Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Doctrine & Covenants 125-128 Part 1 : Dr. Jennifer Reeder

Episode Date: October 30, 2021

Do you know Mary Ann Angell Young, Eliza R. Snow, Sarah Cleveland, Elizabeth Haven, Vienna Jacques, and Jane Neyman? They are some of the lesser-known heroes of the Restoration, and Dr. Jennifer Reeder joins Hank and John to share their stories, including their escape to Quincy, their building of Nauvoo, and the first baptisms for the dead.Shownotes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelThanks to the followHIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive ProducersDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: MarketingLisa Spice: Client Relations, Show Notes/TranscriptsJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Assistant Video EditorSpanish Transcripts: Ariel CuadraFrench Transcripts: Krystal RobertsPortuguese Transcripts: Igor Willians"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com/products/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise-pianoPlease rate and review the podcast.

Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith and I'm John by the way. We love to learn, we love to laugh, we want to learn and laugh with you. As together, we follow him. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Follow Him. I'm your host, Hank Smith. I'm here with my exceedingly glad co-host John by the all that sounds so book a more than I'm it does. I'm not just glad I'm exceedingly glad

Wait till you get exceedingly glad beyond all glad beyond all measure you're not all measure It's we can't even put a measure on it. It's a cat. Yeah. We want to remind everybody that you can find the podcast on social media. We have an Instagram page. We have a Facebook page. Our wonderful Jamie Nielsen runs those. So come on over and check out all the extras that we have there.

And if you want to go to our website, follow him dot. CO, follow him dot co, and please take time to rate and review the podcast that really helps us out. John, we've already had a bunch of fun before we hit the record button. So we better introduce our guest so we can get everybody caught up to speed. Tell us who's with us. Oh, absolutely. We're delighted to have Jennifer Reader here.

And I am excited to show you. This is where I'm getting her. Look at the look at the word first and how it reflects there if you're watching on video today. Wow, that tells you desert book loves this book. Yeah. And to refer to Emma as the first lady, I love this. The book is called first, the life and faith of Emma Smith. Okay, by doctor reader. Yes, and I was joking with doctor reader because I was listening in the car and missed my exit. I was so involved. So let me tell you about our guest today. Jennifer Reader is a 19th century women's history specialist in the church history department. She has a PhD in American history from George Mason University. I love George Mason.

I've quoted George Mason on this podcast and an MA in history, documentary, editing and archival management from New York University with the BA in Humanities and English teaching from Brigham Young University. She's originally from Provo, Utah. She served a mission in Catania, Italy. She has co-edited two books at the pulpit, 185 years of discourses by Latter-day St. Women, that was with Kate Holbrooke, and the witness of women first-hand experiences and testimonies from the restoration with Janice Johnson. And just I feel like having been listening to this, I feel like I know you a little bit already from your writing.

So thank you for joining us on Follow Him today. Well, thank you. It's a privilege. We are very excited to have Dr. Reader with us. Since we have an expert here with us, John, let's jump into this week's lesson. We are looking at sections 125 through 128 of the doctorate in covenants. We're getting obviously, we're getting closer to the end of our study this year, and that

would mean the end of Joseph Smith's life. So Dr. Reader, take John and I and our listeners wherever you'd like to go to set us up for these sections. All right, so I'm going to start with the saints leaving Northern Missouri and fleeing east to the Mississippi River to take refuge for the winter of 1838 and 39. And they settled in various settlements along the the river banks, both in Iowa territory and in the state of Illinois. They had abandoned all hopes of immediately building Zion in Missouri and they were disbandant, as I can imagine. I'm going to bring it as many women's voices as possible. So I want to share the words of Elizabeth Haven, who was 19 years old.

She wrote to her cousin, another Elizabeth, on February 24, 1839. And I think this really gives us an idea of how the saints are feeling. She says, oh, how Zion warns. Her sense of fallen in the streets by the cruel hand of the enemy, and her daughter's weeping silence. It is impossible for my pen to tell you of our situation, only those who feel it, no. And then in her letter, she explains that the saints had been driven from the places of gathering, out of the state of Missouri, from houses and lands and poverty, to seek for

habitation where they can find them. The stakes of Zion will soon be bereft of all of her children. And then she says this, and this, I think, is the saddest, because literally by the river of Babylon, we can sit down. Yes, dear E her cousin Elizabeth. We weep when we remember Zion. Oh, man. And that was night and 19 year old. Rilt that. Wow. Yeah. So it just depicts how how sad and discouraged they are. The Lord had promised them that they would build Zion and Missouri and they were all set to do that. And then it just didn't work out. Oh, driven from county to county to county and finally out of the state. Right, right.

