Mission President Tricks His Missionaries • followHIM Favorites • June 1-7 • Come, Follow Me

Hank Smith· Host0:00

[gentle music] Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. John and I are sharing a single story to go with each week's Come, Follow Me lesson. John, we're in Ruth and the beginning of 1 Samuel. You have a story for us.

John Bytheway· Host0:11

Yes. In fact, there's two verses in Samuel that I really love. One of them, "Samuel, speak. Thy servant heareth." And another one, "For them that honor me, I will honor." So President Monson was a mission president up in Ontario, Canada, and he had this one area, and all the elders called it Stony Kingston because they'd only had one convert in six years. Nobody baptized there. That was the rumor that went around. Nobody to teach. It's horrible. He says, "I was praying about this dilemma [laughs], and my wife," Sister Monson, "gave him this book to read, A Child's Story of the Prophet Brigham Young." It tells the story about Brigham Young in Kingston, Ontario. He labored there for 30 days and baptized 45 people. Without explaining it to the mission, he closed the area. Then he started spreading this rumor that a new city was going to be opened where Brigham Young had proselyted before, and everybody speculated about it, he said. "Letters pleaded for the assignment to this Shangri-La," [laughs] Elder Monson said. So he selected a few missionaries, two of them new, two of them experienced. They were chosen for this high adventure. The members of the small branch pledged their support. And