Introduction and Gender Split in Conference

Guest [00:00:00] Foreign.

John Dehlin [00:00:05] And welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host for today, John Dehlin. It's April 8, 2024, and today we are fortunate to have in the house Nemo the Mormon. He spent the entire weekend last weekend, yesterday and the day before, covering the April 2024 LDS General Conference. And that's what we're going to be covering today. I kind of like to joke that Nemo watches General Conference so that you don't have to. Now, of course, some of you will want to or have. But Nemo, you did that heroic work. How are you doing? How you feeling?

Nemo [00:00:43] Tired. Very tired, but otherwise very happy to be here and feeling well informed for the topic at hand.

John Dehlin [00:00:52] Why are you so tired?

Nemo [00:00:53] Well, so I stayed up and watched all the sessions of conference. And by stayed up, I mean I stayed up till about four in the morning to watch the Saturday evening session and then react to it. So I got to sleep about four or so on Sunday morning and then stayed up till about midnight my time on the Sunday. And then so I'm still just trying to catch sleep back up.

John Dehlin [00:01:14] Okay, well, we appreciate you doing it and I think we've got a lot of interesting things to cover.

Nemo [00:01:20] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:01:21] Um, let's start if it's all right. Let's start with the gender split. I know that a lot of times, you know, people like to just talk about how, how prevalent female speakers were versus male. So why don't you start there?

Nemo [00:01:39] Yeah. So this, this is a slide taken from my prediction for what who would speak a conference. And I managed to predict it with 100% accuracy. So go me. Rocks in hats really do work. Ladies and gents, now, 29 men spoke, three women spoke, which means that 9.38 of the speakers were women. And the record for the most women to speak in a single like weekend of conference is four. So they were close, but, you know,

John Dehlin [00:02:07] so 90, 90 men. Basically 91 men, 9% women.

Guest 2 [00:02:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:13] Okay, well, that's, that's pretty much on brand, on par. I guess some people were. And we're going to talk about this in a second. I guess some people were wondering whether the female representation would increase, especially after sort of that debacle with, you know,

Nemo [00:02:31] the church with Jane Dennis and her quote on Instagram.

John Dehlin [00:02:33] Yeah. That they empower women more than any other church, but not in terms of representation of speakers. Clearly.

Nemo [00:02:41] But Jaynette Dennis did speak. Yeah, yeah, speak in the opening session, which is pretty wild.

John Dehlin [00:02:47] Yeah, yeah, I'm guessing. We'll cover that.

Nemo [00:02:49] We'll cover that so, so I've put a slide in for each session which is the next slide, which is who spoke in that session. And I've highlighted the ones that we're going to be kind of looking at particularly so in this session we got the sustaining and the auditing, which is normally on the Saturday afternoon sessions. That's a bit weird. Still not 100% sure why they did that. But then Jaynette Dennis spoke in that session, which we're going to talk about. And then Jack N. Gerard is going to speak as well. And Henry Bearing, those are the ones we're going to, going to kind of touch on.

John Dehlin [00:03:22] I'll just, I'll just add one, one note that name Gifford Nielsen may not mean a lot to you, but as a young kid growing up in Houston, Texas, Gifford Nielsen was a quarterback for the Houston Oilers, the American football team. And he was an area authority in Houston I think before I, I don't know if he's a general authority now, but that, you know, he was referred to as the Gif or.

Nemo [00:03:45] Okay, he was a quarterback.

John Dehlin [00:03:47] Yeah, kind of like not, not Steve, not Steve, not Steve Young level, but he was a, Yeah, a well known quarterback for the NFL in I don't know, the late 70s or early 80s.

Nemo [00:04:01] Who's Steve Young?

John Dehlin [00:04:04] That's awesome. Okay, so that's, so that's who we've got speaking.

Nemo [00:04:11] We're gonna look a little bit at the, the fact that the, well, Daniel Hose is going to tell us that they had some assistance with the conducting of the meetings.

Leadership Age, Demographics, and Church Statistics

John Dehlin [00:04:21] Okay, so this is, we're going to start addressing the age issue now. Do you want to talk about the, the article that came out? Wasn't there an article or a statement from Nelson? Like.

Nemo [00:04:30] Yeah, so Nelson put an Instagram post out saying that I'm 100. Didn't you know? And everyone's like, yeah, no, you talk about it all the time. And then he was saying that. So don't be surprised if you see some of us needing a bit of help to get on and off the stand and if some of us pre record our messages. So at that point we knew that Nelson was going to pre record his message. But as we'll see, Eyring also pre recorded his. But that post caused me to reflect and think that the combined age of the First Presidency is 280. So you've got 91 year old Oaks, 90 year old Eyring and 99 year old Nelson.

John Dehlin [00:05:08] Yeah, like my, my parents are in their late 80s and I just, I'm just Lucky they're alive. But the idea that they would be managing a quarter of a trillion dollar global organization just kind of blows me away. Yeah, I think, I think most of them are healthier than my parents. So I guess being a Mormon apostle is really, really good for your health. Like even uchtdorf's in his 90s, right?

Nemo [00:05:34] Well, because it's a low stress life.

John Dehlin [00:05:35] Everyone talks about 80s or 90s.

Nemo [00:05:37] He's in his 80s.

John Dehlin [00:05:38] Okay. He's in his 80s.

Guest 2 [00:05:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:05:39] And my parents are in their 80s and they're not doing nearly as well as Ukdorf. No offense to my parents, you know what I mean?

Nemo [00:05:44] But Ugdorf's got that young European blood. He likes to go out and cycle with his wife and stuff like that. You know, he's, he's an ageless man in many ways. And we'll, we'll continue to praise Ukdorf as we go on, but I think it's actually quite a low stress life. They leaked some of Iring's calendar a number of years ago, or I think it was Irene's calendar. And we saw how unbusy they actually are. Bednar did A Day in the Life and actually what they do is they turn up a church office building, they go sit in a bunch of meetings and then they leave again and that's, that's it.

Nemo [00:06:15] And then they travel and they travel in reasonable comfort and you know, so it's not that they're not busy, but every measure is taken, every tithing dollar is spent that can be possibly spent to make sure that their life is as unstressful as possible.

John Dehlin [00:06:27] Yeah. I'll also add that like social connections and even social status tend to be really good for, for health and for aging. So if you're part of a community, if you have meaning, if you have purpose, and if you're universally adored and honestly, everyone stands up when you walk in the room, that's all going to be good. Good for your health, I think.

Nemo [00:06:49] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:06:50] Good for them. Okay. So they tried hard to manage our expectations, to expect that the leaders have gotten quite old. Should we play this clip of Oaks? Okay, let's play this clip.

Guest 2 [00:07:03] During the conference, you will note that members of the Quorum of the twelve Apostles have been invited to conduct three of the five sessions. We are grateful for their assistance.

John Dehlin [00:07:17] Now, for those who have never been Mormon, why is that significant anymore?

Nemo [00:07:20] I can't recall and I couldn't find an example of the last time that's happened. I think late 90s when there was some Serious sort of ill health amongst the First Presidency. Some members of the Quorum of the twelve stepped up and conduct sessions of conference, but by and large, the First Presidency are the ones that conduct the sessions of conference. And so it is strange, it's very strange for members of the quorum 12 to do it, but Cook, Rasband and Stevenson took sessions this time.

John Dehlin [00:07:49] Okay, and let's just go ahead and show one of the real most important sort of photos that comes out of General Conference. Why don't you describe to our audio only listeners.

Nemo [00:08:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:01] What this photo is showing.

Nemo [00:08:03] So what we've got here is the usual sort of procession of the First Presidency and the apostles by seniority, coming along from their side of the pulpit to the other side, passing the more junior members of the apostleship shaking hands. They normally do that, but this time they're being wheeled along by men with church security pins, by the looks of it, and shaking hands as they're wheeled along in wheelchairs. And that is Nelson, Eyring and Holland that are in wheelchairs.

John Dehlin [00:08:32] So. Yeah, and that's. Isn't that the first time we've seen maybe Holland in a wheelchair General Conference, or at least that's.

Nemo [00:08:39] Yeah, I think he stood to give his address, but he put out some statements saying that I decided to use the chair because I didn't. I wanted to make sure I got off okay.

John Dehlin [00:08:49] Yeah. I mean, as someone who's been watching General Conference my whole Life, and I'm 54, like, that is a stark kind of visual, just to see three of them in. In wheelchairs. Why don't you go ahead and talk about this next photo that I found kind of moving and describe what, what we're seeing here for the listeners.

Nemo [00:09:09] Oh, it's just Oakdorf providing good pr. Once again, he's giving Holland a kiss on the head. And you can tell it's a genuine affectionate moment. As Holland's being wheeled out, he stopped and saying hi to his friend. And, you know, he's got that sort of nature where he's probably a bit more physical in his affection with people. He'll give people hugs and, and stuff like that.

John Dehlin [00:09:29] So you say pr. I mean, how do we know whether that's just genuine affection? Like.

Nemo [00:09:34] Well, no, but that's the point I'm making is Oakdorf's just being himself and that's providing good pr because people look at this picture and go, look, see, it's, it's lovely.

John Dehlin [00:09:42] And so you're, you're saying, oh, that's genuine for.

Nemo [00:09:45] Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, these people form a bubble. Right. These are the people that see each other the most. And I'm sure there is genuine brotherhood and affection between them because they spend so much time together and they exist within this sort of sanctified space that only those 15 men inhabit.

John Dehlin [00:10:01] And I'm trying to remember, is this the first conference since Elder Holland's wife passed away, or was that. Or was that covered? Last conference.

Nemo [00:10:09] This is the first time he's spoken since she passed away.

John Dehlin [00:10:12] Okay. And. And is this the first time he. We've had a conference since he was. Yeah, since he was made President of the quorum of the 12 or Acting President of the quorum of the 12? Because M. Russell Ballard passed away.

Nemo [00:10:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:26] Between. Last conference in this one.

Nemo [00:10:28] Is that right around November time?

Guest 2 [00:10:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:30] And he was the most senior apostle who wasn't in the First Presidency. Ballard was. And now Holland is acting President of quorum of the 12. Okay, awesome. All right. So those are. Those are pretty important things covered in the press. The next thing you wanted to talk about was the new presidency of the 70s.

New Presidency of the Seventies and Diversity

Nemo [00:10:49] Yeah. We got a new presidency of the 70, which was pretty wild. Obviously, they lost Patrick Kieran from the presidency of 70. He became an apostle. Marcus B. Nash was put in place very quickly. However, they then released two people from the presidency, drawing a blank on the names, but the third one, they were made emeritus. But the third one was just released. Carlos A. Godoy was just released from the presidency of 17. No one knows why. He's not been made emeritus. He's still a 70. He's been released from the presidency. And in his place has come in Michael T. Ringwood, Anulo Valenzuela, and Elder Edward Dube, which Elder Dube is particularly significant. If you go to the next slide.

John Dehlin [00:11:28] Okay, next slide.

Nemo [00:11:30] He is from Zimbabwe. He is the first African member of the Presidency of the Seventy.

John Dehlin [00:11:36] Okay. Yeah. So, like, it's the first presidency, then the quorum of the 12, then the presidency of the 70, and then the first quorum of the 70, second of the 70, and several others.

Guest 2 [00:11:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:48] So, yeah, that's kind of. That's an. That's an African.

Nemo [00:11:52] Not even African American, just straight up from Zimbabwe.

John Dehlin [00:11:55] Straight up African chap.

Nemo [00:11:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:57] And he's in the presidency of the 70. And you mentioned that in the next slide. Yeah, yeah.

Nemo [00:12:04] Six of the last eight apostles have come from the presidency of the 70. So statistically speaking, and looking at the way things are going, he's likely to become an apostle, particularly because if you go to the next Slide.

John Dehlin [00:12:16] All right.

Nemo [00:12:17] He has. He has nine years left of being a 70. Now if you try and tell me that in the next nine years one of those gents we saw in a wheelchair just a moment ago isn't going to pass away, I'd tell you. You. You're being silly.

John Dehlin [00:12:29] Really.

Nemo [00:12:30] There's almost a guaranteed chance. Well, Nelson's not gonna live another nine years. That would make him 108. And that would be ridiculous. So if he, you know, if he passes away, then Oaks becomes president, at which point an opening becomes available in the quorum of the 12. And I would not be surprised if Edward Dube is the man that they put in that position.

John Dehlin [00:12:53] Interesting. That's cool. Well, I'm curious whether he'll be preferable to, like, Ahmad Corbett.

