followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 60-62 : Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat Part I

Episode Date: May 29, 2021

Have you ever felt that your efforts fall short? Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat returns and teaches how the elders are called to travel from Kirtland to Jackson County, Missouri, and, “Preach by the way.” In their month-long travels, some work harder than others and the Lord addresses this and us and encourages us to remember that our testimony of the gospel is like a “talent.” This episode encourages us to serve and teach because the Lord is with us, as with the early Saints.Show notes: https://followhim.co/episodesYouTube: 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. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith, and I am here with my engaging co-host, John, by the way. Welcome, John. We used to say at BYU, when our fellow ward members became engaged, they were engagged. Engagged. You could never find them to do their home teaching anymore, too. It was tough. Well, it came from our last interview with Alex Ball, with Dr. Ball. We talked about anxiously engaged.

Hey, I need to remind everybody, you can find us on social media, Instagram and Facebook. You can go to our website, followhim.co, followhim.co for transcripts, references, anything you need. You can also rate and review the podcast. We'd love it if you'd do that. John, who is our guest expert today? I got to tell you, I'm pretty excited. We are excited to have Garrett Dirkmont back. And he did with us, what was it, Hank? Section three? Section three. When we were just getting started, we were just- Yes. We were brand new podcasters, John. Now we know what we're doing.

We're so experienced now. And so we're so excited to have him back because we had so much fun. And since that time, I've seen him on History of the Saints and a at BYU. He received his PhD from the University of Colorado. Go Buffaloes in 2010, where he studied 19th century American expansionism and foreign relations. His dissertation was titled Enemies Foreign and Domestic U.S. Relations with Mormons in the U.S. Empire in North America, 1844 to 1854. He worked as a historian and writer for the Church History Department from 2010 to 2014 with the Joseph Smith Papers Project and served as a volume co-editor historian for Documents Volume 1. The lead volume editor on Documents Volume 3 has continued to work as a volunteer editor

for the Joseph Smith Papers Project on Administrative Records, Council of 50 Minutes, March 1844 to January 1846, and Documents Volume 8. How would you like everything, Hank, that you had ever written or texted or posted to be compiled in a book one day? Oh my word. I know. He is the co-author, along with Michael Hubbard McKay of the award-winning book

From Darkness Unto Light, which I am still waiting for the notification from the Salt Lake County Library to go pick up. Maybe I should just go buy one. From Darkness Unto Light. Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

I was like, John, come on. Joseph Smith, let me give you the full title. From Darkness Unto Light, Joseph Smith's Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon, published by Religious Studies Center at BYU and Desert Book in 2015. The author of dozens of academic articles as well. Is that enough, Garrett? Honestly, I don't think we need to. I'm a third of the way through.

Yeah. This is great. I didn't send this one over in particular. Yeah, I got this and I just grabbed it from the religious education website. But we're just glad to have you. Welcome and thanks for coming back and coming in spite of us. Thanks for coming back again. Well, I'm glad to be here. Happy to spend some time with you guys.

You knew what we were when you picked us up. Yes. Yeah. It's that snake story thing. I'm carrying you down the mountain now. I would encourage everyone who hasn't heard our first episode with Garrett, Dr. Dirkmaat to go back. It's episode four. Definitely want to go back. He tells some just wonderful personal stories about his degree.

He also tells us about the stolen 116 pages. Just really, and his testimony there is just fantastic. So if you haven't heard that one, please, after you listen to this one or right now, go back, listen to that one first. Okay. I have a couple of comments before we get started, John, if that's okay. Dr. Dirtmont, Garrett, and I, we shared a hallway for a couple of years at BYU. And I heard some really fun stories. And I thought, our listeners deserve to hear at least one of these stories.

So the one I'm thinking of, Garrett, I'm going to ask you about two today. But the one I'm thinking about is one I just don't know how to work in to our interview. So I'm just going to ask you about it. And that is now I don't want to build it up too much because people might be like, well, that wasn't a great story. But for me personally, for me personally, I have thought about that story and people that I've told the story to, I could probably tell it. The people I've told the story to love it. All right, Garrett, we want to take up all the time we can in this week's lesson, having

your expertise here. We're studying sections 60 through 62 of the Doctrine and Covenants. All three of these are received in the first half of August of 1831. So let's back up a little bit. Let's remind everyone what brought Joseph Smith and some of the members of the church to Missouri and what they did there. And now that it sounds like they're going to head back soon. Yeah, well, the culmination of what the early believers all wanted was to know where the city of Zion was going to be built. And there's just, it's interesting. If I were to have, you know, a congregation of Latter-day Saints today, you know, write down what you think the most important doctrines of the church are, right? I mean, if you made the

list long enough, right, somewhere between having a year's supply of food storage and above understanding how to use ham radios would be the idea of a city of Zion. And it's so incredibly foreign, our concept of Zion, to what these early believers. I mean, I'm obviously being a little bit in jest there, but my point is most of us are driven today in our testimonies by things like Joseph Smith's vision, the Book of Mormon, other doctrines that have been revealed, many, many early converts to the church are converted specifically because of the idea of a city of Zion. The idea that there would be this city of God, a place where everyone was equal, a place where there was nothing but Christianity and love in it. So they're driven by that. And so they're driven so much by it that, you know, your previous podcasts have covered

the fact that you actually will have, you know, you have the ability for people to be deceived by false revelation surrounding Zion, like with Hiram Page, because so many believers are so desperate to have that promised blessing. Well, finally, in the summer of 1831, Joseph Smith receives the revelation that they're all to go to Missouri and that when they got there, God would show them the place where the city of Zion is to be built. This is a pretty big deal. And Missouri is a thousand miles away, at least that part of Missouri is a thousand miles away from where the

