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Season five
S5E1 · Joseph Smith Raising the Dead
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Standard of Truth · Season 5 · Episode 1 · 1:11:13

Joseph Smith Raising the Dead

The resurrection story Truman Madsen never got to tell belongs to William Huntington, who said he was still conscious in the room after he died and watched Joseph Smith walk in.

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The question ·
He mentioned in passing that if he had more time, that he could tell a story of the Prophet Joseph Smith raising someone from the dead.
Kevin (listener)

Season five opens with the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag, a fight at an 1897 BYA football game, and a missionary who swears he's Richard's son. Then Kevin asks about the story Truman Madsen once hinted at, of Joseph Smith raising someone from the dead. Gerrit sets the scene in swampy Nauvoo in 1839, where malaria was so bad that church meetings were canceled, and walks through Wilford Woodruff's journal and the healing of Elijah Fordham. He shares Levi Curtis's account of William Huntington, then tells of a young woman who lived after a blessing on his own mission, and lands on a God of miracles.

Who comes upJoseph SmithWilford WoodruffBrigham YoungElijah FordhamWilliam HuntingtonLevi CurtisSamuel Thomson
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Season five

Gerrit and Richard can't believe they're five seasons in, a staple like carrots and Jell-O.

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Intro 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.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. Another season, actually, of the Standard of Truth podcast. Is that?
Richard Season five, happy new year, Gerrit.
Gerrit Wow, I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by Dr. Richard LeDuc. I just realized that this is a new season. So when you said there's no way that we'll make it a second season, now we're in season five.
Richard Season five, we've made it.
Gerrit Yeah, I feel like we're a staple now. You know, we're essentially, you know, we're like carrots and jello at this point.
Richard Well, yeah, well, certainly in the Pennsylvania Pittsburgh mission, we certainly appear to be, but...
Gerrit It is funny, we receive hundreds of emails a month and dozens sometimes as many as 100 emails a week from listeners. We receive, I think, 99% of them from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania missionaries. They just... Now, a whole bunch of people are taking to just lying about being in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission because they think that that will get us to read their email on the air. And so they're like, actually, not really, I'm in this mission, but they'll reference the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission because they know that's how they can get some airtime.
Richard Well, so in the California Riverside mission, at least in the year 1999 through parts of 2000, when President Hayes was there, he was one of... I had two mission presidents. He was one of them. He's a great, great guy. And he would always say the only true mission is California Riverside. I am now of the belief that the only true mission is the Pennsylvania Pittsburgh mission. It's the only true mission.
Gerrit It seems like it, or at least the one with only the true missionaries.
Richard Well, certainly. Well, Gerrit, we do have a Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. And by the way, we do hear from people. Anytime I drop off any part of that name, listeners who are part of that line email in to let me know that it's important that we get the whole name in.
Gerrit We had someone email us just this last week who was a descendant. I forgot the name. No, Ryan had emailed. And he's like, I hear you guys referencing the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. I'm curious how that came about. And he says that he's a descendant. But we do talk about it several times about how we started off just doing random postmasters. And then we decided that instead of people that were terrible people or the first postmasters in Quebec, which may or may not be the same person, I don't know, that we would do a Latter-day Saint hero from church history.
Richard Yeah, who was incredible.
Gerrit Yeah. If you were to make a female Forrest Gump version of Latter-day Saint history.
Richard By that, you mean that she's just there. That's the only connection.
Gerrit No, no, no. She's obviously brilliant. But I mean, the whole premise of Forrest Gump is he's gonna be there for literally every major event of his timeline, right? He's there with the Alabama football game. He's there with the ping pong diplomats with Nixon. He's there with Lyndon Johnson and the wounded soldiers in the White House. I mean, he's there for the protest on the Washington Mall. He's there for everything. And so you're doing history through him being this kind of person going through the past. And of course, he has his own story and whatnot. But Phebe Draper Palmer Brown, she really did do almost everything, including march the entire Mormon Battalion March. Now, there's not a lot of people that can say that. You know, half the men who started out went back home, let alone her.
Gerrit So and then she became the first postmaster in Draper, Utah, which maybe there was some nepotism there. I don't know, because Draper, Phebe Draper, I don't know, maybe. But so that's why we dedicate to her, because she's an amazing person from church history.
Richard She is, and we're going to dive straight in. This first email comes to us from Collins. As predicted in fallacies, forgeries, and football, there likely were descendants of the 1897 BYA football team listening. My great grandfather, John A. Johansson, is pictured with the 1897 team. He goes on to ask for sources of the report, and then he goes on to say that the game against the Crescents will be a hit at his next family reunion.
Gerrit The greatest family reunion story ever.
Richard Quite. I wonder how many of them would even knew, perhaps.
Gerrit Well, I mean, he did say that he changed his ways. He left BYU and became a better person. You went to BYU for a while and then left and became a better person.
Richard It's true. Go forth and stop drinking.
Gerrit That's right. We don't.
Richard He wasn't drinking. We don't know.
Gerrit We know that the crowd was drunk. We know the crowd was in a fist fight with the referee. We know that. We also know that it was on the campus. It was on the campus. It was a home game and everyone was drunk and the referee was being assaulted by the crowd who then stormed the field.
Richard I feel like the fight in Crescent started it. It's a classic Crescent's move.
Gerrit Well, they know that they didn't get that fumble. They know that they didn't. Next thing you know.
Richard Well, John Johansson ends up in his short-lived football career. He moves up to Southern Alberta, raises eight wonderful children and became a farmer for the rest of his life.
Gerrit He became more domesticated. He settled down from the rough-and-tumble violence of football in the 1890s.
Richard Well, so now, Christmas was a week ago, but we did get some suggestions of possible Christmas songs that align to the podcast. This comes to us from Sam. Now, the first one, Sam's coming in hot. I saw mommy kissing John C. Bennett, which is not appropriate. Wow. It's not appropriate. It's not funny. I'm not laughing at it.
Gerrit Well, I feel like when you first read it, you did laugh.
Richard I laughed very hard, actually. I thought it was one of the funniest things I've ever heard in my life, but it's not appropriate and we do not condone that here. There's another one, Still Water. I think that's good.
Gerrit That's an homage to you and your recent dissertation completion.
Richard Good Doctor Hurlbut, which is funny.
Gerrit Yeah. That's one that's not funny.
Richard Then Star of Wonder, Retzloff's Light, 2221, The Call Was Right. I think that also is.
Gerrit Pram's going hard in the paint for all of our U of U listeners.
Richard Yes. It's very good. Well, so Gerrit, this next one comes to us from a missionary who was very nice to spell her name out the way that it should be pronounced.
Gerrit Now, are you going to pronounce it incorrectly anyway?
