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S4E34 · Sweetwater Rescue
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Standard of Truth · Season 4 · Episode 34 · 59:05

Sweetwater Rescue

The day after Brigham Young called for a rescue in October 1856, Saints who were poor themselves gave 106 blankets, 53 coats, 174 pairs of stockings and even a buffalo robe.

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The question ·

What did the Saints do when Brigham Young learned the handcart companies were stranded in 1856, and what can that teach us today?

Gerrit

Daniel cheers Gerrit's 'righteous fury' from the last two episodes, which the hosts joke raised Gerrit's blood pressure. Then Gerrit finishes his favorite stories with the handcart rescue. In October 1856, Brigham Young stood up in general conference and said the business of the conference was to rescue the Saints stranded on the plains. Wilford Woodruff's record of what poor Saints donated, down to 174 pairs of stockings and a buffalo robe, shows how they answered. Richard then explains Sweetwater Rescue, a nonprofit he helped start to take Saints who can't afford it to the temple, inspired by President Hinckley's teaching on temples. He tells how a district president in southern Argentina dreamed of taking his youth to the temple, and how the group is raising money to take about 100 people.

Who comes upBrigham YoungWilford WoodruffJedediah M. GrantGordon B. HinckleyMoroniPresident Rogero
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A reluctant co-host

Gerrit introduces Richard and the plan to return to the Sweetwater story.

