I graduated from LDS Seminary. I faithfully attended all of my Sunday meetings. I was a lousy Boy Scout, but I don’t regret that. After I graduated from high school, I took a class called “Mission Preparation” at what was then called Ricks College. I know I received an A in the class because the only B I received was from a professor who told me either to start wearing socks to class or to stop coming.
I received a mission call to the Mexico West Mission in January, 1970. Our group of missionaries was the first missionaries to be set apart by a stake president instead of a general authority in Salt Lake City, and we were the first missionaries to attend the Language Training Mission in Provo. One of the first things we were told at the LTM was to read the scriptures daily—and so I began with the New Testament. I read Saint Mathew. I enjoyed it. Then I read Saint Mark, and as I was reading Mark I thought to myself, “Wait, I have already read this.” But I finished Mark and moved to Saint Luke. Guess what? It was the same dang story all over again with just a few differences. I wondered if I was wasting my time – should I jump straight to Revelations? But I continued and read Saint John. After I finished the fourth book, I said to my companion who was from Bear Lake, Idaho, and who had competed against me in high school football and basketball, “Elder Wolstenhume, did you know that these first four books of the New Testament just tell the same story?”
I wish Elder Wolstenhume were here today, and I wish he could replicate his facial expression when I asked my question. He said, “Elder, yes, they tell the same story from four different perspectives. That is why they are called the Four Gospels.” I could read his mind. He was thinking, “I am so glad you are going to Hermosillo and I am going to Monterrey because you are so unprepared to be a missionary.” And so congratulations to the youth who already know the Gospels of the New Testament.