How Visiting LDS Historical Sites Can Strengthen Our Faith

Gerrit Hi friends, welcome to a bonus episode that you're all gonna love cause Richard's not in it. Well, there he is, there he is, here Richard. How's it going?

Other Oh, I've already ruined it. Oh no.

Gerrit Don't put him on the phone. Anyway, we're happy to share as a bonus. I went on Mark Ogletree's podcast, Mark Ogletree as a preserving families podcast. He's a fellow religious educator, works at BYU and also councils people. So he knows what he's talking about. And he was, he brought me on because he wanted to talk about, you know, things that you can do with teenagers, with kids, ways to help impact them. And he wanted to talk specifically about going to sacred places, like going to the Sacred Grove or going to Nauvoo. And so that was what our conversation was about. And so, you know, we don't cover a lot of current family topics because I have no qualifications.

Gerrit Now Richard probably has some, right Richard?

Other Yeah. Yeah. So that's not true, Gerrit. You've talked about polyandry.

Gerrit So sure, we can talk about polygamy, but only polygamy in the past.

Other Oh, I see.

Gerrit And not until season 38.

Other That's correct. Okay. Yeah. So I consider myself a middling father who's trying and probably a three out of 10 husband. Um, but who's doing the rating, Becky or you? Me? Becky rates me more fair. I'm hard on myself. I see.

Gerrit I wonder what Angie would rate me. I actually, I'm afraid to ask.

Other Well, so I don't like you're, you're, you're, you're, you're doing, you're doing okay.

Gerrit You sound like you are giving the performance review to a person that you're planning to fire. That's what that just sounded like. Hey, hey buddy. Hey, hey, how's it going? I mean, you're like, you know, you're not, you know what? You're like not the worst person in the company. You're not.

Other You're not. I've always said that you're not.

Gerrit Every, every time even anyone's even brought it up, I said, you know, who's not the worst person in the company? Gerrit.

Other Well, I'm excited to listen to this. I'm a big fan of Mark, and so it'll be great.

Gerrit Yeah, Mark's a great guy. So we thought we'd drop it to you, and then you should check out his podcast as well. It's really just me and him talking about those places. So hopefully you enjoy this. I know everybody's thinking, man, for family night, you know what I really need to hear, Gerrit? There you go. So thanks so much.

Other Welcome to the Preserving Family Podcast. The purpose of this podcast is to equip you to gain insight, information, and inspiration to help you protect, teach, and guide your family during these turbulent times. Our goal is to provide tools and resources to help you strengthen and preserve your own marriages and families. Now here are your hosts, Dr. Mark and Janie Ogletree.

Mark Ogletree Everyone, welcome to Preserving Families today. I'm so grateful you're here with us. And this is an episode that I've wanted to do for a full year. You know, Janie and I have been leading LDS Church History Tours for several years now. But Gerrit Dirkmaat, one of my favorite colleagues and friends, has been doing this for a long time. He has a lot of experience. While we may lead one or two tours a summer, Gerrit will do four, five, or six sometimes. He's written extensively. I think he's one of the great historians in the whole church. He has a great gift of combining church history and humor. He makes it fun. I love that Gerrit and I not only work together, but we play softball together. And so, Gerrit, I am so glad that you are here with us today.

Gerrit So good to be here. Glad to hang out with my buddy.

Mark Ogletree I told everyone, glad to hang out with one of my favorite softball buddies.

Gerrit That's right.

Mark Ogletree Especially when you're playing first base and someone steps on your leg.

Gerrit Or just goes right through me. Well, I mean, I did, I still have a scar from when I was playing at home.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit And if you remember, it was Tanner who threw that throw.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit And if you remember, it was Tanner who threw that throw.

Mark Ogletree So we call it Tanner Wall. Let's name drop. Let's name drop.

Gerrit It was Mangum.

Mark Ogletree Tanner Mangum.

Gerrit Yeah.

Mark Ogletree Let's name drop.

Gerrit It was back in the day and he threw that throw from, I mean, deep center.

Gerrit Yeah.

Mark Ogletree Let's name drop.

Gerrit It was back in the day and he threw that throw from, I mean, deep center.

Mark Ogletree Deep center, yeah.

Gerrit That ball did not touch the ground directly into the net. And the guy ran right through me. Big old click marks down my calf, but he was out.

Mark Ogletree So when we have these football guys play with us, that is one of the things you get to see though, is that these are just great athletes. They're not just football guys. They are. Tanner Mangum was a great softball player.

Gerrit That guy, he had a rocket army. I mean, you kind of expect it from a quarterback, but wow.

Mark Ogletree That was awesome. Well, Gerrit, how long have you been doing these church history tours, would you say?

Gerrit It's been probably in the neighborhood of 13 years now that I've been doing them in one form or another. Yeah.

