transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise, and humor.

Speaker 2:
[00:37] Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. We are joined by a special guest host who is joining us virtually, and that is my older brother, Dallin Dirkmaat.

Speaker 3:
[00:58] Hello, everybody. Yes, I finally achieved the Kish Kuman level coup d'etat.

Speaker 2:
[01:06] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[01:06] We have ousted Richard from his post.

Speaker 2:
[01:09] He's been gad yantin the heck out of people. Just stabbing chief judges everywhere, shoving them downstairs.

Speaker 3:
[01:18] What's the one guy's name? Is it Amalekaiha? Amaron's brother. The Amalekaiha that takes the kingship from the wingman?

Speaker 2:
[01:27] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[01:29] All crafty and such. Yes, after many years, folks, Richard has been unseated. No.

Speaker 2:
[01:35] For our long time listeners have gotten to know Dallin on a couple of episodes where he's, you know, we talked, we had a conversation with my mom. I think he was on that one. We got to know me, right? But this is, you know, I mean, really we're just testing the waters here. I mean, this, you know, we could end up with just, you know, just Richard being usurped entirely, but no, I'm just kidding. And, you know, on a much less jovial note, I will not dwell on this too much because I'm sure when he gets back, Richard will be wanting to weigh in on that. But the reason why Richard's not with us, the same reason why we had, we put up a, we took a premium podcast from the premium side of things and we repurposed it and put it up last week is that right as we were beginning to record last week, we just had hit record actually. Unfortunately, Richard received a call that his dad had very unexpectedly passed away. And so it's obviously a very, very difficult time for the whole LaDuke family and for my friend Richard. He loved his dad, his dad's a great man. And for those of you wondering, we're going to put up a link on the website, standardoftruth.com. We'll put up a link so you can see that, because some people have already emailed me saying, oh, where can I read the obituary? Is there any way I could help or whatever? And so we'll get a link put up on the Standard of Truth website so that you have a link already to that. And maybe we'll get a link put into the description of the podcast. So it's very sad. I mean, as Richard said, we were able to get a premium recorded, but we're doing this now just the day before the funeral and things are obviously very, very tough. Anyone who's lost a parent knows how tender that is. And so he did let some people know that, but we're just letting you all know. Hopefully, he's back next week. If he's gone indefinitely, it is because Dallin Kishkoum and him. But now that he has a mic, it's whenever.

Speaker 3:
[04:07] I don't think I can dedicate the time that Richard does. I mean, my goodness, you guys have to do a lot to pull the show off every week. This is...

Speaker 2:
[04:13] Yeah. I mean...

Speaker 3:
[04:14] Richard's one of the few people I know is probably busier than me, but yeah, somehow he does it. You guys are both super busy and somehow make it happen every week, twice a week.

Speaker 2:
[04:23] And the surprising thing is, as you're referencing just how much time is involved, how bad the podcast still is. Imagine what it would be like if we had all kinds of time to devote to the podcast, and we had like, I don't know, production values or editing or meetings, things like that, that would have greatly increased it.

Speaker 3:
[04:45] For sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[04:46] The first things first, because I know we're behind. I mean, right now, everyone's knee deep in the NBA playoffs, you know. All of the people in Dallin's neck of the woods down in Phoenix, they're not hoping to win the series, but they are hoping to lose the next playoff game by less than 30. I think that's, the goal is, can we lose by 25? What if we lost by 21? Would it be pretty tough?

Speaker 3:
[05:13] It's quite something to have a team that every year you're just hoping they can make that eight seed. And then they make it for what? Just to get embarrassed.

Speaker 2:
[05:19] Look, we're a bunch of Utah jazz fans here. We're hoping for ping pong balls. We haven't been hoping for playoffs in years. All we are is like, you know what? Maybe, maybe there's some way. We get the first ping pong ball and then we draft AJ DeBonsa and he stays in Utah. That's what we're thinking.

Speaker 3:
[05:39] Right, right. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, we're just good enough to never get a ping pong ball and just terrible enough to never win a game in the first round of the playoffs.

Speaker 2:
[05:48] Yeah, that pretty well describes it. So we did want to, we never got to really publicly talk about our NCAA March Madness bracket. We had so many people who participated. I mean, we brought it up obviously several weeks. I was in the lead for quite some time, but I had Arizona as my champion, and those of you who follow college basketball know that Arizona lost in the final four, and it wasn't even close. Michigan beat them like a rented mule, and it wasn't even close. I mean, the issue was never in doubt. In fact, probably the worst game I've ever seen a high caliber Arizona team ever even play. They were a number one seed. From the first five minutes of the game, it was obvious they were going to get blown out, and it never got close. Right. I mean, Michigan was pulling people out of the stands. They were playing the cheerleaders. It made no difference. It was absolute. So I went from being first and having a bracket that was like 8,000th in the nation to dropping to, you know, I ended up 33rd. And look, 33rd out of 375 people is respectable. You know, it's an A if that was the class.

Speaker 3:
[07:10] Top 1% that gets you graduation with honors, right?

Speaker 2:
[07:13] Yeah, there you go. I'm magna cum laude right now.

Speaker 3:
[07:17] Magna cum laude of a tournament, yep. Congratulations, brother.

Speaker 2:
[07:22] But obviously the people who picked Michigan, they topped it out. So, honorable mention to our two highest people that did not pick Michigan, but still played well enough that they ended up high. And the first is Matt, his team, Joseph Young's third vision, a great play off of the fact that we made fun of this textbook that said that it was Joseph Young that led the Saints to Utah. They confused Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and what came out of it was Joseph Young. And so, that's what their name was. They came in 13th. They picked UConn to win the whole thing. So they had the right teams in the finals, but UConn lost. And so had UConn won, they would have won the whole thing. But our top five, we had one named Winters Wonderland. They came in fifth. Sponsored by Jersey Mikes was fourth. Not a gambling man came in third, which kind of seems like maybe you should be, Gage. If you came in third out of 374 people, look, we don't advocate gambling. Also, if you fall on hard times, it's an option.

Speaker 3:
[08:44] Now Ox might be in the mire right now and then kind of make that extra couple hundred bucks for rent.