Kirtland area is. I heard someone, I'm going to stop you real quick, Garrett. I heard someone say once, oh, how convenient that Joseph Smith said the city of Zion is in Missouri, so close to Ohio. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait. Well, I mean, if it was going to be, yeah, technically, you know, yeah. If you were in, uh, if you were in Eastern Missouri and in Western Ohio, then I guess it would only be like 500 miles away from them. The problem is they're going from Eastern Ohio to Western Missouri. And before there were, you know, as many interstates, I mean, obviously, you know, we haven't had Harry Truman as president yet. And so the reality is it is not an easy journey. It's incredibly far. It's incredibly difficult. It takes usually, if you're going fast, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks,

six weeks, depending on the time of year, the weather, it's a massive, and it actually, the space creates, it'll create an ongoing problem for the church because as the church. Because as the church begins to grow in Missouri, the members there are a thousand miles away from the headquarters of the church, and there's no telephones, and there's not even any telegraphs. And so they are, at best, two months away from getting any answer from church headquarters, if you were to call it that. So you're in Missouri and there's a question that comes up. Oh, what do you think we should do about this? Well, we better ask Joseph. I write a letter, you know, I send it. Yeah. It takes a month to get to Ohio. And if Joseph opens it and he's, first of all, he's there, he's not off preaching somewhere. He's there when the

letter comes and the moment he gets it, he opens it, reads it, hurriedly jumps into a desk and writes a reply back and then sends it on the next passing horse. Then if that happens, you're two months away from that. So imagine, you're like, Joseph, we've really got to find out if, you know, it's April now, we've got to find out if by May we're going to buy this land. You know, Joseph, in June, like, yeah, I guess hopefully you did. I don't know what to tell you. I mean, those exchanges don't happen like that. Again, I'm being a little facetious, but the reality is a communications breakdown is going to be an ongoing problem as the church continues to have two locales, the headquarters of the church in the Kirtland area where Joseph is, and now the

eventual headquarters, not only of the church, but where the new Jerusalem and the city of Zion is to be built there in Jackson County. And as more and more members move, the tensions created by that are going to become a lot. But for our purposes, there was so much anticipation surrounding the city of Zion that when they arrive, and you covered this in previous podcasts, Joseph is going to receive a revelation of where the temple is to be built there in the city of Zion. The problem for many of these people that have just, you know, they've been walking for four or five weeks to get down here with the idea that, you know, when we get to that place, I imagine it's going to be the most beautiful place that's ever been.

And it's, you know, a dirty Western Missouri gambling town with a bunch of horse thieves and liars in it. I mean, it is not, no part of it suggests that, oh yes, this is clearly going to be Zion. I mean, it is, it's a real disappointment for some of the people who took the journey. And there's not a lot of prospects for preaching to the people that are there. I mean, there are some people there, not very many people have listened. The intention of going to this part of Missouri in the first place for Oliver Cowdery and those who went on the mission to preach to the Native Americans was to go into what's today Kansas, but was Indian territory then, and preach to the Native

Americans. But those American Indian tribes, while apparently quite receptive to those Latter-day Saints that were preaching, the missionaries were almost immediately driven out by the federal government. It's actually the first time that the federal government is going to take a stance that is essentially an anti-Mormon stance. The federal government will say, well, you can't preach to the American Indians without a permit. Okay, well, can I get a permit? No.

Oh, well, then that. So it makes it, you know, well, you can't preach from without a permit and also you can't get a permit. And so that they've really been stymied in their efforts to try to do that. And so there's, you know, there's some angst. Obviously, these people have been gone from their families for a while. There are those who are moving to Missouri who are going to be a part of Missouri, but there's this idea that they need to return. And so the revelations that we're covering today all occur in the context of people beginning to

return back to Ohio, how they're going to return back to Ohio, dealing with some of the fallout of the disappointment that occurred when God declared that the place that the new Jerusalem was going to be built was a place that in many of these missionaries' estimation was the least likely spot for Zion. Beautiful place, not beautiful surroundings. Well, I mean, I mean, yeah, I, I don't know. I mean, they didn't have air conditioning, so I mean, they're there in the summer. It's Missouri. If you've ever been in, uh, uh, you air conditioning of any kind, I mean, I could see the reason why you're like, you know, New York's climate seems a lot better. Are you sure?

Maybe we could check on the revelation again. This doesn't seem right. Edward Partridge writes to his wife like, um. Yeah, I don't know what happened, but wow. Yeah. All right. Church writes to his wife like, um. Yeah, I don't know what happened, but wow. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

John, you want to go to? Oh, sure. We're on question four then. Yeah, I served my mission in the Philippines and I thought that I had experienced the max of heat and humidity. And I, on a church history tour, was at Adam on Diamond one time, and I thought, oh, this is the max of heat and humidity. And do we have to grab our stuff and come here one day? Because yeah, it was warm. And like you said, they didn't, oh boy. So let's let's jump into section 60 and look at some of the, some of the content. What are the, some of the things that, uh, we ought to see here for sure, Garrett? Well, I think the, the background of section 60 is this, you know, the, the question that is,

um, you know, how are we to return or are we to return back to, to Ohio? I think, uh, John Whitmer, uh John Whitmer, when he writes the earliest heading we have to this revelation, he just calls it directions to some elders to return to their own land is the background that they have for it. And the reality is all these men had been called by revelation to go to Missouri and told how they were to go to Missouri and told, you know, how to preach along the way. And in companionships, right? Yeah, in companionships and that they're to preach to people along the way and that there was all kinds of things they were supposed to do as they went. And DNC 60 is essentially the, it is the bookend to that. It is the, okay, now you're to go back and this is how you're to go back. And so that's what you

initially get out of Doctrine and Covenants section 60 is how directed at a, almost, you know, a micromanagement level, this first trip to Missouri is. God called through revelation, not just, you know, Joseph saying, hey, would you like to go to Missouri? God calls through revelation everyone who goes to Missouri. And then he's going to, again, by revelation, return those elders back that are going to go back. And some are going to stay. Colesville Saints, W. Phelps. Yes. Most of them are not all there yet, right? If they're coming in a larger group, it's going to take them some time to get there. In fact, some of the elders who were called initially to go and be a part of this conference in Missouri, they're not there yet. And the reason

why they're not there is because they took seriously the commandment that God had given that they were to preach all along the way. And there were some who, you know, well, it's a month-long journey to the Western Missouri to begin with. I don't know that I need to spend a ton of time in Western Ohio preaching to people. And so that's actually going to come out in some of these revelations. The Lord is going to chastise people for the fact that some of you didn't really make the effort that I wanted you to make in trying to preach the gospel on your way down here. Instead, you got down here quick and you hid your talents under the bushel

and you – your candle under it, but you hid your talents and you – Mixed your parables there. That was – Yeah, I did. I mixed my parables. That's what happens when you have not a very good scholar on. But the reality is that they – at least some of, didn't meet the approbation of God in the sense of how he expected them to preach. So there are still people coming. For instance, Hiram Smith is not there for the dedication of the land of Zion. He's still coming because he was actually taking his time on his way down preaching the way that he thought they were supposed to. So yeah, there are most people that are going to be permanent residents