Richard I might because I am a poor reader, but I'm not going to do it on purpose.
Gerrit Okay. Well, I just wondered.
Richard You know all the best parts about having a stuttering problem, and then you're in second grade and you have to read in front of the class? I get the opportunity to do that every week, and I don't have a stuttering problem, I'm just a poor reader. And it's a great blessing that I'm grateful.
Gerrit Have you ever seen The King's Speech? I keep hoping that you're just going to turn the quarter, and the next thing you know, you'll be speaking to the Allies.
Richard No, I have not seen that. You haven't seen The King's Speech? I have not. I have not seen it. I'm familiar with the premise.
Gerrit It's Peter Elizabeth's dad.
Richard Yes. So it is funny, actually. It does remind me of something. I'm not going to say which child it is that did this, but so, you know, we try to watch appropriate shows in our house. And my son comes home from his mission and asks for Vid Angel, you know, so we can watch shows because he's on the higher spiritual plane than the rest of his family.
Gerrit And so, Life hasn't yet pulled him down.
Richard Yeah, right. So one of my kids referenced a movie that he watched that is not an appropriate movie to watch. And he said that he watched it on Vid Angel. And I'm like, no, you didn't. It's not on Vid Angel.
Gerrit Well, that's one of your all time fails. If you claim, oh yeah, no, no, I saw it edited.
Richard I saw it edited on Vid Angel. It's not on Vid Angel, so no, you didn't.
Gerrit Well, I mean, I saw it on TV. It's never been on TV.
Richard And first of all, I should have been more upset than I was. I called him on it. But then now all we do as our family is anytime we reference a movie, we'll just say, oh yeah, if it's inappropriate, it's like, oh, we'll just watch it on Vid Angel, even though it's Vid Angel.
Gerrit You haven't had a Vid Angel subscription in years.
Richard So I'm gonna look for the King's Speech on Vid Angel and see if I can find it there and I'll watch it. Hey, my name is Laura Lay. I believe that's pronounced correctly. And I've been called to the Columbus, Ohio mission, Spanish speaking. Well, now that's, first of all, I believe I've said this on the podcast. I believe this at my, there are a few things I believe more at my core than foreign language United States missions are the best. It's all the culture, half the diarrhea.
Gerrit Although she, she will be going to Ohio in the winter.
Richard It sounds like, yeah, that's, that's tough. My son serving in Peru. It's great experience, great mission. Wonderful. He has been very sick several times and he's been robbed dozens of times.
Gerrit He gets robbed more often than he does baptisms and because he's in Peru, he has lots of baptisms.
Richard Yeah, I shouldn't enjoy the robberies as much as I do, but the way he tells the way he spins a yarn, Gerrit, it's pretty funny, actually.
Gerrit Yeah, we need to have him on the podcast when he gets back.
Richard Yeah, he's a hoot.
Gerrit What are your favorite robbery stories from your mission?
Richard Well, it's not technically Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I believe it's close enough that it counts and that's true. My mom and I love to listen to the podcast and we try to do so together, which makes it all the more fun. I am situationally blind like you, Richard, so hearing you struggle verbally makes me feel better about my reading aloud and how I'll do on my mission.
Gerrit Well, that's the kindest way I've ever heard someone say you're not very good at reading.
Richard Situationally blind. Hey, sometimes on occasion, I can be an idiot like you are all the time and it's...
Gerrit It makes me feel better about myself.
Richard The key, by the way, sister, is just to memorize it. That's what you got to do and then you don't have to read anything. My main reason for emailing is to ask to be put on the Google Drive for missionaries and have access to the premium content, please. I would absolutely love to listen to it while on my mission and be able to learn about the gospel in a different way, but still be able to have fun with it. Thanks so much and I hope you have a Merry Christmas. We did. It was lovely.
Gerrit Thank you.
Richard It was Christmas. Also lovely and wonderful.
Gerrit Yes. Yeah, it was Christmas-y. It was Christmas. When you have a lot of different family things going on and you've got your own family stuff going on, it's an exhausting time. And so I find myself loving parts of it, hating other parts of it, but not inventing songs about John C. Bennett. I mean, so at least I didn't go that far.
Richard I will say, so this was our first Christmas since our son came home from his mission, and that was very sweet and very tender and very wonderful. So sending them out can be tough, but man, that Christmas when they come back is about the greatest thing ever.
Gerrit Well, we got to talk to Ryker on his mission and it was very good. We got to talk to him several times and hopefully he had as good a missionary as you could have. I mean, the problem is you can't really send a missionary anything on their mission, you know, like that they want. The only thing you can send them is things that are useful to them. But they have like, like, look, I know Ryker pretty well, and I'm pretty sure he's not going to be asking for a sweater when he comes home. You know what I mean? That's, that's not, he never asked for a sweater before. He will never ask for one again. That we are in the sweater area of, and plus he's in Tucson. So I mean, that sweater has a shelf life of like, a month and a half before, you know, he'll be asking us, is there any way to have an anti-sweater? Is there any way to send me a portable air conditioner?
Richard This next email, I am Elder LeDuc currently serving in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission. You might not believe me, but to prove it, my current companion is Elder Nichols. You can ask him if you want. My question today is, when can we get into how Hamilton Plan influenced the creation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo? Also, why don't you take a stop on your tour in Pittsburgh and come by our Zone Conference? I wish I could say I love your podcast, but recently... Sorry, it's from my son. It's just a funny line. I wish I could say I love it. I wish I could. But recently, I've just not been bored enough to love it. So now, it's just all right. With love, friend of the show, Elder LeDuc, the son of Dr. LeDuc.
Gerrit Who's of course lying. He's not in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mission. He's in the Peru mission. But...
Richard There's so many lies in this email. I'm not even confident he's my son anymore.
Gerrit Yeah, it makes sense. Well, speaking of... One of the things we do as the show, I mean, we have the premium content that was created so that people who want to try to support the show to keep the show on the air, have a means of donating some money and then getting something back. So that we do American history stuff on there, and we do other church history topics as well. But we give those free to anyone who's going on a mission or is on a mission. And so that's what her email was about. So if you're wondering, what do they mean? I want the free premium content. I feel like I'm listening to this free right now. Yes, but if you want the premium content and you have to be wondering how much better is it than what I'm listening to right now, I mean-
Richard Much, much worse.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, you'd have to, that's how we get you to sign up is you're like, wait a minute. So you mean they have a premium, what is the premium of this? And then you sign up and then that's, so that's really what we do. But for missionaries, we send it to them free because we do cover a lot of early Christian history and different theologies of different Christian churches. And missionaries have found that helpful as well as covering the early life of Joseph Smith in a chronological way. We're working our way through his life and we cover American history as well, which is what Rigdon was making a reference to.
Richard He was. And friend of the show Elder Abel, that's serving in the Utah late mission, he's used the information in that to rise to the level of a zone leader. He used it to gain more power as people thought he was smarter than he is.