Nemo [00:13:01] Oh, yes, I would assume so.

John Dehlin [00:13:03] You would think so.

Nemo [00:13:04] Yeah. I don't know much about his talks or the things he said, but he strikes me as a sort of simple faith kind of guy where it's all just like, nicey nicely. Jesus makes everything good. Which is pretty harmless. Whereas Corbett's like, you speak up against the church, you're going down.

clip [00:13:19] Yeah.

Nemo [00:13:20] And if your children need support, don't support your children of the church. Don't be stupid.

John Dehlin [00:13:24] Yeah. So, and, and as the, you know, we all know that the Mormon Church is shrinking in Western Europe, in the United States, in Canada. I mean, maybe birth rates, a higher than average birth rate slightly keeps the church from. From shrinking. But generally speaking, the church is definitely losing more people than it's gaining in places like United States, Canada, Western Europe, developed Asia, possibly Latin America. And so where it's growing by leaps and bounds in terms of more active members than people disaffecting or leaving or dying is in Africa, and specifically in sub Saharan Africa. So it's kind of crucial that they get into the top leadership, at least one or two Africans, because that's the whole future of the church's growth. Am I wrong?

Nemo [00:14:21] Yeah, but. And that's what's really sad is that it's not because they're trying to put. Or it may be, but it doesn't seem like the key thing behind it is that they're trying to put 1978 behind them and they're apologizing for that. They're not doing that. They're not trying to say, you know, look, here's how unracist we are. We have a black man. It's, it's.

Nemo [00:14:41] We are growing and getting income from an entire continent that is untapped previously. And so People will want to see someone that looks like them in leadership. So the calculated move is to put someone who looks like them in leadership. And that's kind of sad, because if you take that cynical view, that's far less wholesome than the idea that to prove that racism is truly behind us and the priesthood ban is truly behind us, we're putting a black man in. In leadership. It feels kind of like what they did with Suarez when they're trying to keep hold. They did it with him a bit late.

Nemo [00:15:13] They're trying to keep hold of the Latin Americans, and the Latin American Church is getting started to shift now into sort of decline. They brought him in too late, but he was obviously a Latin American apostle.

John Dehlin [00:15:25] I mean, it's possible that they brought him in. We don't know their motives for sure. Of course, possible they brought him in just because it's like, well, we're really growing in Africa. Let's get an African leader in here. But you're saying the fact that there's been no apology for the priesthood ban on black people is a problem that you would like to see an apology for the church's racist past precede the promotion of. Of people of color into leadership?

Nemo [00:15:53] Because that's what makes it not look like tokenism. Right? Is if you have a genuine apology for the way things were, and as part of moving things forward, you say, look, we are open to a black man being an apostle, and here's proof. Because, you know, he's the one that God picked instead. Radio silence on that. Oh, we don't know why God was so racist is what down there joke said to a room full of African American members of church and black members of the church. He was like, oh, we don't know why God did it. Sorry, but it's not our fault. Then doing something like this could seem more tokenistic. But like you said, we can never know their motives for sure.

John Dehlin [00:16:27] Got it. Okay, let's go ahead and jump to the statistics. I'll just read these. It looks like 3565 stakes. That's like a diocese for those who know about catholicism. That's like four. That's like eight to 10 units or branches or wards. Is that right?

Guest 1 [00:16:47] In.

John Dehlin [00:16:48] In a stake sort of thing. 414 missions, 489 districts. 30. 31,490 wards or branches. There's a big number. 17,255,300. 394 total members. So think of the Mormon church as having 17.3 me million members. Now 93.5 thousand new children of record and 252,000 convert baptisms during 2020. Three full time missionaries, 67,871 with 27,800 senior service missionaries and 3,800 young service missionaries. 186 temples in operation, 5,500 construction and 94 announced. Now I. I'm pulling from the LDS Growth Blog to do some analysis. Before I do Nemo, do you want to share any of your quick reactions to those numbers?

Nemo [00:17:49] There was just that bit at the bottom of that slide there from, from a Redditor who put this on Mormon shrivel. Yeah, well, it just points out that the church membership, the overall church membership number, and that includes people who just haven't taken the names off the rolls but do not consider themselves members and don't go, etc. So it's not the most accurate number.

Nemo [00:18:09] That is just under 1.5% gross growth. However, growth in the number of wards and branches is a more accurate measurement of the trends. And that growth was 160 wards and branches from 31,000 to 330 to 31,490, resulting in 0.5% growth for the year, which is much lower than the 1.5 that the membership number would have you think. And it's also worth pointing out that they just changed the, the numbers that you need in order to create a unit and those numbers have come down. Meaning that it's now easier to create wards and branches. It's easier to create stakes. They require less members.

John Dehlin [00:18:47] And can you translate 0.5 for the rest of us, please? 0.4Americans, Nemo, we don't know what 0.5.

Nemo [00:18:58] Is that correct?

John Dehlin [00:19:00] I'm just. I got to have some humor in here, Nem. Okay. No, but in case people missed it, if you, if you judge by wards and branches growth or unit growth, it's 0.5% growth. Is that what you're saying? I just want to make sure people don't miss that.

Nemo [00:19:17] Yes. Okay, now let's see what the. I believe this site that you're pulling from, is it a faithful site?

LDS Membership Growth and Trends

John Dehlin [00:19:23] Yeah, yeah, it's a faithful. So I think it's called LDS growth.blogspot.com or something like that.

Nemo [00:19:30] See what they're saying?

John Dehlin [00:19:31] Yeah. Yeah. So. So just to kind of give you guys a little more statistical analysis, basically it's saying that the membership increased by 1.5%, that the congregations, like you said, increased by 0.5%. Showing that it's. It continues to be an overinflated number stakes by 1.25%. But as you said, Nemo, didn't they lower the bar or what, what the minimum requirements are to, to create a stake?

Nemo [00:20:04] And I wouldn't be surprised if so what they did, interestingly, so they closed the Litchfield stake, which you think would put them down a stake, but then technically they created the new Birmingham stake out of Birmingham and Litchfield stake. So are they going to count that as creating a stake? Similarly, reading steak, which was my steak, became Thames Valley steak. Is that now a new stake? Even though that was formed with the dissolution of Watford Steak. So I, I don't quite know how they're counting those things is what I would say.

John Dehlin [00:20:32] Okay, so convert baptisms, that seems significant. It's claiming a 19 increase in convert baptisms. That seems kind of high, like almost 20% increase from 2022. It's saying a 5% increase in children of record. That's a pretty significant increase as well of new babies. And then a 9% increase in full time missionaries, which again seems very significant.

Nemo [00:21:07] That is less significant, I'd say.

John Dehlin [00:21:09] Why would you say that?

Nemo [00:21:10] Because what we're seeing and the reason they're creating all these new missions and stuff is that we're seeing just like with the age going down, we're going to see a big influx because lots of people didn't go on their missions because of COVID And so in These years, in 2023 and 2022, in those years following Covid, once travel restrictions completely eased and people felt comfortable to go on their missions and people that didn't go on a mission instead did something else. And now getting out of that something else, they did whatever it was and getting ready to go on a mission, you will see an increase. You won't just get the normal cohort for that year, the people that turned 18, 19 that year, you'll also get the 2021 year olds who didn't go during COVID And you think there was

John Dehlin [00:21:50] a significant number of people that didn't?

Nemo [00:21:52] Yeah, well. Well, during 2020 and 2021, people couldn't go like weren't going.

Guest 2 [00:22:00] Got it.

John Dehlin [00:22:00] Okay. I guess we'll see next year whether that, whether that number decreases. Right?

Nemo [00:22:05] Yeah. So I think over the next couple years we'll see it then plateau down and steady off.

John Dehlin [00:22:08] Okay. And then I think this is a significant number just that young service missionaries grew by 42%. A lot of liberals and progressives want the church to offer service missions more readily, especially for those who can't really bolster the Mormon Church's truth claims. So that's a pretty significant. And. And a lot of progressives think it's a lot better contribution to humanity to, to provide service than to convert them in sort of a colonialistic way to our faith.

Nemo [00:22:39] Right, yeah, yeah, I'd agree. And I'd say that would be one of the greatest uses of the church's missionary force and one of the things that would give people the best view of the church would be, oh yeah, I know the Mormons. They have the young people who go around helping X, Y and Zed, not oh, I know the Mormons. Yeah, they're the ones that have the young people that come and knock on my door early on a Sunday morning when I'm trying to sleep. Yeah, PR wise, it's much better to be seen to have a force for good out in the world.

John Dehlin [00:23:01] Yeah, makes sense. Really quickly. This is from matt@ldsgrowth.blogspot.com he writes annual membership increased by the highest rate since the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic at 1.5%. Moreover, the annual rate of membership growth was also greater than for each of the two years prior. 1.48 and 1.21. The summation of new children of record and converts baptized in 2023 was 345,357, the highest number since 2016. The difference between the summation of new children of record and converts baptized and the actual increase in church membership for 2023 was 92,424, the lowest number since 2019. Thus, the number of members removed from church records due to death, resignation and excommunication or children not being baptized by age 9 was less than for each of the last several years.

John Dehlin [00:23:58] And this number ranked near all time lows with the past decade. I think some people are going to kind of claire declare that the church is kind of is revving up again, that that it's weathered the storms of COVID of disaffection and that it's like, you know, happy times are here again. You know, that these stats show the churches on the rebound.

Nemo [00:24:23] Well, all I can say to that, I guess is 2023 wasn't a bad year for church. PR20 well, beginning half the latter half and then into 2024 felt pretty bad and it seems to be getting worse. But you know, I have a bias. I tend to see the negative generally, so I'm not ashamed to, you know, own that bias. And the thing I would just say is it's just one year right so we'll see what happens next year. And it's good to keep an eye on trends within the next three or four years. It'll be easier to see because the kind of disruption of COVID will have eased its effect on these sorts of things, I'd imagine.

John Dehlin [00:25:03] Yeah. Okay. Well, let's go ahead and just talk about, you know, some of the sessions. The first one you have mentioned here is Jeffrey R. Holland. What'd you want to mention about him?

Holland, Garments Talk, and Saturday Morning Speakers

Nemo [00:25:13] Yeah, you wanted to have a chat about Holland. It was interesting. He got up and spoke about. He started his talk by saying that I'm stood on a trap door and it has a delicate latch and I'll be off again and I won't be allowed to come to any more conference sessions if I give a bad talk. Because he was joking that he got banned from giving conference addresses. Then he talked about his referring.

John Dehlin [00:25:34] I. I wondered whether he was referring to that bad talk. Well, obviously the. The musket talk that he gave at byu. I thought that was interesting for him to make a reference to him giving a bad talk.

Nemo [00:25:45] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:25:46] You think he was making a slight reference to that or not?

Nemo [00:25:49] I don't know how self aware he is. I don't. That wasn't he in trying to speak

John Dehlin [00:25:54] at Southern Utah University. And then he was. Then he was sort of. There was pressure to have him be uninvited and then they claimed he was sick and he probably was sick. That seemed like really fortunate timing when half of Utah was objecting to him speaking because of that awful talk he gave at byu. The musket talk. Right.

Nemo [00:26:16] Yeah. So I think maybe he was just more broadly making a tongue in cheek reference to the fact that he's not been the most popular speaker in recent years.

John Dehlin [00:26:23] Yeah.

Nemo [00:26:23] But, you know, he talked a bit about his health struggles and kind of talked about, you know, my wife died and I survived, but people were both. We equally fervently praying for both of us. So what gives about that? And he kind of didn't really have an answer because they never have an answer for why God preserves some people and doesn't preserve others. I also just want to say a real quick who the avond to Trevan on in the chat? He was asking some questions in Dutch earlier and want to help him feel a little bit included.

John Dehlin [00:26:49] Nice carry on. Trevor's a mensch, so. Hey, Trevor, thanks for all you do. Okay. All right, so that's enough about Holland. And here we have Jay Dennis, who caused quite a ruckus over the past few Weeks. Yeah.

Nemo [00:27:04] The woman that no one thought would speak at this conference because she caused a absolute firestorm on Instagram when the church shared her quote that I think it's something like, there is no other organization that I know of. Yeah, yeah. There's no other religious organization in the world that I know of that has so broadly given power and authority to

John Dehlin [00:27:26] women and that now I'm guessing that they pick who's speaking months in advance. So it's, it's likely that she had been chosen months, months and months ago.

Guest 2 [00:27:36] Right.

John Dehlin [00:27:37] Okay. But yeah, that we covered a couple episodes showing how problematic that quote was. On the next slide. Would you want to say there this is just.

