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Leading with mistakes
S5E47 · Dead and in Hell Part 5
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Standard of Truth · Season 5 · Episode 47 · 1:09:46

Dead and in Hell Part 5

Zachary Taylor told 20 members of Congress he would veto any bill making Utah a territory or state, and then he died in office days later.

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The question ·

How should we approach D&C 132 and plural marriage in Sunday School, and how did William Smith's accusations turn Zachary Taylor against the Saints?

Gerrit

Richard admits a mistake at a missionary training in the Layton mission, and the hosts report how listeners packed Hug Hess for the Sweetwater Rescue fundraiser, with a grateful email from Jordan at the restaurant and more than $15,000 raised. Richard confesses he showed up three hours late to his own announced time, and Lance writes about crashing Gerrit and Angie's lunch, where Gerrit accidentally lost Lance an argument with his wife. Kristy's Corner takes on D&C 132 head-on: Gerrit admits some details are unclear, warns that passion can be easily misdirected, and points to the testimonies of women who practiced plural marriage, like Lucy Walker Smith Kimball, with Helen Mar Kimball's defense of it close behind. Then Gerrit shows how William Smith's charges spread through newspapers and turned Zachary Taylor against the Saints, until Taylor died and Millard Fillmore and the Compromise of 1850 changed everything.

Who comes upWilliam SmithZachary TaylorMillard FillmoreIsaac SheenLucy Walker Smith KimballHelen Mar KimballAlmon BabbittBrigham YoungJoseph Smith
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Leading with mistakes

Richard's slip at a missionary training in the Layton mission.

