child from Spina Bissida. I thought, at the University of Utah Medical Center, we're going to have a miracle. When he is born, he's going to be perfect. He is perfect, inside he's perfect, and his body is only temporary.

I was given a chance before they took him into surgery. I pushed my hands in that incubator on his little head, and I had been thinking if I had this opportunity, I'm going to command him to be well. Instead, I blessed him that he would be able to endure his life, and that he was sent on a special mission. And part of it was to have his challenges.

So there was a miracle, but it wasn't Ben, it was me.

I was able to accept it. So this is meant to be, and boy, his it meant to be. Ben has touched the lives of millions of people.

“Elder Marks will talk about him in general conference, and he called us before and said, "Would it be alright?”

If I talk about Ben in general conference, I'd like your permission." And he said, "Of course you can." He said, "I want to tell the story of him in Israel." He told the story, "We were living in Jerusalem, and he started to have a grand mouth seizure." That's lethal to a child with slight abyss of it.

We were panicked stricken. It was the day of Itzakura beans funeral, and they had closed down some of the hospitals. The one right next to us at Hebrew University was closed. They didn't even have the technologies and know what was happening. But across town, in Iain Karam, the city that Elizabeth lived in, Mary's cousin, we were

there in the hospital, and the doctor spoke a little Hebrew and a lot of Russian. I spoke a little Hebrew and a lot of English. There wasn't much communication except I got the idea that he was going to insert into Ben a glass pipette through his arm. They had to use glass.

The flexible catheter had not been invented. It was invented by James Sorenson here in Salt Lake City.

“He said, "You need to warn Ben that it's going to hurt."”

It's going to hurt like he never believed he could hurt.

I said to Ben, "You're going to have a bad experience. You're going to have a lot of pain." But the doctor is doing this to save you, and they strapped his arm to a board. And they inserted the glass pipette. And I saw the look of pain that was so profound, and Ben reached up and touched the doctor

and said, "I love you anyway." Like the Savior, "I love you anyway." And the Omaax, who I wanted to quote that, "Ben is an amazing young man." And his life has been preserved. He wasn't supposed to live past seven.

He's going to turn 30, 4. He defied all the medicine. It's because he has a mission. That mission is about spreading love. He spreads love everywhere he goes.

He loves everybody.

“I think he was sent here protected by a bubble.”

There's no evil in him anywhere. He loves everybody. He sees the good in everybody. He was sent because of that. When he was a little boy, in primary, the teacher was showing a picture of the Savior

blessing the children. That beautiful depiction. She said to Ben, "If you were one of those children, he was about six." "If you were one of those children, what would you ask him?" And Ben said, "I'd ask him where I could kiss him."

But Ben said, "Ben, what are you asking?"

He said, "I'd ask him if I could kiss him again." And the teacher said, "Ben, wouldn't you ask him to heal you?" And Ben said, "Why? I'm not sick.

“That's why I'd rather, in my introduction, be called Ben's dad."”

Because I think his being sent to us has been such a blessing. His part is superior. All the degrees and the warrants and things I've gotten. The five of the Lord trusted us to care for this very special spirit. That's who Ben is.

Elder Maxwell even said that in that talk he said children are often our spiritual superiors.

Yeah. Ben is in the Logan Institute choir. Right? He's a permanent member as long as he wants to be there. He's graduated from institute, I think, 15 times.

But he still loves going up there and taking classes and singing in the choir. He lives for that. Yeah, he lives for that.

“I wanted to quote Psalm 146, "Just see what you both think."”

It says, "Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help."

"Who's hope is in the Lord, his God." I've noticed Michael that music has a way of bringing joy. What songs do you feel make you happy? ♪ ♪

♪ Ah, get ready for your stunk at him, Richard. ♪ ♪ That's the moral strength of all the men.

♪ What's he saying?

“He's saying all mankind can be brothers.”

All them, but he sets it in a syncopation. So you hear it. ♪ When I hear that I can't stay in a pity party. Because I think about Beethoven.

And what he went through, his deafness, his poor health, his ridicule. And you wrote that. If he can do that, I've no excuse for my little pity parties. My children, I'm already know that.

When I'm in the dumps, all of a sudden I hear, ♪ ♪ All over our house. It's the best way to ruin a pity party.

♪ Okay, let me see if I could get a right answer on a quiz in your class. Beethoven's ninth? It's the choral symphony. And it's different than all his other symphonies.