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Intro welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of 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.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my sometimes reluctant, always questioning whether or not he'll be back, friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. I know that my attendance in this podcast hangs by a gossamer's thread.
Gerrit The sword of Damocles hangs over Richard each week, sitting in that chair as the slender horsehair daggles the sword. He's one story away from the end of everything.
Richard One poorly read email away.
Gerrit Well, If you were one poorly read email away, that sword would have chopped you in half a long time ago.
Richard One well read email away, perhaps, is the thing that's less likely.
Gerrit Yeah, well, because I'm so worried that you'll usurp me.
Richard Yes, it's true. It is good job security when your number two is completely incompetent and unable to do your job.
Gerrit I mean, given the fact that our current business model is giving a podcast away for free and then creating premium content to give to missionaries for free, with the hope that 30 years from now, they'll be able to donate to the podcast.
Richard I think we've hit a bit of a tipping point with the missionaries. It is legitimately now about 20 to 30 a week.
Gerrit We're getting six or seven missionary emails a day.
Richard It's pretty great.
Gerrit Yeah, and we don't give them anything, but we add them all to this Google Drive. And so I was trying to tell my wife that when you're a missionary, you have so little. I mean, as Rigdon explained, you only listen because there's nothing else.
Richard When you have nothing else to do, it's okay.
Gerrit Right. And so why that matters is when you're on your mission, getting access to anything that is new or different or that you can have is incredible. In my mission where we could only listen to Mormon Tabernacle Choir CDs, we were all kinds of excited when a new one dropped. For those of you missionaries listening, a CD is a way that people used to listen to music before there was streaming services and or the Internet. You had to take your music with you. Like you were a DJ, only you were a DJ for yourself. In fact, half of the stuff I had on my mission were cassettes. Half of the stuff I had, cassettes.
Richard Yeah, yeah, it was cassettes. I mean, I'm a huge fan of Janis Cap-Perry on my mission, but prior, you couldn't get me to listen to No Empty Chairs for $100.
Gerrit I'm drawing the line. I couldn't stand some of that. There were some of that stuff I listened to so much that it had the reverse effect. Like I'd rather silence than listen to that, you know, song again.
Richard Do you have a specific?
Gerrit I don't want to call out any of these artists who are wonderful people who created songs that got missionaries through their mission. And also, if someone turned the song on right now, I'd throw something at the device playing it.
Richard Well, Gerrit, we left on a bit of a tease. The Sweetwater Rescue and Brigham Young and Pioneers and such. So, we're going to get back to that fairly quickly. We have one email in the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. This comes for us actually from Daniel, who, now Daniel is the one that sent the email that the last couple of episodes, not the last one, but the two previous, about Joseph Smith being removed as the prophet.
Gerrit Yeah, that Joseph Smith was murdered or God allowed him to be murdered because he couldn't practice polygamy.
Richard Right, and both your dander and blood pressure were up.
Gerrit Yeah, that's why we booked a cruise, because the doctor was like, you know what? If this blood pressure is going to kill you, what have you been doing? I've been reading anti-morbid literature. All right. My doctor's in the stake presidency, so you know he...
Richard Yeah, so this is from Daniel. Incredible exclamation point. I don't have the ability to communicate that it's an exclamation point, so I just will say that...
Gerrit Well, you could be incredible.
Richard Incredible. Yeah, I could, but I'll just say incredible exclamation point.
Gerrit I'd like you to read the emails as if you're a carnival barker.
Richard Hey, you look like a winner. Why don't you come on down?
Gerrit Yeah, that's what I like. Someone from maybe the Boardwalk in New Jersey.
Richard I used to have a joke that I would share more frequently when I attended more county fairs, but if you've got a self-esteem problem, just walk down a midway of a fair and you'll feel like.
Gerrit I've got it together.
Richard Yeah. My gosh. Hey, handsome. Hey, you look like a winner. Hey. You go down there, you're just like, oh my gosh, where are you guys?
Gerrit I was handsome. You're the first person to call me handsome in 45 years. I'm married.
Richard Hey, handsome, come throw this softball at these lead bottles that are bolted to the ground.
Gerrit You look like you're a strong guy. Who are you talking to, my 12-year-old son?
Richard Anyway, so that is good. We also like to dispense mental health advice on the podcast. So, and again, and we're right in the middle of county fair season. So, I feel like a million bucks.
Gerrit I want to go to a demolition derby.
Richard Incredible! Exclamation point. I only do that for exclamation points. I do that for commas and periods as well. Just read all of it.
Gerrit How do you really read into a comma? Do you just pause longer? I mean...
Richard Well, you know what? I'm going to start doing it. I'm going to start calling it out. Gerrit's righteous fury was outstanding! Exclamation point. If all men were like Dr. Dirkmaat, the very powers of hell would mildly be annoyed for an inordinate amount of time.
Gerrit Mildly be annoyed. That's great.
Richard Thank you so much for breaking that down for me. Exclamation point. You make it seem so easy. My reading it makes it seem so easy.
Gerrit There's no H in what you're reading. So where did the SH sound come from?
Richard I'll tell you. That's a good question. I often pronounce seems as sheems often.
Gerrit Is that part of Yiddish you learned from your mom?
Richard It is. I'm going to go to Shul and it's sheems.
Gerrit I just assume like a bagel schmear.
Richard A schmear?
Gerrit Yes.
Richard Yes, that's right. Let me try that again. Thank you so much for breaking that down for me! You make it seem so easy, but I wouldn't have known how or where to best debunk those claims. I will be forever grateful. Richard, good luck with your doctorate. I have two business degrees from the University of Utah, so I have firsthand knowledge of how useless they are.
Gerrit That's great.
Richard Gerrit, you just keep on keeping on. Thanks, Daniel.
Gerrit It was very nice, Daniel. Thanks for simultaneously congratulating us and letting Richard know that his doctorate's worthless.
Richard Look, I already know it's worthless. I've told this story on the podcast before, but I wanted to go, and it's kind of part of my retirement plan, is to, I want to teach, you know, I enjoy it, it will be fun. And I do a little bit of teaching now as an adjunct, and it'd be fun to do it in a full time capacity. And so in order to do that, you either need to be immensely successful or get a PhD or both. I'm neither, so I had to at least get the PhD. So I go to pitch it to my wife and I say, Becky, I want to go back and I want to get my PhD. And she says, okay, well, how much is that going to cost? And then I tell her and she's like, oh, wow, that's a lot of money. So when you're done, will you make more money? I said, oh no, no, I'll make much, considerably much, much less. And then she said, okay, all right, well, here we go.
Gerrit That's true support.
Richard That is, it is the truest of support. But anyway, I talked too much about this. Let's on with the Sweetwater.
