followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 37-40 : Dr. Susan Easton Black Part I

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Imagine growing up hearing the stories of Emma Hale Smith, Phoebe Carter, the Whitmers, Brigham Young, and Brother Joseph. This week’s guest, Dr. Susan Easton Black, didn’t grow up hearing fairy tales but true stories of bravery, faithfulness, betrayal, and courage. Dr. Black teaches us how the Lord taught His People that Zion and the Church were more than a place they visited on Sundays, how they received the command to “gather to the Ohio,” and how Joseph continued his New Translation of the Bible. Do we sacrifice as willingly for the Lord as our earliest Saints as we study Doctrine and Covenants 37-40?Shownotes: www.followhim.coYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FollowHimOfficialChannelInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcast

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. My friends, welcome to another episode of Follow Him. I am here with my prolific co-host, John, by the way. Welcome, John. Thanks, Hank. I'm prolific. You're prolific. I'd love to know what that means.

Yeah, you are. You are talented and amazing. In fact, someone asked me the other day what it's like to do this with you. And I said, if you would have told me, see, I was 12 years old when I heard you speak. And if you would have said to me that one day you young man are going to do a podcast with John, by the way, you know what I would have said? I would have said, what's a podcast. That's what I would have said. And I would have said, that's amazing. John, this is just such a treat. Every week we get to talk with one of the church's top minds, and we have another chance this week. Tell us who's with us. Oh, I'm genuinely, I mean, it's always customary to say it's good to be here,

but I am so excited to be here with Sister Susan Easton Black joining us today. I told my wife, hey, guess who's coming on the podcast? And she said, oh, I took two classes from her. Liked her first one so much, I took it again. And just love Sister Black. So I'm going to read a short bio from Sister Susan Easton Black here so that you can be better acquainted with her. Dr. Black joined the BYU religious education faculty in 1976 she's a past Eliza R. Snow fellow and a past associate dean of general education and honors and a director of church history in the religious studies center

and she was the recipient of the Carl G. Mazur Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award in 2000 and it's interesting because she was the first woman to receive that award. And I believe the recipient before her was Hugh Nibley. This is an award that everybody wants. And it's not just the religion faculty. She has authored, edited, and compiled over 130 books, 300 articles. She currently serves as, oh my goodness, I want to send my kids to your class, Sunday school teacher for the 14 and 15 year olds, and for the stake as a self-reliance course teacher. And she and her husband, George, have since retiring have served four missions, and one of those was a curriculum writer under Elder Tad Collister for the

Come Follow Me manuals that we use here every week. So we are so excited to have Sister Black with us here today. Thank you. Susan, thank you so much for taking your time. It's a treat, actually. It's so fun to see, well, to see both of you and happy memories. For those of you who don't know who Sister Black is, just know that this woman, and I don't think I'm overstating this here, knows more about Joseph Smith, especially Joseph Smith in the Nauvoo period, than probably any other person on the planet. It's just, she's... Hey, thanks. That's a big compliment. Probably not deserved, but thank you. Just absolutely. In fact, Sister Black, how long have you been studying the history of the church?

Whoa. I think it started for me. My grandmother was in my home as I grew up. And I would say to her, I wanted to hear Cinderella's Snow White Sleeping Beauty. And she actually didn't know those. She left school in seventh grade. And so she could say, I can only tell you things that are true. And so she then regaled me with stories of Joseph Smith and Hans Mill and Carthy's Jail and Pioneers Crossing the Plains. And I actually thought in my mind then and haven't changed much that they were such amazing heroes. I mean, who could rise up to be like them? Wow.

Just yesterday, as I was looking for a good biography, short biography for Sister Black, I stumbled upon a talk that she and George Durant gave. And I got backstory to Joseph Smith running for president that I had never heard and understood before. So I read that whole thing yesterday and told my wife and she was like, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Because she had you and she remembers everything. But anyway, I hope our listeners will go find that because it was fascinating. This week, come follow me. The lesson is sections. It starts in sections 37 and 38 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Susan, it's December of 1830. The church is, what, eight months old at this point? Eight months old. Now, what's been happening to this new church, which would help our, who are pretty new to the Doctrine and Covenants, some of them, what would help them know what leads up to these revelations? Oh, great. Well, we know that the church was organized on April 6, 1830, and we've got now an eight-month gap as we come to Section 37, right? Yeah. So during that time, we know that no doubt one of the more exciting parts

was the missionaries sent to the borders of the Lamanites. And we had at that time a nation of 26 states, and your farthest western community was a place named Independence, Missouri, having been settled by people from Kentucky and the Carolinas and Tennessee. And so these missionaries are heading out that way about 1,600 miles from where they started in Fayette. And along the trail, we know that they stopped in a place called Mentor and ultimately Kirtland. And before they left there, three weeks, try and imagine this. They'd baptized 127 people, and then they're off to continue their journey.