Mark Ogletree And you actually do multiple ones in the summer. You always do one. Yeah.

Gerrit Yeah. Usually, I mean, it's obviously, it's tough when you have children. Children are always, you know, as you know-

Mark Ogletree Always in the way, right?

Gerrit Most of your podcasting would say that the real problem in the church is children. No, but you've got to work around their schedules. Like for instance, this year, I've got a son coming home from a mission and a son leaving on a mission, but both over the summer. Well, that, you know, you don't know exactly when those are. You get to plan a tour more than just like, you know, 10 days in advance. So, but yeah, I usually do two or three, sometimes four over the course of the year.

Mark Ogletree Yeah. And if you haven't been on a tour with Gerrit, it would be fantastic. So, because you would learn a lot. And in my mind, you would laugh hysterically all day long.

Gerrit There's, yeah, I mean, the downside is we do tend to joke around a lot and we study church history, you know, pretty deeply when we do it. But also at the same time, we, I think a good way of thinking about it is, you know, we take the gospel seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously. Those are not the same thing. You can, you know, still joke around and laugh around and have fun. So yeah, I mean, we-

Mark Ogletree I love that too, by the way.

Gerrit We love to do both.

Mark Ogletree I think it's awesome. So Gerrit, in that, would you say that there are- there would be an experience or two as we start this episode out, that you could say, you know, here's the kind of thing that happens when you're out there. Because I know we've had a few of those too where you're like, you know what, that was worth it just to hear that one comment or to see that experience that some- the one I'm thinking of as a man, we blessed the sacrament, we got permission to bless the sacrament on Sunday in the old burial ground in Nauvoo because they were dividing the Nauvoo, whatever word that day. And I had been talking to the state president and he said, you know what, maybe you guys shouldn't show up with two busloads of people today. It wouldn't be good. And so he gave us permission to do that. But I remember this older man in his 70s came up crying. He had blessed the sacrament and just said, I've never blessed the sacrament in my life and had the experience I just had. And he just, it was so cool. But anyway, what about you?

Gerrit I mean, I've had lots of experiences like this in the sense that, you know, there's just a difference that takes place when you're actually at sacred, holy sites. And, you know, I mean, look, I'm a historian, right? So as I start to talk about anything related to education whatsoever at all, you know, all of my colleagues with degrees in education are going to be like, no, no, you have no idea what you're talking about. But, I mean, let me very generally say, you know, there's all kinds of studies that demonstrate that your retention of any information generally is manifestly increased by having experiential learning, right? So, I can read about the Battle of Gettysburg, and I can read, like, four books on it, and I can watch a movie on it, and I can read it, and I'm going to learn a lot, and I'm going to probably retain, and especially if it's something I want to study, I might retain a good deal of that.

Gerrit It's nothing like both doing that and then going to the battlefield and walking around it. And when it comes to the sacred church history sides, these are places where, at least for some of them, every member of the church has some understanding of it. You don't ever pull up to the Sacred Grove and people are like, what's this? What even happened here? Why aren't we at the subway? I mean, everybody has at least some idea that this is important. And so you have a bustle of people whose testimonies are all based on the fact that God and Jesus appeared to Joseph Smith in that grove. Their whole life they've been testifying of it. And then they go into it. And many times people come out saying that this is such a sacred, holy experience for me. Now, I have one experience on more of a negative side in the sense that for a long time, you couldn't go to the Hons Mill Massacre site because, well, not with a bus.

Gerrit You could kind of try to go in a car, but it'd be better if you had big mud dripper tires on it. It's essentially a swamp. And if it rained that week.

Mark Ogletree Yeah, you're in trouble.

Gerrit No. I mean, the roads are so bad that even if it's rain, even now with the improved road, like that bus driver, they're thinking about it. They're like, okay, I don't know if we're going to make it. But so once the church acquired the Honsmell Massacre site, and this is the site in Missouri, where that horrific massacre took place during the Mormon War in Missouri, and dozens of people are murdered. And it's something that a lot of people know about. It's something that a lot of people have talked about. I talked about it. When I first was able to take a busload of people there, and we read an account of what happened there, and we read Amanda Barnes-Smith's account and her testimony. It was one of the most powerful spiritual experiences that I have experienced with a group, and many people were crying there.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit And it's not because they'd never heard of the Haun's Mill Massacre before. There is something about combining your gospel learning and knowledge with the experiential aspect of being in that sacred place that writes deep on the fleshy tables of your heart, so to speak. So I mean, I've had dozens of experience, people saying, you know, this is really strengthened my faith. This has changed my outlook. I mean, sometimes the experiences are less positive because like, so for instance, I obviously teach and read about, you know, and talk about what happened in Carthage Jail a lot as a religious educator. But boy, when I personally go, I'm just mad. I'm mad the whole time. No, I'm just angry the whole time. But I warn everybody. I'm like, listen, I'm going to be mad.