And he was criticized mightily for it. Because Mozart's symphonies were maybe 40 minutes max. His ninth symphony is 90 minutes. I'm worth a very penny. And he puts an extra movement in it.

with that Neptune choir. Right as sure the word begins with joy. Joyful. Right as sure, a good as function. Joy is a gift from God. The Lord will not mention bad and breeder. It's the words of the angels. It's what they say. Peace on earth. Good will to man. I was sent on a signet by some of the brethren. The year we'd moved Israel. I was supposed to seek some inspiration about it. Just before we came home, I climbed Mount Sinai. The opposite way that most people do. I wanted to see the sunrise on Sinai, not set. Which means then you have to go up in total darkness. I had hard time doing that. It's quite a climb and in total darkness and the guide said to me, only show the flashlight where their next step is going to be. Just keep it down.

And all of a sudden, I smelled something and heard something and I went like that. I was surrounded by camels and then I fell over.

God will enlighten us for a step. He's not going to tell us everything that's going to happen, because we'll fall if he does. I found lesson. I got on the top of the mountain. I heard for a while to shine, I'll get a tough one. The voices of thousands of people up there. I heard them. Just a little revelation like that. I'm not a prophecy or a revelator, but the Lord can use us as revelators on personal things.

I'll never get a revision for the whole church, because I'm not responsible for the whole church. I'm responsible for me. I'm my children. I have received inspiration about my children.

You can see the Lord speaks your language. He'll meet us where we are. Remember, He's going to sing to us. And we know what He's going to sing, because it's in the 8/4 section of the doctrine of the cabinets. The words are right there. The song I'm ever in lasting joy. There's a song in the doctrine of the cabinets. The song that He's going to sing, and if we're in tune with Him, we'll recognize His voice and we'll hear the music. We'll know the Him and we'll all sing it together. The song of redeeming joy. I can't wait for that. We'll all be there.

From one side of the rail or the other. Michael, I just have a list of things I'd love for you to just pick your brain. Tell me about being in Carmen. What is that like? It's inspired, isn't it? Carmen.

“Be they wrote it? It's the only thing He's remembered for. It was a total catastrophe when it opened. People hated it.”

Because it was an opera Comique that meant it had spoken dialogue in it. The Parisians had never heard that before. They thought, what is it?

There's a piece of musical theater or there's an opera, a hated it. The critics panned it and be they died four days later. And about six days later, people started saying, wait a minute, this is a grand opera with spoken dialogue. We'll take it. Then it became one of the three most popular operas of world history. We can be done in two ways. The opera Comique where it was playing only seats about 300 people. The producers thought Carmen is going to make us some money, but not off of a 300 seat auditorium. It needs to move to the grand opera house where Phantom of the opera takes place.

That's where it needs to live, but there's a problem. Nobody will hear this spoken dialogue.

“That's why in opera you sing every word, because it can be projected out to 4,000 people. When you talk, you can't get it out there.”

You can use a microphone, but then if you sing into that microphone, like an opera singer, it's going to blow the sound off the wall. You say the spoken dialogue, and he turned it into retrospective. That means it's set to music. It's been done that way as a grand opera, and it's also been done as an opera Comique.

And we at the Utah Festival Opera had done it both ways. I love Carmen. I love it because there's children in it. My grandson. He's in third grade, and he came home one day and he said,

"We're talking about an opera called Carmen," and he said to my daughter, "Do you know it?" She started singing it. In French, the children's chorus. She was six years old. The first time we put her on, she was in the children's chorus. She remembers it. She'll remember the rest of her life. In a language she did not speak at that point in her life. But how do you know that, he said? And she said, "I was in it." He was impressed. I couldn't wait to tell his teacher. My non is an opera singer. He's singing a Carmen.

“Wow. From what I've heard, the role of, is it Parsafel, that is the most difficult?”

And it's so spiritual. It's about the restoration of the priesthood. In the times of King Arthur, during the searching for the Holy Grail, remember it.

With her woman that's still around, after 900 years, she's still around, because she's cursed that she will never die. She'll live in pain, because of something she did in Jerusalem.

“At Golgotha, she saw three men on crosses. Two tied, one nailed, and she went up to the one that was nailed. She looked up at him, and she laughed.”

He looked down at her, with such a look of purity and love and forgiveness. She's cursed to wander the earth until she sees that look again.

