Doctrine & Covenants 51-57 Part 1 • Sister Emily Utt • May 26 - June 1 • Come Follow Me

Summary

followHIM Podcast Episode Summary Title: Doctrine & Covenants 51-57 Part 1 • Sister Emily Utt • May 26 - June 1 • Come Follow Me
Release Date: May 21, 2025
Hosts: Hank Smith & John Bytheway
Guest: Sister Emily Utt

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Introduction

In this enlightening episode of the followHIM podcast, hosts Hank Smith and John Bytheway delve into the intricate teachings of Doctrine & Covenants sections 51-57 with their esteemed guest, Sister Emily Utt. A historian and curator for the church history department, Emily brings a wealth of knowledge about the early Latter-day Saints' endeavors to build Zion, both physically and spiritually. This episode, released on May 21, 2025, offers listeners a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and triumphs faced by the Saints in the early 19th century.

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Guest Introduction: Sister Emily Utt

Hank Smith warmly introduces Emily Utt, highlighting her extensive background as a historic sites curator. With a bachelor's degree in history and religion from Case Western Reserve University and a master's in historic preservation from Goucher College, Emily has dedicated over two decades to preserving and sharing sacred places of the global church. Her work includes significant projects at the Manti Utah Temple, Logan Utah Tabernacle, Kirtland Temple, and Beehive House. Emily's multifaceted interests extend beyond her professional duties, encompassing culinary skills, backpacking adventures, and ward organist duties.

[07:52] John: "We've seen some of those historic sites, and we love seeing those historic sites... She holds a bachelor's in history and religion from Case Western Reserve University and a master's in historic preservation from Goucher College."

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The Significance of Kirtland, Ohio

The conversation begins with a deep exploration of Kirtland, Ohio—a pivotal location in early church history. Both hosts and Emily reflect on the Kirtland Temple's construction, recognizing the community's unwavering enthusiasm despite limited experience.

[02:25] Emily Utt: "I think of Ohio, and I think of a place that's going to set me on the path and that's going to give me the foundation to build something that will last for eternity."

Kirtland serves as a foundation for understanding Zion, a term that encompasses both a physical settlement and a spiritual community dedicated to God's principles. The hosts discuss how the Kirtland Temple, though imperfect, stands as a testament to faith and God's acceptance despite human flaws.

[04:33] Emily Utt: "It's literally in the floorboards, and it's so applicable."

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Historical Context: From New York to Ohio, and Beyond

Emily provides a chronological overview of the Saints' migration, detailing the strategic moves from New York to Ohio, then to Missouri, and eventually to Nauvoo. She emphasizes the logistical challenges faced during these transitions, especially the move to Missouri, which lacked established infrastructure compared to Ohio.

[16:53] Emily Utt: "Within a few weeks of moving to Ohio, God says, I am going to build a literal Zion, a literal New Jerusalem."

The hosts highlight the immense dedication required to build Zion, noting that it's not just about physical relocation but about cultivating a community grounded in humility, repentance, and collective purpose.

[35:13] Hank Smith: "God gets his work done through the people, and he gets his people done through the work."

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Doctrine & Covenants Sections 51-57: Building a Faithful Community

The core of the episode centers on sections 51 through 57 of the Doctrine & Covenants, where the Lord provides directives for establishing Zion. Emily breaks down the revelations, emphasizing themes of honest dealings, humility, education, and the establishment of essential services like stores and printing presses.

Contrition and Humility
A recurring theme in these sections is the call for a contrite spirit—a heart humbled and always turning to God. Both hosts and Emily discuss how this internal transformation is crucial for building a unified and faithful community.

[24:19] John: "That was the topic of Family Night just the other night."

Emily elaborates on the meaning of contrition, linking it to biblical concepts of humility and constant repentance.

[25:12] Emily Utt: "A contrite heart is one that is bruised, it is humbled... always seeking to do the will of God."

Education as a Pillar of Zion
Sections 55 highlights the importance of education, urging the establishment of schools and the selection of books for children's instruction. Emily connects this early emphasis on education to the church's contemporary educational programs, illustrating the enduring significance of teaching faith and repentance from a young age.

[62:16] Emily Utt: "The first Book of Mormon I read was the Illustrated Book of Mormon... it started with the most basic introduction to the Word of God."

Establishing Temporal Foundations
Sections 56 and 57 focus on the establishment of stores and the acquisition of land. Emily explains how these practical steps are interwoven with spiritual goals, ensuring that the community's temporal needs are met to foster a conducive environment for spiritual growth.

[65:01] John: "If anybody goes on a church history tour and you go to Independence Square, look to the west and you'll see a Gilbert and Whitney store."

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Humanizing Historical Figures

Emily breathes life into historical figures mentioned in these revelations, portraying them as diverse and relatable individuals with unique backgrounds, strengths, and struggles. She discusses personalities like Edward Partridge, Sidney Rigdon, and others, highlighting their contributions and the personal sacrifices they made for the cause of Zion.

[49:21] Emily Utt: "These are amazing people, but again, very much common. Normal farmers, bookkeepers, the standard folk."

This human-centric approach allows listeners to connect deeply with the stories of early Saints, understanding that building Zion was a collective effort involving ordinary people striving for extraordinary faith.

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Application to Modern Life

Throughout the episode, parallels are drawn between historical teachings and contemporary life. The hosts and Emily discuss how the principles outlined in Doctrine & Covenants sections 51-57 are still relevant today, from establishing personal Zion through humble living and education to the importance of diverse skills in building a functional community.

[48:16] Hank Smith: "What starts here, Emily, you're right. Is the Lord saying, we need to be educating and instructing, and we have kept that going."

Emily emphasizes that Zion is not just a historical concept but a living doctrine that believers can embody in their daily lives by using their unique talents to serve the community and uphold God's will.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Emily Utt: "I think of Ohio, and I think of a place that's going to set me on the path and that's going to give me the foundation to build something that will last for eternity." [02:25]

• Hank Smith: "You'll find your own way. Don't copy another guy because his path seems to be the right path." [48:20]

• John Bytheway: "God gets his work done through the people, and he gets his people done through the work." [35:23]

• Emily Utt: "Every job is needed in Zion. For W.W. Phelps, he had learned a lot about that business. So when he joins the church, God says, 'I can use that.'" [66:32]

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Conclusion

This episode of the followHIM podcast masterfully intertwines historical analysis with spiritual insights, offering listeners a profound understanding of Doctrine & Covenants sections 51-57. Through Sister Emily Utt's expertise, the conversation highlights the foundational elements of building Zion—humility, education, community service, and the effective use of individual talents. The hosts successfully bridge the gap between past and present, encouraging believers to embody these enduring principles in their own lives to foster a vibrant and united community.

As Hank Smith aptly summarizes towards the end, the journey to Zion is not just a physical relocation but a continuous process of personal and collective growth, guided by faith and unwavering commitment to divine instructions.

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• Show Notes: https://followhim.co
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• Facebook: facebook.com/followhimpodcast

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The followHIM Podcast is not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The opinions expressed on episodes represent the views of the guest and podcasters alone.

Transcript

[Hank Smith]

Coming up in this episode on Follow Him.