Gerrit I try to be like solemn about it. I was probably solemn the first couple of times I went. After that, I was, I can't believe they murdered him here. This is ridiculous, you know. So anyway, I've had the experience of people say, you know, I've been struggling, praying about this certain aspect of my life. And I feel like, you know, when we were in the Kirtland Temple, I finally, you know, got an answer. And so, I mean, obviously, everyone has different experiences. Everyone is coming with different questions, but it is, it's a hard thing to describe. The only thing I could compare it to, which is completely unhelpful for your listeners, is-

Mark Ogletree That's all we like.

Gerrit Yeah, I could give you an analogy that would help a lot. Let me give you one that won't help them at all. Yeah, we try to be as unrelatable as possible. So studying church history, and that's what I was studying when I was getting my PhD. I, of course, read about and studied a lot of these early documents. When I was working on the Joseph Smith Papers themselves, when I was working for the church, you would then have some of these actual documents on your desk. Now, I've read the Book of Mormon. You know, I better lie about the number of times. Like so many times, if you're listening, President. But no, I mean, I've read the Book of Mormon my whole life, and I've loved it my whole life. Obviously, the book is absolutely transformative. Right. And when the actual pages of First Nephi were sitting on my desk, there was an electric feeling of the Holy Spirit.

Gerrit So it was something that I both knew and had studied. And then there was a physical reality to it. As you see, Oliver Cowdery's handwriting, knowing how this was translated by the gift and power of God. And I think that that's something similar when it comes to going to these holy sites. There is just a different spirit and feeling actually being there. I mean, being in the Grandin print shop, being at the Harmony site, where you know that Priesthood is first restored to the earth in this dispensation. There's just a sacred feeling that accompanies it. And so both, you know, people can have a better experience when they go on tours by prepping, right? By reading and studying and thinking. But even with all of that, there is something about physically being present in these places that is at times electrifying. And so it's great.

Gerrit It's one of the best parts about doing, you know, when you go on tours, is that you're with an entire group of people and they all have essentially the same ideas, testimony, and they all want...

Mark Ogletree They want to be there, don't they?

Gerrit They want to be there, yeah. So, I mean, I always sometimes think of like, when you're on a bus with people, it can. Now, obviously there's some bad apples that exist, but it can almost turn into like a mini-Zion experiment, where none of these people know each other. They all just showed up, you know, they're from Arizona and Maine and Canada and Utah, and they're from all over different places. They don't really have anything in common outside of the fact that they're members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and they have a love for the gospel. And so that shared background, you know, you end up sometimes having a feeling with your groups that are just, it's so positive. There's just a love that's almost exuding that people have for each other in a way that's just really hard to describe.

Mark Ogletree One of the things, Gerrit, I remember as you talk about that is being with a group, we started this one in Philadelphia. So we spent that day doing both church history and American history, but we end up that night in Scranton, PA. We're going to do a tour of the office, just kidding. But that's where we're going to approach the Harmony sites. So here it is, we've been together for 12 hours and we sing, we decide we're going to have a closing devotional at this hotel, and we sing Redeemer of Israel. It was like the whole group just at that moment became what you said, a Zion group. It was just incredible. It was like angels were singing with us. You just kind of had that sense. But from that point on, it was like, okay, we're a team now. That was all it took. The other thing I was going to share with you, and you can speak to this, but besides the cool, sacred feeling of context that you get when you're at these places, one of the things that always blows my mind is you get to realize how far they walked or traveled for everything, right?

Gerrit Yeah.

Mark Ogletree You mentioned Hans Mill, and we were there exactly this time last year with just some of our family, and that distance from far west, let's say, to Hans Mill, which I thought, oh, I'm sure it's just-

Gerrit Yeah. Hopskipping a jump.

Mark Ogletree It was an hour of riding over dirt roads because I think the main, but I was like, that's how far they had to go from far west. Oh my gosh, it was a, and this is all on foot or in a carriage or on a horse or whatever. So it just helps put things in perspective for sure.

Gerrit Yeah. I mean, even when you, when you drive from, you know, say, Adam on Diamond.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit To Nauvoo, right? So you finished off in Missouri, you go to Adam on Diamond and you drive to Nauvoo. Well, it's hours and hours and hours of driving without stopping. I mean, don't worry, you know, you stop to use the restroom. But essentially, just constant driving, you know, 65, 70 miles an hour. And you're four hours before you get there. And you think, now think about the Saints.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit Who have been murdered and robbed and burned out of their homes. Who are walking from far west in Adam on Diamond to get just to where they can cross the river into Quincy, to get into Illinois. So yeah, part of being on those tours help you understand, okay, this is not... When Joseph has to go from Harmony up to Palmyra to protect the copyright of the Book of Mormon because Abner Cole is trying to steal it, it's not that he just like walks outside, oh, I'm already here. This is days for him to get up there. So it does kind of help you understand, I mean, not that you can, you don't approximate it too well in an air conditioned bus, but you at least kind of start getting the sense. There's a lot of sacrifice.