And so what we've got in the meantime, of course, you've got Joseph Smith, a little back and forth between Harmony, Pennsylvania and New York, kind of back and back. And as we pick them up today with Section 37, we're now in Fayette, New York. And it might be interesting to our audience to know that Fayette wasn't its original name. It was called Romulus. And at one point, it was called the town of Washington, meaning after George Washington, but by 1803, Fayette, New York is Fayette, New York. These four missionaries,

this is Oliver Cowdery, Parley, Saiba Peterson, and Peter Whitmer Jr. And the one connection already there is Parley, right? Parley is a wanderlust person. You know, you'd say where other people are content to be home, you'd say, not Parley. He's up and off, and he's willing to live in a wilderness area by himself and had actually spent time in the area and became acquainted with a man who was a minister at Sidney Rigdon. He'd been a Baptist. He's been a, well, you name it. He hasn't quite been all of those, but he's been a Baptist. Kind of helps join in almost like a charter member of the Campbellite group and a seeker. And for Parley, as long as he's heading out to the borders of the Lamanites, out to independence, it's not that far of a leap to say, let me go see my old friend, Sidney Rigdon.

And that's so, he had been in that community before, comes back with a copy of the Book of Mormon saying, I've been baptized a member of a new church. And of course, Sidney Rigdon, perhaps at first a little put off, but we're going to find that Parley actually baptizes his old friend on November 14th of 1830. So by the fall, they're in Kirtland and Sidney becomes one of those many, you know, over a hundred that are baptized in by these missionaries. Yeah. And I don't know the number of members in New York, but that's got to be,

are we doubling the size of the church with this Ohio? We probably have doubled it because you have, when the church is organized, you've got 63 members we can name by name, and who knows if we've got them all. They're in Colesville. But then you have those meeting in Palmyra and those also meeting in Fayette, and there's some up in Waterloo. In other words, the church is growing, but definitely with those baptisms, it appears almost we doubled the church. How would you like to say that as a missionary, John? How did you do in your mission? Well,

I doubled the size of the church. I think that'd be okay to say. That'd be all right. Yeah. I don't know much about Ziba Peterson or Peter Whitmer Jr. We have talked quite a bit about Oliver, of course, and they're going to make this 1600 mile journey on foot. On foot. You'd say for Ziba Peterson, he doesn't stay in the church.

And you go, what's up with Ziba Peterson, he doesn't stay in the church. And you go, what's up with Ziba? And apparently, he seems to have a little bit of difficulties along the way, but he ultimately ends out in California in a town called Dry Diggins. I remember when there was the gold rush, right? And in his part, it was Dry Diggins. But he's credited in California with being the first sheriff to actually hang a man once it's all taken over by the U.S., right? And hang a man for a crime in his time. And so they changed the name of his town to Hangtown. So if you've ever heard Hangtown, USA,

has everything to do with Siva Peterson. Wow. No kidding. One of the original four missionaries. When I do church history tours, I don't think we can overstate the importance of this mission and what it does to the future of the church, right? Yes, it's dramatic what the missionaries did. Not only did they make it out to Independence, which we know of as Zion plans to make it a new Jerusalem? But Kirtland, we're going to—well, we learned today that the churches in Kirtland from 1831 through 1837, a little bit into 1838, and so has a huge impact. And if you were to look at the 135 individuals mentioned by name in the Doctrine and Covenants, where did the majority of them stem from? What do they all kind of

most have in common? You'd have to say Kirtland, Ohio, and it has something to do with these missionaries sent to the layman. Absolutely. Your friend and my friend Carl Anderson likes to say the church was organized in New York, but it was restored in Ohio. Okay. We all like Carl. Hey, a couple of things about Peter Whitmer Jr. I think are pretty fun. He is a tailor by trade. And by the time he makes it out to Independence, he's sewing a suit for Lilburn W. Boggs. And so you get us right there on the very front. And he also sews a suit for Alexander Donovan. And you get the two key players there in Missouri are also kind of picked up then by these missionaries. They make contact.

Yeah. In about what? In about eight years, those two names are going to become... are also kind of picked up then by these missionaries. They make contact. Yeah, in about what? In about eight years, those two names are going to become crucial, crucial to the church. Yeah. So I might be jumping the gun here, but then is it fair to say that, and the Lord may have had his own reasons, but it seems logical that let's move everything to Ohio because so many members are there all of a sudden because of that mission to the Lamanites. I mean, it makes me think of all sorts of things.