of Missouri. Well, I think we all know there are no Mormons that end up being permanent residents during this time period, but the ones who plan to stay there until the millennium, only to be driven out by mob violence, most of them are going to be arriving later. This initial missionary group is coming with primarily just the men who are going down there. A few of them are going to stay. Most of them are going to go back. And then the larger groups of actual migrating Latter-day Saints families, they're going to be coming later in the year. Okay. All right. Let's go into section 60. Garrett, what do you see here? I think part of what we talked about there in some of the initial verses, right? God says that

he's not well-pleased, right? for those people that wouldn't open their mouth. Why? Because they had a fear of man. Of man. I mean, Latter-day Saints are – well, they're not even Latter-day Saints yet, right? Members of the Church of Christ who believe in the Book of Mormon, they are – these people are not well-received primarily in most places that they go. So you could see how for some of these people, it was a very difficult prospect. And, you know, you're on this really long journey that is arduous, that's in the middle

of the summer, that requires a great deal of physical effort. You start preaching to a few people. They, you know, tell you very unkindly to move along. You can see how quickly, you know, after the first couple hundred miles that you might say, you know what, even if I go try to talk to those people, they're not going to listen to me. So if they're not going to listen to me, even if I go try to talk to them, I'm not going to expend any more of my effort to do that. And probably there's a lot of people who've served missions in more modern times who've had similar thoughts, right? I mean, I went to Wisconsin on my mission. There were very few people who ever listened to us at

all. And certainly a thought would arise all the time, like, look, whether I spend the next two hours knocking on these doors or not, the result's actually going to be the same. Yeah. Only my hand will hurt more. I mean, but there's no, you know, so you, you, you, you reality is that you can see how continual rejection can, can help fuel that kind of apathy towards preaching. I remember as a missionary, I was like, Oh, I just kind of avoid this confrontation, right? Avoid this awkward moment. And that to me, that's fear of man, right? I just, I think, I think nowadays I'd, I'd probably be a little more bold in my forties than I was when I was 19. But yeah, I can see that being fear of man, not necessarily, I'm scared they're going to hurt me, but just scared of, of the, the interaction fearing the.

Yeah. I mean, we, I think human nature is such that we are social animals and that we want to be comfortable socially and we want to be liked. And, uh, when, when you're talking about religion today to somebody, right? I mean, you know, if you want to make someone feel uncomfortable, you know, you're like, well, I'd like to talk to you about God for a minute. Okay. Let's dial it back. I mean, imagine in the 19th century when people, you know, religion is much more interwoven

into their society and their culture, but they also feel so much more passionately about it. And if you happen to be departing from what the accepted Protestant narrative is, which of course Latter-day Saints are, I mean, it is a fundamental absolute of Protestantism in the 19th century in America. The Bible is the only revealed will of God. And you have these Latter-day Saints saying, well, let me tell you about the Book of Mormon. I mean, so their opening line is essentially going against 300 plus years of absolute Protestant bedrock theology that there could be any truth, let alone an entire book of it, outside of the Bible is just, it's a blasphemy to them. And so my guess is rather than just disinterested, you know, stares, many of the people reacted to them with a kind of, well,

you're a blasphemer. If you're trying to tell me that there's truth outside of the Bible, then, well, then you're a liar. You've been deceived. You're a blasphemer. I can imagine. We have accounts of missionary efforts that didn't work as well from other times during this era. And I think too, we're talking about the fear of man, but this is, like you said, this is the frontier too. It's not like there's a cop around every corner to help if things, I mean, I don't know if they were ever physically assaulted or anything, but perhaps threatened. What do you think? Get off my way.

Yeah. We don't have record of that at this early period. I mean, although the federal Indian agents in the Indian territories did threaten to take all the missionaries to jail, um, in Fort Leavenworth if they, if they didn't get out. I mean, so they are getting that. I don't know if they, I mean, if they, there are any specific threats, but I think more it's, it's a matter of, you know, no one's listening, but it is a very rough place. I mean, I think it's one of the Knights who explains that, you know, the only way that you could tell the difference between the Sabbath day, uh, or not in the area was that the, you know, the saloons and gambling houses were more filled on Sundays than there were other days of the week. So, I mean, it is, it is certainly a, it is, it is a rough place to be a religionist. It certainly probably does not help that these are primarily, almost exclusively, Northerners coming into what is a hotly contested Southern state. abolitionism all the way. But the reality is they lived in very different worlds. And so they would

have been mistrusted as outsiders, even if they were, you know, as Episcopal as the day is long and in an accepted religion, they would have been, there would have been a great deal of mistrust. They're coming in, they're preaching a new religion. I don't know who they are. And then you add to it this kind of cultural divide between people from New England and Ohio and people from especially contested slave states like Missouri. I mean, I'm sure there were many difficult encounters. The saints there, did they know that Joseph had been pulled out of the John Johnson farm in the middle of the night? Did they know that Sidney Rigdon had been dragged by seals? Because this is happening before that, right? So what will start to happen in late 1832, in part as a result of Ezra Booth's apostasy that we'll talk about here in a minute, what starts to happen is what I call a rising tide of anti-Mormonism.

That it really hits Ohio and Missouri at about the same time. And it becomes violent first in Ohio with the assaults on Sidney Rigdon and Joseph and the loss of Joseph's child as a result, I mean, in 1832, but then it becomes widespread violence in Missouri in early 1833. So here at this early stage in early 1831, I think for the most part, the reason why there's not as much violence is there's very little threat, right? I mean, the reality is if I don't know what towns everybody lives in, but if like, you know, six people showed up from some weird, you know, Protestant sect in your town and started preaching and they started saying things like, we're going to own this town. This is God gave this to us. And they have obviously a high-pitched voice like that. Your primary result, I mean, your primary reaction would not be like,

well, I guess we've got to go tar and feather them. Your primary reaction would be. They're crazy. Yeah, those clowns are crazy. But, you know, whatever. I mean. There's so few of them. Exactly. presents political, economic, religious, and societal social problems that just don't,

those problems don't really exist when there's not a large group, right? So that happened in Colesville in New York, right? You know, in Fayette, there aren't any mobs because nobody lives there, right? Except essentially for the Whitmer's extended family. No one lives there today. But in Colesville, when you got to the point that a significant portion of the town, I mean, nothing near a majority, but I don't know what the percent is. And any number I throw out, Larry Porter could later listen to a book. That's not even close. But even if it started to approach 15 to 20%, that is a big deal. That's transforming what your town is.