Mark Ogletree The sacrifices, right? I mean, to me, that is the point. Gerrit, I love this thought that when youth walk where prophets have walked, faith becomes more than words, it becomes memory. I think that's so awesome. Let's talk about how church historical sites can strengthen the testimony and deepen the conversion of our youth, but also our adults. Where do you want to go with this?

Gerrit I mean, I think, like, anyone who's trying to teach the youth anything is well aware that there's a lot of minefields that are involved, right? And, you know, do I say this? Do I focus too much on this? I mean, if we sing a hymn, you know, every morning, lunch and dinner, will that make them care about the gospel the way I do?

Mark Ogletree Going to mission by tonight.

Gerrit And parents are, you know, obviously, desperately want to impart the love and faith that they have in the gospel to their kids because it matters so much to them. And I really think that having experiences, I mean, you know, as the prophets have said, right? You know, planned family activities, right? Wholesome activities is a way of generating memories that they can associate with other things.

Mark Ogletree Right.

Gerrit I mean, I've had experiences with youth on some of my tours where, you know, they've got up and bore their testimony when we were having a testimony meeting. And, you know, they've said things like, you know, I never really felt the spirit until we went, you know, to the Sacred Grove. That's where I really felt it. And so it can be transformative.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit And, you know, I know some people are thinking, if I can only get my 17 year old son on a tour, maybe, maybe I can get him to, you know, go on a mission. And I don't know, everyone's different. And of course, everyone has agency.

Mark Ogletree Right.

Gerrit But the nice part about it is, you are generating core memories. You know, they may not remember, you know, each individual family dinner that you have, even though it's great to have family dinner, but they're certainly going to remember that they went with you, you know, to the Kirtland Temple. Yeah. And hopefully they're going to feel the Holy Spirit when they're there. And then that's going to be part of that core memory. You know, that whenever the Kirtland Temple comes up, in their mind, oh yeah, I remember what it was like singing the Spirit of God in the Kirtland Temple.

Mark Ogletree They even see a picture of the Kirtland Temple flash up during general conference or whatever, and they go right back to that experience. Yeah.

Gerrit And you know, the interesting thing about humans, again, I'm speaking well outside, but here I am talking to someone trained in this, but I'm just going to pretend I know. Is that-

Mark Ogletree I pretend like I know history.

Gerrit Yeah. You know what? This is great. We're just going to call this the We Pretend Podcast. And it is that when you've experienced something, you suddenly take this kind of ownership of it in a way that you didn't. I mean, so I might really like a singing group and then I go to their concert.

Mark Ogletree Right.

Gerrit And suddenly I almost feel connected to the- now that group doesn't know me from Adam Reed, but-

Mark Ogletree Right.

Gerrit And suddenly I almost feel connected to the- now that group doesn't know me from Adam Reed, but-

Mark Ogletree You're in the group, man.

Gerrit I feel connected to what they're doing. And it's the same way with, I think, when you go to these sacred sites. Look, they're going to spend the rest of their life having people talk about the Sacred Grove.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit You take them to the Sacred Grove, maybe they won't have the most spiritual experience there. Maybe they're still looking at their phone and wandering around and asking when lunch is, because they still do care about that. But they will always remember that they were there with you.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit And the rest of their life, even if their testimony comes later, when someone's like, you know, in the Sacred Grove behind Joe's home, their mind is going to go right to, I know exactly what the Sacred Grove looks like. I was there. I remember seeing the sun coming through the trees. Yeah. So I think there are a lot of the tactics that people can use to try to inspire youth. One that has very little downside and all kinds of upside is this kind of experiential learning. So maybe my kids might not have the most spiritual experience that I want them to have. Let me tell you, in my own family, I took my younger kids with me when I went to, with a group of BYU students to Nauvoo. They were doing a church history, a travel study.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit Part of that travel study. There were private independent groups that were working with the community of Christ through organized church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints to do excavations on some of the properties that the community of Christ back then held. They don't hold them anymore, but back then they did. And they were taking volunteers to go work on these things, these archaeological things. Now, this was six years ago that this happened. My kids to this day still talk about how they found some pieces of porcelain and pottery when they were excavating where Hyrum's store was, and how they found, oh, remember how you found that bottle, the glass, the shard there was there? That there is this connection that they feel to Nauvoo. And if they feel a connection to Nauvoo, then that means they're going to feel a connection to the people who live in Nauvoo.

Mark Ogletree Right.

Gerrit And then their sacrifice has become more real. It's not just a story. No, I see exactly where this person lived. And then we read about what they did and how they sacrificed.