Zion's camp that wasn't what they expected, but some great things happened. Mission to the Lamanites, which wasn't what they expected, but look at these tremendous members, 120 that they got there. So is it fair to say that's why the Lord is now going to start talking about the Ohio? Well, I don't know if I can second guess the Lord here on this. Yeah, exactly. But for sure, he knew that in the Ohio, the saints would receive an endowment from on high. And we just needed to get them there so they could have the priesthood power. As they went out to share the gospel, where you begin seeing, I mean, it's just so dramatic, the numbers that now exponentially increase once they've stepped and touched down in Ohio

and have those blessings they received in that. Okay, if we now move to the content, section 37, I like this, maybe a little bit of background story. We know that Sidney Rigdon had joined the church, right? And is baptized by Parley P. Pratt in mid-November of 1830. We also know that when he finally comes to Fayette, New York, that he brings with him or chooses to come with him an Edward Partridge, who is a hatter by trade. Edward had a similar experience with Sidney Rigdon in the fact that both men had met, the missionaries to the Lamanites, but the difference was Edward Partridge

had received a copy of the Book of Mormon. He actually sent an employee to go get him a copy of the Book of Mormon so he could read it. He believed the Book of Mormon, but he wasn't ready to be baptized. He wanted to meet Joseph. And so with that, you get, no doubt, two friends. Both had been of different religious persuasions. You get Sidney Rigdon, who's a Campbellite, and you get Edward Partridge, who's been involved in the Unitarian Church. And these two friends now travel 275 miles. Now, try and imagine, for that, we could probably do it in four hours, you know, depending on speeding trips and, you know, how long we go. But in their case,

obviously days to be able to meet the prophet Joseph. So one day after meeting Joseph Smith, Edward Partridge, who would live to be a bishop, a man without guile, who's like Nathaniel of old, he will be baptized. So by the time we pick up section 37 in December, you've got no doubt two men that are baptized. And as they're baptized, they now uh joseph receives this revelation and in the revelation he joseph is told it's time to gather and to gather to where to basically gather to where sydney and edward had just come from and so what you get is this amazing doctrine of gathering it's a first introduced in section 37 but you realize if you're going to gather something, you had to have scattered it, right? It's like kids playing Legos on the floor. You scatter them, and then

somebody's got to gather those up, and you hope it's them, or maybe it's mom or dad, somebody else comes in. So I think first we need to say, well, what is scattered? And what would you two say? Oh, I love it. I've often said this to my students. Listen, if we're going to talk so much about the gathering, we better know what the scattering looked like. So I go through the big three kings of Israel, David and Solomon, and then talk about Israel wanting a king and breaking up, right? And kind of falling apart. Okay. So what we know is that the house of Israel then becomes scattered. And then try and imagine, I can't go many days and leave the Legos on the floor. But try and imagine the Lord is going to wait millennia before he says, it's time to gather. So what we learn about the Lord is he has amazingly much more patience than

I do. If the kids have scattered, I want to bring them home. I want them home at Christmas. I want them home for family dinners. But suddenly they're scattered. And now the Lord says, it's time to gather. And the Lord indicates the first place of gathering. And I think that's so significant. He doesn't say Hawaii, so everybody's going to be out on the beaches, right? He doesn't say Florida, and we're going to party on in Miami, right? But he says, I tell you what, where I want you to gather is Ohio. The land that still has land almost free for the taking, I want you to go to the Ohio. So then you're going, well, what is Ohio? I mean, it had been part of the Connecticut Reserve, but now it's its own state, its own entity, and they're told to come.

My students will sometimes say, you know, why is Nephi so obsessed with the gathering of Israel? Why is Isaiah so obsessed with the gathering of Israel? And I'll say, they were living the scattering. They're in the middle of the scattering of Israel. Of course, they're interested in the future gathering that one day, right? A lot of, a lot of us just don't connect that here's Lehi and his family being taken out of the promised land and sent to a different promised land. Right. And, um, that's part of the scattering

and they're looking forward. What does Jacob say? We're on an aisle in a strange land, right? We're far away. And one day we're going to go home. One day we're all going to go home. And here it is, section 37. I don't know if we can understand the gravity of this moment, right? It's a huge moment. And I think every prophet, if we had all of their writings, would be talking about, you know, there'll be the gathering.

And then the gathering starts under Joseph Smith. But what I think is so interesting, it was always a place. So Kirtland was a place of gathering. Independence was a place of gathering. Far West, Nauvoo, Salt Lake, and then with settling missions, the whole Intermountain West mountain west I mean from Carson down to the colonies in Mexico uh you know it's gathering and it's always been a place until the 1920s and in the 1920s in Los Angeles you get Heber J. Grant coming, and he will quote then the Savior's words,

found in John 15, 19, where he basically is saying, you can be in the world, but guess what? Don't be of the world. So when we describe gathering today, it's different than they described in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, if you look at the 19th century. So since 1920s, I was born at a time where you gather to your word house, you gather to your state, you gather to your temple.

