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S5E35 · Women and the Sacrament
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Standard of Truth · Season 5 · Episode 35 · 1:10:40

Women and the Sacrament

Early in the Church, the sacrament was passed by adult men, and it wasn't until the late 1800s that it became a job for teenage deacons.

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The question ·
Is there a reason only boys pass the sacrament? Do you think there might be a time when young women may pass it to the congregation?
Michelle (listener)

The hosts re-release four hours of older episodes as a cram session for Sunday School and report that the Sweetwater Rescue took 83 Lithuanian members to the Helsinki temple, including a mother whose son was ordained a deacon by her old missionary just before the trip. Michelle asks whether young women might someday pass the sacrament. Gerrit explains that priesthood duties have changed over time, from adult men passing the sacrament to teenage deacons, and says he'd welcome whatever the Lord reveals, while noting only those with keys can change it. Then James, called to Korea, asks about fundamentalist friends who reject President Nelson, and Gerrit uses D&C 43 to show that revelation for the Church comes only through the one appointed.

Who comes upJoseph SmithRussell M. NelsonWilford WoodruffDieter F. Uchtdorf
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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. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Dr. Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. Thanks for having me back. It's a real joy to be on your program again.
Gerrit Yeah, that makes it sound like you're a guest that we invite on. You know, since it seems that there may not be an NPR anymore, we really do need to look into adopting their speaking style and their topics.
Richard Nice and soft and slow and talking about jazz in Toledo, Ohio in the 1940s.
Gerrit Water rights in early Colorado territory.
Richard Well, Gerrit, so just right off the bat, as it relates to Christie's Corner, this coming week for, well, it's not Gospel Doctrine, but I think it's Relief Society Elder Storm.
Gerrit It's like a Christie's Mansion, not Christie's Corner.
Richard Oh, yes. Yeah. We've spoke to the zoning board and we've been able to rezone Christie's Corner. So we did a two-parter on the Word of Wisdom. Long, long ago.
Gerrit Mike's terrible.
Richard Yeah. Long, long ago.
Gerrit Richard and I sound happy. We sound like we enjoy this. Before the crippling debt, missionaries, all of it. It's like listening to the first year of the Beatles. That's what it's like. Maybe the recording is not quite as good, but also somehow without-
Richard We're talking about skipping along and holding hands. And by the end, it's just a sitar. It's got a real India sound to it. We're on a tremendous- Is Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds? Whatever that means. Yeah.
Gerrit Well, and a yellow submarine. I've got that. We're doing that as well.
Richard But then we also have a two-parter, maybe even a three-parter on the Apocrypha.
Gerrit Is it a three-parter?
Richard It might be. You talked about Bell and the Dragon for like an hour and a half.
Gerrit Okay. So the reason why is this year, this week's Sunday School lesson is Doctrine of Section 89, which I assume all of your leaders are going to spend all of their time on that. Because they're going to take one look at 90 and 91 and go, I don't know any of this stuff, but everyone knows, don't drink and do drugs. And so it's easy to default back to, and it's what people, probably it's what we need to talk about anyway. But I spent an inordinate amount of time studying Doctrine and Covenant Section 91. And I mean, way, way, way more, not only than I should have, than anyone should have. Yes.
Richard Yeah. So we're going to re-release all of those. So it's going to be, you know, it's going to be, you know, I'm checking right now, but it's at least four, it's at least four hours of Christy's Corner that we'll re-release.
Gerrit Yeah. We'll just put it, we're going to put them out as bonus episodes. I know that all you really want is a five second clip, so that you can go to class and sound smarter than other people.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit But I don't want you to be lazy learners when it comes to the Word of Wisdom and when it comes to the Apocrypha. Let me just, let me just wet your whistle a little bit. Okay. With Word of Wisdom, we're going to talk about how it evolves over time as more and more prophetic direction comes. It's not initially an abstinence document, meaning that you can't take these substances at all, but rather don't abuse those substances. And it will eventually, you know, Brigham Young will say that it's going to become a temple recommend requirement, and then it will become a temple recommend requirement in the 20th century. And so it's one of those things that, that is line upon line and precept upon precept. So, but I'll tell you what, you go listen to all of the Apocrypha, which we also talked about starting a death metal band called the Apocrypha, if you remember, Richard.
Richard I think there is one. I think that was the problem.
Gerrit We wanted to start it, it already existed. Yeah. That's right. You go to, you go to Relief Society, you raise your hand and say, you know, I was studying Doctrine and Coven, Section 91. And it led me to think about Bell and the Dragon. I guarantee you do that. You can pick your choice of calling in that ward. I mean, that they will come to you and they will say, what do we have to do to get you out of Relief Society or elders quorum? So it probably actually takes more to get out of elders quorum. The bar is lower. People say a lot of crazy things in there. And so, you know, whatever you're gonna do.
Richard Well, so, and you know, this release or re-release of these episodes, if you really spend the time, it will catapult you straight to the top. We got, I got a text message a week or so ago from Elder Abel in Leighton, in the Leighton Mission. He's now an AP. He's rode the coattails of this podcast to where people thought that he was far smarter than he was, all the way to being an AP.
Gerrit Yeah, he's not once told the mission president, like, it's just whenever he has an interview, he's like, you know, president, I was, I was contemplating on how Joseph received the revelation on the Apocrypha at a time when all King James Bibles contained the Apocrypha. And the mission president's like, well, you know what? I don't have any MTC district leader keys to give him, so he can get there.
Richard Elder Able is one of my favorite all time missionaries. Him using this information to ascend to the highest levels, the second highest level a missionary can ascend to of an AP, that's pretty impressive.
Gerrit Yeah, the first highest being an MTC district leader.
Richard That's absolutely the case. There's two episodes on the Apocrypha, Gerrit.
Gerrit Wow.
Richard So now, you mentioned the Apocrypha because I typed it in to the, we went through and did all of the analysis on all of the text, on all of the transcripts. You've mentioned it a lot, but there's two full episodes. You love you the Apocrypha.
Gerrit So I essentially sound like a Catholic priest giving a homily, is what you're saying. I'm always quoting the Apocrypha.
Richard Not during Advent though, just like on August.
Gerrit Yeah. I'm not doing it just to get the easy stories out. Now, we're all the way in. Wisdom of Solomon.
Richard Well, anyway, so that's the re-release, the four hours of Christie's Corner. Maybe for the intro, we just do the Christie's Corner for the intro for all four.
Gerrit We need to play it before this just so people know.
Richard Okay. All right. So we're going to play Christie's Corner and then we're not going to do it.
Gerrit Well, I gave a little tidbit.
Richard Okay. Well, I'll go back and cut it in and play it there then. Yeah.
Gerrit Something like that.
Richard Okay. Well, so Gerrit, there was one matter of business that I wanted to talk about. In fact, it's nearly six o'clock in the morning for me right now. I came back from Lithuania yesterday. I am a little sleepy and so I might not off relatively quickly, faster than usual when we record these episodes.
Gerrit I was going to say, it's too bad Becky and Angie aren't watching.