So the largest number of saints settled in and around Quincy, Illinois, which is the true refuge. And the people of Quincy had first encountered the saints on their way to Missouri, so between 1834 and 38. And then in the winter of 1838 to 39, there were thousands of displaced saints walking eastward across the frozen Mississippi River, and many of them settled temporarily in Quincy. So the population in Quincy grew from 835 to 2340, so within five years, and that's all because of the saints. My goodness, it's a flood of people. It is a flood of people, an influx of refugees or immigrants

or whatever you want to call them. I think this is really interesting. The town of Quincy really prided themselves on being generous and benevolent. They had a Quincy Democratic Association and they publicly denounced Missouri for their injustice toward the same. Really? Wow. There might have been a little state competition going on there. We're nicer than you guys. Yeah, and they pledged to assist the Latter-day Saint refugees. So the towns people gather donations and arranged housing and coordinated with local communities to provide assistance for the impoverished Saints. So it kind of reminds me of the news stories

we've been seeing lately about how letter day saints in Germany have worked to accommodate the Afghan refugees and how they're doing that all over. So I love that because I think it's just kind of a give and take. It's a, we've been in your position and we wanna help you kind of thing, although it's, you know, generations later. Yeah, but that's a beautiful idea.

It is that you see yourself in people that you are now able to help. And so you say, I was once in that place. Yeah. Beautiful idea. Yeah. So back to Elizabeth Haven, she said that God has opened their hearts to receive us. We are hungry and they feed us, naked and they clothed us. The citizens have assisted beyond all calculation.

And she also prayed that the heaven's blessings would rest upon them, which I think is really sweet. And I also, I love this, that Eliza Arsnow, who later would be called Zion's poetess, wrote a poem and printed it in the Quincy wig, the newspaper. It's called to the citizens of Quincy. And she's very grandiose in her language, but she was very sincere. She said, ye sons and daughters of benevolence whose hearts are turned, are tuned to notes of sympathy, who have put forth your liberal hand to meet the urgent wants of the oppressed and poor. It's actually a really long poem.

I'm not going to read the whole thing. But at the end, it says, the gratitude which emanates from spirits such as these is no mean offering, neither cheaply one, you noble, generous, hearted citizens of Quincy. So, nothing but high praise and gratitude. Yeah, that is, that sounds very scriptural.

She's kind of speaking scripture there. That is beautiful. That's how she writes. She's amazing. I think it's interesting that when Emma Smith brought her children across the frozen river, she also was carrying the Bible translation manuscripts under her skirt. And the river wasn't frozen enough that they could all just ride in the wagon. So she gets out of the wagon and walks.

And she's holding her baby and her toddler. You've probably seen the picture, the painting by Liz Limon Swindle and Julian and Joseph III are holding on to her skirts and she's got these manuscripts and she's walking across the river. And Joseph III grows up and talks about what a traumatic experience this was. So it's scary. There are dads in jail, in the Liberty Jail, way back in Missouri, and they're just forging ahead. They end up staying in the home of Sarah Cleveland, who lives in Quincy. Her husband's not a member of the church, but Sarah later becomes Emma's first counselor in the Relief Society, which I think is awesome. So at this point, the saints are determined to take advantage of the powers of

government. They have been through so much in Missouri and even in Kirtland, and they really wanted to establish a city where they would be free to exercise their religious rights with the protection of legal authority, something that they had not been afforded before. So, on December 16, 1840, the Illinois governor, Thomas Carlin and the legislature of Illinois were eager to get the votes of Mormon refugees. This is just stacking up for them politically, right? And so they created an act to incorporate the city of Navu, which granted very extensive legal powers to the citizens. And this actually will come into play a little bit later

in the sections that we're talking about today. So this charter, the city charter organized, allowed the saints to organize a legislative body of their own to create laws, the city charter organized allowed the saints to organize a legislative body of their own to create laws within the city and to create the Navu Legion, which was a subset of the state militia, and to establish a university, which they didn't quite get to. And so they became an incorporated church in Illinois with Joseph Smith as trustee. And that's also important because at the end of his life, it was a problem for Emma. So in this property is in

his name, right. And it now belongs to her, but I'm sure bringing it up to the church. But it also belongs to the church. To the church, yeah. Right. Their finances were so inextricably linked together. And Emma was very concerned about providing for her family. And Brigham Young was very concerned about protecting the church. And so there was a lot of tension that came out because of that. But we'll get to more about Emma on this charter.