Speaker 2:
[08:49] Brock came in second. His team name is Crew's Dad. Crew being a teenage listener that we have, and apparently that's his name, his team that. But you know how apt that the number one, the winner, Jonathan with the team name Willard, Willard action figure, Willard Richards action figure. So with a play on, you know, Willard Richards having 50 guns in Carthage jail, according to someone else, someone else was Bandolero, I guess. Exactly. Oh, there are so many people that had the Willard Richards on there. Great names, it was tons of fun. And Jonathan, you know who you are. If you will email the podcast, email us at questions at standardoftruthpodcast.com. I know it's the longest email of all time, and that's because we discourage emails. But if you email us and give us your info, we'll send you a book that you, you know, I beat 374 other people and all I got was this lousy book. That's exactly what we're looking for. Anyway, thanks so much. It's tons of fun to interact with people and you know, our listeners are the best. Now, Dallin is being asked to do something very important. Oh, no. He's being asked to read emails and before he does though, one thing that we were going to do was we have a very dedicated listener to the podcast who had a birthday that we were going to give her a shout out for her birthday, but then Richard and I were both out of the country, and then we had this terrible tragedy. And so we're several weeks from Moo. Back on April 10th, it was Millie's birthday, her 85th birthday. And I hope when I'm 85, I will spend my time listening to something better than this podcast. Wow. Thank you for the charity listen. Millie's just trying to get into heaven now. She's like, what could I do that demonstrates I love my fellow men? I know I'll become a fan of the podcast. She and her daughter, Diane, listen together. So just want to give you a happy birthday shout out. Sorry, it's a little late, but we're gonna go to the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. Now, this is Dallin's first time. Oh yeah, he's rustling the papers. He's got it.

Speaker 3:
[11:26] I'm super nervous. I should be a better reader than Richard, but the bar is set so low. If I screw this up, I'll never live it down and Richard will never let me get it.

Speaker 2:
[11:37] Because Richard, Dallin printed these out. Richard has them blown up on his computer screen to the point where there's like three words on the screen at a time.

Speaker 3:
[11:51] Well, first off, so I don't want to get accused of trashing Richard too much. I've known Richard since, well, since Gerrit met him in Utah State.

Speaker 2:
[12:01] Since we met him.

Speaker 3:
[12:02] I used to go to Logan and hang out with Gerrit while he was going to college, and met Richard a long time ago. He's one of the most beautiful, smartest, most compassionate people I've ever met, and he is a good soul. He's a standard of what we should all shoot for in seeking to be Christ-like for sure. And I'll say one more cool thing about him, and that is, so everyone knows his business is his thing, where history is Gerrit's thing. Well, years ago, years and years ago, Richard actually developed one of the most phenomenal billion-dollar concepts that he never made a dollar on. Matter of fact, he lost money on it, but he developed the idea, and that is the, essentially, when you guys go to Walmart these days, and half the grocers, or half of the shoppers in the aisle aren't even shoppers. They're people that are gathering up orders that people place online, right? And this whole idea that people would get their groceries delivered from the local grocery store, Richard pioneered that idea before. Anyone thought it was cool. And he was the first, and he actually set up his own little shop where he had it all set up, where he was basically testing the concept and...

Speaker 2:
[13:13] And he was, it was operating. I mean, he was delivering groceries to people.

Speaker 3:
[13:17] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[13:18] But it's funny because the stores had not even considered it.

Speaker 3:
[13:27] Not even considered, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[13:29] I mean, it's like 20 years ago. I mean, probably 15 years ago or so.

Speaker 3:
[13:32] I would say 15-ish, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[13:34] They hadn't even considered the idea of people ordering groceries. And so, you know, he did get quite a few orders. And then there was, you know, there was a pretty bad economic downturn and it was not sustainable, not with his other work that he was doing. But yeah, Richard's a brilliant businessman. You know, this podcast notwithstanding.

Speaker 3:
[13:57] This one, not the best decision ever, but yeah, tip the cap there, Richard, okay.

Speaker 2:
[14:01] You shouldn't make a business model that, you know, creates premium content and then just gives it away to missionaries. This is our business model.

Speaker 3:
[14:11] All right. So because I printed it out, I'm not sure which one we're going with.

Speaker 2:
[14:16] Let's read Brigham's first.

Speaker 3:
[14:18] Let's read Brigham's first. Got you. Okay. All right.

Speaker 2:
[14:24] Good sound effects. I'm going to get to the objects like horses clopping by.

Speaker 3:
[14:31] That's what you guys did. I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh years ago, and he would always say, in my formerly nicotine stained fingers. So in my never nicotine stained fingers. Okay. Subject urgent, exclamation point, need help from the VP of Sales of Helpside regarding.

Speaker 2:
[14:50] Should I read that, Gerrit? I mean, well, at this point, you already have. I think it's the way that Brayden is trying to get Richard's attention, because that's the company that Richard cares about.

Speaker 3:
[14:59] I see.

Speaker 2:
[15:01] So there's a lot of people, we get 100 to 200 emails a week. And so people try to get Richard's attention by appealing to his vanity, by appealing to his business, by saying, oh, hey, I have a great deal for you. And then you get into the body, it has nothing to do with his work. They're just lying to get on the podcast. So that's what Brayden did.

Speaker 3:
[15:24] Got it. So now everyone's going to do that now that we just said that. So great. So all your normal non-attention seeking emailers out there, you're toast now. Sorry. Now you've got to come up with something beautiful and extravagant. Okay. Dr. LaDuke. Should I say LaDue and LaDoc and all the other?

Speaker 2:
[15:42] No, he spelled it correctly.

Speaker 3:
[15:44] No, he did. No, I'm just wondering if I should say all of the-

Speaker 2:
[15:46] No, really, you just got to praise him for spelling it correctly.

Speaker 3:
[15:50] Just the spelling. Same with our last name, right?

Speaker 2:
[15:53] It is. It's the same thing.

Speaker 3:
[15:54] I have a way of saying it to everyone and I don't even wait for them to try to understand it. I say it and start spelling it right away. D as in David, I-R-K-M-A-A-1-T.

Speaker 2:
[16:05] You know what the problem is? Even when you start to try to spell it to people, and even when you emphasize it's Dirkmaat, people just think that Dirk is your first name. They still do?

Speaker 3:
[16:18] They do. They do.

Speaker 2:
[16:20] I legitimately work with people who think my first name is Dirk, who will see me and say, hey Dirk, how's it going?

Speaker 3:
[16:29] I've got that many times.