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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 am joined by my friend, Dr. Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. Thanks for having me back. Kind of embarrassed to say here on Standard of Truth Podcast, we like to lead with our mistakes. And earlier...
Gerrit If we led with all of our mistakes, the podcast would just be errata. It would just be errors that were made.
Richard Well, lead from our most recent mistakes that I can remember from just today. Let me be more specific. Today, Gerrit, we took the show on the road and we had an opportunity to do... I don't know what... It wasn't a fireside. It was some missionary training for the Layton, Utah mission. And thanks to President and Sister Lake for inviting us. And by us, I mean you. And then I was also on that email. And Elder Abel, who has... We've talked about quite a few times here, started from the bottom. Now he's here, rising to the very top. Elder Webb in the Layton mission, he started listening to the podcast. Now as a district leader, he's on his way.
Gerrit Yeah. It's a tried and true, you know, 50% of the time, it works 100% of the time.
Richard Yeah. Yeah. It's the Panther Cologne from Anchorman. So the situation though is... So I thought it would be funny is that... So they had us both, we were both supposed to speak. And I thought it would be funny for Elder Able to introduce me, for me to come up and just introduce you and then sit down. In the introduction of you, I talked about your fantasy football team and just how you've been plagued by injuries and...
Gerrit So many injuries.
Richard So many injuries and hoping to pick up Daniel Jones from the waiver wire because of the back half of the giant schedule being easier, that that would be better for you. I don't know that I've ever been more embarrassed upon reflection of anything in my life than the fact that he plays for the Colts. I said the Giants and from the bottom of my heart to the latent mission, I am very sorry.
Gerrit Yeah. However, as we talked about after, if any of them happen to know the ins and outs of who's on the current Giants roster, frankly, I need half of those missionaries to believe he's still on the Giants.
Richard Yeah. How bad of a missionary are you to know what team Daniel Jones is on right now?
Gerrit How often are you going to ESPN Elder Abel? How is it that you know this?
Richard In fairness, no missionary called me on it. That suggests that President and Sister Lake run a tight ship and they've got the best missionaries. But anyway, I am sorry. I do apologize and from the bottom of my heart. It was a lot of fun this morning though.
Gerrit Yeah, for you. It was great to be the good missionaries. Very good. So it was a great experience.
Richard Well, so instead of jumping straight to Kristy's corner, Gerrit, we're gonna jump to the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag.
Gerrit Is this so we can delay polygamy as long as possible?
Richard Yeah, because it's, what's Doctrine and Covenants 129 through 132, I believe, is this week. And it's a gospel doctrine. Come follow me week. And so there will be-
Gerrit Let me just put this out here for everybody. There is a very, very, very good chance that you are about to hear some incredibly false doctrine at standard school this week. And I'm not saying from the teachers. I am saying from the comments that are about to be made. So just everybody steal yourself for the fact that just because brother so-and-so has a comment about it is not the same thing as him being right about it.
Richard Yes, and you say all the time, well, why don't we talk about these topics more often? Well, on Sunday, you're going to find out why.
Gerrit You're going to know really well. Man, why doesn't he just talk about it a little bit? You're about to talk about it a little bit, and you're going to know very well why.
Richard I look through the lesson. Obviously, it's a great lesson on Come, Follow Me. It's about our eternal families and our nature, and there's three paragraphs on polygamy, and good luck not veering into that. So that's going to be a fun. I wish I was a fly on the wall in many Sunday school this coming Sunday. It's going to be good times had by all.
Gerrit I think some will completely avoid it altogether. I think most teachers will avoid it altogether. But several Sunday schools have the dynamic, whereby they will not be ignored on this topic. And someone will, you know, they'll just... I assume that the teacher is going to spend all of their time on, how can you tell if it's an evil spirit or an angel? Because the entire lesson is going to be, you got to shake hands. So you just got to do it. Shake hands. Everybody turn to your neighbor. You know, let's pair and share. Turn it, turn to your neighbor. Let's shake hands. All right. See, obviously they're not an evil spirit. And that's... I feel like that's the best route out of the current quagmire. Oh my goodness. We ran out of time for Dr. Incovenance Section 132.
Richard No, yes. So, Gerrit, yes, we're not going to get to that for a second. We're going to start off with a little update with Hug Hess and the Wonderful Weekend and all the incredibly kind people. Do you want me to give some of the results first? Do you want to read the email first?
Gerrit Why don't you read some of the results after I read Jordan's email? Because he gives us some stuff too.
Richard Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Why don't you start? There you go.
Gerrit Okay. Well, so our partners at Hug Hess who reached out to make an offer to us to try to help raise money for Sweetwater Rescue to get more of these Latter-day Saints to the temple. Incredibly kind. We've sung their praises. Just so kind that they would be willing to contribute so much of their revenue off of sales to us. Such a large number that there's no way they're breaking even on it. The number is ridiculously high. I mean, heavens, the number of diet cokes I drank alone is probably, I mean, probably they're going to have to shut down the Centerville location. I mean, they ran out of diet coke. It does remind me of the The Simpsons episode in which Homer's trying to gain weight so that he can work from home.
Gerrit Yeah. And the other kids start making fun of Bart and Lisa about how fat their dad is. And they say, I heard that your dad broke. He went to a restaurant and he ate all the food in the restaurant. And there was no food left in the restaurant. The restaurant had to close down. That's what it was like for me and diet cokes. But we met some incredible people there. A bunch of a bunch of Litners. I couldn't name them all, but I mean, just great people. And got to meet Jordan and talk to him. He's one of the, you know, the owners of Hug Hess and was just incredibly gracious. Well, he also sent a brief email. So I thought I'd read that. He says, Dear Standard of Truth podcast Litners. Now, he's a litner himself. So he knows that we say litner because we have, we've so poorly pronounced the word listener on multiple occasions that now we just make fun of it.
Gerrit A litner is someone who knows that neither Richard and I can speak. So Jordan says, Dear Standard of Truth podcast Litners, I wanted to reach out and express my profound admiration for you all. You are truly inspiring examples of disciples of Christ. And it was a wonderful opportunity to observe your service to your fellow brothers and sisters. Seeing your efforts was truly moving. And this event is personally changing me for the better. Thank you. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are always missionaries. I feel compared to share a personal lesson I learned from this experience as it has strengthened my testimony in an unexpected way. And he heads this an unexpected blessing. This past weekend, something happened that was entirely unplanned, unexpected, and not even hoped for.
Gerrit Our sales increased in a way that I cannot logically explain. In recent weeks, Hug Hess sales, along with those of our other Northern Utah restaurants, have generally dropped due to the on-going government situation. Despite this trend, our sales exceeded expectation even when subtracting the money spent specifically for the fundraiser. I have exhausted every logical explanation. Were there nearby events? Did something change in the local market? I could not find any normal human logical reason for the increase. There's only one explanation that makes sense. When you put the Lord and His children first, He truly blesses you more than you give. The promise found in Malachi is true, and I experienced it in a way that I never anticipated. I want everyone to know that I have an undeniable conviction that when we dedicate ourselves, our time and our resources to the Lord, He returns far more back to us.
Gerrit Thank you, Litners, for giving me the opportunity to learn this eternal truth even more deeply. He signs it Jordan of Hug Hess American Kitchen. So just thank you for the email, very beautiful. And maybe, you know, on that note, well, you know, Richard, what are some of the some of the numbers that came in there?
