President Emily Belle Freeman’s 5 Invitations for Making the Scriptures Into Friends

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By Mary Richards, Church News

Drawing from the scriptures and from Chapter 2 of “Preach My Gospel,” Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman shared with training missionaries at the Provo Missionary Training Center how the scriptures can give them divine help, protection and strength as they get to know the Savior better.

She brought some rocks with her to the MTC on Tuesday night, June 11, that she found during a visit to Israel in a brook at the edge of the field where David battles Goliath in 1 Samuel 17.

When David faced a battle, he chose to use stones because he trusted them. And for President Freeman, the scriptures are what she trusts and goes to for direction and comfort.

“Preach My Gospel” Page 17 explains that the scriptures will allow those who study them to “receive divine protection and strength.” And Page 18 says understanding the scriptures may be challenging at first, but through patient persistence, that understanding will grow.

So if scripture study doesn’t come easy right now, practice, President Freeman invited. “When you come to a verse that is meaningful to you, mark it as a friend.”

Steps to Receive Revelation From the Scriptures

In his April 2012 general conference talk, the late Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles outlined a process for studying the scriptures and receiving revelation.

President Freeman listed the steps like this:

1. “Define your difficult matter” and write that down.
2. Read passage after passage of scripture. Use the Topical Guide and footnotes.
3. Ponder what those verses mean.
4. Pray for inspiration and any more impressions.
5. Pause, pondering “to know if you have captured all that the Lord needs you to do.”
6. Seek for more doctrine to study about the topic, such as general conference talks.
7. Ask, “Is there more?” and then wait to see what the Spirit says.

“See what you learn,” President Freeman said. “See if those verses of scripture become your favorites. More often than not, either the answer comes, or at least enough information comes for me to take the next right step.”

Brother Freeman Shares the Verses Helping Him Through Cancer

President Freeman’s husband, Gregory G. Freeman, told the missionaries that the Lord will bless their afflictions for their gain — something he has been experiencing since recently being diagnosed with cancer, undergoing major surgery to remove his esophagus and spending several days in the hospital.

He read to them 2 Nephi 2:1-2, where Lehi tells Jacob he knows he has had many afflictions but “thou knowest the greatness of God; and he shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.”

Brother Freeman invited the missionaries to really get to know the Savior.

“I want you to know that in the last 30 days, I have felt Him more than I have my whole life,” Brother Freeman said, adding, “May you, as you serve Him, come to know who He is in your good times and in those times you have affliction.”

This touched the hearts of the missionaries, including Elder Hayden Greep, from Edmonton, Alberta, who is going to the Japan Fukuoka Mission — “In our tribulations, we will be blessed,” he said.

President Freeman said since her husband’s diagnosis, they have searched the scriptures to learn more about healing. As they have studied this word, different words, phrases, impressions and promptings have come.

“You may start with healing, but that may lead you to understand better about faith. And then the process starts over again,” she said.

Stones of Faith: 5 Invitations

Using the rocks she brought with her to the MTC — and with a nod to her counselor, Sister Andrea Muñoz Spannaus, who gave a talk in April 2024 general conference about stones of faith — President Freeman gave five invitations to the missionaries:

1. The first stone is to let the scriptures become friends.
2. The second is to remember that answers can come from the scriptures.
3. The third is know the importance of journaling, and for that, President Freeman held up her own scriptures to show all her markings and writings inside.
4. The fourth stone is to “put on the armor of God” through the scriptures, as outlined on Page 22 of “Preach My Gospel.” For this, President Freeman talked about finding a “protection scripture” — one to memorize and use when in need of strength.
5. President Freeman’s fifth and last invitation came as she held up her son’s mission shoes and showed the holes in the soles to the training missionaries. “Keep back nothing, give everything you have to this experience,” she invited. “This is the only chance you are going to have to do something like this, to spend one-on-one time with the Lord, to be able to teach and testify of Him.”

Sister Thawara Domengos, from Luanda, Angola, who will be serving in Washington, D.C., said she also loves to write down scriptures to keep close and to remember. “I like how she said to choose a protection scripture because in times of emergency, we have to hold on to something.”

Sister Jorgena Tu’imoala, from Millbury, California, who is assigned to the New Zealand Wellington Mission, learned from the Spirit during the devotional “to make the scriptures my friends and really to learn of my Savior through the scriptures.”

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