Nemo [00:27:47] The church responded to the several thousand comments from people saying that. Oh, we've acknowledged the numerous comments. Thank you for taking your time to share your thoughts. Your comments will be shared with church leaders who followed these issues and then all of a sudden the comments went missing.

clip [00:28:07] Yeah.

Nemo [00:28:08] And I said, before you delete this comment, please add it to my strength in Church members committee file. Then they were like, oh no, we're not deleting them. It's a platform wide issue. And then the New York Times came out and went, we spoke to Meta and they say no. But then everyone's arguing over whether it's Meta covering or church covering. And no one really knows to this day what happened.

John Dehlin [00:28:27] Yeah. So, yeah, it was kind of interesting that you spoke. Right.

Nemo [00:28:32] But, yeah, but not content to just annoy women when it comes to their empowerment and their access to the priest and all that sort of stuff, she then decided in her talk that she would go on the offensive about garments, which is another thing that's been in the news recently. People like Kevin Pearson telling, saying that he's disappointed with the casual way which people approach the wearing of their garments. And Jet Dennis decided to weigh in. And we've got the video.

John Dehlin [00:28:58] All right, let's roll it.

Guest [00:29:01] As part of the temple endowment, we we are authorized to wear the garment of the holy priesthood. It is both a sacred obligation and a sacred privilege. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, those of us who have chosen to make covenants with God in the house of the Lord, wear sacred ceremonial outer clothing during temple worship, symbolic of the clothing worn in ancient temple rituals. We also wear the garment of the Holy priesthood both during temple worship and in our everyday lives. As we put on the garment of the holy priesthood each day, that beautiful symbol becomes a part of us.

John Dehlin [00:29:48] Now, really quickly, for those of you who have never been Mormon, it's like 70% of my audience now on YouTube, Mormons wear garments or underwear. A top, like a T shirt kind of like top and kind of almost like biker shorts, bottoms. And they have sewn into them special markers. And you know, it's. It's been true for over a century that devout Mormons who have gone through the temple are supposed to wear these. Nemo. What. What for you makes that noteworthy or. Or controversial? You know, I'm just curious.

Nemo [00:30:21] Well, so the first thing I want to make really clear is that clip that you just saw, and this is the only time you'll see that. That during this session, this video that we're doing. But that was a combination of parts of her talk. So there are ellipses, essentially. If that were a quote. There's some bits where she talks about other religions have this, that the other. That I chopped out the middle just for the sake of time. But for full transparency, there is a couple of hard cuts in there, so make that clear. The reason is because it's come off the back of the Salt Lake Tribune have been reporting that garments have flared up as an issue.

Nemo [00:30:53] Fair. Fair. Latte Saints have just put out a post on Instagram about 18 hours ago talking about why you should be wearing your garments. Are they a big deal? Yes, they are. So it's one of those things that's in the zeitgeist currently at the moment is women in Utah are wandering around in yoga pants too much for the brethren's liking. So they want them to make sure that they're wearing their garments. Essentially. That's, I think, what it boils down to.

John Dehlin [00:31:15] Yeah. If I had to kind of do my analysis, it's basically that, well, number one is the Mormon Church appears over the past five years or so to becoming more and more liberal or more and more progressive socially in some select ways. So, for example, cannabis use. The church has not really taken any hard stance on cannabis use. You're not hearing about people who are, you know, their temple recommend is being withheld from them because they either use cannabis medically or recreationally. Whereas if you go 20, 30 years ago, I'm guessing that would have got you in a lot of big trouble. You hear about Mormons who are drinking coffee now and they're not being kept out of the temple, at least depending on who your bishop is.

John Dehlin [00:32:06] And a lot of younger Mormons have kind of stopped or slowed wearing their garments and. Or really slowed or stopped going to the temple. And so you can see. But you also see a lot of people leaving the Mormon Church. And so there's kind of this question of how loosey goosey is the Mormon Church going to kind of become in its enforcement of some of its most historically distinct rules or regulations or behavioral guidelines. And it sounds like they're clamping down on garments.

John Dehlin [00:32:40] And for me, what that's associated with is this idea of covenants. I think what I'm seeing in the past few years is this resurgence of this emphasis on the covenant path, the covenants you make in the temple, and not becoming a covenant breaker. And for me, we'll talk about this later in the episode too, but for me, what that means is basically you can't leave the church as an adult because you made covenants to pay 10% and to commit your life to the church for the rest of your life. And they want to equate the decision to leave the church as covenant breaking because that makes it more taboo, more of a stigma.

John Dehlin [00:33:20] And what are garments but a reminder of the temple covenants you're making or that you made? And so for me, that's why they're probably reemphasizing garments. What do you think, Nemo?

Nemo [00:33:31] I think that's right. I think the, the whole of this conference could be summed up in Temples and Covenants was the big theme. And I mean, the real cynical part of my brain goes, oh, isn't it interesting that they're really hammering home the two things that mean that you have to pay money to the church? They're not going to say, pay your tithing, pay your tithing, pay your tithing. But if they're saying, go to the temple, go to the temple, go to the temple. Well, the only way you can get there is by paying your tithing. So it's a way of kind of pushing people on, on those things.

Nemo [00:34:01] But yes, I think it's interesting to see how the church will become progressive over the years and the ways in which they already have. But it's clear that garments aren't one of them. Although I read somewhere and I can't remember where, but if someone knows in the comments, please tell me that the church has kind of teased a new style of garments is going to be coming out soon and that's meant to fix whatever the problem was.

Nemo [00:34:22] But I don't, I don't know if you can fix that. I don't, I don't know if you can fix garments and the legitimate concerns people have because there was a New York Times article with women talking about the medical. They've suffered because of having to wear garments that was very, you know, that was very high profile. So this isn't new, but it's certainly flared up recently and the church seems to want to take a stance on it.

John Dehlin [00:34:43] Here's a quick comment from Andrea and we do welcome any comments from our live chat. We appreciate that. Andrea writes, my brother smokes weed regularly and just can't have a calling in the bishopric. So no, you know, withholding of the sacrament, no discipline, no with, you know, any of that. It's just like you can't be in

Nemo [00:35:02] the bishopric, which wild.

John Dehlin [00:35:04] Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I'll also say Nemo and you tell me if you agree that you know what the church has done, it's done studies for how do they get the most members to stay active and to pay tithing and to give their lives to the church. And the way they do that is, is by getting them into the temple and on missions as young as possible, then temple married and then having kids as quickly as possible.

John Dehlin [00:35:29] And if we talk about high demand religions, you know, the bite model, the B stands for behavior. The temple in the Mormon Church is the way that behavior is forced. Because if your kids are getting married in the temple, for example, if your own daughter's getting married in the temple, well, if you're not paying 10% of your income as a father of the bride or as a mother of the bride, you are kept out of the temple.

John Dehlin [00:35:55] If you're, if, if you want to, you know, if, if Your son turns 12 or 14 or 16 and it's time for you to bless them with the priesthood, if you're a father not paying 10% of your income to, to the, to the church or obeying the commandments, you'll be embarrassed because someone else will have to bless your son to the priesthood. Or if either of your kids go on missions or get married and you're supposed to go through the temple with them in preparation for them going on their missions or getting. Again, if you're kept out of the temple because you're not paying tithing, because you're not living the commandments, then it's a huge shaming function for members.

John Dehlin [00:36:35] And so I think that's again why so many temples are being built. At the end of the day, it gets money for the church, but it's also a way for the church to force or compel obedience, you know, as a way to control behavior.

Nemo [00:36:50] Is that it's a rod to beat members with. Yeah, yeah. Which I think is we'll talk about the Scotland Temple way later, but that's what that's going to be. It's going to be just trying to give them a kick at the bum, as it were. Get them all back into doing what the church wants.

John Dehlin [00:37:04] Okay, so what. What. What's interesting about Jack Gerard?

Nemo [00:37:07] Jack and Gerard, without a hint of irony, gave a talk about integrity. And some of the things he says. You can't help but think, well, the church doesn't act this way or the church needs to listen to this lesson.

John Dehlin [00:37:19] All right, should we play some clips? Okay, let's play the first clip.

Guest 1 [00:37:23] Integrity means we do not lower our standards or behavior to impress or to be accepted by others. You do what is right and let the consequence follow. Recent revisions to the Preach My Gospel missionary manual notably added integrity as a Christlike attribute. A number of years ago, Elder Uchtdorf was assigned to reorganize our stake. During our interview, he asked me a question I have not forgotten. Has there been anything in your life that if brought to the attention of the public, would be an embarrassment to you or the church? Surprised, my mind quickly raced over my entire life, trying to recall those moments when I may have fallen short and asking myself, if others knew everything I had done, what would they think of me or the church? In the moment, I thought Elder Uchtdorf was only asking about worthiness, but I have come to understand it was really a question about integrity.

John Dehlin [00:38:41] Can I just say before you jump in, that I almost feel the ghost of Thomas S. Monson there. He's got that general authority voice. It's like we all know that when we live the gospel that we will prosper. When Elder Uchtdorf gave me a call.

Nemo [00:38:59] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:00] A trailing kind of guttural. We know the church is true. I. I just. Sorry, I just had to mention.

Nemo [00:39:11] That's fair.

Guest 1 [00:39:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:12] What were you gonna highlight about that?

Nemo [00:39:14] I was gonna hire a couple things. It's interesting how he said, you know, I immediately thought, if everyone knew what I'd done, what would they think of me? And that is the exact reasoning that the church has used to try and hide their money. If people knew, what would they think? Oh, they would stop. Therefore we're justified. But no, that's the extra step that you shouldn't take. You're not justified in doing a bad thing just because of what people might think of you. Do what is right, let the consequence follow. That's what he was saying. It's also interesting that when Uchdorf comes along to reorganize a stake he goes, right, so is there anything in your history that would embarrass you or the church? He's basically vetting him and finding out, is there anything that could potentially harm the church? Which I just thought was. That feels like sort of risk management type stuff.

John Dehlin [00:39:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're basically saying that they're telling us to do what it's right to have courage, to not be duplicitous, but they, they don't exhibit that behavior.

Nemo [00:40:08] No, not at all. You know, when he said integrity is changing your standards to be accepted by others, I think what was interesting, there's. There's a few things in the next couple of clips that seem to be kind of shots across the bow of the LGBTQ community and progressiveness and sort of when corporations try to be more progressive in their hiring practices, etc. Etc. There's a couple of shots across the bow to those.

Nemo [00:40:29] But when he talks about changing your standards, again, the church changed its behavior, they changed its accounting practices, they changed the standards by which they work. The standards of honesty they seem to be willing to live up to when they created 13 LLCs to hide their money from people because they wanted to be seen by the public in a certain way. So they behaved immorally because they wanted to be seen a certain way. So this is just pure hypocrisy from him.

John Dehlin [00:40:54] Really quickly, Jay Larsen is asking if I'm straw manning Monson. I don't think so. I was just sort of like imitating his voice. I don't know why.

Nemo [00:41:03] A straw man of Mont. Well, it would be more ad hominem if it were anything but. You weren't criticizing Monson directly. You weren't using his voice to criticize him. You were just speaks a certain way style.

John Dehlin [00:41:13] I was just noting a style. Jay Larsen.

Guest [00:41:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:15] Okay, let's play the next clip. Nemo.

Guest 1 [00:41:19] The world increasingly grapples with integrity by imposing codes of conduct or ethical rules that govern the relationships between people and institutions. While good, these rules are generally not anchored in absolute truth and tend to evolve based on cultural acceptance. Similar to the question posed by Elder Uchtdorf. Some organizations train employees to consider what their decisions are or decision making process would look like if published online or on the front page of a major newspaper.

Nemo [00:41:59] Now Peter Bleakley and I had a good laugh about that because we both held up our copies of the Financial Times, the front page of which has an article that says SEC finds Mormon church over effort to conceal part of a hundred billion dollar investment. So the church probably should have sort of thought about how its behavior would look on the front page of a newspaper, because it ended up on the front page of a newspaper and no one really liked it that much. Your thoughts, John?

John Dehlin [00:42:23] Yeah. And just whether it's like, how the church has handled child sexual abuse cases, whether how it's handled its finances, it's unwillingness, you know, the way that it. It's been caught deceiving people about church history. There are just infinite numbers of instances where the church just hasn't acted in the way that it's preaching that people should hear. It's. It's. It's kind of really tone deaf or cringy a little bit for me.

Nemo [00:42:55] Oh, no, absolutely. And then in here as well, he talked about. He talked about they change with acceptance of different views. And that was the very shot across the bow of sort of progressiveness and the LGBT community.

