Don’t give up hope, and don’t give up

The following three items went up today on the never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation:

• Nibley Lectures: Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 34 “A Principle with Promise”: Doctrine and Covenants 89–92

“During 1978, 1979, and 1980, Hugh Nibley taught a Doctrine and Covenants Sunday School class. Cassette recordings were made of these classes and some have survived and were digitized by Steve Whitlock and recently enhanced by Nick Galieti. Most of the tapes were in pretty bad condition. The original recordings usually don’t stop or start at the beginning of the class and there is some background noise. Volumes vary, probably depending upon where the recorder was placed in the room. Many are very low volume but in most cases it’s possible to understand the words. In a couple of cases the ends of one class were put on some space left over from a different class. There’s some mixup around D&C90-100 that couldn’t be figured out so those recordings are as they were on the tapes. Even with these flaws and missing classes, we believe these these will be interesting to listen to and valuable to your Come, Follow Me study program.”

• Interpreter Foundation Come, Follow Me Podcast: August 18 – 24: “A Principle with Promise”: Doctrine & Covenants 89 – 92:In the 20 July 2025 Come, Follow Me segment of the Interpreter Foundation Podcast, Terry Hutchinson, John Gee, and John Thompson discussed the Come, Follow Me Doctrine & Covenants lesson for 18-24 August, covering D&C 89-92.  The Discussion segment of the July 30th podcast can be accessed at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-podcast-july-30-2025.

•  Jonn Claybaugh continues to offer concise sets of notes for teachers and students of the Church’s Sunday School curriculum:    “Come, Follow Me — D&C Study and Teaching Helps (2025): Doctrine and Covenants 89–92: August 18 – 24: “A Principle with Promise””

I happened upon an October 1986 General Conference speech today that was given by President Henry B. Eyring back when he was serving as First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It’s entitled “The Spark of Faith.”  I recommend the whole text to you but, in the meanwhile, I share a few passages from it with you here:

Tonight, or tomorrow, many of us will pray with real intent, and perhaps with tears, over someone whose happiness would bring us happiness, who has been promised all the blessings of peace that come with baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, and yet who counts the promises worthless. None of us is immune, because all of us have circles of love large enough to include such people.

Then-Bishop Eyring quoted from a talk that had been given in October conference almost exactly fifty years be President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., of the First Presidency, gave this answer, which I carry copied on a card:

“It is my hope and my belief that the Lord never permits the light of faith wholly to be extinguished in any human heart, however faint the light may glow. The Lord has provided that there shall still be there a spark which, with teaching, with the spirit of righteousness, with love, with tenderness, with example, with living the Gospel, shall brighten and glow again, however darkened the mind may have been. And if we shall fail so to reach those among us of our own whose faith has dwindled low, we shall fail in one of the main things which the Lord expects at our hands” (in Conference Report, October 1936, page 114).

He then went on to comment that

That lovely metaphor—of a spark, a spark of faith—gives me confidence. President Clark pictured the spark nearly hidden, almost smothered by the ashes of transgression. It may be so small that the person can’t feel its warmth. The heart may be hardened. Even the Holy Spirit may have been forced to withdraw. But the spark still lives, and glows, and may be fanned to flame.

Importantly, though, Bishop Eyring noted of President Clark that “He did not suggest a single approach to reach all people.”

And here I remind you, again, of two recent entries on the Interpreter Foundation’s blog:

• “Empty Chairs: Reflections on How Faithful Latter-day Saints Can Handle the Pain Presented by Wayward Loved Ones”
• “For Misfit Members and Those Who Love Them: Reflections on Oneness from a Village for the Homeless”

So we headed up toward the Salt Lake Valley this evening for a performance of Footloose: The Musical at the Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy.

Only we never made it.  Our right rear tire –that’s a tyre, for any readers that I might have out there in the British Commonwealth — blew up.  I can only assume that I must have run over something on the freeway.  It began making a terrible sound like a malfunctioning truck or a train and, at first, I couldn’t figure out what it was.  (My steering was unaffected.) Somebody driving past us on the right rolled down his window and indicated that we had a tire malfunction, so I had to make my way across a fairly crowded but still fast I-15, from the HOV lane, the leftmost lane of the freeway, over to the right shoulder.  There, we waited for nearly ninety minutes for help from AAA, on the northbound side of the freeway a bit south of Thanksgiving Point — it being still half a mile to the next exit and, given the lingering remains of evening rush hour traffic, pretty dangerous even to get out of the car.

I can now report with some confidence, having had the opportunity for the first time to study them carefully and up close while waiting for the guy from the American Automobile Association, that the gray faux stone panels that line and enclose I-15 as it passes through the Lehi area are all absolutely identical to one another.  They appear to have been created out of concrete (or something similar) by means of a form or large stamp or press.  I can also report my suspicion that I might not have been able to loosen the bolts on our wheel without a machine something like that used by the professional, whose name was Matt and who, by the way, was a very pleasant fellow.

We drove home via surface streets on our spare tire, for which Matt had recommended speeds no greater than fifty miles per hour (and preferably lower).  We were both hungry, having run out of the house without eating, so — displaying, yet again, the insatiable appetite for expensive gourmet dining for which I, at least, have become notorious in certain circles — we stopped by a fine Mexican establishment called Taco Bell, where, parked in the parking lot after leaving the drive-through lane, I savored a crispy Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos© Taco ($2.99) and self-indulgently followed it up with an exquisite Bean Burrito ($2.49).  (However, I passed on the proffered Diet Pepsi: Occasionally, I try to understand how the common folk live.)