Richard But we just came back from the Sweetwater Rescue. There's lots of wonderful Litners that donate and wanted to thank them again for all their wonderful donations. I wanted to share once we're going to be doing a bonus episode. President Reasy is the district president. I'm going to do an interview with him and get his experiences. And we'll do that in a bonus that folks that have an interest in that can listen to that without taking away from what they're coming here for, which is sports picks and then picking up information that they can sound smart to get higher levels of call.
Gerrit We've been hit and miss on some of the WNBA, but I feel like we're about to round the corner with it.
Richard Well, it's college football and NFL football season, and Gerrit, that's when the Sharks come out, and that's when we shine.
Gerrit Yeah. I'm sure that you're all kinds of excited about Bear Bachmeier.
Richard I am. I'm on pins and needles. I can't wait. But so anyway, wanted to just say thank you for all those that donated. And it was a wonderful time. We ended up, the temple capped us at 83 folks. It's a smaller temple, but they made great accommodations, and the people there were great. It was funny. So we spent the week, we're making a lot of the breakfasts and dinners and stuff. And so we're pretty busy there. So we don't have a lot of time to go to the temple, but we were able to go to the temple on Friday. And just for a couple of quick initiatories before we had to leave, and I was sitting in getting ready to go do my initiatories and somebody, the shift coordinator comes in and in his excellent English, with just a hint of Finnish accent, asked, which one of you is Richard? And I said, I am.
Richard And he said, big fan of the podcast, which I thought, so we are rocketing to the top of the charts in Finland. Yeah. It was very great. So he, Arto, there's no way I'm pronouncing his name right. And I'm very sorry. They're only in season three, so they're not going to hear me slaughter their names for a while.
Gerrit You should send them a little message telling them that we've...
Richard I don't have any of their information, so there's no way for me to. But so, and then his wife is Kotri. Boy, I hope that I'm pronounced... She was the sweetest. So she's the shift coordinator on the other side. She was talking to Becky. Because one of the things that's kind of funny is there aren't a lot of Richard LaDukes, and there sure as heck aren't a lot of Gerrit Dirkmaat. And so when you see that name on the coming in, they're like, it's got to be, right? Because how many Latter-day Saint Richard LaDukes are there? Well, zero, right? One, I guess, technically, if I can keep my membership. So anyway, they were absolutely wonderful in Sweden, and I shared that with Gerrit. He thought it was funny. He was like, man, in Finland, that was wonderful.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, that's, we're spreading. I mean, for those of you, to recap, what Richard's talking about is the Sweetwater Rescue.
Richard Oh, geez, yeah, no contact.
Gerrit He just went right into the temple. He didn't just take a vacation to Finland and Lithuania, although maybe he did, actually. He did.
Richard It's a hotspot for him.
Gerrit Let me tell you all about these temple shift coordinators that I don't have any information on them, and also names that I've never heard before. And for all I know, he's going to a maverick and doing scratch-offs. But the charity that Richard runs and that many, many, many listeners to our podcast donate to Sweetwater Rescue is designed to help take members of the church who live a considerable distance from the temple, who it's a huge financial burden or time burden for them to be able to go, usually both, and his charity through donations from all kinds of folks and for many of you, help bring people to the temple using these charity funds. And so Richard just went to Lithuania and Estonia to take dozens of saints to the Helsinki Finland Temple, which is the first, the closest one they can get to.
Gerrit And that's why he went to Lithuania, but was hanging out with temple shift coordinators in Finland. And he's going to talk to you about Latvia. I mean, there's a lot of things going on here.
Richard First of all, my favorite thing is to go to McDonald's in other countries. It's my favorite thing. It absolutely is. Latvia has got a pretty good McDonald's. I'll tell you that right now. They have a Pistachio McFlurry, pretty dang good. They've got barbecue french fries, absolutely fantastic. They have a teriyaki and cucumber chicken McRap, not as good as you'd think. But for the most part, pretty tasty.
Gerrit My guess is not a lot of things named after the Soviet Union there.
Richard They're not a fan. Yeah. So again, Gerrit, I mean, it's the middle of the morning for me here. I'm just, so yes, thank you for the context on that. That was very well done. But there was one thing I wanted to share, which was a great story that we heard. And so I won't share her name, and I don't get into too much of the detail. But essentially, 10 years ago, so she lives in Latvia. And about 10 years ago, her world came crashing down and had all kinds of tremendous difficulties that she ended up getting a divorce and was kind of left with a five-year-old and a two-year-old in pretty rough circumstances. And she hadn't really had a temple recommend, and she hadn't really, her attendance in church wasn't quite as good as it had been.
Richard And who knows if I had been through that, what my reaction would have been, right? But she hears about this. Now, this is specifically the Lithuania district. We're working with the Lithuania district president, President Risi, great guy. And she hears about this from her friends in Lithuania and asks if she can be able to go. Well, her, she gets, you know, she talks to the district president for Latvia and they kind of talk about it. And they're like, yeah, actually, we had a couple of people that weren't able to come. So we have available spots for you to be able to come. So her and her 15 year old son and 12 year old son are going to be able to go. And so she goes in and she, you know, she goes in and gets her temple recommend, which again is the first time she's had it in about 10 years, which is awesome. And her 15 year old son goes and he gets his temple recommend and that's awesome. Her 12 year old son hadn't received the Aaronic Priesthood yet and wasn't a deacon.
Richard And there was someone in the branch presidency that didn't feel like he should, like, you know, here's all, you haven't come in a really long time and he didn't feel good about just giving him the Aaronic Priesthood and letting him go. And I was like, ah, but I feel like there's a lot of good that would come from him being able to go to the temple, right? But anyway, different folks, but the mission president and the district presidents kind of had some discussions. And anyway, they decided to let him go. And they decided to let him go the Friday before they left. So this was a week and a half ago, right? That they decided to give him the Aaronic Priesthood, make him a deacon, and to let him go. Well, it just so happens that the missionary that taught her the gospel, who served in Latvia 25 years ago, was in Finland.
Richard Now, he is a stake president in Utah somewhere and was in Finland.
Gerrit For fun? What in the world? How in the world could he be in Finland if he lives in Utah?
Richard Maybe he loves a sauna. I don't know.
Gerrit Yeah, he was like, hello.
Richard Big summer blowout. Yeah. I know that's not necessarily the right country, but still.
Gerrit I feel like when you're friends that you don't know their names or their contact information here, they'll know.
Richard Yeah. Well, so anyway, so he's in Finland and he gets this impression that he should go. So he had no intention of necessarily going to Latvia. He's in Finland for something else. He gets this impression that he should go to Latvia. And he on Facebook messages this woman and says, hey, do you remember me? So Friday afternoon, she's told that they're going to, on Sunday, confer the demonic priesthood on her son, ordain him to be a deacon, give him a temple recommend, so that her whole family now can go to the temple. She hasn't been forever, her kids haven't been, right? And two or three hours after she hears this, she gets this Facebook message from the missionary that taught her the gospel. And he says, hey, I had this impression, I felt like I should come to Lafayette, I'd love to take you to lunch on Saturday.