Richard There were a couple of things that happened. We had hundreds and hundreds of people that that participated this over this last weekend, to which we are incredibly grateful. I was three hours late to the North Ogden location, from what I originally said, and Dustin, who's a friend of the show, sent me a text after an hour, saying, hey, hey, hey, are you on your way? And I apologized, I had a, I'm not very good at planning my post-work schedule, and may have forgotten about a viewing that I needed to attend, and so I may have been three hours late to that. But he was there, good for him, and I ran into another listener, Bryant in the Ogden location. Part of the reason, I think, Gerrit, is that I think the LeDuc family spent up to $400,000 at Hug Hess over the weekend.
Richard Wow. We had several meals there. In fact, Saturday night, Becky's like, hey, you know what sounds awesome? Let's just order like a big turkey dinner and then do that for dinner on Sunday. So we went and heated it up. It was actually quite lovely. So some of the numbers, we had several hundreds of people that participated and between both the donations from the fundraiser with Hug Hess as well as direct donations from the promotion of this, we were able to raise over $15,000, which is just incredible. Which is just incredible. We're working on the unit economics, the individual cost per person, but that will of looking at Kenya is our next spot. And it looks like that will be somewhere likely between 50 to 75 folks that will be able to go to the temple. People that haven't been in decades, youth that have never been before. And anyway, it's just absolutely stunning.
Richard Really incredible.
Gerrit Yeah, thank you so much everybody. I mean, and I know some of you, some of you went every single day. I mean, Leslie and Ryan were on like first name basis with the servers. They just had their own booth there. They took breakfast, lunch and dinner there. I heard the manager saying, you are going to have to leave at some point. Just bring me more of those. It was crazy.
Richard Yeah, so Leslie and Ryan treated it like the max from Saved by the Bell. So it was just kind of their hangout for the weekend.
Gerrit Yeah, it was like the Seinfeld diner for them. They were just down there every time. But yeah, it was, and so many people did it. I know we didn't get to see everybody or talk to everybody, but some member that you will never meet on the other side of the world will be silently thanking you and thanking God in their prayers for you because you made it possible for them to go to the House of the Lord. And that is a beautiful thing. That's why I love the Sweetwater Rescue Charity.
Richard So if I could just say one more thing on this and then get into one more email from Lance here. So one of the things that allows for the Sweetwater Rescue to work is people, even in the most humble of circumstances, have a decent amount of pride and aren't looking for, we've been told many times, and look, we receive donations from all over the world, but the idea of kind of this wealthy Utah or wealthy American coming in and being a hero, and when instead we can say that it's made up of a lot of donations from hundreds and thousands of people all around the world that love you without knowing you, it is far easier for them to accept and allow for us to do this work.
Richard So anyway, again, thank you. All right, from Lance, I am an avid litner to the podcast, to the point where Gerrit is a bit of a local celebrity in our household. Most days in-
Gerrit Very local. I'm a celebrity between the family room and the hallway.
Richard It is the, yeah, you are a G-level LDS celebrity of the lowest order.
Gerrit When you're an L or M level celebrity among Mormons, first of all, you ain't getting any money for that. You're paying money for that. You have to try to get people to recognize you. They're like, hey, do I recognize you from somewhere? You're like, I'll bet you do. They're like, were you that guy who was arrested for trying to sell illegal fireworks? No, that wasn't me. I mean, but yeah.
Richard No, so more people know the person that checks you out of your garments to purchase your garments at the Deseret Book. That no-
Gerrit Well, they do now.
Richard Yeah, for sure.
Gerrit Yeah, everybody knows that person now.
Richard Yes, quite the frenzy. Anyway, most days include me referencing something that was said by Dirkmaat, which usually elicits some sort of groan or eye roll within my family of five daughters. So although listening to, and that's going to be a tremendous bill when it comes to weddings. My goodness.
Gerrit Yeah, but you know who does weddings? Becky. And look, they're local. They live up there by you.
Richard This is true. This is true. But she does weddings like how I do real estate.
Gerrit Like how I do podcasts.
Richard Well, we do it for free for friends and family because it's such a racket otherwise. Not that real estate is a racket. I'm sure we have many wonderful real estate people that listen to this podcast.
Gerrit And we just lost half of our listener base, which analytics tells us are real estate.
Richard Weddings are a racket. I'm sure we have many wonderful listeners that do weddings. But so Becky helps out friends and family with that. But anyway, yes, five daughters, quite the bill. So while listening to and referencing the podcast in church settings, we'll catapult you to upper echelon of church leadership. And people know that we're joking with that, right? Like, I think we need to say that. Like, I know that it seems obvious, but just to be very clear, we're obviously making fun of that.
Gerrit Of people who think that because they're quoting Kristy's quarter, they're going to become a stake Sunday School president?
Richard I just want to be very clear that we're joking, although...
Gerrit Yeah, let's put the disclaimer on it. You may, you know, results may vary. You may or may not end up being the second counselor in your Sunday School presidency.
Richard Well, you did make several jokes in the missionary training today about Elder Abel on his path to being a 70.
Gerrit His mission president thought it was hilarious.
Richard Oh, yeah, his mission president's a great guy. Echelon of church leadership, perhaps all the way to MTC district leader. It does not have the same effect in a house full of teenage girls. I will say this actually does remind me. So Jeff's grandson Parker, who's going to be serving a mission in Jacksonville, he's in the MTC right now, and they were talking about, as you want to do, I don't know quite the circumstance. They're talking about hell in some missionary training. I don't know the circumstance. But Parker says, we'll just tell him there is no hell. It was like one of those scenes where there's music playing, and there's a screech of the record and everything stops. And everyone's like, what are you talking about? There's no hell. And he's like, I'll find the episode and I'll send it over to him. Anyway, I thought that-
Gerrit It is funny because Latter Day Saints, as we talk about, I mean, we still use the term hell. And yes, we still believe people go to a temporary place of suffering, but that's just not what Christians mean when they say hell. And so, yeah, Christian Protestant hell doesn't exist.
Richard At any rate, when I, that's what the email, so it's a perfect segue. At any rate, when I told my wife, Rachel, that Gerrit announced the time and date that he was going to be at the Centerville Hug Hess, I also announced the time and date and was three hours late.
Gerrit Location. I showed up to mine. Yes.
Richard Very good for you. Res, again, Dustin, I'm very sorry. Rescue fundraiser. She asked if I was going to go and then quickly quipped that, you know what they say about meeting your heroes. Oh, that's, that's, that is funny. You a hero. That's good stuff.
Gerrit I have always, I have never failed to disappoint.
Richard We did make the long trek from Kaysville to Centerville. And after my wife and I finished our lunch, Gerrit and Angie invited us to sit down and chat with them as they tried to eat theirs amidst the interruptions from Litner's, ours being the most egregious. However, in the course of our conversation, Gerrit quickly dismantled the months of work that I had been putting in to convince my wife that she had to go back to work to help pay for her Disney addiction. So apparently, my wife was right about meeting your heroes.
Gerrit I would like to caveat this. I didn't know they were having a discussion about this. We were just having a general discussion about our lives. I was just talking about, it's great that Angie is able to stay home with the kids because when the kids need something, it's great that she's not working. Apparently, Rachel took that and spiked the football right on top of Lance. I didn't know I was participating. You always make the worst arguments when you don't know that you're participating in the argument. Yes. That's what I was doing.
Richard Oh, very good. Well, this is very funny. All joking aside, it was great interaction and conversation and Gerrit and Angie were extremely gracious to let us crash their lunch and shoot the breeze with them for half an hour as if we were old friends, even though Rachel and I were complete strangers to them. In general, I want to thank you both for the podcast. I've never really questioned my testimony, but did have at least somewhat uncomfortable relationship with some aspects of church history and Joseph Smith's life in particular. This podcast has completely changed that for me to the point where I have a much deeper respect and admiration for early members and leaders of the church. Questions and discomfort about Joseph Smith have been replaced by reverence and appreciation for all he did to bring us the gospel. At any rate, thank you for the time and effort you put in to the podcast. It's easy to contrast the spirit felt in consuming media such as yours as compared to that meant to dismantle and destroy testimonies. Forever friend of the show, Lance.