Gerrit We're going to get back into, I was telling the fact that the first story I told was Brigham Young in 1847, making that very difficult decision to give up all of the animals and his team to Jedediah Grant's company so they could make it to the valley. And I wanted to talk about the second story surrounding that, which is a little bit more well known. So, the second story is one that's more familiar to you, and that's the story of the Martin and Willie handcart companies. This is in 1856, so you got to fast forward nine years. And the idea to switch to handcart companies was because of the difficulty and the cost of trying to get people from the last American outpost all the way into Salt Lake. And you had thousands of European converts that are coming, and they already don't have anything. Trying to wait to build up enough supplies to be able to take teams and wagons, the cost was preventing people from gathering design.
Gerrit And so the plan to do Handcarts was made, but the best laid plans, what starts to happen is those handcart companies begin to organize late, people begin taking them later and later and later in the season. And in some ways, it's because they could travel faster. Right? So handcart companies could move fast. I know it sounds odd that someone pulling a handcart could go faster than someone on a wagon. I mean, especially if you've ever done Trek.
Richard I've done it three times.
Gerrit Do you think that you could go faster on a wagon or pulling the handcart?
Richard I've always said that I can go faster than a team of oxen. I've always said that. Yeah.
Gerrit I mean, look, oxen are, you know, they're not exactly fast creatures.
Richard No.
Gerrit I mean, no one's ever like, oh, wow, he's as fast as an ox. They say strong as an ox. They say stubborn as an ox. Very few people are like, you know how fast he is?
Richard I'm going to get the research staff on the land speed of an ox.
Gerrit Well, they've got to be fast when they stampede.
Richard Yeah, let's see. We'll get to the bottom of this.
Gerrit I'm just saying over, I mean, look, an ox is going to sprint as he's trying to stab you with his horn. But he's not going to run for a marathon.
Richard Let's see what John Bunyan had to say about the speed of oxing.
Gerrit You know what? I don't even know if oxing exists because I think that there might be an ox in John Bunyan's story that I'm just copying right now. So the fact that they were able to move faster actually led people to be more reckless. And the Martin Woolley handcart Companies, against some veteran advice, were told not to leave as late as they did, and yet they still did. In Utah, they didn't know that even any more companies were coming, or at least they assumed that no more were coming, because it was already October. And then in October, the word first starts coming into Salt Lake, that not only were there two more handcart companies that were coming, there were hundreds of people coming in those companies, and they have had the nightmare happen to them. They are stranded in the middle of the Wyoming wilderness, and they are running out of food.
Gerrit They don't have, obviously, their sickness is going through the camp. And, you know, a handcart is great when you can pull it. I would, again, refer to those of you who've had the bare minimalist of recreations of pulling a handcart at a trek. It's hard to do when the road is rocky or when there's mud.
Richard By the way, we did get the crack research staff got us the pace of an ox. So, stampeding, high speed, 25 miles an hour, just standard pace, two miles an hour.
Gerrit Two miles an hour.
Richard Yeah, just their walking pace.
Gerrit Yeah, so they're hauling.
Richard They're hauling.
Gerrit There's a reason why if there's a stampede, get out of the way, but most of the time, you may be able to walk faster than an oxen.
Richard Oh, I would hope in my prime.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean-
Richard I could do two and a half miles an hour.
Gerrit Usain Bolt, maybe, could possibly be an oxen walking. So, this group is in a very desperate situation. And we could go into all of the stories of the sacrifice and difficulties that are going on, but by the time people in Salt Lake find out about it, things have gone from a problem to a severe crisis where people are dying. People are dying by the dozens. People are sick. People are out of food. People are malnourished. And they are stuck in the snow. How are they going to make it? And think about how weak they are. They can barely move forward, and they keep getting hit by blizzard after blizzard. When Brigham Young is going to find out about this, it's actually during the October General Conference.
Gerrit When he finds out, he is, this is the message he receives. It is not much use for me to attempt to give a description of the situation of these people. For this, you will learn from your son, Joseph A., and brother Gar, who are the bearers of this express. But you can imagine between five and 600 men, women, and children, worn down by the drawing of hand carts through snow and mud, fainting by the wayside, falling, chilled by the cold, children crying, their limbs stiffened by cold, their feet bleeding, and some of them bare to snow and frost. The sight is almost too much for the stoutest of us. One of the people who ends up relieving them, Ephraim Hanks, he talks about how the worst times were when this group had to cross any type of a body of water.
Gerrit Because crossing the water is always hazardous when you're a pioneer heading west, but when the water is 34 degrees or colder even, because it's running water, and it's so cold outside, the very fact of getting yourself wet and then exposing yourself to the 20, the 15 degree weather, freezes those clothes on you and hypothermia sets in, and it's incredibly tragic. So when Brigham Young finds out that there are hundreds of Latter-day Saints that are faithful believers, people who heard the Gospel's message and then got on a ship or got on a riverboat or made their way to where they could embark on this transcontinental trek, because they believe that they are all stranded and threatened with death because they're trying to follow the commandment of the Lord to gather with the Saints in Salt Lake City.
Gerrit Brigham Young retakes The Pulpit, October 5th, 1856, and he says, many of our brethren and sisters are on the plains with hand carts, and probably many are now 700 miles from this place. They must be brought here. We must send assistance to them. Brigham is not just talking in the abstract. He then goes on, I shall call upon the bishops this day. I shall not wait until tomorrow or the next day for 60 good mule teams and 12 or 15 wagons. I don't want to send oxen. I want good horses and mules. They are in this territory and we must have them. And also 12 tons of flour and 40 good teamsters, besides those that drive teams. First, 40 young men who know how to drive teams to take charge of the teams that are now managed by men and women and children who know nothing about driving them.
Gerrit So Brigham is saying, we need to go save these people and we need to go save them now. And then after making this. Now, realize what he's asking. There's a reason why those people are stranded in Wyoming. It's not because they're building a summer home there. It's not because they said, Oh, look, Rawlins is so lovely. They're stranded and dying because of the elements. So what does that mean for any person who's about to set out to rescue them? It means that they are one snowstorm away from being in the same predicament that the handcart companies are. The prophet is asking them to put their everything on the line, to save people that they have never met, to save people whose only connection they have to them, are that they are believers, and that they are in desperate need of help.
