Seeking the Truth

Ever wondered why people lie? This episode dives into the motivations behind our everyday deceptions, from self-protection to social niceties. We discuss how limited perspectives can lead to partial truths, supported by a fascinating study that reveals just how frequently we fib. Cydni shares how a lie led to a happy marriage, and Sher shares a beautiful technique she taught her students about understanding truth. You won’t want to miss this one. Today’s topic is “Seeking the Truth,” and we are so glad you are here—no lie.

This Week's Challenge
Be the best liar in your neighborhood. Okay, just kidding. We challenge you to be more open-minded and to seek more truth. When you pray, we encourage you to pray for an open mind and an open heart that will allow you to accept more truth into your life.

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Show Notes

Drip-Drip Drop, Words and  Music by  Matt Hoiland
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Transcript

Episode 60 - Seeking the Truth

Cydni: [00:00:00] this is Cydni and 

Sher: I'm Sher. And each week we get together to share with you a message of hope.

Cydni: It is through our own study and our personal experiences that we offer the reminder to not only seek the light, 

Sher: but be the light. You can find peace and there is hope

Cydni: and as long as one of us is slightly caffeinated, there will be laughter. 

Sher: Today's episode is seeking the truth. Liar, liar, pants on fire. 

Cydni: And we're so glad you are here 

Sher: Today, Cydni, we're going to talk about, seeking the truth.

Cydni: I was excited because I thought we were talking about lying. and I thought finally something I know about. 

Sher: That you can embrace and just be part of. 

Cydni: Yeah, I thought, I don't even need to prepare for this one. I could just lie as much as I want. I could say whatever I want to say because we're talking about lying. then it has come to my attention that we are not lying. [00:01:00] Today, which is a huge disappointment or are we going to lie today, but I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you anyway. When it comes to Truth or lies it obviously of course took me to the time that Ben and I went on our first date like any woman You got to do what you got to do to get that ring 

Sher: So did you lie? Did you exaggerate the truth?

Cydni: Yeah, I was gonna say expand the truth So our relationship started on a bed of lies because I had heard that Ben was back in town in our small little college town and I was on the way to my drama class. that was the class I had as drama. Can you believe it? I'm shocked. I got like a C anyway. Their drama is not my drama. We are on different pages and I'm not a good test taker. I dropped out. But I had heard Ben was back in town. I drove by where he was staying and I knocked on the door. That part is kind of a blink to me because I was very scared. But when he answered, I was like, oh hey, I heard you were in town and my class got cancelled. that was a lie. 

Sher: So you were on [00:02:00] your way to class, but you lied and said your class got canceled. 

Cydni: Yeah, because I didn't want to look desperate. I wanted to appear you know, like I was cool and that was busy. I had things to do. He was secondary. My drama class was first. And he was secondary. so I said that my class got canceled. So I had to figure out something to do, even though every day for two years I journaled about him.

Sher: You're a creepy stalker. 

Cydni: A stalker. Yes. Creepy. That depends on your perspective. But then we went out to lunch and then I did find out later the class did get canceled. Because God made an honest woman out of me. Always cleaning up my messes. 

Sher: He's always got your back. 

Cydni: But then I continue to lie because we sat with our Subway sandwich at a park.

Sher: You could have just stopped there. You're going to keep going with your lies. 

Cydni: Well, I'm going to be honest with my lies. It evens things out. And there at the park, I looked into his deep blue eyes and I told him everything I thought a man would want to hear so I could get the ring. I said, laundry is my favorite. I [00:03:00] can't wait till I get to fold socks one day. Cooking meals is my favorite hobby. I am so good at cooking healthy meals, but that was a lie. And I said other things too. I was like, I hope one day to marry someone who just wants to be served. I don't want to ever argue or be prideful. I have zero opinions. All the things I said, all of them, guess who's celebrating their anniversary . Me and Ben hooked him 

Sher: with all the lies. How does it feel knowing that none of that was true now? 