Mark Ogletree Yeah. I think that's awesome. What do you feel it can do with identity, you know, as youth start to think, hey, these are my people and this is my church?

Gerrit Yeah. Honestly, one of the... We don't probably do it enough. I mean, again, I'm not an expert. So, but from my experience, when I'm working with youth that are, you know, preparing to go on a mission or maybe struggling with some aspects of church history or they've got a friend or a dad or a brother-in-law who, you know, is letting them know everything they know. And what they mean by that is they read it on a subreddit just 10 seconds earlier, is helping them understand how radical and unique our beliefs actually are.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit Part of the reason why I think youth don't, they don't internalize the gospel is, well, I mean, the only message is they're hearing from the social media world is all that really matters is that you're a good person. It doesn't really matter. Everyone basically believes the same thing, that nothing really matters except, you know, just, you know, be nice, which is great. It is good to be nice.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit Part of the reason why I think youth don't, they don't internalize the gospel is, well, I mean, the only message is they're hearing from the social media world is all that really matters is that you're a good person. It doesn't really matter. Everyone basically believes the same thing, that nothing really matters except, you know, just, you know, be nice, which is great. It is good to be nice.

Mark Ogletree Yes.

Gerrit But they don't realize how radical Latter-day Saint beliefs are in comparison to other Christian denominations.

Mark Ogletree Right.

Gerrit And so that's one of the things that helps is when you're with them and you go to, you know, for instance, you know, they go to the Nauvoo Temple to do baptisms for the dead.

Mark Ogletree Right.

Gerrit Well, you're having a conversation with them about just how radical this doctrine is. The idea that is anathema to the rest of Christianity that every single person, no matter who they are, where they're born or who their parents were, has an equal opportunity at salvation. Yeah. And the thing is, a lot of youth just goes, well, of course, everyone believes that.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit Everyone doesn't believe it. In fact, everyone doesn't believe it so much that even people who have broken off from our church no longer believe it. That's how radical the belief is.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit Everyone doesn't believe it. In fact, everyone doesn't believe it so much that even people who have broken off from our church no longer believe it. That's how radical the belief is.

Mark Ogletree Right.

Gerrit This idea that... And so, I think going to these places allows for conversations that are hard to have naturally, right? I mean, sure, you can do a family home evening on baptism for the dead. You can. It's much more effective after they've seen the Nauvoo Temple, after you've had a discussion about the opposition to this doctrine, you read part of Doctrine and Covenants, section 124. I think that it starts to burrow a little bit deeper into their, again, the fleshy tables of their heart.

Mark Ogletree Right.

Gerrit This idea that... And so, I think going to these places allows for conversations that are hard to have naturally, right? I mean, sure, you can do a family home evening on baptism for the dead. You can. It's much more effective after they've seen the Nauvoo Temple, after you've had a discussion about the opposition to this doctrine, you read part of Doctrine and Covenants, section 124. I think that it starts to burrow a little bit deeper into their, again, the fleshy tables of their heart.

Mark Ogletree I do too. I think that's awesome. In fact, you could even take them down to the Mississippi River and say, hey, are you glad we have baptismal funds now?

Gerrit Exactly, especially with the number of leeches that are in there. You put your foot in that water for like 10 seconds and it's leeches.

Mark Ogletree That's pretty nasty.

Gerrit You don't want to swim in the Mississippi today.

Mark Ogletree That's right. Gerrit, as I mentioned a minute ago, we were at Haun's Mill just one year ago last May. It just made me think that here the church has developed a road, a way to get in there. I don't know how much money they must have spent, just making that site accessible to people. But it was a reminder between that and then the acquisition of so many cool church historical sites in Nauvoo and the Kirtland Temple that, look, the church has invested a lot of money in these sites. What's the message in your mind?

Gerrit You know, it's interesting, you know, not to wax too philosophical, but I can't quote this study, but I was told of a study once when I was in graduate school, when my advisors found out that I was one of, quote, those Mormons, you know, because not a ton, you know, go through, that, you know, there's a disproportionate number of Catholics, Jewish people, and Latter-day Saints who become history PhDs out of the general population. And you think, well, why is that? Well, because these are faith traditions in which what happened in the past is part of your claim to what you believe today. So if you're Catholic and you believe that, you know, Peter gives the keys and power to align us and on down the line, well then, you know, what happened in the past and where it took, it matters to you, not just as a curiosity, not just as, oh, it wouldn't be great if I found out this.