Richard So she's ecstatic. They go and she explains where she's at and what's going on in her life and what's happening, and then asks him if he would be able to confer the Aaronic Priesthood on her son and ordain him to be a deacon. And so this is the day before they got on the bus to head up to Helsinki. All this happened in just this short order. And it was a sweet story, right? It's a sweet story just showing gods in the details of our lives and knows us. But one of the things that I think is especially sweet about that story, is that 10 years ago is when she was going through some of the most difficult, terrible time of her life. It was absolutely terrible. And 10 years ago is when Carlos Tipiani, who's my friend and neighbor, who really is responsible for starting all of this, heard a talk from Elder Holland about, are we not all beggars?
Richard And said, I have to do more for my people. He's from Peru, for my people in Peru. And he goes down to Peru and takes 250 people from the jungles of the Amazon in Peru to the Lima temple. 10 years ago, putting in motion all of these things that are happening. So at the very time she's going through the worst time in her life, the wheels are being put in motion that 10 years later, she's going to be able to take her family to the temple. And that the missionary that taught her the gospel will just so happen to be in Latvia at the time that her son is to be ordained. And it was one of those things, Gerrit, where the Lord is in the details of our lives all the time and we can often not see it and we can forget it and we can just blow past it because we're busy and we're doing a million things. But the best part, the best part about all of this stuff that we do is both in the, we see it in emails from the podcast and we see it in the Sweetwater Rescue and the things that we're doing to help folks get to the temple is to see the beautiful hand in the Lord or the Lord's hand in all these things to help us to know that we're not, he's not leaving us alone here and that he loves us very much.
Richard And so that was a very sweet and tender experience.
Gerrit That's beautiful. That's incredible. I mean, that's happened to you multiple times now on these trips that-
Richard It's crazy.
Gerrit Yeah. By sheer coincidence, someone who shouldn't be there ends up being there, but obviously not really coincidence. That's beautiful. I'm glad those things were able to go.
Richard Well, so thanks for letting me to wax on about that, Gerrit. But getting into the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag, as we usually do, 20 minutes in.
Gerrit I mean, yeah, but also, we did drop four bonus episodes with this. And we're gonna drop, should we drop those like right now, even before this? So people will just be confused.
Richard You know what? Yeah, let's do it. Let's drop them all at the same time. People will be confused. They won't know what's going on.
Gerrit Let's drop, let's drop Word of Wisdom, part one, and then Apocrypha, part two, and then just wait a couple of days, and then do Word of Wisdom, part two, and Apocrypha, part one.
Richard We're going out of our way to make people just hate what we're doing. I love it.
Gerrit I feel like us talking is already succeeding in that.
Richard Well, Genriff, this first email comes to us from Michelle. Long time litner, first time emailer. It's with great pleasure that I get to write this email. I have been listening to your podcast for several years now. I now have a son that will be serving a mission. So I write this email to ask for him to send the Google link, which we will do for your missionary. I really, by the way, I talked to my sister today and...
Gerrit Did she use Christie's Corner in her Sunday school?
Richard Yeah, she's, I think she's slowly poisoning the Relief Society president in their ward and then making really good comments that were... Again, it's not even necessarily you making it. You say all the time, I'm just quoting Joseph Smith and people think I'm so great.
Gerrit Yeah, no, I'm not.
Richard That's right. But anyway, so, so she's, I asked her, you know, she made some comment about the podcast or whatever. And she's like, you know, I want you to know, I'm not going to pay for the premium. I'm just not going to do it. She's like, my son, her son's Isaac. She's like, he's nine. So in nine years, we'll get it for free. That's her plan. In nine years, when he goes on his mission.
Gerrit Yeah. And we'll still be around and doing this nine years from now. Oh gosh.
Richard Could you imagine?
Gerrit Every listener right now is saying a silent prayer that we want, except for Betty. Betty is saying a silent prayer that we keep her going.
Richard Yeah. Well, it's not silent. It's out loud.
Gerrit Yeah, she needs this.
Richard I really enjoy your podcast. I come for the banter, stay for the gospel discussion. Things that have been taught about the history of the church and other topics have helped me when my brother, who is no longer a member, brings things like only people that pay tithing get to go into heaven and other church history things about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, the Witnesses and polygamy, which you never talk about, even though we talk about it all the time.
Gerrit We seem to talk about it more and more. It's like I'm being beaten down to the point where I'm just gonna like walk in and be like, all right, guys, let's talk about polygamy today.
Richard You should do like an education week, just like a full thing, just all polygamy all the time. It would be so popular.
Gerrit I'm pretty sure that would get approved. It'd be like super approved. They'd be like, yeah, we don't want you doing controversial topics. Yeah, that's why I figured I'd do polygamy and also like maybe polyandry. Let's read both of them.
Richard I've gotten my daughter to listen to the podcast as well. She wanted to start from the beginning and has listened to almost three podcasts a day. Oh, geez, is she in some sort of Lithuanian prison?
Gerrit Yeah, that sounds like she has been punished for whatever she's done.
Richard Adam's transgressions here. Three podcasts a day when she is at work stocking shelves. It has been fun to talk to her about the inside jokes and such and the topics you cover. I do have a question and either of the doctors can answer. Well, first of all, I can almost answer nothing, unless this is about to be a business question even then. Lately, I have seen people on the YouTubes talking about girls passing the sacrament. They bring it up and it has always been males passing it. They bring up that it has always been males passing it. Not always the deacons though. Is there a reason only boys pass the sacrament? Do you think there might be a time when young women may pass it to the congregation? The things I have listened to seem to think it might change. Like the change with who can be a witness at a baptism. What are your thoughts on this? And then she provides a link to a YouTube clip that talks about it.
Richard Thanks for all you do. One day, I hope to be able to pay for your subscription or you can just take your new missionary's son's access to the content and listen to it for yourself.
Gerrit I'm sure that's what's gonna happen anyway.
Richard Just not for Michelle. Michelle will never do that.
Gerrit We trust Michelle.
Richard But others.
Gerrit But yeah, other missionary parents. We have an ungood authority that people are being forced to go on missions solely so that people can get free premium content.
Richard My sister is already telling my nephew Isaac, look, you're nine, but in nine years, I need you to go on a mission so I can listen to all this stuff for free.
Gerrit Yeah. She's like trying to get his wisdom teeth out when he's 10.
Richard Some wisdom teeth out when he's 10. So, Gerrit, I think you had mentioned that I thought we had talked about this before. I don't remember.
