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Back from Ireland
S6E40 · Please Refer to President Christofferson's October 2026 Conference Address
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Standard of Truth · Season 6 · Episode 40 · 1:10:17

Please Refer to President Christofferson's October 2026 Conference Address

Richard combed through about 550 episodes and found the hosts had told people not to gamble in roughly 5 percent of them, usually by pointing to President Hinckley's 2005 talk.

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The question ·

What stood out from the October 2026 general conference, and what does President Christofferson's talk on gambling mean for a show full of sports picks?

Richard

Richard is back from Ireland, where his family found an ancestor's overgrown grave and everyone still curses Oliver Cromwell. Then the hosts review the October 2026 general conference: gratitude, the many mentions of love, and a peacemaker talk that listed harsh words out loud, which Gerrit admits convicted him. Most of the episode is about President Christofferson's talk on gambling and prediction markets. Richard plays a montage of years of jokes followed by 'refer to President Hinckley's 2005 address,' and both hosts say they don't gamble and will now cite President Christofferson instead. Gerrit tells an embarrassing Las Vegas story involving a former missionary, and ends on the true test of discipleship: being kind to those who don't know who they are.

Who comes upD. Todd ChristoffersonGordon B. HinckleyOliver CromwellSpencer W. KimballDieter F. UchtdorfRussell M. NelsonJoseph Smith
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Back from Ireland

Richard finds an ancestor's grave in Ireland and hears Oliver Cromwell cursed on every tour.