Gerrit So he just goes to zone conferences and says, let me tell you something about Alexander Hamilton. And they're like, you know what? Zone leader.
Richard I'm teasing a little bit, but also I love him. He's freaking great. But yes, I did make fun of that when he was transferred away from our area to be a zone leader. I said that he just stole everything that he used. Because I've never said anything on this that anyone could ever turn into anything. Also, this last email is actually the discussion point of our episode today. Long time Litner, first time caller. I'm writing from Newton, Utah up in Cache Valley and have to say go Aggies. I recently discovered your podcast and hooked mostly because of the great sports betting tips and angry Gerrit.
Gerrit Oh boy, the two things we're most embarrassed by.
Richard I have listened to the first three seasons in about a month and a half. And I figured when I caught up, then I would only consider the premium content.
Gerrit Wait a minute, so we only have three seasons? Or do we have four? You said we're in our fifth season.
Richard Well, yeah, we're in our ninth season. Season one was half of a year. But like any television show, you get a short run. It's like a six-episode thing, and we're going to see if this turns into something.
Gerrit When did we start this?
Richard We started it on June 3rd, four years ago. I think it was 2021. It was 2021.
Gerrit 2021.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit So we left for 2021, 2022, 2023. So it is our fifth season.
Richard Yeah, it's fifth season, yeah.
Gerrit Well, now it is, yeah.
Richard Yeah, and like Seinfeld, so in that first season, you did something on D&C 93, and that's like the Seinfeld episode when they go to the Chinese restaurant, and it got picked up for five more seasons.
Gerrit That's what we're looking for. We're going to cover that again this year.
Richard I actually was attending Utah State around the same time both of you were. I too had philosophy classes from Dr. Robson, who is the best.
Gerrit The greatest professor.
Richard Yeah, he really was great, and I loved them. I also served my mission, the general time that you guys did also from December of 97, December of 99. And while I didn't serve in Wisconsin, I feel as if Gerrit and I are kindred spirits because I served in the South Dakota Rapid City Mission. A lot of similarity, I'm sure.
Gerrit Yeah, there's going to be very similar.
Richard Go Jack Rabbits or whatever the South Dakota State mascot is. I think it's Jack Rabbits. I'm going to get the correct answer.
Gerrit North Dakota is the bison.
Richard Yeah, that's right.
Gerrit We're not going to offer you any sports bets on that.
Richard No, we're not. So I always feel like I understand what Gerrit's talking about. I could go on and on, but I did have a question about something that Dr. Truman Madsen spoke about during one of his Joseph Smith lectures. I guess I'm hooked on those two. And by the way, if you want anything really good, we highly recommend either follow him or anything Truman Madsen did. Those are great.
Gerrit Right. They're much better than us.
Richard Much, much better. I guess I'm hooked on those two. He mentioned in passing that if he had more time, that he could tell a story of the Prophet Joseph Smith raising someone from the dead. He then moved on and left us hanging. I thought I could try to pour through the Joseph Smith Papers, or I could take a page out of Richard's book and let Dr. Dirkmaat find the answer for me. I appreciate all both of you do. I look forward to catching up with all of the episodes and hopefully listen to the premium content and even someday go on a tour. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Kevin. Thank you for the kind email, Kevin.
Gerrit Very kind, Kevin and go Aggies. Yeah. I mean, come on. He's a kindred spirit in that regard. State side mission, Cache Valley, Utah State. I mean, what are you going to do? So this is a great question. I also enjoyed hearing that even someone as great as Truman Manson would start down a discussion point and then move on. I think that without actually covering it, that's what we aspire to do. We aspire to have topics we start talking about, that we then talk about other things, and then we just move right on. We actually have had several emails about Joseph Smith and miraculous healing in the past few months. This one in particular, this reference to him raising someone from the dead, I thought maybe we would kind of dive into. There are numerous accounts of Joseph Smith exercising priesthood power to heal people.
Gerrit The whole story of the conversion of the Johnsons, as we talked about a few episodes ago, comes from Joseph Smith healing Lucan Lyman Johnson's mother's arm. And so Joseph has this, certainly has multiple things we could point to as his times where he has provided healing to people through powerful priesthood blessings that he's given. Now, of course, at the same time, not everyone who is blessed with a priesthood blessing of health lives, which is part of the reason why the Lord commanded us to give blessings, and those who live will live under the Lord and those who die, die under the Lord. So, you know, that sometimes you tell stories about people being healed, and the first place you go is you think back in your own mind to a loved one that yourself, that you know yourself that was not healed, and you say, well, you know, if he can be healed, why couldn't this person be healed?
Gerrit That kind of thing. But I think the place where you get many of these stories, they come from Nauvoo. So you have them all throughout Joseph's life. But you get a lot of them stemming from Nauvoo, in part because Nauvoo is a malaria-filled swamp. I don't mean to say it's a malaria-filled swamp now, although...
Richard It also is a malaria-filled swamp now.
Gerrit Have you ever seen the number of bugs that are in the night sky? I mean, if you go to like the British pageant, the actors are being bombarded by thousands of moths, thousands, while they're on stage.
Richard It is as though the city of Nauvoo has a pharaoh, and that pharaoh has Israelite slaves.
Gerrit Yeah, and he has refused to let them go.
Richard That is what it's like all the freaking time.
Gerrit Yeah, fewer frogs though, just more mosquitoes. There's not as many frogs. I mean, there are frogs, but clearly not enough because there's just so many bugs. Well, remember that they don't have any idea what causes disease. I mean, their thoughts, they do recognize this, that when people live in swampy areas, they have a greater tendency to get sick. So they have certainly found a correlation, but they have no understanding of causation. And so yes, they could figure it out. Okay, if you live in a swampy area, you're more likely to get sick. They figured this out with diseases that were rampant in cities as well, right? That if you are living in a city, you're more likely to catch certain types of disease. Again, they don't know why.
Gerrit You know, they would call the swamp air, you know, getting into your lungs would make you sick, right? They would call it miasma. You'd get the miasma of the swamp air. And that sounds like a name of a great Alfred Hitchcock movie. We should have talked to him about that. Alfred? Yeah, we should have, we should have let him know that he could have named something called the miasma of the swamp. And it would have, oh man, it would have been right there with all of the other.
Richard Is he, he's, I assume still with us?
Gerrit Sure. Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure not for a considerable amount of time.
Richard Oh, Gerrit, I'm just the correct research staff got back. He died in 1980. I apologize to him.
Gerrit I am a contemporary of him then. Yeah.
Richard Two years.
Gerrit Yeah. I was alive. I could have as a toddler, I should have sent him a letter saying, have you thought about the miasma of the swamp? So when they moved to Nauvoo, Nauvoo is, it is cheap swamp land. I mean, it is, it's right there on the right on the floodplain of the Mississippi River. And it's good fertile land because it's right on the floodplain of the Mississippi River. But that means that there is all kinds of standing water. And back then, because this was before the deployment of DDT, malaria was quite prevalent even in the upper northern regions of the United States. I mean, Illinois isn't exactly on the latitude of Louisiana, right? But malaria was pretty prominent as well as other mosquito borne diseases.