Gerrit And I think that that is absolutely true in our faith tradition, right? We are claiming that there was no priesthood authority on the earth. And then it didn't just come because Joseph Smith sat down and thought about it. It's not because Oliver Cowdery said, you know what, I can write a pretty good treatise on, I now have authority. John the Baptist, literally the same John the Baptist who baptizes Jesus, the same John the Baptist, resurrected being, comes and gives Joseph and Oliver authority. And now authority is back on the earth. Well, that's a pretty big claim. And again, if you don't know whether or not it's a big claim, go ask any of your Christian friends whether or not they think John the Baptist has come back and given authority to someone, and you'll find out really quickly. It is kind of a big claim, isn't it? Well, that's a claim that that's the beginning of authority being restored to the earth in this last dispensation.

Gerrit Of course, where that happened is going to be sacred to me, because it's central to what I believe, the Sacred Grove. You know, is there any kind of ordinance that takes place in the Sacred Grove? No. But this is where I believe God rends the heavens after the years of silence, and God and Jesus appear to Joseph Smith. And so these sites have power far beyond the, you know, kind of trivia show kind of, you know, aspect of like, I can tell you exactly how many, you know, gold leafing they put on the Book of Mormon and Granite Perchop. Instead, it's everything that we claim to believe. Many of these things can be located in these sacred places that connect to, you know, you go to the John Johnson farm.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit Well, this is the place, not only where Joseph is tarred and feathered in that horrible experience there, but this is the place where Joseph receives doctrine in Covenant Section 76, which Wilford Woodruff and Brigham Young independently say is the greatest revelation that has ever been given at any time to the children of men.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit Well, this is the place, not only where Joseph is tarred and feathered in that horrible experience there, but this is the place where Joseph receives doctrine in Covenant Section 76, which Wilford Woodruff and Brigham Young independently say is the greatest revelation that has ever been given at any time to the children of men.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit Well, that's pretty powerful. Yeah. And so I think that, you know, beginning with, I don't want to say beginning with Joseph F. Smith, because, you know, certainly people did it before. I mean, George A. Smith put a marker in Topsfield to mark where the Smith family had been. But really with Joseph F. Smith, and after that, there's been this push to kind of reclaim these sacred areas in part because of the power that they hold. I mean, how many people do you need to take to the Sacred Grove, coming out of it, saying, that was one of the most spiritual experiences in my life, to say, hey, this kind of matters. And so, yeah, the church, I can't speak for the church. I work for BYU. I can't speak for the church, but you can certainly, as an observer, say, they have invested not just all kinds of money, which of course they have.

Gerrit I mean, obviously these sites, to acquire them like the Kirtland Temple, but then to staff them with missionaries whose, you have people, their entire mission is going to help take people through these sacred sites. What are you doing on your mission? I'm taking people through the Kirtland Temple so that they can feel and have that spiritual experience, that they can have their own day of Pentecost, as they feel the Holy Spirit and cloven tongues of flame that testify to their soul that this really is God's kingdom. And so I think certainly the church is not investing all kinds of time and money on those sacred sites so that people don't go to them. The entire point is, we're assigning missionaries here. They could be somewhere else.

Gerrit This young missionary couple or companionship that is spending three months in Harmony or Palmyra instead of their proselyting mission. Well, that's three months that they could be in Tennessee knocking on doors and declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ to people. And the church thinks that those sites and the power associated with those sites is so great that it's worth derailing a two-year, 18-month mission for three or four months because of the return you're getting from the powerful experiences people have in those places. So, look, you can always tell what people care about by what they spend their time and their money on. Well, the church is certainly spending their time and their money on preserving these sacred places, making them accessible to people, and helping you have the Holy Spirit testify to you when you're there.

Mark Ogletree Amen. Gerrit, thank you so much. Well, thank you for being with us today. It's always great to hang out with you and to hear your love and your passion for the gospel and the restoration and for these places.

Gerrit Thank you so much. One more thing I'd share, one story here I was going to share that came to my mind.

Mark Ogletree Please do.

Gerrit Was, it's more humorous, probably. Maybe you can just cut it out. But I took my family to these sacred sites. And my son, he was, he's only 12 at the time that we're at. And so on the bus, you're talking about these different things. And one of the things that I talked about, because we're talking about Doctrine and Covenants and Section 76, is just the general Christian concept of hell, how horrible it is, how much people are burning there. And I mean, it's terrible. I mean, it's a barbecue and everyone's invited. And in the process of doing that, I said, well, why do they think that it's this place of fire and torment? I shared the story of the rich man and Lazarus from the New Testament, right? Where the rich man, you know, he being in hell, lifted up and saw far off, I don't have it in front of me, but I saw far off, you know, Lazarus and the bosom of Abraham.

Mark Ogletree Please do.