[Emily Utt]

For me, as a college student, that was really meaningful because I saw everybody around me having these grand ideas. You know, the only way to be successful in life is if you're a doctor or a lawyer or I'm going to start a tech company. I'm going to change the world. Meet little history major. I'm like, I'm going to go take my Shakespeare comedy class now. I don't know. I felt such weight and pressure and guilt because I wasn't interested in that same track.

[Hank Smith]

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith. I am your host. I'm here with my faithful, just and wise co host, John. By the way, John, that's section 51, verse 19. Whoso is found a faithful, just and wise steward, which also means co host, shall enter into the joy of his Lord and shall inherit eternal life. How do you feel?

[John]

I feel. Oh, out of three. But let's keep going. These are aspirations, right?

[Hank Smith]

Yeah. One day we're going to compile a list of all these adjectives for you. You can look at them every day. Here's your bar, John. Emily comes highly recommended by the other historians who work for the church. I've had many say, you haven't had Emily Utt on your podcast yet. What are you doing? Make sure you get Emily. We are in sections 51 through 57 today. John, when you think of the move to Kirtland and all that happens there, we're there for seven years, eight years almost. What do you think of when you think of Kirtland, Ohio?

[John]

I think of Carl Anderson. I think of America's sacred ground, this video that BYUTV made. I think of Steve Young's T shirt and how a Super Bowl MVP can move a road, which is a fascinating story. Another list of difficulties for the Saints is okay, move to the Ohio and as soon as they do, okay, but actually Zion's going to be over there. The back and forth of that, the difficulties in that.

[Hank Smith]

Emily, when you think of Kurtland, Ohio, I'm guessing you've been there a few times. What comes to mind? Tell us about how you feel about Kirtland, Ohio.

[Emily Utt]

I also think of Carl Anderson. Carl was my institute teacher in Cleveland as an undergraduate. When I think of Ohio, I think of a place that sets us on the foundation of who we are as people and as saints. I think of this place where we are just figuring out what in the world we're doing. What does it mean to become the children of God? I Think of Ohio, and I think of a place that's going to set me on the path and that's going to give me the foundation to build something that will last for eternity. I think of covenant. I think of priesthood. I think of God's kingdom rolling forth on the earth. I also think of really good ice cream and pierogies, all of the things you can get in Cleveland.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah, that's so wonderful. And so much has changed in the last year for Kurt. Kirtland, Ohio.

[Emily Utt]

Yeah, it's been a crazy year in Kirtland with the acquisition of the Kirtland temple and other historic properties. Any place where God speaks to his people and where that people become better becomes sacred. So you walk the streets of Kirtland. There's a holiness there, watching people trying and failing and trying again and failing again and having no idea what's going on. But they're going to keep trying.

[Hank Smith]

They're going to keep trying, and they're so new. For anyone listening, who's Carl Anderson? In our world, we call him Mr. Kirtland.

[John]

Mr. Kirtland.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah. He's lived in Kirtland, and I think he knows every square foot of it. Right behind him is Joe Jackson. I think both of them would say, look, the church was organized in New York, but it was restored in Ohio. And of course, the jewel of Kirtland is that Kirtland Temple. And it's not perfect. That's the thing I love about it. It's not a perfect building. When you visit it, you go, wow, how is this thing still standing? I love how the Lord says, I accept it. It's not perfect, but I accept it. And I think of myself, hank, you're not perfect, but I accept you.

[Emily Utt]

Yeah. I think about the enthusiasm they had when they built Kirtland. You have a bunch of people. Some of them are a little bit older. They're a little more established. They're storekeepers. They have some cash. But you also have a lot of young kids who have no idea what they're doing. They've never built a house, let alone a house of the Lord. I walk into any of our sites, really, in Kirtland, especially in the temple, and I can see how little they actually knew, and I can see the enthusiasm with which they went and did it anyway. It's literally in the floorboards, and it's so applicable.

[Hank Smith]

I want to read you both something that I haven't read on the show before. When the church acquired the Kirtland temple, I immediately talked to my friend Alex Baugh. Who wasn't as surprised as I was. He said, well, I kind of knew what was coming. He sent me A quote from 1882. This is John Taylor. He said, as a people or community, we can abide our time. But I will say to you Latter Day Saints that there is nothing of which you have been despoiled by oppressive acts or mobocratic rule, but that you will again possess, or your children, after you, your rights in Ohio, your rights in Jackson, Clay, Caldwell, and Davies counties in Missouri will yet be restored to you. Your possessions of which you have been fraudulently despoiled in Missouri and Illinois, you will again possess. And that without force or fraud or violence, then this. Listen to this. The Lord has a way of his own in regulating such matters.

[Emily Utt]

There's also almost like an Old Testament component to that, that God will always redeem his people. No matter how long we wander in the wilderness, no matter if our lands are taken, God's covenant is always going to win.

[Hank Smith]

It will win out.

[Emily Utt]

He will always redeem his people.

[Hank Smith]

I really thought it was April Fool's when one of my students came up and said, hey, look at my phone. Guess what just happened? No way.

[Emily Utt]

I almost fainted when I found out. I was lying flat on the floor going, no way. This can't happen.

[Hank Smith]

I love it. John. Emily has never joined us before. Shockingly to the historians of the church, Emily has never joined us before. Introduce her to the Follow him audience.

[John]

Yeah. I know that we're both excited about having Emily on because she is a historic sites curator. We've seen some of those historic sites, and we love seeing those historic sites. And she's a curator there for the church history department. And for 20 years, she has been involved in preserving and sharing sacred places of the global church, including temples, meeting houses, and historic sites. As we've just talked about recently, her preservation work has taken place at the Manti Utah Temple, Logan, Utah Tabernacle. Those early tabernacles are just beautiful. The Kirtland Temple we just talked about. The Beehive House. She holds a bachelor's in history and religion from Case Western Reserve University and a master's in historic preservation from Goucher College. Did I say that right? Goucher.

[Emily Utt]

You said that right.

[John]

Yeah. Go Gauchos. Okay. I mean, what's the mascot? What are they?

[Emily Utt]

Gophers?

[John]

Go Gaucher.

[Emily Utt]

Go fear the gopher.

[Hank Smith]

Okay, we're.

[John]

We're gonna feel the gopher influence today. This is great. When she isn't in a hard hat and work boots at a construction site, I love this. You'll find her making fancy meals on backpacking trips. How do you do that? This is a whole nother topic. Serving as a ward organist. And I love this part. Trying to find room in her house for yet another bookcase. Yes, I totally get that. What a fun, interesting, unique background. We're so excited to talk to you about how the physical objects you've seen relate to the spiritual things that are happening. Thank you, Emily, for joining us today.

[Emily Utt]

Any chance I have to talk about Sacred Place, I'm going to do it. This is great.

[Hank Smith]

Emily, without revealing too much that you can't reveal, tell us what you're working on now. What's the future for Sites here in the next few years?

[Emily Utt]

The future for Sites is to help people connect. We are coming up on some major anniversaries in the next decade, all the way from the organization of the church to the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. We're working on projects that are going to help people connect in more powerful ways to those early events. So we're working on a project right now with the Hill Cumorah getting ready for the events of the Book of Mormon in the next few years. We're talking about some work in Missouri with everything between Far west and Liberty and Independence. We're studying the Kirtland Temple. A year ago this wasn't on our radar and now we're trying to figure out what the next 10 years of that building is going to look like. It's going to be great, Emily.