You know, in other words, you blossom where you bloom. Does that sound familiar to you? Or is that the era we're all in? Lift where you stand, right? Lift where you stand. Does that sound familiar to you or is that the era we're all in? Yep. Okay. Lift where you stand, right? Lift where you stand. In other words, and it's a different type of gathering.

When I think about the saints, especially so many in the United Kingdom, you go to Nauvoo and you see that British pageant that they put on. And to gather was a tremendous sacrifice to a place, to an exact place. And I feel like today it's gathered two stakes of Zion wherever you are. And that started in 1920, huh? With Heber J. Grant. Interesting. So before that, you're in Denmark, you'd pick up and move. Other Scandinavian countries, you'd pick up and move. I think there's sacrifice. And I think as we realize that some don't choose to do it, I mean, it's a choice, right? We may say, well, it's easy to go to church and take the sacrament and even do it weekly. But are you telling me I've got to sell out and everybody knows that if I want to follow a prophet, that I'm selling my home and they can get it dirt cheap.

And I'm going to trade brick and mortar for a wagon where I can stuff everything I can possibly stuff in and go 270 miles and find that I'm moving into a place that's already crowded. And it's not like, I mean, many are going to live outside of the Kirtland area just because there's not room. I mean, it's a huge sacrifice. Well, I like what you said there about a choice, because that's verse four, let every man choose for himself until I come. And this is what I'm asking you to do, and you have a choice, but this is what I'm asking you to do. And like you said earlier about, what did you say? 275 miles. You can speed in your car, but what was moving your house like back then? Your whole household for that far and just, okay, everybody come to the Ohio. I was going to say, I know that Lucy Mack describes it almost like an exodus of Israel out of Egypt, right? I mean, and now we go to Section 38.

Section 38, I always think this is so interesting because you've got the Lord who's now basically saying, Hey, I told you guys, go to the Ohio. And the question is, after Section 37, did anybody go? And the answer is no. It's like going to sacrament meeting and listening to talks. And when you come home, did your life change? You go, oh, absolutely not. So it's like it went one ear out the other.

And then the Lord now says, okay, I'm going to make this more clear. Before we leave section 37, in verse 1, the Lord says, Because of the enemy and for your sakes. Okay, this is a pretty difficult time in western New York. The church is not well received. There's persecution. There is even some talk as we go into 38 that people are even plotting death to some of the leaders of the church. Very,

very difficult time. I think now we live in a society where you can believe something, I can believe something, and they'll just say, oh, you know, she's not on target. But back then, they had solid beliefs and solid feelings about if you didn't share those beliefs. See, I think if they were plotting to kill me, I think, okay, yeah, let's load up the wagon. It'd give you an incentive, right? Yeah. Okay. What do you think, Susan, about, I mean, this is a church of a hundred and something people.

Why is it getting so much attention from outsiders? Is it just because it's, I mean, they had new churches coming in, they had Methodism coming in, you know, and blossoming. What is it about this group that bothers non-believers so much to start threatening them? Because, I mean, I don't know, it's a small little group. Is it that they're threatening maybe to take members of their family and convert them? Well, I'm sure the, quote, sheep stealing was part of the issue, but truth, well, think of the Savior. There's a lot that will fight against truth. Yeah. And especially if it totally impacts their way of life. Yeah.

To me, it's just an indication of a darker force wants to stop this before it can get started. Right. Right. You know, just nip it in the bud because it's going to roll forth, fill the whole earth, right? Right. Remember the book of Revelation when the dragon wants to eat the child as soon as it is born, right? The. Remember the book of Revelation, when the dragon wants to eat the child as soon as it is born, right? The moment it is born. It reminds me of that, like, let's stop this before it can even start. And here's the Lord is saying, all right, we got to move. We got to

get out of here. You're in trouble. Well, section 38, notice it said a conference of the church. So I wanted to say something about conferences. We know about conference. We gather, we listen. We either gather in, we listen on television, some kind of electronic device now. But you get the church organized in April and the first conference is in June. And their second conference is in September. And their third conference, what we're talking about in Section 38, is January 2, 1831.

And I think we'd all go, hold it. We know that conference was not held in June, September, January. Conference has to be held the first week in what? April and October. Perfect. So that conference being held in April and October did not start until the saints moved to Nauvoo. And it's interesting that the April and October had everything to do with parading.

And what would happen, you get Nauvoo is like the hub of a wagon wheel and you get you've got 23 little communities that Joseph founded on the Illinois side of the river and then you can find 15 on the Iowa side and when did they all gather they gathered for parading and it was a military parading because every man 18 to 45 is in some kind of a military unit. In this case, we called it the Nauvoo Legion. So when was the time to gather them? It was always April would begin it.