And it's going to have to come from somebody who is so Christ-like, so Christ-like that he can lift the Holy Grail. He can bring the priesthood back to Montzalvaud.

And he does. "Take some six hours to do it, but I loved playing it. It's inspired, written by a schmuck, written by a man who was the most anti-Semitic person in history. Yet he wrote possible. "How is that possible?" Because, if the Lord wants to speak, his speak. "Oh, I love Purseva. I just love it." And I see, "List the Grail. Coundry is that his foot." He looked down upon her, and she died. A release from nine centuries of pain, because he can look at her light back. "Well, because he's pure." "I love how you loved this." "Yeah. Can't fit into the tights, but I can still see it."

"Why would love to hear some if you're okay?" "No rye, no rafa, talked." "This is time sprung." And it ends with "Their Highly Grail." "And he let us so rick." He lifts it, and the spirit of God descends in the form of a dove, and it cascades light from the Holy Grail. Now, easy to pull off. You can do it in a film really easily. Do it on stage. It's a little bit harder. But we did it.

“The spirit of God descends in the end of Purseva, to bring the priesthood of God back to the earth, how profound is that?”

And who should it speak to more than us? I would love to sing a song. This song is for ban. It was written by a friend of ours who lived at the time in Provo, then she moved to Logan. She passed away way too young. But now knowing what you know about my feelings for ban, I'm going to sing this song by her, but I want you to think about ban. They're all scuffed and warm from adventures. They're only a child understands.

They say once broken are mended, tied in knots, my voice tiny hands. When his true chubby arms come around me, in a heart I can never miss you.

“I think all the wonders of heaven are tucked in those two little shoes.”

Little shoes. When I think of the harsh words I've spoken,

If someday they weren't there anymore, I see them that night where you'd last there on your way to a dream coming true.

“My heart fills it alone overflowing, when I look at those two little shoes.”

And each night I heal my heart sings a prayer thanks to God, the one little boy and two little shoes on this day.

On this day, Ben Shoes are only ornamental, but if he were ever to leave us, he was sent to us to heal us, to love the world.

“He's alive because of Daniel Radcliffe, ring a bell, Harry Potter, Ben had a surgery that put him in a hospital for nine months.”

They reconstructed his spine and put titanium in there. And after the nine months, the doctor came to visit him at the hospital and he said, "Ben, it was a catastrophic failure. We have to do it again." When he left the room, Ben said to me, "I don't want to do it again. I don't want to miss out on life for another nine months." It's okay. I said to Ben, "But you don't understand that if you don't have this surgery, we won't be able to be around much longer." And we can't lose, Ben. We rely on you. No doubt I've had a good life. It's okay.

I wanted to change the subject immediately. It was getting too somber. I said, "Ben, if I could do anything for you in the world, what would you have me do? I want to meet Harry Potter. I want to meet Daniel Radcliffe." I said, "Ben, he lives in London. We live in Logan." And he said, "I know, God, but you said anything." Well, I started thinking about that. It just so happened that Daniel Radcliffe was coming to New York City to be in a play. I thought, "I wonder. I went to the play. I watched him come out and I saw him go through the crowd, getting his lack RV."

And he shook one person's hand as he came out. I thought, "Could that one person be Ben? I wrote a letter to him and I said, "Is it possible?"

“If I bring him to New York and I had him outside the theater after remat made performance, when you come out, can you just shake his hand?”

If he got the letter and a phone call came, a few days later, a little Mr. Ballum, this is Mark Radcliffe. My son, Daniel, got a letter from you. I'm here to inform you that Daniel won't meet him at the stage tour. But, he said, "Bring him backstage to my dressing room." I did. We got in there. The theater, the Lumpun Chain on Broadway, is completely inaccessible. Daniel's dressing room was done with big flight of cement steps. It took a stage hand to carrying him down and when he got it, the bottom, there was Daniel.

I waited for him and he gave him a Christian dark tie and he gave him a Christian dark scarf and he gave him a first edition of Harry Potter, which is signed.

He grilled him on every point. He wanted to know, Daniel, how did you do that on a water scene? He told him himself, just before we left, he said, "I do have one more gift."

“It's kind of toadry and tattered, it's old, but I feel like I need to give it to you. And he opened a box and he had the first academic gown he wore in the first movie.”

His name is embroidered into the back, yep, it seems him wear. They'll say Ben's life when I carried him up to steps. He whispered in my ear, "Dab, schedule the surgery." And when that happened, I wrote Daniel and I said, "You saved his life."