Gerrit I think we have at some point, maybe not, but it's obviously the case that we have talked a little bit about how priesthood offices change over the course of time and their responsibilities change over the course of time. This is something that most people listening have already experienced this themselves, with the changes that have happened with both high priest group and elders quorum and things like that. And yeah, in the early church, the passing of the sacrament was always done by men who have the priesthood, but those men were also all adults, basically. You can find instances of people as young as 14 and 13 being ordained elders in the early church. But it's not really until the 19th century and the mid 19th, mid, you know, really the final third of the 19th century, that there is this kind of codification.
Gerrit So what used to happen is, you know, someone will get baptized and they would be made an, you know, a priest and they'd go to the priest quorum. And that was pretty standard, you know, this universal Melchizedek Priesthood office for men. You know, everyone gets ordained an elder. That didn't happen until the temple endowments come. Because one of the prerequisites of the temple covenants is having received the Melchizedek Priesthood. And so once that happens, you start to have this kind of odd thing where you have someone who's an elder who's also the deacons quorum president. Which sounds funny to you today, but that's because you're thinking of, you know, a 45 year old guy and a bunch of 11 year olds. And he's like, hey guys, hey guys, can we just stop? Can we stop screwing around just for a minute? Come on, guys.
Gerrit Come on. I can only assume that that's what his entire life would be if he's the deacons quorum president. He's like, my first counselor is 11 and a half. But they would be Melchizedek Priesthood holders, and then they would have the assignment of serving in the deacons quorum. And so you have adults in these deacons quorums, and it's not necessarily a reflection of their office and their priesthood. As far as passing the sacrament, yeah, they all did that. And so it wasn't until this, you know, latter part of the 19th century that they start kind of codifying having young men serve in these different priesthood offices as a way of advancing them and really preparing them for the Melchizedek Priesthood. And part of that assignment is something that the deacons are given that assignment of passing the sacrament.
Gerrit Now the scriptures, of course, talk about the administration of the sacrament and even say that, you know, deacons can't administer the sacrament. I think a lot of people think the passing the tray around is the administration of the sacrament, but the administration is the blessing of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which is done by priests or those with higher authority. And so this question was directly asked at one point, whether or not it was something that could only a priesthood holder handle the sacrament. And you can see why. Because the way that we pass the sacrament today is we hand the sacrament down the rows, right? Well, if only a priesthood holder can hand the sacrament to anybody, well, then that would even mean that like a six-year-old, male or female, can't hand the sacrament tray to the next person in line.
Gerrit Now, of course, because they're a six-year-old, they're already digging in there looking for the biggest piece.
Richard Obviously.
Gerrit I mean, you know, look, you gotta, I mean, they're being coy about it, though, because they're six. They're taking two pieces, but they don't want anyone to know. When they're two, it's just, it's a handful.
Richard It's handfuls, yeah.
Gerrit A whole head. It's like, oh, thank you. I was wondering when snack time was, and it's the whole hand. So people have asked that question before, and I even have heard, now, this is anecdotal, obviously, these are the kinds of sources I hate, because it's just someone told me this. In other words, it's not true. That they actually had served in a place where, in order to prevent that, the bishop had made it so that only, they had the deacons walk down every row, so that only they were the ones handing the trade of people or something. You'll notice that's not in the handbook. Or, if it is, it's right after, hey, stop paying your tithing in pennies. So, it was clarified that that was not, in and of itself, a duty that had to be conducted by the Aaronic Priesthood.
Gerrit It was a duty that was assigned to the Aaronic Priesthood. Now, I don't know of any sources from the 19th century that talk about anyone other than men passing the sacrament. Now, there were often not very big congregations, so we're talking passing the sacrament, we're talking, you know, it's not like you've got 45 deacons and they're, you know, they've got a bunch of extra trays up front. There's 10 people in this branch and three of them are just apostates that are coming to see whether you guys are going to excommunicate them.
Richard I mean, so huge chunks, loaves of bread anyway.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, come on, you're coming. Well, you come for the warm bread. Stay for the wine cup. But so, I mean, with the question, like hypotheticals, like, well, could this ever change? Well, I mean, of course it could. But frankly, we believe in continuing revelation. So God could give revelation that changes the way we do anything that's assigned to any priest at office. In this case, you know, using the example of like a witness at a baptism, you know, that's a good example. I mean, it had always been that men had to be the witnesses of the baptism, and then a prophet received the inspiration that that wasn't necessary. And, you know, now, you know, we've got grandmothers that are doing the witnessing, and, you know, children that are just baptized doing it themselves, basically.
Gerrit So of course it could change. I don't like to speculate on whether or not it should. But I kind of feel like, I mean, for me, I just do whatever the church tells me to do. And I do that because this is God's kingdom on earth. And it matters more to me that whatever the prophet is currently teaching, that's what I'm doing. And you know, so for trivia and hypotheticals, I could see, you know, someone saying, you know, I'd really like to know. And I mean, is there something barring it saying that, oh, no, there's no possible way? Well, of course not. Is it typically fruitful to speculate about how things might be different? My guess is it's usually not. And this is the reason why.
Gerrit I love the analogy, I use it all the time, that you can only pick up one end of a stick so far before you're picking up both ends of the stick, right? You pick up one end of the stick, you can get it pretty far off the ground while the other end of the stick is still touching the ground. You can only raise it so far before both ends of the stick are off the ground. What I mean by that is that some people ask questions about, well, couldn't things be different, you know, like Michelle here in this very well-meaning, interested way? But not everyone who's going to ask that question is well-being, right? That's the reality. It's kind of like questions about, questions about other church policies or practices or church history issues. And so, yeah, I mean, do I think it will ever change someday?
Gerrit I literally have no keys. I've never had any keys of any import. I mean, I guess I was an elders quorum president at one point, and they fired me from that because it was so terrible.
Richard Some people get released. Gary got fired.
Gerrit No, I got, it was literally a pink slip. It said, your services are no longer needed. It was, it was interesting. It was no severance specifically told me that I would not be able to get a reference. It was crazy. It was harsh. Yeah, it was harsh. So, so it's not my place. Historically speaking, you have these prophetic statements, prophets and apostles commenting on it, explaining things about it. And what we have right now is the church's policy that the passing of the sacrament has been assigned to the Aaronic Priesthood and specifically to the deacons, which of course, any member of the priesthood can participate when they need to. And I don't know all the reasons why God has assigned that. I will say it is pretty difficult to look at the strength of the Latter-day Saint Youth program and say the church has made a terrible, terrible series of mistakes.