Cydni: Honestly, I was going to say, well, what if they are true? What if I've grown into them? But that would be a lie. I hate laundry. I don't cook, especially healthy. I door dash McDonald's and overall I think he's really happy. I think sometimes lies work out in your favor. He feels trapped because he is. That's where I was going with this episode. But then when you said the topic was seeking the truth, I thought, thank goodness Ben didn't listen to this years ago but maybe he wanted to hear what he wanted to hear too, you know? 

Sher: So you're blaming him for you lying. 

Cydni: He should have sought the truth and he [00:04:00] didn't. Yes. 

Sher: Well. Since we're on the topic of lying, why don't we talk about lies first? Cydni and I, we haven't known each other very long, but Cydni, I hope you understand that I am the most trendy person out there. I love being trendy so much. 

Cydni: I am seeking the truth right now and the Holy Spirit is telling me that this is true. 

Sher: it's trendy, I don't want anything to do with it. So, this pains me that I'm going to talk about this because right now, it is really trendy to say mis and dis information. This is like nails on a chalkboard to me. But for some reason, I'm going to talk about it for a hot minute. so first of all, misinformation is false information that is spread regardless of intent to mislead. . Like we think we know what we're talking about, but in reality we have no idea. And so then it becomes misinformation. 

Cydni: I'm hearing it as mis, like M I S S. Yeah. information. Like, look at me, I'm mis information. Do you see my vision?

Sher: I see your vision. I [00:05:00] like it a lot. So let's stick with that for the definition. 

Cydni: That's deceiving as well. I told you I've got this subject.

Sher: You've got it down. And the next one is disinformation the definition for disinformation is deliberately misleading or biased information, manipulated narrative or facts such as propaganda, which is what you just did to Ben.

Cydni: A hundred percent. Our relationship is all founded on disinformation. 

Sher: Thank you for that example so everyone could understand it. 

Cydni: The honesty there matters though. I told him later, like 10 years in. He said , I knew. knew six months in.

Sher: He's a smart man. So a lot of times when it comes to disinformation, like big examples that jump out at me are governments will use disinformation propaganda to spread fear, Or bring up certain emotions that they want the public to feel. An example of this is George Krill, who was a journalist right before World War I started. He was over the new [00:06:00] department that Woodrow Wilson created.

It was called the United States Committee on Public Information. And this was started just before World War One. And ironically, Wilson was reelected on the slogan. "He kept us out of war." There was war brewing in Europe and shenanigans going on and people wanting to be involved in World War One and not, but the majority of the Americans didn't want to be involved in World War One. Wilson ran on the slogan, "he kept us out of war" during his first term, but then as soon as he started his second term, he created this new department called the United States Committee on Public Information, hired George Krill to be over it, and he said, I want you to start creating and disseminating propaganda to promote the war effort. So the CPI. The acronym for it produced posters, films, pamphlets and other media to encourage enlistment. sell war bonds and unify public opinion in support of the war and Krill's work influenced public perception and mobilized America [00:07:00] for the war effort. So that's an example of disinformation and how governments can use it to push people in the direction that they want. Obviously, this is what Adolf Hitler did as well, but his was amped up lot more.

Cydni: Wasn't he the first to have somebody use film to spread that? 

Sher: Wilson did it, too, but, one of the filmmakers, I can't remember her name right off the top of my head, Yeah, she made this film that really pushed Germany to go in the direction that he wanted it was a very famous film I'm forgetting what it is off the top of my head, but you're right so with that, we wanted to talk about, these are different types of lies. Some are on purpose, some are not. You can use the trendy words of mis and disinformation if you choose, 

Cydni: but I just want to say about those words because there's a Handful of words that I feel are important, but then get overused and become trendy But if I were Satan, I would want important words to be destroyed. 

Sher: For Sure. 

Cydni: So it's okay if we use those words and bring it back to the importance of it. It's okay, [00:08:00] Sher. 