It's transforming your relationships in the town. It could possibly transform economies, the local politics. So when it's just, you know, a dozen, two dozen people that, you know, are there and then leaving, I mean, the reality is in order for people to react violently, usually, they have to feel like that there's something that is long-term that they are fighting against. Yeah. I'm sure initially the people that are there are basically saying, well, this is great actually, because these newcomers are coming here and buying our stuff. And we're of course charging them outrageous prices because they're just showing up with nothing, but desperately want to live here. I mean, I'm sure we could talk to any real estate agent and they would tell you that their favorite client is the one who absolutely has to live in this town no matter what, and it has to be on this street no matter what and has to be on

this street no matter what okay okay uh we can do that if you're gonna pay any premium we can we can do that yeah yeah i mean and that's essentially what the latter-day saints are doing right they're moving we gotta be here they're moving to this area that is i mean mean, I mean, literally no offense to any Latter-day Saints in, you know, in Kansas City today, but at the time, this is essentially the most worthless land in the United States. It's as far west as you can possibly get. It has such poor connections to the remainder of not only the state of Missouri, where almost all of the settlement is in the St. Louis area, right? It is so disconnected from the rest of the country that I'm not saying the land isn't fertile. The land's beautiful. The land is fertile land. But it doesn't matter how fertile

your corn crop is if it takes you three months to get it to a market somewhere, right? I mean, the reality is it is the cheapest land that exists. And so when you have a group of people moving in who desperately have to live in a specific part of this land that's relatively inexpensive, I think at first it's actually seen kind of as a boon. Oh, I can sell my land for twice what it's worth here, right? But as more and more people come. And look, that's the reality of migrating peoples all the time, is that often they're seen as an

opportunity at first, and then as more and more come, then they're seen as a threat. And that plays out, I think, for the Latter-day Saints in Missouri. What's funny is that, you know, there are a couple of times when you're reading Joseph Smith's writing that you wonder, I mean, it seems to come across that he, look, he's, he's not educated, right? So he's trying to spell things phonetically a lot of the time. And one of the words that he misspells multiple times the same way is the word church, right? He misspells the word church with, instead of C-H-U-R-C-H, he spells it with an I. And I think it's because Joseph's from New England. I mean, like, I know that every church movie we see him in, he's got this wonderful Utah accent. He's like, we've got to get

the brethren out to, you know, but the reality is, you know, the guy's born in Vermont. He's raised in New Hampshire. He's, he's not from Utah, uh, you know? And so it makes you wonder if the reason why he's misspelling that is if the reason why he pronounces it is because it's not the church, it's the church, you know, being, know going to the chitch and and um the other name that he misspells is actually edward partridge's name he he leaves the r out of it because it's not partridge it's patridge right and so it's edward you know me and edward patridge you know gonna go to the church and maybe catch a Sox game after. I don't know. I don't know what his accent sounded like.

So, again, I don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. If you don't want to think of Joseph talking about the First Vision with a kind of New England accent, you don't have to. But I'll tell you what, the New England Saints should probably be like, actually, Joseph sounded a lot more like us than you people out in Utah. In Section 60. So one of the other things I think to take away from it is, is not only have this chastisement, um, they're directly commanded by God to,

uh, how they're supposed to go home, right? They're supposed to either make or purchase a craft, um, uh, which, you know,

they're going to try to take the river down. Now, now where Jackson County sits, where they, where they're at is, close to anyway, the Missouri River. And the idea, of course, is, you know, you couldn't do it this way going there unless you were on a steamship. And there's really not a lot of steamship travel up that far that early. But you can go with the river down the river, right? So you can get in a canoe or, you know, get on a flatboat or something and you can float with the river down the river, right? So, so you can get in a canoe or, you know,

get on a flat boat or something, and you can float down the river. You know, you don't have to walk as much and you're going to be, and that'll take you all the way in to St. Louis. Now, from there, you're going to have to, you're going to have to probably go over land because, uh, you know, the Ohio river, you know, you'd be going up river on the Ohio and you'd be going up river on the Mississippi, whichever way you decided to go. Uh, but, uh, it's, uh, verse, uh, five and six that, that, that tell them that they need to get essentially get some boats, um, and, and, and take their journey speedily to St. Louis. Um, and then they're going to go, uh, from there, Joseph's told that they're going to go through Cincinnati on the way back, which, which makes sense. They are, um, told that they are supposed to, again, preach on the way back.

The reason why I point that out is they're specifically commanded to get a, get some watercraft in order to take their way back. And that matters because of the sections that follow, at least one of them is directly resultant of the fact that they follow this commandment. They're commanded to get, to, to take this water route.

Um, and the fact that they actually listen is, is going to, um, it's gonna, it's gonna lead to some to some issues. I don't, you know, spoiler alert. I don't want to let everyone know immediately.

But I think verse 14 is also pretty good. After thou hast come up into the land Zion, hast proclaimed my word, thou shalt speedily return, proclaiming my word among the congregations of the wicked, not in haste, neither with wrath nor with strife. So this idea that, again, don't try to just make the journey. Also, not with contention. I mean, that idea with not with wrath, not with strife, that suggests that maybe there might've been some on the way and to try to make it a more peaceful exchange. But my dad used to quote to me, verse 13, thou shalt not idle away thy time. He loved that one.

Yeah. Dads love most scriptures that have the word idle in it. And that was before there was, you know, the internet. So I can only imagine now that. Right. That's. Get moving, get working. I remember. Yeah. I think I like the context though, because as Garrett alluded to a minute ago,

neither shalt thou bury thy talent. It was kind of the idle part was not doing the, not preaching the gospel by the way. That's, isn't that right? Yeah. And I think, and even when they got there, I mean, I think the missionaries that were already there had in some respects, you know, kind of stopped trying. I mean, you know, that, that, you know, I don't know how many future missionaries are going to listen to this or, uh, but the reality is, um, it just about every mission you go on, um, you, you find, you will find yourself feeling like your efforts don't really matter. They don't bear fruit. And, and, and that becomes a really difficult thing.