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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 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. Excited to be here. I just came from the Emerald Isle, where...
Gerrit You went to Notre Dame football game?
Richard South Bend is known as the Emerald Isle.
Gerrit The Emerald Isle of Indiana.
Richard So we celebrated my father-in-law's 85th birthday and found my sister-in-law actually was doing a bunch of family history out there. And we found a bunch of, we had, we had this crazy, actual crazy experience that I'm so grateful to let me be a, be a part of where we, I think I sent you some of the pictures of it where we, where my wife and my sister-in-law, my sister-in-law had done a bunch of work previously and she let us kind of tag along and my wife actually slips on this spot. Where they actually, it was totally covered with grass, and ends up being like a great great grandfather that they didn't know and hadn't found and...
Gerrit So she slips. On the tombstone.
Richard Yeah, on the slab.
Gerrit Because it's covered up by grass.
Richard Yeah, because it rains. So very much.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, it rains, it rains like 368 of the 365 days of the year.
Richard Yeah, no, so if any of this is turned into video, I obviously am very bronze with all the sun that I got. Irish are known as being just a very tan people.
Gerrit Yeah, oh yeah, everybody says, if you have skin like the Irish, you'll never burn.
Richard That's right. Well, if you live in Ireland, you won't.
Gerrit It's a long time saying, actually. It goes way back.
Richard It was, it was crazy. So they found it and we ended up digging out this, this whole slab and then putting it in cause. So, you know, her family has such a, I don't know if this is the case in your family or an Angie's family where they have such an extensive family history, genealogy, genealogy that's been done, but there was this one line that they couldn't find. And so, you know, we're going from Abby to Abby, you know, trying to find it anyway. It was, it was a really cool experience. The whole whole trip was, was lovely. The leprechaun from Simpsons has a bit where he's just kind of, yes, it's like, I did that about a thousand times, just, just not even on purpose, just accidentally. But it was, it was lovely. We, we brought the Starlink. So we were able to watch conferences. We were awesome.
Gerrit So Starlink just worked for you in Ireland.
Richard Yeah, it made it through the clouds. And it was, it was lovely.
Gerrit That's the number one fear.
Richard So I don't know if this is breaking news or not. Irish are not a fan of, of the English.
Gerrit You don't say.
Richard We did go up to Belfast, but most of Ireland also not a fan of the Protestant Reformation very much, or at least some of the people that are, I don't know if you're aware.
Gerrit There was a, so I would guess that there's like a lot of monuments to like Oliver Cromwell and what a great guy he was.
Richard You know what's hilarious? I specifically, I was on, we were on a gajillion tours or whatever. I heard Oliver Cromwell's name seven times on seven different tours.
Gerrit Because he destroyed the whole country. They murdered everybody.
Richard Yeah, but it didn't have anything to do with where we were. It would just come up.
Gerrit They're just bringing his name up like a curse word?
Richard Yeah, like I'm going to an Aldi's to buy some Cadbury's and they're like, you know, I...
Gerrit Yeah, so they're like, that'll be eight euros and also Oliver Cromwell. It's like the tick that they said Augustus Caesar developed after his legions were destroyed in Germany. That he just later in life, he would just occasionally shout out, you know, Quintus Varus, give me back my legions.
Richard It was, yes, it's very similar to hating Oliver Cromwell or not as big a fan of the Protestants. It was a great time. The Irish people were absolutely lovely. I think there's like six members that live in Ireland. I think it's something like 3,000. I think it's a relatively small number. In countries like that, I mean, where you were in Wisconsin, it's not necessarily the same, same for me in California. Like for, I imagine, does Kai get that in the Philippines a little bit? Or not really? As far as I'm Catholic. And being Catholic is, it's not even a religion. It's just who we are. It's our traditions more than any of them.
Gerrit So Kai would still be in the MTC right now.
Richard If they had enough beds.
Gerrit Yeah, if they had enough beds. So I'm not sure that he's getting into deep theological discussions with people.
Richard His Tagalog isn't quite there.
Gerrit Yeah, his Tagalog hasn't quite mastered whether or not, you know, which atonement theory is penal substitution theory or whether or not it's... Yeah, he's almost there. I mean, he's gotten to where he could talk Arminianism, but it's close.
Richard Transassociation in Tagalog doesn't translate quite as well.
Gerrit He's still trying to get over Mariology in the language. Yeah, that makes it a lot more difficult. So there's literally no members where he is. Like, when I say that, you're like, oh yeah, I'm sure there's some members. No, what I mean is the closest branch, and it's just a branch, is two hours away. And there's like five people in that branch. There are literally not, oh, there's a bunch of members who aren't active. Where he's at, there are no members. Now, what that means is, on Sunday, they just invite people in the village to come to their porch, where they hold sacrament services. And Kai had 28 people in sacrament meeting, 28 friends in sacrament meeting last week. I told him, I did not have 28 people in sacrament meeting my entire mission, total.
Richard That's rough.
Gerrit Did you? You just look like you did.
Richard 28 in two years?
Gerrit How many people were you getting every week? Did you always have somebody there?
Richard No, gosh, no, no, no, no, heaven forbid. But like my last area that I caught on fire, like I didn't know I could, I just caught on fire.
Gerrit Like I never thought I could. Everybody just ate missionary work, drank missionary work.
Richard So now there's so many things to get to here, Gerrit, and I know that this is, I received several million emails and text messages, some well-intentioned, others less so, about different topics from conference. I know we usually do kind of a conference report.
Gerrit A much poorer conference report than the actual conference itself.
Richard Yes, of course, much, much worse.
Gerrit Yeah, you knew what we were when you picked us up.
Richard But so, there's so many things. We do have a Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag, and we possibly have a second email as well.
Gerrit Let's talk conference first, and then we'll-
Richard Start conference first, and then we'll get into it. Okay, I thought it was good. Your thoughts?
Gerrit Amazing. What was your favorite talk?
Richard So there were a couple that were, I thought were pretty impactful, that I really liked. Elder Christofferson, President Christofferson, for sure.
Gerrit Obviously.
Richard Obviously, we'll talk about that in a minute. Elder Karen is really, really, really great. I do, the idea on the, my porridge isn't hot and my milk isn't cold. I, that resonated with me as I lack gratitude a lot in my life. And, and so that, that particular talk, I believe it was Elder Renlund that spoke about, about that. That one resonated with me. And then, was it Sister Runya?
Gerrit Oh yeah.
Richard She, so, she knocked another part.
Gerrit I was on, I was on Come Follow Up with her.
Richard She's great.
Gerrit And, and just amazing, just incredible woman. And, and she even, you know, we at, you know, obviously you record for a long time on those. And then they keep like, they're like, we gotta cut everything out that, that isn't, you know, that we gotta cut out everything that's terrible. And then they're like, we've got three seconds of Gerrit. That's, we ended up with three seconds. And it's just me like, what do you think Sister Runya? And that's the, everything else.
Intro Is it pronounced Runya?
Richard Did I do it wrong? Is it Runya as she pronounces it?
Gerrit I actually, I can't remember now.
Richard Runya, we're saying it wrong. Luckily, she doesn't listen to the podcast.
Gerrit Oh, very good.
Richard Well, so she was the seventh most quoted person. This is, look, I'm, I know it's been banned, but I'm just gonna sneak in a little fun with numbers. If you could guess the leaders mentioned most in general conference, who would you guess? Of all time. Not counting Jesus.
Gerrit Oh, wait, in this conference?
Richard In this general conference. So other, other church leaders that were quoting were quoted.
Gerrit President Nelson and President Oaks.
Richard So President Oaks was number one.
Gerrit Yep. President Nelson's gotta be top five.
Richard President Nelson was number three.
Gerrit Okay. And we can't count Jesus or Joseph Smith?
Richard That's a separate, well, so Joseph Smith is not, but Jesus is a separate category.
Gerrit Well, it's almost like he's deity.
Intro So, yeah.
Gerrit So let's say Joseph Smith. We're going to put Joseph Smith up there.
Richard Number two.
Gerrit Number two, yeah.
