who Are Your Friends -- The Codicil

Last month, I discussed Joseph Smith’s quote:

How good and glorious it has seemed unto me, to find pure and holy friends, who are faithful, just, and true, and whose hearts fail not; and whose knees are confirmed and do not falter, while they wait upon the Lord…

My premise was that we should follow the prophet’s counsel when we choose friends. But I thought about my premise all month – off and on—and finally decided that limiting ourselves in that way is a rather narrow and selfish view of friendship in general, and severely limits our ability to enrich our lives. And so I write this codicil.

Who Are Your Friends?

Nearly everybody has something to say about how to find true friends, how to keep them, and how to recognize them. The internet is full of advice, good and bad. Perhaps the best source for this advice is the prophet of the restoration. He defined for us the eternal and celestial qualities true friends should have. Joseph Smith wrote the following about the family members and friends who visited him on August 11, 1842, while he was in hiding in and around Nauvoo from a Missouri extradition order: