Welcome back to Primarily Scripture. I am your host, Cindy Young, and I am so glad you're here with me today. We follow Come Follow Me and learn how to study the scriptures more effectively. This week we are in Doctrine and Covenants section 67 - 70, and I always have free worksheets that you can get on my website. Just head over to primarily scripture.com And if you're new here, what I usually do is review with you one of the activities from the study worksheet. So if you go with me to the first page of this week's worksheet, you'll see that there's an activity called connect the verses. You may have heard people say, if all you can do is read one verse at night, then that's better than nothing. And that is true. If all you can do for your scripture study is read one verse, then at least you're opening up your scriptures and trying. Of course, I recommend that you read more than that. But what happens if you open up your scriptures and you see something kind of like this? Turn to section 68 verse 5.

"Behold, this is the promise of the Lord unto you... my servants." And then there's a period, the end. That's it. This is the promise. What do you do when you have a verse like that? Well, what you have to do is you have to connect this verse to the other verses. Usually, if it's connected to the verse after it, you'll have a different kind of punctuation, like a colon or a dash, and that punctuation tells you to keep reading to find the promise. But this one just has a period, which means we're gonna look backwards. What were they just talking about? So let's look at verse four to find the promise. Verse four says, "whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation." And while the entire verse is a promise, that when the leaders of the church, especially the prophets are speaking by the Holy Ghost, that what they say is just as important as scripture, but I especially love that very last part of verse four. Because what they say is also "the power of God unto salvation." And that's amazing that if you follow the prophet, you'll have the power to receive salvation because they are leading us towards the Savior. Isn't that pretty cool? I think that's pretty cool. So now by looking backwards, we have found the promise that verse five was talking about. So you can draw a little arrow or you can use colors, but if you can do anything to connect those, then it will help you the next time you read to remember how they're connected. So let's keep connecting things. Let's move on to verse six. Do you see the first word in verse six? It says, "wherefore." And wherefore is a word that we don't use very often. It's kind of the same as therefore, and you may have learned about wherefore and therefore in elementary school. They mean "and so..." They are literally connecting words that connect what was before it to what is after it."Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come." So there's information in that verse about who Jesus Christ is, which is always great to ponder, but let's really focus on that "wherefore.""And so..." we are told to do what? To be of good cheer and do not fear. How do verses four and five and the information that we've got there, how do those help us to be of good cheer? To me, having the knowledge that words of the prophets are as powerful as scripture and can help lead me to salvation. And that that's not just somebody saying it, but that is a promise from God. That definitely makes me happy and it helps me to have trust and not fear because the Lord really will help me in all things. And the prophets and the scriptures and all these different things that have been set up... because every part of the church actually, whether you're in primary or young women's or young men's or relief society, or a priesthood quorum... all of those things were inspired and put in place by the prophets and apostles, and so doing all of these things will give us the power of God unto salvation! We will be able to live with Heavenly Father again if we really take advantage of the power that comes from following the prophet. Isn't that cool, what we just found? And we found it by connecting all of these together. Verse four talks about the power, and that's great, but it becomes even more powerful when we realize in verse five that it is a promise to us. And then we can connect it to verse six and feel that cheer in our hearts and know that the Lord is with us and standing by us. That is such a blessing and I love it so much! So be sure as you study the scriptures, you try to connect the verses to make what you find even more powerful. So I'm gonna let you go and study the rest of this week's Come Follow Me on your own. Use these study tips and your scripture study will be that much more effective and draw you closer to the Savior. And that's what it's all about, is being close to the Lord. I love the scriptures. I know they are true. I know this is God's church on the earth. And I hope that you find power in the scriptures, but you can't do it unless you open 'em up yourself. Don't just listen to me talk about it. Go read your scriptures for yourself. I'm Cindy Young, and this has been Primarily Scripture. See you next time! Thanks for tuning into Primarily Scripture with Cindy Young. Don't forget you can subscribe to the newsletter and download free worksheets on the website, primarily scripture.com. And if you like the channel, be sure to subscribe, like, share, and leave a review. See you next time.