Ether 12 - 15

[00:00:16] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add On Education Network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly Come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with our friend and this show's producer, Nate Piper. [00:00:31] Speaker B: Hello. [00:00:32] Speaker A: Hello. How's life? [00:00:35] Speaker B: How goes it from Spain? [00:00:36] Speaker A: It goes well. It goes very well. [00:00:40] Speaker B: How goes it back in the Utah? Back in the pro. [00:00:45] Speaker A: Back in the Provo? [00:00:46] Speaker B: I am living the dream. I am just getting ready to. We're doing our big Cascade tour where it's like. We're doing New York City this year. We're doing LA again like we did last year. We're doing a few dates in Salt Lake City where it's just a fun night of Christmas dance music. Well, you can see. I was gonna say nobody actually can see, but you can. You can see the little vinyl behind me that's sitting up on my turntable back there. Our little Cascade Christmas vinyl that we have. We put out a little while back. So. Yeah, so. So I have just been. I have just been insanely swamped of just like. It's a big Part of the reason that it's. Our podcasts have been a little, like, scattered is because I'm. It's me. It's all me, Jason. It's not you. It's just good. I've been. I've just been crazy busy. [00:01:46] Speaker A: Yeah, you keep. I don't know what it is this morning. Is it. Is it the tired. Is it the. You keep. You keep bringing references to songs in my mind with how you speak sometimes. [00:01:56] Speaker B: Oh, what is this one? [00:01:58] Speaker A: It's me. I'm problem. It's me. [00:02:01] Speaker B: What song is that? [00:02:03] Speaker A: What? Taylor Swift. [00:02:04] Speaker B: I don't know a single Taylor Swift song. And I say that. I don't. I don't say that. I don't say that for prideful reasons, but I have a lot of pride in that, actually. I take a lot of pride in that. And I. And I don't say it just to be prideful, but I do take a lot of pride in that. [00:02:22] Speaker A: My daughter confused. [00:02:23] Speaker B: My daughter loves her. My daughter loves her even more. [00:02:27] Speaker A: Right? Like, so, Nate, you are the music guru. [00:02:32] Speaker B: Yes, thank you. [00:02:34] Speaker A: You know it. And. And. And how then can. Can there be a song, One that's so often repeated in today's world? [00:02:42] Speaker B: I've chosen that. [00:02:43] Speaker A: That me who's. Who's. Who's, like, living under a rock half the time. [00:02:52] Speaker B: I'm gonna tell you how I do know. I do know, I lied. I do know one Taylor Swift song, and it's only because somebody did a splice of, like, the goats screaming where it was just like, boom, boom, trouble, trouble. You know, the goats that just scream like humans. Somebody spliced in the goats that every time it just goes boom. [00:03:14] Speaker A: Trouble, trouble, trouble. [00:03:16] Speaker B: Man, what a terrible song. I'm sorry, I'm. I know it's like. I know it's. It's. It's either trendy to love or hate Taylor Swift, and I am very much on the hate side. I just. It's. It's the most down the middle, vanilla, boring, unimportant disposable music I can possibly think of. [00:03:38] Speaker A: I'm. I'm in the neutral, uninformed, floating down the riverside. [00:03:44] Speaker B: The thing is, like, but, dude, if you like her, who cares? My daughter Ruby likes her. And I sometimes worry that my daughter Ruby, in attempts to impress me at times is like, oh, maybe I don't like her as much anymore. And I'm like, oh, dude, I don't want to be that guy. I'm not trying to be that dad. Like. Like what you like. Can I tell you one more, like, little tangent about this? Because I actually do think that this is important. [00:04:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:09] Speaker B: Like, it was really awesome. Like, when I was. I don't know, I think I was maybe 9 or 10, and one of my buddies showed me the Bad Rush for the first time. And I immediately was just like, this is the greatest thing I've ever heard. And at 9 or 10 years old, I was so excited to show my parents this. Right. Because everything I had listened to that point was really just whatever they had shown me. So James Taylor and Billy Joel and Elton John and Michael Jackson, and I went to show my mom, like, check out this band that I have just, like, discovered and fell in love with in my life. And I could tell my mom did not like Rush at all, but she was so cool, man. She was just like. She's like, yeah, you know, I don't really love this, but that's awesome that you. That you have this thing that you love and it's totally okay that I don't love it. And she was funny. She's like, in fact, to be totally honest with you, it's like, it probably wouldn't be very cool if I liked it. You know, your parents aren't supposed to like your music or something like that. I was like, you hear all of the horror stories of, like, especially people in music that, like, grew up and they're like, yeah, you know, my parents wouldn't let me listen to anything, but whatever. And it made me rebel against them, and it made me not show my music to them or whatever. I'm like, oh, man. I had a totally different experience. My mom was dope. She was just like, it's okay if I don't like your music. It's probably better that I don't like your music. So anyway, shout out to mom for that. I've always appreciated that. I'm trying to reciprocate that with my children. Except for Taylor Swift, I'm just like, can I. Can I give you anything other than this? But then I'm just like, I probably shouldn't be that guy. There you go. There's our tangent to get the morning started. There you go, everybody. Sneak. Sneak peek into the life of your boy, your friend, and this show's producer. What are we talking about this week? Jason? We've only got a few episodes left before we retire. [00:06:10] Speaker A: So you've always been, like, hinting at the possibility of doing next year. I know. And now you should talk to him. Right? Stick a fork. [00:06:19] Speaker B: No, I'm not just. I'm not outright sticking a fork in it. Tell them. Tell them what you told me, because I think that you have a good plan, Jason. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Here's. Here's here. So, yeah, it feels it. As we've been doing the show and as Nate's been getting busier and busier at the end of the year and balancing more and more, trying to figure. Figure things out. It's. It's. I mean, we've slipped a little bit from Saturday to Sunday to Monday to whatever day. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Well, yeah, and you're living in a different country. Like, that's. [00:06:48] Speaker A: And I'm living a real thing. [00:06:49] Speaker B: You know what I mean? It's like it was a lot easier when you and I could just drive down to the studio together, you know. [00:06:54] Speaker A: On Sunday night, it was a very different thing. We just jump in, ride down. I have a night at it now. Now it's. It's a different. It's a different deal, right? [00:07:02] Speaker B: Yep. [00:07:03] Speaker A: So as we're trying to figure out what we're going to do next year and where this is going to go, but for me, that the shows. I don't know. It's. It's. I feel like I've got a responsibility to do this and that and that. That rolls into a deeper conversation than I think what I'm prepared to give right here. But I will say this. As I was thinking about this and thinking about Trying to balance a responsibility and trying to balance how we do this. I remember when we did Doctor and Covenants and I remember looking at those numbers because this was our first year and we had like eight listeners a week. [00:07:45] Speaker B: Yeah. It was not great. [00:07:47] Speaker A: And we grew that show to where we got like a thousand listeners. Still not massive. It's just we don't advertise, we don't put any money in this. But as I looked at the discrepancy between 1000 versus 8, I'm willing, and I think it's a pretty safe bet. I'm willing to bet that 99% of you guys. Do the math. [00:08:10] Speaker B: You could actually do the math. 99.8%. Yeah. [00:08:15] Speaker A: Have not heard our Doctor and Covenants episodes. [00:08:17] Speaker B: Here's a question. Are our Doctor and Covenants episodes any good? That was four years ago, man. [00:08:23] Speaker A: I guess we're gonna find out real soon. [00:08:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess so. Right. [00:08:26] Speaker A: And so. So you ever watch a series that spans years and years and then when you go back and watch the very first episode, you're