Sunday night we (my three oldest children, Valor, Virtue, and Honor and I) attended a John Bytheway fireside that our stake hosted. It was so cool! I first heard John when I was in my first year at BYU and my hometown ward of YW that was a half hour away went to the Marriott Center for a mini-EFY on a Saturday in March. They invited me to come with them and relive some old YW times. It was so fun. That must have been when he was just starting his career as an inspiring comedic youth speaker/Barney Fife impersonator. Wow, it was over twenty years ago!

John said that on the drive up he drank the green smoothie that his wife prepared for him out of spinach and bananas. So he has a whole foods, naturally healthy minded wife! Maybe she will join this site! He talked about this year’s mutual theme of the 13th Article of Faith. He pointed out that when Joseph Smith was asked to write about what we believe by a newspaper editor, Joseph did not just write “We believe in honesty,  truth, virtue, charity, etc. ” but he wrote “We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, and in dong good to all men…” Isn’t it interesting that he wrote that we believe in being, not just doing. John said that the Hebrews were all about learning that allowed them to be, but the ancient Greeks were about just learning. Hey, I’ve heard Oliver DeMille say the same thing. Great minds think alike!

He told some neat stories relating to each phrase in the 13th Article of Faith. He included a quote from Elder Jeffrey Holland, something to the effect of “We already know which side is going to win. The victory has already been posted on the scoreboard. The only thing that’s not known is which jersey you are going to wear.” Translated: yes, wicked times are here, but don’t be scared, this has been prophesied in the scriptures, as well God’s victory. You don’t need to worry about whether or not God is going to win, but which side are you on? You can only be on God’s side if you actually are good, chaste, true and benevolent, not just if you pretend to be by going through the actions.

Here is a link to some free downloads of some of John’s talks http://beemp3.com/index.php?q=john+bytheway

One of the personal things he shared was that the brother who introduced him to speak that night at the fireside has a connection to him. Brother Crawford’s grandfather introduced the gospel to John’s dad, while they were servicemen in World War II. So that made me think of the books John has written about WWII, and that made me think of the Hero Generation. That made me remember that I have a Part II to my Thoughts on the Hero Generation that hopefully I will post in the next month.