Richard Which by the way, I thought was fascinating, right? Obviously Joseph Smith, prophet of the restoration, the prophet quoted the most was our current prophet.
Gerrit Right. Well, and hopefully that's what people take away from this. You know, we did a podcast last week about, you know, that the second Nephi thing about, saved by grace after all you can do. Grace after all you can do. And what does that really mean? And I believe the point I was trying to get across is, this isn't how we figure out how salvation works. We don't figure out how salvation works because we went and studied what someone had to say about what a phrase might mean. Now we can do that. We should do that. I'm not saying that we shouldn't study. It's not like I'm a Luddite and I'm like, no, we don't even read. We don't read anything. We don't, we certainly don't get over on the social medias and the Twitters and the whatnots. But ultimately, we are not sola scriptura.
Gerrit We are not. And that's really, really, really hard for some people to come to terms with. Because if you live in the United States or Canada or, you know, Britain, you know, you live in a world where the Bible is the only answer. So you try sometimes culturally, you feel the pressure to extend that to the Book of Mormon or to the Doctrine and Covenants. And so what that phrase or what that word means really matters because that's how I know what God's will is for me. But it misses the point of general conference. How you know what God's will for you is, is he called prophets, apostles, leaders, the young women's presidency and the Relief Society presidency to teach you what it is that he wants you to know.
Gerrit And that's, I mean, if that's not a constant theme of this podcast, it should be. If you ever come away from the podcast going like, well, I guess I won't know what God wants me to do until I read another 10,000 Joseph Smith Papers. That's not it. We follow prophets and apostles. And so what's funny is how many people still were like, well, I, you know, the email and I think, I think you're still, you got to figure this out. I know we all have theories. It's kind of like, oh, when do you think the Second Coming is going to happen? Well, if I were to ask that question, do you know how many emails we would receive? They would be legion for they are many. And so it's not about not having an opinion about things. It's just that my opinions, hopefully, hopefully my opinions end where prophetic utterance begins. Because what something originally or could have meant or how did people take that?
Gerrit That's all fine and good. Right up until a prophet tells you what it means and what you need to take from it. And that trumps everything. Or at least it does for me. Hopefully it does for most people.
Richard It does. It should. And it does. President Uchtdorf was number four and Spencer W. Kimball was number five.
Gerrit Oh, Spencer W. Kimball coming in on the fifth there.
Richard Yeah, he did. He came in strong. The New Testament. So now part of the problem is, is that in the initial analysis, because you're going to have in the Liahona, you're going to have the kind of the full transcripts. And this is just the initial transcript analysis. So I, you know, I, these are unofficial numbers. These, these are unofficial numbers because it's, it's taking the transcript, it's running them through and, and, and, you know, kind of, or taking the audio, creating a transcript.
Gerrit And then from that doing the analysis, the fantasy football team, when, when it shows the guy having 99 yards, like he, he might actually have a hundred. And when they go back and redo the official stats, that extra point, there's a chance I'll get that point. And I did it in order to beat Matt Ryan this week in football.
Richard So, but, so, so you, by the way, my son, my son, Andrew started doing fantasy football. He's not, he's not really into sports as much. And it has been the most fun thing as he is now sending me screenshots asking me what to do. And I'm like, what you should have done is not drafted any of those players. Yeah.
Gerrit You're like, you're aware that, you're aware Peyton Manning retired, right, son?
Richard It is the, it is the classic every, every week making chicken salad out of something. So you go through and you, you do kind of this qualitative, like thematic analysis over the entire conference where you're able to pull out the, these things that I find marginally interesting. And I hope that you also find marginally interesting. New Testament and Book of Mormon neck and neck in terms of references that were, that were made. 64 scripture references, the New Testament and 62 in the Book of Mormon.
Gerrit It's almost like we're Christians.
Richard It's almost as though.
Gerrit We're bordering, we're bordering on Christianity. We're knocking on the door.
Richard There, so there's, there's a couple of things. So now obviously Jesus Christ, his name was said a lot. Jesus Christ was said 251 times Christ alone, 338 times. But so if you take his, he said the most, if you were to take that out, what would you guess are the next three, like kind of words or things that would be mentioned as the next in conference?
Gerrit Well, I know the word peacemaker was mentioned a lot, but you don't usually keep repeating peacemaker.
Intro You usually talk about things that you describe it.
Richard Yeah, that's exactly right. But I feel like you're on the right track.
Gerrit Yeah, so I'm gonna say love.
Richard Love was number, after Jesus Christ, love was 270 mentions of love or something near that.
Gerrit I love that. I mean, you know, I've shared the quote before on this podcast that a traveler came to Nauvoo, a very skeptical one, an agnostic one, who came to basically make fun of Joseph Smith being a prophet. And one of the things he was impressed about meeting with Joseph was he said the great principle of Christianity was love and that there is more of this love spirit among his followers than there is to be found among any other people on earth. Now, that is pretty powerful. So from the beginning, Joseph Smith thought being a member of the church should make you love other people. And if it doesn't, then it's time to examine some things.
Richard Well, Moroni says a very similar thing, essentially, right? Like if, as I paraphrased Moroni, look, if you're doing all this stuff, and at the end of the day, you don't love people like Jesus did, then you've missed the point of everything.
Gerrit I mean, it is a very similar thing to what Jesus says. What shall a prophet of the man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul, right? So it, all of the things, you know, it's great to listen to conference and try to find the mustache guy in the Tabernacle Choir. I mean, people love that.
Richard Oh yeah.
Gerrit And obviously you're doing whatever to, you know, you're playing conference bingo, not for money, but you're playing conference bingo to keep your kids, you know, paying attention, you know, that kind of stuff. But in the end, I think a real theme of the conference was we have to love other people. And you don't need the gospel to tell you to love people that are your friends. You were always going to do that. You know, drug lords have friends that they care about. So that you have people that you treat well because they're your friends is not necessarily a demonstration of discipleship. You know, Shay and Fidel got along pretty well. It's not an example of discipleship, right?
Richard Great example.
Gerrit Do you think that, does that speak to everybody?
Richard I think that really, yeah, that nails it. Yeah.
Gerrit Shay? Do I? I mean, they did get along.
Richard Swimmingly. Yeah. Famous.
Gerrit I mean, Lennon got along with Trotsky and for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Till he was killed. But other than that, they got along.
Richard Well, but so, but to, but to your point, I mean, as I cut you off though, but I mean, love, love is referenced more than double the next best, nearly more than double the next thing, which was covenants at about 148. And then about half of that was temples. Temples, covenants, but love, it's mentioned almost every single time in almost every single talk.
Gerrit And, you know, I think one of the things that people really, it was very powerful to do, I think because you don't usually hear it from the pulpit, at least not since Brigham Young. And that was Elder Kyunga, or Kyungu? Sorry, I should look it up to see how, here I am butchering his name. I don't know how to spell it, I don't know how to say it. He's the one that gave the talk, let me see here, using the language of peacemakers, where he listed off some of those harsh things, and he did it all in a row. That was an incredibly powerful teaching device. Incredibly powerful, in part because it's not very often that you hear a general authority from a pulpit say the words, I don't need you in my life. You always mess things up.
Gerrit I mean, those are not words that you hear. And I think he very knowingly did that, was inspired to do that as a means of saying, you know how uncomfortable you are hearing me say these words? Think of how uncomfortable you should be that you're saying them. That I would like to say that I have never said any of those things.
Richard But I would be alive. Yeah.