Speaker 2:
[16:30] Yes, that's true. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[16:35] Okay. Let's see here. Okay. Here we go. From Braden. I hope the subject line comes across enough to get your attention instead of looking like spam. No, too late, Braden. I wish I could say I wanted to learn more about implied referrals or even rice tariffs, but I have an even more important request. Okay. My wife, Brianna, is soon going to labor with our third child and first daughter. Congratulations, sir. She is also a fan of the show and is planning on emailing when active labor begins. However, she has requested a compilation of angry Gerrit clips. We'll get the show interns on that right away. That's good. To get her pumped with the proper mojo to push a human being into the world. I'm hoping the patent owner of the Dendometer will be able to help us with some episodes to look for. She is due April 20th, so could have a baby any day now. Really hope this is read and responded to if not now, at least when our unborn child. There you go. I'm Richarding this thing up right here. Dr. LaDude's not happy. Okay. At least before our unborn daughter goes into labor, so at least she can use the righteous indignation of Gerrit's factual lambasting of fornicating fornicators to bolster her maternal endeavors. All the best love, all the best love to the podcast, and everything you guys have been doing has been very meaningful. Anyways. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[18:10] Well, so unfortunately we got this apparently after, well, I mean, we got to this after your wife's probably already given birth. So congratulations.

Speaker 3:
[18:17] But I haven't yet gotten an email.

Speaker 2:
[18:19] Yeah. I haven't gotten an email saying that yet. So maybe not. If you are looking for angry Gerrit clips, which I am embarrassed by, so I'm not going to help you find them, but Richard thinks are great. You could always just search through the, you know, if you have the podcast downloaded in your library on your phone, you can search the library. Here are some key terms that will help you find things. Philastus hurlbutt. Anywhere that there's a hurlbutt, there's a chance there's going to be angry. Fornicating fornicators is probably going to be there. John C. Bennett. There are several things that could trigger it. But you know what? To kind of tie it together, actually, we have another email where someone's trying to help you find what causes dandermeter reactions. You got the next one.

Speaker 3:
[19:16] Okay, so you want to go to the next email, Gerrit?

Speaker 2:
[19:19] Yeah, let's hop over.

Speaker 3:
[19:21] Oh, since we didn't do any show prep, I don't know what I'm doing.

Speaker 2:
[19:24] Well, I mean, that, and you have no experience. I mean, the show prep was, hey, plug the microphone in right there. Here? Yeah, plug it in. Okay, let's go.

Speaker 3:
[19:36] Don't touch that part that mutes it. No, I said don't touch it. Don't touch it. I hit it like eight times. Okay. All right. So the next one, the one says, hello, doctors, Gerrit.

Speaker 2:
[19:47] I think so, yes.

Speaker 3:
[19:49] Yes, from Danica.

Speaker 2:
[19:51] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[19:52] Yeah. Hello, doctors. First off, I hope you thoroughly enjoy the Dendometer I made. Oh my goodness. She made her own Dendometer. This isn't going to translate to voice for the podcast, Gerrit. It is pretty cool. It's like a fan.

Speaker 2:
[20:07] We can kind of describe. Yeah, a fan chart.

Speaker 3:
[20:09] Yeah, it's a fan chart where, you know, you got the horizon on the bottom, basically, and then it goes like a peacock feathers, if you can imagine, from left to right. On the left side is one, and it goes all the way up to the top where it's between five and six, and then all the way down to ten. Ten being the highest Dendometer. Do you want to go ahead and read it? You want me to read it, Gerrit?

Speaker 2:
[20:28] I mean, I can go through some of these. So number one is when people reference the historical record in quotes, the work and the glory.

Speaker 3:
[20:38] Right.

Speaker 2:
[20:39] That's level one. Right.

Speaker 3:
[20:40] Actually, recently, I don't want to name any names and embarrassing, but recently was helping a younger person work on a talk and some of the experiences they want to share, they were pulled from the chosen. I mean, hold on a minute.

Speaker 2:
[20:52] We got to make sure that's in the New Testament.

Speaker 3:
[20:55] They really love this thing that Mary Magdalene did in the chosen. Hold on a minute. That might not be actually biblical. So anyway, yeah, it's funny.

Speaker 2:
[21:02] Level two was Crinkling Leaves and Richard's Being a Degenerate Gambler, right? So Crinkling Leaves was that is not... We had a podcast on the premium side that was about it's holy places from our past. So it was talking about the church historic sites and we still may do some more of those. But Richard wanted to call it Crinkling Leaves making fun of essentially like, you know, those documentaries where you're walking through the forest on the way to the place. Like, here we are approaching the home.

Speaker 3:
[21:36] You know, that kind of stuff. BBC.

Speaker 2:
[21:39] Yes, very BBC-esque. And I said no, and yet somehow people still call it that. Apparently...

Speaker 3:
[21:47] Number three, it stands... Sorry, yeah, it stands to reason, in quotes.

Speaker 2:
[21:51] Anytime someone says it stands to reason.

Speaker 3:
[21:55] Well, it will stand to so much reason. Why are you talking about? No. The next one, number four, YouTube, quote, unquote, revelations, aka people who think they're a profit.

Speaker 2:
[22:06] Yep, that's actually way higher on the Dendometer than they think it is.

Speaker 3:
[22:11] Yeah, I think that's definitely underselling that. That's up there with John C. Bennett, I'll tell you. Okay, number five, fun with numbers. I didn't know you hated that so much.

Speaker 2:
[22:23] Yeah. Well, I don't hate it that much, but Richard's been trying to introduce fun with numbers into the podcast, and I've been trying to say no, so they are seeing this as a negative.

Speaker 3:
[22:35] I prepared some fun with numbers myself. I thought that was the thing. Okay. I will stay away from that.

Speaker 2:
[22:39] It will be absolutely cut off.

Speaker 3:
[22:44] Hold on a second. I want to delete that page. Okay. Deleting. Number six, Solomon Spalding Manuscript, which is perfect. Gerrit did a fireside down here last weekend. They're very rare, Arizona fireside, and that was a part of the topic that you covered, and you did a beautiful job, man. I got so many people coming up to me afterwards, and they just loved it. You did a great job. Yeah, that killed Solomon Spalding manuscript that is completely unrelated in any way to the Book of Mormon.

Speaker 2:
[23:14] Even though there's all kinds of people who lie about it and say it's the same thing. Great. Great example of bad sourcing at work.