Gerrit Thank you, Lance and Rachel. Sorry to be involved in. It was great to meet all of the listeners and so grateful for everyone who was willing to sacrifice. So thank you again. And Richard will keep us updated on the Sweetwater Rescue efforts.
Richard So now, Gerrit, on with Kristy's Corner and polygamy.
Gerrit We really should have created a very special intro because it's-
Richard We're just polygamy?
Gerrit Yeah, it's the Kristy's Corner. See, Kristy is not going to want to be affiliated with the polygamy Kristy's Corner.
Richard Right? So at this point, we forget that Kristy is even a real person. And it's almost like a brand now. You know, it's like, it's like, like, you know, Listerine. Yeah, Mr. and Mrs. Listerine.
Gerrit No, no, the guy who had been named Listerine, his name was Lister. And and he creates it. But then it basically gets like stolen from him. And he like gets no money out of it. But it's called Listerine.
Richard I was going to go with Betty Crocker, but same.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah, it's all the same. It's all the same. So welcome to Kristy's Corner. I could spend much of it. I thought about deflecting. I really wanted to dodge. I thought, you know what? Let's just talk about what kind of handshakes you can use to find evil spirits. And and you know, maybe we could talk about how the same sociality exists in the next life. I mean, that's that's cool.
Richard That's really cool.
Gerrit But as much as I want to abdicate the responsibility to talk about plural marriage, I'm going to at least for this Kristy's Corner, talk about it. And I will say this, it is very unclear some aspects of plural marriage. For instance, we don't know precisely how many women were sealed to Joseph Smith or precisely exactly how many people were practicing in Joseph's time. We certainly have some that we have very good evidence of. We have others where you don't know. So for instance, there are some people that we only know that they were sealed to Joseph Smith because other people later said that they were. And that's obviously not the best evidence. But when that person has already passed away, it becomes pretty difficult to say, hey, were you?
Gerrit So, you know, one of the, there's a lot of problems surrounding studying plural marriage when you, when you come from Western, you know, European, American, you know, Australian culture. And that is that plural marriage is such an anathema to our culture that it makes us all uneasy. It makes us all uncomfortable. And, and, and then there's a lot of just competing voices surrounding it. Very, you know, it, there's been a huge upswing in the last several years of the rehashing, the, the reconstituting of arguments that were made back in the day. So after Joseph Smith was murdered, one of the arguments that was made by early dissenters, it was interesting because half of the dissenters made arguments that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet because he had started teaching plural marriage. And then the other half of the dissenters said, Joseph Smith never taught plural marriage and that Brigham Young invented it.
Gerrit And that's how you know Brigham Young's not a prophet because he's practicing plural marriage. That's a pretty big extreme, right? To have someone like Sidney Rigdon say, Joseph Smith became a fallen prophet because he started practicing polygamy. And then to have someone like, you know, eventually later Joseph Smith III say, well, Joseph Smith never taught or practiced polygamy. That was just invented by Brigham Young later. Well, because what everyone wants to believe is that somehow Joseph Smith didn't teach or practice it. It opens the door for people to be deceived. Remember, as we've talked about false revelations and false teachings on this podcast. When we are most susceptible to being deceived is when there's anything that we are passionate about that is outside of the teachings of the church.
Gerrit Why? Because passion can be very easily misdirected. And of course, as people with a Western culture ethos, many Latter-day Saints, obviously there's millions of Latter-day Saints who don't live in those places who may not feel the same way, but they're probably not listening to the podcast either. Although I, you know, what, what are our Lesotho numbers? Richard, you got those for us?
Richard I will get the correct research down right on the top of that.
Gerrit Yeah. Yeah. So, it's when you are most susceptible to deception. That's why I'm always worried about people who are incredibly, you know, set on politics, to the point where President Nelson can say something that a person deems political and opposed to what their political party thinks and instead of saying, my goodness, the prophet of the living God, the only person on earth who holds all of the keys of the dispensation of the fullness of times, the only way that I'm going to be able to be sealed with my family and return to the celestial kingdom. If he is making this statement, I'm going to change what I believe. Instead, they say, well, he's wrong about that. Hey, look, he's right about go to the temple. I'll give him that, but he should probably not make commentary on this. I mean, Brigham was always incredibly frustrated with people who wanted to separate out their church membership from following what the prophets taught.
Gerrit And so, you know, when we're passionate about something, sometimes it's politics, sometimes it's some kind of cause socially, whatever. Maybe it's some aspect of culture we're passionate about. It opens the door for us to be deceived because if someone comes along and in a place where our politics or our culture, our personal beliefs, when it differs from what the church is currently teaching and they come along and say, well, the church is wrong about it because of X, Y, and Z. Well, of course, we want to believe that. We're susceptible to it, just like the early saints following Hiram Page in his Seer Stone. Because it told them what they all wanted to know. Where is Zion and do I have to move? And it told them exactly what they wanted to hear. The problem is hearing exactly what you want to hear is not truth.
Gerrit And it's not what God calls prophets to do. God doesn't call prophets to tell you everything's fine. The world is fine. Everything you believe is fine. We're all fine here. It's just fine. That's not why God calls prophets. So they are going to teach things that don't meet our culture, that don't meet our beliefs in politics, that don't meet our social beliefs because that's the entire point of prophets. And we all then have a decision to make. President Oaks teaches something that isn't what we already believe. And at that moment, we have to decide, am I just a member of the church because I love hanging out for a couple of hours on a Sunday, or do I really believe that he holds the keys of the dispensation of the fullness of times?
Gerrit Am I willing to do what Brigham Young did and say when Dr. Incovine 76 was taught, and say, I did not understand, I didn't reject it, but I could not understand it. Are we willing to do that? To say, I don't understand why the church is teaching something that goes against what I believe politically or socially or personally. I don't understand why the church is teaching that, but I'm going to sustain the prophet. That's where you can determine your true discipleship. And unfortunately, there's been a lot of people, these early members who were faced with the practice of polygamy, they all reacted with shock and horror. All of them. What do you mean plural marriage? Plural marriage has been anathema to Western culture for almost 2000 years at that point.
Gerrit But it was something that God commanded. As Doctrine and Covenants section 132 demonstrates, one way that you can help maybe come to terms with the fact that God commanded this for a time and then commanded the practice to be ceased, is to read the accounts of people who practiced it. In particular, you can read some of the affidavits of men and women who were sealed by Joseph Smith, where they explain what their personal experience was. But I'd share one of them, Lucy Walker Kimball. Lucy Walker Kimball gives multiple statements on the fact that she was married to Joseph. This is a notarized and sworn statement that she makes later in life. And why is she making a notarized and sworn statement? Well, because critics and other break-off groups from our church, other splinter groups, had come to argue, well, we know that Brigham Young was a false prophet because he practiced polygamy and Joseph Smith never taught or practiced polygamy.
Gerrit Now, of course, to most members of the church, they're well aware that Joseph was teaching and practicing it, as well as several members of the church in Nauvoo. And so these affidavits are collected essentially to say, Look, this is true. This happened. The Reorganized Church no longer makes the argument that Joseph never taught or practiced plural marriage, but the arguments they made have now been taken up by people, some of them well-meaning, some of them just people who just can't come to terms with plural marriage themselves. And so rather than coming to terms with it, they'd rather just say Joseph Smith never taught it or practiced it, which not a single PhD historian will verify. They will all say, looking at the sources, there's no way of getting around it. Others are more nefarious. They are leaders of modern apostate movements who know that because people so passionately feel about plural marriage, that they can use that negative revulsion to undermine faith that Brigham Young and John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff and Joseph Smith were prophets.