I mean, you know, that, that it's hard as a human to have negative result, negative result, negative result again and again and again and again and again. And to still have faith that your next result might be different. I know we all hear the missionary stories of, you know, like, there I was. It was 400 degrees below zero. My companion wanted to go home, but I said, wait, there was one more house at the far end of that street. And we, and, you know, and then that person's baptized and they, you know, they become an apostle later, whatever. Those are the missionary stories that we share with each other all the time. And,

you know, because they're miraculous experiences, but we sometimes miss like the whole other part of that. And that is, yeah. Remember I started the story with, we'd been out tracting for 15 days, 15 hours a day, and no one had talked to us at all. Think about that, right? I mean, yeah. The reality is it's, I think Satan tries to convince us that our past failures are in some way indicative or predictive of our future results and, and, and, and tries to wear us down. And, you know, if you, if you're going to serve a mission, I mean, the reality is you actually have no idea what person is going to listen next. And yeah, you might have been cursed off the doorstep from the last person. And this person embraces the truth of God. Searching for Israel, right?

It will speak unto them. I wonder if verse 15 is, I honestly don't know if Parley Pratt is around when this revelation is given, but it says, Shake off the dust of thy feet against those who receive thee not, not in their presence. Not in their presence. Unless thou shalt provoke them. Because we just talked about a couple weeks ago. Might be a reference to D&C 49. Yeah, the shakers.

Apparently he was shaking the coattails there. Right in front of them. Everybody looks at Parley, you know, Garrett, uh, sections 61 and 62 are not received in Jackson County now, but on the river, uh, this, are these the only two sections received on the Missouri river? I think, uh, yeah, at least, uh, for, for right now, for, for during this time period these are the the ones that are received here i mean uh they and it's because it's for their journey back so with section 61 they went and got the craft that they were told to get right uh actually six back yeah yeah yeah yeah second section 60 and in fact uh ezra booth will bitterly complain about the fact that he had to go find canoes you know

but um there so the group is traveling back go find canoes, you know. So the group is traveling back in these canoes because they've been told to by Revelation. And there's some simmering hostility that's going on. I mean, you know, it's interesting. Like, if you've ever been on a trip with a group of friends, right. You know, the first, you can make three days on a, on, on a trip with a group of friends and things are fine. Right. You, you get, you get 12 or 13 days in and you know, you don't care how good that guy's

Missouri accent is. You've got a problem with it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, you know, it's, you know, Benjamin Franklin, right? Who said, you know, fish and house guests stink after three days. I mean, the reality is these guys have been on this arduous trek together to get down

there and in the heat and a month plus journey to get there. And there are some tensions that really start to boil over in part because of the disappointment that, you know, I think some people really thought that, you know, the city of Enoch is going to come down when they got there, that they'd see the streets paved with gold. And this would be, it'd be like a garden of Eden spot and, oh, and then this is where the, you know, the city would be built. And that wasn't the case. Jesus comes all in a month, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah. Or that, well, of course, because we're God's chosen elders here, we're going to be baptized.

I mean, there's not going to be water enough in the Missouri River to baptize the people that we're baptizing. And none of that happened. So in many ways, you have this physical exhaustion combined with this, you know, the familiarity of being with each other so much. And then the temporal really disappointment of, that's not what I thought Zion was going to be. And now, look, not everyone complains about the location of Zion. But, you know, as you learn in one of your previous, you know, episodes, I mean, you

know, it's bad enough that Edward Partridge and Sidney Rigdon get into a massive fight over this. And it's a fight that they have – it will actually take a long time before they ever seem to be reconciled. So you already have some bad feelings among the group that didn't quite seem to get resolved. Joseph Smith was involved in that argument as well. Yes. Yes. Because Dr. Heward talked about that.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Cause, cause Partridge is what Partridge is a businessman. He's, he's got an eye for real estate. And when Joseph says,

this is the place where the temple is going to be built. I mean, for Partridge, it's kind of like, well, I can see like a thousand other places that are better than this. Why is it here? You know, do you want to check again? You know, not to be too tried about it, but yeah, I think that, you know, Partridge has just sacrificed unbelievably in a very short amount of time in order to be a part of the movement. And it really seemed like he felt like Joseph was, was, was wrong. And that, of course, you know, Sidney Rigdon tries to jump to Joseph's defense. And, and, you know, you know, one thing that no one's ever said about Sidney Rigdon was,

you know, he had such a mild personality that, you know, he didn't really. So, I mean, that the problem is that when, when Sidney Rigdon gets involved, you're going to know about it. I mean, the guy is going to come at you and he's going to come at you hard. He's got a way with words. He's good with words. Yeah, he's very good with words, but he's also very biting with them too, right? And so all of us have been in a situation where we've had a fairly sharp disagreement with someone that we otherwise really care about. Even when you both slap each other's backs and say you're sorry, those words, they linger.

There's some lingering sting from that. Well, maybe he was, you know, I mean, you know, every time Hank and I get in an argument, he's like, you're just a hackist story and you aren't even good at all. And I'm like, you know, he says he's sorry, but I really feel like he means it. Yeah, I think, I feel like Hank means it. But anyway, so I think there's that, there's some lingering things. And then there's apparently, we don't know the nature of it, but as they start going down the river, there's, there's really some grumbling going on among the group to the point where Oliver Cowdery starts to try to chastise people that, hey, you need to straighten up and fly right. And so there's just some bad feelings going on.

And in the midst of all of that, you know, this was not the pleasure cruise down the Nile that they thought this was going to be. The Missouri River today has been, it's been dredged and there's been dams built in it. And there's, it is a navigable waterway. In 1831, it is, it is a treacherous, treacherous river. And even after they start trying to make improvements on it, it is a regular thing that there are massive catastrophes that occur on the river. I mean, there are shifting and uneven sandbars. It is all the time that things can get submerged

into the water. And in this case, that's exactly what happens to the group. There's a sawyer that is essentially a tree that is just under the water, but it's a fallen tree, right? So a tree's on the bank and then falls into the water. The bottom is now stuck into the water.

The other part's now sticking up and it's, it's going to present this huge snag opportunity for any boat because the water's going over it, but it can't draft all the way over it. So if you're in your canoe and you hit it, you're going to hit it. Well, you're going to flip,

right? Where you're going to, something's going to happen. They run into one of these at McIlwain's bend, which is a place essentially lost to history because since they've redone the river and improved it. And it nearly capsizes Joseph and Sidney's canoe. Look, these guys, it's not like they've been taking swimming lessons at the YMCA. I mean, not everyone knows how to swim in the 19th century.