Gerrit How many people in that congregation, their first thought was, well, you know, I already told my son I'd help him with his 40 acres tomorrow. I can't go. My wife told me I couldn't volunteer for any more. I just got back from Cottonwood Canyon, cutting down a bunch of trees. I can't go out again. How many people manufactured in their mind a reason why they were justified for the reason why they couldn't help? How many people said, even if they weren't going, donating flour, we barely have enough flour for us to make it through. How could we give our flour to them? I'm sure there were lots of people who came up with all kinds of reasons why they just couldn't help. All kinds of people who were probably very justified in what they said. Look, you weren't a Latter-day Saint in 1856 Utah territory if you hadn't sacrificed a whole lot already.
Gerrit And now the prophet stands before you and says, I want you to go and I want you to go yesterday. And then after he says that, perhaps knowing that there will be all kinds of people in the congregation thinking, well, I need to just let someone else go. Brigham Young gives them this teaching. I will tell you that your faith, your religion and all of your faith, your religion and profession of religion will never save one soul of you in the celestial kingdom of our God. Unless you carry out just such principles as I am now teaching you, go and bring in those people now on the planes, and attend strictly to those things which we call temporal duties. Otherwise, your faith will be in vain.
Gerrit The preaching you've heard will be vain to you, and you will sink to hell unless you attend to the things we tell you. Here you have this experience where you have people that are faced with, am I really the person that I claim to be? That Martin Harris experience that we all talked about in earlier podcasts, when Martin Harris is forced to come to the realization that paying for the printing of the Book of Mormon will cost him essentially everything. It's easy to say, I'll pay for the Book of Mormon when you think everyone's going to buy it, and it's not going to cost that much. And when the realization comes that it's going to cost you everything, are you still willing to pay for the Book of Mormon? It's easy to say, I believe when it doesn't cost us everything. And here Brigham Young teaches that what are you even studying the gospel for?
Gerrit If you aren't willing to go out and save these people that you don't know because of some risk to you, because of some financial burden to you, then why are we even studying the gospel? The point is to become a changed person, to become a celestialized person. Well, no celestialized person, no member of the city of Zion, is sitting back in their hearth, knowing that there's people starving and dying on the plains, saying, well, I told my son I'd help him with the alfalfa tomorrow. So this story is powerful to me because here Brigham Young asked the people to put their faith, to demonstrate by walking, that they actually believe. And in fact, of course, what happens is, is they do.
Gerrit Now, obviously, not everybody does. But you have the accounts of these teams being raised, they are raised quickly. You have the accounts of what they then proceed to do. Wilford Woodruff, talking about the aftermath of this in his journal, he says that, and you know what's really interesting about this, they had just dedicated the baptismal font for the temple. And in fact, they had re-baptized a bunch of people, like the day before. Like they just re-baptized a whole bunch of people, including leaders of the church. Now, re-baptism is a whole other topic we could get into. Now, we've got a bunch of people writing in, wait a minute, what about re-baptism? We did a lot of baptisms back in the day. It's not because people were excommunicated, but they did baptisms for a reiteration of their commitment. So a lot of these people that are now being asked, go out on the plains, have literally within the past week, just been re-baptized as a demonstration of their commitment to the kingdom of God.
Gerrit Not knowing that the next day, let's see how committed you really are. But as Wilford Woodruff writes, he said, President Young said, our conference is now open, and the first business is to gather together the clothing, shoes, flowers, team and men, and start them to the mountains after the hand carts and the other companies that are back on the plains. They were below Laramie, some of them, and the following articles were brought in to send back to clothe the poor saints who were back on the plains. The following is a list of some of the articles donated. So this is in one day, okay? 26,688 pounds of flour, 26,000 the same day that Brigham Young said.
Richard How much did Brigham Young say they needed?
Gerrit I think he said they needed 40, so you better... Eventually, maybe they'll get there. Okay. 31 bushels of onions. I can only assume that that means that they despise the saints coming because they're giving them onions. How much is a bushel of onions? I don't know. What's a bushel?
Richard We'll get to the bottom of that.
Gerrit I can do a bushel of other things. I don't know how many onions that is. It seems like it's a lot of onions. Five bushels of oats, 106 blankets, 53 coats, 50 vests, 29 shawls, 72 shirts, 174 pairs of stockings. Our crack research staff says that it's about 57 pounds of onions.
Richard 57 pounds. There it is.
Gerrit I mean, that's almost 200, 2000 pounds of onions. Is that what that is?
Richard It does depend on the onion. If it's a green onion, that's 15 to 18 pounds. Well, obviously, a green onion.
Gerrit I mean, I think it's probably more.
Richard An onion bag, 57 pounds. Our research staff.
Gerrit So 57 pounds times 31.
Richard It's a lot.
Gerrit Yeah, it's several. Let's get our crack research staff on that. What's 57 times 31?
Richard 1,767 pounds of onions.
Gerrit Or what we like to call Gerrit's worst nightmare.
Richard By the way, not to slight the amount of flour. I legitimately didn't remember the amount.
Gerrit Yeah, no, no. I think you were like, oh, that's all they gave.
Richard I say, it would fall to profit.
Gerrit But this is all just immediately. And again, this is just some of the articles donated.
Richard I had no idea that so many had just been rebaptized just the day before, a couple days before. How funny is that?
Gerrit Seven shirts, one rug. I don't know why someone donated a rug. I'm not entirely sure where someone's like, well, this is all I have, but you can wear it and it'll keep the snow off. I don't know what's going on.
Richard I turned into the Bishop's Storehouse, but I got this rug.
Gerrit This is Ty, I think here's a rug. I don't know why there's a rug, but there was a rug. Now, one Buffalo robe, so someone went all out. That's super expensive and gonna be the warmest thing anyone's ever put on. 34 teams. Wow.
Intro That's a lot.
Gerrit That is a lot. 51 pairs of pants, 134 pairs of boots and shoes, 51 dresses, 67 hoods, six horses, four wagons, 51 teamsters. So those are people that drive the wagons. Eight cloaks, 172 pairs of socks, 14 sacks, 40 bundles of clothing, 13 hats and caps, eight pairs of drawers, 12 bonnets for handkerchiefs, two aprons. The offering was made by request of President Young for the poor. So that's just what they took up basically right there in the moment. Obviously they're going to be getting more. So to me, this is a great story because when crises like these arise, it's where people get to demonstrate whether or not they really do believe that they are part of the Kingdom of God on Earth, whether or not they really have made the decision that this life is not about this life, it's about the next life.
Gerrit And these people are poor. Look, they aren't fat, rich and happy in 1856 Utah territory. Almost nothing of an infrastructure is there. They're still dealing with trying to get crops to work the first several years. And suddenly they're being asked to help other people who in no way can help them, who they don't know, who aren't part of their family. In fact, most of them are recent converts coming from another country. They aren't even the same nationality as most of the saints that are there. Without knowing them, without meeting them, without ever having the ability to have those people ever pay them back, these people donated their money, they donated their food, they donated their time, and some of them put their lives on the line and said, yep, clearly those people are caught in snowstorms and put me on a wagon, I'm going to go get them.