Sher: Okay. I'm trying to let it go. 

Cydni: All right. I was thinking on a more person to person level and I had to ask myself, but why do people lie? And I liked this answer. People lie because it works. Thanks. And there's so many reasons why people, other people, definitely not us. Definitely. That was only saved for marriage for me outside of that. Never again. But people lie for so many different reasons. They lie to protect themselves. They lie because they want to take something that doesn't belong to them.

They lie because they want to escape consequences or punishment, and they lie because they want to avoid being hurt, or sometimes they want to avoid hurting others, and then I thought another reason people lie is because they have limited information, and so you don't really understand. That you are lying, which reminded me of when President Uchtdorf shared in a talk a poem that is about six blind men. And all six blind men happened to be near an elephant. And they [00:09:00] all were in different areas standing by the elephant. And one. One touched the tail, one touched the trunk, one touched an ear, one touched a leg.

They were all in different areas and they were feeling, because they're blind, remember, that's important. Got it. Feeling parts of the elephant and then to each other describing what an elephant looks like. And one is saying, hey, an elephant is like a trunk. One is saying it's like a rope.

 And another blind man is touching the tusk and is saying that the elephant is like a spear. And so the point of the poem is that each of the blind men have a part of the truth because the leg is like a trunk of a tree or the tail is like a rope, but not one of them has the whole truth. And so, some of us lie because we don't have all the information. And I thought to myself that it's interesting. That the blind men don't move to find more information. They're just satisfied with what [00:10:00] truth they have. And unwilling to be more open minded and open hearted. To discover that actually everybody has a little bit of truth there and I honestly don't lie very much, Sher. I did read that on average, everybody lies every single day. Do you believe that?

Sher: I do believe that. 

Cydni: You're more honest than I am. I was like, I do not. But it said on average an adult lies 0. 56 to 1. 59 times per day. They actually did group studies where they did pull groups of people together to try to trap them in a lie. Some were very simple that if you to answer ten math questions for every math question you got correctly, You got a dollar. They found, that when you would turn your sheet in, the sheet would get scrapped and they just had to tell them how many they got. They found about 93% people lied. 93%. Yeah. Most people got four answers correctly, but the number that the person would give was always six because they've realized that if they said 10, that would look like a lie. So [00:11:00] they didn't wanna go too low, but they didn't wanna go too high either, so that people were naturally. Okay. With lying just a little bit. Isn't that interesting? 

Sher: Yeah. I can totally see that. 

Cydni: Would you have lied for two dollars more? 

Sher: Honestly, I don't think I would, but who knows? I haven't been in that situation. 

Cydni: If anyone asked me to be in a group where I did math on my free time, I already know I would say no. I'd be free of that one. 

Sher: That's fair. Because I would miss all of them. So I might say two. I got two right so I could get two dollars. You would go under. 

Cydni: I need enough for a Diet Coke. . And they say that if you think about it, not many of us are going to lie walking out of Target with our. Pockets full of tuna fish and say we don't have anything in there, but we lie all the time throughout the day. Little things, things like Hey, it's so good to see you. Let's have lunch soon. You say that to me all the time. I'm lying to you. That's my point. Five, six percent. Oh, Recently, I've been lying to myself saying that this garden is definitely going to grow and my kids are definitely going to eat the vegetables that grow from that garden, or I think the one that's probably used more often than [00:12:00] any is, how are you today? I'm fine. Nobody's fine. Or when, you ask does this dress make me look fat? Who's going to be like, yes, it does. , I want friends that would lie to me at that point. And then I did think that recently I told Iana a story that in high school we had to journal every day I made up my journal entry every single day. I just made up a story about a girl and it was supposed to be real. But I wrote, today was a better day. I only got stuffed in the locker two times. Where I'm really learning how to get that thick eyeshadow on. Because I was going for like a goth look. Because it was goth back then.

Anyway, I told you You weren't gothic? No, I wasn't. It was a lie. That's the point, is I acted like I was a girl that was gothic who got picked on in my journal. But in reality, I was not gothic, but got picked on. 

Sher: This, this just proves your teacher wasn't reading it at all. 

Cydni: I didn't think he would.

Sher: Why would he assign you something and then not read it? 

Cydni: I don't know. Do you think it was so that he had free time to read? It was English teacher. He's just sitting at his desk reading a book. 

Sher: Yeah, that is what he was doing. He [00:13:00] was just like, stay away from me and why did you even bother doing it then?

Cydni: Cause I had a good old time writing down my journal entries. It was the best. I loved it. Other people were writing like one sentence. I'm fine. Anyway, I didn't know later that we'd actually have to read it out loud, but we did it. So I just read it and I read my entries and they were ridiculous. so I told you on to that story the mistake was I told her because she No matter what I say to that girl, , she will say, write that down in your book of lies.

So I thought sometimes we lie to be entertaining.

Sher: class like your journal entries then? 

Cydni: I don't remember. What happened after that, but in my head the reality is everyone was laughing and I got an A. 

Sher: So the teacher wasn't listening either. Not only did he not read it, he wasn't listening.

Cydni: Probably, but not in my memory bank. In my memory bank people stood up and applauded. They asked for my autograph and it's been recently asked for a book deal because it was so good. 

But what is interesting though is that if you [00:14:00] accept that you're comfortable lying a little bit they also have studies that show that you're willing to lie a little bit more and then a little bit more and then a little bit more and the danger in that is Oftentimes people start to believe their lies because it becomes so confusing you Confuse yourself. And you accept that you're okay to be in a state of confusion. 

Sher: I believe that. I think that happens and probably more often than we would like to admit, but this is what Satan wants. He wants to create that chaos and confusion and a blurred vision of reality and how things really are. that's Satan's lane right there. And I feel like sometimes when something becomes overly complicated, and this is just my opinion, the more untrue it becomes. So adding layers of part truths or whatever, , it just becomes more complicated, more confusing. And then that is Satan's lane. He loves that. Heavenly Father, on the other hand, loves simple. Timeless truths that are just easy to understand and this is where my head went [00:15:00] when I was thinking about this the example I thought of is when I first started teaching when I was getting evaluated as a teacher I was evaluated by my principal who came in with a half sheet of paper it had like the skill that the teacher was supposed to be showing Or that the principal observed in the classroom and then it had a rating of like zero to five and then a comment place on the other side. And that was it. that was the whole thing. By the time I left teaching, now we have a handbook for our evaluation. Cydni are you ready for this? I'm ready. That's a hundred and six pages long. And then there's an interactive guide for it that's a hundred and fifty two pages long. it's true. Then one more example, when I first started teaching, my vice principal had a paper, the size of a note card that he carried around in his shirt pocket. And when there was a rule broken or whatever, he would pull it out of his shirt pocket. He'd have the kid read it. So like punch somebody in the face equals suspended for three days. And he'd [00:16:00] just be like, that's the rule. And that was pretty much it. It was done, taken care of, and sometimes, like, if it was in my classroom or whatever, I'd either just go and tell him what happened, or I had another half a sheet of paper that I just had to fill out, and I would hand it to him. Now, there's an online form that goes to the vice principal. then the administrative team, has to have a conference about it. If it. Deserves that and then somehow it goes to the district where I don't know what they do burn incense or something and then maybe the student for punching the kid in the face might get in trouble at some point, but I don't really know what happened.

And so this is where I'm going with my brain here I taught for 32 years and in that 32 years did education get better or worse. how did any of that help? It became more complicated on every level. like the more you take your eye off the ball, like what is really the truth.