John Dehlin [00:43:06] But that's weird because, like, if you compare the way the church deals with LGBT people now versus 10, 20, 30 years ago, it's just so different. And what's changed, it's social outcry and protests and people leaving the church in masses. So it's almost like the church is saying lesser people and organizations respond to social pressure. But we, you know, but we have integrity, and we are guided by what the Lord says. But that's. I mean, that's clearly just the opposite is. Is true. Yeah.

Nemo [00:43:39] And then his final clip is. Well, before we. Before we play it, his final clip is what caused someone this weekend to resign their church membership because he.

John Dehlin [00:43:49] This clip we're about to play.

clip [00:43:50] Pardon?

John Dehlin [00:43:51] This clip we're about to play.

Nemo [00:43:52] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:43:52] Okay.

Nemo [00:43:53] Yeah. This caused someone to leave the church because they saw him essentially saying, oh, you're not actually Christlike. Kindness isn't important. Integrity is important. And what integrity looks like is doing as we want you to do. Stop being kind to people. Because that gets in the way of integrity. You'll see it.

John Dehlin [00:44:10] All right, let's play it.

Guest 1 [00:44:12] Saying we have integrity is insufficient if our actions are inconsistent with our words. Likewise, Christian kindness is not a substitute for integrity.

Nemo [00:44:28] Christian kindness is not a substitute for integrity.

Guest 2 [00:44:31] Yeah.

Nemo [00:44:35] How. How are they incompatible? That's what I don't understand by him saying that. And the other thing as well is where he says that saying we have integrity isn't enough if our actions don't follow. Again, the church is massively guilty of that. They say they have integrity, but their actions don't follow that. Their protection of child abusers, you know, they're offering hush money to People who have undergone abuse, their hiding of money that, you know, we can keep listing things. They say they have integrity, but their actions show differently. Go on, John.

John Dehlin [00:45:07] Yeah, and I'll just add one of my biggest. The things I note most are kind of Dallin H. Oaks statements around we don't seek nor offer apologies. And how the church just doesn't apologize for anything. Yet they teach their members that they need to follow the steps of repentance, which includes, you know, confessing your sins, forsaking your sins, apologizing, making restitution for your sins. And yet it's like the church, like, refuses to do that. And so that. That feels very. It doesn't feel like there's integrity there at all.

Nemo [00:45:44] And that will become very relevant at a talk slightly later on in this discussion where an apostle is going to encourage members to apologize. Again, without a hint of irony that the church has actively said they don't. But we'll. We'll get to that. This next slide is just. It's not a video. It's just a still showing that Eyring phoned in his talk. He gave it in front of the infamous red chair.

John Dehlin [00:46:09] Yeah.

Nemo [00:46:10] In location Unknown.

John Dehlin [00:46:11] Did he say anything that is memorable for you or.

Nemo [00:46:14] It felt like a bit of a goodbye talk. He kind of reminisced. He talked about the Teton Dam collapse. And then the other thing he said was, like, oh, well, it's okay because of the temple. It's okay if my kids die or whatever because of the temple. We'll all be together again. And it's kind of this. This Death March, as RFM's called it, where, like, every talk is just about, well, bad things keep happening, people keep dying or whatever, but it's all okay because heads, we win, tails you lose. If people survive, it's a miracle. If they don't, it's because it's what God wanted.

John Dehlin [00:46:45] Okay.

Nemo [00:46:45] There's nothing else to say, really.

Saturday Afternoon Session Highlights

John Dehlin [00:46:47] All right, well, this. That takes us to the Saturday afternoon session. What do you want to say about that?

Nemo [00:46:52] The only person really worth looking at is Cook. It gave us our first sister Praying Emily Bell Freeman. But Bednar, I can say a quick thing about Bednar was he talked about how the foundation isn't Christ. Christ is the rock. We are the house. The foundation, funnily enough, is the church and its covenants, and. And the keeping of our covenants, and that's what binds us to Christ. So it's just another example of an apostle putting the church between members and Christ is. It's almost impossible in the LDS Church to have a direct relationship with deity because every part of your relationship has to go through the church because they have made themselves essential to that relationship.

John Dehlin [00:47:30] Did Gong not say anything noteworthy that you can recall?

Nemo [00:47:34] Nothing particularly. He spoke about a sort of a Chinese proverb. He was very much on this theme of sometimes bad stuff happens, sometimes good stuff happens, it'll all be all right sort of thing. But he didn't take the stoic stance that this parable of the man who, you know, so man gets a horse. Oh, what good luck. Well, we'll see. The sun falls off and breaks his leg riding horse. Oh, no, what bad luck. Yeah, we'll see. Then the army comes through recruiting young men. Oh, your son didn't have to go because he was injured.

John Dehlin [00:48:05] Did he give this exact parable? Yeah, that comes from Buddhism. That's exactly like. No, I've used that. That story for years and years and years in my workshops and retreats. And Noah Rochetta sort of has popularized that within Mormonism through a secular Buddhism podcast. So it's super funny that Quentin Cook is almost Gong. Noah Rashetta.

Nemo [00:48:27] And it was Gong.

John Dehlin [00:48:29] Sorry, Gong. What did I say? Sorry. It's funny that Gong is sort of parroting secular Buddhism because that's a well known secular Buddhist kind of parable.

Nemo [00:48:39] Yeah. But without giving people the actual lesson of that parable, which is we should take a step back from trying to control life and the things around us and accept that things happen, good and bad and. And how we see them as good and bad is down to our perspective. That's at least my takeaway from that.

John Dehlin [00:48:53] Is he at least. Did he at least give credit to Buddha?

Nemo [00:48:56] No. Well, he just called it a Chinese proverb, I think.

John Dehlin [00:48:59] Huh. That's interesting. That's really interesting. He has a. He has. Yeah, he has an Asian background.

Nemo [00:49:07] So.

John Dehlin [00:49:08] Okay.

Nemo [00:49:08] Chinese.

Guest 2 [00:49:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:09] All right, well, so that. Okay. All right, let's go to Cook. So what does Cook have to tell us?

Nemo [00:49:21] What doesn't Cook have to tell us?

John Dehlin [00:49:22] Right.

Nemo [00:49:23] Do you want to play Cook's first video? I think that's show Cook's first one. So, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:49:28] Actually read this clip for. Read this.

Nemo [00:49:30] Yeah, yeah. So he said, the Lord's saving mercy is not dependent on lineage, education, economic status, or race. It doesn't say anything about sexual orientation in there, which is quite interesting. It's based on being one with Christ and his commandments.

John Dehlin [00:49:43] I mean, is that. Can someone read that as kind of an anti racist quote that he's basically

Nemo [00:49:47] saying, don't be a racist, meant to be inclusionary. Yeah, but the problem is that he's missed out the qualifying or the characteristics which do seem to have qualifying status. You know, that will stop you from qualifying, which is, you know, sexual orientation and, and whatnot. So yeah, race is now on the table as. Oh, that doesn't get in the way. But we still have that.

clip [00:50:10] Got it.

John Dehlin [00:50:11] All right, let's play a little clip from his talk.

Guest 2 [00:50:14] Efforts to diminish or deprecate others or create barriers to their success is contrary to the Lord's doctrine.

John Dehlin [00:50:25] What's wrong with that?

Nemo [00:50:26] Well, it's, it's one of those things where it's a, it's a great thing to say and if the church was living by that sentiment, then it would be wonderful. But the Church time and time again creates barriers to people's success within the paradigms that the Church calls success because they say, well, you have to do this, you have to do that, you have to be like this, you have to be like that. You can't be yourself, you must change. That is the barrier. So they're putting that in the way of people coming to, to Christ. Okay, and then the next one is, is a similar vein.

John Dehlin [00:50:56] Now normally the, the next. What do you mean the next one?

Nemo [00:51:00] Oh, I didn't put another. That's fine.

John Dehlin [00:51:04] Okay, so that's kind of the Saturday afternoon session. Now normally, historically, years ago, the Saturday evening session was a priesthood session with just men thanks to ordained women and all the noise that they made. Again with the church caving to social pressure, they, they realized how unfair that was that women didn't get their own session. And so I guess they've converted the Saturday evening session into a all genders welcome session.

Nemo [00:51:29] Yeah, it's slightly more complicated. There was some flip flopping. It took about a month from them getting rid of the fifth session entirely to them putting it back as a general session because they kind of put it in to say that they were going to stop it being an ironic priest or a priesthood session and they were going to alternate the priesthood session and the women's session and then they just got rid of it. And so that it wouldn't seem like they were just getting rid of the women's session. They then brought it back as a general session for everyone, which the overall result was that the women's session disappeared. Meaning that women's voices have drastically diminished since the.

John Dehlin [00:52:08] Then got it. Okay, well what, Anything interesting for the Saturday evening session?

Uchtdorf on Joy and Finding Happiness

Nemo [00:52:15] Shane Bowen and D F Uchtdorf mainly. I mean Sis Stephen R. Banger. That talk had me in stitches. I don't want to go too far into it now, but his dad sat him down and talked about. It's very important, the things you do in the private times of your life. And it had little factory vibes and he just kept using this phrase, the private times of your life. The private times of your life. And it just. I got the giggles. It was uncomfortable. It was like two in the morning. I was very tired. But that one's worth looking back on. And I kept obsessing over the fact that there's a highway in Utah called Bangata highway, because that just seemed funny to me at the time when I was in Utah last. And apparently that's his dad.

John Dehlin [00:52:53] It's named after, I guess Norm Banger was a governor of the state of Utah.

Nemo [00:52:57] Is that his dad?

Guest 2 [00:52:58] Banger?

John Dehlin [00:52:59] Yeah, probably.

Nemo [00:53:00] Yeah. So, yeah, that's. That's why. Okay. That's the only thing that stands out. But, yeah, Bowen Mormon James Bond himself, because he is from the Judgments Committee. He's just been made emeritus. So he's gonna step down and we'll find out who. Who will be taking over.

John Dehlin [00:53:17] Okay.

Nemo [00:53:18] And then Uchdorf gave a Riga talk.

John Dehlin [00:53:20] What do you want to say about Bowen?

Nemo [00:53:22] Bowen. Bowen. The reason this was interesting is because he talks about the restoration priest of power and it's the power and authority of God or upon the earth. And then he says this, through callings and councils, men and women, young and old can participate in priesthood work. Now, that's really interesting because this whole argument that's been going on with Jay and Dennis so far about women being empowered and women being empowered by the priesthood while not having the priesthood. He seems to be laying a groundwork for this further equivocation of the church is going to go on this narrative of women are empowered by the priesthood, even if they don't have it, by saying that, you know, they participate in priesthood work.

Nemo [00:54:01] Priesthood works. A phrase I've not heard before or particularly much so it seems like a new phrase that's leveling the playing field, saying, no, no, you're all involved in priesthood work even if women don't have priesthood office, even though only.

John Dehlin [00:54:16] Only men can be bishops, only men can be in the bishopric, only men can, you know, be prophets and apostles and general authorities and stake presidents and stake high counselors, all the main positions of power. It's clearly a patriarchy. There's this Orwellian thing going on where more and more of the church is saying, but women have priesthood power. And now they're saying, but women and girls can do priesthood work. So they're basically saying, you participate in the priesthood, women and girls, even if you know you, you don't have the trivial positions of power.

Nemo [00:54:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:55] And the status.

Nemo [00:54:55] Right, exactly. Yeah. They're trying to minimize the priesthood office and its effect and no, no, everyone gets to bask in the light of the priesthood. I'm like, yeah, but only certain men get to hold the torches. You know what I mean? And that's. That's still the case. It is. But Uchtdorf saved the day because don't we all love Ochtorf?

John Dehlin [00:55:13] Kinda. Yeah, yeah.

Nemo [00:55:16] He's. Yeah, he's likable.

John Dehlin [00:55:18] All right, should you want to play this clip?

Nemo [00:55:20] Yeah.

clip [00:55:20] Hit it. Before we discuss how to find joy, allow me to acknowledge that depression and other difficult mental and emotional challenges are real and the answer is not simply try to be happier. My purpose today is not to diminish or trivialize mental health issues. If you face such challenges, I mourn with you and I stand beside you. Yeah.

Nemo [00:55:53] Bravo.

John Dehlin [00:55:54] Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. What were you wanting to highlight about that, Nemo?

