Come Follow Me for Us

Come Follow Me for Us is Melanie Stroud's companion to the Come Follow Me curriculum of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its episode titles read like a study calendar. Doctrine and Covenants 133–134 and 135–136 appear, along with the Articles of Faith and Official Declarations 1 and 2, testimonies of Joseph Smith, and a run of episodes on the names of Jesus Christ, including 'The Many Names of Jesus Christ Introduction' and 'Jesus Christ - The Prince of Peace'. Stroud herself sets the tone. She sings a few bars of 'This Little Light of Mine', says she has the worst voice on earth, and asks anyone musical to send in a better intro. She reads out a favorite review titled 'Voice Candy', jokes that she has a face made for radio, and admits she is eating Kit Kats in her closet as she records. Stray mic checks and asides sometimes stay in. The jokes never push the purpose aside. Her most insistent theme is action. If listeners are not doers, she says, it is just information, and she points to the scriptural word hearken, which she defines as hearing and obeying. In a Doctrine and Covenants lesson, that becomes a practical nudge: pause, find the family history specialist, and send a text asking how to begin. In 'Jesus Christ - The Prince of Peace' it becomes a harder, inward one. She links the episode to a general conference session on the names and attributes of Christ. Then she describes a series whose innuendo left her uneasy, and says what troubled her more was that it had not bothered her the season before. Working through Christ's attributes one by one, she admits, feels like a never-ending checklist. Striving for holiness, she finds, makes patience and forgiveness come more easily. The Articles of Faith episode turns outward instead. There she argues for respecting how others worship, using the example of a guest of Islamic background kneeling on a prayer mat and a friendship with a family who had been Jehovah's Witnesses. Stroud is open about her own life. She credits preparing the podcast with keeping her from bitterness during the year of her divorce, and says that returning to the show took a lot of miracles. One episode is an interview with Dr. Geritt Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc, whom she describes as able to make the most boring things fun. Leduc introduces himself by poking fun at his own credentials, starting with a kindergarten award for best printer. Several episodes close on the same words: be kind and shine on. It is devotional study with a grin, and it expects the listener to do something with it.