Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their

Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith and I'm John by the way. We love to learn, we love to laugh,

we want to learn and laugh with you. As together we follow him.

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Follow Him. I am your host, Hank Smith and I am here

with my co-host and I'm going to describe him using a verse from the block of scripture we're

going to study today. This is 2 Kings 23, 25 and like unto him was there no co-host before him

that turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might,

neither after him arose any like him. John by the way that describes you as a co-host. There was

no co-host before him like unto him or after him. I can never live up to your descriptions here,

Hank, so I'll just nod and smile. That was actually a description of King Josiah, but I thought it

fit you perfectly, John. We're going to be in the book of 2 Kings today and we have a returning

guest who is a fan favorite. John, tell everybody who's with us. We're so glad to have Dr. Joshua

Sears back with us today. He grew up in Southern California, served as mission in the Chile

Osono mission, received a bachelor's in ancient Near Eastern studies from BYU. He taught at the

missionary training center and volunteered as an EMT, received a master's degree from Ohio State

University and a PhD in Hebrew Bible at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests

include Israelite prophecy, marriage and families in the ancient world and the publication history

of Latter-day Saint Scripture. He has presented at regional and national meetings of the Society

of Biblical Literature, BYU Education Week, the Sydney B.Sperry Symposium, and the Leonardo

Museum Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls. His wife Alice is from Hong Kong and plays in the bells

at Temple Square. They live in Lyndon, Utah with their five children and Dr. Sears. Joshua

were really glad to have you back. Thanks for coming back again. Yeah, happy to be here.

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