Gerrit And as Brigham said, that was how you could demonstrate whether or not the kingdom of God had gotten a hold on your heart. We can talk about religion all day long, every day. If we aren't a different person, then all the facts and figures, all the Joseph Smith quotes I can come up with, all of the things that I've studied, if they can't make me a better person, they're worse than meaningless. Because the whole point is to become like Jesus. And if we're not becoming like Jesus, then whether we've read John Bunyan or not really makes no difference. So that rescue of the saints at the Sweetwater is one of my favorite stories, both from the faith of the handcart companies and the people who don't apostatize even though they have these horrible things happen to them, and the faith of the Latter-day Saints who in their day and age, when a prophet spoke, they did it regardless of their circumstance.
Gerrit When Brigham Young said, You need to do this, they said, When can we leave? I'll start today. And so that is, I know that was kind of two stories, but that is one of my favorite stories.
Richard It's one of my favorite too, and kind of perfectly dovetails into the thing that I was excited to chat about, and that's the idea of doing something now. Gerrit put me on the spot a couple of months ago about some of the stuff we did in Peru. We did some fundraising. Many actually listeners to the show donated thousands and thousands of dollars to be able to help people in Puno, Peru, near Lake Titicaca to be able to get to the Arequipa temple. It was an incredible experience, and I shared some of that on the podcast. About 118 people were able to go through the temple, many of them for the first time, about 35 or so youth to be able to go. What an awesome experience that was. Well, so that was the first week of April, and then in general conference, President Nelson in his remarks on April 7th said, My dear brothers and sisters, here is my promise.
Richard Nothing will help you more to hold fast to the iron rod than worshipping in the temple as regularly as your circumstances permit. Nothing will protect you more as you encounter the world's myths of darkness. Nothing will bolster your testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ in his atonement or help you understand God's magnificent plan more. Nothing will soothe your spirit more during times of pain. Nothing will open the heavens more. Nothing. We had just had kind of that experience with the temple and then we hear the prophet say that. And so we decided to set up an organization and the name of the organization is Sweetwater Rescue and the website is sweetwaterrescue.org. And the idea, it's kind of harkening to this story, but I love this story, that when Brigham Young says, this is your religion is one of my favorite quotes of all time, to your point.
Richard I mean, Moroni says it a little bit differently, but essentially, look, if you're doing all this stuff and you don't love your fellow man, you've missed the point. You don't know what you're doing or the point of it.
Gerrit I have not charity, I am nothing.
Richard I am nothing. And so we went about to set up an organization. One of the things is really unique in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is that we care about people that otherwise most Americans wouldn't care as much. I mean, not that we wish harm on any group of people, but you'll find people in Utah that really, really love people from Honduras or Peru in a way that's ridiculous. If I was to go to Pennsylvania and just poll someone at a Wawa.
Gerrit What are your thoughts on El Salvador?
Richard Yeah, they're like, I've actually never thought of El Salvador.
Gerrit Yeah, this is the first question I've had ever about El Salvador.
Richard But so, the idea then is one of the hardest things in any charitable organization is to get people to care at all. That's one of the hardest things. Usually, people that are impacted by breast cancer, well, they're more likely to donate time or resources or money to help fight breast cancer because it really impacted them. Well, in the church, we have these missionaries that are all over the world that have a ridiculous amount of love for people in parts of the world that are, it's very unique. And so our thought was, what if we were able to connect people that care about these groups of people to people that are financially, where it's financially more difficult to be able to get to the temple. What if we're able to pair them up, a little fiddler on the roof, matchmaker, matchmaker. I always like to reference that whenever I can.
Gerrit I mean, and when we're talking about some of these people, like, I mean, in some of these areas, the cost of someone to make it to the temple could easily be three or four months' wages to go to the temple.
Richard I'll give you a perfect, for instance. So actually, I'll take a step back and tell you a story that is not as well told as Gerrit tells his stories. But essentially, we had a listener to the podcast. In fact, we've had several listeners that have already been of much help here. David and Adam and Dallin and many others have pitched in time and resources to help to set this all up. So I have a friend, her son is serving in the south of Argentina. And it takes, it's a 72-hour drive to get, round trip to get to and from the temple.
Gerrit 72 hours.
Richard On a bus, 72 hours.
Gerrit Are they driving through the ocean? What would take that long?
Richard Well, it's, I mean, my understanding of the road system in parts of southern Argentina might not be a freeway speed.
Gerrit I feel like we need to get my friend Rob on the podcast and ask him, what is-
Richard He's from Argentina?
Gerrit Yeah, so he could give us an idea, what was Argentina like?
Richard Well, so in the southern part, you are far away from the temple. You have quite a few saints that live down there, but due to the nature of how far away they are. Now, the church has a fund. The name of the fund is the General Temple Patron Assistance Fund. And this came out relatively the same time as the Perpetual Education Fund, with the intent of gathering a bunch of money to be able to help people that live far away from the temple. We have 350 at the time of this recording. We have roughly 350 temples that have been announced or under construction or that are active in the work of doing...
Gerrit Still waiting on one in Spanish Fork, by the way.
Richard That's right. That's right. We got one in Layton relatively recently.
Gerrit Then another one in Syracuse.
Richard It's literally, yeah, it's seven minutes.
Gerrit You're like, I don't know. I mean, what if the traffic's bad?
Richard Where we live, it's literally seven. I was so frustrated. I went to the temple a couple weeks ago. I hit four lights and I'm like, come on.
Gerrit I want to be able to leave my house at 725 for a 730 session. That's what you want?
Richard I demand it, yes. Well, that's hilarious. Anyway, that fund exists already. There is quite a bit of money in that fund. The purpose of it is, like I said, to help people who are so far away from the temple to go and to do their live work, their initiatories, their endowments, their ceilings. That pays for visas, it pays for passports, it pays for travel, it pays for accommodations, it pays for food, it pays for everything. Well, that money is administered by area presidencies, and they get feedback and help from district presidents, mission presidents, state presidents, in terms of where they might be able to contribute some of that money. Well, so there's a couple of things there, is that each area does things a little bit differently. I had the opportunity, actually, to talk to a member of the 70 this past week about this, and he gave me some very helpful advice in terms of kind of best practices and the way to do these kinds of things.