I mean, it's not everyone who does. And so it's a terrifying experience. They all make their way to the bank, but not only have they been carping at one another, not only are they all exhausted from this journey, now they feel like their lives were just about threatened. And again, if you're looking for a way to criticize, why were we in that boat in the first place? Well, because Joseph received a revelation telling us to be in that boat. So the context of D&C 61 is it's this revelation that's received on the bank of the Missouri River after they've had this kind of, I don't want to call it a near-death experience,

but they were certainly terrified with what had happened in their water journey, a water journey that they think that they were only on because God gave them a revelation telling them that they should do it. Something that God talks about, the Lord talks about in TNC 61. He first starts with verse two in saying that whose sins are now forgiven you, for I, the Lord, forgive sins, and I'm merciful unto those who confess their sins with humble hearts. Verily I say unto you that it's not needful for this whole company of mine elders to be moving swiftly upon the waters whilst the inhabitants on either side are perishing in unbelief. So it was always kind of odd, right, that God kept telling them they needed to take

their time and preach to people along the way, but at the same time told them to take this water route to St. Louis. I mean, I don't know if you're going to like shout to people as you go down the river, you're like, hey, we're Mormons. How quickly can you teach a first discussion? You know, I mean, you know, if you're on someone's door and they're like, I'll give you one minute. You're like, oh, so Joseph Smith, you know, most people believe in the spring meeting, even though we call them by different names. We believe in God. You're going as fast as you can because you're trying to get it out. And clearly there's not a whole lot of opportunities to preach the gospel while you're in a canoe going down the river. And so that kind of seemed like maybe a contradiction. And then the Lord explains that

here in verse four. He says, I suffered it that you might bear record. Behold, there are many dangers upon the waters and more especially hereafter. So what these guys are going to do when they go back to Kirtland is they're going to say, listen, you just take the overland journey, okay? That you don't want to try to take the river journey. I know it looks inviting, but it is a nightmare that is so dangerous, it's not worth it. And so apparently God allowed them to have this experience so that they would be able to know firsthand to other people about what it is they should do. You get that out of D&C 61. Very interesting.

A lot of people are going to be going back and forth between Kirtland and Missouri, and they might be like, Oh, I'll we'll take the river now. And look, eventually in, in Nauvoo, obviously the Latter-day Saints are going to use, you know, river traffic all the time. Right. I mean, uh, you know, they're even going to have the maid of Iowa. I mean, they, they, they're going to, uh, they're going to utilize it, but you know, frankly, the Missouri river, uh, up to Kansas City at that time is just not as navigable as the Mississippi River, which was also filled with all kinds of trash. I mean, if you read 19th century newspapers, you will read catastrophe after catastrophe that occurs on the rivers. It, it, the reality is it, they are not easily navigable, but they're so tempting to navigate because it's so much easier and so much, and you

can carry so much more freight if you can navigate them. But you know, there's that danger. And so, um, that really becomes the practice to try to avoid the water route uh to uh to to zion um after 61 i mean um they aren't going to have too many years to be able to worry about that because within you know less than two years after that they're going to be driven out by mob violence but that is i had just never i'm so glad you talked about this because you know we've we've all been to navoo got to the end of that and we see the mississippi and you know there's that big kia cuck is it a you know damn there damn there that slows the flow evens it out whatever i just had not thought of this and i was going going to ask you, compare the Missouri to the

Mississippi as far as width and stuff. I'm not even sure. Boy, I don't even know at the time, right? So the reality is the way those rivers look today to us, especially near those urban centers, is just nothing like they looked like back then. We have flood control levees all along them. So what do we know? We know from the time. And so, you know, we don't really know what it would have looked like, but there's at least a pretty regular record of shipping disasters along the Missouri there. And I like the principle here. I like the principle here of you, I put you in a difficult situation, now we're going to get out of it, but now you can tell other people, don't do that.

Don't go that way. I like that idea. I think the Lord sometimes uses that in our lives. We can learn big time lessons and he lets us learn them. And then he's going to say, pass that along. I've seen it in other places too, where God knows that there is no replacement for actually having the experience. I mean, I guess we could all say that about mortal life to begin with. But, you know, in the Council of 50, there's an experience where the saints are trying. I mean, the members of the Council of 50 are trying to write the new constitution for the location of the kingdom of God when they finally leave Nauvoo.

And imagine the pressure of, you know, I'm writing the constitution for the kingdom of God, right? I mean, obviously, how am I going to get that right? And at one point they simply are frustrated and they just asked Joseph, well, can't you just receive this by revelation? Because like anything we write is going to just, I mean, obviously it's going to throw it out anyway. Yeah. It's going to be wrong. So why don't you just do it? And Joseph teaches them that actually, no, you need to create the very best thing you can create and expend all your efforts in this thing. And then I'll receive revelation. And the reason why he says there have always been some great big elders in this church

who, who, you know, come along, you know, who would, who would criticize, frankly, if Joseph received the Constitution by revelation, some of the people who thought themselves to be a little bit more intelligent than Joseph would have behind the scenes been like, well, that's not how I would have put it. I don't know. Maybe if Joseph knew what I knew about it, then he probably would have changed it. And so instead, what Joseph says is that it's necessary for the elders to exercise all their efforts in this thing. And then when they see that they cannot get the revelation and I can, they will know from whence wisdom flows. So if you've already expended all of your efforts to do it, then you can't, when Joseph receives it, go like, well, that's what I was going to say. I mean, you can't because, well, you had your chance to say it and you didn't say it because

the revelation is actually coming through the prophet. So it reminds me of Doctrine and Covenants section one where write a preface, toss it. Yeah. Well, and I think that's exactly. They tore it to shreds. They don't say that specifically in the Council of 50 Minutes, but I think that the men involved who asked Joseph to receive it, I think that's exactly what they have in their mind.

I mean, because it's WWE Phelps, it's John Taylor, they know that that was the case with the preface to the book of commandments, which became DNC one that, you know, they tried and Joseph eventually received the revelation. Well, let's just cut out the middleman here. Let's not try and just have Joseph received the revelation. You know, like, no, it's good for you to to try because then you can see. Then you can see. Yeah. There's just a question that for my, I haven't done as much reading and studying as you have, Garrett, but that maybe we overdo the idea of the destroyer riding upon the waters? Uh, was it specific to everything that you have just taught us about the Missouri? Is there more than that? Do we overdo it?