Speaker 3:
[23:23] CES letter. Okay. All right. Getting up there.

Speaker 2:
[23:26] Obviously. Very. Yep.

Speaker 3:
[23:28] Number eight. Well, I know Joseph Smith. Insert false information here because I read it in the Joseph Smith papers. Oh yeah. This is one. This one doesn't get the fame as some of the other ones like the John C. Bennett's, but Gerrit hates it when people do this because he's like, literally dozens of us worked on the Joseph Smith papers for years, and millions and millions of dollars are spent on a lot of it donated by private parties even. We actually have all this stuff together and no one bothers to read it, and especially the people who are saying that Joseph said or did something. That just does drive Gerrit nuts.

Speaker 2:
[24:08] Well, and especially when people use it. So it's a real tactic for antagonists to do now as well, right? So they know that if they try to hand an anti-Mormon podcast to their mom, that she's going to be not listening to it. So what do they do? They're like, it even says in the Joseph Smith papers that Joseph Smith was deliberately doing. So they use it as a way of making the source seem accurate. And again, the problem is, well, you're acting as if you were reading the papers and you came to, I read the first 15 volumes, I came to volume 16, I'm 12,000 pages in, and I read this quote that really bothers me. No, that's not how you came on that quote. Someone sent it to you and said, hey, you should have a really big problem with this. And then you turned around without doing any other research and said, wow, I do have a really big problem with it. It's funny, people will call that research. That's not research. That's you regurgitating whatever someone just sent to you. That's not research.

Speaker 3:
[25:14] Yeah, it's actually, you know, something I've run into where I've been talking to someone who maybe is a lesser active member, and they'll point out some historical things, historical things that bother them about the church. And several times in those conversations, like, well, you know, I've got the perfect person that can get to the bottom of this because I got my brother in my back pocket, so to speak, in that regard. And I always got, he's a PhD historian, he researched all this stuff, he worked on the Josephine papers. And recently, I was basically started that little riff saying, I know someone very well who's an expert on all this. And he pretty much said, yeah, yeah, I'm not really into all the research and stuff. I'm like, well.

Speaker 2:
[25:56] Then why are you talking about it?

Speaker 3:
[25:58] Why did you just bring it up? Like it was a big issue in the church and you never bothered to study it?

Speaker 2:
[26:02] It's a very weird thing. Like I said, like I said before, look, everyone's at different places with their testimony. But if you're spending more time on a Netflix series, then you are about trying to build your testimony or to find out what it is that bothers you, whether it's true. Well then, you know, look, where you spend your time demonstrates what you really care about. So you can say all kinds of things. Everyone can say all kinds of things. I mean, I've been trying to build my testimony. Well, are you reading your scriptures? Well, no. Are you going to church? No. Are you studying the words of the prophets from general conference? No. So I know you think you're trying to build your testimony. What exactly do you think that means? And so anyway, but number nine, you're gonna agree with me on.

Speaker 3:
[26:51] Number nine. Well, this is okay. This might be nine on yours, but on Richard's, I think it's a 14.

Speaker 2:
[26:57] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[26:57] Prosperity gospel. This is Richard. This is Richard's Dendometer to 100 million.

Speaker 2:
[27:03] Yeah. The Richard Dendometer.

Speaker 3:
[27:06] Richard hates him the prosperity gospel more than anyone we know.

Speaker 2:
[27:10] This is the ideal that you're going to be blessed with riches as long as you're good and anyone who isn't that shows that they're not. Yeah, anyway. So number 10. So this is the highest level supposedly of Dendometer that you can get.

Speaker 3:
[27:24] Oh yes. This is a quote from you from the fireside on Saturday. If you only knew what I know.

Speaker 2:
[27:32] Yep. That's the patented, if you knew what I knew, then you wouldn't have a testimony.

Speaker 3:
[27:38] You always have to say it in that voice though, Gerrit.

Speaker 2:
[27:41] Yeah, you have to say it. It's kind of a breathy voice.

Speaker 3:
[27:42] I've never heard you say it not in that voice.

Speaker 2:
[27:45] It's a breathy. I mean, you could say it in a smoker's voice. You could be like, if you only knew what I know, then you wouldn't believe Joseph was a prophet.

Speaker 3:
[27:56] Like Moe from Simpsons?

Speaker 2:
[27:57] Yeah, something like that. But you know what's the best is, so this scale goes from one to 10, and then she created a 11 that actually breaks the scale and goes below the horizon.

Speaker 3:
[28:11] Yeah, if you can imagine the fan chart in your mind. It goes below the horizon. What do you guys think it is at home? Do I even have to say what it is?

Speaker 2:
[28:18] I think they all know. John C. Bennett and the fornicating fornicator who shall not be named, which is Dr. Velasquez Robots.

Speaker 3:
[28:28] Right, also a subject of the Saturday Fireside, yes.

Speaker 2:
[28:31] Oh, very, very good. We appreciate that. But she also did have a question in her email, so I don't know if you want to read her email. We'll see if we can answer that.

Speaker 3:
[28:39] Oh, I didn't realize we stopped, not even halfway through, that's only barely the way through.

Speaker 2:
[28:43] We saw that she made a chart and we lost ourselves in the world of wonder.

Speaker 3:
[28:48] Right, okay. This is Danica still, okay. All right. I'm learning as I go. I'm a work in progress. Okay. I actually have one question that will hopefully be a quick one. Where does the belief that we're all going to have to pack up and move to Missouri at some point come from? And this one, I don't know if we'll tell the story about why this hits home to me, but more than most, Gerrit probably knows the story. We were joking about the fact that my husband and I are buying land and what will likely happen is we'll go through all this work, build our dream home only to get that call that it's time to go to Missouri. Then my brother-in-law scoffed and he said, I don't think that's actually true. I've never been able to find a reliable source for it. So, says Danica, I figured if anyone would know, it would be the legendary Dirk Maas. No, I am not in labor. This baby train ended at four kids, but I hope my meager offering of the hopefully hilarity of the Dendometer will get my email read. It sure did. That worked, Danica. Yeah. Anyways, yeah, there you go.