Gerrit Was, it's more humorous, probably. Maybe you can just cut it out. But I took my family to these sacred sites. And my son, he was, he's only 12 at the time that we're at. And so on the bus, you're talking about these different things. And one of the things that I talked about, because we're talking about Doctrine and Covenants and Section 76, is just the general Christian concept of hell, how horrible it is, how much people are burning there. And I mean, it's terrible. I mean, it's a barbecue and everyone's invited. And in the process of doing that, I said, well, why do they think that it's this place of fire and torment? I shared the story of the rich man and Lazarus from the New Testament, right? Where the rich man, you know, he being in hell, lifted up and saw far off, I don't have it in front of me, but I saw far off, you know, Lazarus and the bosom of Abraham.

Gerrit And he calls out to have Lazarus come and dip his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I'm tormented in these flames. And my son had just bought a new different kind of Takis, the chips that are like the hot flavor that he'd never tried before. Now he loves them, but he hadn't tried the hotter version of it.

Mark Ogletree And they're hot anyway.

Gerrit They're hot already. They're hot already.

Mark Ogletree Can you imagine the hotter version?

Gerrit When you're 13, 12, you're not very, you know, you make a lot of dumb decisions. And so he buys it. And I'm thinking as a father, this is just going right. I mean, he couldn't get on his phone to play Plants vs. Zombies fast enough. I mean, he's a, you know what I mean? It's nice that he's with us, but all he really cares about is, is there a pool? And did I see a firefly? I mean, it's just, it's going right over his head. And he buys these talkies, he starts biting into them. And he's sitting right next to me on the bus. And suddenly he goes, oh, dad, I need Lazarus to come put some water on my tongue. This is so hot. And that sounds ridiculous. But I gotta tell you, as a dad, I was like, I cannot believe that he is recalling a story that we had like four days ago. Yeah. And he's recalling it in the context of his mouth being on fire.

Gerrit Oh yeah. And so, I mean, obviously, you know, again, you know this far better than I do. Kids are watching and listening all the time. Even when we don't think they are. And they're taking things from what's going on around them. And sometimes the stories that they're taking in are not the stories we want them to. And if you like a concentrated effort where you're taking them to these sacred places, it's certainly not a guarantee.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit But boy, you are at least putting them in a position where if they will allow it, the Holy Spirit is going to teach them. Yeah.

Mark Ogletree Yeah.

Gerrit But boy, you are at least putting them in a position where if they will allow it, the Holy Spirit is going to teach them. Yeah.

Mark Ogletree Love that. So well said. Great story. And this is a son who either is coming home from a mission or he's going.

Gerrit This is my third one. He's not there yet because this is only a couple. He's only 14 now. So we'll see. I mean, if he ends up being the worst person who ever lived, I guess that story will be great. But hopefully it turns out.

Mark Ogletree He's going to turn out great. I can already tell. Gerrit, thank you. Thank you once again.

Gerrit Thanks for having me.

Mark Ogletree To share one last thought today, and I'm so grateful that Gerrit has been with us. But this is just more of a personal account. But years ago, Janey and I graduated from BYU, and before we started our job, we had a month or so, and this was in the summer of 1987. We drove across the country with her family to be participants in the Hill-Cumorah Pageant. Of course, on the way, we stopped in Nauvoo and in Kirtland. As we stopped in Nauvoo, this is the part I'll never ever forget. It was dusk. We looked around Nauvoo a little bit, and I promise you, in 1987, Nauvoo wasn't anything spectacular. In fact, where the temple sits now, it was just a vacant lot with four cornerstones. But we did see some things in Nauvoo, and then we went to Carthage. By the time we got to Carthage, the sun was just starting to go down. Once again, 1987, things were done a little bit differently in those days, in those days, the full-time missionaries were kind of running the Carthage Jail tour.

Mark Ogletree And literally, they had a set of keys on them, and they were walking out and they were just locking the door. And we were the only car in the parking lot. And I went up to him and I said, hey, you know what? We just drove from Provo. We've come all this way. Is there any way you could just let us in? And they were so nice. And they said, come on in. And it was just a few members of my wife's family, a few of her brothers, a couple of sisters and her mom, and Janie and I and our little baby daughter, who now is a mother of five kids. But we sat there in the Carthage Jail and I just remember how cool that was. It was just a great experience. There was just a great peace, some sacredness, and it was reflective, and it was reverent, and it was just something I'll never forget. In fact, that ended up being one of the highlights of the whole trip for me was that time in the Carthage Jail. Well, that little baby daughter grew up, and now she's 18 years old and she's heading off to college.

Mark Ogletree We wanted to do something really memorable in our family. One of the things we decided to do would be a church history trip. We lived in Dallas at the time, and so we would do Missouri and Illinois. When we arrived at the Carthage Jail, it was a Saturday. And this time, instead of being the only car in the parking lot, there were hundreds of cars in the parking lot and about five or six buses, if I remember. And it was a really hot day and you had to wait in line for quite a while to get into the jail. And then it was just kind of more of a chaotic scene in my mind. There were a few families that really weren't taking control of their children, so their children were kind of bouncing off the walls and being pretty irreverent. And it just, it wasn't the experience I was hoping that my children would have, because it was just so, I guess chaotic is the best way I can describe it. Now, I didn't say anything to my family. I mean, I didn't walk out of the car that juggled. Well, that just was horrible.