like, oh, yeah, totally. I don't remember this show being like this. [00:08:37] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm worried about. [00:08:40] Speaker A: So you're going to see the contrast in where we ended and where we began. And where we began was probably a little bit rough. It was. It's probably a lot of me just rolling through things awkward and non smooth sort of way. But you get to see that contrast. I think there's some. I think there's some. [00:09:02] Speaker B: I mean, we talked. We had the Jurassic park moment, which was pretty great. [00:09:06] Speaker A: Oh, I think. I think. I think we got better and better. [00:09:09] Speaker B: Maybe we had better. Maybe we had better production. Maybe we had better, like silly production, but maybe like not as great, like flow. I mean, I think that the. I do think that the. Actually the content was probably pretty good, like all things considered. But yeah, I mean it was our first year doing it, so who knows? That actually might be. That might be wrong too. I don't know. [00:09:33] Speaker A: I think it'd be fun to listen to. I think. So here's. I think this is what I propose to try to keep a pulse on things for you guys. Keep content coming your way, but also give us kind of a break to reassess and see where we're at. And what we want to do is we're going to take those Doctrine Covenants episodes that we recorded and we will put them out every week. So we will be here next year in recording, but not so Much live. But then that also gives us the opportunity to stay in touch with our audience. And if there's a week where. Where we want to come in, jump on, put together a bonus episode or update some of the content that we had before, we can still reach out and send out an episode to you guys where you're catching us every week, but you're also catching some live content throughout the year that we can sprinkle in without having to. I mean, we can keep that. [00:10:32] Speaker B: We love doing this. Don't misunderstand this, but we kind of set out a goal four years ago to be like. We did feel like kind of a strange calling, like you just said to do this. We were just like, you know, I think that this is a way that we can kind of lift where we stand a little bit. And when you are right there kind of towards the finish line of achieving your goal, there is a little bit of just like fatigue that kind of sets in a little bit. So we're not. We're not saying that we don't love doing it and that we want to keep doing it, but we are just saying, like, we need. We. We need to figure out a way so that we can also feel like we're continually adding good stuff to and at this point, not just repeating stuff we've already done. I do like the idea, though, Jason, that you said, and we can kind of get a pulse on this, maybe even from some of you listening instead of just doing the. The weekly Come Follow Me along with the Doctrine and Covenants, is that maybe there is like a. Maybe like a longer, you know, once a month something, you know what I mean, where we kind of sum up a lot of the weekly stuff that we've been talking about that month, but also maybe do some stuff that's not directly inside the Come Follow Me outline. Does that make sense? I guess that was something that I had kind of thought about, Jason, is that maybe we still are doing. Maybe even though we're reposting the old episodes weekly, we are still planning on doing maybe a once a month kind of big picture where it doesn't have to be exactly whatever's happening with Doctrine and Covenants, but, you know, maybe still kind of catered a little bit towards where that is. [00:12:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I. So I love those thoughts. We've talked about doing shows. Not necessarily, like you said, not necessarily Come Follow me. Maybe diving into pseudepigrapha or text that you would never be able to study in. [00:12:29] Speaker B: Yes. [00:12:30] Speaker A: Otherwise, you know, enlightening, you guys to some of the stuff that's out there and some of the things that have value or worth that we've been able to learn from that, we can highlight that, whatever. But if we sporadically did an episode every couple months without the steady rollout of a show every week, honestly, how many of you guys would even tune in to listen to it if we. If Right. You wouldn't even know when it's coming out or how it's coming out. And so for. In order for us to keep that pulse, to keep that thing going, we want to regularly crank out a weekly episode based off of our doctrine covenants. That keeps you in the know, that keeps you feeling connected. And when you see a new episode pop up, that's. That's going to be those. Those bonus episodes that we could talk about things that we find important. It doesn't have to be pseudopigraphy. It doesn't have to be doctor Be Other Things. Right. [00:13:20] Speaker B: Okay. [00:13:21] Speaker A: And. And there's another thing to kind of throw in the. The ring with that Nate's coached me out of my social media hermit land. I. [00:13:32] Speaker B: That's terrifying to think. [00:13:33] Speaker A: It is terrifying. [00:13:34] Speaker B: Not that you're doing more social media stuff, but that I'm the one that coached you out of it. That's a terrifying thought. [00:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I blame you, Nate. [00:13:43] Speaker B: Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to everyone. [00:13:49] Speaker A: No, I still don't. I still don't like to spend a lot of time on there. But what I like to do now is as I read the come follow me lesson, as I said last time, having the digital scriptures, I'm trying to. Man, how do I sound so old? Not using digital and not using social media. What's wrong with me? Anyways, as I'm pulling up those scriptures and marking in the journals that go along with it and learning and seeing and picking up new insights, I like to try to summarize them. And I feel like X formerly known as Twitter. I've never really been a big fan because of the character limit, because I've always been overly wordy, but I feel like it's been a good challenge trying to figure out how to be more succinct and concise with my thoughts and how to. How to craft a message in such a way that it's not going to take up a lot of space. So. So if you want some more live insights, I'm trying to. I'm trying to step onto that a little bit more and share some of Those thoughts that I'm picking up as I'm reading each week as well. So just one more aspect. If, if you'd like hearing different perspectives, different takes on this, we're going to republish some of those old episodes, give you a chance to listen to them if you haven't heard them yet. We'll be posting some stuff in Twitter online to try to augment that. Then we're going to be doing some occasional episodes throughout the year where we're live in the studio to be able to just address other things. And maybe that also gives you guys an opportunity, if there is something that you wish we would have talked about or questions that you have or things you'd like to hear us discuss that are maybe outside of the context or the frame of the weekly come follow me discussion, feel free to send that into us and give us a chance. We can look at it and see if that's something that we'd like to discuss on the show. Or, you know, maybe we can talk about it or spend some time doing that too. I think it just kind of opens up a couple different possibilities. Anyways, those are my thoughts for next year. All right, this, this is the finishing up the record of Ether here, the Book of Ethereum. And here's how I want to approach it. I mean, ether 12 is one of my favorite chapters in all the Book of Mormon. And I feel like a lot of my content this week is going to be pulling from ether 12. So it's going to be kind of coming in with the microscope, looking at some of this for the small picture. And then we're going to have to zoom out as we get to 1314, the rest of the book where the Jaredites are destroyed. I going to take kind of a different lens and look at this big picture. So let's dive in ether 12 and let's start one of my favorite scriptures, verse 6. And now I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things I would show unto the world. The faith is things which are hoped for and not seen wherefore dispute not, because you see not for you receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. And as I read that this week, something that really stood out to me when we're talking about faith. And it kind of sounds like this when we're reading that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen. When