Welcome to Follow In Favorites, this is where John and I share a single story...
week's come follow me lesson.
John, we are in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and I have a story for you a couple of stories actually. It says in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 that there is a time to laugh. I'm so glad. I love this phrase.
We should just do a full segment every week, John called a time to laugh, you and I both, we love to laugh. I'm going to tell you a story from Elder Joseph B. Wirtland. Then I'm going to tell you a time to laugh story about one of my friends. So here's the Joseph B. Wirtland story.
It's in "Come What May and Love It."
“He talks about "You have to learn to laugh," right in life.”
He said I remember one of our daughters went on a blind date. She was all dressed up waiting for her date to arrive when the doorbell rang. In walked a man who seemed a little old, but she tried to be polite, she introduced him to me and my wife and the other children, then she put on her coat and went out to the door.
We watched, she got into the car, but the car didn't move. Eventually, she got out of the car and read-faced, ran back into the house. The man that she thought was her blind date had actually come to pick up another of our daughters who had agreed to be a babysitter for him in this wife. He said we had a good laugh over that.
In fact, we couldn't stop laughing. Later, when our daughter's real blind date showed up, I couldn't come out to meet him because I was still in the kitchen laughing. Now this is the part I love. Our daughter could have been upset and embarrassed and humiliated, but she laughed with
us. Well, I have a story just like that about one of my friends, her name is Holland. She told me a story, and instead of being embarrassed or frustrated, she laughed and I laughed. So I'm hoping John that this one might make you laugh. My friend Holland, when she was a brand new temple gore, so she had gone through the temple
for the first time in December.
Well, a week later, her aunt and uncle were getting sealed in the temple, and so she wanted to go. Her parents couldn't make it there, so she was going to go on her own. And she was not very versed in temple, lingo. She showed up late, and on the way over, she was on the bus.
She was searching her purse for her temple recommend. It was all going wrong.
“You have to think that she's kind of new at the temple to understand how this story is so”
funny to me. She gets there late. The ceiling is at 1230, and she arrives right at 1230. Now most people know you got to be there early, and right, she was running late, and she runs into the temple, goes to the entry desk there and says, I, she says, my
ceiling is right now, and I don't have my temple recommend. You're going to need to look me up. The person at the desk was kind of startled, and he said, you're ceiling is right now, and just said, yes, like in the next two minutes. And I don't have my temple recommend you're going to need to look me up to which the
recommend desk said, is your fiance here? Now my friend Holland does not connect what she said to what he said, right, that, right, again, she's brand new at this, and she said, I don't know because she doesn't have a fiance, so he could be there, maybe. So, so she said, I don't, I don't know. And he said to her, okay, you don't know if your fiance is here, okay.
And he said, now you'll understand this a little bit later, John, so go with me on this.
“He said, are you sure that you've gone through the endowment? You sure you're endowed?”
And she said, yes, of course. Now luckily there was a friend of hers there who said, yeah, she's endowed, I was at her session, you know, last week.
They finally got it worked out that, oh, it's not your ceiling. Now, to be fair, we talk
about like my session, right, our session, so she just met your my ceiling, our ceiling. He said, well, you are in ceiling room, too, you know, you got to go around the corner. She went around the corner, the ceiling doors are shut, which usually means, hey, don't come in, but she doesn't know that, right? She doesn't know that, so she opens the door and there's the sealer and he's speaking. And he looks at her, like, oh, okay, hi, she said,
I'm sorry, I'm late, you know, and she came in and there's no chairs. John, there's no chairs. So he says, oh, no problem, no problem. Let's just have you sit here and he had the bride and groom with their parents, you know, on the little couch there, had them move over. So he just said, well, have you sit right here? So they all, you know, it's kind of moved down, and she sat there on the little lovesy, which again, she doesn't know would be an odd thing.
Well, as she's sitting there, the sealer resumes his, what he's doing, as she...
she looks around the room going, I don't know these people, and she looks down at the
“bride and groom thinking she'd see her at Nunkle, and the bride and groom are looking at her,”
and she says, no, are you don't know them either? Okay, now she doesn't know what to do, again, she's brand new at this. So she stands up again. Let's see, let's stop, again. It looks better. She did not know what to say, John, she's just, she's the most wonderful girl. She was embarrassed, she did not know what to say, so she looked at the bride and groom in the sealer and said, congratulations, and turn around and left. John, she found the correct ceiling
room, and it was open still. She went to the wrong one. Yeah, and her aunt and Nunkle are there and all over family saying, where have you been? She said, I'm, you know, I'm so sorry. Yeah,
“and she sat down. Now, John, at that point, I thought the story was over.”
I mean, it is, there's not over, there's not over. On her way out of the ceiling, her uncle, Shane, grabs her, pulls her aside and says, hey, why is your mouth bright, blue? Oh, no. And she said, what? He said, your mouth, your teeth, your tongue, your lips, they're all blue. Why are they all blue? And she said, no, they're not. And she found a mirror, and she earned off her lips and teeth, and tongue were very, very bright, blue, because as she was
searching for her temper recommend, she had found like a blue candy, you know, a blue raspberry fruit
roll-up, something, in her first, as she just, you know, she was so hungry, she put it in her mouth,
and it turned her mouth bright, blue. Now, John, let's review the entire story, knowing what we now know. She ran into the temple with a bright blue mouth and sent to the man at the temple at the desk. My ceiling is in, is right now, but I don't my temper, I go in, so you're going to have to look me up. Then I can see why he said, are you sure? You're supposed to be right? Are you sure you're in doubt? Then she went to the wrong ceiling room with a bright blue mouth, bright blue teeth,
sat on the couch with the family with the couple. Oh, man. Did not know who they were stood up, everyone looked at her and she said, congratulations and turned around and left. I am crying as she's telling me this story. I am laughing so hard and she is laughing with me. Like, is she is having fun too? She's like, isn't that just the most wild thing? Oh, John, we laughed and laughed about it. And I still laugh. I think about it, you know, I go to a temple ceiling. I think what would it be like
for a girl to walk in with bright blue lips and say, congratulations and turn around and leave? The reason I love it is because as Ecclesiasty says here, there is a time to laugh. You know, President Hinkley was really good at this. He said, yeah, and all of living have much fun and laughter.
“Remember him saying that life is to be enjoyed, he would say. One time after a conference talk,”
he said, and after my remarks, we will see where can I turn for peace. And then he went, it makes you wonder who came up with this program to think I was going to stir up trouble. He was so good. He was so good at that. So we hope this week you take a time to laugh. Come join us on our full podcast. It's called Follow Him. We are with Dr. Adam Miller this week. He is a philosopher, a world-class philosopher. And what he does with these chapters is not only fun,
but just mind expanding. You'll see things you've never seen before. You'll think of life, honestly,
in a way you never have before. And then come back here next week. We'll do another follow-in favor. [MUSIC PLAYING]