Gerrit There's a lot of things I would like. I would like a lot of things. But I gotta tell you, the wicked take the truth to be hard because it cuts them to their very center. And as he spoke, I was like, man, I usually am really careful about it. But I could recall an interaction that I had only a few weeks earlier where I said the words, what is wrong with you? And he literally quoted me. He didn't put me in the footnotes yet, but he quoted me.
Richard It will be, so, what's wrong with you, Gerrit Dirkmaat?
Gerrit Yes. Where someone did something, and my response, my agitated, sinful, fallen man response was I said, what is wrong with you? And here is a member of the 70 calling me out, saying, actually, what's wrong with you? What would make you say that? So, you know, I need to, I need to do a better job. Now I can't, what I can't promise with all the peacemaker talk, I am a lump of clay being molded by a first time pottery person apparently. I will probably still express levels of anger that I shouldn't have when people are attacking the church or attacking the prophet.
Gerrit And I'm working on it, but also, I don't know that I'm there yet. I'm a work in progress.
Richard As we all are, and I had several conversations with my children after conference, and with my wife, where I admitted you deserve a better husband, you deserve a better father, and I'm going to try to be better. It was, this was, this was probably it was funny. My son Parker, who is now his, his, his trainer is running him ragged, and I've never loved anyone more. I think it's great. And he just collapses into his pillow every, every night, which is awesome. He said, Hey, you know what? General conference, this is, this is pretty good. Yeah.
Gerrit It is funny that all the kids go on missions. They're like, they're like, this isn't nearly as bad as he thought it was kind of thing. But because when you're immersed in it and then you get to, I mean, I think you're just in tune more with the spirit. And so hopefully, hopefully everyone had a great experience from conference. I know everyone's going to say, oh, my favorite was this one. My favorite was this one. But I do think this idea of, of lovingly teaching the doctrine, being a peacemaker rather than a divider, the, the essential aspects of the temple. I mean, there, there, obviously there are all kinds of, of things. So any other points you want to pull out of that?
Richard So there, there was, there were a couple of other, of other things. One of the things is kind of fun that you try to do when you, when you do kind of a big qualitative study is you, you do some different coding to try and find different themes that kind of connect to different things. And so, you know, in the, in the 30 plus different talks, there were kind of general themes that, that come up again and again, outside of just the idea of doing all of these things with love. But the idea of covenant living, the idea of, of adversity, the idea of Christ as an active agent in that, that, that came up quite, quite a bit as kind of nice, general themes that were, that were throughout. And so anyway, no, it was, it was wonderful. There was, there was one particular talk, Gerrit.
Gerrit Oh, yes.
Richard I don't know if you, if you were made aware of this via text or email or call or, or carrier pigeon.
Gerrit Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I got something on a telegraph service that hasn't been used since 1884.
Richard So it provides an opportunity. You and I, I don't know that you and I have ever talked about something we're going to talk about more in, in the preparation for the talking about it. So I don't know how this will actually go because we did show prep because we said, Hey, we actually did this. I did. So I, so Elder president Christofferson gave a talk on gambling and my phone blew up when I was going and I was at a tavern as we know it, which sounds about right.
Gerrit Well, where were you during general conference? I was at a tavern.
Richard Well, so I mean in Ireland, every, every restaurant is, you know, it's a tavern, you know.
Gerrit We had church in one of the areas in Wisconsin. The only building available in the town was the bar. So we had to have church. Now we had to have it early in the morning because they didn't want us cutting into their lunch crowd. So we had to have 8 a.m. sacrament meeting because this is back when it was three hours, right? So they wanted us out by 11. You know what I mean? So the church rented a bar that we had sacrament meeting services in. And the Relief Society Sisters, super creative, they knitted and quilted things to hang over the, let's say, incredibly inappropriate signage that was on the walls of this bar. And so we had sacrament meeting right up there next to the bar in Adam's friendship.
Richard What a great name.
Gerrit The name is Adam's friendship. Yeah.
Richard Well, so, so there were lots of, lots of comments, lots of jokes, some good hearted ribbing, some less so. And, and so one of the things that we talk about, you know, we, we try to, we try to be self-deprecating. Well, we don't try, we, we're actually, we're actually great at being self-deprecating.
Gerrit We're the easiest people to make fun of. So we just take shots at ourselves.
Richard Yeah, right.
Gerrit And there's a reason why we have an entire freemium content called slurge these commandments.
Richard Right. So, so like what we hope, what we hope, and Gerrit obviously correct me, but what we hope is, is that when you listen to the podcast, it sounds like you're just listening to your friends and your friends bust each other's chops and you are kind of just, you're having fun.
Gerrit And then hopefully, hopefully you, you learn some stuff and you relax enough that when we quote Joseph Smith, your hearts open and yeah.
Richard And so we, we, we tease each other and lifelong friends. Yes, of course. I love Gerrit more than a brother. Right? And so like the, the idea of us, you know, and, and it's, it's, it's the joke as well as that there is no joke that's ever been told. That's as funny as your friend mispronouncing a word, which is true. And then we, we pounce, we pounce on that and we, the moment it happens, the moment it happened that we tease each other and it's, and it's, and it's a lot of good fun. And, and, and there are a lot of things that we also joke about and tease about, and we do it satirically. We're, we're trying to kind of poke fun at things.
Gerrit We, we had similar, we're trying to mock that thing.
Richard We're mocking the particular thing where we are in the great spacious building and it's sometimes, it sometimes might seem like, and certainly unintentional that we're mocking the thing that is, that's the gospel principle. And that's, and that's never the intent ever.
Gerrit Especially in the case with President Christofferson's talk. Like Richard and I don't gamble. So, so we don't gamble. We haven't ever gambled. And part of what we were doing is making fun of the fact that people do it as a means of making it seem stupid.
Richard So I can't claim a lifelong abstinence, but I can claim that I've been clean for about a long, a good long while, as long as the podcast essentially, or at least pretty close to it. So we don't, we don't do it. And we make a lot of references to President Hinckley's 2005 conference address.
Gerrit Right.
Richard And, and anytime you, you even would say something like, you know, I bet that, and then like, not even in a gambling setting, and then I would be like, I'll bet, if we went and looked, you'd see there was a second letter.
Gerrit Everybody look at President Hinckley's 2005 conference address.
Richard So, so Gerrit, I went through, I went through 550 episodes. That is many. And I went through the transcripts, and I found that we talked about, and have told people not to gamble, in roughly 5% of all of our episodes. By the way, the majority of our episodes are not about gambling. And so that's a lot of, that's a high percentage to talk about not gambling.
Gerrit But we've said things like, we talk about sports, we'll say things like, oh yeah, they're favored to win by six, and stuff like that.
Richard Sure.
Gerrit And then we say, we're giving you the pick after the game's already over. Cause this drops, the game's over.
Richard So that was, so we used to record like four or six in a chunk. And so it's like, we're talking about games that happened a month ago. It's less so now, but so I went through and I put together a montage, and I had to cut out half of them. Otherwise the montage would be too long.
Gerrit So this is a montage of us talking about gambling.
Richard Of us talking about not gambling.
Gerrit Okay.
Richard Okay. All right.
Gerrit You ready? Yep.
Richard President Gordon B. Hinckley's Spring 2005 Conference Address on Gambling. You mentioned President Hinckley's 2005 Conference Address on Gambling, actually. And of course, President Hinckley's 2010 Conference Address. We would like to get very strongly on the record how much we support President Hinckley's 2005 Conference Address on Gambling, especially on the number of temples that will be announced by the plan. I feel like that's very important to get that on the record. They would have referenced President Hinckley's 2005 Conference Address.
Gerrit All these wagers.
Richard I feel like we need to refer everyone to President Hinckley's 2005 Conference Address.