Speaker 2:
[30:03] So this is a great question. First of all, let's set the set up the fact that one of the things that makes Latter-day Saints very unique. In fact, you know what? There are other radical Christian groups during the Reformation who don't have extermination orders and aren't being murdered by state militias. A great example of this is the Shakers, right? We talked about them a little bit on the premium podcast this last week. But the Shakers believe things that are totally at variance with traditional Christianity, much like us. They believe that, first of all, that all marital relations are sinful, that men and women should not be married, there should be no procreation, that that's animal nature. If there is so even people who became Shakers, they became celibate. But they also believe that there's a difference between Jesus and Christ, right? Which, I mean, obviously, Jesus is his name and Christ means Messiah. But in the way that they develop this theology, they believe that Jesus was essentially a man who had the fullness of Christ spirit rest upon him. So then they believe that in the 1700s, that Mother Anne Lee was the female equivalent, that she was obviously a mortal woman, but she had the fullness of Christ spirit rest upon her. Which is the reason why you see in our scriptures, or you hear other references of the fact the Shakers believe that Jesus came back as a woman. Well, they don't believe that Jesus came back as a woman because they believe Jesus is a man. They believe the fullness of God's power called Christ spirit rested on Jesus, and then the fullness of God's power called Christ spirit rested on Mother Anne Lee. So it's not really the second coming of Jesus. It's the second coming of Christ, of Christ spirit, right? Well, that's pretty radical. I mean, I've talked to enough evangelicals to know that that will get you condemned to hell, if that's what you think happens with that. So why don't we have story after story of shakers getting murdered up? Why don't we have stories everywhere of shakers being burned? I mean, now what? They were persecuted. They were certainly scoffed at. They were certainly driven out of some locales. But why wasn't there the same kind of concerted effort? One of the main reasons why, even though they're incredibly radical, is because they don't have a general gathering principle as part of their religion. They have localized collective gathering. I mean, look, I want to talk about another radical thing shakers did. They believed in holding all things in common and that you'd get together in a commune of 100, 200 people. You'd work the land together. You'd share all your resources. Men and women would live separately. But that's all that they planned to do. There was never a plan to have every shaker in America move to one giant commune. They also almost universally rejected interacting in politics. So you didn't have to worry if there was a group of 200 shakers who moved to your town and set up a commune. Uh-oh, does that mean that they're going to vote for some shaker mayor? Nope, because they're not going to vote at all. So you have to worry about who they're going to vote for because they won't, because they see that as sinful, as participating in man-made institutions rather than, um, you know, abiding only the laws of God.

Speaker 3:
[34:10] So it seems like, it seems like a little bit of a cheat code there where they say, oh, we're not going to vote and you don't have to worry about what we're.

Speaker 2:
[34:17] Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, uh, it's literally what Thomas Ford said about the Mormons being murdered in, in Illinois. He wrote in his book, if only the Mormons had agreed to not participate in elections, then the violence against them could have been stopped. So the price for Mormon peace was the renunciation of their rights as American citizens, really the most fundamental right of American citizens. And that is to, to choose your leaders, to have a say in choosing your leaders. And if you go all the way back to John Locke, what does John Locke say? That the only way a government can have legitimate authority is if you as the people consent to give that government authority, right? So that's why voting is essential because governments actually don't have authority. They have power that's given to them by the people. This is the ideal that drives the American Revolution. And so, it's pretty hard to find a more un-American thing than, yeah, these people shouldn't have the right to vote. That's kind of a, it's really the baseline of American ideal, that everyone has a right to vote. Now, you have all kinds of people who aren't happy with the results of votes. This is not, that doesn't mean you get to, you know, set the country on fire every time you don't win. But the point is that you participate in a system whereby you've conceded some sovereignty with the idea that whoever wins the most, you know, votes in your local election will be mayor and not, you know, just your buddy. But Latter-day Saints, of course, did believe in participating in voting. They not only believed in participating in it, they encouraged their believers to participate in it. I think you can still see that today. I mean, the church, at least in the United States, you know, without taking a partisan position, always strongly encourages the saints to participate in elections and in the electoral process. Well, that's a real problem if you don't want them Mormons voting, right? So suddenly the fact that 2,000 Mormons move to your town becomes a real problem if you know they're gonna vote against your candidate. All this is to say that the gathering of Latter-day Saints is very much a spiritual blessing, but also a unique aspect of Latter-day Saint theology that causes some of the antagonism towards it. Because in a body, Latter-day Saints are far more powerful. They're more powerful politically. They're more powerful economically. This is the reason why Brigham Young is moving the Saints out of Illinois and moving them to the middle of nowhere in Utah, and then even sending colonies down to where Dallin lives in Arizona. I mean, we were just having a conversation the other day. What are the Mormon colonies doing in a place like Thatcher? I mean, before air conditioning exists.

Speaker 3:
[37:48] Yeah, before air conditioning is a key part of that, man. I can't imagine. It's amazing though. We moved here seven years ago. It's amazing how many members of the church I've met, their family, they're from here, and their parents are from here, their grandparents are from here. They go way back. There's a lot of them. I mean, a good percentage of our ward, at least.

Speaker 2:
[38:08] I mean, we had colonies in Las Vegas as well. We created a fort down in Las Vegas. I mean, imagine living through a Las Vegas or a Phoenix area summer with no air conditioning.

Speaker 3:
[38:23] Almost as bad as dealing with biting flies and mosquitoes in Idaho.

Speaker 2:
[38:28] I mean, those people were also sent up there to colonize, so I guess those are the staff that are... I don't know which one I would choose. I don't know if you've ever been to Southeast Idaho and moved irrigation pipe in a field, but there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million deer flies every step you take. I don't know what the numbers actually are, but I know that it is... And they don't care if you put repellent on. Repellent to them, it tastes good.

Speaker 3:
[38:56] Yeah, there's no way to really ward them off. I started working in the fields and helping out when I was 10 years old. I think a lot of my fellow friends from the Shelly, Idaho area did the same. But as I got older and worked in the fields for several more years, I got so good at holding that irrigation pipe with one hand, most of my right hand, right? As I'm walking with it, my left hand was 100% dedicated to killing those deer flies. I got good at swatting them. I'd kill maybe half a dozen each from each path, from when you're moving the irrigation pipe to the new setting. On the way back, you had both hands free, but it was easier just to run to the next pipe, pull it out, and then go out of the game, see how many you kill before you got to the next pipe. The wheat fields were the worst, especially in July. Boy, those deer flies love wheat fields in July.