Gerrit I have said this many times when I go to religious conferences, so I'll go to like a religious history conference, or I'll go to an ecumenical conference, and I'll be seated next to a congregationalist minister or a Baptist minister. And generally, it's a pleasant conversation when they find out I'm one of the Mormons. They're like, oh, so why do you think Jesus and Satan are brothers? I mean, usually, they're actually very kind. Every single one of them that I've engaged in a real conversation with, every one of them, envy our youth program and the strength of our youth in a way, in a holy envy that to ministers of other Christian faiths, they would pay any amount of money to have anything even resembling our youth retention rates and our youth activity in the church.
Gerrit Now, I get, I'm well aware right now, someone is listening, saying, no, my son, apostatized when he was 18, the church, I am well aware, I have close people to me that have gone through that experience. I am well aware that we don't retain every youth. I am not saying we retain every youth. I'm saying our retention and activity rate compared to every other Christian church in America is so ridiculously higher that every Christian minister that I ever have a conversation with, that is where they want the conversation to go. Every one of them. Oh, I just wish we could have the same youth program that you have. Every one of them. And so while I think, you know, look, obviously, I was super excited when my wife got to be a witness for baptisms and baptisms for the dead and my daughter got to be a witness.
Gerrit I mean, I love it. And were a change like that to happen, I would ridiculously love it. But I also know that this church is led by a prophet and these seers and revelators will receive the inspiration to do what ends up being the best for the church and these youth in the time they live in. So I, since I have no, I mean, when you ask a question like, you know, what should happen? Of course I have no idea. I mean, historically, I barely even know what happened in the last decade. People ask me questions like, hey, in the 1970s, like, nope, pass. I do 1900 and before. I mean, obviously, I study some 20th century history, but anyway, so that was way too long of an answer for that.
Richard It was a great answer, Gerrit.
Gerrit But a long, terrible answer.
Richard So do you want to jump to the last email? Do you think we still, because we're, we are...
Gerrit You know what? Let's just do it. Let's run the table.
Richard All of them, okay.
Gerrit Let's do it.
Richard All right, Gerrit. This next email comes to us from James. Dear apostates, I call you to repent.
Gerrit Wow.
Richard That's the subject.
Gerrit That's a bold... I mean, how many people have wanted to do that? But James had the willingness.
Richard I'm sorry for the clickbait subject for the email, but I, a needy and soon to be missionary, want to grab your attention. I have been called to serve in the Korea Busan mission. I'm sure I pronounced that perfectly. And I'm asking for access to the premium content. I know this is not your preferred mission area. We love Korea. We love missionaries that serve in Korea. Well, I don't know. I mean, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is second warded. It's not, but other than that...
Gerrit Yeah. Look, it's Pittsburgh, it's Tucson. It's apparently Albania.
Richard We're killing it in Albania, Finland.
Gerrit We have more listeners in Albania than there are members in Albania.
Richard True. I've listened to every free episode in Desire More like a dog to its vomit. I cannot help but to want more garbage. That's very funny. James, when you're done diving and bathing into your gold coins like Scrooge McDuck from the massive wealth you've acquired from sports betting and overpriced premium content for a mediocre podcast about rice tariffs, please do not forget little old me. Please send me those Google Drive links to the premium content. He goes on to say that he ran into Gerrit twice, once in a YSA steak fireside and later-
Gerrit I was speaking, I wasn't attending. We probably need to get that out there.
Richard Look, Angie, Angie, if you-
Gerrit What a way for her to find out.
Richard You're like, you took the extension of age to the next level. You're like, they said this, but I'm going to 45.
Gerrit Yeah. James ratted me out.
Richard He also ran into you at a Walmart near Spanish Fort Canyon. I then joked about how the only reason I put in my papers was for free premium, like my sister with my nephew, Isaac, who's only nine. I do want to say you guys have made me realize I need to follow the promptings. I had to go on a mission. My ancestors had it far worse than me. I can at least suffer for two years. I am now 24 and wish I left earlier. But as I look back, I realized I wasn't worthy nor ready before now. And your podcast has helped me strive to be better. Thank you. That's pretty awesome, James.
Gerrit That's awesome, James.
Richard I do have a question. For context, I have some fundamentalist friends, more like online acquaintances.
Gerrit Okay. Yeah. So we're about to push the big red stop button on your mission papers. We're like, you know, for context, I've got some fundamentalist friends, more like wives. And I believe he's referring to Latter-day Saint fundamentalism, meaning, you know, Mormon fundamentalist, FLDS Church.
Richard Yes.
Gerrit Or all shoots thereof.
Richard They belong to many different branch of groups, one of them being the righteous branch right here in Spanish Fork. That's why I believe Nelson, President Nelson, is the current prophet. I gave my testimony and gave examples of him seeing COVID around the corner and giving missionaries smartphones. They ignored that and talked about how in the Old Testament, certain people couldn't get the priesthood and that the ban shouldn't have been lifted. On a side note, they do believe that blacks will get the priesthood at a later date in the future, but don't think it happened yet. Why? I don't know. I didn't care to ask as their fruits were clear to me. They brought up several issues about President Nelson, and I told them God wouldn't allow his prophet to lead us astray into apostasy and that following the prophet is the safest measure. If he does lead us a little off course, the judgment will be upon him and not us. But if he isn't and we don't follow, that's on our heads. They responded saying that the doctrine was later coined in the 20th century, not by Joseph Smith.
Richard I feel the spirit telling me that this is wrong, so I choose to follow that over their words. Also, if I recall correctly, Continuum Revelation was taught by Joseph Smith, so I don't see what their point is. I realize I learned this in an Institute class long ago, but I don't remember any sources or anything of where it comes from. Where does this come from? Or am I wrong? Did it come from Joseph Smith or later prophets? Please feel free to go on an hour-long tangent about some form of Protestantism that has nothing to do with the question. Also, I thought about running this through AI to make it more reliable. But laughing at Richard's inability to read small print is now an iconic part of the show. Sorry, Richard, not really though, PPS. I used the email and the Spotify episode descriptions and received no response. Either you only now read them if they're from the website or my subject for the email tricked both of you far too well. Gerrit, are you speaking in my YSA again?
Richard But I'm the...
Intro He's got me set apart.
Gerrit I am speaking in his YSA.
Richard You are.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Oh, you are.
Gerrit He's Sunday, in fact.
Richard Oh, you are? Oh, cool.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Oh, very nice. Well, that's lovely, Gerrit. So, James, shipping off to Korea, help answer his question about modern-day profits and revelation.
Gerrit Yeah. I mean, it kind of goes along with, why do we do some of the things we do, or why do we believe what we do? So first of all, the righteous branch, that's a break-off of a polygamous group that was a break-off of another group. And I'm pretty sure, although I guess I should look it up, I'm pretty sure they're the ones that have the pyramid building that they have as like a temple down by Cedar City. It's not in Cedar City, it's somewhere nearby. I really should look this up, actually. We should crack research stuff on it. I'm pretty sure they're the ones with the pyramid temple looking thing down in Iron County somewhere. But they are, you know, an offshoot of an offshoot. And then of course, there's other groups that that group broke off from as well.