Gerrit So it's good to read the testimonies of the people who actually practiced it. To see what they say, Lucy Walker Smith Kimball. I was a plural wife of the prophet Joseph Smith, was married for time and eternity in Nauvoo, Hancock state of Illinois, Hancock County, on the first day of May, 1843 by Elder William Clayton. The prophet was then living with his first wife, Emma Smith. And I know that she gave her consent to the marriage of at least four women to her husband as plural wives. And then she was well aware that he associated and cohabited with them as wives. The names of these women are Eliza and Emily Partridge, and Maria and Sarah Lawrence, all of whom knew that I too was his wife. When the prophet first mentioned the principle of plural marriage to me, I felt indignant and so expressed myself to him. Because my feelings and education were averse to anything of that nature.
Gerrit But he assured me that this doctrine had been revealed to him of the Lord and that I was entitled to receive a testimony of its divine origin for myself. He counseled me to pray to the Lord, which I did. And thereupon received from him a powerful and irresistible testimony of the truthfulness and divinity of plural marriage, which testimony has abided with me ever since. So when when your first reaction is, well, I'm not okay with plural marriage at all, that should be your reaction. If you're an American or a European, anyone living in the Western Hemisphere, your natural reaction to plural marriage should be. Well, that's not okay, because that's what your culture teaches. In fact, if when I talk about plural marriage, you're super comfortable, well, then I have to start asking questions about, you know, what part of Colorado City do you live in?
Gerrit You know what, where in Orderville is your house? If you're super comfortable with it. So that's natural. It's very natural to say, I don't understand why God would command it. And frankly, I don't think that we know or will know exactly the reasons why. That doesn't mean that God didn't command it. And we could read affidavit after affidavit of men and women having similar experiences, saying there is no way. I am not going to do that. And then they have a miraculous experience in which they say, this is right. And they bear testimonial, which goes to the point of, you can only criticize the practice of plural marriage so far before you actually start criticizing the very women that you claim that you're trying to defend, because they are the ones who testify that they received a witness from God, that they were to practice it.
Gerrit And that's a witness that they give of themselves. So I know it's difficult. I don't think you're going to get to a point where you're totally okay with plural marriage. I don't think that point exists. But that doesn't mean that God didn't command it for a time. So there's, think about that as you go into the, hornet's nest of plural marriage in Sunday School on, on, on Sunday.
Richard That's very good, Gerrit. Way to go. See, now look, look at, look how easy that is to talk about polygamy. I'm sure everyone will be satisfied with those answers and we'll have zero additional questions. That's my assumption.
Gerrit I mean, that they'll share with us or is our inbox about to be flooded with, I mean, one of the things I talk about, one of the reasons why I'm waiting till season 38 or until I pass away is that plural marriage is a gigantic topic. I mean, it's something that everyone's emotional about. So that's already a problem. It's like, hey, hey guys, let's why don't we talk about politics this week? I mean, no one cares if we think about that. Everyone's super passionate about it, but also, look, plural marriage is something that's experienced or practiced by tens of thousands of people. They're either in a plural marriage household or they're in a plural marriage or even those who aren't are affected by the dynamics of the community surrounding plural marriage. And that's over the course of 70 plus years. That means that there are literally hundreds of thousands of sources surrounding different aspects of plural marriage and so that means it's really difficult to encapsulate everything down and I've tried to say this.
Gerrit We did do a couple. We've done a couple on plural marriage where I spent 15 minutes telling everyone the caveats of, look, I'm only going to talk about this case. I'm only going to talk about the sources surrounding this case. I'm only going to talk about this case. Please don't react by saying, well, what about and literally every e-mail we got was, well, what about? And I know, I understand because it's passionate and we're responding to individual circumstances. That's the reason why it's difficult to do because almost anything I say about plural marriage, historically, there is an exception to it. And people tend to live in the exceptions rather than living in the mean. Are there people who are incredibly unhappy in plural marriages? Absolutely. Are there women who sue for divorces from their plural marriages so they can get out of them because they're so unhappy? Absolutely. Are there men who abuse their power and their privilege in their plural marriages?
Gerrit Absolutely. But they aren't the standard. They're the exceptions to the rule. And so that's part of the reason why it's so difficult. That's the reason why it would take a whole season to talk about it. And I don't really want the podcast to become the plural marriage podcast and Richard. You know what? Maybe we should call it Richard's plural marriage podcast.
Richard I love that. I think that's going to get a lot of hits. I think Becky will have some questions, but I feel like She'll have a few questions.
Gerrit It's all semantics.
Richard Yeah. You know who's got the least problem with polygamy of anyone I've ever met is Becky LeDuc.
Gerrit Yeah. Now she's not saying Richard needs to practice it.
Richard Oh, obviously not. No, no. But the historical nature of it, her family, as I jokingly say, they joined the church before Joseph. They're from way back. And they have very proud pioneer heritage. And many of them practice polygamy. And these women, they were tough and they were great and they were incredible. And so I think I've told the story she read. What's the, is it Helen?
Gerrit Helen Mar Kimball?
Richard Yes, Helen Mar Kimball. She wrote a book, right? Yes. And she she goes hard in the paint after people that attack polygamy.
Gerrit She argues that polygamy is a far superior marital system to monogamy and will even go to the point that that essentially most people have a problem with polygamy are themselves adulterers. Now, that's that's a bit extreme. I don't have that position and that's not the position of the podcast.
Richard Oh, yeah, or the church, but it was certainly hers. Becky bought that book and read it poolside at a work incentive trip for a week. So just just to get, you know, get.
Gerrit Yeah, she's going. She's a very much a devoted believer that Brigham Young was a prophet.
Richard That's one very much.
Gerrit Becky's one of the one of the great people to talk to. If you're struggling with Brigham Young, have a conversation with Becky and she will she'll straighten you right out. So speaking of Brigham Young. Speaking of Brigham Young and the attempt to find out who's dead and in hell. We actually had multiple people this week email and say, we're never going to find out who's dead and in hell. Just move on. No one even cares anymore. Who's dead and in hell? Do you care, Richard? Who's dead and in hell?
Richard I desperately care. And if we can stretch this into a part six just to beat Moroni and the Moroni episode.
Gerrit Look, I have already said, as long as Kristy's Corner exists, we're going to have like a part 35 of Who's Dead and in Hell.
Richard What's funny is that it's Kristy's Corner and its polygamy. It's like this, it's the Venn diagram.
Gerrit Yeah. It's the perfect storm. The two colliding hurricanes and the eye of it is the Kristy's Corner Doctorate of Covenant Section 132. So last we talked about William Smith and he made his remonstrance talking about how Utah will Deseret as they were petitioning to be called, should not be allowed into the Union and he made all these claims. And, you know, almost immediately after the person who writes that remonstrance with him, this Isaac Sheen actually breaks with William Smith and he will send his own memorial to Congress and make his own publication, essentially saying that William Smith is a liar. This is what he says, Isaac Sheen says, that William Smith's complaints against the Deseret Mormons are unworthy of any attention.