So also the Nahu period is a really interesting shift with Per Joseph. He receives less revelations during this period. There are 135 sections in our current doctrine of covenants that were written during Joseph's lifetime, but only nine of those come from five years in Navu. So he kind of shifts from receiving revelation to public speaking, which is something that we don't have the records of previously, but we do he as scribes, they write down what he says, and so that's a little bit different in Navu.

And you'll notice in this section, two of these sections are actually letters that he writes to the people of Navu. Okay. So that is an interesting shift for him, because we've seen him writing, writing, writing, and now it's going to be sermons. Yeah, which we don't have in the doctrine and covenants, unfortunately. You know, it's interesting. He does preach six sermons, particularly to the women in the Navi Relief Society. And those are in the Navi Relief Society minutes and recorded by Eliza Arsnow as the secretary.

I was talking to the Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a scholar in Latter-day Saint Women's History. And she said, she's convinced that the Navajo release of Society Minutes should be part of the doctorate and covenants. Yeah. Which I think would be so awesome, right? Yeah, that'd be fantastic.

Can you get access to those on your... Yes, you can. They're in your Gospel Library app. Under, if you go under church history and restoration, so they're available there in under the book, first 50 years of Relief Society. So they're in there, but they're also on the Joseph Smith Papers website.

Okay, this is fantastic. I'm gonna go read these. I didn't know they were there. And I would, I mean, here's six sermons from Joseph Smith. We don't have. Yeah. Right? That they're not readily found right here in your doctrine of covenants. Yeah. They're good. They're good ones. Okay, let's talk a little bit about section 125. So that was kind of a historical context. So beginning in 1839, as the St. Sir Leving, Missouri, many of them are settling on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River in and around Hancock County. But

a smaller number number is settling in scattered communities across the river in the Iowa territory. So there's been a lot of questions about the settlement and they're very eager that the people gather closely together and they're very eager that the people gather closely together, that they're consolidated for safety reasons. And we saw what happened in Hans Mill in Missouri. That was a settlement that was very isolated from other settlements. And so they've learned their lesson. We need to gather closely together. So on May 24th, 1841, Joseph received revelation stating that all the approved stakes should be in Hancock, in County, in Illinois, and Lee County in Iowa,

and all other stakes were discontinued. So they're reorganizing the boundaries. The rivers just between them, right? Yes. So in August of 1841, a church conference was held in what Joseph named Zera Hemla in this section. And there were 326 members of the Zera Hemla branch, and then 80 members of the Nashville branch. I have to say, when I read Nashville, I was like, what Tennessee?

Randall Dopprey? What? But there were a total of 750 members in Iowa stake. And the stake was formally organized on October 5th, 1839, with Joshville is Iowa. Yeah. How many did you say were in the branch in Nashville? 326 in the Zarehemblela branch and how many in Nashville?

Nat 80 in Nashville, so there were a total of 750 members in the iOS stake and That's a real short section. So there's not a lot more. I can tell you about that Jenny. I love this Section 126 because of the idea of taking care of your family. Sometimes I feel like the missionaries go off and leave their families in bad circumstances. And I think, wow, I'm glad we go now before we're married and stuff like this. But what can you tell us to lead into section 126? Wow. So Brigham Young, you're absolutely right.

And this is kind of a pattern that will continue well into Utah, where women are left to fend for themselves. So while this is given specifically to Brigham Young, I think it's also given to Mary Ann, his wife. Again, I told you I wanted to bring in as many women as we can. She's not listed there, but I love that this section recognizes the time that Brigham has spent away from home on several different missions. And he has seen the Lord has seen Brigham Young's labor and toil in his

journeys. So I like John love that he says to take a special care of your family from this time. And he calls it an offering. This was a, a, acknowledges what a sacrifice it was and it's a sacrifice for his wife, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some of those stories, I think, you know, leave your, oh my gosh. Your sick wife and 47 children behind and go in a mission.

Right. Well, I'm going to tell you a little bit about Mary Ann. Okay. So this is his second wife. His first wife, Maryam works, died of consumption in 1832. And after that, because Brigham Young was going on missions, as he was instructed by the Lord, the late Kimball took in his two daughters

when he or she Kimballed and Brigham Young went on a mission. So let's shift to Mary Ann Angel. She is the daughter of this incredible woman Phoebe Angel. I love Phoebe Angel. There's a there's a talk about by Phoebe Angel in at the pulpit. So if you want to learn more about the Angel family, her dad was in a great guy. He was very abusive of the family. So no relation to Truman Angel or the... That's her brother. Oh, okay. Architect of Salt Lake Temple. Uh-huh, and Navu. Yeah. So she was baptized in 1832 when the spirit bore witness to her the truth of the origin of the book of Mormon, and she never doubted after that.