Gerrit And it's interesting because fundamentalist Latter-day Saints and modern apostate Latter-day Saints, they certainly might be arguing for different things. I mean, it's a pretty different thing to argue as the righteous branch or the fundamentalist church argues that Wilford Woodruff became a fallen prophet because he shouldn't have ended plural marriage. It's a pretty different argument to say that. And then with a modern apostate group that's arguing that Joseph Smith never taught or practiced polygamy, and Brigham Young became the fallen prophet. But you'll notice they all have of necessity in their structure, in their story, that somewhere along the line, the main branch, the largest branch, the church, became corrupted and their leader then or now is the person who was selected to rectify it.
Gerrit Many of them claim to have miraculous experiences associated with that, like, you know, people who are leading some modern apostate groups from the other side of the ledger today. They claim that they've seen Jesus. They claim they've received revelation. They've claimed that they have, you know, scripture being revealed to them. The leader of the Righteous Branch claimed that Joseph Smith appeared to him as a resurrected being and talked to him, which, you know, that's a powerful claim that someone's going to make. This idea that, well, the prophet, he is the one who went astray. It's something we've talked about. In fact, everything I'm about to say is going to sound repetitive. And that's because for some things, there's only one answer, and it's the same answer every single time.
Gerrit In the early church, in fact, we're about to talk about on the search these commandments, you know, next up on our plans is Doctrine and Covenants, Section 28, where this question is first brought before the whole church. It's very interesting how apostasy works, right? So in Joseph's time, you had all of these Christian religions teaching that there could not be any more revelation because the apostles and prophets were all gone. And then Joseph teaches that he's received a revelation, and that God has revealed new scripture. And that gives a license to some people to then claim, actually, I'm the one receiving revelation.
Gerrit And it's such an interesting thing. It's something that you get over and over and over again. In fact, we had a listener email in. We didn't read their email. Maybe we could at some point, but we get thousands of emails. It's hard to read them all. And not all of them were people who accosted me at a small mart. So I feel like that gets you closer to the top of the shelf. If you stop me somewhere, I think that it's pregnancy. Well, actually, it's delivering a baby. It's stopping me.
Richard Pregnancy doesn't count. I mean, I don't like the trouble.
Gerrit If we did pregnancy.
Richard We still, I mean, we're a Utah-based show.
Gerrit So we're doing letters that are written literally in the midst of delivery at the hospital, and we're getting dozens of them. So it's quickly turned into a problem. We're going to have to say things like, nope, nope, the way we get it is if it's no anesthesia or something. I don't know how you could regulate it.
Richard We're getting dangerously close to making our spouses upset. I feel like, but I feel like you're right. I feel like if you're getting off some sort of blocking of the spine. Did I ever tell you the time that I got my wife's birthday wrong and she wasn't able to receive any anesthesia?
Gerrit Oh yes. You know, so you've told me, but I've been told by your wife more times. Yeah, she brings it up. She tells the story in a decidedly different way than you tell it.
Richard I believe that I got her birthday right.
Gerrit And that the hospital wrote it down wrong?
Richard Her birthday is in September. It's the same month as-
Gerrit When is September?
Richard Well, it's the same. Well, I know what it is.
Gerrit No one is going to believe you now.
Richard No one is going to believe me. It's the same month as my birthday. I'm not going to forget that she's born the same month as my birthday. But the hospital claims that I said that she was born in October, so then her bracelet didn't match up with the records because I checked her in, and so that she wasn't able to receive an epidural, which created my understanding. It was more uncomfortable, my understanding.
Gerrit Yeah. I feel like when Becky tells me this story, there's less censoring going on.
Richard Here's the thing. If it is my fault, she has every reason in the world to be upset by this, obviously. But I said, honey, honey buns, sweetie, sweetheart, baby. I said, I said, there's no way I'm going to forget when it... I mean, I forget the day, forget the year, forget the month. It's the same month as my month.
Gerrit Yeah, it's hard to forget a month. It is easier to forget a day or year, but not of your spouse.
Richard What's more likely that your husband, your eternal companion, forgot your birthday month, even though it's the same month as his, or that the hospital had a clerical heir?
Gerrit Do you want listeners to answer that before or after they remember that you were neither there to take Rigdon to the MTC, nor there to pick him up from the airport?
Richard We were there to pick him up.
Gerrit No, you were not.
Richard We were there to pick him up. We were there.
Gerrit No, you were there to greet him, but you weren't there to pick him up. He drove home with strangers.
Richard We were flying to Greece. We were doing archaeological work for the podcast. It was a write-off. Anyway, sorry, I apologize. And by apologize, I mean, I apologize to my wife for not allowing her to get an epidural.
Gerrit Right. Well, back to the point of discussion. This this other fellow wrote in and said that he was having a discussion with someone who was claiming that plural marriage was never taught by Joseph Smith. And then they said, and I had the spirit tell me that. So as a way of winning the discussion, essentially, the spirit told me that Joseph Smith never taught or practiced it. So it doesn't matter what you say to me. That's what the guy says. Well, that kind of stuff goes on in the early church as well, where people are claiming that they have special access to authority on the doctrine of the church that isn't the prophet. Starts with Hiram Page, the doctrine of the covenant section 28, actually starts with Oliver Cowdery in the summer of 1830, after the church is organized, claiming that he has revelation that's not from Joseph.
Gerrit And it nearly breaks the church apart on multiple occasions. So, you know, look, the particular quote that God won't allow his prophet to lead people astray, that comes from Wilford Woodruff, when he's trying to defend the fact that God gave him the revelation to end the new practice of plural marriage, which is today official declaration one. But Joseph teaches very clearly, and the Lord teaches very clearly, that even if the prophet were to become a fallen prophet, God would have that prophet set apart his successor as his last act before he was removed from authority.
Gerrit None of the people that are making the claim that they somehow have prophetic authority can say that that's what happened. None of them can say, yeah, President Hinckley pulled me aside, put his hands on my head and said, you know what, new prophet, I'm out. And, you know, probably while he's waving a Governor Ford's History of Illinois book in the air. But this is something that the Lord is gonna be very direct about. And, you know, the place you take him is Doctrine and Covenant Section 43, where you keep having this come up, where people are teaching as doctrines to the church, claiming that they've received revelations, that these revelations are written down. And this is what the Lord teaches. Verse 2, Doctrine and Covenant Section 43. For behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, you have received a commandment for a law unto my church.
Gerrit So this is binding on everyone. So no one's got a little special exemption from this, okay? A law unto my church through him whom I've appointed unto you to receive commandments and revelations from my hand. And then God makes it as clear as it can possibly be. And this ye shall know assuredly, that there is none other appointed unto you to receive commandments and revelations until he be taken if he abide in me. But verily, verily, I say unto you, that none else shall be appointed unto this gift except it be through him. For if it be taken from him, he shall not have power except to appoint another in his stead. And this shall be a law unto you, that ye receive not the teachings of any that shall come before you as revelations or commandments.