[Hank Smith]

We are in sections 51 through 57. I'm going to read from the Come Follow Me manual and then John and I are just excited to learn from you. I'm sure our listeners are as well. Here's how the manual begins. For church members in the 1830s, gathering the saints and building the City of Zion were spiritual as well as temporal labors with many practical matters to address. Someone needed to buy land where the Saints could settle, Someone needed to print books and other publications, and someone needed to run a store to provide goods for people in Zion. In the revelations recorded in sections 51 57, the Lord appointed and instructed people to handle these tasks. But while skills and such things are needed in Zion, these revelations also teach that the Lord desires His Saints to become spiritually worthy to be called a Zion people. His people. He calls each of us to be a faithful, a just and a wise steward or co host. Good job John. Having a contrite spirit standing fast in our appointed responsibilities. If we can do that regardless of Our temporal skills. The Lord can use us to build Zion. I've noticed this theme is becoming stronger and stronger in the Doctrine and Covenants. Building Zion. So, Emily, how do you want to start this? Do we need to go back and get some background?

[Emily Utt]

Let's get some background. I think about this brand new fledgling church. They come out of New York, there's a couple hundred members, and the first missionary effort takes them through Ohio. Those first missionaries are on their way to Missouri to try to preach to the Indians. Because these are religious seeking kind of people who have probably bounced around between churches. Some of them stop in to see their old minister in the Kirtland area. Now they're just having a conversation with old friends. Some of them get baptized very, very quickly. They hear the missionaries teach, and the next day they're in. The others of them are going to take a minute. In that group, you have people like Edward Partridge and Sidney Rigdon. Edward and Sidney actually travel to New York to meet Joseph. They want to know, is this guy for real? They meet him and at the same time, Joseph then has revelations and says, go to the Ohio. What's so interesting for me is that there's this. A utopian movement going on in the United States. Lots of people are joining utopian groups. You have the shakers that are headquartered in the Cleveland area, even down to like, Isaac Morley and the group in Kirtland that are trying to live communally.

[Hank Smith]

It's happening a lot.

[Emily Utt]

It's happening a lot. Everybody is doing this. I imagine some of them show up thinking, well, it's another utopian community. And if I like this one better, I'll stick with this one. Joseph is always thinking bigger. Utopian community is one thing. That's fine. We're going for the kingdom of God. In these first months in Kirtland, it's really, how do we build the kingdom of God? And you have a bunch of random people. You have farmers and hat makers and blacksmiths. All of these guys, okay, kingdom of God, let's do this. No idea what that means.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah. A bunch of new people saying, let's go, let's move forward.

[Emily Utt]

You get guys in their 20s, you get guys in their 50s. This range of people who have never done this before, they don't know how God speaks, but they're going to go anyway.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah. And Joseph Smith himself is what, 25. We can't forget that. Like, imagine Sidney Rigdon meeting him, going, he's 25, okay?

[Emily Utt]

And he's uneducated. Sidney Rigdon is this polished professional Very intelligent preacher who has studied the Bible, who knows a lot, who has thought deeply about theology. He is somehow convinced by this 25 year old kid who just shows up and says, God speaks to me and I'm going to redo the entire theology of Christianity. Let's go.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah. Sidney Rigdon, I think is 10, 15 years older than him. And you're right. If you would say who's going to be the prophet? If you've just met the two, you'd be like, oh, it's got to be Sidney. And yet it's this 25 year old farmer. Like you said, not fully educated. He's not dumb, he's a smart person, but just not educated.

[Emily Utt]

So on paper he is not the person to lead a communal organization. He digs wells for a living.

[Hank Smith]

Right.

[Emily Utt]

Makes barrels. You have other families. There's a branch of the church from Colesville, New York that has joined. They're led by a man named Joseph Knight, who's also a little older, a little wiser, who puts his own reputation on the line to join this church. He and all of the brand new Latter Day Saints agree to follow Joseph and the Revelation calls them to Ohio. I went to school in Cleveland and I'm from Utah. Why would I do that? And I read in the Doctrine and Covenants to go to the Ohio so God will endow you with power from on high. Okay, Doctrine and Covenant says to do it. So you like in the scriptures and go and I will go to the Ohio.

[John]

It's so amazing to me we talk about Joseph, not formally educated. The followers, these early ones, they were not just gullible fools, they were smart people. Why would they do that unless there's really a spiritual confirmation of what they're.

[Emily Utt]

Doing and I think too a personal striving. They're looking for something that's going to change their lives. Building Zion. Building the kingdom of God is not an easy proposition. It will ask everything of you, everything you've got, everything you have. And moving is the easy part.

[John]

Which is so hard.

[Emily Utt]

You're asked to change your very heart. Learning how to live together in peace and learning how to overcome selfishness and your own interest and thinking that you know more than this kid. That's the real point of Zion. When God says build my kingdom, he doesn't mean until it's hard. He means build my kingdom. Give me everything you have and then give a little more and fight through and push through. When you are truly ready, God will redeem you.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah. Wow, Emily, since we have you here, and you're a historian for the church. Let's take advantage of that. So the sections we're looking at are June and July of 1831. Let's pass that for just a second. Tell us what's going to happen in the next few years, and then we'll come back. We move to Ohio. And then what?

[Emily Utt]

Within a few weeks of moving to Ohio, God says, I am going to build a literal Zion, a literal New Jerusalem. The place, the center place, Kirtland, is your temporary stopping point. It will be a stake of Zion, but it is not the center place of Zion. Congratulations. Some of you that just got to Ohio are now moving to Missouri.

[John]

I know.

[Emily Utt]

That is the place where God will come and he will greet his people at the Second Coming.

[Hank Smith]

Wow.

[Emily Utt]

So we need to go and get Zion ready, the physical Zion ready for God to come.

[Hank Smith]

And how far away is that compared to our move from New York to Ohio?

[Emily Utt]

This move is very different. The move from New York to Ohio, they have roads. They have a canal.

[Hank Smith]

They have roads.

[Emily Utt]

Oh, man, they have a boat. So when the Saints move from New York to Ohio, they take the Erie Canal to Lake Erie and then take a boat and then just walk the last few miles. When God says go to Missouri, he means good luck. Figure it out. There's no canal. If you can make it to a river, maybe, hopefully there's a riverboat that will get you there. Or maybe you'll have to build a boat, or maybe you can get a horse, or maybe you can walk Kirtland. There are settlements here. There are stores. There's a town. There are people. So Edward Partridge is living in Painesville. That's a settlement. That's a community. There's a village there. When they go to Missouri, there's an intersection. There is nothing. And so you can imagine many of these saints, like Edward Partridge, is very prosperous. They're living in a fine big house. Their lives are fairly easy. And when God tells him to go to Missouri, he gives everything up. And then he shows up in that town, and it is lawless and frontier in the middle of nowhere. So imagine now build a house. Now they have to figure out, where in the world are we going to get anything? I'm going to have to go another hundred miles back upriver to find glass for the windows. It's just a totally different land. The other challenge you have in Missouri is that it is a part of the country that's pretty unsettled. It's on the edge of the frontier. If you go further west, you're out of the country. You're in full Indian territory. The only people that live further west from that are Indians or fur trappers. There's nothing out there. It's mountain men. It's unknown. Lewis and Clark just wrapped up. This is a new, new place. What's interesting about that then is that as they're building Zion, they're literally building a community. They're laying out streets, they're building this town. And then trouble start because you now have hundreds of people who think and believe and act the same way churning up in an area where there are a multitude of opinions and we immediately have conflict in the years where we're in Kirtland and things are kind of calm and we can build a temple and we can practice Zion. There's in Missouri, they are constantly on the move. They live in like four different places, just trying to find a place that is peaceful enough to build a home.