That was your first parade. Obviously, bigger parades, July 4th. But when was the last parade? The first week in October. And since that time, we have celebrated conferences for the most part in April and October. But all right. So with that, we are now at the third conference on January 2nd of 1831. So notice section 38 is the first revelation given in the year 1831. We now start off.

The place where the revelation, where the conference is being held, is Peter Whitmer Sr.'s farmhouse there in Fayette. And one of those attending was Orson Pratt. And Orson Pratt, as he described, as they're meeting for this conference, he said, you know, the whole church in New York, we all met in the one room. And no one there took notes. So we do not know what goes on. You know, the secretary can make or break you, right? Yeah. And sure enough, just, you know, it was a disaster. So with the fact that no notes were kept,

you know, all of us historians were like, where are the notes? But know, it was a disaster. So with the fact that no notes were kept, you know, all of us historians were like, where are the notes? But we assume it was kind of business as usual, passing of sacrament. We know that Joseph Smith was sitting, had a table in front of him. We also know that he asked Sidney Rigdon to be the scribe. And then Joseph received a revelation. And what we have now in section 38 is what Sidney wrote down on that occasion. Just thinking about it, you realize how fast we all talk. Can you imagine Sidney going, hold it? The last words I got were, would you mind? Go back, go back, Slow down, slow down. So can you imagine how slow Joseph would have had to have spoken?

I mean, Sidney did not know Pittman shorthand, which was starting to be big at that time. But he's going to write it out longhand, word for word. We're talking about a long process to be able to get out the entire Section 38, which is, by the way, much longer than Section 37. Yes. You got to wonder if Sidney and Edward Partridge knew what they were getting into when they took that trip from Ohio to New York, that they would be sitting recording a revelation. Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing opportunity for Sidney Rigdon, as well as all those that sat there and listened. Well, kind of getting into the section, we know that the first seven verses that the

Lord is introducing himself. He wants them to know, and then we get into what is the crux of it, but he wants them to know that he is the great I am. In other words, he's Jehovah. He's the God of the Old Testament, the New Testament, the God today. He knows all things. He made the world. He's a great creator. In other words, he establishes who he is, and that he even indicates, I'm in your midst, but you cannot see me. So what you get is he wants everybody to know it isn't just Joseph Smith winging it, and that this message is a revelation from Jesus Christ. He even talks about the atonement in those first seven verses. What he wants them to know is that, hey, if you're going to call

yourselves my disciple, then when you receive a law, you have to do the law. So the question is, what's the Lord noticing about these people? And what he's noticing, he then repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats. And your kind of pivotal verse, if you're looking for what's the bottom line, it's verse 32, where he says, for this cause, I gave unto you the commandment that you should go where? I'm telling you, you need to go to Ohio. Then he explains why. You know, it's easy to talk about history and say, who, what, when, where, but also all of a sudden you get the why. Who, what, when, where was not moving them into action. You know, you, you are to go, but now he gives you the why. And he says, you go to Ohio and there you will receive the law. And we can look at Kirtland alone. What do you have? 48 revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants.

You know, in other words, hey, you're going to get my law. But then he says, and there you shall be endowed with power from on high. And from that point, men can be sent forth to gather this great house of Israel. So and telling it by the end, every man warn his neighbor. And so as you conclude with the last verse, go ye out from among the wicked, save yourselves, be clean that bear the vessels of the Lord. As I look at section 38, I say, here's section 37. They're told, go to the Ohio's. And no one budges, right? No one's packed a barrel, a suitcase. No one said, I wonder if I'm going to need this for my trip. And all of a sudden, Section 38 just pounds the nail.

And go there. And now here's why. You're going to get my law. You're going to be endowed with power from on high. You're going to have power as you go out to gather the house of Israel. I can't help but think of how I've done this in my own life. You know, I get a feeling, a prompting, something, and I go, oh, that is a, that's an interesting prompting. And then I just go about my day, right? Like, what an interesting, and then almost you can feel the Lord going, okay, are you going to do it?

Right? Let's follow up here. Let me tell you again. I have a question about the timing of mentioning Enoch and the timing of Moses 7 being completed. Wasn't it just before this revelation? And then the Lord mentions the Zion of Enoch in verse 4. Right. In other words, it's so obvious the Lord knows what's going on. He's not an absentee father that just occasionally checks in, email, I don't know, something. But he is aware of what's going on where Joseph is in the translation. And he's also aware you got to get out and you got to get out now. Susan, do you think in verse 32 that you mentioned, you know, go to Ohio, I'll give you my law,

and there you'll be endowed with power. Is that the Lord starting to hint at a temple? It sure could be because you look at the Kirtland Temple and you get the keys of the restoration. I mean, if we were looking at the blessings, they're going to get there. You know, the temple, the restoration of priesthood keys, Moses, Elias, Elijah. We're going to get the office of bishop, first presidency, Quorum of the Twelve, 70s. I mean, you know, all this law and the organization to move forward the church to gather Israel. I mean, it's just all there. They need to go.