Gerrit And this I give unto you, that you may not be deceived, that ye may know they are not of me. For verily, I say unto you, that he is ordained of me, shall come in at the gate, and be ordained as I have told you before, to teach those revelations which you have received, and shall receive through him whom I have appointed. It literally can't be more clear. Only Joseph has the ability to receive revelation for the church. And when you want to say, yeah, but I think Joseph Smith became fallen prophet, the Lord says that even if that were to happen, Joseph would have one last power of the prophet that he would have the ability to do. And that would be to give that power to someone else. Now, Joseph does give that power to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and gives them that last great charge in 1844.
Gerrit They receive that ability to receive revelations for the church from Joseph the same way that this revelation is declared. And it doesn't say that if Joseph dies and then is resurrected that he will then come back and give someone else unaffiliated with the actual body of the church the ability to receive revelation. Doesn't say that. So all of the modern apostasies, whether they are from fundamentalists or whether they are from others, you know, polygamy deniers or, or people claiming that they've had their own spirituals, all of them fail this test. Because all of them cannot claim that the prophet, who was the prophet at the time of their apostasy, gave them the authority to receive revelation for the church.
Gerrit So I think you lean pretty heavy on D&C 43. And, you know, for our brother who said, well, what about someone says, well, I really felt the spirit tell me that. I mean, okay, but that's not how the church is governed. The church isn't governed by what people really feel strongly about. That's for your personal testimony. But you can't receive a personal testimony about how the prophet is wrong. That's not that's not a revelation that that God's giving you. Joseph teaches, even if it's a miraculous experience. And I know I've shared this letter a lot, but this this is from Joseph, and that's what they asked for from Joseph. There is a an elder in Vermont who has several people in his branch that are claiming to have had revelations. And at first, everyone in the branch wants to believe it because they're great.
Gerrit They're like wonderful, beautiful revelations. And then they start saying things that this branch president is names Carters, he's this branch president in Vermont, middle of Vermont. It starts to make him feel uneasy. And so he writes to Joseph and says, what am I supposed to do about these people claiming to receive revelation for the church here? And this is what Joseph says. He says, as it respects the vision you speak of, we do not consider ourselves bound to receive any revelation from any man or woman without them being legally constituted and ordained to that authority and given sufficient proof of it. I will inform you that it is contrary to the economy of God for any member of the church or anyone to receive instruction for those in authority higher than themselves.
Gerrit Therefore, you will see the impropriety of giving heed to them. So again, how much more clear can Joseph be? How do I know that God didn't send an angel to appear to someone to tell them where President Monson made a mistake? Because Joseph Smith said that is not how God works. It's contrary to the economy of God. If God needs to let President Monson know or President Hinckley know, President Nelson know that they've made a mistake, that angel isn't coming to you. As wonderfully as important as we all think we are, if God needs to speak directly to his prophet to let him know what he needs to do, that angel is going to him and not to you. So we know from Doctrine and Covenants Section 43 that all of these apostate groups are just throwing that revelation away as if Joseph didn't teach it, because they were not given authority by the current prophet or the prophet that they claim became a fallen prophet.
Gerrit They were not given that authority. They're claiming that as they look back, they see that there's been a loss of authority. But don't worry, they've got it. And that is not what Doctrine and Covenants Section 43 says. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't have an angel appear to you. You can't receive personal revelation, that you can't have answers to your prayers, and you can't have visions. You can. But Joseph explains those in this same letter. If any have a vision or a visitation from a heavenly messenger, it must be for their own benefit and instruction. For the fundamental principles, government and doctrine of the church is invested in the keys of the kingdom. Those keys of the kingdom are held by apostles, passed down through apostles. So can an angel appear to you? Yes.
Gerrit If that angel tells you, let me tell you where President Nelson is wrong, then you better start wondering whether or not he'll shake your hand. Because that angel is not coming to you. And the hubris of how incredibly wonderful we think ourselves to be, to think that if there was a problem in the church, it would be you that the angel would come to to fix it, I think kind of gives you an indication already about just how difficult things are. So I think probably have gone on and on about that. Like I said, I know I've shared that before, but this is something that just keeps, it keeps coming up. And it's happened, it happened over and over and over again in Joseph's time. It happened over and over and over again in Brigham Young's time. It happened over and over again in Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor.
Gerrit It happens in every era of the church. That someone comes along and says, I know that the revelation says that the prophet would appoint someone even if they were to fall. But don't worry, I'm somehow special and different. You know, and the really sad part is that even though the church is very clear about where authority comes from, there you go having people following after it. There's a Brigham Young sermon that's pretty funny because it's a sermon where he's primarily just talking about, you know, make sure you plant your wheat the right way and stuff like that. This is in Mount Pleasant, Utah, okay? So in 1865, you know, and so a lot of it is like, you know, fairly mundane, you know, hey, stop sinning, get that kind of stuff.
Gerrit But then he talks about how they're leaving, they're getting ready to leave. And he says, you know, I'm going to bless everybody here. But then after all our labors, we'll let some poor fellow come here and get up the foolishest revelation that there ever was. I don't care what it was about. If it was about cats and kittens, cats and mice, sauerkraut and bodily lice, some people would follow them. I was trying to teach the saints and instruct them and plead with them to live their religion and learn something. So you can sense the frustration from Brigham Young in the fact that, you know, all of these people that go off following false revelations outside of the ones that are just charlatans trying to deceive people, they all at one point believed in who the prophet was. And then because that prophet ended up not saying what they wanted him to say, or the church didn't take the position on some political issue that they wanted them to take, they decided that they must no longer be a prophet.
Gerrit So thanks so much for your emails, and hopefully this was an informative, at least no one have any personal revelations about sauerkraut, okay? I feel like, you know, I feel like that's gonna be harder for some of our German saints.
Richard It will be. We're huge in Germany.
Gerrit Yeah. Now look, Elder Uchtdorf can have all the revelation about sauerkraut that he wants. I think he's, he's got to pass, probably. Brigham Young said so, right there. So anyway, so thanks so much for joining us.
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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Nice and soft and slow and talking about jazz in Toledo, Ohio in the 1940s.