So she went to Kirkland in the spring of 1833. She became acquainted with Brigham Young, and she felt drawn towards him when she heard him preach, and he was very impressed when he heard her testimony. So they got married in early 1834 and she took care of Brigham Young's children. She, like the typical frontier wife, she kept the house and labored faithfully for the interests of the young family, which meant taking care of things while he was on missions.

Kind of like Emma, I think a lot of these ladies were really thank goodness they were really converted and committed to do all of this on their own. So he served missions about half of the time of their first five years of marriage. In fact, shortly after they got married, he was gone for four months with Zion's camp, and he got home just in time for the birth of their first baby in October.

But she raised Brigham Young Stodders, Elizabeth and the late. They had that baby Joseph in 1834, and then they had twins Mary Ann and Brigham. How cute is that? In 1836. She's raising five kids at this point and her husband has been all over the place. He's gone all the time. Right. So he comes back to Kirtland after one of his many missions and

there had been a lot of dissension there with the Kirtland Safety Society and all the issues going on with the church. And so he had to go and hide. So the mobbers terrorized Mary Ann and her children. And when she finally was able to join Brigham Young in far west in the spring of 1838, he was shocked at her condition. And he said this to her, you look as if you were almost in your grave. Which I don't know if that was the nicest thing he could have said to her. Maybe it's good to see you. Yeah.

Right. I don't know. There's a couple other things he could have said. Wow. So they didn't last in Missouri for very long. In fact, it took them quite a while to leave Missouri and get to Illinois. It took them three months just because Brigham Young would go back and try to help other people that didn't have help. So they stayed in 11 different homes in those three months as they were

traveling to Illinois. And let's just add this because of course she was pregnant. Of course. Oh, my word. this because of course she was pregnant. Of course. Oh, my word. So, Brigham Yang left on another mission to England. She had a 10-day old baby and six children. And she was on the Iowa side, right? So two months later, she ran out of food.

So she would take her baby and go across the river to get potatoes and flour and then go back to her family in Iowa. She did sewing and laundry for other people. She was able, someone gave her a little plot of land in Nauvoo. So she would cross the river, plant a garden and come back and then she'd, you know, home. Finally, I am not kidding you. She built a log cabin in Nau with blankets hanging over the windows and doors.

Mary Ann Young. Oh my Mary Ann. That's right. Give her credit. Let's say her name. Give her the credit she deserves. So when Brigham Young returned to Navu in July of 1841, he had been gone for 22 months, and he built a red brick home that's still standing in Navu, but it wasn't ready until May of 1843. So Joseph Smith comes to this very humble log cabin that Mary and Young built, humble log cabin that Mary Ann Young built and gives this revelation to Brigham Young. And I love how it starts. Dear and well beloved brother Brigham Young, and it made me wonder, now is that Joseph talking? And then it's very, very safe to lord unto you, my servant Brigham. So he's got some good introductory titles there. Yeah, he does. He's earned them, I think.

Ann Marienne as well. So to say Ann Marienne, when I read verse two, I have seen your labor and Oh, I'm going, yeah, who's the one that's got to be bold? Laboring in toilet. I built a cabin while you were gone, Brigham. Oh, my goodness. With six kids. Yeah. She, so she was very well known for her benevolent and being benevolent and hospitable in the extreme conditions and administering generous advice and assistance to those in need. I'm really glad you talked about this because I think visitors to Navu would see the Brigham outing home and say, wow, he was living pretty good here. That's a pretty nice house.

Pretty nice house, but you look, you hear this backstory and you think, okay, that's, and you got to give it to Mary Ann Young, don't you? Absolutely. This mission, Jenny, that he leaves on, that you just talked about, was that the horror for Israel's story? Yes. He was very sick. He and he, Bersi Kimball were very sick and they gave it everything.

So they were sick too. Everybody at that in the home is sick. Can you tell us you mentioned before his first wife died of consumption? That's tuberculosis. Is that right? It's tuberculosis. Okay. And then they deal with the problems of malaria in Nauvoo, of course. Rivers and mosquitoes and, you know.