we're talking about not seen. I think it's easy that we kind of get into the mindset or the idea of blind faith because it's not Seen. And so I wanted to highlight something. Faith is never blind. I don't believe in blind faith. And although he's saying that it's not seen. Right, here's what I think Moroni is meaning. And then I'll try to explain what I mean. So first off, I think one of the best, the best discussions on faith comes from lectures on faith. Very comprehensive, and it does a wonderful job explaining and walking us through that. And in the lectures of faith, they say the first thing you need to have faith is to have that knowledge first. There is a seed first. They said that the reason why men could have faith in God is because Adam walked with God first. In the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden, God was there. And as soon as the generation shifted far enough from God that they forgot him, what did he do? He reappears and shows himself to another prophet. Whether it be Enoch, whether it be Noah, go down that line, Abraham, Moses, all the way to where we get to today. In order for us to have faith, there needs to be an idea, a knowledge or something that we have faith in. But in this Lectures on Faith, it also says that faith is the principle of action. And so it says there is no action that we take without faith. And so as you kind of break this down and think about it, I think this helps us kind of get to where I want to hit a simple action like turning on a light switch. I would never flip a switch on the wall of my house expecting it to start a car in the garage. And why wouldn't I expect that? Why do I expect a light switch to turn on the lights in the room and not do something like move a car down the road or xyz? It's because that's my experience, or that's my knowledge, or that's what I've been taught, or that's what I understood. And so in order for us to have faith, there has to be knowledge and experience behind it. It was important that the Book of Mormon was translated and published before the church was able to be restored. And the gospel was pushed out to the world because that was the evidence and the knowledge needed for people to be able to understand and have faith that the gospel was restored. In order for us to believe in the atonement, God had to explain it to Adam and Eve and cover them with coats of skin and require sacrifice and teach them about it. It says it very well in the New Testament. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, we are first told what to expect what to believe and why it would work in order for us to have faith. But just because I have faith doesn't mean that that's going to work or it's not going to work or it doesn't necessarily mean that I have first hand knowledge. Right. So going back to the light switch every morning, if I want light and I have the expectation that the light is going to go on, I haven't seen that light turn on yet because I haven't flipped the switch. So when I go back to what Moroni is saying, faith is things which are hoped for and not seen. I hope that when I press that switch, the room lights up. But I haven't seen that happen yet because I haven't hit that switch. Does that mean blind faith? Absolutely not. Tons of people have flipped switches. I flip switches. There's a lot of experience that brings that into an expectation. So all of this to say faith drives every action we do because of what we're hoping to accomplish from the actions that we do. I go to bed at night hoping that I'm going to get rest and feel better and refreshed for tomorrow. And then I do that. In order for faith to save us, it must be anchored in something that has that saving power. Christ is the only one that can save us. Therefore faith in Christ is the only thing that will allow us to regain the presence of God, to be restored into his paradise. And it is something that we are hoping for. It's something we have not seen happen yet because we haven't entered into that paradise and been saved. But that's the hope that I'm putting on in Christ. And it's not blind. It is very much evidence based and evidence driven. The Scriptures are full of accounts of people who have had faith in Christ and Christ has saved them to some degree to evidence to them that we can be saved on the larger scale, there has to be an expectation in order for us to have faith in it. Nobody has faith that turning on a light switch is going to start a car unless there is evidence to believe or suggest that they've actually wired things in a certain way to create that expectation. So all of that to say faith is not blind. [00:22:27] Speaker B: I love it. I agree, I agree. [00:22:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we shift. [00:22:34] Speaker B: I do feel like faith can be blind maybe early on. I think that like a child doesn't. A child doesn't know that they're not supposed to have faith in something, but they might not have the same experiences as like an adult or something like that. I think I'M not disagreeing with you, but I am just saying, like, there is also those certain levels of experience in exercising faith and seeing the evidence of faith come through. I don't think faith should be blind. Maybe that's. That's what I would say as well. Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you, though. [00:23:14] Speaker A: No. Right, right, right, right. I hear what you're saying, and I'm thinking about this too. Like, can you. Can you, like, maybe. Maybe an example of a child that would be less informed, less experienced, or less closer leaning towards blind faith? [00:23:36] Speaker B: Sure. I mean, yeah, totally. You tell your children that Santa Claus is real, and they're like, yeah, okay. They have to that point, they have zero evidence that Santa Claus is real other than they can start recognizing that presence eventually starts showing up. But that's like. That's not even a real thing, though. But I'm just saying, it's like, I feel like that, by the way, too. I think that this is. I don't think that this is something that's a negative thing, by the way, too, because in Mosiah, we're told that we need to have faith like children. We need to. Told that we need to become like children. And part of that is that they are humble and full of faith and willing to submit and all of those things. And so I guess I'm just saying, like, I do think that children. I used to tell my children all the time that I know everything, and it used to make my wife so upset, but my kids are like, sure, yeah, dad knows everything. And I didn't prove to them that I know everything, because there is no way that I guess I could prove to them that I know everything. Do you see what I'm saying? Like, children, I do feel like very much have trust in their parents, especially that they kind of just, you know, they believe what you tell them to. So, yeah, like, I. I do think that. I do think that on some level that that's actually kind of something to. To admire in a strange sort of a way, you know? And. And by the way, too, it's like the reason that we're told to have faith like children is because who are we supposed to have faith in? And that's somebody that's not going to lie to us. That's somebody that's not going to tell us that Santa Claus is real and then pull the rug out from underneath us. Right. It's like Charlie Brown in the football. I'm just saying, like, that's. I think that sometimes. Sometimes we also look down on people that may seem like they have blind faith or they may be very willing to go like, no, like here's where my testimony is based. And therefore I am willing to, I am willing to go forward without asking a ton of questions. And I think sometimes people like that are kind of bagged on even within church circles. Like, you know, oh, you're just a, you're just a sheep or whatever like that. And I'm like, man, I, I have people in my life that don't know the scriptures maybe as well as I do that don't. Haven't spent the time trying to really think through a lot of some of the doctrine and ordinances and various things that we do maybe to the obsessive level that, that you and I have. Yet those people show up and they're unshakable. Right, right. Like their testimony is rock, rock solid. And so, you know, I guess I, maybe it just, it comes down to what you mean by blind faith. But I don't know, it's like, I also just don't, I don't think that there's also anything wrong with people that are just in man, that just are there and believe. And I don't, I'm not saying that that's blind faith for them, but I don't know, I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm just saying I think that there is like levels and stages of where people are at with their faith. [00:26:44] Speaker A: Right, right. I'm going to go to the example of a child being told about Santa Claus. Right. [00:26:50] Speaker B: Okay. [00:26:53] Speaker A: Did you believe in Krampus growing up? [00:26:56] Speaker B: Never even heard of Krampus. [00:26:58] Speaker A: And so would it be fair to assume that you didn't believe in Krampus growing up? [00:27:04] Speaker B: Yes. [00:27:07] Speaker A: So I think going to the example of a child right there, even though in some parts of the world they have this tradition of this Krampus, whatever, whatever. In other parts of the world where they don't have that tradition, they don't believe in it. And why do they not believe in it? Because they've never seen it, they've never heard of it, they've never had any exposure to it. Right. And so in order for a kid to believe in Santa Claus, it had to have come from somebody telling them that the Santa Claus exists. Some sort of, they have to see it to believe it in a sense. So even though we're saying that faith is not seeing, there has to be some level of exposure or else we wouldn't even know what to believe in. Right. You have to know, okay, if a parent's saying that Santa is going to come, now what you're doing is you're seeing what to believe in because your parents told you. And the reason why you believe is because you trust your parents. So now you have some evidence in order to build confidence around it, whether. [00:28:03] Speaker B: Or not what evidence, though? Like by just saying that this is real. Like, I don't. [00:28:08] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Witnesses are used as evidence in. Look at any court of law, right? When you try to prove what happened, what occurred, what didn't occur, you rely on the evidence that's presented, which in many cases is the witnesses saying this is what happened or this isn't what happened. Right? So having somebody tell you this is what to believe or this is what to expect, it depends on how much you trust that source. But that evidence has been laid out. Now, is the evidence accurate? Is the evidence dependable? Is the evidence reliable? That's a different question. But you can't have faith on something you've never heard of or you haven't seen. [00:28:44] Speaker B: To some extent, I understand that part of it. And so is that where I guess you're using the term blind here, is that you can't have faith in something if you have zero idea that, that there's even something there to have faith in? Is that kind of the point you're making? [00:29:02] Speaker A: That's kind of the point I'm making. If I can sum it up like this. I think faith is confidence built on evidence, but testimony is firsthand experience. [00:29:11] Speaker B: Okay? [00:29:12] Speaker A: And so go to Moroni's Promise. And since we're reading Moroni's words, I think it's fit to kind of pull his example that we're going to talk about at the end of the year. But I think it's going to come up a couple times in today's discussion. When he gives his promise, he doesn't just say, okay, there's an order of operations. He doesn't just say, pray God, and ask if this book is true? If this is the case, then why wouldn't it be Mormon's Promise and put on the title page before you even get into the book, before you even crack it open on the very first page, why do we not have Mormon's Promise saying, here is the Book of Mormon? Before you waste your time reading it, find out first if it's true. And once you know it's true, then it's worth investing your time in and reading it because it's true. And if it's not true, then you saved yourself a whole lot of headaches. Start by first praying and asking God if it's true. Instead, it's Moroni's promise. It's at the end of the book and it says, and now after you have received these things and he even goes into. I would exhort you not to. Not to pray about it, but to consider the mercy and the kindness of God and being able to hand these things to you today. Preserving this record as what? Why should we consider the fact that that record has been preserved for millennia and pulled out of the ground and translated and that you're able to read those words? Because that's building a case. That's the evidence. Consideration the evidence, consider these many testimonies. And I think that's what Christ is asking us to do, is not just be blind about how we do this, but when we consider that. Look at the argument for believing in Christ. Look at the traditions for millennia. Look at the Jews who didn't even believe in Christ and today don't accept Christ as the Messiah who still take the Passover events that talk about the day that he would die, the manner in which he would die, and continue to maintain that tradition. Look at that evidence. Look at all of the evidences, all of the witnesses, look at all of the prophets. Read the Scriptures. And why are we told so many times to read and consider is because here's the evidence. If you don't, if you don't know about this, how are you ever going to believe in it? If you don't know what to ask God, if you don't know what to believe, if you don't know, then how can you have faith in Christ? And in Christ? I think ultimately, why, for example, when he came and died and resurrected, did he cause others to resurrect and rise out of the grave with him? If it's not building this case, building this argument, and giving us enough evidence to look at to have a reason to suspect, a reason to hope and believe. And just because I know that flipping that light switch is going to give me light, doesn't mean that I've experienced the light from flipping the light switch. That's one thing to know about something. It's one thing to have been told about it, to consider it, that everyone's saying this, and it's another thing for me to flip that switch and experience that light for myself. So I think faith is very much evidence based in knowing what we can believe in. And when we understand what we can and why we should, and we turn and we and we seek that. And if so, that drives our actions. Because I have hope that I can resurrect from the dead. Because I have hope that I can be forgiven for my sins. Because I have hope that I can change. Why do I have that hope? Because it's been taught to me. I've read it in the scriptures, I've seen examples of it. It's been, the case has been made, the evidence has been laid out. Doesn't mean that I believe that that can happen to me. I know that that's a possibility. I know that that can happen. And now I believe in it. But until I flip that switch, it will never make a difference for me. And so I think that faith requires evidence, a case, a witness. Which is why God at the very beginning was with Adam in the Garden of Eden. And after they were cast out, they heard his voice from the garden continuing to teach them and that he always has prophets and always has witnesses here on the earth to talk to the people and have his voice out there so that they can believe in Him. But there is a big difference between faith and testimony. Testimony is the first hand experience that yes, I believe to the point that my actions responded and such that now I see it happening to me and I see what I've read about happening to others starting to take place. And now I know that it works for me and, and testimony becomes the experience firsthand. Yeah, I don't know. I think we focus so much on faith being blind that sometimes we miss how much God has really, really tried to connect with his people. Sending prophets and giving scriptures, giving us witness after witness after witness, the three witnesses that eight witnesses, the and all of these random witnesses. And it's still, I think it still fits with what Moroni saying, hope for and not seen. Just because he's done that doesn't mean we've seen it for ourselves. And we're still invited to partake and see it for ourselves. And it kind of gives us a bunch of examples and breakouts here. Right? For it was verse seven. For it was by faith that Christ showed Himself unto our fathers after he had risen from the dead. And he showed not Himself unto them until after they had faith in Him. Wherefore it must needs be that some had faith in him, for he showed Himself not unto the world. And that last line really struck me. It must needs be that some had faith in him, for he showed Himself not unto the world. And I thought about that for a second. Christ appeared to the Nephites. Why? Because they Expected him to. Why did they expect him to? Because for 400 years, 600 