Speaker 2:
[39:44] Yeah. It's funny because you wanted wheat early before it got too tall and dumped a lot of water into your irrigation boots. But you wanted potatoes later, right? Because potatoes earlier are also a dumpster fire because the furrows are so muddy and so sloppy that every step you take, you're just slopping all over the place as you try to move the pipe and the potatoes.

Speaker 3:
[40:12] That's right. Yeah, the furrows are too fresh from the making of furrows. So the first couple of irrigations when you cross that field, you sink down a good 12 inches.

Speaker 2:
[40:21] I mean, how many times does your irrigation boot come off because you stepped in the mud and your foot comes out of it? Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[40:28] And then the last few weeks of the potato harvest, or sorry, the potato season, then you have to power walk your way across with the irrigation pipe because the vines will trip you.

Speaker 2:
[40:38] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[40:38] So you have to either high step it, or you got to just do a power pull with each step so that when the vine grabs your boot, you rip through it so it doesn't trip you and you fall on your face.

Speaker 2:
[40:46] I've taken a rain bird to the forehead because I tripped while I was holding it.

Speaker 3:
[40:53] Yeah. So the potato field is definitely more treacherous. But yeah, late in the season on the wheat fields, it doesn't matter what you do, you will get your boot full of water by the time you get to end of that irrigation line. You have to pull it off, dump it out.

Speaker 2:
[41:04] You stop and put it back on with your wet sock.

Speaker 3:
[41:07] Yeah. You can wear gaiters. You can wear bib. You can wear, people wear all kinds of stuff. None of it really works. You can mitigate it a little bit and reduce it, but it will not keep that water out of your boot.

Speaker 2:
[41:16] You've got trench foot by the time you get back. You're like a World War I soldier. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[41:21] You get home back to the house, pull off your boots and your toes are all wrinkled. Your feet have been soaked in water for three hours.

Speaker 2:
[41:28] And then you got to cash your gigantic paycheck, which they paid you 10 cents per pipe that you moved. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[41:36] I think it got up to 11 cents or maybe 12 by the time I stopped doing it.

Speaker 2:
[41:39] Someone was big time, but they're like, oh, I had enough experience. They paid me 11 cents a pipe.

Speaker 3:
[41:44] Yeah. So I started, so my own experience, I started doing this when I was, you know, in 86. But by the time I was doing a bunch on my own without my siblings, my older siblings, was probably 88. But you had to move 30 pipe. I mean, you're pulling them out from the mud and the muck. You're emptying the water out because the water just got shut off at half an hour, hour earlier.

Speaker 2:
[42:04] And so it's super heavy.

Speaker 3:
[42:06] Super heavy. You got to put it on your knee while the water drains out of it and then you got to walk, you know, about 50 feet with it, set it down and reattach it. And this you had to do, do you do the whole thing? There's usually 30 pipe in a line because that's about I believe if my math is right, if you go to a line is about a quarter of a mile, you do the whole thing. 30 pipe, hot, whether it's windy, you got to go do it. You got the deer flies, you got the muck and you get done. You made three bucks.

Speaker 2:
[42:39] Yeah. And so you try to do, you move four or five lines, but you had to do it twice a day. So you got up super early in the morning, you had to do it before school. Then you had to come home all nasty and muddy and get ready for school. Then as soon as you got home from school, you had to go do it again and then go to football practice. I mean.

Speaker 3:
[43:01] That's right. The football coaches will have you go home, do the pipe, then you come back. So yeah, when it was potato season, during football season, when they overlapped, I practiced late at night always after all the pipe was set.

Speaker 2:
[43:15] We mentioned before that our high school mascot is an actual giant potato.

Speaker 3:
[43:21] It's literally a potato with a trident-like Neptune with a crown on its head. I never thought it was weird, but then as I got older, people laughed at us. You guys are the potato mascot, like it was a bad thing and it was normal to us.

Speaker 2:
[43:37] Our mascot had a costume that was a giant potato with a spear that they walked around in. And our cheerleaders had burlap potato sack bag skirts that they wore as their skirts.

Speaker 3:
[43:53] They did. They had burlap skirts. I was not joking. You guys think we're kidding? We've got the yearbooks to prove it. But I don't know if they still have that potato, the potato mascot walk around, but I'll bet they do. And someone listening in Shelly, Idaho, can certainly email in and let us know.