Right, swampy lands. Yeah, swamps. That British mission that they go on, I mean, this is a, we don't have to dive into this, but doesn't this a huge, like, strength to the church over the next? Absolutely. In a lot of different ways. I mean, this provided leadership for the men that were serving missions, but then also the influx of immigrants from Britain became like a huge

part of the church. I think that when they do that British page and did not view, it kind of tells that story and of how important that particular mission that the British Isles was and was it Charles Dickens, the statement about the pick and flower of England that the converts to the church were. Right. Yeah. What it was he trying to say of a high class nature or just not of no class, they were the pick and flower. Well, and it's interesting because so many of them too were such poor people that had worked so hard in factories in the industrial revolution in England, mills and all of that, but they were hard workers and they were anxious. Not only to build Zion and be with the saints, but also for the American dream of being able to pull them themselves up by their bootstraps and make something of their lives that

they could never have had those opportunities in England. As I read this I kind of chuckled that maybe Brigham and Marianne thought, oh good we're finally we can finally be done here for relax. We've done our church service now. Brigham Young and Marianne Young are not going to rest or relax. No. They knew what was coming. Right. Right. So I've also heard that Marianne was an introvert. And interestingly enough, I know this is true. She never joined the Navi Relief Society, which I don't know why. I've never been able to figure out that out As we are hitting I'm looking at the dates here and Jenny you'll have to help me out because we have March of 41 July of 41 and our next section is September 42

When is the relief society? What is it fall here? So that this is the perfect time to talk about the relief society. So the Navar Relief Society was officially organized on March 17, 1842. So the idea for the relief society started with Margaret Cook, who was a seamstress, who worked for Sarah Kimball, who was kind of a wealthy woman. And she had noticed, and there was so much effort going to building the temple, right? And she had noticed the men working on the temple who were in great need of shirts. Now I have to say this, my friends on the Joseph Smith papers joke that if they were going to make a video, a movie of the founding of the Nubba Relief Society, they would be happy to be the men working on the Nubba Temple without their shirts

on. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, we don't want to see you without your shirts on. That's funny. Yeah, it would be, maybe that's why the relief site is like, we gotta get those guys. Yeah, we gotta do something about this. This is hideous. You're gonna be, church history paintings one day. We better get those. Yeah.

Yeah, Anthony Sweats probably already done one, right? A foot man. Yeah, he probably has. Oh, Freeberg wouldn't touch this. Yeah. Oh, but if he did, he might have made them look real good. Boy, they had some big dudes built in that temple. Yeah.

Yeah. So anyway, they decided to create a sewing society. And this is a really popular thing. A lot of there were many women's organizations around the country. They started as early as the late 1700s. So women would see a need and would create organizations to take care of the poor, or the inferm, the sick, sewing societies, missionary societies. This was a very common thing in America.

So they also knew that, so they gathered a little group of their friends together in early March and decided that they would create an official society and then give themselves legitimacy or authority by writing a constitution. One of the women at that sort of planning meeting was Phoebe Rigden. And the wife of Sydney Rigden, Aliza Arsnow, and she knew that Aliza had taught their

family school in Quincy, our town Quincy. And she knew that Aliza had grown up. Her father had been the adjustess of the peace in Ohio, and Aliza had been his secretary and kept his records. So she seemed like the smartest person to do this. So they asked her to write a constitution for the sewing society. And this was Phoebe Rigden and Sarah Kimball went to her.

And Sarah gave her, you guys, this is a cool story. Sarah gave her a little journal, a little book to write the Constitution in. And later when they start the Navi Relief Society, William Willard Richards gives them a really nice big ledger. And Eliza just keeps that journal and she keeps her Navi journal in there. So it's really cool. Like if you, it's one of those books you could flip upside down and start from the other side, you know, and you see this beautiful illustration in it when it was given to Sarah Kimball,

who then gave it to Eliza, who was supposed to write a constitution in it, but then she kept it for her own journal. And it's her Navu journal, it gets us great information. Anyway. Sarah Kimball's, her husband's not a member of the church. Correct.

Sometimes we discount people who are not married to a member or single. And yet here's the beginnings of the largest, the longest standing organization in the world, and it was started by this woman, whose husband, Greg, is not a member of the church. You said Sarah Cleveland before, yeah, Sarah Cleveland. Yeah.

She became the first counselor and her husband also was not a member. And then there's Eliza Arsno who was single. Right, so. We should never discount someone because of what we'd say, the what we think is an ideal typical situation. Right, I love to say that Marona's best work was done one because of what we'd say the what we think is an ideal typical situation.