Richard But ultimately, what we want to try to be able to do is to take large groups of people to the temple. We want to help to facilitate both in the logistics and in compensation to pay vendors for travel, accommodations and food to help people to get to the temple. And so, an example story that, you know, this kind of happened. We had a listener to the podcast. They heard about what happened in Peru, and they reached out to us, and they said, hey, so are you looking to do this again? And I said, yeah, we're looking to potentially do this in with Saints in Vietnam and Cambodia in December of 2025. And he said, well, so why don't you do another one this year? And I said, well, we'd love to, but it's pretty expensive.
Gerrit There's a lot going on.
Richard There's a lot going on, and, you know, I may or may not be working on my dissertation still. I haven't been working on it for months. But anyway, and he said, well, so what if I was to donate $10,000? Would you do one this year? I said, you know what? I think we might. I think we might be able to do one this year. So here, so this is the thing that, speak of fairly miraculous things. I was talking to a friend of mine. Her son is serving a mission in the southern, most southern mission in Argentina. And she asked him, hey, do you think that there's an area where this, something like this could be helpful? And they thought, yeah, that sounds good. We'll talk to the mission president and see. So, my friend emails the mission president, gives the kind of information of what it is that we'd want to be able to do, and that we would have at least a minimum of $10,000 to be able to help saints to get there.
Richard And so, this is kind of the first part of May. Well, just so happens that in November, there was a new district president that was called, is the district president of that south Argentina part of the country. Now, a district is smaller than a stake, made up of branches. There's not enough saints down there for a full stake. So, he has a dream in November. This is almost-
Gerrit He dreamed a dream.
Richard He dreamed a dream. That's right. He did actually. He dreamed a dream, and in that-
Gerrit Did he steal that from John Bunyan?
Richard Of course he did. I'm stealing my current story from John Bunyan.
Gerrit Well, I mean, everything that anyone's ever said, ever clearly came from John Bunyan.
Richard Absolutely. So, by the way, a chubby fella, that John Bunyan.
Gerrit Well, I mean, I assume that the portraits you see of him are after he got released from prison and he had years to kind of build back up.
Richard I can promise you, yeah, it's 12 years in prison. It wasn't in the 11th year that someone did a portrait.
Gerrit Yeah. I mean, he- I mean, unless they're eating better in English prisons than I thought they did, I guess we don't have a before and after. What if John Bunyan, before he went in-
Richard He was Willard Richards before.
Gerrit Well, no, I mean, he was like, if Willard Richards fell off of the exercise wagon before.
Richard That's funny.
Gerrit He was a robust man.
Richard So, President Roggero, he dreamed a dream. And in that dream, he saw himself taking the saints from his district, specifically youth, to the temple. And so a couple of months goes by, he doesn't tell anybody about this dream, so he must not have had it because he didn't write it down.
Gerrit Oh, yeah. If he didn't write it down immediately, we know from multiple anti-Mormon sources that anyone who's ever had a spiritual experience writes it in a journal and then has it published in a newspaper later. That's what I've learned.
Richard Well, so he has this dream. And on May 17th, so a couple of months ago, he gathers together the branch presidents in his district. And he tells them of this dream that he had in November. And he tells them that he feels he has a very strong impression, a very strong feeling that we have got to do more to get our saints here to the temple. Because one of the things that happens is when you're so far removed from a temple that you might not necessarily think it is an option to go and therefore you... I mean, this is coming from him telling me, you might not be living your life in a way to be sealed to your family because the opportunity to get sealed to your family is simple.
Gerrit There's a better chance of me winning the lottery that I'm currently playing, hence I don't have the temple recommend, than there is of my family being able to afford to go to the temple.
Richard A hundred percent.
Gerrit So maybe I don't try as hard to hit that ten percent on tithing, or maybe I take a wee nip of the whiskey once in a while because what difference does it make if I can't go to the temple anyway?
Richard Exactly. Anyway, so he has his branch presidents together and he tells them of the dream that he had and this strong impression that they need to be able to get their saints to the temple. Again, it's 30, 36, 38 something hours one way to get there on a bus. So the plan that the branch comes up with, or that the district comes up with from the branch presidents is, if we can get the saints in all of our branches to save roughly 10 cents a week, in a couple of years, we might be able to send some people to the temple. That's the idea. And he says, brethren, I know that this is coming from God. I know, having just listened to President, you know, relatively recently listening to President Nelson's comments about the temple, I know that we can, I know this will have an enormous impact on our district, and that will be blessed for our sacrifice and our willingness to sacrifice.
Richard And then three days later, so if they save, if many members save a little bit of money for a couple of years, then maybe they'll eventually be able to send a couple of people to the temple. And then three days later, he gets an email from my friend that says, hey, we have $10,000. We would like to help take some people to the temple. Three days after that meeting. Absolutely just, it's just incredible. And so, we've been in the process of setting up kind of the infrastructure around this. And that's a decent amount of work to be able to set those things up. But the idea is the same as Brigham Young, what he's saying. Let's go, if President Nelson says, and I believe that this is the case, that there is nothing that we can do that is more important than going to the temple for both our temporal and spiritual benefit.
Richard Let's go get these people on the metaphorical planes, and let's bring them in to Zion.
Gerrit Hence, the Sweetwater Rescue name.
Richard Hence, the Sweetwater Rescue name.
Gerrit And help get people either back to the temple, haven't been in decades, or people, possibly for the first time, depending on what's going on, youth to a temple in which they would never have gone. I mean, the odds that a youth will take the church more seriously in their life, having gone to the temple, skyrockets, right? I mean, it reminds me, actually, of when President Hinckley first announced the small temples. And remember how radical that was?
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit Now, that was in 1997. And for those of you listening, I remember that talk. So, and I don't mean I remember like I went and read it. Like, I remember where I was sitting when I listened to it. So I think that means I am not a young man.
Richard No, neither of us are. We're very, very old.
Gerrit And in that talk, President Hinckley said, it becomes my privilege to speak to you. And I will repeat some of the things which have been said during this conference with the hope of giving emphasis to them. I believe that no member of the church has received the ultimate, which this church has to give until he or she has received his or her temple blessings in the house of the Lord. accordingly, we are doing all that we know how to do, to expedite the construction of these sacred buildings and make the blessings received therein more generally available. He goes on to explain that, you know, we now have 50 temples. Think about that. Yeah. Just, you know, what, 25 years ago, 50 temples, you know, you could go to class where you had a game or you went through and guessed which each one looked like, because you, now, if you were to do that game, it would be just a way for the teacher to make sure the kids lose whatever candy they're offering.