Gerrit I think at that point, I was talking about Pascal's wager that God exists.
Richard You were talking about Pascal's wager. Yeah. That's exactly right. Well, hold on. It's close. Here we go. President Hinckley's 2005 Conference Address. President Hinckley's 2005 Conference Address on gambling.
Gerrit But you know who does gamble? Early American Colonials who've lost in the Light of Christ. No sports betting.
Richard I would refer you to President Hinckley's 2005 Conference Address on gambling.
Gerrit Now we're-
Richard Let me reference President Hinckley's 2005 talk there. So this happened at work. So I work with a lot of wonderful LDS folks. And our COO made some comments about, you know, just some random, you know, gambling comment that you make on-
Gerrit Yeah, like, oh, we're going to roll the dice and see what happens.
Richard Yeah, right. And so I said, Jake, I'd like to reference President Hinckley's 2000 spring, April 2005 conference address on gambling. And he's like, the fact that you know that suggests that you have a tremendous gambling.
Gerrit Yeah, you know, the last talk given on it. Conference talk 19 years ago, 19 years and several profits ago. And you just have it right there. You can whip it right out.
Richard That's what I'm saying. Like, on the tip of my tongue, I had President Hinckley's conference address on gambling. And he was like, you've got an obvious problem.
Gerrit You need to close somebody.
Richard So, we mentioned it.
Gerrit And you cut out most of it.
Richard I cut out more than half of it. And I cut out all the context. And so, like, just squeezing it in. And so, one of the things that, one of the things, and this is an interesting experience that I had over this last weekend, where, you know, we come in and we try to have some yucks and some fun and some whatever. But we say it kind of tongue in cheek because we're kind of teasing about the particular thing, but we're not joking about the actual point, right? The idea of not gambling. And I realized with all of the texts and all of the emails that we received, and they were from the Legion, that I did not do a good job of walking that line between poking fun at a particular thing and, or at least it led to some confusion to where it's like, oh, Richard loves gambling.
Gerrit Which of course we don't.
Richard We don't.
Gerrit Either one of us gamble. It's kind of weird to feel guilty about a conference talk. What's talking about, hey, you need to stop doing this. And you're like, yeah, I don't.
Richard I don't do it.
Gerrit Yeah, I'm good. But we will be very clear. We will update. We will say President Christofferson since October 2026. And obviously, you know, look, we joke around, but I realize that it is serious for some people. And, you know, we have a friend who actually works in in in like mortgages, things like that. And that person said, I knew this was coming for a while. And we're like, what? How in the world did you know that what you and President Christofferson golfing? He's like, yeah, that and no. But because he does like, you know, mortgages, he was saying you would be stunned the percentage of people that have in the last just five years been trying to claim their gambling winnings as income to base a mortgage off of.
Gerrit And when he said that, I was like, you have got to be kidding me.
Richard Well, I'll tell you, actually, I also felt like this was coming because of conversations I've had with my sons with the with the polymarket and the Cal-She space, the number of their at BYU and the number of BYU students and students in general. I mean, President Christofferson nailed the problem where it's like, we're making a bet. And I'd like to refer that to President Hinckley's 2005 conference address on gambling. But we're making a bet that all of the ill associated with gambling aren't going to happen this time when everyone has a full casino and even more with Cal-She and Polymarket in terms of what people are betting on. You can bet on literally everything, these prediction markets.
Gerrit Yeah, as President Christofferson joked, I mean, one of the best parts of his talk was his joke, where he said, you know, people are betting on the Second Coming. Where do you go to collect that bet?
Richard By the way, I did look up the odds on that. It was fascinating. That's I was curious. I was curious.
Gerrit What were the odds?
Richard It depends on the don't do it, obviously. Don't do it. Yeah, it depends on the odds. But it depends on it depends on or depends on the on the on the whatever you're on to. But it's it's between one and three percent by the end of this year.
Gerrit Well, so look, I think the take away is obviously there's somebody listening who probably does do a little sports betting, who does do a little, you know, a little bit of maybe online casinos or, as you said, especially among the young people, are involved in the kind of, you know, the the kind of prediction markets, because it's such a it's such a fad. You have had a member of the First Presidency referencing the talk by a prophet, say, don't do it. And, and you know, he even said, you know, that people will sometimes say, oh, what about the casual doing of it? What about the casual? Should I, should I, I've already talked about some of my sins. Should I talk about more of them?
Richard Well, I will say, I will say, yeah, I, you know, absolutely.
Gerrit Okay, here comes some more sins.
Richard I will say though, that there were two, there were two parts to his talk that actually hit me the hardest. And that caused some moments of the self-reflection in saying, okay, I'm trying to use satire to make a point and having a little bit of fun, but the opportunity cost and the example portion of that were such that I have sons that are right in that range. I, in fact, I had a conversation with one of my sons about this very specifically, about you cannot get into this.
Gerrit Was it as he asked you for more money because he lost money?
Richard Yeah, I mean, that's something to do with that. Sure. Yeah.
Gerrit But I mean, dad, dad, can you spot me?
Richard But by the way, I loved, I love the way that we'll get to your sins in a second here. But President Christofferson, the way that he came into that talk not wanting to give that talk.
Gerrit Yep. You could tell he was, he was kind of mad like Benjamin or Jacob.
Richard Like Jacob was. Yeah. It's like, look, I would like to talk.
Gerrit You know what?
Richard Everyone else is talking about love and everybody's love and peacemakers.
Gerrit And I'm up here talking about prediction markets.
Richard Yeah. And upset. And I've got to, I've got to do that. And so anyway.
Gerrit Well, I was going to say his one of his great points, because I think a lot of people say, well, I don't do this all the time. I only do it once in a while. What difference does it make if I do it once in a while? I don't have a problem. So I think people would justify it by saying, I don't have a problem because it's just for fun. It's just once in a while. So let me tell you about one of my sins, to prove the point that President Christofferson made, and also to prove the point of everyone listening, who already thinks that I'm a degenerate that isn't going to heaven. I know this because you told me. So I don't want to out anybody here. So I'm trying to be careful in the way I talk about this. I have an extended family member of some kind on one of the sides of our families, perhaps in my married family, perhaps not in my married family.
Richard I see.
Gerrit Okay. It can be anywhere.
Richard I know exactly who it is.
Gerrit Okay. And for fun, so, and we, we've taken a couple of trips, you know, to go watch, you know, BYU, you know, football and have some fun, you know, and several of those trips have taken us to the Vegas Bowl early, early, early on in our marriage. So Angie and I were, you know, this is a long time ago. I'm like, I'm still a sinner, but the sin itself took place a long time ago. Angie and I have been married 25 years early in our, in our marriage and the early matters for the story. One of the things that he liked to do, this family member, is he would say, okay, I'm going to give everybody this amount of money. And we'll see, we're going to see who can make the most back or who's going to lose the fastest over the next hour in the casino, right? So it was more like an entertainment thing. Sure. So in this case, it's not even my money.
Gerrit And it was given to me with the express purpose of gambling it. Like, so it was, you know, this is the house fronting you to say, here, here, we're, we're going to comp you on your first bet. And this was actually back in the, you know, not long after president Hinckley's talk, right? So, so I got married in 2001. Richard knows the day, June 15th. Yes, because Richard was married on June 16th. And so this was, you know, not long after, it was probably, you know, 2006, 2007 era, something like that. So not long after president Hinckley gave that talk. And so he gives it all to us and he tells us, okay, hey, you know, go, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Now we are in an obscure hotel, not even like a big name casino in Vegas, right? So it's not like, you know.
Richard Yeah, you're at the Golden Nugget.