[Hank Smith]

Wow. And they happen at the same time.

[Emily Utt]

Yeah. You'll hear a lot in the next sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Smith and other church leaders are traveling back and forth. They're in Kirtland, they get a letter from Missouri. Then they have to go to Missouri and deal with the issue. While they're in Missouri, they hear about an issue back home in Kirtland, they're just going back and forth. These revelations are happening while they're on the move. You'll notice in these sections there's a gap of some time because it takes Joseph, like three weeks to travel from Ohio to Missouri. Which is what, an eight or nine hour drive now?

[Hank Smith]

Yeah.

[Emily Utt]

We do this in a day for Joseph. This is three weeks. What do you do when you have two communities going at once?

[Hank Smith]

Yeah. And they're pretty far apart. They can't email each other.

[Emily Utt]

They don't even have telegraph. This is horseback. This is steamboat.

[Hank Smith]

If you want an answer from Joseph Smith, it's going to be months. If you write a letter.

[Emily Utt]

Yeah.

[Hank Smith]

We are so used to shooting off a message.

[Emily Utt]

We need an answer today. I think about somebody was mean to me at church today and I can go talk to my bishop right after church and get it sorted out. You can't do that in Missouri in 1831. You have to work through it.

[Hank Smith]

They're figuring it out. Wow. If I was looking at this almost like a visual. We have one line, New York, and then we split into two because we have two church centers, Ohio and Missouri. But then we all end up in Missouri.

[Emily Utt]

We all end up in Missouri for just A few months.

[Hank Smith]

Okay, so what happens in Kirtland?

[Emily Utt]

The saints build the temple in 1836 and dedicate that by 1837, the church is starting to get involved a little bit more in domestic tax kinds of things. Joseph Smith starts a bank. And then The Panic of 1837 happens. The United States goes into a recession. Now, church members who are entering the bank because Joseph Smith is the prophet and told them it's a good idea, they've now lost their money. It's not a safe place in Kirtland. So suddenly, in 1837 and 1838, there is an immense season of saints leaving. And some of those saints get pretty antagonistic about the church, writing letters, publishing things in the newspaper, trying to convince people that those Joseph followers are up to no good. They took my money. They've forced me to move. How dare they? To relieve the tension, Joseph moves to Missouri and the saints that are staying faithful move with him. But that doesn't last long because he ends up in 1838, 39 in Liberty Jail. Because all the conflicts that are happening in Missouri are going very badly, too. Tensions with the neighbors are rising. By 1839, all of those saints who had moved to Missouri are now picking up again and moving back east a little bit to illinois. So by 1839, they're in what would become Nauvoo.

[Hank Smith]

Emily, thank you. You walked us through Ohio to Nauvoo and gave us some things to look forward to. So now let's go back to these sections. We've been in Ohio just a few months. We've identified Zion. Can we hone in on to section 51, 52? Should we go there now?

[Emily Utt]

Let's do it.

[Hank Smith]

Okay.

[Emily Utt]

What I found really interesting as I studied these sections this time is this idea of how in the world do we learn to live together?

[John]

That was the topic of Family Night just the other night.

[Emily Utt]

Yeah. How do we do this? So there are bits of this that are things we need to do internally to be called God's people. And then there are things we need to do externally to be called God's people. And I see in these sections that combination of both a phrase that really stuck out to me this time. I didn't even go back and count, I should have, how many times the Lord commanded them to have a contrite spirit. It came up over and over and over again in almost every single one of these sections. The only way this is going to work is if you are humble, contrite, and you listen to me.

[Hank Smith]

Can we define Contrite. For those of us who are going, am I contrite?

[Emily Utt]

I actually got back into the Hebrew.

[Hank Smith]

Oh, okay.

[Emily Utt]

Contrite is the same word used in Isaiah 53, talking about Christ, for he was bruised. For our iniquities is the same word as contrite. A contrite heart is one that is bruised, it is humbled. It knows that the only strength and power I have is from God. A contrite heart to me is a constantly repentant heart, A heart that is always turning to God, always changing, always looking at God. What else do you want from me? For me, a contrite heart is a heart that's trying to become like Christ's heart, always seeking to do the will of God.

[John]

I remember reading that the idea of contrition is like being crushed. That idea appears so often. The broken heart, the contrite spirit. That the sacrifice God requires is a broken heart and contrite spirit. I love what you said, Emily. This will work. If. If you go in thinking I'm ambitious, I'm going to build my property. I'm going to be more about me. It won't work, but I love what is in verse nine. Let every man deal honestly, be alike among this people, receive alike that you may be one, even as I have commanded you. Otherwise it won't work.

[Hank Smith]

I'm looking at these sections. You're right. I'm seeing it over and over. I'm just marking it with a little green highlighter. If they are contrite before me, you shall have power to give the Holy Spirit woe unto you poor men whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite, whose bellies are not satisfied, the next one whose spirits are contrite, for they shall see the kingdom of God. He that prayeth, whose spirit is contrite, the same is accepted of me. He that speaketh whose spirit is contrite, whose language is meek and edifieth the same is of God. It is. It's over and over.

[Emily Utt]

I love in section 52, 15 and 16. Wherefore? He that prayeth, whose spirit is contrite, the same is accepted of me if you obey mine ordinances. He that speaketh whose spirit is contrite, whose language is meek and edifieth the same as of God, if he obey mine ordinances. There's this connection here that if we need a humble and a bruised and a broken heart, and we need to speak well of others, and we need to be obedient, that's the only way Zion's going to happen. That's the only way our wards are going to function today, that if we come into a Sunday school lesson or a sacrament meeting, talk to show everyone how much smarter we are, or we have all the answers, or if we walk into church thinking we know better than our bishop, we're going to get into trouble. But if we walk into church saying, bishop, I don't like what you did there, but let's talk through it and find a way to God together, or I really didn't love that theme you said in Sunday school, let's talk and learn to understand each other. That Zion I love.

[Hank Smith]

That. Whose language is meek and edifies. How do you speak? Do you build? And the way you speak of others.

[Emily Utt]

And to others, it's so easy to tear down. Especially these Kirtland revelations. These people are being asked to do some very hard things, and they're being asked to give up the things that had made them successful, to seek something higher. That's hard. And if you can find a way to speak well of somebody else, you're going to be so much better.

[Hank Smith]

I like what you said earlier. The moving's the easy part. Not that it's easy, but it is the easier part of becoming Zion. Moving to Zion, pretty straightforward. Becoming Zion, that's going to take a while. It's going to take a lot of stretching. There's a story. I don't know who it is. I think Brigham Young is speaking to someone who is trying to make a little money off of Zion. The quote is, whose kingdom are you trying to build? Your own or the Lord's? Almost as if you can't do both.

[Emily Utt]

A few years ago, when we were working on the St. George Temple, we found some of the carpenters had written poetry and stuck it in the walls of the temple, which is really cool.

[Hank Smith]

Wow.

[John]

How cool.