Gerrit What's this an up? Didn't get Tahiti. And then, you know, you throw, I mean, they, you know, you're a teacher who wants the kids to fail. But the whole point of creating the small temples was temple ordinances, temple covenants, covenants, are these, temple covenants are essential for exaltation. If temple covenants are essential for exaltation, then we need to desperately do anything we can do to get people temple covenants. And so, President Hinckley, of course, has this grand revelation. Instead of building large temples in huge population centers of saints, let's take temples more to the people.
Gerrit And what I love about what Richard's been doing and these people that have volunteered is they're essentially taking it to even the further step. Okay, we now have temples that are closer for lots of people, but there are still thousands and tens of thousands of saints that are still in those peripheries, even away from a small temple, that for them, the cost is so prohibitive, they literally have to choose between whether they eat or whether they eventually go to the temple. And that's what this is about.
Richard In the case of Southern Argentina, if you look at just the average income, it's about nine to ten months of income to be able to afford to be able to go.
Gerrit So imagine, I don't know what any of our listeners make, but the average income in America for one person is around $60,000 a year now. So imagine if your next temple trip cost you $45,000. How many temple trips are you making? I can't even make it to the Payson Temple because it's sometimes crowded. Well, it costs me time and I get annoyed.
Richard So the idea is the goal isn't just to necessarily throw back starfish one at a time, but that we come up with the logistics playbook that we can go in to a district president. One of the things that the general authority I met with talked about is one of the problems is there's turnover. And so you'll have, especially in the further reaches of the church, you'll have a district president who isn't aware of programs and how they even can work, how you can access them. He said in his particular, he's in an area presidency, in his area, they're begging for people to take advantage of this for people that haven't been through, but different area presidents handle it differently. So his recommendation is when you look at an area, talk to the area presidency. I said, well, it's a little easier said than done, but all right, we'll do that. And then find out what the specific need and help is for them, and then you're able to implement it. And so in this particular case in Argentina, it looks like they'll be able to apply some of the Temple Patron Assistance Fund to some of them, but there are 35 people that need ceilings that have never been sealed.
Richard There are 17 adults that need their own endowment. There are 35 youth that would, I mean, to your point, would never be able to go. And then you have several additional adults that haven't been to the temple in decades. And the idea is, can we help 100 people be able to go to the temple?
Gerrit I love the idea of what you're doing with this in part because if we believe what we say we believe, and that is the life after this life is far more important than this one, then there's all kinds of charity work people can do. All of those things are good. We can give alms to the poor. But as the Lord said, right, the poor you will always have with you. There will always be poor. There will always be poverty. There will always be things that we can and should, as Latter Day Saints, give of ourselves to help those who are suffering. But we literally can't do everything. We can't fix the problems of every nation on earth. We can't even fix our own problems. We can't even fix our own problems locally, let alone all the problems on earth. But even helping someone get to a temple ceiling or to be able to take out their endowments is something that that person will then have for the remainder of not just this life.
Gerrit That is something they will have for the remainder of their eternity. And I can only think that the gratitude that comes with people that support that would be something similar to, you know, if you labor all of your days, crying repentance and bring save, it would be one soul under the kingdom of my father. Richard can tell you firsthand from his Peruvian temple expedition, the gratitude of these kind, good people that are affected by this is inexpressible. And so where can people go if they're looking to help out, Richard?
Richard Yeah. So for this particular expedition that we're doing, it's actually cheaper to fly than it is to take the bus because then you don't have to pay for additional...
Gerrit You don't say that 72 hours on a bus each way is logistically effective.
Richard Well, it's tough. It's a tough one. So what we try to do is we go to the local area and we lay out, all right, what's the plan logistically to make this happen? And then what's the cost per person to be able to take somebody to the temple? That's the general idea. And then from there, once we work with them to determine the cost per person, then we go to missionary chat rooms, Facebook groups, other places where people served perhaps in Argentina. And I work with several people that served in Argentina that actually served in this same mission. And we're like, oh yeah, there was a hopelessness as it related to temple attendance. And so then now we have the cost per person. Now in this particular case, it's $350 per person. That's what it costs.
Gerrit To get someone to the temple.
Richard To get someone to the temple, flight there and back, hotel, food, accommodations, garments, the whole kit and kibbutz.
Gerrit Okay, so where would someone go if they want to help out? What do they do?
Richard sweetwaterrescue.org is where they can go. And they go there and they can click on the donate link on the tab and they can donate. They can donate a small amount or the full amount per person. But our goal is to raise essentially $35,000 to be able to take all 100 people that can and want to go to the temple that wouldn't otherwise be able to go to help take them all to the temple.
Gerrit That's awesome.
Richard That's the goal. So anyway, it's quite the incredible thing. And I appreciate Gerrit for talking about it, giving some time here to talk about it. And then one of the things that I think would be really fun and interesting too is there are all kinds of places that we're not thinking about. And to have ideas for other spots come from listeners who served in missions or live in places of the world where this is a challenge.
Gerrit We've already had some people email in even just from your first conversation.
Richard We have, right. So this is, I mean, not to get overly sappy, but I mean, it's the best. It's the absolute greatest feeling experience you can possibly have. And the love of these wonderful people all over the world to be able to get to the temple. You talk about the sacrifice for people you don't even know. We don't know President Roggero or any of the members in his district. And it doesn't matter. We meet him over Zoom and it's like we've been friends since the pre-mortal existence.
Gerrit That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for listening. Hopefully this episode, I know talking a little bit about this gives some, at least people ideas of ways that you might be able to help other people get back to the temple. Maybe it's someone locally with you. If we can take our prophets seriously about the essential nature of temple worship and recommit ourselves, and if we can, help others to make it there. So thanks so much for listening.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