Nemo [00:55:57] Just that it's really positive. You know, people say I'm a Debbie Downer about this, and I am a lot of the time, but I wanted to point out that Uchtdorf kind of stepped out and said some things that we don't very often hear from church leaders, which is a genuine or seemingly genuine and sincere attempt to validate someone else's experience other than theirs. So he's validating the experience of those who it isn't simply a decision to be happier or to try and do things that will make them happier. It's more complicated than that. And I thought that was good.

John Dehlin [00:56:29] Yeah. And never. Mormons won't understand how significant that is because for decades and decades, the Mormon church seemed to be at war with psychologists and psychiatrists, sort of denigrating the mental health professions as being of the devil or as being secular. And then they would often have, you know, advice both at higher levels and at mid levels that, you know, if you've got depression or anxiety or OCD or scrupulosity, believe in Jesus more and pray harder and fast more, and go to the temple more and serve more, and that will fix your anxiety and depression.

John Dehlin [00:57:06] And. And so Holland, maybe a few years ago, started setting the tone about a more, you know, evidence based mental health, informed view to mental illness. And it's nice to see Uchtdorf sharing that as well. I, I noticed you included this quote from feeling sad is not a sign of failure. So it wouldn't. It wouldn't seem like that's a monumental thing that Uchtdor said, but in a mor context, it shows at least two of the apostles are basically informed about basic mental health.

Nemo [00:57:42] Right? Yeah. Because the thing that a lot of outsiders see about Mormonism is the fake smiles covering the pain. Right. It's this idea of the whole Stepford Wives type thing where you just see all these women wandering around with fake smiles plastered on their face, because no matter how bad life gets, you're meant to be smiley. You're meant to have joy. Adam felt that men like being a. Men are. That we might have joy, so you better look joyful all the time. Whereas he said. And in that bit before he says that, he says, God weeps, so why can't we? Essentially, sadness is not a sign of failure. I thought that was just excellent. And then if that wasn't enough, he now validates the experience of atheists.

clip [00:58:22] Whoa.

John Dehlin [00:58:22] I clip yet? All right, let's roll.

clip [00:58:28] Our beloved Father in heaven wants all his children enough without a remarkable promise. We all know people who say that they don't need God to be happy, that they are happy enough without religion. I acknowledge and respect these feelings. Our beloved Father in heaven wants all his children to have as much happiness as possible. So he has filled this world with beautiful, wholesome pleasures and delights, both to please the eye and glad the heart. For me, flying brought great happiness. Others find it in music, in art, in hobbies, or nature. By inviting everyone and sharing the Savior's good news of great joy. We do not discount only these sources of joy, any of those.

Nemo [00:59:27] So did you hear that cough?

John Dehlin [00:59:28] It was a little bit clumsily delivered. Of course, it's the second language, so we don't fault him for it. Why don't you summarize what you know, you hear him saying there and what's significant about it?

Nemo [00:59:38] He said that, you know, some people believe that they don't need God in their lives to be happy. And I respect and acknowledge those beliefs.

Guest [00:59:45] And.

Nemo [00:59:46] And did you hear the cough? Someone in there sounded like they had a heart attack.

John Dehlin [00:59:48] They're like, yeah, I did hear that. Yeah.

Nemo [00:59:50] What? What's he saying? Someone get him off the stand. Because we've been demonizing as a church for so long, we've been demonizing those that don't believe the way we do and insistent as a church that there is no other way to be happy or have anything such thing as happiness or joy. True Joy outside of our paradigm. So he's just acknowledged that no, there, God loves us and has put things on the earth to make us happy no matter what we believe. I find joy in flying. There's wholesome joys to be had out there. People find it in art and nature. And we're not saying.

Nemo [01:00:24] And then he goes on to say, we're just saying we have something more. And that's fine. That's an adult way of saying that I believe my religion could bring you more happiness, but I'm not going to try and say that you don't have any happiness just because you don't believe the same thing I do. I think that's a responsible, adult way to discuss your belief that your religion makes you happy.

clip [01:00:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:44] And people should note that if they want to have some optimism about the future of the Mormon Church. Looking at how unwell Jeffrey R. Holland appears and knowing that Uchtdorf comes next after Jeffrey R. Holland and knowing that so many of the most senior apostles are. Seem to be close to passing away, there's a very decent chance that Uchtdorf could become either the president of the quorum of the 12, which is a position of significant power, or even the prophet within likely a very few years.

John Dehlin [01:01:25] And man, we all know that elder Uchtdorf was demoted from the first presidency after Monson passed away and after Nelson ascended to the veritable throne. And, and some say that that's because he's too happy, too progressive, too friendly to, you know, marginalized groups. And that'll be kind of dieter's revenge if he outlives all those, you know, Nelson and Eyring and, and Oaks and Holland and ends up not only becoming president of the quorum of the 12, but possibly a prophet and bring some of his progressive ideology to the church worldwide.

Nemo [01:02:04] And look at him. He looks like a man who will outlive Oaks and Eyring and Holland.

John Dehlin [01:02:10] Yeah, he looks fantastic. And he's in his early 80s, is that right?

Nemo [01:02:13] Yeah. So there's a little bit of. There's a good sort of gap there. I mean, Holland is a couple of years older than him, but Holland's on death's door. Whereas, you know, we, we have, we have Uchtdorf who's in a better. Is in better health for sure. He still goes out cycling with his wife and they're active and they enjoy a sort of active lifestyle.

John Dehlin [01:02:32] Yeah.

Nemo [01:02:33] So he's just got good genes.

John Dehlin [01:02:35] Really quickly, I'm going to play a comment. Forest writes, the mental health speech was awkward considering The Mormon Church recommended Jody Hildebrandt, you know, convicted, you know, child abuser Jody Hildebrandt. That's been in the news lately. I wouldn't just say recommended Jody Hildebrandt, which they did for decades, but now we know that Brad Wilcox and Mormon general authority Jeremy Yagi were meeting with convicted child abuser Jody Hildebrandt literally weeks or months before she was in, you know, arrested. And, you know, you know, where's the. Where's the spirit of discernment? But there's rumors that she was actually consulting Brad Wilcox on how to deal with the young men of the church specifically. And so the gift of discernment feels lacking. And, yeah, the church maybe has some vulnerabilities there in terms the gift of

Nemo [01:03:29] discernment has died an absolute death with the Mark Hoffman incident. So I, you know, I think that's fairly clear.

Sunday Morning Session and Rasband's Remarks

John Dehlin [01:03:38] All right, so let's go to Sunday Morning Nemo. What's notable there?

Nemo [01:03:42] I'm just trying to work out who's where. So Rasband. This is where Rasband has the gall to tell members that they need to be apologizing, which is just nonsense because the church won't. And then Oaks decided to go heavy on garments, which was fun.

John Dehlin [01:03:57] Okay, I'll have to say I. I've got this thing where every Sunday morning I go over to my mom's and I watch Fox News with her, just because it's a way for us to have something to talk about. It's a way for me to balance my New York Times consumption of media with kind of the opposing view. So this. This Sunday, yesterday, after we were done watching Fox News, we turned on this session of general conference. And I'll have to say I. I quite enjoyed it. Up until the point where down the jokes spoke. I thought. I think Kieran spoke during this conference.

John Dehlin [01:04:37] Rasband got kind of teary, and I thought they were kind of heartfelt, thoughtful talks that morning. Nothing super cringy, nothing polarizing, and several kind of heartfelt, emotional talks, including a few of the apostles getting tears in their eyes and. And sharing heartfelt things. So I just want to say something positive. I enjoy. I enjoyed the morning session up until Oaks. And then as soon as Oaks got up and he started talking about, like, covenants and garments, mom and I went and had had lunch. What did you want to say about Rasband?

Nemo [01:05:10] So if you go back to the. The list of people, I'll just run you through my kind of quick thoughts of what was what. So this was Sunday morning, which Means that Eyring was presiding, which is why a lot of them were teary eyed because he was presiding from the Porter podium. So he was in his chair and they had a little podium in front of him. He did the full for boy K. Packer sort of thing. And Susan H. Porter spoke to primary children. So that was condescending and sweet.

John Dehlin [01:05:37] Husband's not of ill health, right?

Nemo [01:05:39] No, no. But Rasband was teary eyed and he looked over at eye ring was like, oh, we, we love you, Elder Iron. Yeah, they're all aware he's about to die, you know, so if we got that list up for a second Rasband, I'll come to why I thought his talk was problematic. And he just really, really sucked up to Nelson a lot in this one. He quoted Nelson like 12 times.

Nemo [01:06:01] Susan H. Porter spoke directly to the primary children and was kind of instilling these ideas that, well, if you want to know that God's there, pay attention to how you feel when you pray. And that's evident. And it's kind of, well, okay, so we're not setting kids up for logical thought there. Dale G. Renland, his talk was. He D. Renan's talk was all about keeping your forward momentum, which is stealing from Nelson's whole positive spiritual momentum talk.

Nemo [01:06:24] But what I found really interesting there was when people stopped with that forward momentum during COVID a lot of people realized, hang on, I'm not sure this is what I want for my life. So he's kind of actually acknowledging that in order to stay in the church, you do just need to keep going. You need to stay on that Mormon hamster wheel. You need to just keep going and going and going because if you stop, you might realize anyway. Paul B. Piper was pretty innocuous. Patrick Kieran was Patrick Kieran. He was. He was smooth, charming. He was lovely British.

John Dehlin [01:06:54] My mom was like, man, I really like that guy. Mom had never seen him before. Oh, you're waving your flag.

Nemo [01:07:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:07:01] What was it like to have Kieran give his. Is that the first sort of modern Brit that's. As an apostle spoke at general conference.

Nemo [01:07:10] Yeah. He's the first British apostle since Talmadge in the early 1900s.

clip [01:07:14] Yeah.

Nemo [01:07:15] And he's spoken a couple of times in conference. All times. It's great. He did to talk about refugees. That was really good. He did a talk about abuse that seems to have tried to undo a lot of the.

Nemo [01:07:26] A lot of the bad that has been done by Richard G. Scott's talk where he said people need to, you know, Take responsibility for abuse, etc. He got up and said, it is never your fault, no matter what the abuser or anyone else has said to the contrary. Which was just such a statement to be said. A conference. It was. It was excellent. So we all knew it was going to be a good talk. And it was. It was very universalist. It was very lovely. It was like, you know, God's not trying to stop you coming back to him, which I think he believes that.

Nemo [01:07:50] I think he probably to an extent can see the roadblocks that the church is putting up in people's way currently. And he probably under a Ukdorf presidency, he would end up on the. On the presidency also. He would. He would be a counselor in the first Presidency because those two seem to be on a similar wavelength. So his talk was always going to be just quite compassionate, quite lovely. And he's a PR professional, so he knows how to speak to an audience. And, you know, he was speaking with good inflection, with good range in his voice, all that sort of stuff.

John Dehlin [01:08:23] And he knows how to not be polarizing and cringy.

Nemo [01:08:25] Right, yeah, that's important. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:08:28] I look at that as a win if. If, like the, er, rooms don't fill up with. With traumatized, you know, Mormons and LGBT Mormons, etc. I think of that as a win for a general conference.

Nemo [01:08:40] Yeah. So I think it was a good. It was a good talk. There were some flaws in it and some problems with it theologically and in terms of how much it actually reflected the attitude of the church. But it seemed very much that was what he views the gospel to be. And it gives you reassurance that under his leadership, which he's quite young, I think about 62 or something, so he could very well be a prophet at some point. He could be the second British prophet and the. The first that we've had since Taylor. So, you know, I think that's positive. But Rasband. Let's look at Rasband, shall we?

John Dehlin [01:09:10] All right, so here's Rasband. What do you have to say about him?

Nemo [01:09:14] Rasband spent all his time talking about how words matter, the words of prophets matter. So there's just a couple of quick quotes here. Words matter a lot. The words of prophets matter. He said, I bear my witness that our living prophet, President Russell M Nelson, hears and speaks the word of the Lord. So this is really important because that means that we should be able to look at what he says and treat it as though Jesus is speaking. Treat it as though he's speaking for deity, which is why it's important, therefore, that it is honest and accurate and not causing people difficulties, etc. So the words the prophet matter to the Lord and to us. So that I find that justifies me when I'm criticizing what they're saying and saying this isn't honest. The Lord clearly cares too, that they're not being honest. So it matters. And then he said this.

John Dehlin [01:10:02] All right, so we got a little bit of video clip here.

Guest 2 [01:10:08] Let me suggest three simple phrases that we can use to take the sting out of difficulties and differences. Lift and reassure each other. Thank you, I am sorry and I love you. Do not save these humble phrases for a special event or catastrophe. Use them often and sincerely for they show regard for others. Talk is growing cheap. Do not follow that pattern.