[Emily Utt]

Two of them wrote their family history down. One of them forgot to write down one of his daughters, which is awkward. I'm sure he loved her.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah.

[Emily Utt]

But my favorite was a poem by a relatively new convert of the church. He had joined the church in 1872, and in 1876, he's now in St. George working as a carpenter. He's a storekeeper. He has no business being in St. George in the wall of the temple. Let me just read you this poem. He said, whatever be my failings and desires to thee, O Lord, my heart be firm and true, Thy law, my law, whatever God requires, this be my hope, his loving will to do, and whatsoever I love with act or Breath. If I should love thee less than how I can Remember me, O Lord, in life or death, as one that ever loves his fellow man.

[John]

Wow.

[Emily Utt]

That's by a man named Joseph Townsend, who wrote other hymns that people know and love and seen every week in church. That encapsulates that idea of a contrite heart becoming Zion. The I am going to fail all the time, but remember, God, that I tried, I tried to love people more than I loved my own interest.

[Hank Smith]

Did you say you found that?

[Emily Utt]

We found that in the walls of the St. George Temple.

[Hank Smith]

So he wasn't writing it. Hey, I'll get famous here, publish a great poem. This one was to God.

[Emily Utt]

That was his prayer in the wall of the temple.

[Hank Smith]

He wasn't thinking. There's going to be a podcast in 2025 that. Yeah, they're going to read that. What a beautiful thing.

[Emily Utt]

I like to think, if I got to leave something in the wall of the temple, what would I leave? What would be my testimony? Just to God?

[Hank Smith]

I'm jealous of your job, which I don't think is Zion, so I have to check myself there.

[John]

I like, Emily, that you said that. I tried. I'm trying. We have talked a lot, Hank, haven't we, about the difference between being willing and able? Because we're not called able very often. God is able. We can be willing. That's it. We just keep trying.

[Emily Utt]

I love. Then in section 52, where he starts calling all these missionaries, some of them accept the call, some of them don't, and some of them have new assignments made because some of them received the call and said, I don't want to go to Missouri. Or some of them got the call and said, does that really have to be my companion? Okay, can I go with that other guy? He's a little better. They're working through this. We're all doing that same thing. We get a calling from God and we're like, but did you mean that? Isn't there a different way?

[Hank Smith]

I'm in now. Go to Missouri. Ooh, that's. Yeah. I mean, when I said I was in, I meant like, in, meaning I'm going to stay here in Ohio. And I have that same attitude.

[Emily Utt]

I think this happens, this section because the Colesville saints in section 51 are being asked to move to a man named Leman Copley's farm. Right. He had been a shaker. He joins the church, he's all gung ho. Section 49 is the section to the shakers, and Leman Copley is with them. And they Go read that section to his congregation.

[John]

Yikes.

[Emily Utt]

It doesn't go well. And suddenly Lehman is now like, no, I'm not in. I'm not in. I was so excited to have you live on my farm, but this is too hard. You're asking me to choose. And he kicks them off his farm. The aftermath of section 49. That section to the Shakers is the saints from Colesville who moved to Ohio with such faith, now being commanded to move on because they don't have a place to live anymore.

[John]

Hadn't they started improving the land and the Copley farm, building fences and things? They had already put some sweat equity in improving it and then had to leave. It's beautiful out there.

[Hank Smith]

I noticed a phrase, and four years ago, John, we were studying this. This was pointed out in section 51, verse 17, I think, is that to these saints on Copley's farm, he says, and the hour in the day is not given unto them, wherefore let them act upon this land as four years. Almost like the Lord is saying, as if you're going to be here for years. It's almost like he knew, yeah, he knew that Copley was going to back out, but he didn't say so right here. He just said, yes, stay on this farm as if you're going to be here a long time. Like, wait, what do you mean, as if we're going to be here for a long time?

[Emily Utt]

There's this great quote from Brigham Young where he talks about, if you wait for Zion to happen before you start building it, you'll never be ready for Zion. Build the Zion you want to live in, and then if you have to leave a week later, guess what? You're Zion. And the principles you learned go with you. The physical part of Zion should be the easy part, like build a farm, build something beautiful, because it will teach you the skills to be ready for God's kingdom. Saints at Leman Copley's farm. You might be there 10 years, you might be there a week, but live your life as if you're going to be here forever. Because if you're going to be here a hundred years, in a hundred years, you'll have that tree planted. That's beautiful. But if you're here a week, you'll still have learned what Zion looks like.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah, John, you've taught me a phrase. God gets his work done through the people, and he gets his people done through the work.

[John]

Yeah, that was a saying, and I don't know where he got it from. My beloved mission president, Menlo F. Smith, he used to say, the Lord gets the work done through his people and his people done through the work. All these things they're going through are refining them.

[Hank Smith]

I think that's what you're saying, Emily. Right. Is in building Zion, you become.

[Emily Utt]

Doesn't matter where you live, because Zion will go with you. It's you. It is that thing itself. What I love even studying, like, historic tabernacles of the church or historic temples like the Salt Lake Temple. Imagine if they showed up in 1853 and 1854 and said, all right, I'm going to give you one day in ten for the next six months, and then my turn on the temple is finished, or my turn on the tabernacle is finished and I'll let somebody else finish it. We would still be building the Salt Lake Temple if we had lived with that attitude. For these saints, you build the building and then you find God in it. So they can sit in that tabernacle and look up in that building and go, I built this. I helped build it. And now generations after me will know God because of me.

[Hank Smith]

Wow.

[Emily Utt]

That kind of connection that the things we do right now may not seem significant to us, but if we do them well, it will bless generations to come.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah. And I bet you feel that, Emily, as you walk through these buildings.

[Emily Utt]

Yeah.

[Hank Smith]

Do you feel them?

[Emily Utt]

Well, I mean, I know their names, I know their pictures. I joke that I could probably tell which ones I'd be friends with and which ones would be a little harder for me personally. I mean, any of us that can visit a sacred place, that you can feel that kind of connection, that sense that they did this for us, even if they never lived to see it completed. The saints that helped build the Kirtland temple were there for just a few months after and then left. The saints built the Nauvoo Temple and were endowed and then just walked away.

[Hank Smith]

But Zion was them.

[Emily Utt]

Zion was them. The power of the sealing covenant went with them. So the power of the endowment went with them across the plains and gave them the strength they needed to keep going and keep moving and then build it again and build another temple and then build another temple. Forgive and move on and work hard and do it again and again and again. These revelations that feel so distant in time from us are very present because be a just and wise steward, have a broken heart, serve me, help build the kingdom, move. Accept that mission call. Do those things, and Zion will go with you.

[Hank Smith]

I have a comment and a question. In section 51, verse 9, the Lord says, let every man deal honestly and be alike among this people, and receive alike that ye may be one. That is a phrase from John 17, the great intercessory prayer. Here's the Lord heading to his atoning sacrifice in the garden and on the cross. He's praying for you and I, for the apostles, for everyone who believes on the apostles.

[Emily Utt]

And.

[Hank Smith]

And this is his prayer that they may be one. If I'm the adversary, and that's the Savior's one prayer, then I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to seek to divide. When we think of Satan controlling the earth, it's division, war, people against people.

[Emily Utt]

The signs of the times that scare me the most are the ones that say people will be divided against each other. Because when we are united in purpose and united in love, you are unstoppable as a society. But when you are pointing fingers or saying, well, if that guy would have done a better job, we wouldn't be in this mess, that's when problems happen.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah. John, what does the Lord frequently say to the saints about Joseph? Your eyes.