I think one indication that the Lord is very serious about this is we've talked in previous episodes how crucial the Joseph Smith translation is to the restoration. And the Lord in section 37 says, stop, almost as if we're pausing the restoration until you move. I think as we're looking at, you know, the Peter Whitmer farm, Peter Whitmer, I mean, there's been 20 revelations where you can directly put Fayette and assume they're at his farmhouse, right? And we know the witnesses, three witnesses see the angel Moroni in the place. I mean, such a significant place. But Peter Whitmer, when he sells out, he's selling out for bottom dollar. He gets $2,200 for his farm.

And then if you were to say, did the church acquire the farm back? They eventually get the farm in 1926. And then during my lifetime, I can remember of all the general conferences, since we're on general conferences. The one I most remember was in 1980, they had restored that Peter Whitmer farmhouse. And Spencer W. Kimball was the prophet. And suddenly, you think you're going to get it from the tabernacle, it's going to be broadcast to the world, and you get this great, great prophet, Spencer W. Kimball saying, hey, I'm standing up right in the now restored Peter Whitmer Farmhouse, and I'm going to kind of conduct and speak from here. And I don't know, I just think

it's just such a marvelous place. That was the 150th anniversary, right? 150th anniversary. I remember that. I was a teenager and I remember President Kimball in that farmhouse of Fayette. That was amazing. That's the only time I ever remember General Conference not being from the tabernacle in my memory. Same, in my memory also. So I wonder, we're only nine years away from the 2030. Yeah, where are we going to come from? What's going to happen?

What's going to happen? I think one part where we've quoted this quite a bit in the church, I think, is in verse 27, the Lord says, be one. If you are not one, you are not mine. The idea of unity in this church, he talks about everyone esteem his brother as himself, because some people are going to be more well-off than others, right? To move. And it's this idea of you are a family, you're a group, you're a team, move together. I imagine some would have the means to pick up and go and others would say, how am I going to get there? Right. I think that was dramatically felt. And John Whitmer, who ultimately becomes a church historian, wrote that there was a great division.

Because you get those that are saying, I want to go and those that just like you're talking about that can go and have the means and those that do not. And are you willing to help your brother? And I think that's always the question even today. Well, and I think that I'm looking at here we have one of Jesus's parables that we don't find anywhere else in verse 26 about the 12 sons. Yeah, I've never seen this parable before, but he has 12 sons and is no respecter of them. And he says to one, be clothed in robes and sit thou there, and the other, be thou clothed in rags and sit there and look upon them sons and say, I am just. I've given this unto you as a parable.

And then the be one. And if you're not one, you're not mine. And right after talking about the Zion of Enoch, talking about this kind of oneness, I also think. I'm going to say like it's a precursor to the law of consecration, right? When you consider, when I teach this, I love to say, okay, if we're not His, what are the alternatives? They're not very good. There's really not any good alternatives to that.

It's kind of like the, um, will you also go away? Well, where would we go? There's, There's no good alternatives. Sometimes if Satan's going to try to get us, sometimes it's from the outside in, but sometimes it can be from the inside out and trying to cause dissensions in our wards, branches, things like that. And that's where this counsel of being one is such a protection for us to forgive and to be forgiving, to extend mercy and to ask for mercy. So I think that's one of the most quotable things in section 38 is to be one. And I think maybe the other one, if I can skip ahead, is if you are prepared, you shall not fear.

Don't we say that one a lot? Yeah, I was going to say there's another phrase we hear a lot. In verse 37, Susan, you can speak to this if you'd like. He says, and this to me is so just, it's just said in passing, but it might've just been a punch in the gut. They that have farms that cannot be sold, let them be left or rented, as seemed to me good. You work your whole life on a piece of property, you build it up, you do everything you can, and the Lord says, yeah, leave it. Walk away from it. To me, maybe it might be better off to not have much, because then I don't have much to leave. But if you're

the Whitmers, they've spent time and effort, Even the Smiths have spent time and effort cultivating these acres, chopping down. Who was it, John, that was telling us about chopping down a hardwood tree? Steve Harper, remember? He said, I don't know if you've ever cut down a hardwood tree, but it is not easy. And here they've done acre after acre of acre. And now the Lord says, yeah. And then you have to go. And here we are, a third party observing from the future going, don't get too comfortable in Kirtland either. Oh, don't get too comfortable in Nauv than land. I think it's, for many of them,