Nemo [01:10:39] Talk is growing cheap, John.

John Dehlin [01:10:41] I mean, that's cringy. Never Mormons won't understand. I made a reference to this earlier, but tell, tell. Never Mormons. Why that's so ironic in a Mormon

Nemo [01:10:53] context because the Dallin H. Oaks has said, and he's set to become the next president of the church, the church neither seeks apologies nor does it give them. The church does not apologize. Doesn't. It has things that it should apologize for. And I talked in my episode when we covered this about when John Streeter put out the fake apology for the priesthood ban, how upset black members of the church got. Not because it was fake, I don't think so much as they had convinced themselves they didn't need that apology. And then when it was presented to them, they realized, oh no, we did need the church to apologize to us.

Nemo [01:11:26] And then when that was taken away, that hurts. And I think that's what was going on to my viewing of it. That's what I think was going on with that fake apology. And so, yeah, the church does not give apologies. If you've got a clip there, play.

John Dehlin [01:11:40] Play that clip really quick. Is that okay? Yeah, I just think in a Tribune

Elder Oaks on Apologies, Temples, and Covenants

Guest [01:11:44] story that we published on Tuesday, Elder Oaks, you were quoted as saying that the church doesn't seek apologies and we don't give them. And of course, this sparked a whole storm on social media about those who wonder how this view comports with Christian theology. Again, wanted to give you an opportunity to respond to that.

Guest 2 [01:12:04] I'm not aware that the word apology appears anywhere in the Scriptures, Bible or Book of Mormon. The word apology contains a lot of connotations in it and a lot of significance. We do not seek apology. When our temple was desecrated in California, when people were fired and intimidated, when a lot of other coercive measures were used. We sought no apology. That's what I meant by saying we don't seek apology. We think that the best way to solve these problems is not a formal statement of words that apology consists of, but talking about principles and goodwill among contending viewpoints.

John Dehlin [01:12:51] It's so weird to see Kristofferson smiling. He's smiling because he can't grimace. But clearly recognizing the problem. And I apologize for that Darth Vader music being played. I did not check out that clip ahead.

Nemo [01:13:06] I've tried so hard to find that clip without the Star wars music. I can't find it anywhere. If anyone has that, please me know, because I want to use it in episodes, but I don't want to use it with the Imperial March in the background. Yeah, yeah, but that's why.

John Dehlin [01:13:23] That's what makes Raspan's quote so problematic is because the number two Mormon in the world is on record saying, we don't apologize.

Nemo [01:13:30] Yeah. And his. His defense was when people did bad things to us, we didn't ask them to apologize. It's like, okay, fine. Right. So. Doesn't mean you can't apologize. When you get stuff wrong, you don't have to. Those two things aren't equated.

John Dehlin [01:13:46] Yeah.

Nemo [01:13:46] You can apologize and then not expect other people to apologize to you. In fact, that's quite a psychologically healthy thing to do.

John Dehlin [01:13:52] Is that what Jesus basically said is like, love your neighbors and all that?

Nemo [01:13:56] The other cheek, all that sort of stuff?

clip [01:13:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:00] Yeah.

Guest 2 [01:14:00] That's weird.

Nemo [01:14:01] Forgive them 70 times 70. All that. 77. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:05] Okay.

Nemo [01:14:05] Anyway. All right, so that's what was problematic with Rasband.

John Dehlin [01:14:08] That makes sense.

Nemo [01:14:09] And then.

John Dehlin [01:14:10] Okay, well. Well, that's. That's Ras Band. Maybe. Let's go ahead and go to Oaks.

Guest 2 [01:14:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:17] Okay.

Nemo [01:14:17] Himself.

John Dehlin [01:14:18] All right.

Nemo [01:14:20] Jumped on the. The garment train. He started off by talking about our personal commitments are essential to the regulation of. This is just. This just sounds like his talk on the United States Constitution. I rolled my eyes heavily when he got.

John Dehlin [01:14:36] Just for our listeners who can't.

Nemo [01:14:37] Yeah, I. I'll go back and read it again. I'm just gonna vent for a second. He. He went on a tirade about the divinely inspired United States Constitution and how wonderful it is and how much he loves it, and it's just. It's bizarre. He has this legalistic way of looking at things. So he sets up in this talk this idea that, well, doctors, firefighters, judges, they all give commitments or covenants that mean they will give up certain freedoms in the Bed to the benefit of the wider society. So this talk screams of, you guys already said you would, so don't go backing out now. You've already made the promise, so. And you've given up those individual freedoms, so you need to now live up to it. So I'll read that quote again for you, John.

John Dehlin [01:15:21] Okay.

Nemo [01:15:22] He said.

John Dehlin [01:15:24] Sorry. Okay, go ahead.

Guest 2 [01:15:25] Right.

Nemo [01:15:25] Personal commitments are essential to the regulation of our individual lives and to the regular functioning of society.

John Dehlin [01:15:32] I feel like I'm in like college, like legal class. Right? Law school.

Nemo [01:15:36] Exactly.

clip [01:15:37] Yeah.

Nemo [01:15:38] And then he calls out people, I guess, like us. This is what he thinks of us. But it's a bit of a straw man because he uses some very hyperbolic language here. He says a vocal minority opposes institutional authority. And he said that institutional authority. And he kind of lifted his shoulders because he represents institutional authority and insists that persons should be free. Oh, lost that for a second. I've lost the quote there for a sec. John, you, oh, did it go? Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:16:07] Okay, here.

Nemo [01:16:08] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:16:08] Okay.

Nemo [01:16:09] He said a vocal minority opposes institutional authority, which down that joke represents and insists that persons should be free from any restrictions that limit their individual freedom. Freedom. Yeah, I, I'm not aware of who that vocal minority is that he's talking about. I mean there are anarchists out there. There are people that do believe we should just not have any restrictions on individual freedom, but they're certainly not the people he's talking about.

John Dehlin [01:16:32] Really Kind of that decades tired old canard about secular humanism and how people don't want, I, I, I don't know any thoughtful humans in civilized society that don't want laws and that don't want behavioral controls. So it's, it's kind of that, it's kind of that remnant of him being in his 90s and still being stuck on the whole humanism kind of thing.

Nemo [01:16:55] Yeah, yeah, I'd agree. And Sarah's just put a really good comment in the chat saying most of us gave up this freedom when he's talking about the church without being told the truth. And that's, you know, what you and I have talked about, John, and you're a big advocate for, I know, which is informed consent. People can give up those little freedoms and make not little freedoms, but people can give up those freedoms and they can make those covenants if they're informed. But holding people to covenants they made when they weren't in full possession of the facts isn't right. Yeah, I don't what you'd say to that.

John Dehlin [01:17:21] Yeah, absolutely.

Nemo [01:17:23] And then Here you've just got another example of an apostle conflating themselves with God. The practice of covenanting with God or religious leaders is also recorded in the Book of Mormon writings about Nephi, Joseph in Egypt, King Benjamin, Alma, and Captain Moroni. So I don't remember ever covenanting with church leaders. I don't remember that being part of the doctrine. But Oaks wants this world in which they are basically God, and we cannot separate them from God because they are so integral to the worship of God and to coming close to God that they must be, you know, they must be conflated with him at all times.

John Dehlin [01:18:04] All right, well, let's go ahead. Let's play a little clip. We do have a clip of Oaks. Why don't we play a clip?

Nemo [01:18:08] This is him on garments.

John Dehlin [01:18:10] Okay.

Guest 2 [01:18:11] Persons who have been endowed in a temple are responsible to wear a temple garment, an article of clothing not visible because it is worn beneath outer clothing. It reminds endowed members of the sacred covenants they have made and the blessings they have been promised in the holy temple to achieve those holy purposes. We are instructed to wear temple garments continuously, with the only exceptions being those obviously necessary because covenants do not take a day off. To remove one's garments can be understood as a disclaimer of the covenant responsibilities and blessings to which they relate. In contrast, persons who wear their garments faithfully and keep their temple covenants continually affirm their role as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

John Dehlin [01:19:19] All right, what do you think about that, Nemo?

Nemo [01:19:21] I mean, for a start, we are never instructed to wear them continuously. That's something that was added into the temple recommended interview language. Do you wear them night and day as instructed in the temple? You're never instructed to do that in the temple. What you're instructed to do in the temple is wear them throughout your life.

Nemo [01:19:37] Doesn't say with what frequency throughout that period of time, but you're instructed to wear them throughout that period of time, which actually holds the key to. If the church wanted to move towards. You wear garments for temple worship and on Sundays, and you don't wear them the rest of the time. They could, because the actual verbiage of the temple ceremony is throughout your life.

Nemo [01:19:56] But he's saying, no, no, you must wear them continuously. You've promised to do so. Covenants don't take a day off, so you can't either. And if you do take them off, you're then essentially forfeiting the benefits of that covenant until you put them back on again. That's what he said.

John Dehlin [01:20:13] Yeah. And I'm. I'll just note that just. This is kind of repeating, but, like, in 2024, garments are just going to become less and less acceptable. And I think, you know, I. I've used this quote elsewhere, kind of the Darth Vader quote, that the more, you know, I think Princess Leia says the Darth Vader at some point. The more you tighten your grip, the more, you know, people will slip. Slip through your fingers.

Nemo [01:20:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:40] The more the church goes hardcore about garments, I think the more it's going to just accelerate people's disaffection. I don't know if that's true, but I think that's possibly true. I mean, there is social study, social studies evidence that the more a religion requires, the more devout their members are. So the church is hoping that that will hold true as it, you know, is stricter and stricter about garments. But I'm just not sure in 2024 if that's going to make Gen Z and Millennials want to stick around. What do you think, Nemo?

Nemo [01:21:14] I think you're right. I think it's interesting. Anecdotally, the things I've heard are that when people, when people go through the temple, that's the thing that to them often feels the most culty about Mormonism, the temple endowment ceremony and all that sort of stuff. That's what feels culty. And so garments are deeply associated with that. You get them when you first go through the temple, etc. So they're a symbol of that uncomfortable experience for many. And so forcing people to then have to wear it all the time and pushing on that is just going to make people feel more like they were right about the temple being culty, because that behavior of enforcing it also feels a little bit culty.

Guest 2 [01:21:56] Yeah.

Audience Comments and Sunday Afternoon Session

John Dehlin [01:21:57] All right, before we go to the final session, I do want to share a series of comments that are going to seem a little bit controversial. And I'm not going to claim that I vetted them. These are not representing Mormon stories or our opinions. But this is somebody from Zimbabwe who wants to talk about Dubai for a second.

John Dehlin [01:22:19] The new General Authority, slash, I guess, member of the presidency of the 70. So this is Smiles. Zim. Zim stands for Zimbabwe. They write. I'm approximately 60 minutes behind. But going back to Elder Dube when he was stake president, I served in Zimbabwe and met him a few times. There was always rumors of shadiness, but as a missionary, you just ignore it and chalk it up to disassociated members with the church. Since leaving the church. I've spoken to friends in Zimbabwe who have also since left the church and they have confirmed said rumors and then it says in addition, after Dube became a general authority, he was put in charge of perpetual education fund and there was PEF scams, theft and embezzlement of church funds.

John Dehlin [01:23:14] I was also told there are infidelity issues. Now those are really bold claims. I'm not in any way on Mormon stories saying I verified that or even know it's true, but this is somebody in the country. So Smiles in says, I don't want to throw shade at Dube, but it feels like he should fit right into the corporate leadership if he becomes a member of the quorum of the 15. Now again, you know, I know that those are problematic comments. Yeah, what do you want to say?

Nemo [01:23:44] All I'd say is his church bio says he works in many positions in the church educational system in Africa for over 15 years and he studied entrepreneurship at a university in 2003. So he's got that business background. He All I can say is he was involved in church education system for a number of years, so he clearly is church broke in that sense. But I can't speak to any of the other sort of claims about wrongdoing or anything.

John Dehlin [01:24:08] Okay, well, we'll see if any of that comes to light. But something to keep aware of. I'll just also just share A quick comment says I've been watching the show, listening to this podcast for almost a decade and just realized I've never donated. Here, take my money. Everyone please subscribe to Mormon Stories and Nemo the Mormon if you hadn't, thank you, funky Flesh. I'll just say right now we don't do sponsorships, but we live.

