Hello everyone, welcome to another Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I'm here with the just practically perfect in every way, John, by the way.

Please stop that. If you've been following Follow Him Favorites this year, we take a single question from each week's lesson and talk about it.

This week we're in the book of Daniel. And so John, I thought of a question right when I thought of Daniel. He has three friends in Hananaya, Mishiel and Azaraya or their Babylonian names, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

He has three really good friends and he's a good friend to them. So my automatic question was, do friends matter?

People that I hang out with, do the people that I spend my time with, does it matter? What would you say to someone who is a little bit younger who says, come on, it doesn't matter who I hang out with.

So what if they don't believe what I believe or they're trying to get me to do bad things? They're my friends. What would you say?

Oh, matters a lot. When I first got my driver's license, my friends taught me this year, drive along. We were walking home from Moscow, we drive along the railroad, roll down the window.

And then you say, you want to ride and they'd say, yeah, and we'd say, call your mom and drive off, right?

I've always felt like the analogy of a driver and passengers is really good for friendship. If you get in somebody else's car, you're going where they're going.

And sometimes it's like that with friends, you're either an influencer or you just get influenced. And if you're in the back seat, you don't have a lot of say.

It's really important to surround yourself with friends who are going where you're going. That's just so important.

And I love the story that we all know of. Men brought in a bed, a man who was taken with the palsy. It's in two or three of the gospels. I know it's in Luke 5.

And it doesn't say much about the friends after that point. But here are friends who are determined to take this man to Christ, literally. Take him to Christ.

And when the room is so full of people, they can't do it. They get this idea. I know. Let's go up on the roof, make a hole in the roof and lower him through the ceiling.

We are getting him in.

You can imagine the friend at that point. I think I feel better. But they do that because they're so determined to get him an audience with the Savior, which they do.

And this amazing thing happens, go read the whole thing and look five. But you're going where your friends are going. And so that's why it is so important.

Hank, do you remember sister Susan Tanner? I do.

She had this great talk about the survey of the young women in the church. And what are some of the reasons you go to seminary friends?

What are some of the reasons you don't go friends? What do you think about during the day friends? If they're ever time when you don't go to young wounds, why is that no friends?

It was for every answer was about friends. And that's why it's so important. I'll tell you funny story years ago, the new era magazine called me and they said, I was so flattered at first.

They said they were doing an issue about friendship. And they said, we just have this article we want you to write. And we just thought of you right off. And the title would be, why don't I have any friends?

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