Gerrit And so when they first moved to commerce and then rename it Nauvoo, that first year, I mean, people are always relatively sickly in Nauvoo, but it's really bad that first summer. And of course, it's worse in the summer because in the summer is when mosquitoes are active. I mean, not a lot of mosquitoes that are active in January, even in Nauvoo. I mean, there are a lot of bugs in Nauvoo today. There are no mosquitoes living in January in Nauvoo. I'll tell you that because there's barely people living in January in Nauvoo. I mean, you are, you better walk outside with a full coat on. But people get very, very, very sick and several die. And it becomes a very, it's a very difficult thing that's going on.
Gerrit And in Joseph's own journal, this is what he writes. He says, well, his scribe writes it. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, selecting hymns with the 12th. About this time, so the time that he has listed here is between the 8th and the 20th of July of 1839. So he's got several weeks there in this space. About this time sickness began to manifest itself much amongst the brethren, as well as among the inhabitants of the place. So that this week and next was generally spent in visiting the sick and ministering under them. Some had faith enough and were healed. The next entry, the July 21st, 1839 entry is a Sunday. Sunday the 21st, no meeting on account of much rain and much sickness. Now, when's the last time that you had your church meeting canceled, Richard, because too many of your parishioners were sick?
Gerrit COVID. Well, I think that was more preemptive rather than they had it.
Richard No, it's true. The closest I came on a non-COVID thing to adjusting was we had the heater go out in my church building in Deerflat, on the Deerflat building outside of Nampa, Idaho. And so we only went to a first hour for a month. It was the greatest month of my childhood.
Gerrit Wait, so because the heater didn't work? Yeah.
Richard And it's pretty cold.
Gerrit It was in the winter time, I'm assuming. Because if it was August and you weren't going to church because the heater was out, I think your bishop, he's stretching. Yeah.
Richard I haven't attended church for the last 18 years because that heater, it was a month's stretch where we just attended the first hour of church. And I was a teenager, like 15, 16, something like that.
Gerrit I mean, I've had my church shortened, and we have had it even canceled before when it was just horrific snowstorm. I mean, in Southeast Idaho, there are times that the snow is pretty terrible. You live on the Balmy side, even though you feel like you needed a heater. You live in the Caribbean of Idaho.
Richard Yeah. It would be in the 20s, 30s. I mean, what would Shelly, Idaho, give to have temperatures in the 30s in January, anything?
Gerrit It's hilarious. I mean, when I was a kid, we regularly had school canceled because it got below 15 below zero. Get out of here. That's terrible. I mean, any of our listeners who are living in Rexburg right now will let you know, you know what? It can get below zero there. And of course, they're factoring in the wind chill. And luckily in Idaho, it's always windy. If you live on the Snake River Plain, it's windy all the time. People from Idaho must have moved to Spanish Fork and said, you know what? This is our place.
Richard Yeah. Centerville and Spanish Fork, way less windy than the Snake River Valley. That's right.
Gerrit For sure. So that's how bad it is. It's so bad that they actually canceled the church meetings on the 21st of July, 1839. Then the journal goes on, however, many of the sick were on this day raised up by the power of God through the instrumentality, the elders of Israel ministering to them in the name of Jesus Christ. And it continues with this theme for several entries. The next entry, Monday and Tuesday also, the sick were ministered onto with great success, but many still remain sick and there are new cases occurring daily. So there's a lot going on here. And it's during this time period where Joseph is, he's literally spending almost every day going out to try to administer to the sick.
Gerrit If we go to Wilford Woodruff's Journal during the same time period, he talks about just how horrible this is. July 19th, 1839. I've been called upon to visit the sick many times in the last few days and administer unto them by the laying on of hands, for there are many saints that are sick. He lists one of them. We visited Joseph's father, Joseph Smith Sr. and found him still very sick. We prayed with him and laid hands upon him, and he received a blessing. He goes on on July 22nd, so a couple of other entries down. He says, Joseph was in Montrose, and it was a day of God's power. So this is where you get that phraseology of the day of God's power, July 22nd, 1839. Joseph was in Montrose, it was the day of God's power.
Gerrit There was many sick among the saints on both sides of the river. And Joseph went through the midst of them, taking them by the hand and in a loud voice commanding them in the name of Jesus Christ to arise from their beds and be made whole. And they leaped from their beds, made whole by the power of God. Elder Elijah Fordham was among the number, and he with the rest of the sick arose from his bed and followed Joseph from house to house. It was truly a time of rejoicing. That's pretty powerful, isn't it? Now, the negative note on that is, Wilford's going around with all this, witnesses the great power and miracles of Joseph's healing of all these people. But on July 29th, this is what Wilford's entry is. Oh, sorry, July 25th. So, that was July 22nd. Three days later, Wilford enters, on this day, for the first time in my life, I have an attack of the chills and fever.
Gerrit And I find it is a distressing disease. A number of the Quorum of the Twelve are taken ill. The enemy is striving to bind us down so that we shall not go into the vineyard. And then on July 29th, he says, my chills and fever still continue. I took a course of Thomsonian medicine to cleanse my system. Now, remember, because they have no idea what causes disease, there were two schools of medical thought, much to the dismay of our friend Steve, who doesn't like me referring to them as medical or as thought. But there was the traditional Rushdian, named after Dr. Benjamin Rush from the Revolutionary War. The traditional Rushdian medicine argued that the reason why you were sick is that there was your, you had too much blood, essentially, from hypertension. Your humors were out of alignment.
Gerrit And so that's why there was leeching and bleeding, because if you have too much blood, what better way to get rid of them than to have a leech, you know, suck some of the blood out of you. Makes perfect sense.
Richard Of course.
Gerrit On the other side, there was kind of a, it was not, it was not university-trained physicians primarily. It was more homegrown, you know, folksy doctors that followed this guy named Thompson, who argued that there were herbal remedies to everything. And the primary reason why you needed the herbs is that all disease was caused by your body primarily, by your body becoming too hot or too cold. So, so in this sense, you have a fever, not because you're sick. Your body's too hot and that's what's making you sick. So I need to find a way to cool your body down. This also involved taking things that caused you to vomit, emetics. So this is what Wilford wrote on the 29th of July.
Gerrit He said, I took a course of Thomsonian medicine to cleanse my system. I took three emetics and steamed 15 minutes. So again, the problem is you have the chills because your body temperature is not hot enough. So what are you going to do? I'm going to raise my body temperature by steaming myself. I.
Richard By the way, shout out to Craig and anyone in New Hampshire, is Samuel Thompson from the great state of New Hampshire. So there you go.
Gerrit Yep. You can tell how Wilford feels about it. He says, I took three emetics and steamed 15 minutes. I thought this would do for one day. Tell me that it didn't work and you're miserable without telling me that it didn't work.
Richard He takes something that makes him barf three times and gets in a good schvitz and then away we go.
