In the final pages of the classic novel by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, the narrator, a little girl nicknamed Scout, finds herself on the front porch of her neighbor Boo Radley's home.

As she turns to leave, she discovers she has never seen her neighborhood from this angle before. It looks different. Just seeing the world as Boo sees it, helps her understand Boo a little better.

She realizes her father — who urged his children to try to see life from another person's perspective before making judgments — was right. "One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them," she said. "Just standing on the Radley porch was enough."

Having learned the important lessons of sympathy and understanding, Scout concludes there is really nothing else for her to learn — except algebra.

The advice — from a fictional attorney living in the height of the Depression in Maycomb, Ala. — is just as relevant in our own wards, stakes, neighborhoods and communities; we face problems we would understand better if we saw the world around us from our neighbors' front porches.

In the novel, Scout's father taught his children that, rather than being good or bad, most people have both good and bad qualities. The important thing, he told Scout, is to appreciate the good qualities and understand the bad qualities by treating others with sympathy and trying to see life from their perspective.

The scriptures teach Church members to "judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment" (John 7:24).

Our Church leaders have taught much the same thing.

"The Lord can judge men by their thoughts as well as by what they say and do, for He knows even the intents of their hearts; but this is not true of humans," said President Spencer W. Kimball. "We hear what people say, we see what they do, but being unable to discern what they think or intend, we often judge wrongfully if we try to fathom the meaning and motives behind their actions and place on them our own interpretation" (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 105).

Examples in Latter-day Saint communities abound:

• A woman who learns she cannot bear children feels invalidated by a ward member, until she learns the other woman is suffering deeply by the choices of her own children.

• A couple demands payment from a neighbor whose son damaged their car, only to learn that the other family was in the depth of their own financial problems and just days away from losing their home.

• A woman struggles for years with her relationship with her mother-in-law, only to see her mother-in-law's life, challenges and sacrifices differently while cleaning out her house after she died.

President Kimball called the ability to see another's viewpoint tolerance. "The most lovable quality any human being can possess is tolerance," he said. "It is the vision that enables one to see things from another's viewpoint. It is the generosity that concedes to others the right to their own opinions and peculiarities. It is the bigness that enables us to let people be happy in their own way instead of our way" (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 235).

In the classic tale, To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout sees the devastating impact of intolerance when a man is wrongfully convicted. But Harper Lee has affirmed over and over again that the novel is a "simple love story"; a story where a little girl learns sympathy and understanding in the most unlikely place — her neighbor's front porch.