In the morning, he went in for the surgery, Daniel Radcliffe called to wish him well.

And tomorrow night on Ben's birthday, he's going to sit on the stage with Daniel Radcliffe and a theater in New York City as a surprise birthday present.

“Daniel does things like that all the time, but it's not in the movie magazines. He doesn't want to be pined it out.”

But Daniel Radcliffe is doing. He just does it because he wants to do it. He has met with Ben twice subsequently.

And tomorrow night we're going to share the stage with him.

Oh my, imagine that. Imagine that. I love hearing things like that. Me too. I love that. Michael, I would love to hear the music that you think will fill our listeners with light and testimony. And we have people who are in dark dark places. Use it can reach people.

“See about it, it's the hundred and twenty first section of the doctrine and confidence. Liberty jail. Liberty jail.”

The revelation in 121. No doubt, my son. But all these things for me, for like good. And I had often talked, it'd be where you education week, but how wonderful it would be if that were set to music. The next year, a young man named David Kloff from Phoenix, Everton, and his mother, Elizabeth Kloff, came back stage at the Mary-Out Center. He said, I've said it to music. I said, can I hear it? This is it. [Music]

If the watch called to pass through tradition, the worldly trials burden the people. He, with care, I'm sure the question, the most follows a pundit. You're not my voice, do not my child despair. No doubt, my son. No doubt, my son. That all these things shall be for like good and guilty experience, and shall be for like good. No doubt, my son. No doubt, my son.

But the son of mine has just said that being low them all, are so great. And he, if the bitter-wings surge can spy against the earth, and an ambulance can fight to head away. If the enemy is far on you, hold on my way.

[Music]

“Those words for everybody, not just Joseph. We're all going to be there. We're all going to have trouble. Remember what he went through.”

Are you greater than he or a message? Hearing its, put to music enhances it. It lets the spirit and view itself there.

It's incredible. He's a lawyer. He's a lawyer. In Phoenix, Arizona. He was inspired. I told him I wish there were a song and he went home and wrote one.

That's something John, by the way, can do. I can do that same thing. I love that man. I have a deep and a biting testimony in the belief that music, as Bruce Armacanke said, is God's most eloquent language.

“He then is the power to go straight to our souls. The inspired is been my life quest to find that music and to share it with others. Remember, Lucifer is a real being who hates us. He has his own gospel.”

And he preaches it rather eloquently. And he preaches it through music rather eloquently. By people who are great composers, they can spread his message, where otherwise we would not listen to it.

But if it's in compelling music, we absorb the words. If not consciously, they go into our subconscious. Of course, I have a witness Jesus lived and that he's stronger than he is on one condition that we stay close to the Holy Spirit, to the spirit of God.

So the Holy Ghost, as long as we are tied into that, he has no power. He has no power in our homes if we play inspired music. He is forced to depart. He is not comfortable in the light.

“And if we surround ourselves with inspired music, he's not comfortable there. I don't want him comfortable in my house and playing spiritual inspired music. He can't come in. You need to do that. That would be my message to the world.”

Wonderful. I'm thinking of, I'm a chapter five. If you have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, can you feel so now? There was a time you wanted to sing because you felt the Holy Ghost. Don't let go of that. Why you to feel that now, Alma was saying, sing the song of redeeming love. We're all going to sing it when he comes back. He'll lead us by singing it to us first, but we will all sing the song of redeeming love. I will know it. If we're in tune with the spirit, we'll know it. We'll know the music. It'll all be enlightened to us because we've heard it before.

Thank you for reminding me of that powerful moment. You'll feel so now. I have to ask myself a lot of times when things are going really, really badly. I think you've been witness to miraculous things to miracles. Think back to those moments.

It's how often every day you skip a day and it's gone. Are we charging our batteries? Are we thinking back to those moments when we were witness to something?

Can we still harken back to those moments? The doctrine of covenant is the one about harkening back. Remember what I told you before. You shouldn't have to ask me again. You knew the answer. Can you harken back to that moment? And I have to harken back all the time. The interest to our building, but our building, says, "Expect a miracle." And in my office, my dad had a wood carving made that says, "Expect a miracle."

“Because I think if you prepare spiritually and you prepare for that thing you're asking for a miracle, you'll get it. If what you're asking for is noble, if it's virtuous kind, clean all that thing, you're going to get help.”

You're going to get help from him. If you're hoping to do something miraculous, you'll have a miracle. There should not be an opera company in Logan, Utah that has an audience that rivals the population of the town who come from all of the world. It's impossible. It's absolutely impossible. Why is it happening? He's helping us for 32 years. He has helped us through bad times, because our mission is elevating souls through enobiling artistic experiences, enobiling.

When I proposed that word to the Board of Directors, they said, "People won't know what it means. They have to look out on the dictionary." I said, "Good."

“Then look up in the dictionary and then never forget it, enobiling. He's coming noble, becoming better.”

Our goal with this opera company, it's a charge that everyone who comes in our doors, they leave a better person, because what they experienced. I don't want to entertain them. The doors is over entertained.

I want to endow them with truth.

“Michael, if you don't mind finishing with your favorite song about the Lord, do you have one?”

Oh, Lord, my God, when I know someone does consider all the words I have that's made. I see the words I hear the mighty thunder die power throughout the universe displayed. When for the words and for the slaves I wander and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees. When I look down, I'm lofty mountains and grandios and see the broke and feel the gentle breeze. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, how great thou art, how great thou art.

When Christ shall come with showers of acclimation and take me home, what joy will fill my heart? When I shall die in humble adoration and their proclaim, my God, how great thou art, then sing as my soul, my Savior God, to thee, how great thou art, how great thou art.

Think of what it has done hearing that Him, people who might be investigating the church.

“I know that. I know that song. You mean, they believe in Jesus?”

Maybe I need to check this out. For 28 years, I've held auditions for the opera company New York in the churchhouse there. I do it on purpose. One, the chapels have the worst acoustic in the world.

With the carpet on the floor, we put a crystal tile on the ceiling, so a voice is not enhanced in a morning church. So I can put them up there, and I can hear exactly what they're going to sound like, the Elnatical Theatre. 'Cause they're not going to be enhanced. There's no wonderful echo effect or anything like that. But more than that, I want 500 singers to walk in that building, come to the second floor, and see those magnificent paintings of Jesus Christ, our Savior.

“You could walk in that church on Columbus Avenue and not know that we worship Jesus. Now you can see in bold oils Jesus Christ.”

I just can't believe how many of those 500 singers a year come in and say, I didn't know you guys were Christians. They walked past the building on the way to the mat, because they tried to cross the street from the mat. They walked past it for years. Never thought to come inside. If they had come inside, they wouldn't know we're the Christians in the lobby, oh boy, they do now. All arounds, they witnessed we're different, we're kinder. We take care of each other. They see that, and they want to know why, and they will, by their own desire, investigate it. That's so wonderful. Think about the singers, for 30 years, 500 a year, for 30 years, have walked in that building and seen the Savior everywhere.

And felt him in there. Now it's closed down. They don't know how long it's going to be. They're working on the temple. Oh boy, it was about a day. When the temple came to town, the nearest temple for New Yorkers was Washington DC, and that was a track. There it is.

“And that happened. Who would have thought? Harold B. Lee. No, there was going to be a temple on that spot in the 1950s. He came there. He had a real take him all over it and that happened.”

They came up, Columbus Avenue, and at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and 66th street, the subway used to come out as ground. Underneath that spot, people had used it as a junkyard for 50 years.

And the city didn't clean it. They didn't clean it up. Harold B. Lee, who was sent there by the church to find a piece of property, he said, "This is the place." They said, "Oh, I don't think it's for sale. It's a junkyard. It's the junkyard in a terrible neighborhood." Okay, they take me to the other places. He kept saying, "It was there. Take me back." And he said, "There is going to be a temple to the most high on this property." Nobody believed that. I guess what? There's my own eye. In Manhattan, I found the temple, and Harold B. Lee, prophet, seeer, revelator, saw a junkyard, and what he perceived was a temple to God.

That's a lesson right there. Well, what a treat today. Michael, Dr. Ballum. This has been wonderful. Thank you so much for your time and for your voice, and all you've done for the church.

It's better to be enlightened, have their lives changed for the better. I'm so honored to be here with you to extraordinary men who have made such a difference through your teaching and your speaking.

“You've influenced so many generations. God bless you for doing that.”

You're very kind, and you've been a blessing to us today. With that, we want to thank Dr. Michael Ballum for being with us today. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Swanson. She was instrumental in getting Dr. Ballum here with us.

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