Gerrit He finishes by writing, I was very sick. Most likely, he has malaria that is characterized by the fever and the chills and feeling as sick as he does probably from the, I mean, it's impossible to diagnose someone after the fact, but most likely, he has that, which they will often refer to as the ague. But most likely, these are mosquito-borne diseases. And for someone who writes in his journal, always, days go by before he writes in his journal again. That's how sick he was. He doesn't pick it up again until August 3rd. And that is very un-Wilford Woodruffy-like.
Richard When he gets crushed and breaks his ribs with a tree, how long does he go without one?
Gerrit He's a couple of weeks out from that. When the tree lands on him, that's gonna, what, malaria is gonna set you back. A tree is also going to set you back. It's gonna make things a little bit difficult.
Richard I gotta tell you, so you've shared that story before in the podcast about him getting crushed by the tree. My favorite part of the story, though, is Brigham Young getting mad at everybody for not helping him out. That's like my favorite part.
Gerrit What are you guys doing? Just let them sit there? Yep, yep. And it kind of demonstrates that Brigham was a man of action, right? Instead of sitting there talking about how bad you feel for Wilford Woodruff, why don't you help him off the horse? Anyway, so we know that this happened, this time period of sickness, we even have all, you could do 30 podcasts on the personal accounts that people have and the reminiscences that they have. So I share that by way of context. It's actually in the context of this time period that we get the story from Wilford Woodruff as well about Joseph Smith healing someone by way of his handkerchief. We have in his autobiography that he's writing, so he lists not a lot in his journal because he's pretty sick.
Gerrit But this is what we have, this is the manuscript copy of his autobiography. So this is from 1857. And he's looking back on this time period. He says, I spent my time attending the meetings, council and conferences I wrote in my journal, not after you got sick, but the teachings, sayings and prophesying of Joseph from time to time. As I had the opportunity July 22nd, I was with President Joseph Smith and his council and the 12. It was a day of God's power. That's the phrase from his journal. With the prophet, he healed many on both sides of the river who were sick and nigh unto death. Among them was Elijah Fordham and Joseph Nobles. As the prophet had healed many, even the wicked rabble followed to see the sick healed. And as Joseph was about to cross the river, a man came to him and asked him if he would not go about three more miles and healed two of his small children, which were twins about three months old and were sick nigh unto death.
Gerrit He was a man of the world. He had never heard a sermon preached by a Latter-day Saint. Joseph said he could not go, but he would send a man. After a moment's hesitation, he turned to me and he said, You go with this man and heal his children. At the same time, giving me a red silk handkerchief, and said, After you lay hands upon them, wipe their faces with it and they will be healed. And as long as you will keep that handkerchief, it shall ever remain as a league between you and me. I went and done as I was commanded, and the children were healed. On the 25th, I was attacked with the chills and the fever. So that handkerchief is at least believed to be the one that is in the Church History Museum. This the handkerchief that Joseph gave to Wilfrid Woodruff in order to heal those children.
Gerrit But again, they were nigh into death, but they were still alive. We also have from the history of Brigham Young. So unfortunately, because people are very inaccurate in their description of sources, you will sometimes find this story, and almost everywhere you find it, you will have people say, in Brigham Young's journal, he wrote about this. Actually, that period of Brigham Young's actual journal is silent. He doesn't have an entry. Maybe he's sick too during those months. And he picks back up again in September. And so, I'll tell you, almost everywhere I've seen it, from magazines that quote it, whatever, they all say, oh, Brigham Young and his journal said, well, Brigham Young and his journal didn't say. He doesn't talk about it at all. But they prepare the manuscript history of Brigham Young in the 1850s, and they're doing a day-by-day thing, much like they're doing with Joseph Smith.
Gerrit And in that, you get this account from it. Part of what it says is, first of all, Joseph had opened his house up to the sick. President Joseph Smith had taken the sick into his house and into his courtyard until his house was like a hospital, and he had attended upon them until he was taken sick himself and confined to his bed several days. Joseph arose from his bed of sickness, and the power of God rested upon him. He commenced in his own house and door yard, commanding the sick in the name of Jesus Christ to arise and be made whole, and they were healed according to his word. So here you have again this description of this day of God's power through Joseph Smith.
Gerrit He goes on to say that he continued to travel from house to house and from tent to tent upon the bank of the river, healing the sick as he went until he arrived at the upper stone house where he crossed the river in a boat, accompanied by several of the Quorum of the Twelve and landed in Montrose. He walked into the cabin where I was laying sick. So Brigham himself is very sick. He walked into the cabin where I was laying sick and commanded me in the name of Jesus Christ to arise and be made whole. I arose and was healed and followed him and the Brethren of the Twelve into the house of Elijah Fordham, who was supposed to be dying by his family and his friends. Joseph stepped to his bedside, took him by the hand and commanded him in the name of Jesus Christ to arise from his bed and be made whole. His voice was as the voice of God.
Gerrit Brother Fordham instantly leapt from his bed. He called for his clothing and followed us into the street. He then went into the house of Joseph Nobles, who was also very sick, and he was healed in the same manner. And when by the power of God granted unto him, Joseph had healed all the sick, he recrossed the river and returned to his home. This was a day never to be forgotten. Now, that phrase is ubiquitous to Latter-day Saints about the way Oliver Cowdery talks about the glorious days of the translation of the Book of Mormon. Here in Brigham Young's history, he's making that reference to how incredible this day of miracles was. And for Brigham Young, he is well aware of it because he experienced it.
Gerrit It's not just, it's something that actually happened to him. There is another account. And, you know, back to the question that Kevin proffered, I still haven't, I found lots of people who were almost dead, but no one who actually was. And unfortunately, maybe the reason why Truman Matson didn't share this one was because it is not the best of sources. It is, it is certainly a source, but it is a third hand later source. And it comes from the juvenile instructor. The juvenile instructor is, is, you know, it was basically the magazine for teenage Latter Day Saints in the 1890s.
Gerrit And the point of this, the point of this publication was to help build faith and answer questions among the youth and whatnot. Well, in it, there's an article titled, Recollections of the Prophet Joseph Smith. This is the June 15th, 1892 issue of the juvenile instructor, page 385 is where it starts. Elder Levi Curtis of Springville, so my, my neck of the woods, relates the following incident, which as he states, was told him by one of the principal parties referred to. So what you have is a publication, the juvenile instructor publishing what Levi Curtis told them happened. And what he's telling them is a conversation that he had with William D.