Gerrit I find that his accusations against the Deseret Mormons are the ebullition of a malicious heart and have been made by him to divert attention from his own outrageous villainy and licentiousness. I mean, how do you really feel Isaac Sheen? Right? He decided to go just as hard in the paint. Now, part of the problem is, and we've talked about this before, William Smith makes this very public argument that the Saints are not worthy to have a territorial or state government. In a world where everyone hates Mormons. So it does not take a whole lot to convince the world that these claims are true because they already hate them. You know, there's essentially nothing that I could do that would approximate this kind of a feeling. But for those of you who remember the Cold War and not just Rocky IV, I mean, obviously, I don't remember the Cold War the way that, you know, some of our listeners, you know, remember it.
Gerrit But I absolutely remember growing up when I was a kid playing guns, you know, playing army and the people we were fighting against were Communist Russians. They were the enemy. Did you not play guns when you were a kid?
Richard Yeah, of course. Oh, you're always shooting a Communist Russian. We did more Cowboys and Indians than shooting Communists. But, you know, teach his own.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, I want to say something that once I say it will will will mark me, perhaps as an as a nerd.
Richard It's true, Gerrit. The genie has been out of the bottle.
Gerrit I, I, I well remember when I was, I believe, 11, I was playing guns, you know, out in the field with some of my friends.
Richard First of all, when you're playing guns in Idaho, though, it's, you know, it's different. Like people have like, you know, it was a real gun.
Gerrit Yeah, people give it to you when you, you know, it's like your bar mitzvah gift. Oh, now your son, you're a man. Here's your gun.
Richard Well, so you're like, but no joke when in my, in my Deacons quorum, when we were the Deacons, like everybody was in our hunter safety class. Everyone was, I mean, it was absolutely the case.
Gerrit It was literally what my dad gave me when I turned 12. He gave me a gun.
Richard I got a shotgun when I turned 12 as well. Yeah.
Gerrit You know what? It's a rite of passage in Idaho.
Richard You bet it is. You don't know anything about it.
Gerrit You can pass the sacrament and shoot things.
Richard Rural Idaho, man. It's the best.
Gerrit It was the best. But anyway, I remember when I was a kid, when I was 11, playing out in the field with my friends and me explaining to them.
Richard Oh no.
Gerrit We were going to play World War I. And I started to try to explain to them the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Richard And Kaiser Permanente?
Gerrit Which didn't exist really. At least I didn't know about it at the time. It was Kaiser Wilhelm. And I described, I explained the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and how Gavrilo Princip had caused this. And it led to the, and I remember the look in my friend's eyes when they said, okay. And it was the same way that Richard often says okay to me. He's like, sure, let's keep doing this. But so the point I was trying to make is that during the Cold War, you watch any movie from the 80s, Who's Evil? It's Russians, right? It's communist Russians that, you know, they're all evil. I'm sure you get a good Russian now and then, like Hunt for Red October, he's one of, but he was Lithuanian, one of the people trying to defect from the Soviet Union. How hard would it be in 1982 to convince someone in America that a Russian who was working in America was actually a spy for the Russian government?
Gerrit How much evidence would it take for the general population to believe, because of course, there had been hundreds of high-profile spies from the Soviet Union in the United States, and we had spies in the Soviet Union, obviously. So it wouldn't be hard at all because there were examples of this and it's what everyone already believed. And that's the case with anti-Mormonism in the United States. William Smith's allegations, however reckless they might be, they get a lot of traction because I already don't like Mormons. And now you're trying to convince me that on top of their heinous blasphemy that they're also murderers? Of course they are. That's what blasphemers do. Let me give you an example of an article that was published in the newspaper at roughly the same time.
Richard So really quickly, I feel like it's important before you read this article. The Kaiser Permanente joke, I stole that from Naked Gun 2.5.
Gerrit Okay, in case people haven't seen it.
Richard Yes, it's been a minute. It came out in 1991.
Gerrit We like our late 80s, early 90s references around here.
Richard Yes, essentially, it's a joke from Leslie Nielsen that essentially does the, instead of Kaiser Wilhelm, he makes the Kaiser Permanente joke. I feel it's very important that people understand the reference to that.
Gerrit So you think that was what was the deciding factor in people enjoying that reference?
Richard Well, I just, I read so poorly that I think it's possible people thought that I thought that Kaiser Wilhelm's name was Kaiser Permanente. That's what I'm saying.
Gerrit Well, he certainly wasn't Permanente because he had to abdicate and stopped being Kaiser pretty quickly. Will die actually in the Netherlands. Oh, hey, there you go. Yeah, that's where he abdicates and goes there, dies in the Netherlands. So this newspaper is making this claim that in fact, Mormons out in Utah are, you know, dressing up as Indians arm dressed and painted in the appearance of Indians stationed on the way to California and Oregon for the purpose of robbing immigrants. Many murders and robberies have already been committed by these demons in human shape who have been that which have been published to the world and attributed to the Indians. Now that newspaper article gets picked up and taken everywhere. There are more affidavits that are submitted to Congress saying that the Mormons shouldn't be allowed.
Gerrit I mean, a good example of national view is the Daily National Intelligence, or so this is a big newspaper in the United States at the time, published an article talking about the Mormons in the Great Basin and says that they're fanatics. Now today you hear the word fan and it sounds like, you know, oh, they're going to a sporting, but it meant someone who was completely lunacy with their with their their beliefs. They had founded a few struggling settlements on public land of the United States, of which they don't own an inch, of which the Indian title has not been extinguished. And then he goes on to say Congress is asked to make to this sect, not of Christians, but of Mormons of believers, not in Jesus Christ, but of Joe Smith, a more than imperial grant by the act of admission on equal terms of membership in the United States. They go on and is very common at the time, and you'll still see this today, to compare Joseph Smith to Muhammad and to Islam, that he played the role of Muhammad and the new Mormon caliphate was set to rise on this continent.
Gerrit You can see the kind of vitriol that's used.
Richard Well, by the way, I heard that argument on Instagram just last week.
Gerrit Yep.
Richard Actually.
Gerrit Yeah. You'll notice that both Joseph Smith and Muhammad had an angel come and bring them a different gospel. Yeah. Was that it? Did I say it the same way that he said it?
Richard Yeah, except he was doing like a 1080.
Gerrit Yeah. He said, Whoa, bet you guys didn't know that if me or an angel in heaven bring another gospel to you, let it be a curse. Joseph Smith.
Richard That was that was that was essentially it. But anyway, so at least they're still playing the hits 150 years later.
Gerrit Frankly, nearly every anti-Mormon argument is just rehashed and warmed over. And it has been, it's leftovers that have been in the fridge for three weeks and you're not sure if they've turned.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit They've turned, but they just rehash them and rewarm them over. But anyway, but Zachary Taylor who had been pushing for the Mormons to be part of this California plan, which the California plan is falling apart because California now wants to become their own state. He turns against the Latter Day Saints because of William Smith's remonstrance and because of the reaction of these newspapers to it. One of the delegates for Deseret in DC writes back to Brigham Young and says that President Taylor is not our friend. This I know for myself beyond a doubt. He did say before 20 members of Congress that he would veto any bill past state or territorial for the Mormons, that the Mormons were a pack of outlaws and that had they had been driven out of two states and they were not fit for self-government.
Gerrit I went to President Taylor with Colonel Warren and I charged these sayings upon him and he owned that he had said them and tried to reason me, reason with me in relation to the absurdity of Mormons asking for a state or territorial government. So Zachary Taylor, not on board. And so, so he essentially is like, you know, even if you try to pass a bill, if somehow the Congress comes together and passes a bill to make Utah a territory or a state, I'm going to veto that bill. There's no way you're going to get override majority of a veto to override it. And so Taylor becomes this, this intrepid, you know, an opponent to Utah becoming a territory or a state.