Gerrit Yeah, no, not even, not a well-known place. And so, you know, I'm thinking, oh, that'll be fun. I don't gamble, but hey, good, I'm gonna gamble the first time. This is gonna be great. I'm gonna gamble. And so, so I go play some Texas Hold'em. Again, I am sorry, everyone. I'm not encouraging anyone to do this. I am saying this was a sin. So don't do this. But to prove President Christofferson's point, okay, I sit down, start playing, and the cards were quite friendly to me, almost as if there was some being from the unseen world who wanted me to enjoy doing what I was doing, right? So I'm there for a little while. Other people have already lost all their stuff because they wouldn't bet it all on black. And the next thing you know, red came up, and they're like, oh, you know. And while I'm sitting there, guy walks up and says, Elder Dirkmaat?
Gerrit Oh no. It was a missionary from my mission from seven years earlier that I had never seen since then. And I turn and I look, and sure enough, here's one of these missionaries that I picked up from the airport when I was an assistant. You can't describe how disappointed he was in me seeing that I was there. And of course, I didn't have a chance, like, hey, actually, I don't usually do this. I mean, and even if I had, how in the world would that come across? Yeah, right. I don't usually sin, but when I do, I do it here at the table. Stay thirsty, my friends.
Gerrit But it was a perfect example of what President Christofferson said, is that even if you're justifying it by saying, well, this isn't a problem, I only do this once in a while, this is only a fun thing. You actually don't know what the impact is going to be. Whether you are right about that or not, he's talking about whether or not you're doing it for casual fun. Have you considered how your example might affect others? If your moral standing is secure, then undoubtedly, there are others who look to you as a guide for upright living. That would be certainly true for your children, but also others that you may or may not know that are watching and learning from what they see you do.
Gerrit They may be newer or weaker in the faith. A little gambling that seemingly only has a minor impact in your life may be costly to them if they take a license from your example. Now, I don't know, I pray that my brief interaction with that missionary, former missionary, did not tell him, oh, it must be okay. But it was a reality that I had once been a great example to this guy. And because I thought it didn't matter and what difference does it make, I ended up being caught red-handed as a terrible example after President Hinckley had made his conference talk.
Richard It's interesting, we talked about the love or this idea of love is mentioned over 270 times in general conference. The one that was just a real extra, had extra weight for me is how he is able to put that in conflict with gambling, this idea of love and then gambling. He talks about, President Oaks clearly stated the moral case against gambling some years ago in these words. What does gambling do to those participants? The attitude of taking something from someone else in order to enhance our own position. The essence of gambling leads us away from the giving path of Christ and toward a taking path of the adversary. Even the good natured among friends, that was the one for me. Going to the horse track and putting money down on old blue or whatever.
Gerrit I mean, look, who doesn't watch My Fair Lady and then say...
Richard Yeah, move your bloom and... Right, exactly. But yeah, there were several parts of that talk where he was able to, like a very good attorney, cut through all of the different aspects of how gambling is negative and corrosive, and even if it's not a problem. He talked about, you know, people say that it's, you know, around 5% where it becomes an addiction or problem, but where we have, where it's so much more pervasive was 5%. It's a lot. Well, but it's not a problem for me. Well, but it's still morally wrong. And this is why.
Gerrit Right. And, you know, frankly, I mean, it, you know, because you're taking, you're trying to get something for nothing. Right. So it's that. And also the idea of an example. I mean, so I've been very clear with my kids that we don't gamble. You know what I mean? And I quote to the president of Hinckley's talk, I now quote to them, President Christofferson's talk. And so, you know, as loud as we can shout from the rooftops, if you have a gambling problem, and if you actually don't think you have a problem, well, you have a member of the First Presidency quoting a prophet saying, don't do it. And so, delete that app.
Richard Well, there was something else, Gerrit, that you have said in the past, and we talked about this over the weekend as well. And it's something that is very, very important. So there's lots of people that don't ever gamble, have never gambled, and gambling isn't a problem for them, right? There's no interest in it, there's no desire to do it, it's not a problem. And we also need to be cautious that we don't pick the thing that's not a problem for us, and elevate that to be the most important thing while then ignoring the other things that were also discussed in general conference. Right.
Gerrit You don't want to pick your favorites, and your favorites being the things that I don't have to change.
Richard Right.
Gerrit Like I'm always excited when there's like a Word of Wisdom talk, or I don't murder someone. Whenever they're like, you shouldn't murder someone like Kane did, I'm like, huh, finally.
Richard You know, I could check a box. Someone said it.
Gerrit Someone finally gets where I'm coming from. No murder. I know how hard it's been to not murder everybody for the past several years. I've been fighting not murdering everybody. And here I am, not even. And no one ever threw a party for me.
Richard And you've been the good guy. Not murdering anybody.
Gerrit Yeah. So I mean, I think that is important. It is, you know, we said this going into conference. I would pray that everybody does this going out of it. Don't just share the talks that you 100% agree with and the ones that 100% don't require a change on your part. Because that's an easy thing to do because it, it, it allows us to feel like, well, they weren't really talking to me. So maybe there's a talk. And again, I don't want to be specific here, but maybe there's a talk that says, Hey, you need to go to the temple more. Well, you've already, you know, you've done a great job. You're going once a month. You've increased it so much. And so you take that talk and you go see what a good job I'm doing. And you are doing a good job. Great. But it is important that we, we realize, you know, that the family might not be a problem for you, but there's apparently a bunch of BYU students for whom it has been.
Gerrit And, and probably, you know, that someone's saying, well, that's idiotic. What's wrong with you is not the best way to help them realize that they need to change. Right? So you have a prophet, seer, and revelator in President Christofferson, who is given God's warning, saying what the standard is, and then it's up to us as members to do what it is that God's prophets say. Now hopefully, I mean, I can't promise I won't still make fun of it at some point, because that's kind of what we do. But it's important. Important thing to take away from conferences, always try to make yourself a little bit better. Try not to pile on people who are struggling. We're all just trying to make it through this world. Now, I assume that once people find out about my Texas Hold'em, you know, UnCovery will receive 50 more emails explaining what part of the telestial Kingdom I'll go to after I burn in the fiery pits of hell.
Richard I thought the emails suggesting Outer Darkness were too far.
Gerrit Because obviously I don't have that much knowledge. I mean, so in order to have perfect knowledge, I mean, come on, do you think the podcast would be this bad if I had perfect knowledge? I mean, I don't know. I mean, if Kane had a podcast, I guess, what would it be like?
Richard He wouldn't be referencing President Hinckley's 2005 April conference address on gambling.
Gerrit At least not 5% of the time.
Richard About 5% of the time.
Gerrit Any other thoughts?
Richard No, I loved it. It was great. I did feel, I commented about how much Parker loved conference for the first time because he actually paid attention to it. I will say that I don't know since my mission that there was a conference where I felt both as, I felt both the love of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and also a tremendous opportunity to improve. I don't know that I've had as dramatic of an experience watching conference as this last time. I enjoyed it very, very much. I was approving less so, but I need to be better.
Gerrit So it's the end of the day. Frankly, all of us do. I don't know any other way to go through life, but to stumble around and keep trying till you get it right. So, I mean, that's some of the, the idea of the theme of peacemaking, if we were to go back to that for a second. One of the things that was really interesting to me, now maybe my feed is just not a very good healthy feed social media wise, but I was frankly stunned by the number of people who took one of these many talks about how we need to be peacemakers, immediately got online and then started attacking a particular group or person or people saying that they are the real problem, and you can't have peacemaking when there's these kinds of people around.