John Dehlin [01:24:38] Thanks. And we live according to the donations that come into Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation. So I'm going to thank everyone who does donate to Mormon Stories in the Open Stories Foundation. I want to invite those of you who value this programming and want to see it continue to go to mormonstories.org go to the top click on the donate button. Become a Monthly Donor we're always losing our donors. Every month we lose recurring donors because they get sick or lose their jobs or just move on. If we don't have new donors step up to replace the old ones, then we have to cut services.

John Dehlin [01:25:10] So please become a monthly donor if you can. That's how. That's our bread and butter. We always appreciate the super chats. And I'm also going to say Nemo, please subscribe to Nemo, the Mormon YouTube channel. Please subscribe to Mormon Stories podcast YouTube channel. Like this episode. Share it wherever you can, because that really helps with the algorithms. And Nemo, can people donate to you as well?

Nemo [01:25:32] They can if they would like to, but subscribing is really helpful. Liking is really helpful. And particularly sharing the videos with people that you. You think will find them useful is very helpful. But I. Yeah, I. I'm in the same position as John. I live off donor funding and off YouTube ad revenue, and I don't have sponsors, so. Yeah. And John's kind enough to have me on his show and support me, too, so.

John Dehlin [01:25:55] All right, all right, Nemo, keep up.

Nemo [01:25:57] Supporting John. Supports me indirectly, is what I'm saying.

John Dehlin [01:26:00] Absolutely. All right, so we've got a final session, the Sunday afternoon session. Anything you want to mention there, Nemo?

Nemo [01:26:08] Doug Vincent, super chat, which gives you a very important instruction. John, if you haven't seen any of my halftime shows. Jammy Dodgers. So you go to the world market, buy yourself some Jammy Dodgers immediately after we finish.

John Dehlin [01:26:24] Are these like, lame cookies with a little bit of jam inside? Is that what they are? Did Nemo just quit? I think we lost Nemo, everybody.

Nemo [01:26:38] John, is salt in my food?

John Dehlin [01:26:39] Are they like mushy peas? Basically, but confectionary, like mushy peas built for confections? Is that what you're saying?

Nemo [01:26:47] No, they're excellent. They're most excellent, John.

John Dehlin [01:26:49] Meat pie. But like, but. But cookies with jam. Is that it? Is that what we're talking about?

Nemo [01:26:56] Doug Vincent knows. And you. You two will know when you take his donation and go and buy some Jammy Dodgers with it.

John Dehlin [01:27:02] I'm just giving you a hard time. I love. I love your food. I love British food.

Nemo [01:27:06] Thank you. All right, anyway, so, yeah, let's. Let's go to the final session.

John Dehlin [01:27:10] Thanks for the super, super chat, Doug. All right, Nemo, what about Sunday?

Nemo [01:27:14] We got D. Todd Christopherson is the one we're going to focus on. Mark L. Pace. I've highlighted him. I'm not sure we put anything in about him. His talk was kind of about the Book of Mormon and stuff. It was a bit interesting. He started by thanking people for all their hard work and using Come Follow Me, which I kind of pointed out. Well, yeah, they've had to put in hard work because you've dumbed Come Follow Me down to primary level. So if they want to teach a decent lesson, they've got to do a lot of work for themselves now. Anyway, Gary E. Stevenson talked about Bridges, which I got really scared for the first sort of couple of minutes of his talk.

Nemo [01:27:47] He was talking about how much he loves suspension bridges and how great, strong, sturdy suspension. Suspension bridges are. I was like, oh, this isn't good Baltimore. You know, the bridge in Baltimore just went. And he did kind of say a couple of words of, you know, support to the people who are grieving in Baltimore who have lost loved ones. Etc. He clearly wrote this talk before that incident happened. But he was talking about, you know, how the first great commandment and second great commandment are like the peers on a suspension bridge and isn't that awesome? And we, we can bridge the gap between those two.

Nemo [01:28:22] I never really thought there was a gap between loving God and loving your neighbor. I always thought they were kind of synergistic, but apparently Dan H. Oaks has said we shouldn't be so zealous in loving our neighbor that we forget to love God. So apparently that can happen in from a conservative religious point of view where you're too accepting of your neighbor and not loving God enough. But I always thought personally in, in my religious view that loving your neighbor was akin to loving God. It was one of the ways in which you loved God in as much you've done it into one of the least of these my brethren, you've done it unto me.

Guest [01:28:51] Right?

Nemo [01:28:51] That's the way I viewed it.

John Dehlin [01:28:53] Yeah.

Nemo [01:28:54] And then we get to Nelson, and the second woman to pray was Amy A. Wright. So there was two women praying out of the 10 prayers that were told. So you've got a 20 representation of women praying.

John Dehlin [01:29:08] Good.

Nemo [01:29:09] Have a look at Daddy Todd.

John Dehlin [01:29:10] Yes, he's affectionately married. I saw some rumbling on Reddit about D. Todd Christofferson's talk, so let's just jump right to the part that caused people concern.

Guest 2 [01:29:21] Being valiant in the testimony of Jesus means encouraging others by word and example to likewise be valiant, especially those of our own families. Elder Neal A. Maxwell once addressed the essentially honorable members of the church who are skimming over the surface instead of deepening their discipleship, who are casually engaged rather than anxiously engaged. Noting that all are free to choose, Elder Maxwell lamented, unfortunately, however, when some choose slackness, they're choosing not only for themselves, but for the next generation and the next. Small equivocations in parents can produce large deviations in their children. Each generation in a family or earlier generations in a family may have reflected dedication, while some in the current generation evidence equivocation. Sadly, in the next, some may choose dissension as erosion takes its toll.

John Dehlin [01:30:33] All right, so nemo what's, what's wrong with. With that? Oh, you're muted, Nemo.

Nemo [01:30:40] Sorry. I took a drink of water and didn't want people to hear. It reminds me of Carlos A. Godoy's talk from the last conference where he said, you know, that families can be eternal. Why put yours at risk? And it sounded almost Mafioso. But there's this idea from Detot Christopherson that little variances in parents can cause their children to not be as dedicated and their grandchildren to ultimately, you know, rebel and not be part of the church.

Nemo [01:31:07] So not only are people responsible for their own salvation, they're now having pressure put on them to be responsible for the salvation of those generations that come after them. He also just said some things. I mean, he's quoting Maxwell. So what he's doing is he's taking words from back when they were blunter and harsher about people, and he's now bringing them into modern times. And he's quoting Maxwell as saying, you know, there are people that just skim along the surface and they're not deeply invested enough. And, and it's just this whole scrupulosity thing of it's not just enough to be in the church. It's not just enough to attend church.

Nemo [01:31:38] You've got to be doing all the little things that matter. You've got to be doing every single little thing. You've got to be deeply invested. And, and the church isn't going that way. It's going the other way. And if you want to keep members, you've got to create an environment in which they can give as much as they're willing to give and much as they're able to give, not just constantly demanding more and more of them.

John Dehlin [01:31:57] And I'll just add, as a parent of adult children, that. That there's a very severe mental health crisis, at least in the United States, you know, over the past five years. And I'm sure it extends to Western Europe and other places as well. I. I count myself lucky every day if my kids are alive.

John Dehlin [01:32:16] It. And so many teenagers and gen zers and millennials are not just leaving Mormonism, but leaving organized religion altogether. So it's, it's, it's just so problematic and sad for me that they're tying the behavior of children to parent faithfulness because, number one, kids are just going to leave no matter what. And that's just a fact. Number two, that that's somehow a negative thing. Like, what if these kids are leaving because it's actually a way that they stay Alive or stay sane or just the way that they take care of themselves. But also, why add insult to injury? Because we know that over half of these youth, up to 80% of these youth, children and youth are going to leave the Mormon Church according to the most recent statistics.

John Dehlin [01:33:03] And so they're just setting up all these parents to like get on that hamster wheel and be super faithful so that, so that, you know, they can keep their kids from leaving the church when the majority of them are going to leave, no matter how faithful the parents are. But it's even worse because what I've observed is 54 years observing Mormons is the more strict and harsh and stressed and tense the parents are, the more likely the kids are to leave the church because the, because the kids are turned off by, by the pressure and the stress and the hypocrisy and all the problems. So I just wish they wouldn't talk about children and future generations in this sense of like parents are responsible because I think it harms the parents, I think it harms the children and I think it harms the church ultimately. I just think it's counterproductive all the way around. Do you agree or disagree?

Nemo [01:33:55] Absolutely agree. And I think one of the reasons, you know, my mum, I think did a very good job with her children and many of my siblings have left the church and they left before I even started being critical of the church, you know, but what she never did was force any of us to go. She said, right, once you're 16, it's up to you. And some chose to go and some chose to not, but they were gonna go anyway. But they don't resent my mum.

Nemo [01:34:23] They don't, they don't resent her for trying to force them into a religious view that they didn't want to hold themselves. And I think the problem is the leaves, the church are so scared that the generation won't grow up and continue to be faithful tithe payers and, and keep the organization going, that they're applying all this pressure. But like you said, the Darth Vader quote, the type or the Princess Leia quote, the tighter you grip, the more people slip through your fingers. Same thing they're tied to. Parents grip and try and force their children. I've watched it. Some of the first people to stop going to church with people with the strictest parents, definitely. And from my experience growing up, yeah,

John Dehlin [01:35:03] I'm just thinking of Justin just in, you know, obviously my kids all left the church when Margi, when I got excommunicated and Margi left. But like if I think about my three siblings, all of them are still act. Well, my sister passed away. But my sister passed away. All three of her kids are out of the church. Another sister, I would say three out of four are out of the church. Maybe two and a half out of four out of the church. And then my brother, I think the majority of my brother's kids are no longer active. I, you know, I'd have to think about the numbers but just, it's, it's just people are, kids are leaving all over the place and you just make, you make people sad.

Leaving the Church and Nelson's Health Concerns

Nemo [01:35:44] And this is the, the grand irony I think is I look at my nieces and nephews now and I think, well statistically 80 of you are not gonna grow up going to church. You're gonna leave at some point.

John Dehlin [01:35:58] Yeah.

Nemo [01:35:58] And the, the, the, the sad irony is the demonization of those that leave means that they can't then be a support structure for the inevitable ones that leave anyway. It's not, you know, allowing them to, you know, have contact with their non believing family isn't going to make them leave any more particularly than they were going to anyway. But what you are cutting them off from is a support network, a familial support network. People that have gone through the experience know what it's like, can be there to support them. As their worldview breaks down, you've cut them off from that.

John Dehlin [01:36:36] Ultimately also you're sort of using fear and coercion to sort of exact obedience and commitment and money and time. But you're also setting those parents up for real disappointment later. All right, we've belabored that point.

Nemo [01:36:53] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:36:54] We've got to finish in the next five minutes or so, Nemo. But let's end with the, the man, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, Russell M. Nelson. What do you want to say before we show a clip or two photo here?

Nemo [01:37:08] Yeah, it's been doing the rounds all over the Internet. Now people are wondering whether Russell Nelson's either green screened or just positioned to look as though he's on a chair.

John Dehlin [01:37:18] So you already mentioned this before, but he, he didn't give his talk live. It was pre recorded. So this is the pre, this is a, for those who are listening, this is a photo of the pre recorded video. And tell us what, what we're seeing there.

Nemo [01:37:32] What you'll see behind his right shoulder is what looks like the back of a wheelchair. And as he moved it looked like it was more there. So people are Saying, well, he was in a wheelchair being made to look like he's one of the red velvet chairs. So is that background even real, etc. And the problem is the church has been pushing back on AI. I think Bednar and Gong have both given addresses about it this year about the dangers of AI. And the church says, oh, you will know when we're using AI. We will be transparent, and we'll tell you if AI is featuring in any of our sort of works.

Nemo [01:38:00] So a lot of people now all over the Internet are going, oh, is this a deep fake? Is this AI? I don't think it is, but I think the fact that they're not being fully transparent about the fact he's in a wheelchair and not just sat in the red chair isn't helpful.

John Dehlin [01:38:14] It's interesting anyway, looks of it.

Guest 2 [01:38:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:16] Okay.

Nemo [01:38:17] I'm not here to. Yeah, conspiracy theories.

John Dehlin [01:38:20] Right. All right, let's go ahead and play. Play a couple clips.

Guest 2 [01:38:25] Yeah.

Guest 2 [01:38:27] Following the Savior's visitation, Moses appeared. Moses conferred upon Joseph Smith the keys for the gathering of Israel and the return of the ten tribes.

John Dehlin [01:38:44] Nemo. Really quickly tell us why he's talking about this just to give us.