Gerrit Huntington. Now, William Huntington is, you know, would have grown up as no stranger to death, given the fact that his father is actually the sexton of the Nauvoo Cemetery. So whenever you see like death reports in the times and seasons, it's always William Huntington Senior, his father, that's the one putting those out. Anyway, so here's the quote. About the month of August, 1856, William D. Huntington and I went to Hobble Creek Canyon to get a tree or a log suitable for making drums. I'm not sure what's going on there. I don't know. I'm guessing that it could be a large barrel that they're making the reference to a drum for. Or maybe they're about to start a band. Maybe it's a garage band before there were garages. And Levi Curtis was like, You know what? I can really thrash.
Gerrit And we need to go get a log. So they go get a tree or a log suitable for making drums. After we finished our labor and we started for home, both of us riding on the log. So they cut down the tree or they get the log. They hitch it up to the back of the horse. And then they ride on the log with the horse pulling it on the way up. Our conversation naturally turned upon the doctrines of the church and experiences of the past. When the life and labors of the Prophet Joseph were touched upon, this subject aroused into more than usual earnestness, the mind and conversation of my associate. He said that in Nauvoo, he had lived in the family of and worked for Joseph Smith at the time that the Prophet had such a wonderful time with the sick, when nearly everybody was stricken down and he himself was among the afflicted and was one of those among the afflicted who were healed by Joseph.
Gerrit He said he'd been sick some weeks and kept getting weaker until he became so helpless that he could not move. Finally, he got so low that he could not speak, but had perfect consciousness of all that was passing in the room. He saw friends come to the bedside and look at him a moment and commence weeping and turn away. He further stated that he presently felt easy. And observing his situation found that he was in the upper part of the room near the ceiling and could see the body he had occupied lying on the bed, with weeping friends standing around as he had witnessed in many cases where people had died under his own observation. So at least what Levi Curtis is relating is that William Huntington told him that he was incredibly sick in all kinds of pain and then all of a sudden the pain went away and he's looking down on his body, on the bed.
Gerrit He's still in the room. He's still conscious. About this time, he saw Joseph Smith and two other brethren come into the room. Joseph turned to his wife Emma and asked her to get him a dish of clean water. This she did and the prophet with the two brethren accompanying him washed their hands and carefully wiped them. Then they stepped to the bed and laid their hands upon the head of his body, which at this time looked loathsome to him. And as the three stretched out their hands to place them upon the head, he by some means became aware that he must go back into that body. And he started to do so. The process of getting in, he could not remember. But when Joseph said, Amen, he heard and could see and feel with his body. The feeling for a moment was most excruciating. As though his body was pierced in every part with some sharp instrument.
Gerrit As soon as the brother had taken their hands from his head, he raised up in bed, sitting erect, and in another moment, turned his legs off of the bed. At this juncture, Joseph asked him if he had not, better be careful, for he was very weak. And he replied, I have never felt better in my life. Almost immediately adding, I want my pants. I mean, that's a little anticlimactic, I guess.
Richard No, I think it's getting right to the point. That's usually how I put an exclamation point at the end of something.
Gerrit His pants were found and given him, which he drew on. Joseph assisting him, although he thought he needed no help. Then he signified his intention to sit in a chair near the fireplace. Joseph took hold of his arm and helped him along safely, but William declared his ability to walk alone, notwithstanding which the help continued. Astonishment had taken the place of weeping throughout the room. Every looker on was ready to weep for joy, but none were able or felt inclined to talk. Presently, William said he wanted something to eat, and Joseph asked him what he would like, and he replied he wanted a dish of bread and milk. Emma immediately brought what he had called for, as one may easily comprehend every hand was anxious to supply the wants of a man who, for a few moments before, was dead, really and truly dead. Brother Huntington ate the bowl of bread and milk with as good a relish as he ever ate. In a short time, all felt more familiar, and conversation upon the scene transpired.
Gerrit William related his experiences and the friends theirs. Joseph listened to the conversation, and in his turn, remarked that they had just witnessed as great a miracle as Jesus did while on earth. They had seen the dead brought to life. At the close of his narrative, William Huntington remarked, Now I have told you the truth, and here I am a live man sitting by the side of you on this log, and I testify that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. So, that is what I believe that Brother Madsen was referring to, that he never had, he didn't have quite time to relate to you about the story of Joseph Smith raising someone from the dead. I believe it's this, it is a much later reminiscent account. It is told very much in earnest. We don't have something from William Huntington's own records.
Gerrit We don't have a ton of records from him. But Levi Curtis is quite in earnest saying that William Huntington told him that. And many of the things in the story certainly match up to the things that were going on at the time, including them living in Joseph's household because it was being used as a hospital for the people that were sick. So, that is the story of this great miracle. Now, of course, a naysayer will be like, well, he probably just made that up after the fact. I mean, yeah, that's exactly the same thing that the people said about the Romans finding an empty tomb as well. I mean, the reality is regardless of the miracle, whether you have a video evidence of it, or whether you have a thousand eyewitnesses, or whether you have just one person saying, hey, this happened, there will always be those who say, well, that's a lie, it didn't happen. I witnessed this myself once, not quite as dramatically, but it was one of the more powerful experiences I ever had in my life was when we as missionaries in Wisconsin, it's hard to believe that we had any great experiences there, but we were in Wisconsin and we got called to go to the hospital to give a blessing to someone who wasn't a member of our faith.
Gerrit This is, I mean, this is the day before cell phones were readily available. I mean, yes, many people had cell phones. I certainly didn't. And then as a missionary, of course, I didn't. And so we got a telephone call at our apartment phone to go over to the hospital to give a blessing to this woman. She was an 18, 19 year old woman. And the story was her and her boyfriend, who was not appreciated by the parents of her, had decided that they were just going to run off, like so many young teenagers have done so many times in the past, that they would just run off and they would get married. And so, he was in the military and he had to get to where his station was. And so, they were driving through the night. They were from Chicago.
Gerrit They had gotten married somewhere along the way and driven up the, you know, up the highways and they were in Central Wisconsin when he fell asleep driving and they were in a catastrophic car accident. She was much more badly injured than he was. And I remember going, and the entirety of the situation felt pretty grim, I gotta tell you. We got to the hospital, we said, look, we're clergy for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because we're 19-year-olds, we look nothing like a minister, and we've been asked to give a blessing to this woman. And the doctor said to us, are you her family? And we said, well, no, we're ministers from the Church.