[John]

It's coming up in 67. Your eyes have been upon Joseph. In his language, you have known as imperfections. You have known this also. You've known. But read the Revelations. There's no imperfection in them. I just love the idea you're looking at the wrong thing. Guys. If you're trying to find imperfection in Joseph, you'll find it in the Book of Mormon.

[Hank Smith]

It's stir their souls up in anger against that which is good fault finding.

[John]

There's online tools for stirring today. What are we upset about today? Let's check my feed. Right?

[Hank Smith]

Isn't this awful? Yeah, it's awful. Let's all gang up on this person and attack them.

[Emily Utt]

52, 4. Inasmuch as they are faithful unto me, it shall be made known unto them what they shall do. And inasmuch as they are not faithful, they shall be cut off even as I will. As seemeth me good. So if we are faithful, God will lead us, and if we are not, we will be cut off. It's the great pride that all of us deal with in these sections. I see a lot of this when we are turning to God. He will deliver us. I love in section 56, the fatness of the earth will be ours. We will have everything. But if we are disobedient, if we are prideful, if we stir up contention, if we try to make God do our will, we will be cut off. It will fail if we're trying to get God to conform to our will. This whole thing is not going to happen. But if we go to his will, the fatness of the earth is happening.

[Hank Smith]

And can you trust that, Emily, with these missionaries? He's calling them in pairs here. What's he calling them to do? Is this the mission to Missouri? The one. We haven't been there yet.

[Emily Utt]

This mission in Missouri is really to help set up this society and the kingdom that's coming. The first missionaries have already been to Missouri. They've scouted out what's happening. But this group is really going to organize to physically get Zion ready. And you need a whole lot of people with a whole variety of skills to show up to get the city ready so the rest of the Saints can follow along behind.

[Hank Smith]

Oh, okay. So already there, I think, if I remember right, is Oliver Cowdery, Pardi P. Pratt. John helped me out.

[John]

Zyber Peterson, and was it Peter Whitmer Jr.

[Hank Smith]

Okay, so they're already out there. And the Lord is saying, okay, let's take more out there.

[Emily Utt]

Yeah. So the scouting party is gone, and now the advance company is on its way. Okay, we're going to lay out the city, we're going to buy some land, we're going to set up a store. We're going to start getting something. So when the rest of the Saints arrive, they're not showing up to nothing. They have a place to go to.

[Hank Smith]

The Lord says, Thomas, you're with Ezra. Edward, you're with Martin. Sydney and Joseph, you're together. David, you're with Harvey. Parley, you're with Orson. When I read this with my boys, it's not just a bunch of names. It's you two are going together and you're walking to Missouri.

[Emily Utt]

And preach the gospel along the way, by the way. So it's this idea that you have the priesthood. You have been called of God. So no matter where you are, open your mouth. Don't just go to Zion. Take Zion with you. Find converts, find people, and along the way, preach the word of God. Find those pure in heart, those people that are ready to join, then Zion will not only be in you, but Zion will be in the traveling company. On that entire journey west.

[Hank Smith]

John, when I've given church history tours, this is June. If the Lord's saying, hey, I want you to walk Missouri, I'd be like, can't I wait till September? Right? Yeah, it's a little bit nicer weather.

[John]

When it's hot in Missouri, it's really warm. Yeah, I'm looking at my late father's scriptures and I'm seeing by the way highlighted in verse 8, 9, 10, 22, 23, 25, 26 and 27. Preach by the way. Preach by the way. Preach by the way. So I know Smith shows up a lot in Restoration history. There's a few by the ways, by.

[Hank Smith]

The ways along the way.

[Emily Utt]

Section 52 is yours. Congratulations.

[John]

It's got a lot of by the ways in there. I'm like, yeah, my dad marked them all.

[Hank Smith]

That's funny.

[Emily Utt]

I also love in this revelation, he tells them what to preach in verses nine. And then I think in 36, let them journey from hence preaching the word by the way, saying none other things than that which the prophets and apostles have written and that which is taught them by the comforter through the prayer of faith. And he says that again in verse 36. You teach the apostles and the prophets. You don't teach your own doctrine. You don't teach the thing that you brought with you when you joined us from the Shakers or the Campbellites. You don't preach Sidney Rigdon's church. You preach the prophet.

[John]

Interesting. Good insight.

[Emily Utt]

And then in section 53, I think he goes into a little bit more detail in verse 3 in the Revelation to Sidney Gilbert, take upon you mine ordination, even that of an elder, to preach faith and repentance and remission of sins according to my word and the reception of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands first principles.

[John]

Right there.

[Emily Utt]

You teach the basics because the basics is how Zion happens. You preach faith in God, you preach repentance. You preach so repentance. You preach that churning. You preach humility, preach that God will forgive you of all of the things that are keeping you from Him. That is the word of the prophet. That's what's going to get you to Zion and that's what's going to get you converted.

[Hank Smith]

I've joked with my students that when Jesus comes again and you're not quite sure if it's him, see what he talks about first. Right? If he starts with I have a message about faith, repentance and baptism, you can go, okay, it's him. That's what he speaks about.

[Emily Utt]

I'm not going to be ready for the deep doctrine because I'm still figuring out faith, repentance and baptism. Right? Until I get that done, really understanding faith and repentance is the deepest thing we can know.

[Hank Smith]

Emily, how does this mission go? We can't go through all of these companionships, but do they just take off and go. They just like, okay, here we go.

[Emily Utt]

Some of them do and some of them don't. There's actually some of the other sections in this. This group of scriptures this week. Some of them deny the call, say, I'm not going. And so some of them actually get new assignments. God's like, okay, well, you said no, so now I'm going to give your calling to somebody else. This section has a verse that a friend taught me back when I was a student in Ohio that has stuck with me about how we do this in verse 33 of section 52. Yea, verily I say, let all these take their journey unto one place in their several courses. And one man shall not build upon another's foundation, nor journey on another's track. I loved that verse because I remember as a young timid missionary, I was going to be so like, don't make me talk to people. I'll just follow along and my companion and I will join another companionship. I'll let them do all the talking, right? And imagine if that had happened in their journey to Missouri. Now you have 30 missionaries all traveling together and not actually talking to anybody. For me, that idea of do not travel in another's track, Try it out, spread it out. For me as a college student, that was really meaningful because I saw everybody around me having these grand ideas. You know, the only way to be successful in life is if you're a doctor or a lawyer or I'm going to start a tech company and I'm going to change the world and meet little history major. I'm like, I'm gonna go take my Shakespeare comedy class now. I don't know. And I felt such weight and pressure and guilt because I wasn't interested in that same track. That reminder for me as a college student was, it doesn't matter how you get there. The goal is Zion. Don't copy another guy because his path seems to be the right path. Take your own path, and they're all.

[Hank Smith]

Going to end up in the same place, but take your path.

[Emily Utt]

Yeah. Find your own way. Don't compare yourself that my path is not getting me somewhere because it's not Joseph's path or Sidney Rigdon's path. Find my own path. Those that accepted the call got to Missouri. They just spread out and they touched people's lives in different ways.