Speaker 2:
[44:07] Well, we digress greatly. But the whole point was the Saints also had to gather. They gathered in these various colonies, right? But they gather in these groups. And of course the idea that we're going to Zion, I mean, this is not something that's just made up, right? I mean, you don't have to go very far. I mean, you have many revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants talking about. Remember Doctrine and Covenants Section 28, the whole reason why you had Hiram Page and his Seer Stone deceiving people is because these false revelations were declaring where this city of Zion was going to be built. So the early Latter-day Saints, they all anticipated that they were all going to be moving there. You have this from Joseph Smith's Articles of Faith, right? It's the 10th Article of Faith. We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and the restoration of the 10 tribes. So, it's not just this figure of idea that it's literal, that Zion, the new Jerusalem, will be built upon the American continent, and that Christ will reign personally upon the earth, and that the earth will be renewed to receive its paradisiacal glory. So this is actually an Article of Faith, so we still have it. It hasn't been dropped from the Articles of Faith. But I think the question really more centers on this idea of, well, are we really all going to have to get up and go move to Missouri to build the city of Zion? Well, it depends on where you're reading, when you're reading what prophets are saying about this. Because today, we have a worldwide church, and well over 17 million members. Back when most of these things were received, there were not very many members. The idea that you would build this city with just like five people, well, of course, you're going to need everybody to build the city. But they would have viewed this prophecy or the declaration where the city is going to be built, almost exactly the opposite of your brother-in-law, where he is sitting there thinking, yeah, we're not going to have to go move to Missouri. But first of all, I'm on your brother-in-law's side. I don't want to move to Missouri. And you know how you know that? If you ever go to Missouri, that's the main way that you know. How you know that you have a bad day is when the pilot announces, we've just touched down in Kansas City. You're like, oh, boy. There's going to be some great barbecue. But you know, I mean, I understand that concern. But early Latter-day Saints, it would have been the exact opposite. Why was Hiram Page able to deceive some of the earliest members of the church? Because he was declaring where the city of Zion was. It's because everyone desperately wanted to be there. So they would actually look at your question or your brother-in-law's question. And those saints actually wouldn't comprehend why the question is being asked. They would say, you understand the point of the city of Zion, right? It's God's city. It's going to be a place, like the city of Enoch, where there's no rich and there's no poor, where everyone treats each other with love, where like the city of Enoch, the gospel is lived so much that everyone is so happy, so devoted to God that God takes it to himself. I mean, I don't know what kind of deal you got on your current house, but whatever it is, is it better than being in the city of God on earth? I do understand, as the Dendometer chart that we got demonstrates, one of the things I don't like is people saying, and that's why we got to move to Adam on Diamond, and we've got to buy a bunch of land, because I know someone who knows someone who said that he talked to an area authority, who said that they're building apartments there already. I mean, that's not how we get revelation. But the mentality is certainly very different. Now, when the Latter-day Saints first were driven from Zion, it's one of the revelations that Joseph Smith received, because his question was, how can we be driven out of the place you told us to build in preparation for Jesus coming? And the Lord said that they would eventually be restored. But then did not give them a timeline. And saints in those early days were always looking for when they'd be able to go back and build the city of Zion. So first and foremost, it's important to note, they're not asking the same question that we're asking, because the assumption among believers in Joseph and Brigham's time is absolutely, I'm going to where the city of Zion is, right? Your brother-in-law is like, well, we're not all going to be asked to go. Frankly, I hope I'm asked to go. I hope I'm one of the ones who gets the invite. We're talking about the place that's preparing for the second coming of Jesus Christ. I hope I'm on the invite list. And so their mentality is very different. So you're not going to have a bunch of people saying, boy, are we like all going to have to go? Second of all, for practical purposes, all of the saints at that point, so after they leave Nauvoo, all of the saints for quite some time are actually in Utah, or these other colonies in the West where they're sent out. So we don't have any saints in Missouri in 1850. Stunningly, for some reason, it was not a place that a lot of saints wanted to just go hang out and live. Almost as if there was a bad mojo from the things that had happened before. So because of that, if the city was going to be built at all, if the Revelation Doctrine and Covenant Section 58 was to be proven to be a revelation from God, the saints were going to have to go back and reclaim Zion and build this temple that Revelation had declared would be built there. So yeah, the understanding was, well, that's going to take most of us to go do it. I mean, we saw what happened when only some of us did it last time, and they murdered the heck out of us. So it's going to have to be all of us to do it. Then, during the Joseph Smith and Brigham Young eras, the expectation was of literal gathering wherever you were baptized. So if you were a saint who was baptized in England, now look, it's not like they'd be like, and if you're not in Salt Lake in the next six months, your membership is going to be revoked. I don't know why the church authority there sounds like a game show host, but the understanding was that you would, as soon as you possibly could, you would immigrate to join the rest of the body of saints. And while that is difficult for some people, the vast majority of people for who we have records for, it's what they want to do. I mean, they want to be with other people that believe the way they do. They don't want to be persecuted alone in these other places. And so for decades, Latter-day Saints gathered in Salt Lake and these other places after their baptism, regardless of where they were baptized. And then, you know, the shift in the early 20th century, where the church started telling people to build up Zion where they were. And so you now have kind of two messages. You have all of these early statements about going back to Missouri and building the New Jerusalem, which were made when basically the saints were all in one place. And then, you have saints globally all over the world, and the practicality or the idea like, you know, should someone who's baptizing Ghana start saving for their, you know, their plane fare to get to the city of Zion when it's built. I mean, there's a lot of other, a lot of other practicalities that come in. So, you know, in a technical sense, we don't have modern prophets that are saying things like, everybody better get ready to move to Zion. But that can sometimes be miscontrued. I'll have students sometimes say things like, we're not really still going to do that, right? We're not, we're not really still going to build the New Jerusalem, right? That's, that was back then, but God said we don't have to anymore. Well, we don't have any place where God says we don't have to do it anymore. The Gospel Principles Manual says that the New Jerusalem is going to be built in America. The Articles of Faith continue to say that the New Jerusalem is going to be built. But the idea that not everyone is going to be involved in this is something that I think even Brigham Young understands. In 1861, he's giving a sermon about, you know, all the things that have been taken from the Saints, right? He says, do we own anything in Illinois? Yes. In Ohio, yes. The Lord will call back the Latter-day Saints. Although it is written in the Revelation, speaking of the Saints being driven from Jackson County, they should be driven from state to state and city to city, but few would remain to receive their inheritance. I did not receive any inheritance in Jackson County, Missouri. I was never there. I do not think of any one president who was there except for Judge Phelps. So WF. Phelps is obviously there in this meeting. There are a few others in the territory who received theirs. The point being, there are actually very few members who were already in Jackson County, where the city was supposed to be built before mobs drove them out and started killing them and burning their houses down and taking their stuff over. This is not worded, so he goes on to say, a few will remain and receive their inheritance. Will we return and receive an inheritance there? Brigham says, many of the saints will return to Missouri and receive an inheritance there. This is not exactly, this is not worded exactly as in Revelation, but it is according to the nature of things. So it seems that at least by 1861, now look, this is done during the American Civil War. By 1861, many Latter-day Saints think the American Civil War is going to be the pathway whereby Missouri is humbled enough that they're going to be able to leave Utah and en masse move back to build the city of Zion. In fact, Brigham Young has to multiple times tell them, no, it's not time. No, it's not time. Because you had apostate groups, you know, whenever there's a doctrine that people all hold, like the building of the city of Zion, you can bet your, you know, you can bet the money that you don't spend gambling on sports that there will be someone who will rise up and start to speak ahead of prophetic council. You have that right now with Missouri. You have people right now, there are excommunicated people right now leading an apostate group claiming that it's time to go back to Missouri because Jesus has already appeared in Adam on Day Omen. And why are people taken in by that? Because the gathering in Zion is such a big deal that it actually opens the door for people to claim they have knowledge that hasn't yet been revealed. It's important to note that while the city of Zion is going to be built, Joseph Smith is going to declare that all of North and South America is the land of Zion. All of it is. So I mean, the idea of gathering design, I mean, if you happen to be a saint in, you in Guatemala, you're already in the land of Zion, even if it's not the New Jerusalem. So, but, but even by 1861, Brigham Young, you can tell is saying, I don't think every single person is going to go to Missouri. Many are going to go, but not, not all of them. But as to whether or not the city of Zion is still going to be built, Joseph F. Smith or Joseph Fielding Smith was very adamant that God has never rescinded that declaration. So how is it going to work? I don't know. When is it going to happen? All you have to do is do a search on YouTube for Second Coming and you'll have all kinds of people that will tell you when it's going to happen. And that's why it's so important that we follow current prophetic utterance. I would say though, hopefully we can start adjusting our mentality to where we're not thinking about everything that we're going to have to give up if we were called to gather in the city of Zion. And instead, think about everything that we would gain by being in a place that's the city of God on earth. Yes, you probably are going to lose some material wealth. Yes, there might be jobs that have to change and businesses that go under and all kinds of things surrounding it. And you would be no different than all of the early Latter-day Saints who gave up their lands and gave up their cattle and gave up everything with the promise that they would receive an hundredfold in the kingdom of their father. And this willingness to sacrifice is always a good measure of where we really are at with our relationship with God. Anything to add to that, Dallin?