years, book of Mormon prophets were telling them that Christ would come. There was an expectation. And I thought about this. Have you ever had a party or an event or something that you were considering going to? And what's the difference between having somebody at that event that's expecting you to show up, a family member or a friend or somebody who's going to be waiting for you at that event versus nobody knows that you're coming or planning on going. If you're starting to look at that event and plan for it. And then you decide, you know what? I don't know if I've got time or if I'm interested in going or if I want to go. Right. And you think about canceling or not showing up. Now, what difference does it have on your decision if there is somebody that you care about that's fully expecting you to be there, that you're going to disappoint if you don't show up versus if nobody even knows that you're coming? It's easy for me to decide not to show up if nobody's expecting me to be there, because it's. No one's going to miss me. It doesn't make a difference. And I can just bounce. But if someone's expecting me to be there, it's crazy sometimes the extremes we make to try to make that happen because of the expectation. And I was thinking about that with this last line. Christ showed Himself not unto the world, and it was by faith that he showed himself unto those. There were people that were expecting him to show up. And for the people that were expecting him to show up, he made the presence. For the people that had no idea he was going to come, he wasn't there. So what must happen for Christ to come? We must have that belief, that expectation, and then he shows up. And it also made me think of President Nelson's promise that for those seeking Christ, we'll find him in the Temple. What is he doing? He is planting that seed of expectation in our minds that we will find him in the temple. And so what if Christ has a bunch of people that are expecting to find him there? It makes it for Him a priority to try to be there. Whereas if nobody was ever expecting him to be there, why would he be there? Does that make any sense? Or is that kind of. All right, I keep rolling down verse 19. There were many whose faith was so strong even before Christ came, who could not be kept from within the veil. The highlight for me in verse 19 was the word many. Sometimes we think that it's just a few. And why do we think it's just a few? Because we read about just a few. And so going back to faith, being driven by evidence or knowledge, our evidence shows us a few examples. Therefore we think it's a few people that did it. And it's easy for us to. To conflate that every example of it ever happening is what we're looking at. So therefore it only happened a few times, and most of the time it didn't happen at all. And so I like this one word which tries to challenge our assumptions that only a few people were able to do this or see this or have this experience when it says there were many whose faith was so exceedingly strong even before Christ came, who could not be kept from within the veil. And we think about the temple ordinances and the veil and the ability to enter into the presence of God through the temple. And it's something that Christ has been inviting all of his people to do for a very long time. Moses plainly understood this and taught to prepare the people, wash them, make them clean, to enter into the presence of God. And even though it was something that God wanted for all of his people, for whatever reason, throughout all humankind, we have been trying to limit this to a select few. Let them do it for us, let the high priest do it. Or only these persons got to see it. And that's okay, because I don't have to see it. But God keeps trying to shake us with evidence that this was for the many. And I like that. Verse 19, Many, this is for everyone. This is what the temple is all about, guys. We get to enter in the presence of God in the temple. Prepare yourselves, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, and come have faith. Because it's not just for a few, it's for you, it's for everyone. And that should shape the way that we act, because that's what faith does. It's the principle of action. Now I'm going to go to the temple with the expectation of being able to enter into the presence of God, because I have the evidence to believe that. And that changes how I behave. How am I going to prepare for this? How am I going to make myself clean? What am I going to do? What am I going to think? How am I going to. It's. It shapes us. That's faith. Faith is what drives the actions that we do. And verse 20, behold, we have seen in this record that one of these was the Brother of Jared, when we have seen in this record, it kind of stands out to me because it is written in scripture, right? We turn to the Scriptures and we look at those who've been able to enter the presence of God, not just the brother of Jared who saw the hand of the Lord part through the veil and that he was invited to kind of go through that veil and experience more. But we also see Joseph Smith has this experience with Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple. Lorenzo Snow talks about seeing the Lord in the temple. There are recorded events that help shape that knowledge. And that's part of what we do with the temple endowment. But that's all I'll say on that. I'm going to keep rolling. If we come down to verse 24, what an interesting statement Thou hast made us so that we could write but little because of the awkwardness of our hands. Behold, thou hast not made us mighty in writing like unto the brother of Jared, for thou has made the things that he wrote were mighty even as thou art unto the overpowering of a man to read them. And that just whets my thirst more to know what the Brother of Jared wrote. Because for me, I read the Book of Mormon and I think about it in terms of what Moroni described the Brother of Jared's records to be. And so maybe it's not that much greater, maybe it's on par. But I look at the power that the Book of Mormon has had to overpowering a man to read them. I look at the changes I've made in my life because I've believed in what the Book of Mormon says. I look at the steps that I've made. I look at my beliefs today and how I conduct myself in all aspects of my life. This book has changed me, has transformed me, has wrought mighty miracles in me, is simply because of the writings that were in there. And these guys thought that they were terrible at it. I don't know if it's something that we always just downplay whenever we write something, we don't think it expresses what we're feeling as well because it's just. It's ink on paper, but there is power to the words. And so part of this is I would love to see what the Brother of Jared wrote to see if it's all that much more impressive than the Book of Mormon. Or is it just Moroni that this book had a powerful impact on him, similar to what I'm experiencing when I read Moroni's words. Maybe Moroni is doing himself A disservice and not understanding the power that his words would have generations later. Maybe some of that is gained in translation. He didn't realize that the translating process would add life to his words. I don't know. It's an interesting verse that stands out to me. Verse 26. I don't know why I even highlight this, but to me it's just always stood out in my mind when he kind of worries about the quality of what he's written and the impact it's going to have. And the Lord says in verse 26, and when I had said this, the Lord spake unto me saying, fools mock, but they shall mourn. And for whatever reason, that phrase, that statement has always stood out to me in my mind. And the Lord saying it, it's almost chilling. Fools mock, but they shall mourn. I like that phrase. [00:44:22] Speaker B: I do too. But I think that sometimes we take that phrase out of context to try to like, to kind of like slam dunk on somebody. That's like taking shots. Because I think that it was talking specifically about him not being like, well spoken. Right. Isn't that like the context of it? I just, I do. I just always want to put the plug in that. Sometimes we, Sometimes we have scriptures that we love. The phraseology of it or not the phraseology. We love the. I don't know, like, I love it too, but sometimes I think we use it out of context. You know, when people are maybe taking shots at our religion and we kind of almost use it as like a fool's mock, but they shall mourn. It's like, well, yeah, but that's not necessarily. That's not necessarily the context of the scripture. But it still sounds rad to say it