The truth is the whole point of teaching is teachers should be teaching and students should be learning. And that's it. But Satan doesn't want the [00:17:00] kids learning, so he likes to muck it up. So, he does things like, well, it's not cool for students to learn. Or school is dumb, he uses peer pressure, social media, lack of discipline and then taking teachers away from actually preparing and grading by giving them forms to fill out, and making 156 pages of who knows what, and meetings to go to, and more things that they need to do, and all of these things, and it's like the temperature just keeps getting turned up just a little bit and a little bit more and a little bit more And it's adding chaos To school , this is what satan likes to do to our life as well instead of having a simple lane that God has for us.

Satan is going to start putting in more exits and on ramps and more freeways and roads and side roads. And we have all these directions and paths that we need to go. And he just keeps complicating it until we don't even know what direction to go. And that's what Satan is all about.

God's like, here's the path. Stay on the path, just go in this [00:18:00] direction. But, Satan just keeps adding it. And honestly, I can feel that in the world right now that Satan is adding that pressure, he's turning that temperature up just ever so slightly by adding things that are more complicated for no reason, why are we adding these things? I don't know. Just because a researcher said, and this professor said, and experts say, that's the buzzword, experts said this or whatever. So we just do it because we want to believe the professionals, the experts, but really, when it comes down to it, what's important, that's where God is, keep your eye in the right and proper lane. And that's just simple, pure truth. 

Cydni: Listen Sher, I have children in the school system. Tell me it's gotten better. Lie to me right now. Use your percentage today, which you're way past already, the normal average person. Lie to me. Tell me it's gotten better. 

Sher: Cydni, it is so much better than when I started teaching. it's off the charts. Test scores have increased. Everything is so much better. That lie worked. Thank you. You're [00:19:00] welcome. hey, I'm a teacher. Send your kids to public school. Just know you're their parent. You're the teacher at all times. 

Cydni: Okay, lie to me again right now and just I didn't hear what you just said. 

Sher: You are the teacher 24 7, Cydni 

Cydni: my kids are in trouble. No, they're not. 

Sher: I read a quote from Rabbi Daniel Lappin about truths and lies. He said that ancient Jewish wisdom points out that there is only one way of telling the truth, But many ways of lying. This beautiful idea is even embedded in the English language.

We might ask a child, are you telling me the truth? But we'd say, are you telling me a lie? There's only one truth, but many lies. In other words, we tell the truth completely naturally. However, we lie in countless different ways as we assume the different personalities of each lie. 

 After I read this, I just had never thought of this before Cydni, that when we are speaking, we say, tell me the truth. Or [00:20:00] did you tell me a lie? I had never thought of that before. that means there truly is, even in our language we say it. There is just one truth and then hundreds and millions and different ways to lie. And this is what I'm talking about as the example I gave with my district . I went from an evaluation that was on a half a piece of paper, To 156 pages of I don't even know what's in there and they put so much information that it's not simple or straightforward anymore. So there could be all sorts of untruths in there and all sorts of nonsense can get mixed in there because there are so many ways to tell a lie. keeps us away from finding the final truth or finding the truth. God makes it simple and clear and Satan Tells thousands of lies, propaganda, mis and disinformation, and he just keeps pouring it on.

Cydni: It makes me think of when our house is in chaos, which is often, but when there's dishes that need to be done, laundry that needs to be folded, the kids rooms are messy, and [00:21:00] it's just there's too much chaos, which happens to everybody. At least I'm going to pretend that it is the case for everybody. 

Sher: It happens to everybody.