Nemo [01:38:47] So he's talking about the fact that the church has just bought the Kirtland Temple. And isn't that wonderful? They just bought it off Community of Christ. He did say fairly nice things about Community of Christ in terms of. He thanked them for the productive conversations that they led to that purchase. But, yeah, that's why he's talking about the Kirtland Temple. He's talking about the visitations that happened in the Kirtland Temple in April many years ago.

John Dehlin [01:39:07] Okay, so. So he's basically saying some stuff, some revelations with angels that happened to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery while they were in the Kirtland Temple, right?

Nemo [01:39:16] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:39:17] Okay. All right, we'll continue playing.

Guest 2 [01:39:22] When this vision clear closed, Elias appeared and committed the dispensation of the Gospel of Abraham to Joseph. Then Elijah the prophet appeared. His appearance fulfilled Malachi's promise that before the Second Coming, the Lord would send Elijah to turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers. Elijah conferred the keys of the sealing power upon Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [01:40:09] I mean, I'll just say really quickly. Trevor Nahn writes, for a guy 99 years old, he's looking pretty good. I think that's true. I think most people don't make it to 90 years old, let alone be able to read coherently from a teleprompter at age 99 and he's looking better

Nemo [01:40:24] than he did in October. But in October he just had a fall. So, you know, he's clearly doing better. Although I think muscular skeletally, he's probably not able to get out of a chair too much these days because of that fall. You know, you fall at 99 and do damage to your back. That damage isn't healing very quickly at all.

John Dehlin [01:40:41] Well, tell us why. It's interesting, Nino, that he's mentioning Elias and Elijah.

Nemo [01:40:46] So the church, so the church tries to point to the three people that were there, Moses, Elias and Elijah. And it says that Moses led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt. Elias apparently lived in the days of Abraham and Elijah was a prophet in the Northern kingdom of Israel about 900 BC.

Nemo [01:41:02] Now, Elias isn't a person, doesn't really exist. He's kind of a made up character. Because what seems to have happened, if you go to the next slide, John is. Joseph Smith did not realize that Elias is simply the Greek form of the name Elijah. As far as I'm aware, the Greeks don't actually have the name Elias like a name that they would give to people on the regular, but when they come across someone called Elijah, the Hebrew name Elijah, they would say it Elias. Right.

Nemo [01:41:29] And the, the bigger problem with the fact that he was meant to be someone from Abraham's time is why is there a guy rocking around in Abraham's time with a Greek name or the Greek form of a Hebrew name?

Nemo [01:41:39] So the reason that Elias got Joseph Smith all confused is because Elias appears in the King James version of the New Testament which comes from Greek manuscripts. So when Elias is being talked about in the New Testament, they're just talking about Elijah. So they're talking about the same person. So this just shows Joseph Smith's biblical ignorance, which is fine. But the church has put so much weight on this as a moment of restoring keys and restoring their authority. And we're going to see Nelson go on about that authority and how important the keys are that they can't step away from this story. So they've had to try and make up this character of Elias to just cover for the fact that Joseph Smith got confused.

John Dehlin [01:42:18] Yeah. So you'd think a prophet of God would know.

Nemo [01:42:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:42:22] Wouldn't be quoting fictitious prophets as if they're real. Basically.

Guest 2 [01:42:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:42:26] For the sake of time, let's run to, I think maybe the most significant part of Nelson's talk. Let's play it really quick.

Guest 2 [01:42:34] It is important to note that prior to the organization of the Church heavenly messengers had conferred the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods upon the prophet Joseph and had given him keys of both priesthoods. The keys gave Joseph Smith authority to organize the church in 1830.

John Dehlin [01:43:06] Okay, Nemo, that wasn't, that wasn't the clip that I thought it was going to be.

Nemo [01:43:10] Okay, what did you think? What clip were you after?

John Dehlin [01:43:14] There's a clip where he basically was saying, and I think you had the words here, but I removed it. He basically talks about if the church didn't have the keys, if the Mormon Church didn't have the keys, it would basically be like all the other churches in the world.

Nemo [01:43:30] That's the next clip. Yeah, but.

John Dehlin [01:43:33] Oh, that. Okay, let me play that. Sorry. Thank you, Nemo. That's the one. Did you want to comment on what

Nemo [01:43:38] we just really, really quick. He's saying that Joseph Smith got the priesthood restored to him before he organized the church in 1830, and he wouldn't be able to organize it in 1830 without the restoration. The problem is that restoration of the priesthood is a late addition. It's backdated and it wasn't being talked about at the time. Joseph Smith restored the church. Got it.

John Dehlin [01:43:56] Thanks for that. Thanks for that summary. Okay.

Guest 2 [01:43:59] Yeah.

Nelson's Claims and New Temple Announcements

John Dehlin [01:43:59] Okay, let's play the clip that I wanted to end with for Nelson.

Guest 2 [01:44:03] Consider how your life would be different if priesthood keys had not been restored to the earth. Without priesthood keys, you could not be endowed with the power of God. Without priesthood keys, the church could serve only as a significant teaching and humanitarian organization, but not much more. Without priesthood keys, none of us would have access to essential ordinances and covenants that bind us to our loved ones eternally and allow us eventually to live with God. Priesthood keys distinguish the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from any other organization on earth. Many other organizations can and do make your life better here in mortality,

John Dehlin [01:45:12] but

Guest 2 [01:45:13] no other organization can and will influence your life after death.

John Dehlin [01:45:24] And I'll just jump because we're short on time and we've got Dan McClellan coming up to talk about the fake gold plates in Saudi Arabia. I'm just going to say what really bothered me about that. It reminds me of the Brad Wilcox quote that other religions are just playing church while we're actually legitimate, you know, doing church. He's basically saying that all other churches at best are just humanitarian organizations that do a little teaching. But he's saying that all the other world religions, that their covenants don't matter, that their ordinances don't matter, only we get to Live with God in the afterlife. And he's basically saying we're better than other churches.

John Dehlin [01:46:03] And what an awful statement that no other church can influence what happens in life after death. Only the Mormon church influences what happens life after death. It's just, it's such an insulting posture denigrating so many other faiths. Especially when the Mormon church tries to make it appear like their interfaith, like they, you know, embrace the Catholics and they embrace the evangelicals. It's just, it's great. Gross. Even though he says it in a kind, senior citizen kind of like way, for me it's gross and it's off putting and it's insulting to all the other world religions. What do you think, Nemo?

Nemo [01:46:41] I think a billion Catholics would disagree with him. I think I said that in a recent episode as well. Like they would just call him out on that. The only other thing I'd point out is when he was saying that the church would just be a significant humanitarian organization, but not much more. Walmart gives more than them. Simple as that. I don't need to say anymore. Walmart gives more. So are they significant? I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:47:02] Yeah. All right, Nemo, let's quickly just talk about the temples. 15 new temples. What do you want to say about that?

Nemo [01:47:10] Well, the only one that really matters, let's be honest, is the Edinburgh, Scotland Temple.

John Dehlin [01:47:14] Really quickly. I guess it's been a couple years since they've announced ones in Utah. So Lehigh, Utah is going to get one. West Jordan is going to get one. Another one in Hawaii, Venezuela, Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm just going to read them. Iowa, Houston, Texas South. So another Houston Temple, Yuma, Arizona. Some people are wondering, there's like one stake, two stakes in Yuma. Why is that getting, you know, Victoria, British Columbia, Brisbane, Australia. Australia is clearly hemorrhaging members. Rosario, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and French Polynesia. But you said the one, the only

Nemo [01:47:49] one that really matters is, is the Edinburgh, Scotland Temple.

John Dehlin [01:47:52] And clearly the church is just on massive, massive growth in, in Scotland. Right. And let's go ahead and show what

Nemo [01:48:00] this Doug Vincent gave me this little graphic of the Loch Ness Temple if you give it to AI. So we're being transparent. This is AI guys. That's what a Scotland Loch Ness temple will look like. And it's quite, it's quite amusing.

John Dehlin [01:48:14] For the sake of time, just tell us what the church is like in Scotland.

Nemo [01:48:17] Well, just look at it. Glasgow is a bigger city than Edinburgh. Glasgow is also a more working class city than Edinburgh. Hence why the church wants to Put the temple in Edinburgh despite Edinburgh having one state, Glasgow having two, and Edinburgh not really having many wards, but Glasgow having plenty. And it's a one and a half hour round trip from Glasgow to Edinburgh. So members are still going to be traveling a fair way to go to the Edinburgh temple where the majority of members are over on the west in Glasgow.

John Dehlin [01:48:41] And just how, how would you describe the Mormon Church's growth and or decline in Scotland over the past five to 10 years?

Nemo [01:48:48] Declining.

John Dehlin [01:48:50] But is it like a massive hemorrhaging, like dying?

Nemo [01:48:53] Yeah, going down. They've done some reorganizations to try and bolster things, but branches are closing and. Yeah, yeah, like just like the church

John Dehlin [01:49:02] in the uk, it's shrinking, it's in decline, it's almost dead. It's like the Monty Pythons kid, or not quite dead, you know, you will be.

Nemo [01:49:11] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:14] So it's just weird that they would put a temple there, but it's weird that a lot of these temples are going up. So.

Nemo [01:49:19] Yeah, so there's no real need for it. But it's been such a meme in the Mormon and ex Mormon space that Scotland doesn't get a temple. Loads of memes about, you know, I got this why XYZ Scotland still doesn't have a temple, etc, but they've finally gone and done it.

Overall Impressions and Closing Thoughts

John Dehlin [01:49:34] All right, so Nemo, overall, your impressions of this general conference since you watched

Nemo [01:49:39] every minute 90 filler 10 killer to people's testimonies.

John Dehlin [01:49:46] Well, how about some inspiration or you

Nemo [01:49:48] know, so Oakdorf gave some really nice. There was some really nice talks smattered amongst their. Ukdorf gave a nice one, Kieran gave a nice talk. Oh, what was his name? Matthias Held. His talk was quite innocuous, quite lovely. So there were some, some lovely little talks but then there were just some really overt things where they were hypocritical, massively hypocritical about the what they expect from members versus the way they're willing to act themselves and Nemo.

John Dehlin [01:50:15] But is it also fair to say that even though there were problematic talks that overall we didn't see sort of the massive faux pas, really hateful or polarizing, sort of anti LGBT or anti women or you know, just hateful speeches that are, that are often putting people in emergency rooms or just causing people to, to resign en masse? Like it was relatively less polarizing conference, isn't that right?

Nemo [01:50:47] Well, it was all about covenants, which basically then means that it's aimed mostly at people that have already made the covenants and it's like if you've made covenants, you better live up to them. If you're not doing it, get on with doing it. And so it was more marshaling members and trying to get them all back into line rather than attacking the outside world. This time, I'd say, yeah, all right,

John Dehlin [01:51:06] well, Nemo, we love what you do. Everyone please go subscribe to Nemo, the Mormon YouTube channel. Please donate to Nemo. Please like this episode. Please share it while you're at it. Please subscribe to the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel. Again, we we live by your donation. So please go to MormonStories.org and become a monthly donor if you want to see this content continue. We need those monthly donors to replace the ones that have to step away or stop every every month or year. Any any final things Nemo I've just

Nemo [01:51:36] put a link to the upcoming Thrive event in the comments under Mom's Rose Podcast so you can sign up to that Thrive event, which is this coming weekend. I'll be there in Scotland. Maybe that's why they put the temple there, because they heard that Thrive was coming to town. But I'll be there. Jane's going to be there. Peter Bleakley from Mormon Civil War is going to be there. We're going to be having a great time building community for people who have left the church and people who are struggling with their faith and want to find a more inclusive community than the Orthodox Church can provide. So come along to that sign up. There's still tickets left. Come hang out with us. There's some people in the chat from Europe. Grab a cheap flight. Come over.

John Dehlin [01:52:14] ThriveBeyondReligion.com event Thrive Death Scotland Yep. Excellent Emo. Thanks for all the great work you do. Thanks for sharing today's episode. And you take care. And also please come right back. I'm gonna just in like five minutes. I've got Dam Dr. Dam McClellan on recently it was announced that some golden plates were allegedly discovered in Saudi Arabia and of course, Mormon Book of Mormon apologists declared victory that this proves the Mormon Church is true and the Book of of Mormon is historical and ancient scriptures and ancient language. Scholar Dan McClellan is going to talk to us about whether or not those golden plates are actually forgeries and whether or not they have anything to say about Book of Mormon authenticity.

John Dehlin [01:53:02] So please just join us immediately right after this. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. Thanks for everything, Maven. Thanks for doing the chats. Thanks to Julia and Brooklyn and Gerardo for all that they do and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

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