when people are taking shots at you. As a missionary, we loved that scripture. As a missionary, we loved that scripture. Fools mock, but they shall mourn. Like, yeah, I think he was talking. I think he was talking about how he doesn't, like, he's not super well spoken. [00:45:26] Speaker A: And in a very real sense, I've, I've. Let's. Let's take this mock and, and maybe not mocked, but maybe not understood it or taken it lightly or not cared about it a lot as a kid. Right. There are some things that I did not give the Book of Mormon. In some. In some aspects, it's due reverence or I didn't think this was important enough or I would, you know, just because I didn't understand. And as I grew up and as I started to understand the gravity of some of these things. I think it caused me to mourn a little bit that I didn't understand that earlier. I didn't give it the respect it was due. Right. I don't know I want to go to any specific examples but I think there is even in my own reflection seeing some of that and how I treated things. Verse, verse 27 is another one of my all time favorite scriptures. Moroni is just dropping. If there's anything I get from ether 12 and it's just one chapter of Moroni inserting himself into the summary that he's doing is Moroni was an incredible writer. I wish we had an Alma sized book of Moroni's writings that he could just go off on on things. To get a lot more than just this one chapter and to understand that 2/3 of the Book of Mormon was written by him. I wish we had that. But coming back to 27, if men come unto me, I will show unto them their weakness. This really stood out to me. For anyone who's feeling insufficient or feeling inadequate or like they're just not enough, maybe that's a good sign. If God's promising to everyone that anyone who approaches him, he's going to show unto them their weakness. Maybe the feelings of inadequacy is evidence of humility and approaching God and that relationship coming into play. There's kind of two things I want to take out of this one. Yeah, I think we feel like we're not enough. God says, I need you to be like your Father in heaven who is holy. I need you to be perfect. That we're not enough. He, he intentionally kind of crushes us a little bit that way. And why do we get that feeling of inadequacy? Because it's opportunities for improvement. He, he makes it so that we can be humble, so that we can realize that we need help, so that we can turn to him, so that we can work on those things as we turn to him. And we work on those things. And we hate those things about us. I think it's, it's, it's like the soreness you get from working out in the gym. It's the evidence, the sign, the proof of development. It's what keeps us coming back because we know that we're able to improve and work on these things as we try to tear them down and make them strengths in our lives. It's the growing process. But the other aspect I wanted to focus on this is sometimes we have this other misconception or idea that I'm just going to turn to God, and he is going to overcome me with love and accept me for who I am. And I am perfect where I am. And this idea that God loves me for me, and that's okay. This is not what he says. If men come unto me, I will show unto them that they are fine where they sit, that they are perfect, who they are, and that I love them for exactly who they are and they don't need to change. That's not what he's saying. Yeah, I want to strip that from you. What was it like when Abraham approached God and God asked him to sacrifice Isaac? I don't think that was a loving Abraham. You know what? You've done such a great job and you've been such a perfect person to this point. I just want you to know you don't have to do anything else. You're saved. Taking a great man and saying, how can I test him even further? How can I bend this metal a little bit more? Or what am I going to do? What did you expect would happen when you approached the refiner's fire? And it's a scary thing. And I worry that sometimes we handle. There's two extremes in this, right? But sometimes we handle converts or others. I won't even say converts. People with kid gloves. We don't have high expectations for them or we don't give them opportunities. We don't. God wants us to become like Him. And that process requires a lot of heat in the fire to burn out the imperfections. And so verse 27, there is comfort in knowing that we feel inadequate. There is comfort in knowing that we're stumbling as we're approaching God and that we're not there because there's opportunities for growth. But it's also important to not expect that we're going to come to God and he's going to just put a bow on us and make us feel the greatest validation ever and that we don't need to change anything in our lives. [00:50:51] Speaker B: The refire, the refiners fire, I like it. Got to burn out those imperfections. It's not a. It doesn't sound like a fun process. But the thing is, the fire, it's like the fires, the refiners fire, but it's also the fire that everybody's going to burn in if they don't pay their tithing. Really burn out the imperfections then. I'm just kidding. I'm not kidding. But I hope I'm not in that fire. I much prefer the refiners fire before that happens. Cool, man. Let's Keep moving. [00:51:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I guess, I guess last. [00:51:32] Speaker B: Thought, you must have been, you must have been on social media for the week where, where it's the, the age old argument with kind of the mainstream Christianity about one, Mormons not being Christians. Mormons are in quotation mark Mormons, by the way, Mormons not being Christian, which is just eye rolling and yawn inducing at this point. But then just the age old debate of Mormons think that you have to do things to be saved. And all you need to know is that grace cannot be earned and therefore it's the gift that if you try earning it, that actually will condemn you. It's like it's almost swung so hard the other way that it's like if you try to do things, if you try to follow and obey the commandments to do what Jesus asked you to do, that's going to condemn you to hell instead of just saying, I accept Jesus and that's it. And I'm not even going to think to try to do anything else about it at this point. I'm just saying it's like Satan's got to be laughing at this one where he's just like, I've convinced them that trying to obey the commandments is the bad thing to do at this point. That trying to do good works in this life is actually going to get them in trouble. I mean, it would have not been on my bingo card when Jesus was going around telling everybody, if you love me, keep my commandments. I thought for sure that that one would be able to stick. But you know, you can always find one or two random scriptures in the collection of books that we call the Bible that will say something like, well, if you try to do a work, it's not good. I just, I read through this stuff and I'm like, how do you even, where do you even start? Where do we even start with this? And I just realized you don't. You roll your eyes and you move on. But anyways, it sounds like it's. Oh man, I'm. Those arenas are wild. Those arenas are wild. [00:53:41] Speaker A: Yeah. My last thought on the subject is it feels like we're in a classroom together and Christ has made it clear when he says that the moat and the beam, right, to not be trying to pull out other people's challenges. I think God's saying it's his job when people approach him to show them their weaknesses, to work with them, to help them figure it out. It's not necessarily my job to sit here and try to criticize everybody. Instead, being in a position where I am being exposed to my weaknesses, where I am going from mocking to mourning and trying to fix those things in myself, I can help and relate with the others that are in this. It builds a sense of community and love where we help bear each other's burdens, help each other. You know, that's the camaraderie. We are like a class where we have a difficult teacher trying to run us through all of these things, where we kind of look to each other for support and help, knowing that there are different strengths and weaknesses in here, that some people get things that maybe I don't understand, maybe I understand things that other people don't understand. But we help each other come to Christ. I think that's what I take from this discussion on God showing us these weaknesses and also our role here as a church. All right, charity is a discussion coming down to verse 34. And now I know this love is charity. Wherefore, except men shall have charity, they