[Hank Smith]

Emily, since we have you here, I'm going to read off some of these names, and if you want to talk about some of them, we can't talk about all of them, but we've got Thomas B. Marsh, Ezra Thayer. Ezra Booth, I know, becomes an interesting character. Isaac Morley, we've talked about him. Edward Partridge, who's my Restoration hero. Martin Harris, we definitely have talked about him. Harvey Whitlock, David Whitmer, I don't know Harvey Whitlock. Parley. Pratt, Orson Pratt. We've at least talked about Parley quite a bit. Solomon Hancock, Simeon Carter, Edson Fuller, Jacob Scott, Levi Hancock. We've mentioned him. I won't go all the way through. Is there anyone in here you want to talk about? Emily, as a historian, anyone come to life?

[Emily Utt]

What I love about these. They are such a diverse group of people. Harvey Whitlock is younger than Joseph, which is saying something, if you can be younger. Edward Partridge is wildly successful, a decade older, even among that other group. Lyman White, who would go on to become an apostle, is about the same age as Edward Partridge. John Murdoch, this is the man whose wife died giving birth to twins just at the same time that Emma Smith lost twins at birth. Emma and Joseph adopt Joseph Murdoch's twins. That's that story that will become relevant in a few years. Thomas B. Marsh is about five years older than Joseph, goes on to be a significant leader in the church. Some of these men are faithful all the way to Utah. Some of them learn and find a way and stick with it. Some of them, Edward Partridge gave up so much for the church, dies in Nauvoo. Newell Knight dies on the journey west to Utah. Some of these men don't survive the doctrinal tussle that happens when the Kirtland bank fails and leaves the church in 1837. The more you study these men, the more you see these are people that are very much just like us. These are normal, common, average folks. And some of them go on to names that are writ large in church history. And some just kind of fade away. One of them, Simon's writer, we hear his name a little bit. He flames bright and then burns out very, very quickly. He's joining the church in June 1831, and by September, he's out. It's just too much. So you get this whole diversity of people. If Simon's writer flames out, your Edward Partridges burn slow and steady and calm. Then you have a Sidney Rigdon who goes through terrible things later on in Kirtland. And because of his early allegiance to Joseph, Joseph keeps him because he is such an influential, wonderful voice. He ends up in Liberty, has a. Probably a traumatic brain injury from the tar and feathering at the Johnson farm. These are amazing People, but again, very much common. Normal farmers, bookkeepers, the standard folk.

[Hank Smith]

And then to be paired up with someone. We do that in our church. Luckily, I get paired up with John, by the way, quite a bit. I don't know if it's lucky for him, but it's lucky for me. But I can see Solomon saying, simeon snores. That's going to be a long trip. John, I really like you, but I like Sarah more. And they said you're going to be gone here for the next couple of months, I think. Oh, I'm going to leave my family.

[John]

Yeah.

[Hank Smith]

And maybe middle of the summer, I've got work.

[Emily Utt]

You want me to do what with who?

[Hank Smith]

Yeah.

[Emily Utt]

Some mission companions you are just best friends with and you love them your whole life. And others are tremendous learning opportunities, chances for growth. You have all of that. And these are people with jobs. They're now being asked to leave their work. Most of them are married, they have children. There's even a risk that because this is the frontier, maybe they don't come back. Maybe you get cholera on the way. Maybe your boat capsizes. Maybe something goes terribly wrong. So what we think of as a nice, easy. Oh, I'm just driving a few hours. For these people, this may be life and death at all times. What am I willing to do?

[John]

Yeah.

[Hank Smith]

So when we see those who couldn't do it, let's be careful in the way we.

[John]

Right.

[Hank Smith]

I would have done it. Would you? Would you have done it? Because they don't know how this is gonna work out.

[Emily Utt]

And then they're out there in the Missouri heat. Whenever I'm in Missouri in August and July, I'm like, is this really Zion? This feels painful. Yeah. And tempers flare. You get out there, you're a long way from home. You're probably tired and hungry and your feet hurt.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah.

[Emily Utt]

Then you run into somebody who's yelling at you. And I don't know if I could keep my calm and be Christlike when my mission companion is snoring way too loud.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah. You've gotten on my nerves after a while. And I say something in anger.

[Emily Utt]

Can you stop chewing your food? You're just annoying me.

[Hank Smith]

Oh, John, you're so good with that. I know I annoy you and you just smile and nod.

[John]

I don't know what you're talking about, but I snore. I was looking at verse 30. I just thought that we should mention Reynolds Cahoon. I had a Cahoon roommate at byu and a lot of these cahoons settled up In Alberta, Reynolds Cahoon is the one whose son was named what?

[Hank Smith]

Hank Mahan Rai Mori Ankumar. Yeah, we talked about this a lot last year.

[John]

Yeah. This is just such a fun story.

[Hank Smith]

And then remember the other couple said, we're okay not getting a blessing or maybe blessed by Joseph. We're gonna go out right after they hear that one. Mahan Rai Mori Ankhmar. Emily, thanks for bringing this to life, because you might read these and just think, these are just names. I can see my boys going through this and just saying, do I have to read all these? It's just a bunch of names. But when you stop, you're like, these are people. They're real people with jobs and families and fears.

[Emily Utt]

Yeah. A lot of these names are on the Joe Smith Papers website, so there's biographical sketches of a lot of people mentioning the Doctrine and Covenant. If listeners are interested in learning more about them, they can go to the Joe Smith Papers and get little snippets and if you're lucky, a photograph and actually get a sense of who they are. Then you have a competition of who had the best beard and who really needed a haircut and all of that.

[John]

The resources that we have today are so incredible, aren't they? We recently attended something at the Church History Library as they showed us some of the resources available to everybody, to anybody who has an Internet connection to go on, read these little bios and make this all real.

[Hank Smith]

Emily, how much content is available for the historians of the church?

[Emily Utt]

I could spend the rest of my life reading every document of the Church History Library and still not get through it all.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah.

[John]

Yeah.

[Emily Utt]

It's amazing. You can go look it up and you can read it for yourself.

[Hank Smith]

The actual document, right?

[Emily Utt]

Yes. You can hold the actual theme kind of. And know these people. And not only Joseph, but so many of these others. The Edward Partridge Papers have been published and the Wilford Woodruff Papers are being published, and you can learn about them from them, which is just remarkable.

[John]

Yeah. Emily, I'm glad you're talking about this, because I think we might get the impression that, oh, the little library app on my phone is the same almost every time you look at it, something else has been added. There's something new, or things have been reorganized a little bit, and they are still in the process, as you just said, of doing more, even making it searchable. So people should go in there and spend some time, look at what's there, because they might not even be aware of what's there. It'll change next month.

[Emily Utt]

I Love so many of those resources. I know the people that write them. These are faithful Latter Day Saints and these are scholars. It's so wonderful to see them combining these two aspects of themselves and finding faithful ways to talk about really complex, complicated human stories that are accurate.

[John]

They're trustworthy. That's another good thing about this. They're scholars, and you can trust what they're going to say. And they're being transparent. They're telling it like it is. Like you said, complicated, difficult lives of people, their ups and downs. Good thing we're not complicated at all and we don't have any ups.

[Hank Smith]

Downs, huh? Yeah.

[John]

Yeah.

[Emily Utt]

So black and white and straightforward.