I love to say that Marona's best work was done as a single adult at the end of the book and more of the last 10 chapters. You know, I have no kin. I have no family. I am alone. Oh, that's so sad though. Come on. It reminds me of my high school days, but okay.

I have no friends. I have nowhere to go. Well, John wrote the article that having no friends. I'm the one, find it in the news era. I have no friends by me. By John, by the way. Sorry to interrupt, okay. That's okay.

So Eliza writes a constitution, and she takes it to Joseph Smith because she wants to get his approval. And he looks at it and he says, this is the best constitution I've ever seen, but I have something better for you. And I want you to gather all these women and bring them to the second floor of the Red Brick store. And so a week later, on March 17th, 1842, you get 21, 22 women gathered

there. And he organizes them after the order of heaven. And that's a phrase we see quite a bit in the doctrine and covenants. And throughout Joseph Smith's legacy, after the order of heaven and after the pattern of the priesthood, he Sarah Kimball remembers that he later said that the church was never fully organized until the women were organized. So this really is a crucial part of the of the complete restoration of the church. So they talk a little bit about what they want to name the society. John Taylor thinks they should name it the benevolent society.

But Emma was the one that was like, no, no, we're not calling it benevolent society because there was the Washington, Washingtonian benevolent society. And they were known for, for a lot of corruption. And she's like, we in no way want to be associated with them. So she very early on sort of took the lead on this. She was elected or selected or voted in as president, which Joseph said, came from her revelation in 1830, now section 25, where she was the elect's lady, and she was the proper one to lead the release of society. He later said that whenever the priesthood was organized on the earth in any dispensation, when it was fully organized, The women were also organized. So we don't, we can't find that in the scriptures, but it makes sense to me. So I love that. So they

created this incredible organization. Joseph Smith said that their purpose was twofold to relieve the poor and to save souls. And I love that because it's a salvific organization. And Eli, or Emma says on the very first day, she says, we are going to do something extraordinary. Oh, it's one of the best quotations in the river. Yeah. If there was a boat stuck on the rapids of the Mississippi River, we expect to be called to their rescue. We are going to do something extraordinary. We expect extraordinary occasions. So I love

it. And that is absolutely what happened. They had incredible opportunities to serve. And I really, I believe this. And I, because I felt it myself as a member of the release society, I feel like when we go and provide relief to others, we find relief for ourselves. So there was a period when I was called to be a release society president in 2010. I was in graduate school living in northern Virginia and about six weeks after I was a family ward, it was a huge ward. It was the Crystal City ward for those of you that know the area. 800 people in the ward. And six weeks after my call, I was diagnosed with leukemia. And my bishop said, I really think we need to keep you in this calling.

You have two very able counselors, and it was true. I did. I had the best counselors. And they even, I was in the hospital for five weeks. And they even, this is before Zoom, okay? In the olden days, before Zoom. The olden 2010-ish day. Right.

Yeah. The elders' current president got a camera for my laptop, and I participated in word council from my hospital room. But I'll tell you what, that was probably one of the things that saved my soul in a most horrible time of my life. Because I could have just curled up in a ball on my bed. But instead I had my laptop, I had my phone, I had I sent cards in the mail to people and people would come visit me, even less active people would come visit me because you can't turn down a call to go visit a bald relief society president, right? Yeah, come visit. Right, we have this great picture. We had to do a picture of our presidency for word history.

We had presidency meetings in my bed. So we have this picture in all of my sweet presidency put on hats so that we could all be and can see our hair. Relief society president while being treated for cancer. Leukemia. Yeah. Yeah.

Good times. It saved my life. Literally. It saved my life. I remember President Ucdorf saying it's often when we try to answer other people's prayers that we find the answers to our own. Yeah. That sounds like that.

Oh, it reminds me of our friend, Meg Johnson, who's a quadriplegic after a fall who said, the doctors fixed me, but service healed me. Her soul, you know. It's true, I remember a really hard day. We, I had the best compassionate service leader. So when I'm at home from the hospital, I had two years of chemo. My compassionate service

leader would arrange rides for me to the hospital to get chemo or stupid spinal taps, which I hated. Terry Ekohock was the state relief society president. And I literally, I think I threw up in her car six times. On the way. I had a plastic bag, don't worry. But one day it was just extremely hard. And I had roommates, but they were gone working during the day. And so my compassionate service leader set up a calendar where someone would come visit me

in the afternoon. Just to check in on me, make sure I was OK. And one day it was my my sweet friend Marion Anderson and it was had been a really hard day and she just sat on the stairs with me where I was sitting and she just cried with me and put her arm around me and that was just what I needed was someone just to be with me. And it was it was my relief society sister and I'm so so grateful for that. So I have a testimony of Relief Society. Yeah, we're gonna do something extraordinary.