Speaker 3:
[59:22] Well, I've got a funny story to tell about that. I don't know if it's appropriate, but we all love jobless Rob. But I know and love jobless Rob also, but there's another Rob that Colorado Robbie will call him that played a mean joke on me once. And along the same lines of this topic here. And there was a huge regional conference where they had a general authority come and they made a big deal of it. Everyone's gotta come, you gotta tune in. And I just, Heather and I could not make it. It was, I was, I had been traveling all week. I wasn't feeling good and so I skipped out of it. And so we didn't, neither of us went to it. And afterwards I messaged Colorado Robbie and said, Hey, what happened in the meeting? I missed it. I couldn't make it. And he said, Oh, wow, you missed it. So he said that it's time for Colorado Saints to start being, preparing to move back to Missouri. And he had me. I had just woken up, you know, from a nap and I believed him. I trusted him, you know, he's a good guy. And I came running up the stairs to tell Heather, we're supposed to start getting ready to go to Missouri. I started pulling out my Zillow app. I'm starting looking, I'm going to buy some property. Let's see what I can do.

Speaker 2:
[60:45] I got to get it before everyone else gets it.

Speaker 3:
[60:47] Yeah. So for about 20 minutes there, I was the victim of a cruel joke by Colorado Robbie. But yeah, that joke was only possible because this lore exists out there, you know, that we might need to move some day.

Speaker 2:
[61:02] Look, that we're going to build the New Jerusalem, that is absolutely doctrine. It's still there in the Articles of Faith.

Speaker 3:
[61:07] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[61:09] You know, in a lot of ways, your brother-in-law's right in the sense that you don't have prophets saying, and every single saint in the world, wherever they are, is going to be moving to Missouri to build it. I mean, already by 1861, Brigham Young is saying, many saints are going to go build it, but apparently not all of them if you're saying many. Otherwise, you say all of the saints are going to go, right?

Speaker 3:
[61:30] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[61:31] So I don't know what that's going to look like, but I do still believe, as multiple revelations declare, that the new Jerusalem is going to be built. And I know that there's a lot of people like, well, practically, how would that even work? I mean, how is this even, and there's always questions. People always wonder how things are actually going to work, but that's part of having faith, believing that as we approach the second coming of our Lord, that God will open up a path, not only for people to hear the gospel and to be converted, but also that these promised blessings that come from this gathering, literal gathering to build the city of the new Jerusalem, that it will take place. So I think we've probably covered enough lore and we put Dallin through enough torture so far. We've hit the hour mark and that's right when Richard's like, if you were Richard right now, you'd be doing this the whole time. You'd be like, slapping your time, saying that we're out of time.

Speaker 3:
[62:37] Well, I thought we were going to do Book of Enoch, part 6. We're not doing that today.

Speaker 2:
[62:41] Well, I mean, 67, Moroni, part 11 at this point.

Speaker 3:
[62:46] I came prepared to talk about the Book of Enoch. I think this was episode 6 on that.

Speaker 2:
[62:52] We'll see if Richard will let you on next week. It'll be all Book of Enoch all the time.

Speaker 3:
[62:58] I'm going to be unavailable next week. I'm going to make sure my phone's off.

Speaker 2:
[63:03] Make sure you're totally ready for it. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Again, our condolences to the Leduc family and to Richard. Dan, Richard's dad, was a huge fan of the podcast. He loved it. I mean, every time we ever saw him, the only thing he ever talked about was the podcast. I know he was super proud of his son Richard for the fact that he'd been a part of creating something that hopefully helps build the faith of people and hopefully helps them feel like that there is a reason for the faith that they have. That's what we hope for. And we hope that the blessings of knowing about the resurrection of the gospel will eventually help us sway some of Richard's grief and sorrow. And Dallin and I have lost our dad. And I mean, that's been more than a decade ago. And I would be lying if I said there weren't times that I didn't still desperately miss my dad. I mean, the reality is when you lose somebody, that there is an empty hole in your heart. And boy, it's just there and it's not fillable.

Speaker 3:
[64:22] A lot of times it's a little things. I miss the way he would say, hi, it's your dad, when he would call. He had the way of saying it, it's a little things in this.

Speaker 2:
[64:31] It's your dad, he's like, dad, do you think that I would answer the phone, hear my dad's voice on the other end and not know who it was?

Speaker 3:
[64:39] Especially, have your cell phones will tell you who's calling, you know, I can see it's dad.

Speaker 2:
[64:44] The other thing that I thought was funny is that for a while, you know, he'd call you, but he didn't really want to talk to you. That's right. He wanted to talk to you for around, somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 seconds to two minutes. Yes. You hit two minutes and he would, here's your mom, and the phone was getting passed off to Renee, and you know, here's your mom.

Speaker 3:
[65:07] He was all about the salutation. It was about the hello, it was not about the subject of the conversation.

Speaker 2:
[65:11] Yeah, but yeah, we miss our dad, and so, you know, we know, we know at least in some regard what Richard's going through, and it's difficult, and I know there's lots of people listening who've dealt with horrible tragedies. So it is great when those things happen to remember that in the end, we believe that we will have all of our loved ones back again. That is the great promise of Christianity, and that is the reason why that empty tomb is the greatest thing that's ever happened. The reason why we believe is because that tomb is empty. That empty tomb is everything, and so as Joseph taught, we miss the people that we lose, but it will be just a short time and we will have them again. So thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 1:
[66:09] Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.