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The sword of Damocles hangs over Richard each week, sitting in that chair as the slender horsehair daggles the sword. He's one story away from the end of everything.

GerritBanter

It is good job security when your number two is completely incompetent and unable to do your job.

RichardBanter

I said, oh no, no, I'll make much, considerably much, much less.

RichardBanter

I mean, no one's ever like, oh, wow, he's as fast as an ox.

GerritBanter

It's easy to say, I believe when it doesn't cost us everything.

GerritInsight

The point is to become a changed person, to become a celestialized person.

GerritInsight

If we aren't a different person, then all the facts and figures, all the Joseph Smith quotes I can come up with, all of the things that I've studied, if they can't make me a better person, they're worse than meaningless.

GerritInsight

I want to be able to leave my house at 725 for a 730 session.

GerritBanter

If he didn't write it down immediately, we know from multiple anti-Mormon sources that anyone who's ever had a spiritual experience writes it in a journal and then has it published in a newspaper later.

GerritBanter

We meet him over Zoom and it's like we've been friends since the pre-mortal existence.

RichardInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Pulling a handcart was slower than traveling with an ox-drawn wagon.
Believing and studying the gospel is what matters most.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

In October 1856, Brigham Young made rescuing the handcart companies the business of general conference and asked for teams and teamsters that same day.

Saints who were poor themselves gave flour, blankets, coats, 174 pairs of stockings and a buffalo robe in a single day, and some risked their lives to go.

It's easy to say we believe when it doesn't cost us anything; the point of the gospel is to become a changed person.

Sweetwater Rescue helps members who live far from a temple get there, because temple blessings last into eternity.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
The sword of DamoclesRichard's place on the show hangs by a horsehair, one poorly read email away (0:52, 0:58).
Richard and the missionariesTwenty to thirty requests a week; when you have nothing else to do, the podcast is okay (2:01, 2:31).
Gerrit's danderHis blood pressure after the last two episodes; the doctor prescribes a cruise (4:47, 4:50).
The carnival barkerRichard reads Daniel's email like a midway barker, exclamation points and all (5:22, 5:33, 6:27).
Richard's worthless doctorateBecky asks if he'll make more money afterward; much, much less (7:58, 8:12).
The crack research staffOx speed, the weight of a bushel of onions, and 57 times 31 (11:16, 13:04, 25:43).
Everyone stole from John BunyanThe ox story, the district president's dream, and Bunyan's post-prison portraits (11:33, 42:07, 42:18).
The seven-minute templeRichard is annoyed to hit four lights on the way to the Layton temple (38:15, 38:29).
He dreamed a dreamIf he didn't write it down immediately, anti-Mormon logic says it didn't happen (42:03, 43:22).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

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Deep dives the episode points toward
The Willie and Martin handcart companies of 1856 and why they set out so late (9:12).
Wilford Woodruff's full list of rescue donations from the October 1856 conference (24:31).
Rebaptism as recommitment in early Utah (23:25).
The General Temple Patron Assistance Fund and how area presidencies use it (37:24).
President Hinckley's small-temples announcement and how the number of temples has grown since (47:59).
SOT Litner · S4E34.