they're going to be walking away from families. You know, their mothers, fathers that hadn't joined the church, been baptized. So I think, you know, it's taking them from the known to the unknown. And it's your ultimate faith, trust in the Lord, that His promises will be fulfilled. But I like what John is saying, they've got to have unity to pull that off, to make such that it can't be backbiting, murmuring. So we're going to give you a real chance here. With what Susan said, there's a really nice story in the Come Follow Me manual about Phoebe Carter and her 21 years old telling her mom, I'm leaving. And are you sure? And if you find out it's not true, will you come back? And so, as you were saying, it's more than just leaving your piece of land. It's your family, your background and your history? Because many, obviously, Western New York was settled long after you get the 13 colonies. But nevertheless, like Martin Harris, he's a second generation. And say in his case, when he leaves, he leaves his wife and no doubt most of his children behind. To leave,

the sacrifice is huge and I think would give any of us pause. I think one thing we do, and I have a tendency to do this, I'm sure neither of you do, but I think, well, of course you got to move. How are we going to get to Salt Lake and have the conference center and the jazz? I mean, don't you see when they don't? They don't know about Utah. They don't know about Nauvoo. They don't know about independence. And if we forget that, if we forget their point of view, we'll lose the sacrifice of it because they don't know how this is going to turn out. Okay. What you also, I think is just so significant is that you don't see Joseph Smith staying around to help. Hey, you got to go. You got to go. So if you were to say, who's the first Latter-day Saint, you know, to bring his wife Emma and to leave then that area to go to Ohio, it's Joseph Smith that arrives around the 1st of February of 31.

So then you have these other people. Will they follow? And you always think of mom and dad saying, come on, come on, we can't go without everybody in the car. But trying to imagine the bishop, we can't go and then the bishop goes, you know, the question is, will you follow? Because now it's between you and the Lord, right? I mean, Joseph had his brother Hiram and he had Neal Knight going around encouraging people to pack up and get ready, but Joseph's out of there. So he's serious. He's serious. The Lord wants him to go there and he's going. But then you've got to also realize Joseph doesn't have property to sell like the

knights or the Whitmers. I mean, he's not encumbered that way. He's more free to move on out. Wow. And Emma's pregnant, right? Right. And I really like it when he arrives in Kirtland, he goes up to the Newell K. Whitney store and he sees Newell K. Whitney, a man he's never met before, and he says, Newell, thou art the man. And Newell goes, oh, you have the better of me, sir. I can't call you by name. And Joseph says, I'm Joseph the prophet. You called me here now. Now what do you want of me? So you get Newell and his wife, Elizabeth, praying for the prophet to come, and you get, I mean, this kind of tension. The people in New York, they've got to get ready. They've got to organize.

And you get Thomas B. Marsh with a group, Lucy Mack Smith, Martin Harris. I mean, it's going to take them months to get out of there. And you've got an April going. You've got it all the way into May going with Martin Harris bringing the last group. But as newspaper editorials describe the period, they said it looked like the whole world was moving to Kirtland. But of course, the major exaggeration, but they are going to come despite the sacrifice. The church is not going to get the Smith farm back for another 100 or so years.

Right. Right? And it'll be through the efforts of Willard Bean. Willard Bean. Willard Bean, great man, the fighting parson who will be instrumental in getting that land back. Yeah. So the places we always call the cradle of the restoration. It's been a process of having them then acquired by the church and wonderful place to go visit. If you haven't seen them,

it's a treat. Yeah, it is really fun. Verse 39, it seems the Lord says, if you seek the riches, which is as a will of the Father to give unto you, shall be the richest of all people for you shall have the riches of eternity. And then he talks about the Book of Mormon, beware of pride, lest you become as the Nephites of old. To me, as I've studied the history of the church, there is, and I think this is profoundly difficult to be honest. I like, you know, building the kingdom of Smith, right? And trying to build enough to retire, you know, and have a comfortable life. And it seems that these early church members are going to be asked to sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, almost to the point where it's, do you want to have material or do you want

to be a member? Because you almost can't choose both because you're just always constantly giving and giving and giving. Why do you think the Lord talks about the Book of Mormon there? I haven't seen that in the earlier sections, but these Nephites of old, right? Right. I think he's trying to show us the, we always call it the pride cycle. You're humble, you're forced to be humble. The Lord blesses you, you get the riches of temporal things, and then you get pride. And then all of a sudden, you're in trouble, you don't keep the commandments, and then back you go, you're humble and forced. It's a constant circular event and something I think all of us need to be aware about, that affluency, you'd say it has its benefits, but it also has with it a great concern