Gerrit And so much so that the Latter Day Saints actually try to withdraw their petition for a territorial government, because now they're worried, well, even if he does make us a territory, well, then he's going to be the one who has the right to appoint all of the federal officers. And he clearly hates us now. And it's a very bitter pill, a very bitter pill for the Latter Day Saints because they had just gone along with the Taylor administration to try to join in the mega California scheme. General Wilson had written back and said, look, these Mormons, they did everything that you said. And he reacted by branding them traders because of the lies that people were perpetrating. There are a few newspapers that kind of struck out against the arguments. You know, let me get this straight. They're trying to join the union, but we shouldn't let them in because they're anti-American and they're opposed to the union.
Gerrit It seems that'd be a really weird thing to want to join the thing they hate if what you're saying is true. And so there are people who do point out the kind of preposterous nature of the argument.
Richard But are the people that are pointing it out, are the people that are just anti the particular president? And so that's why.
Gerrit Yeah, absolutely.
Richard We're not pro-Mormon. No one's pro-Mormon.
Gerrit Well, look, a couple of days after Zachary Taylor, after Almond Babbitt writes this letter saying, look, Zachary Taylor basically said he will never allow Utah to become a state or a territory. A couple of days after that, Zachary Taylor dies. Like all good Whig presidents, Zachary Taylor dies in office. In fact, all elected Whig presidents die in office. So you actually have four Whig presidents in US history. Only two are elected. Both of them die in office. And their vice presidents really become anathema to the Whig party because their vice presidents, John Tyler, he was never a Whig. He was a Democrat. He's a lifelong Virginia Democrat, got ousted essentially from the Democratic party leadership because he wanted to run for office and they didn't let him in.
Gerrit And so he switched parties to become the vice presidential candidate for William Henry Harrison. And many people believe that that helped carry the day because William Henry Harrison got a bunch of support in Virginia and other Southern states because John Tyler was on the ticket. But John Tyler wasn't a Whig. He didn't believe anything the Whigs believed. He was just a bitter politician. And again, it's hard to understand in today's day and age that a politician would do or say things purely to get elected and to get power. But back in the 19th century, these guys did it all the time. They would all the time put their beliefs on a shelf if it meant them getting elected. Well, when William Henry Harrison dies, Zachary Taylor, sorry, John Tyler becomes president. And immediately the Whigs finally have the majority of Congress and immediately just begins vetoing every bill that the Whigs passed because he doesn't believe in any of them because he's really a Democrat.
Gerrit Well, when Zachary Taylor dies, Millard Fillmore becomes president. And Millard Fillmore is not, he actually is a Whig, he's been a Whig, but Millard Fillmore is far more concerned with brokering a compromise between the North and South and saving the Union than he is with holding the line to Whig party politics to prevent the expansion of slavery anywhere. In the aftermath of the failed Zachary Taylor plan, there's an idea that develops that this is really going to affect the Latter-day Saints a great deal in Utah. The idea of what's called popular sovereignty. And it means exactly what it sounds like, popular people, sovereignty, power. The argument that's put forward primarily, you know, it's first put forward by people like Henry Clay and others, Louis Cass.
Gerrit But it's really picked up by someone who actually knew Joseph Smith personally. And that is Stephen Douglas, the Senator from Illinois, and really the rising star of the Democratic Party. And he makes this argument. Instead of us deciding whether or not these territories can be free or slave, we should have all of them organized without saying anything about it. And then when they decide to become states in their state constitution, they can decide whether or not they're free or slave territories. You will let the people decide whether or not they are free or slave. Because we all admit, everyone in America admits, at the time, I mean, today, Americans don't admit this, which for good reason. But back then, every American admits that states have the right to outlaw slavery in their state. Half of the states have done it.
Gerrit Of course, if Alabama wants to, tomorrow they can outlaw slavery. They're not going to, but they could. And no one denies them that on the basis of people in a state have a right to vote to eliminate slavery if they want to. And so Stephen Douglas, he's from Illinois, he's from a free state, but he's a Northern Democrat trying to cater to Southern votes. He argues that all of these new territories taken from Mexico, they should be left up to the people that settle them to decide whether or not when they become a state whether they are free or slave. Now that's the exact opposite of what the free soilers argued. During the Mexican War, in fact, there were so many people who were adamant that the entire purpose of the war was to try to spread slavery by acquiring these territories from Mexico, that a congressperson named David Wilmot, he proposed something called the Wilmot Proviso, a pretty ingenious plan to try to call the southerners on what he saw as a lie.
Gerrit You know, the southerners were like, we need to support this war against Mexico. It's for our nation. It's for our liberty. And, you know, anti-slavery people were like, well, yeah, you say that, but really you just want to be able to spread slavery to all these territories that we're taking. And when the southerners said, no, what are you talking about? This has nothing to do with slavery. Mexico attacked us. And so David Wilmot was like, OK, well, let's put your money where your mouth is. Let's pass a bill that says that in all of the territories eventually taken from Mexico, because there's the wars going on at this point during the war. No territory taken from Mexico will ever be open to slavery. Let's just pass that bill. Since it's not about slavery, we might as well pass it, right? And it forced both northerners and southerners into having very uncomfortable positions, especially northern Democrats who had a lot of their power in the fact that they were allied with the powerful southern Democrat pro-slavery wing.
Gerrit People wanted them on record. Are you in favor of the Willmott proviso or not? Well, the compromise of 1850 that is brokered, that brings in New Mexico territory and Utah territory as territories where the idea of slavery is open and they won't decide on their slavery status until they petition for their state constitutions that is seen as a huge session to the slave power conspiracy as anti-slavery people called it. And in fact, we call it the compromise of 1850, but it's really a series of bills that they all agreed to pass to kind of settle this controversy. And when California is up for being admitted as a state with its present boundaries and as a free state, you know, the Congress is there and they vote.
Gerrit And of course, the free soilers went out and California is admitted as a state. Well, when, and the margin of that, admitting California as a state was 150 to 56. Okay, that's a blowout, right? That's what BYU should have done to Delaware in the basketball game, but they did not. I've got a lot of fears about UConn. But when the bill comes up to make Utah a territory, all of those free soil northerners who've agreed to this compromise, but they don't want their names on it, they just leave the Congress and they aren't there for the vote. And so Utah Territory's bill barely passes, 97 to 86. And so you have a bunch of people that are just absent from it.
Gerrit And to give you an idea of how hotly debated this is, right before Utah Territory's passed as a bill, one of the free soil northerners actually tries to introduce the Wilmot Proviso again to the Utah bill as a rider. And it almost passes. So it's hotly, hotly contested, which kind of gives you a foreshadowing of how, how well it's going to be accepted. Now you might think, why do I care about any of this? Well, because Utah Territory being established opened up the federal government to appoint federal officials. While Millard Fillmore did us a solid on the, he tried to get Thomas Cain to be the governor of Utah. And he says, no, he says, the only person you can have is Brigham Young. Fillmore listens to Cain and he appoints Brigham Young to be the governor of Utah Territory. But then he appoints nearly every position to just other position, the Supreme Court Justice positions, the secretary of the territory, to essentially lifelong office seekers from the North and the South in a way to try to build a political coalition and essentially rid himself from people that he didn't want bugging him every other week.
Gerrit Hey, hey, can you make me like the postmaster in Minneapolis? He wanted to get rid of some of these people. And so what we'll talk about in our next, I don't know if it'll be our final episode, is who these people are and what happens when they show up these federal officials in Utah territory. And what they hear that makes them lose their minds. And that's what we'll talk about on our next episode.
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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If we led with all of our mistakes, the podcast would just be errata.