And didn't, did WW Phelps have a, he has a vision where a vision of it, right? Yeah. He's, he's the one who, who sees the destroyer riding upon the water. mean uh it's unclear exactly when he sees that if he sees that while they're going through their crisis of nearly being drowned in the river and that makes sense that that's when they see it but it's actually uh it's not a solely ww phelps vision while he's the only one who sees it there are other members of the group who say they hear it, that they can hear this interaction. I'm not entirely sure what the destroyer Satan sounds like, but whatever it is, it was such that they all experienced this. So you can look in the history of church volume, it will say that the other know heard the sound but didn't see the vision so um interesting i i personally and maybe i i'm way off here garrett you can correct me but i

think we've taken the idea that satan controls the water um i remember hearing that as a missionary why can't missionary swim satan controls the water i'm like why do we baptize people in water why do we have the sacrament with water? Well, I always use it as an excuse. Why do I shower? Satan controls the water. It's easy when you have a practice that's in place to then try to find scriptural reasons for that practice that exists. If that's what the prophet wants us to do,

then that's what the prophet is going to tell us to do. And we have to be careful because even though sometimes our looking beyond the mark is spawned by fervency, right? It's spawned by a desperate belief. Sometimes we get so enamored with what we think is going to happen that when that thing doesn't happen, it becomes a faith crisis. We see that with Zion. It's certainly what happened with Ezra Booth. Ezra Booth joins the church because he sees Joseph Smith heal somebody. He's a Methodist minister, so he's certainly, he's educated, he knows the Bible. He is very skeptical of what, you know, whatever it is that these mommons are selling, right? But he witnesses Joseph Smith heal someone's paralyzed arm.

Well, that's a pretty big deal. And to him, it's essentially irrefutable. He buys into the idea of Zion. He buys into a member of the church. He's an elder. He's going down on this mission. But in his mind, he had built up that they would have ridiculous amounts of success preaching, that everyone would believe this, and that essentially Zion was going to drop down out of heaven, that when they got to the spot of the place, it was going to be the most beautiful place that ever existed. And it was a dirty frontier gambling town filled with houses of ill repute and saloons. I mean, it was nothing that he expected. Now, the thing is, Joseph had never said that. Joseph had never said, hey, we're going to go down to Missouri.

We're going to baptize like seriously thousands of people on the way, folks. But that's what he had come to believe. And so when his projected reality failed to match the actuality of circumstances, it caused a faith crisis for him. It seems to not help that there was the bickering and difficulties among the elders. I think he thought, well— The big argument between— Yeah, elders of God should never have a problem with each other. Yeah.

I mean, clearly, right? Because Christ's apostles never argued about things. Obviously, they did, right? I mean, the reality of this false expectation can really cause problems. And, you know, I think that's... Well, it happens today. All the time. I had the expectation of church history.

And when I started reading and learning, it didn't meet my expectation. And no one ever, you know, how did we create that expectation? Where did it come from? And, and, and, you know, sometimes things are, are more innocent and sometimes they're, they're not. I mean, the reality is sometimes people deliberately do try to deceive people to create their own following, you know, in order to build themselves up. I mean, to be, to, to, to, uh, you know, try to, to make themselves a light to demonstrate, Oh, look, I have this special knowledge. And I just think it's, it's, I know history, right? Well, I mean, someone listening to this, who's another historian is like, not as well as I do. I'm sure. Okay. Not as well as you, but, but I mean, look, I study history. That's what, that's

what my, uh, my, uh, you know, my training is in, but I'm not a prophet, right? I'm wearing a lavender shirt here for a reason. I mean, I don't have any access to how God interprets these revelations. I can place them in historical context. You know, they have this terrible accident where they nearly all drown. They don't receive the revelation right then. They actually, you know, they kind this terrible accident where they nearly all drown. They don't receive the revelation right then. They actually, you know, they kind of bicker and argue and they have this discussion through the night. And really by the next morning, they've kind of come to terms with one another. And it's in the aftermath of that kind of spirit of peace that's pervaded that this revelation is received, which is part of the reason why I think God's saying, listen, your sins are forgiven you. You know, you, yes, you know, you were, you're mortal, but now you've, you're, you're coming

on back. And, and you get that out of verse 37, where he says, you know, in as much as you've humbled yourself before me, the blessings of the kingdom are yours. Right. And probably verse 36 is also very uplifting to your listeners. Yeah. What I say unto one, I say unto all, be of good cheer, little children, for I'm in your midst, and I have not forsaken you. You know, the idea that you're little children, which is exactly

what Jesus, you know, you become like a child in order to inherit the kingdom of God. I think that we feel an awful lot of times in life like God has forsaken us. And I think it's in part because there's a lie that is repeated, sometimes unintentionally and sometimes very intentionally, that we tell ourselves that if only we're doing everything that's right, that bad things aren't going to happen to us. I know we talked about this a little bit when we talked about DNC3 and Joseph and Emma losing their first child. This is also happening in the aftermath of yet another catastrophe for Joseph and Emma, right?

That they're going down there having lost their next set of children, their twins. And I think it's really easy for believers who are sacrificing so much for God to start to wonder why it is there are still terrible bad things happen to them. And it is hard. I mean, in the past couple of months, I lost my brother. He died very unexpectedly. My youngest brother. And he left two little kids under the age of two at home.

And a wonderful, loving wife. And, you know, there's a lot of horrible people in this world. And, you know, they're still rolling around, right? And when you're faced with catastrophes like that, I think it's a natural thing for us to wonder, you know, God, things have been really, really bad. Why are they so bad? It's actually the question that has perplexed religionists in every religion from the dawn of religion. And that is, why is this world so terrible? Why suffer? Yeah, why? Why is there

suffering? If there's a God who can stop suffering, then let's see it. And I think God in these revelations and further ones, you know, you saw this with the death of Pauli Knight. He had to remind them that this world has tribulation, but it's not about this world. We aren't living about this world. We're living for the next world. What makes Christianity great, what makes the message of Christianity great, is that while this world is terrible at times, there's suffering at times, there is going to be a time when there is no suffering. There's going to be a time when there is no suffering. There's going to come a time when there is no tears, where there is no ill treatment of others,

where there is no bigotry and hatred. There's going to come a time when everything that you've lost is going to be restored to you. And that's in this next life. And I think that that's part of what God is trying to be restored to you. And that's in this next life. And I think that that's part of what God is trying to remind them here. Look, you guys have had a rough go of it. I'm still with you. I haven't forsaken you. Life is just hard. Things are bad. That's how this mortal life is. And you know, I hope that anyone listening, I mean, I hope anyone who's

suffering, you know, has some kind of balm that's given them from God, that they know that at some point, they are going to be recompensed. At some point, God is through the power of the Lord going to overcome their suffering and possibly not until the next life. But that's the only one that really matters because that's the one that lasts forever. That's the whole point of what Jesus taught. Again, from the book of Revelation, right? God shall wipe away the tears from their eyes. He'll do away with suffering and pain uh i love that verse 36 yeah it's beautiful you have good cheer little

children i have not not forsaken you you might think i have i promise you i have in in this world you have tribulation but be of good cheer i have overcome the world but there's that waiting period president benson called it, you know, the wicked think they're getting away with something, or the righteous think, where's my blessings? But there's a waiting period, as was the case with Job and Joseph, President. And I think that having, that is, there's such a hopeful thing that as believers in God, we know there is a reason.