that we always need to remember the sense of unity and who needs help. Probably that's where President Benson's that monumental talk to me, April of 89, beware of pride. And I think it was Harold B. Lee that said that what we have right now is the test of gold. We don't have the same material type of tests, it doesn't seem, at least for some of us. I want to be careful how I say that because there's people all over the world suffering, even members of the church. But President Benson in another place said, do you know what prosperity can do to a people? It can put them to sleep. And he said, we must be shaken and

awakened from a spiritual snooze. And I love that idea of a spiritual snooze button because we reach over and push the snooze button. I'll get my act together sometime. But here, bringing in the Book of Mormon, and have you noticed that pride cycle? You're doing this. And so be careful. But I'm with you, Hank, how hard this would be to move a family back then with what they have. And I don't know how well acquainted people are with the Book of Mormon back then. Maybe you can speak to that, Susan, how they have it. Are they reading it? Or are they thinking, I got to go back and read that now? What did the Lord just say? I'm not quite sure by December that you've got a lot of readers of the Book of Mormon. One thing, copies are hard to get. They're expensive. Obviously, they're printed, but you don't see a lot of people quoting from the Book of Mormon in the New York period. You can pick them up much more in Kirtland.

And then obviously, as time goes on, their familiarity, did they understand the pride cycle like we do? Probably not as great. Wasn't it Brigham Young who said, when they come up to Salt Lake, he said, my greatest fear is that this- My greatest fear, this people will stand robbing, mobbing, and persecution and be true, but my greatest fear is that they can't stand wealth. They'll get rich in this country, wax fat, kick themselves out of the church, and go to hell, he says. That sounds like an exact quote. That's Brigham Young. I show that to my students and say, how many of you had a nightmare last night that you got rich and just woke up in a cold sweat?

Oh, it was terrible, brother, by the way. I got rich. I'm so glad to wake up now to reality that I'm not rich. And yeah, persecution, robbing, no problem there, but I'm afraid that they can't stand wealth. That's a fascinating statement. When he says, be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord, do we know what the vessels of the Lord mean? When I read that, I think that sounds Old Testament-esque. Sounds ancient temple. Yeah, sounds Old Testament. Try and imagine, you know, the same hands that pass the sacrament, that break the sacrament bread. You just can't hold a can of beer, right? You know, and, you know, smoke the cigarette. I cigarette. I mean, you just gotta be clean, whatever we call the vessels of the Lord for not just yourself, but for those who are there

to partake of it and hoping for a great spiritual experience. Yeah. That's wonderful. I think, yeah, back in the Old Testament, it would mean if you're gonna carry the tabernacle, be clean. But today, it's if you're carrying the trays of the sacrament or anything else that we use in the church. I mean, it's you. You are my body. It's the temple. The Holy Ghost can dwell with you. So in a way, you are the vessels of the Lord.

And so be clean. Yeah. Interesting. In verse 42, he says, go ye out from among the wicked. Almost symbolically, they're leaving New York, and it's almost this idea of we're leaving Babylon, and I'm going to Israel, right? What is it? Oh, Babylon, we bid thee farewell, right? And I'm willing to go. I'm willing to follow the Lord. I would think that a lot of these people in their minds, they're going

to live in New York and die in New York, that they're going to stay there forever. And the Lord changes plans. We're going somewhere else. The sacrifice is immense. You hear you and your husband have served four missions. It's somewhat similar, right? Get up and move. Get up and go. You just get up and go if you want the blessings. Yeah. You get up and move. You get up and move. I think just one more thing that I just love is, Susan, you emphasize 32 as kind of, okay,

listen, I told you before. All of this is a preface. I told you before, go to Ohio. But I love the promise there. You'll be endowed with power from on high and from thence, whosoever I will shall go forth among all nations. I mean, I bet Carl Anderson has those verses marked, right? Because he's the resident expert on Kirtland. But I think I mentioned this before, so forgive me, but there's a painting right inside of the Kirtland Visitor Center of Joseph and Oliver in the Kirtland Temple with these angels coming one at a time and bestowing keys. And I love it.

The look on Joseph's face. And I think of that endowed with power from on high. Because we know it's not the full endowment, but the Kirtland Temple was a step towards that and everything. And the amazing things that happened in Kirtland, I guess we're kind of seeing, because we're looking backward and seeing that and going, yeah, you got to get to Kirtland because some amazing things will happen there.

Yeah. Oh, John, you've mentioned that painting before. I talked to Alex Baugh, who will be on our podcast coming up here in the next couple of weeks. And he said that that painting was done by Gary Smith, who is the brother of his mission companion. So I just thought we'd give out the proper credit, right, on the painting, because I think I credit it to Walter Raine. Please join us for part two of this podcast.