We are. In fact, I put that on my license plate cover. Oh, that's great. I love this. So much of this in your book, it's fun to hear it again about how it was organized and coming up with the name. And it was Emma who really pushed through the name relief, wanted the relief in there. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, in just looking at Emma's life at the time, this, it was organized on March 17th, 1842. She in August of 1841, so that's, you know, six months, whatever, eight months before she lost her 14-month-old son, and Don Carlos to malaria. And then in February, she had a miscarriage, and she found out her mother had died. So I think the timing is so interesting because she needed this group of women and she needed a place where she could feel safe and she could feel loved and it came.

Oh my goodness. And she hadn't seen her mom. No. In fact, this kind of transition into baptism for the dead a little bit, see if you can follow my segue. So in Joseph and Emma left Harmony in the early fall of 1830, Emma said goodbye to her parents and never returned and broke off a relationship with them even. And I think they were going on their way to Fayette

New York, which was quite a journey from harmony But I think it really reflects what the Lord told her in section 25 that she should go with Joseph at his going Now this was hard her father didn't approve of Joseph and Their family the Hale family was a very tight knit family. And when her siblings got married, they all stayed in the area, right? And her father was just concerned about Joseph, not the fact that he was uneducated because her sisters had married people that were uneducated and poor, but the fact that he worried that he would take his daughter away and that he wouldn't be able to provide for his daughter. So he was really concerned about that. So in 1830 she said goodbye and never saw them again. And when she heard that her father passed away, which was sometime in 1841 or 42, um, 41, I think her nephew was living near Navu.

And so he came and told her the news and Emma immediately sat down and wrote a letter to her mother. And it was the first letter that she had written. She caught her up on all the kids that she had and that she lost. And she begged that her and her siblings to come to Illinois. Even if they didn't have to join the church, she just needed family there. And her mother was too sick to come. So she died in harmony. But I actually kind of, I love that Emma's first baby died in harmony and her parents were buried right next to that baby. So yeah, it's so beautiful. And if you go there today, those, those, that's all been restored that area really. Yeah, it's beautiful.

Yeah. I never knew that they, that she hadn't written and then finally yeah, she wrote Yeah, yeah, so actually next I want to talk about baptisms for the dead But immediately when Emma heard that her father had died She did his baptism she was baptized for him in the Mississippi River and I love that This is of course before the time when Brigham Young said, okay, you have to do it. It's solely by gender, but there's some other great stories. And we know that Joseph Smith first taught that doctrine in August of 1840 at the funeral of Seymour Branson. So it's interesting, we don't have a revelation on that,

but we do have two letters that came in, this is all gonna come together in this really cool way. You guys just hold on to your seats. So we don't have revelation written down in the doctrine of evidence about baptisms for the dead, but we do have these two letters that come in September of 1841. This idea of losing people that hadn't been baptized into the church was really troubling for the Smith family because of the loss of their son and brother, Alvin. He was such a dear person to them.

And there were many others. So one of the people that was in the congregation listening to this sermon by Joseph, remember how I told you that he gave more sermons and less revelations at this time? One of these women, she's become one of my favorite women. Her name is Jane Nyman. And she and her husband were from Western Pennsylvania when they joined the church and their teenage son Cyrus had died. And she and her husband often talked about how they wished

he could be baptized. So they moved to Navu, they're so poor. Her husband dies, they're destitute. In fact, they later, she later receives assistance from the Relief Society because they're so poor. So Jane Niamen was actually the first person in this dispensation to be baptized for the dead. And she went into the Mississippi River

and was baptized for her son, Cyrus, and Vienna Jakes, who you've probably talked about before, rode her horse into the river to beat the witness. So there's our example of the first female witness. Isn't it awesome that today women can be witnesses? And it's just a beautiful story. So again, Emma was baptized for her father when he died. She was baptized for her mother and for her sister and some friends. But I would love to share some more women's experiences if that's okay

with baptism for the dead. Phoebe Woodruff was living near Na'vo when this talk was given by Joseph, this understanding of baptism. And her husband Wilford Woodruff was on a mission in England. And this is what she wrote to him. She said, brother Joseph has learned by revelation that those in this church may be baptized for any of their relatives who are dead and had not a privilege of hearing this gospel. Even for their children, parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles, and aunts.