Gerrit Now, she actually wasn't a member of our Church. How were we even there? The mother who was so desperate about this, when they found out about this horrible car wreck, they were now driving north from Chicago as well, but they were hours and hours and hours away. The mother told her friend who happened to be a Latter-day Saint and her Latter-day Saint friend said, we should send elders from our Church over to give her a blessing in the hospital. And she said, yes, yes, go do that. And so that's why we were there. We were there because the mother had a friend that was a Latter-day Saint. And I remember the doctor saying, are you her family? We said, no. And he said, well, where is her family? And we were like, well, they live in Chicago. I mean, we were in North Central Wisconsin. So we were hours away. And I said, yeah, they'll be here, but it'll be a long time before they can get here.
Gerrit And he said, well, you need to tell them to get here now. Because if they want to see their daughter, they need to get here now. And so it told us just how grave the situation was, just how horribly damaged she'd been. And we went into the room, and boy, I won't ever forget just how broken and hurt she was from this horrific accident. Tubes coming out of her mouth, her head, face, everything. And I remember thinking in that moment, I literally have no ability to help this woman that I don't know at all. I don't have any ability to help her. The doctors apparently don't have any ability to help her. The doctor clearly already thinks she's going to pass away.
Gerrit And my companion and I very solemnly look, she was the same age we were. It was a pretty heavy feeling in that room. Frankly, looking back on it, I don't think they'd ever would have let us in today. But hey, you know, it's Central Wisconsin. Maybe I had a Packers t-shirt on or something and they were like, okay. No, I mean, we were dressed in our proselyting clothes and we went in and it was this helpless feeling. And I know many people listening have had that feeling. Where someone is sick or injured and there's nothing you can do about it. And we placed our hands as best we could on the side of her head, the side that wasn't damaged in the accident. And we gave a blessing. And I remember feeling an overwhelming voice speak to me to command her to be healed.
Gerrit And in my mind, the first thought I had was, if the doctor doesn't think she's going to make it, there is certainly no way that I could give that. But it was overwhelming. And without really thinking about it after that, I thought that as I started to put my hands on her head, once I felt that, like I said, it was almost a voice that spoke to me to command her to be healed in the name of Jesus Christ, it was an overwhelming feeling that overcame both of us, me and my companions. And the blessing not only commanded that she would be healed, but that she would be able to live a normal life. So we went, we left the hospital and went directly to our stake, a member of our stake presidencies house, that there, he was a doctor at the hospital, and he wasn't in one of the doctors, but he was the reason why I think we had gotten the call.
Gerrit His wife had been the one that had left the message for us. And so we went to their house, and she came out to meet us, she was like, oh, elders, were you able to go over and give her a blessing? And we said, yeah, we just came from there. And I said, I think she's going to be okay. I remember I said, I think she's going to be okay. And this woman's face, when I said that, she looked almost hurt. And she said, oh, elder, elder, we just sent you there to give her a blessing of peace and comfort as she dies. My husband, you know, works in the brain trauma. He says, she's going to die. And I said, I really feel like she's going to be okay. And she said, oh, elder, she's not. That we just wanted you. Her mom wanted someone to be able to talk with her before she passed away.
Gerrit And so the parents arrive and we go meet them at the hospital. And the doctor is stunned that this woman made it through the night. And then he says to us and to the family, something to the effect of somehow she has survived this. But you need to be aware. If she does continue to survive, most likely there's so much brain trauma that she's not going to be able to walk again. She may not be able to speak again. This is, you cannot have your hopes up on this. This is the worst case I've seen, you know, that kind of stuff. And two days later, they, she was awake enough that they removed her breathing tube and she started talking. And a week later, a week later, she was walking, slowly, difficultly with all of her injuries, but she was taking steps.
Gerrit And I remember talking with her dad, and again, they're not members of the faith, and he said, I can't believe it. He said, I've stopped believing in God a long time ago. I think it's just stuff that people say. He said, but this, he said, there must be something to this. I talked to the doctor. There must be something to this. The bittersweet part of that incredible experience, of the Lord healing this woman was that as the mother and father were so completely taken aback, they immediately wanted to start meeting with the missionaries. You know, they wanted to learn more about the church. But how quickly the world started to crowd into the way.
Gerrit Because they were still really, really, really mad that her and her boyfriend had run off to get married in the first place. And even more so now, because they felt like the very fact you did that is what nearly killed our daughter and has severely damaged her. And so as, as he became more healthy, they just started to fight more and more. And it was, it was sad to see to watch this guy go from this, this like spiritual high of being convinced about the power of God to being almost irritated with the idea now that he had his precious daughter back. And I honestly don't know whatever happened in the, in the long term or in the end, but I know that I have witnessed the power of God heal people who otherwise should not be healed. I've experienced it. I've witnessed it. I felt that the Lord still heals people.
Gerrit Now, if you're someone listening and you say, well, that's all fine and good, but he hasn't healed me or he didn't heal my son, or he hasn't healed my daughter. Remember, Joseph Smith Sr. passes away, and Joseph doesn't raise him from the dead. And Don Carlos Smith, Joseph's younger brother that he loves so much, passes away. Though he's had many priesthood blessings. We don't know why God at times allows for the prayer of faith and a priesthood blessing to heal those that are on death's door. And why other times he allows them to pass through this mortal veil to the spirit world, into paradise. But we know that at times, with Joseph Smith and with many of the prophets, boy, you could call the role of Wilford Woodruff's life and find many places, not just with a handkerchief from Joseph Smith, that they performed healing miracles.
Gerrit Sometimes people ask, how come there aren't any miracles in the church anymore today? You hear people say that all the time. And I think mainly it's because they think it would be something that would be broadcast on cable news and it'd be on every TikTok reel. But those who work with others, those who spend time with others, witness small miracles where people regain their faith, where they finally feel the love of Jesus and they accept the atonement and they repent. That's a miracle. People who are absolutely opposed to the church, who want nothing to do with it, who feel the Holy Spirit touch their heart and change and ask to be baptized. People who are seeking for some comfort and some friend comes into their way to lift them up when they are in their most destitute.
Gerrit We believe in a God of miracles. Whether the story is 100 percent accurate or not that Levi Curtis tells about William Huntington. We have dozens and dozens and dozens of miracles. And if I opened up the floodgates to the people listening, I would receive hundreds if not thousands of emails from other people that have experienced, seen and witnessed miracles. Because this is really God's church. The Lord Jesus Christ is at the helm of this church. And maybe his power is not always exercised with the fanfare that someone expects to see when they are looking for a sign. But in quiet rooms of hospitals and houses all over the world, miracles take place.
Gerrit I believe in miracles. I believe they can happen. I believe they do happen. I believe they did happen. And I believe Joseph Smith was a great purveyor of miracles. So thank you so much for joining us. And we will talk to you again next week.
Intro 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.