Mark Ogletree But in my mind, I was thinking that I was so disappointed that, you know, that my children could not have had the same experience that Jane and I had had 18 years earlier. Well, I didn't think much of it. We moved on. There were still other things to do. And we spent another few days in Nauvoo and then came home. We got home towards the end of July and in August, our fast and testimony meeting in our ward, our daughter, our oldest daughter, Brittany, wanted to bear her testimony. She was a great, strong girl. She still is today, a great leader. And so, here she was leaving her ward that she grew up in a little bit, at least during her teenage years. And she wanted to have a, she wanted to share kind of her closing testimony. And as part of that testimony, she talked about our family's church history trip that we just had come home from. And she shared a few experiences, I don't remember to this day, all of the things she shared. But then she said something that was so profound that even today, 20 years after that event, I still can't get it out of my mind.

Mark Ogletree As she shared her testimony, she said, and the most spiritual experience that I had on this trip was the Carthage Jail. And she said, I felt the spirit so strongly in that jail. And she then bore her testimony of the restoration. And the whole time I'm thinking, are you kidding me? You felt anything in there? How did you do that? But she said that that was where the spirit spoke to her of the strongest. And it was just a great reminder of many things. But one of them is we can't dictate or micromanage when the spirit is going to come into our lives or the lives of our children. But number two, it was also a reminder that our children could be feeling things, that we as their parents may not be on some occasions. And I've had that experience many times with our own kids, where they were feeling something very profoundly. And I wasn't feeling much at all at the time. And once again, it was a great... For my daughter, when she said that...

Mark Ogletree And by the way, for us at that time in our life, it was a great financial sacrifice to take that trip. But after her words, I thought, oh, I'll pay for that. I'll do that five times a year if we have to, to hear any of my children say how strongly they felt, the spirit of a church historic site. We know that these sites can make a tremendous difference in our lives as adults, but also in the lives of children and now grandchildren. One of the things that Janie and I have planned and look forward to is taking our grandchildren to some of these places. We just want them to be a little bit older so they're ready, but we're excited to do that. So LDS, let's do something. And one of the things I think we could do is find a way to put together a church historical trip for our family. It doesn't have to be grand. It doesn't have to be the whole enchilada, so to speak, from Palmyra all the way to Salt Lake City. We just a year ago just did one leg of that trip with some of our family members.

Mark Ogletree And that was just Missouri. We just did the Kansas City area. That was it. But guess what? It was great. It was awesome. Took a couple of days. It was wonderful. There are probably church historical sites in many different parts of the country that may be close to you. If you're listening to this podcast episode from somewhere far away, from what I call the hub of the church here in Utah, that you could see it. We have a daughter in Arkansas and her husband and their family. Well, guess what? Parley P. Pratt's grave site is probably about an hour from where they live. I promise you that at some point we will travel down there with those grandkids and share that site with them. But also, I think the key is that you're sharing a story or an experience, in this case of Parley P. Pratt, let's say, that could help deepen their conversion and strengthen their testimonies. Well, everyone, thank you so much for being with us today. I would invite you to share this podcast episode with anyone who could benefit by it.

Mark Ogletree I hope you have a wonderful week and look forward to being with you next time.

How Visiting LDS Historical Sites Can Strengthen Our Faith - Dr. Mark Ogletree

Chapters

Transcript

Quote board

Source shelf

Amanda Barnes Smith's account of the Haun's Mill massacre

2 Corinthians 3:3 ("fleshy tables of the heart"; identified, not cited on air)

Book of Mormon manuscript pages of First Nephi in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting

Study on Catholics, Jews and Latter-day Saints earning history PhDs (Gerrit says he can't quote it)

D&C 124

D&C 76

Luke 16:19-31, the rich man and Lazarus (paraphrased from memory on air)

Episode quiz

About how long has Gerrit been leading church history tours?

Fun with Numbers

Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

Signature words

More from this episode

Claim check

Take it to class

Banter bin

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

In General Conference

Go deeper

How Visiting LDS Historical Sites Can Strengthen Our Faith - Dr. Mark Ogletree

A bonus without Richard

Amanda Barnes Smith's account of the Haun's Mill massacre

2 Corinthians 3:3 ("fleshy tables of the heart"; identified, not cited on air)

Book of Mormon manuscript pages of First Nephi in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting

Study on Catholics, Jews and Latter-day Saints earning history PhDs (Gerrit says he can't quote it)

D&C 124

D&C 76

Luke 16:19-31, the rich man and Lazarus (paraphrased from memory on air)

About how long has Gerrit been leading church history tours?

Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

Signature words