cannot inherit the place which thou hast prepared in the mansions of thy Father. And then verse 35, wherefore I know by this thing which thou hast said, that if the Gentiles have not charity because of their weakness, that thou wilt prove them and take away their talent, yea, even that which they have received, and give it unto unto them who shall have more abundantly. Moroni has been a big fan of charity. It's come up in a couple different times. But what I like most about these two verses and his use of charity is his tie in with parables that Christ gave. When we go into verse 34, for example, you cannot inherit the place which thou has prepared in the mansions of thy Father. This is in my Father's house there are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you. And then we come into verse 35, wherefore I know this thing thou hast said, that if the Gentiles have not charity because of their weakness, that thou wilt prove them and take away their talent, yea, even that which they have received and give it unto them who shall have more abundantly. Moroni is talking to an audience that he fully expects them to have the words of Christ. And he's referencing the parable of the talents. He's referencing the many mansions in God's house that Christ is going to prepare them away. And there's a couple of different parables that kind of get roped into that idea. And I love the use of Christ's words, and I love that Christ is universal and how he applies his truth to both sides of the world. But it also gave me new perspective on the parable of the talent. And Nate, you and I had a great discussion in the New Testament. I thought it was a great discussion as we talked about the parable of the talents and what it means, and the 1 and the 3 and the 5, depending on which story you're going on. Right. But this gave me a different take on the parable of the talent. In my mind this week as I read this, the talent became. Well, let me. Let me phrase it this way. What is the worth of a soul? And that question is even asked, right? The worth of a soul is great. And I think of the talent and it being this great, this large sum of money. And what if in this case, the talent is the Lord pours out his spirit on a part of his vineyard, and there is a person who has felt that spirit and who has come to try to approach the Lord and talking with the missionaries, and they understand that the gospel has been restored, that there's a prophet here on earth, that there is priesthood to be able to make covenants, and they decide to take that first step and show God they're willing to follow him. And so what if that talent we look at in the view of a convert, that the Lord has blessed his part of the vineyard with another person to come help build the kingdom and that talent which he has given them, what if, how we receive that talent and we look at it and we say, you know what, this is fragile. We don't want to ask too much from them. They just barely made a big commitment to get baptized, and we're lucky that they did that. We don't want to scare them away. We know that if we put too much on them, if we expect too much of them, we don't want to. We're worried about losing this one. Let's kind of bury it in the ground and hide it. We don't give them a calling. We don't give them a responsibility. We don't give any expectations on them because we're worried about what that might do with it. We bury it in the ground and then we lose that convert. Because what happens to a convert that gets buried in the ground that doesn't give. That doesn't get a responsibility, doesn't give a job to kind of isn't given a responsibility, a job to be able to reach out and grow? And we're not investing in that. They fall away, we lose it. And what if we take on the Flip side of that convert. And we look at it and say, now is the time when they have the desire to serve Christ, to let them serve. Let them serve while they're willing to give that person something to do, give that person some responsibility, Give them. Let's invest in that person. Because how did God develop Moses? It was asking him to do some incredibly hard things. How did he develop Abraham, Isaac, Jacob? How did he develop any of his prophets? And we look at it and say, well, this is a hard thing I have. I think you look at any ward in the church and you think that we have maybe a handful of people that can do all of the things. And this is the person that I'm going to lean on, because this is the person that's dependable. And then we kind of fail to recognize the other 300 people in the ward that are capable of doing things. They're just never given the opportunity to rise to the occasion, to serve. And are we not bearing those talents where if we could invest in those people like the Lord invests in us and require hard things for them, they have the opportunity to grow, to develop, to serve and to do more. So I looked at this verse as the Spirit of the Lord falling on different parts of the vineyard, and people responding, hearing the message, coming, being baptized, joining the church. And what do we do with them to take care of them from that point? Are we hiding them or are we investing in them? [01:00:33] Speaker B: Love it. [01:00:34] Speaker A: Okay, I know I told you ether12 was going to be heavy. I've got one more thing in ether 12 and then we can big picture out of this thing. Okay? Ether 1238. And now I'm Moroni, bid farewell unto the Gentiles, yea, and also unto my brethren, whom I love, until we shall meet before the judgment seat of Christ, where all men shall know that my garments are not spotted with your blood. This is something that's also said Jacob, right? He shakes his garments out and show that there's no blood on them. And I've always understood this in context of kind of Ezekiel, when they talk about the watchman on the tower. And if the watchman does not warn the people, and the enemy comes through tears down the wall and destroys the people, the watchman has blood on his hands. His garments are stained with blood. He's guilty. He's responsible for. For the death of all the people because it was his job to warn them. And so I look at this and Moroni and the other prophets doing their job. I am going to extort you, warn you do whatever I can so that I am not held guilty for you not changing or making a repentance. That's how I've always understood this. As I read this one this week, I saw it differently. The high priest would have his clothes spotted with blood when he would go into the Holy of Holies. And Christ, when they talk about him in Isaiah, he's the one that tramples the winepress and spots his clothing red and it's going to come. He's going to be clothed, stained in red. Why? Because it's our blood that's on his clothes. Just like the high priest would have the blood from the sacrifice on his clothes and take that in the Holy of Holies, Christ through the atonement and going to Gethsemane when he prayed and bled from every pore. And he literally stained his garments red with his blood. So I look at this in a twofold way. One, meaning the responsibility to not be guilty because you didn't say something you knew you needed to speak up on. But two, don't turn to me for salvation. My garments are not spotted with your blood. I didn't atone for you. And I see both of these. I'm going to go right back to Moroni's promise when he says, and now I would exhort you. So what's he doing? He is raising his voice. The warning tower. The Ezekiel version of what we mean from this. And then in the end to not take my word for it. Ask God. And what we see here is the prophets not setting themselves up as a light to the world, but always reflecting the light of Christ. Don't take my word for it. Come to Christ. He is the only one that can pay for your sins. I can't save you. Don't just believe my words and call it good. Always redirecting everybody to Christ. And you see that in verse 39. And then shall you know that I have seen Jesus, that he have talked with me face to face. And he has told me in plain humility, even as a man telleth one to another. Concerning these things I have only written because of my weakness in writing. Only a few of these things have I written. And now I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written. My words aren't enough to save you. I didn't stain my clothes red. Paying for your sins. Just reading the book and taking my word for it will never be enough to save you. Only Christ's clothes are spotted red with your blood. Follow him. So it was that, that second High Priest, meaning that I had never caught before. [01:04:23] Speaker B: Love it. [01:04:25] Speaker