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Yeah, I feel like we're a staple now. You know, we're essentially, you know, we're like carrots and jello at this point.

GerritBanter

I am now of the belief that the only true mission is the Pennsylvania Pittsburgh mission.

RichardBanter

It's all the culture, half the diarrhea.

RichardBanter

Well, that's the kindest way I've ever heard someone say you're not very good at reading.

GerritBanter

There's so many lies in this email. I'm not even confident he's my son anymore.

RichardBanter

I want my pants. I mean, that's a little anticlimactic, I guess.

GerritBanter

I mean, yeah, that's exactly the same thing that the people said about the Romans finding an empty tomb as well.

GerritInsight

But those who work with others, those who spend time with others, witness small miracles where people regain their faith, where they finally feel the love of Jesus and they accept the atonement and they repent.

GerritInsight

But in quiet rooms of hospitals and houses all over the world, miracles take place.

GerritInsight

I believe in miracles. I believe they can happen. I believe they do happen. I believe they did happen.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Brigham Young wrote about the day of God's power in his journal.
There aren't any miracles in the Church anymore.
If a priesthood blessing doesn't heal someone, it means the faith wasn't strong enough.
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 the summer of 1839, Nauvoo was a swamp full of malaria, and Joseph's journal says church was canceled for "much rain and much sickness."

On July 22, 1839, "a day of God's power," Joseph went house to house and tent to tent healing the sick, including Brigham Young and Elijah Fordham.

The story of William Huntington being raised from the dead is a later, third-hand account, but it is told in earnest and fits what was happening in Joseph's home at the time.

Not every blessing heals, as Joseph learned with his own father and brother, but Gerrit testifies that miracles still happen in quiet hospital rooms and homes.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
The only true mission99% of the email comes from Pittsburgh missionaries, others lie about it to get on air, and Richard trades California Riverside for Pittsburgh (1:16-2:26, 11:43).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagNamed for the female Forrest Gump of Church history, who marched with the Mormon Battalion and became Draper's first postmaster (2:30-4:50).
The 1897 BYA football gameA drunk home crowd fights the referee, and the Crescents probably started it (5:07-6:57).
The John C. Bennett buttonA listener's Christmas carol, "I Saw Mommy Kissing John C. Bennett," is not appropriate, and Richard laughed very hard (7:06-7:34).
Situationally blindRichard reads like a second grader in front of the class every week, and hasn't seen The King's Speech (8:38-9:09, 12:06).
We watched it on VidAngelRichard's family code for a movie nobody should have watched (9:21-10:31).
Richard and the missionariesElder LeDuc claims to serve in Pittsburgh, but he's in Peru getting robbed more often than he baptizes (11:10, 14:32-15:27).
The crack research staffAlfred Hitchcock died in 1980, so Gerrit could have pitched "The Miasma of the Swamp" as a toddler (25:42).
IdahoA month of one-hour church because the Deer Flat heater broke, school canceled at 15 below, and the Caribbean of Idaho (29:06-31:00).
Gerrit never answers the question (quickly)Even Truman Madsen started a story and moved on, which is what this show aspires to (20:43, 46:05).
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.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Thomsonian versus Rushian medicine, and how 19th-century ideas about disease shaped how the Saints treated the ague in Nauvoo (34:11).
The red silk handkerchief Joseph gave Wilford Woodruff, believed to be the one in the Church History Museum (40:45).
Other accounts from the summer of 1839 sickness in Nauvoo and Montrose; Gerrit says you could do 30 podcasts on them (38:34).
The Juvenile Instructor's 1892 "Recollections of the Prophet Joseph Smith" series and how to weigh late, secondhand accounts (47:07).
SOT Litner · S5E1.