There must be a reason. And as you just said so beautifully, Garrett, a God of justice, things will be restored to us. I think if I got it right, all of your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection. By the vision of the Almighty, I have seen it, Joseph Smith said. I love that one. Yeah. And that's what I have seen it, Joseph Smith said. I love that one. Yeah. And that's what I think is really what gives us hope. And, you know, at the same time, he tells them to be of good cheer.

I mean, it can be easy in this world that's filled with horrors to, you know, curl up into a ball and think about how awful things are and, you know, dwell upon how terrible they are. And yes, look forward for that blessed day of Zion or the resurrection or something that will end this horror show. But that's not who Joseph was. All of our accounts of him and even the account he gives of himself, right? That he had a native cheery disposition, right? He suffered all kinds of absolutely unfair, horrible things that happened to him. And yet he greeted people with a smile. He loved other people that were around him. And I hope that that's what we can at least try to do, that we can expect and understand that this world is filled with all kinds of horribly unfair suffering that God has promised

through his prophets will be made up to us in the next life. In some way that we don't understand, in a time we don't comprehend, all of our suffering will be made up to us in the next life. In some way that we don't understand, in a time we don't comprehend, all of our suffering will be made up and that we can try to, as cheerfully as we can, go about this life and recognize the blessings that we do have. At my brother's funeral service, my older brother commented on the fact that my brother bryant when he was when he was born it was very bad delivery uh premature all kinds

of complications and he nearly died and was in the hospital for a month and um my brother commented on it you know he said we can look at this as the most unfair thing that's ever happened. Um, and, and the worst, uh, tragedy, or we can look at it that, you know, we almost didn't have Brian at all. Uh, we, we should have lost him when he was a two week old and we got 37 years with him that we never should have had. By a miracle, he survived. And that doesn't fully assuage the loss, but it is at times like that that you are grateful that you know that you are going to see your loved ones again. And not because it's a myth or cleverly devised fables,

but because, because Joseph Smith saw Jesus Christ, Jesus is resurrected. And if Jesus is resurrected, then all of our losses are everyone we've lost is going to be resurrected. So, um, I thought of a, I thought of a book of Mormon verse. This is Alma, the elder. He and his people have been enslaved by Amulon. And this is what it says. Mormon writes, Now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light. The Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease. And they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

I'm okay if it just says, I'm totally fine if it says they did submit with patience to all the will of the Lord. Like, I'm good there, but he says they did submit cheerfully and with patience. And that reminds me of that verse 36, right? Be of good cheer, submit cheerfully. Let's liberty jail too. Let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power. Out of 123, right?

Yeah, and Garrett's the epitome of cheerfulness. And yet here he's going through this difficulty. Garrett, when I heard about your brother, I mean, the same thing happened to me in December. My oldest brother passed away and it just was and then my father last month and who i i know you lost your father just a couple of years ago years ago yeah but here uh you're a you're a you're the epitome of cheerfulness you really are um and it's not a fake cheerfulness you really the gospel has made you a cheerful happy person and that's not to say you're never sad and you never grieve. There's a place for those.

But I think what Elder Scott once said, these difficult things that happen to us are laid on the background of a very happy life. They're kind of laid as portions on a background of a very happy life. journey, right? That's, you know, it's slow and chugging and problems all over, but it's occasionally, you know, blessed with beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. And that's the reality. I mean, we live in a mortal world, which I think, you know, as you get further on this podcast, you know, this revelation will be revealed to people. And that is that a lot of this, our pre-mortal life is one of the most important aspects of dealing with the suffering we have in this life. Because all of us chose to come here knowing, not specifically what terrible things would happen to us, but, you know, we've been around, we saw what mortal

life was, that it was filled with inequity, it was filled with disease, it was filled with sickness, it was filled with betrayal, it was filled with all kinds of horrible things. And knowing that, we still said, if that's the only way I can become like my heavenly father and my heavenly mother, then that's what I'm going to do. And so, I mean, we, we chose to be a part of that. And so, um, again, I'm not saying we chose our individual trials, but we weren't tricked into this either. Right. It wasn't like, uh, it was a, it was a timeshare presentation and we were showing a whole lot of like, you know, actually that does sound pretty good.

Like, no, like if you go down, you can't even believe it. I mean, there's this amazing stuff down there. Wait till you meet the mosquito. Boy, you'll love that. I mean, it's, I think we knew full well what we were getting into when we came into it. And we knew that it would be terrible. And yet we made that decision and we just don. And yet we made that decision. And we just don't remember that we made the decision. And so. But you're right. It's a crucial piece of our doctrine. You signed up for this.

Right. It's really one of the only ways that we can sort out the reason why there is suffering. And we can sort it out in a way that others can't. Because if you believe God created everything out of nothing and created you out of nothing, you know, just whenever you were conceived and that you didn't exist before that. Well, fundamentally then the suffering that you go through, I mean, not only could God have mitigated it. I mean, there's a real question as to why God created you with an immortal spirit. If he knew you were just going to burn in hell forever.

I mean, he already knows whether or not you're going to heaven. Why did he give you an immortal spirit then, right? Like, oh, I'll create you out of nothing for my own will and purpose. And also, you're going to burn in hell for eternity. You know, there you go. I mean, not only is this immortal. What kind of being is this? What kind of being is that?

As that starts to be revealed more, the idea of this pre-existent life in Joseph's revelations, I think that helps an awful lot that this is not our beginning. This is certainly isn't our end. Yeah, certainly isn't our end. It's Elder Neal A. Maxwell. I believe that was him that used the phrase about the knowledge of the premortal existence as a wonderful flood of light. Does that sound familiar? And it is. It changes everything. We're in the middle of, we're in the hard part, and it's a very short part of this long existence and this little testing. President Packer, you remember the play in the plan? He called it Act 1, Act 2, Act 3. And we're in Act 2. And he said it's characterized by tests, trials, temptations, and even tragedies. Nowhere in Act 2, he said, appears the line, happily ever after. That's reserved for Act 3. Please join us for Part 2 of this podcast.