Cydni: But imagine you just brought in Costco load and there's laundry to be folded. And in that chaos, if one of my kids says, Hey, have you seen my other shoe? I feel like it would be near impossible to locate that shoe. And even if you did, the process to get there would be so full of anxiety and probably some depression. to find that other shoe would be, a terrible experience. And I thought with the chaos that Satan likes to add, also just the distraction, that finding the truth when you have so much in your mind that is Equivalent to the Costco load and the laundry and the dishes that need to be done when your mind is so cluttered because of the decisions that we tend to make where we scroll too much or we get distracted with this or that or have too much on our plate, I think it's hard to find the things that we really need to find, whether it's truth [00:22:00] or peace. Or comfort, the straight path of this is what you're looking for is suddenly like you said before, full of the no left hand turns and all the distractions that Satan puts out there. that's related to my life of Satan loves chaos. So really trying to find one shoe in a messy house is near impossible. Likewise, it would be the same that trying to find peace or hope or truth when you allow your mind to be as chaotic and is also near impossible. 

Sher: It is. So the question then is how do you find the truth when Satan is purposely adding layers and layers and layers of mis and disinformation? It makes it so difficult to find the truth. I think it's important to remember that our Savior can calm the storm and he can bring us peace. But the trick is that we need to do the work to find the truth so that we can wade through all of the lies.. Elder James E. Faust said, and I kind of laughed at this because he said this in [00:23:00] 1987. Were you alive in 1987, Cydni? 

Cydni: I'm so tempted to lie right now. 

Sher: So I also was alive in 1987. But Elder Faust said this, Satan has had. Great success with this gullible generation. I thought that was funny. It is funny. Cause hmm. All right. So Satan has had great success with this gullible generation. As a consequence, literally hosts of people have been victimized by him and his angels. There is however, an ample shield against the power of Lucifer and his hosts. This protection lies In the spirit of discernment through the gift of the Holy Ghost. This gift comes undeviatingly by personal revelation to those who strive to obey the commandments of the Lord a few weeks ago. We talked about being your own hero, that means be obedient to God with all of your choices. Good choices make your life more happy now and in eternity. So to get [00:24:00] through all of this miss and disinformation, be obedient to the Lord. And this gives you more and more access to the Holy ghost through this power. It can help you get through the many ways to tell if it's a lie and get to the truth. Our obedience can help us discern truth from fiction. 

Cydni: If I may, I'm going to be honest for a moment only, but this topic I've struggled with it because I thought to myself, like the six blind men, that truth is sincerely true to them and they're not lying, but they don't have the whole truth. When I was asking myself questions and preparing, how do we decide what the truth is? That is very difficult to me to figure out in my head. And I've been reading different things. And one thing I did like was that Jordan Peterson says about truth that, well, you ought to tell the truth. But what is the truth? Sometimes that's hard to say because of our experiences and our opinions and our upbringing. Someone might quite love to own lots of guns, and someone who's had a tragic [00:25:00] experience might love that nobody owns guns. So which one is true and which one is false? Their experiences are so vast and different that I find it hard to wrap my mind around in a way that I feel complete peace. And so one thing he did say is that with people's experiences being different, that truth often can feel different, but you know when you're lying and that's where you should start. Don't lie. And one piece of advice from Mark Twain is if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

And I really appreciate that because I don't have brain to remember what lies I've told. So honestly, if any holy great. Beautiful reason to not lie other than that you don't have to remember the lies that you've told to me is full of peace. And another one, he says, a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its shoes on. That's great. But that's the most piece I've found so far because I have my own beliefs and I understand though that my Beliefs in my [00:26:00] truth that there could be another person out there who doesn't feel the same way. That's where to me, truth can get a little tricky. But I do know that there's a certain feeling when I know I'm about to lie, or there's been several times where I have something really funny to reply in a text that. maybe even just not that nice, but it's funny and I get a feeling that it's not okay to stop. And so then I thought, okay, well, if that is how I have felt on occasion with when I know I'm about to go in a deceitful way, I have felt that. Then, is it not also true that there have been times in my life where I have felt truth? And that is also a yes. 