Gerrit It was a staggering number.
Richard So I receive a lot of, I'm on a lot of, you know, the algorithm, I believe, knows that I'm Jewish. I'm pretty familiar with what you're talking about.
Gerrit Okay. But yeah, the algorithm could tell.
Richard Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're, there's a, there's a kind of a gif or a meme or whatever about to, hey, let's not point any fingers. You're a problem. You're a real problem. Right. Yeah.
Gerrit That's well, so, so I think that's going to be one of the hardest things for people to do who are really listening. Um, it's hard for me. How can you truly be a peacemaker in a world that you have news cycles and social media and reels deliberately designed to instigate anger as a means of driving content. You have podcasts. I mean, maybe not ours, hopefully not ours, that are deliberately instigating anger towards other people or other parties or other, whatever, as a means of driving content. It's a business plan.
Richard It is a plan. It's a, from now...
Gerrit Let's turn to our PhD business history, our business PhD over here, yeah.
Richard This is the Frosted Mini Wheats commercial. The Christian in me doesn't like it. The businessman in me sees that it can be a very effective model for driving numbers.
Gerrit The businessman in you is like, I see what you're doing here, Satan.
Richard Yeah, no, I mean, yeah. What you don't want is apathy. And so you wanna drive those numbers, and how do you drive those numbers by getting people worked up?
Gerrit Yeah, and look, I'm not saying that there are not things in politics that are not important. Of course. Obviously, they are. The church weighs in on political things at times that they believe are very important. But I do think everybody has to, you gotta check yourself a little bit. You've got to remember what the purpose of this life is that everybody, even that person who totally opposes you, who totally has everything wrong, even this podcast, right? Every whatever it is, that they are a son or daughter of God. And at some point after this life, everyone will know that Jesus is the Christ, and every knee will bow and every tongue confess. And frankly, you know, they are kept from the truth for they know not where to find it. Most of what you see in the world, all of the hatred, most of the unkindness and the unfeeling comes because people don't have Jesus as the center of their life.
Gerrit And many of them are kept from the truth because they know not where to find it. It's an easy thing to to say, Oh, look at this person and look how bad they are. Well, that person doesn't know that they're a son or daughter of God. That person doesn't know that there's a plan for this life. That person doesn't know that Jesus died for them. I'm not trying to excuse horrible and bad behavior, except my own, obviously. What I am saying is there's a reason why our Lord said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. If everyone had the same knowledge that you have about who you are, where you're going to be, what the purpose of this life is, well, they probably wouldn't hold some of the positions they do that bother you so much. It is our duty as disciples of the Master to try to demonstrate that we are followers of Jesus, not just even when people are mean to us, but especially because people are mean to us.
Gerrit The true test of discipleship is not whether or not you can be kind when other people are being kind to you. Anyone can do that. The true test of discipleship is can you be kind? Can you be measured even when the other person is not being kind, is not being measured, is not representing you fairly, is not treating you with the dignity that you deserve? Because that was the lot of our Lord. Jesus was rarely treated with the respect, in fact, almost never the respect he actually deserves, and was very often treated in a terrible way by people who thought they knew better than he did. And so he reaches out to us and says, treat other people the way I would treat them, if I was there.
Gerrit And I know that's really hard. I'm not, you know, the only begotten. So I have many errors and sins, and I don't have a perfect track record. But it is something I think about a lot. I think about Joseph Smith teaching about that a lot. That how you can tell how close you've gotten to your Savior is by how you treat other people. How willing are you to pick up someone, cast their sins behind their backs, behind your back, and help them move forward? We should not despise a man on account of his iniquity. Of his infirmity, sorry, is what he said. We should not despise a man on account of his infirmity. We should love a man more because he's infirm. Man.
Gerrit Part of the reason why the podcast works, and if you're thinking, well, actually, it doesn't. Welcome to literally everyone else who's listening, but part of the reason why it seems like it works, and if it works for you, it's not because we're brilliant or profound. Now, look, Richard has a PhD. Those don't just drop off of trees, okay? He is a brilliant person, condescending to be on this podcast with his friend. It's not because we have brilliant things to say. It's primarily because we're just quoting prophets. You quote Joseph Smith enough times, people are gonna think you know something. Yeah, because Joseph talked to Jesus. He's like, my goodness, that's so profound. I know, it's almost like he's a prophet. Actually, not even almost like, he was.
Gerrit And that's why the podcast works. And so, the takeaways are, go through all those conference messages, ones that you feel like could make you a better person and bring you closer to Jesus. Try to find some small way to implement them in your life. And regardless of where you're at, try to find a way to build bridges of love and understanding to people who you otherwise might not, because that's what our Lord wants you to do. And his servants, many of them over the past weekend, repeatedly said, reach out, build bridges, treat each other with love. And so, it's kind of hard to find a reason to justify why we wouldn't. Well, I know Jesus can forgive the people crucifying him, but you don't understand what so-and-so did.
Gerrit I mean, when you put it in light like that, it again is a rebuke to myself. So I think we might be out of time. We might start a new segment, actually, of the podcast. I'm just telling Richard this now. This is why we have a pre-show. The new segment we're going to start is in honor of Richard's grandfather. And we're going to call it jingling keys.
Richard Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah.
Gerrit So it's going to be, what's going to happen is when I've gone on too long, you're going to need to get a way bigger set of keys. Like I need to have a janitor from a junior high built in the 40s.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit That's the kind of key ring we need to have. Where it's just...
Richard In the 1800s in England, yeah.
Gerrit And where I'm going too long about something, you know, we interrupt this segment by the jingling keys. And we'll just, I'll just hear you in the background, just jingling them. And that's you saying, Hey, Gerrit, what if we read the second verse of that, of that section?
Richard That's very funny.
Gerrit Instead of only the first.
Richard That's funny.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Richard Wallace LeDuc would be very proud by that. You know what?
Gerrit We're honoring him. We have to honor him just to honor all the way back to the one acre.
Richard It's very good. We can get back to the one acre. Very well said, Gerrit.
Gerrit Well, thank you so much of those of you who listen. Thank you for putting up with our idiosyncrasies, our faults and our shortcomings. I pray that the things that we talk about can help bring people closer to Jesus. And so if there are times when you're like, you know what, I don't think that they do a good job, you're probably right. I am someone who fails just as much as everybody else does and probably more. But the intent is to try to bring people closer to the gospel and to help people feel the Holy Spirit, and to testify that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that this restoration comes from God, that Jesus Christ died for us and was resurrected, and this is God's kingdom on earth. Now, that's the intent. Maybe I fail along the way with the intent, but hopefully you will always choose to follow prophetic counsel, always.
Gerrit There's one thing, if you stop listening to the podcast today, the one thing you take away is we follow prophets. And I hope that that's the case. So thanks so much for joining us. Next week, we've got, you know, should I, should I tell you what we're gonna, we may talk about next week?
Richard Oh yes, what?
Gerrit We may talk about Galatians next week.
Richard Oh, what a tease.
Gerrit Yeah, yep, yep. And not just Galatians, you know, me though, me or an angel from heaven.
Richard Oh, okay, very good.
Gerrit Yeah, that's in everybody's feed. Thanks so much for joining us.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard LeDuc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.