GerritBanter

However, as we talked about after, if any of them happen to know the ins and outs of who's on the current Giants roster, frankly, I need half of those missionaries to believe he's still on the Giants.

GerritBanter

Very local. I'm a celebrity between the family room and the hallway.

GerritBanter

You always make the worst arguments when you don't know that you're participating in the argument.

GerritBanter

Why? Because passion can be very easily misdirected.

GerritInsight

The problem is hearing exactly what you want to hear is not truth.

GerritInsight

God doesn't call prophets to tell you everything's fine.

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And frankly, I don't think that we know or will know exactly the reasons why. That doesn't mean that God didn't command it.

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And people tend to live in the exceptions rather than living in the mean.

GerritInsight

Frankly, nearly every anti-Mormon argument is just rehashed and warmed over.

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More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Joseph Smith never taught or practiced plural marriage; Brigham Young invented it.
Plural marriage was mostly unhappy and abusive.
Joseph Smith was just another Muhammad bringing 'another gospel.'
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

Passion can be easily misdirected: we're most open to deception wherever our politics, culture or feelings differ from what prophets teach.

Brigham Young's response to D&C 76, "I didn't reject it, but I could not understand it," is a way to sustain a prophet when we don't yet understand.

The women who practiced plural marriage testified that they received their own witness from God; criticize the practice far enough and you end up criticizing them.

William Smith's charges spread because America already hated Mormons, and they turned Zachary Taylor against the Saints right before he died.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Dead and in Hell seriesPart 5: multiple listeners say just move on; Richard wants a part six 'just to beat Moroni'; 'as long as Kristy's Corner exists, we're going to have like a part 35' (43:43, 44:08, 44:15).
Kristy's CornerKristy's Corner meets polygamy, 'the two colliding hurricanes' (44:29); Kristy is now a brand like Listerine (23:25); disclaimer: results may vary on becoming Sunday School second counselor (18:33).
Elder Abel, the worst missionaryTaking the show on the road to the Layton mission, where Elder Abel and Elder Webb are rising through the ranks, 50% of the time it works every time (1:05, 1:56, 18:44).
Gerrit's fantasy football injuriesRichard's intro of Gerrit at the missionary training put Daniel Jones on the wrong team (2:02, 2:35).
The $400,000 weekendThe LeDucs spent '$400,000' at Hug Hess and took home a turkey dinner for Sunday (11:34, 12:38).
Three hours lateRichard forgot a viewing and arrived three hours late to his own announced time; sorry, Dustin (11:34, 20:03, 20:16).
Diet Coke shortageGerrit drank so many Diet Cokes the Centerville location ran out, like Homer at the restaurant (6:41, 7:50).
IdahoIn Idaho your dad gives you a gun at 12: 'You can pass the sacrament and shoot things' (48:16, 48:26).
Gerrit's World War I recessAt 11 Gerrit explained the Austro-Hungarian Empire to friends playing guns; Richard's Kaiser Permanente joke is from Naked Gun 2 1/2 (48:43, 51:02).
It always comes back to politics'It's hard to understand in today's day and age that a politician would do or say things purely to get elected' (59:56).
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.
General ConferenceGeneral Conference talks that cite a scripture read in this episode.

In General Conference

Talks from the latest General Conference that cite a scripture this episode reads or names on air
October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 132Come to the Lord in His Holy HouseElder Gerrit W. GongElder Gong lays out three doctrinal foundations for temple worship: eternal families, moral agency, and the Holy Spirit of Promise, which makes honored covenants binding.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 132Sealed by the Holy Spirit of PromiseElder David A. BednarElder Bednar, using the image of a damaged passport rejected at a border, teaches that ordinances and covenants are our credentials for returning to God, and that their integrity must be maintained through ongoing faithfulness, ratified over time by the Holy Spirit of Promise.

Summaries, themes and lessons for every talk are on What Did They Say?

Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
The Nauvoo-era affidavits on plural marriage, including Lucy Walker Smith Kimball's, and why they were gathered (32:50).
Helen Mar Kimball's published defense of plural marriage (42:55).
How newspapers like the Daily National Intelligencer covered the Deseret petition in 1850 (52:54).
Popular sovereignty, Stephen Douglas and the Compromise of 1850 votes on California and Utah (1:01:04).
Next episode's cliffhanger: the federal officials Fillmore appointed to Utah Territory and what they heard on arrival (1:07:34).
SOT Litner · S5E47.