Sher: I'm so glad you brought that up. It reminded me of in my classroom, sometimes when we were discussing things, I would have students get in arguments with each other. over different political whatever, and they bring up their opinion, which both are valid opinions, but they were so opposite and then they just start yelling at each other. So whenever this happened, I would make him stop, and I told him to look at the whiteboard. [00:27:00] So everyone just imagine a whiteboard or a chalkboard, whenever it was you went to school, and I would tell him to imagine that everything on the whiteboard was all the information ever created throughout all of time, all of history, was on that whiteboard. It's all there. Everything that you want to know about the universe is on that whiteboard. And then I would draw a little tiny square, just somewhere on the whiteboard. And I'm like, that's how much I know. I mean, I'm talking, it was so small the kids couldn't see it, right? And then I'd say, now let me draw yours. And I would draw another little tiny square, but I made it smaller, of course, because they were in eighth grade. Smart. That's the ultimate power move. That's right. But it would overlap mine just a little bit so they could see that like, here's everything in the universe. Just because I'm older, I might know a little bit more, but does that mean I know everything? It doesn't. It means that you know things that I don't know and that I don't understand, right? I love that. if you're thinking of it like that, with that in your brain that you have all of the knowledge of the universe and we have [00:28:00] so little of that information of all the truth and we only have just a little tiny bit of it, but other people have a little tiny bit of it too. If we can keep that in mind, that will help us understand when it's the truth and when it's an opinion. And that I think is really important. It's okay to have different opinions. It is. That doesn't make it the truth. And it's really hard when you don't have all the facts and information and all the knowledge of the universe to know what is the truth versus your opinion. And as you get older and as you grow, that's what we're trying to do is to get closer to the truth. So that you know what's true and what's your opinion. I can tell you that over the years, that things that I knew absolutely was true. I've realized as I've gotten older, nope, that was an opinion. And I feel like that got smacked in my face more and more. The longer I taught because 14 year olds are more than happy to point that out when you're wrong they love that. And you start to understand that maybe, you know, my little corner of the [00:29:00] universe, I need to be more open minded and understand when it is the truth. And when it's a lie or an opinion. 

Cydni: It'd be Iyana and your eighth graders that say write that down in your book of lies. I really appreciate that perspective just illustrates to me that the truth is that nobody has the full truth. no blind man has felt every inch of the elephant, but we do have pieces of the truth and we know that the elephant exists. And also where you were speaking, it came to my mind that nobody has the full truth, but the way to seek the truth is the same. And there is the scripture that says, And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness. That which is of God is light, and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light. And that groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day. So then I thought to myself, Edify because I think one thing is where Jordan Peterson went, is that, the truth, that's a little bit more [00:30:00] complicated, but step one, we can understand a lie. And then I thought, agreed. Truth is hard, but the absence of truth or the absence of the Spirit, I can recognize. so what does Edify mean? to instruct or improve. That made me think of the fact that sometimes the truth is uncomfortable. Then I remembered a quote from Joseph Smith. He says, a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation. And I thought, how many times do we want to be comfortable? We want to believe what we've always believed because it's comfortable. But if we could just be open minded and understand, like your illustration, that there's more truth and that's not scary, it's uncomfortable. But wouldn't you want to know everything on the whiteboard? I want to know, and I have had experiences where the truth has been uncomfortable.

 I think that growth and comfort cannot coexist. That's proven in many aspects of our [00:31:00] life. Then how could things of eternal aspects not also be the same? How can we stay comfortable and grow? That's not a truth. You have to be uncomfortable to grow. But what does growing spiritually get you? Just like if you're at the gym and you're uncomfortable and you're working harder than you're used to, you get to have a healthier, stronger body.