RichardBanter

Before the crippling debt, missionaries, all of it. It's like listening to the first year of the Beatles.

GerritBanter

the Lord is in the details of our lives all the time and we can often not see it and we can forget it and we can just blow past it because we're busy and we're doing a million things.

RichardInsight

We're going out of our way to make people just hate what we're doing. I love it.

RichardBanter

Now the scriptures, of course, talk about the administration of the sacrament and even say that, you know, deacons can't administer the sacrament.

GerritInsight

And it matters more to me that whatever the prophet is currently teaching, that's what I'm doing.

GerritInsight

Some people get released. Gary got fired.

RichardBanter

We have more listeners in Albania than there are members in Albania.

GerritBanter

If God needs to let President Monson know or President Hinckley know, President Nelson know that they've made a mistake, that angel isn't coming to you.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Only deacons have ever passed the sacrament.
If a prophet goes astray, God will call someone outside the Church's leadership to set things right.
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

The Lord is in the details of our lives: a mother in Latvia got her temple recommend after ten years, and the missionary who taught her happened to be nearby to ordain her son a deacon.

Priesthood assignments have changed over time; passing the sacrament went from adult men to deacons, and the prophet holds the keys to change it again.

Revelation for the whole Church comes only through the one God appoints (D&C 43); personal visions are for your own benefit and instruction.

If an angel tells you where the prophet is wrong, Joseph's counsel is to doubt the angel.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
NPR voicesJazz in Toledo in the 1940s and water rights in Colorado Territory (0:52-1:14).
Kristy's MansionThe zoning board rezoned Kristy's Corner (1:34-1:39); four hours of re-releases replace it (3:31); bring Bel and the Dragon to class and pick your calling (4:59).
Early BeatlesThe old Word of Wisdom episodes sound happy, before the crippling debt; by the end it's just a sitar (1:56-2:31).
A death metal band called The ApocryphaThey wanted to start it, but it already exists (3:56-4:59).
Elder Abel, APRode the podcast's coattails to assistant to the president, second only to MTC district leader (5:43-6:54).
We're huge in Finland (and Albania)A Helsinki temple shift coordinator is a big fan (9:29-10:31); more listeners in Albania than members (42:04).
International McDonald'sLatvia's pistachio McFlurry and barbecue fries (13:14).
Sports picksWNBA has been hit and miss, but football season is when the sharks shine; Bear Bachmeier (9:06-9:29).
Free premium in nine yearsRichard's sister will wait until her son Isaac, 9, goes on a mission (23:04-23:27, 26:27-26:39), while Betty prays out loud for the podcast to continue (23:32-23:43).
The labor-email policyLetters from delivery are flooding in; maybe only those without an epidural count (51:52-52:23).
Becky's birthday monthRichard insists the hospital, not he, got it wrong, which cost Becky an epidural; Becky tells it differently (52:23-55:12), and Rigdon drove home from the airport with strangers (54:39-54:59).
The only true missionPittsburgh is second-warded; also Tucson and Albania (41:25-42:04).
Gerrit was fired as elders quorum presidentA pink slip with no severance and no reference (36:17-36:29).
Japanese rice tariffsJames calls it an 'overpriced premium content for a mediocre podcast about rice tariffs' (42:09).
We're huge in GermanySauerkraut revelations will be harder for German Saints, though Elder Uchtdorf gets a pass (69:43-70:03).
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
The Word of Wisdom's gradual path to a temple recommend requirement, covered in the re-released episodes (3:56).
Sweetwater Rescue's origin with Carlos Tipiani's Peru temple trip after Elder Holland's 'Are We Not All Beggars?' (19:43).
How Aaronic Priesthood offices became youth offices in the late 1800s, with adult elders serving in deacons quorums (27:54, 28:54).
Hiram Page, D&C 28, D&C 43 and Joseph's letter to Jared Carter on who receives revelation for the Church (50:14, 61:54).
SOT Litner · S5E35.