A: All right, let's big picture this out then we kind of go to 13, 14, 15. We talk about the new Jerusalem being built here in Americas. There's a lot of interesting things here specifically for our time, Second Coming. I think we can see a lot of these things in our events. What I wanted to do is kind of zooming out on this and taking this big picture is the Book of Ether is almost this microcosm of the Book of Mormon, which is almost a microcosm of us. And it's like these Russian dolls that you're stacking within each other. There's interesting similarities with Ether who's closing up this record that there are with Moroni, because Ether is the last of his kind, just like Moroni is going to be the last of his kind. Aether has this cave that he's dwelling in and all of these records that he's responsible for keeping, just like Moroni has this cave that he's living and all of these records that he's responsible for keeping. It's interesting, these parallels and you're going through a small record in the Book of Mormon being the Book of Ether as the small witness and standing as a second witness to the larger record of the Book of Mormon that both witnesses stand up to warn us about what's coming our way. And I think of the reason behind the warning, right? We look at all of this destruction that happened before the coming of Christ, we look at the destruction and, and the people of Jared at the end and we think, does that mean that we ourselves in the last days are winding up for us, massive destruction and it's going to be the end of us? And potentially, yes. But I like to think of this as Jonah's words to the Ninevites. Why did God ask Jonah to go to Nineveh and to preach to them? It was to save them. Why do we have these records today? Maybe it's so it can save us from the destruction that's going to happen at the end. Maybe it doesn't have to be that way. Maybe we can repent. And we see the church rolling out and the gospel being restored and people changing their lives. And I'm hoping for a Nineveh like result where people put on sackcloth and fast and change and. And as we change our lives and turn towards the Lord, maybe there can be a different ending for us in the end than what there was written for the end of the Book of Mormon. And the end of the Book of Jared. Maybe the reason we have these records is like a Jonah to the Ninevites to mean that we can write our own ending today and it doesn't have to be like that. [01:07:22] Speaker B: Sweet. I like that. I like it. [01:07:27] Speaker A: Oh, good. [01:07:29] Speaker B: Motorcycle behind you. Loving that, too. [01:07:32] Speaker A: The streets, the world wakes up around me. Kids making breakfast. [01:07:37] Speaker B: I like it. I like it. I'm about ready to go to bed for the night. You're waking up to the world and I'm putting mine away, baby. Anything else you want to hit? [01:07:47] Speaker A: I think we're good. Let's call it. Let's. [01:07:49] Speaker B: Ether's awesome, by the way. I love that book. [01:07:52] Speaker A: It is. I. Man. We didn't talk about Corey Anthem or chopping Shiz's head off. We didn't talk about all these massive, like, I know. Wars. [01:08:02] Speaker B: We didn't talk about how the daughter of Jared is truly a super villain. [01:08:08] Speaker A: Right. Like, there's so much we left out. [01:08:11] Speaker B: Like, truly one of the super villains of the book. [01:08:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:17] Speaker B: I mean, there's a lot of good stuff, but, you know, I'm. This is. I'm glad that we. I'm glad that we got into the. The stuff that we wanted to talk about. Hopefully you listening found some insight in there. [01:08:27] Speaker A: Hey, you always ask me if I've covered everything I wanted to talk about. Did you. Did we get to anything. Everything you wanted to talk about? [01:08:36] Speaker B: I mean, ether for me is the weak things become strong in the boats. That's pretty much ether for me. I mean, I love all of the book and would have fun talking about all of it, but I feel like you summed it up very nicely. I did want to. Just briefly. There was one thing I did want to briefly shout out, though. We talked about. We were talking about the talk that President Nelson gave. I think it was the last conference about how we need to dedicate ourselves or like rededicate ourselves to being Disciples of Christ. And I was going to throw this at you because it started making me think, like, what are the things in this church that we dedicate? Temples, church buildings, homes and graves. I like that President Nelson added one more thing to that list, and that's ourselves. But the thing is, all of those things I feel like are fairly well connected. Right. Why do we dedicate temples as a sanctuary, as a place where peace can be inside and that the Lord can dwell? And I just. I kind of thought about all of the things that we dedicate other than graves. I haven't been able to put my finger on that. One yet. [01:09:49] Speaker A: No, no, no, no. You're on the same. Think about this. What's on the temple? House of the Lord, right? We dedicate it because it is a house of God. And so now, if we're talking about dedicating things to be houses of God, what is a home? [01:10:07] Speaker B: Oh, no, I'm with you on that. It's the graves. It's the graves that I can't figure out what is. [01:10:12] Speaker A: What is a grave. It's a house to house a dead body. Yeah, but that dead body was a God. We're. We're housing that God. [01:10:21] Speaker B: All right, I like that. All I'm saying is, is that the connections that were a lot easier for me to put together were. I like that. I like that. He used the word dedicate and rededicate ourselves multiple times in that talk, and it kind of clicked and hit home for me that, like a temple, like our body being a temple, like a church, like all of the other places that we want the spirit to dwell, we want it to be a place of internal calm and internal peace and cleanliness from the inside out. Why the boats maybe kind of made me realize that again, that we talked about, but that there is value in rededicating ourselves, and I think is a large part of that. Making and keeping covenants and all of those things, because that's also what we do in the temple and in church buildings. I just. Anyways, that was something that I was going to run by you, that I was like, I like that that word was the word that was used in that talk, and it kind of. It made some good connections for me. I don't know if that has really anything to do with ether, but I just want to throw it in there at the end. [01:11:32] Speaker A: Great thoughts. [01:11:33] Speaker B: Great thoughts by your friend and the show's producer for now, Nate Piper. And going forward, too. And going forward, too. [01:11:45] Speaker A: Nate keeps trying to hit that eject button. We're gonna rope them in. We're gonna have a fun year next year. [01:11:51] Speaker B: It's not that I'm getting chunky, but I'm kind of getting chunky. Do they use that on your mission, too, where you start packing your start packing your trunks about a month before you're going home? It happens to the best of us. We really appreciate you listening. We. I genuinely can't believe we are at the end of four years of doing this. And we've loved every minute of it, and we. The part of the reason that we've loved every minute of it is because of the awesome feedback and the interaction and the relationships that we've been able to form with a lot of you that listen and especially those that regularly email us. We always love getting the emails. We always love getting the feedback, questions, comments, even on the rare occasion that we're told that we just need to go camping or go bowling. I mean, that was year one, right? [01:12:43] Speaker A: That was year one, so that'll pop. [01:12:46] Speaker B: Back up if we're going through Doctrine and Covenants. [01:12:51] Speaker A: Maybe year one was a little rougher than I remember it. [01:12:55] Speaker B: I don't know. Year one, we were told that we shouldn't be doing a podcast together by one of the feedback. That was just like, Jason's the smart one. Nate's just derailing the whole thing. They should be friends, but they shouldn't be podcasting together. It's like, well, you're stuck with us. [01:13:11] Speaker A: That's too bad. [01:13:11] Speaker B: We come. We come. We come as a pair. We come as a pair. That's just what's. That's what you get. Anyways, appreciate you listening. You can hit us up at the email address. Hi, weeklydeepdive.com Send us question, comments, feedback, the whole business. You know how it is. Until next week.