So spiritually, if you allow yourself to be uncomfortable and going to the right source, what will that do for you spiritually? It's in the scriptures we are told to ask. That's what we're supposed to do. It's okay to ask. It's okay to ask for the truth. It's okay to have a question that's not sitting with you. Even this last week, I've prayed about not grasping the idea of truth, because in my little mind and experience, I recognize people have different truths, so that's hard for me to understand, but as I've prayed about it and thought about it, I've had a little bit of light at a time come to me, and so I think we seek for truth. From the source. And there's [00:32:00] a talk by Lawrence Corbridge and he is someone who studies anti religion topics to help know what's out there as part of his job. And he will talk about the hardest part is the absence of the Spirit. My greatest takeaway from his talk is that you need to be able to answer those primary questions. Forget the distraction of all the other million questions you could ask concerning eternal things, there's primary questions. Focus on those first. And two of them are, is there a God in heaven, a Heavenly Father who loves me and created me? And number two, is Jesus Christ the Savior of the world? He says, if you focus on primary questions first, that everything else will be answered. In time that's given me a lot of peace because is there something bigger than us? That creates and organizes. Yes. 

Sher: I love that you brought that up because it does get so confusing. And I know that for me personally, , when I start to get confused in my brain, which is often, I [00:33:00] often say to myself, I don't need to know that right now. Because I can't know everything on the whiteboard, but God knows everything on the whiteboard. And I have to trust that He has it all figured out, and someday I will also maybe get a little closer to that. And maybe it won't be in this life. Maybe it will be in the next life where I will have more understanding of the truth. that is all of our journeys, we all are trying to get closer and closer to understand the truth that's on the whiteboard. So sometimes when you get information that maybe conflicts with your eternal perspective Satan starts to get in there and mix things up a little bit And so you get confused about your own faith or your own religion just turn it over to God and say to Heavenly Father I do not understand this but I know you do please just help me to have that peace And he's never let me down. I don't need to understand everything right now. I don't need to understand all the things and all the truth right now because i'm just on A fact finding mission right now what i'm doing right [00:34:00] now is learning how to find the truth And how to get closer to my Savior and my Heavenly Father and that's what i'm trying to do By being obedient and following his commandments 

Cydni: I really appreciate that you said that you pray to have peace because I always pray to have the full answer. So I think I will have to apply that. So I'm glad you shared that. 

Sher: This brings us to our final thoughts. Rabbi Daniel Lappin said, there is one truth, but there are many lies. And Satan likes to muck it up and bring in all those lies, to bring in so much chaos. But our Heavenly Father and our Savior, they only speak the truth we don't need to know all the truth right now, but we can find truth through our own obedience and faith. And when we follow the commandments, that will give us more access to the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost will bring that peace in our heart and will help us to understand the truth from the distractions and the lies. 

Cydni: We challenge you this week to take that average of 0. 56 and increase it. Be the best liar in [00:35:00] your neighborhood. You're killing me, Cydni. Okay. Just kidding. We challenge you to be more open minded to learning more truth, accept more truth in your life. When you pray, we challenge you to pray for an open mind and an open heart. And if you have a question, we challenge you to take it to Heavenly Father in prayer and ask for answers, or maybe just start with for some peace.

This is our prayer from Cydni and Sher Okay. I liked the other one cause I wasn't jumping around. You could tell my age and that movement. Hold still. Myself. President Uchtdorf shared a poem once about six blind men who came to an elephant, naturally, sounds weird to say it that way, just six blind men [00:36:00] together who find an elephant in the safari. Maybe I should say that again. 

Sher: it had, oh I lied, it had, you're at like 0.

25. I know, exactly, He said that ancient Jewish,

Oh my gosh. 

Cydni: You're not saying it as bad as you think you are. Or was that a lie? 

Sher: That was a lie. 

Cydni: Why are you taking off your headphones? Do you hate what I'm saying? I thought I could hear the vacuum, which I can. I could hear it too. So I'm just going to pause it. That's okay. While you pause it, I'll try to sum that up prettier. I just realized I missed an opportunity to talk recklessly because I was reading something. That's why I don't read. I miss opportunities. Sad. That's brilliant. And it just illustrates further that nobody. 

Sher: just love that you said brilliant. I wish that any of my students would have said that to me at any point during my teaching career. 

Cydni: I would have never said that in eighth grade, but now with my maturity.