As soon as they are baptized for their friends, they are released from prison, and they can claim them in the resurrection and bring them into the celestial kingdom. This doctrine is cordially received by the church, and they are going forward in multitudes. Some are going to be baptized as many as 16 times in one day. They were so excited. And then Wilford Rudraiff recorded that the moment I heard of it, my soul leaped with joy. I went forward and was baptized for all of my dead relatives I could think of. I felt to say hallelujah when the revelation came forth, revealing to us baptism for the

dead. I felt that we had a right to rejoice in the blessings of heaven. It's so beautiful. And those quotations for our listeners are right in our come follow me, man. Yeah. So pay to the ninety one. So yeah. And you know, this is one of those doctrines that, you know, Joseph Smith said once that

good doctrine tastes good, I can taste the spirit of eternal life. And so can you, this is one of those that you kind of hear it and you think of course, of course, the Lord would make a way for them to receive the blessing of the ordinance that never had a chance to hear it in this life. It's one of those, well, of course, this, this fits. And so it's fun to hear their reaction, imagine hearing that for the first time, you know. Yeah, did any of you guys see the musical 1820? Yes. Oh my gosh, my favorite song, I think,

well, maybe either first or second favorite, was after Joseph and Emma's first baby died, and after the burial and Joseph came to Emma and said, we have not lost our child, our child will be saved. And they sing this incredible, hallelujah praise song. And a soul's alive in Christ, I think is what it's called.

So, and that song is available. So any of you who have not heard it or do not have the soundtrack downloaded to your phones You are gonna want that because it is so joyous. I think it's the same kind of joy that we're seeing in these records here Yeah, yeah, I I saw that show and I thought this is that I remember that song. I remember Oh, that's such a beautiful You can feel how happy they were that to know that they hadn't lost that baby forever. And contrasting that with what does the preacher say at Alvin's funeral, right?

Yeah. Sorry. He'll burn in hell. He's an example of all of us, right? Put those two side by side and it even tastes better. Right. The truth. Right.

It's incredible. There's some other accounts there in the Come Follow Me manual. The late Kimball writes to her husband Heber when he's on his mission. And she calls it a glorious doctrine. So it's really, really, really exciting. And that's really the central message of these last two sections. Yes, it is. Okay. It is. So let me tell you a little bit about what's going on. Joseph Smith is had to go into hiding.

Let me give you a little background because this involves the relief society. So the people in Missouri, the governor, the ex-governor, little burn bogs had wanted to extradite Joseph back to Missouri and they all knew that was a death trap for him. And so Emma and the women of the relief society in August of 1842 wrote a petition and had thousands of people sign it. And they took it, so here's who took it

to Governor Thomas Carlin of Illinois in Springfield. Emma Smith, Eliza Arsnow, and Amanda Barnsmith. Now, this is so fascinating to me, because these three women had experienced the tragedies of Missouri. Emma had her husband in prison. Eliza had a lot of stuff going on. Some sexual assault, most likely, lost everything. Amanda Barn Smith was a widow whose husband and son were killed at Hans Mill. And she had to deal with the repercussions of

that in getting her family and a very injured son to safety in Illinois. So these were three women that were very acquainted with the troubles of Missouri that took this petition to Governor Carlin. And he was very kind to them and very gracious. And after they, he said he would do everything he could to protect Joseph Smith. After they returned back to Navu, Emma keeps up a correspondence with him. And these letters are now in the community of Christ, the reorganized church of Jesus Christ

in their archive and independence Missouri. And if you read these letters, they are a, she is smart as a whip. She knows the city charter, she knows the state charter, she knows the US Constitution, and she knows how to speak in a way that will appeal to, in the language of politics and policy, and she knows what she can demand. And I love it. She's amazing. So despite this this correspondence between the two of

them, Governor Carlin didn't keep his word and allowed people to come try to extradite Joseph and so Joseph went into hiding. Our listeners may not realize that there were once politicians who didn't keep their word. I don't know. That doesn't happen today, but it may be shocking to everyone. It was the 1800s. It was a different day. It was olden days. Before he went into hiding, Joseph met very briefly with a Relief Society on August

31, 1842. And he said that he talked about baptisms for the dead, because this is still going on. He says all persons baptized for the dead must have a recorder present that he may be an eyewitness to record and testify of the truth and validity of the record. It will be necessary in the grand council that's an air quotes, that these things be testified. And so then, just the next day, he writes a letter that is now section 127. Please join us for part two of this podcast.

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