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Yeah, I mean, it rains, it rains like 368 of the 365 days of the year.

GerritBanter

I told him, I did not have 28 people in sacrament meeting my entire mission, total.

GerritBanter

It's almost like we're Christians.

GerritBanter

It's just that my opinions, hopefully, hopefully my opinions end where prophetic utterance begins.

GerritInsight

So that you have people that you treat well because they're your friends is not necessarily a demonstration of discipleship.

GerritInsight

I'm a work in progress.

GerritInsight

You don't want to pick your favorites, and your favorites being the things that I don't have to change.

GerritInsight

I've been fighting not murdering everybody. And here I am, not even. And no one ever threw a party for me.

GerritBanter

The true test of discipleship is not whether or not you can be kind when other people are being kind to you. Anyone can do that.

GerritInsight

There's one thing, if you stop listening to the podcast today, the one thing you take away is we follow prophets.

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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
A little casual gambling is harmless if it isn't a problem for me.
The podcast's sports picks and jokes mean the hosts gamble.
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

After Jesus Christ, love was the most-mentioned word in the October 2026 conference. Loving your friends isn't discipleship; loving everyone is.

Don't only share the talks that ask nothing of you. Look for the one that calls for a change.

President Christofferson's counsel on gambling includes even casual betting, because others are watching your example.

The true test of discipleship is being kind when others aren't, remembering that many don't yet know they're children of God.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
The Emerald IsleNot South Bend; Richard came back from Ireland "very bronze" (0:46, 1:01, 2:07).
Oliver CromwellSeven tours, seven curses, like Augustus crying for his legions (3:55, 4:31).
Kai's porch sacrament meeting28 friends in a village with no members, still learning Tagalog (5:59, 6:34).
Fun with NumbersBanned but sneaked in: the most-quoted leaders and word counts from conference (10:30, 17:08).
Fantasy footballUnofficial stats and Andrew's screenshots asking what to do (15:42, 16:00).
President Hinckley's 2005 addressThe montage of every time they cited it, now retired for President Christofferson's (33:43, 37:25).
Sacrament meeting in a barGerrit's Wisconsin branch met in the only building in Adams-Friendship, with quilts over the signs (28:41).
What is wrong with you?Gerrit feels personally quoted in the peacemakers talk (22:59, 23:44).
Jingling keysA new segment in honor of Richard's grandfather, with a janitor-sized key ring (1:06:40, 1:07:24).
Angry emailsListeners already assign Gerrit to the telestial kingdom or outer darkness (54:20, 55:34).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

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

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Read the October 2026 talks you skipped, especially the ones that ask you to change (53:16).
The 1840s visitor accounts of Joseph Smith and how they describe the Saints' love (18:04).
Prediction markets and why President Christofferson addressed them by name (38:32).
Joseph Smith's teachings on treating others with mercy, like not despising a man for his infirmity (1:03:31).
SOT Litner · S6E40.