[Hank Smith]

I am right, 100% good at every second. Emily, this has been fantastic so far. I love it when these people come to life. Their names are in black and white. But you're helping us see this in color, which is really fun. John. Emily is very busy. She's not able to listen to a lot of podcasts, but her brother Kevin does listen to a few. Emily, I extended the invitation. And you. Did you send a text to Kevin? Is that what happened?

[Emily Utt]

I texted him right as I got the email from you. He called me about one minute later, like, breathless with excitement.

[Hank Smith]

And that pushed you over? You said, okay, I gotta do it.

[Emily Utt]

I mean, I have to earn some cred in the family to appear on a podcast. So.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah. So, Kevin, we know you work at byu. We gotta tell you, we love you. Thank you for getting Emily on our show. It's been fantastic so far.

[John]

Yes.

[Hank Smith]

So, Emily, we still have some more sections to cover. 54 through 57. What do you want to do?

[Emily Utt]

I like to ask this question about these sections. What in the world do store clerks and printers have to do with Zion?

[Hank Smith]

Okay.

[John]

Yeah.

[Emily Utt]

Zion is this doctrine. Zion is the pure in heart. Why in the world are we now talking about agents purchasing land and getting licenses and getting a clerk? I like to think about how much of life Zion encompasses. Zion is the kingdom of God. What matters to God in his kingdom? I love. In section 51, they talk about, we're going to build storehouses, we're going to take care of the poor, because that is ZION. In section 55, W.W. phelps and Oliver Cowdery are commanded to select books for children's education. What in the world does that have to do with Zion? This is decades before the creation of the church's youth programs. You don't get primary until the 1870s, and you don't get young men and young women until 1870. In 1831. God is reminding his people that the next generation of saints needs to start learning now. Don't wait until they're a grown up to teach them how to live in Zion. Start them at a young age. I love in section 55, verse 4, and again you shall be ordained to assist my servant Oliver Cowdery, who I might add is a school teacher, so has some experience in this to do the work of printing and of selecting and writing books for schools in this church, that little children also may receive instruction before me, as is pleasing unto thee. So I love that in Zion, education is paramount. We have to learn. And the younger you can start, the more Zion you're going to be. That's why education matters.

[John]

I've heard it said that the father of adult education was Joseph Smith because of the School of the Prophets and things like that. The idea of continuing education, I love that because that's where I used to work at byu, was to continue to educate. And this is the beginning of that. You know what it reminded me of, Hank? It reminded me of our friend Brad Wilcox, who's on the faculty in religious education at byu, but he started as a professor in education specializing in children's books.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah, literacy.

[John]

I bet Brad knows that verse really well.

[Emily Utt]

Yeah, reminds me. The first Book of Mormon I read was the Illustrated Book of Mormon. As a little kid, that was my entrance to the Word of God. And it was a children's version that got me familiar enough with the story so that when I became an adult or could actually read, I could actually read the Book of Mormon. But it started with the most basic introduction to the Word of God. Or I think about those times I've taught nursery. Your lesson is basically, Jesus made fish, so Jesus loves fish. And that's your lesson. That's it.

[John]

And you pass out the fishy crackers. Yeah, yeah.

[Emily Utt]

And then you color and you play games and it's great. You start very young to learn at the age of two that God made fish. By extension, you learn so much else as you go. But it starts with those very basic foundations. Just like you teach faith repentance, you start at a young age to learn it.

[Hank Smith]

Now look at the education program of the church today. We could go through this for an hour. Seminaries, institutes, three quarters of a million students. I think BYU Pathway, if our listeners out there going, I've heard of that. You need to go look that up. This last year, BYU Pathway served 74,839 students, 27,583 of them in Africa.

[John]

What was the picture in General Conference that we saw of? Was it Elder Rasband with some adults who are enrolled in BYU Pathways in Africa? That was really cool.

[Hank Smith]

What starts here, Emily, you're right. Is the Lord saying, we need to be educating and instructing, and we have kept that going.

[Emily Utt]

Yeah. Education is part of Zion. Then in section 57, verse 8, he commands Sidney Gilbert to establish a store. Sidney Gilbert had been business partners with Newell K. Whitney in Kirtland. Sidney is commanded to gather to go to Missouri. And in verse eight, it says again, verily I say unto you, let my servant Sidney Gilbert plant himself in this place and establish a store, that he may sell goods without fraud, that he may obtain money to buy lands for the good of the saints, and that he may obtain whatsoever things the disciples may need to plant them in their inheritance. What I love about this, it's not just go build a store. It's Sydney, build a store. Because build a store, have a successful business for the good of the saints. That they can plant themselves in their inheritance. So that when these saints arrive in this town, they have a way to take care of those temporal things so they can focus on the things that matter more. It's hard to feel the spirit and connect to God when you're hungry or you don't know where your next meal is coming from, or you're cold at night. It's hard to become a better person to grow if you don't have enough to eat or you don't have a place to sleep. So I think about, we build a store, we build a business, because it takes care of those basic things.

[John]

If anybody goes on a church history tour and you go to Independence Square, look to the west and you'll see a Gilbert and Whitney store. I don't think it's the same one that survived, but it's right there. Down the street from there is the area where the W.W. phelps printing press was. It was funny to get there and to look over. You're at this place where. What does it say? There's a marker that says, this is where the. The Oregon Trail starts and everything else. There's a Gilbert and Whitney store right there. And it just always reminds me of this verse right here when you see that.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah, you've mentioned these names. Sidney Gilbert, you've mentioned Oliver Cowdery, W.W. phelps. John, you just brought him up. There's this portion of the manual. And Emily, I'd love for you to comment on this. And this is a portion that helps you teach your Children, it says, you may want to explain that W.W. phelps, William W. Phelps, was a newspaper publisher who had learned about the gospel and joined the church. Read with your children Doctrine Covenants 55:1, 4, which we. We looked at verse 4, and help them discover what God wanted William to do. How did he plan to use William's talents? I like this discussion because you said Oliver Cowdery. Oh, he's got some experience there. Oh, Sidney Gilbert, he's got some experience being a storekeeper. So it seems that part of Zion is the Lord has given you gifts, and those gifts then you can use to build Zion and the idea that.

[Emily Utt]

God will take whoever you are and have a use for you. Every job is needed in Zion. For W.W. phelps, he had learned, he had worked hard, and he was a publisher. That's a tough business. He had learned a lot about that business. So when he joins the church, God says, good, I can use that.

[Hank Smith]

Yeah, I can put together a team.

[Emily Utt]

As he is commanding people to go to Missouri, he's not just saying, whoever wants to go, go. He's saying, I want Zion to be this in 150 years. I'm going to send very specific people that will get me where I want us to be. The same pattern holds true. You don't want everybody in your ward to have the exact same skill set. You know, if everyone is a ward organist, your meetings are going to be beautiful. But who's going to teach Sunday school? You will have natural teachers that will be elevated, and you have natural musicians that will be elevated. Some people are great at teaching children, and some people are great at teaching adults. It's finding that mix and that same thing held true even as they're coming to Utah as Brigham and is calling people out to settlements. He's not just calling 300 farmers, he's calling farmers, blacksmiths, musicians, gardeners, printers, and all of the people. Because Zion should be functional. But Zion should also be beautiful. And Zion should have good music, good food, be literate, be hard working all of those things together. It's the idea that God needs all of us. You may not know why you got the degree you did or the job path you did, but if you're willing to let God lead you, he will turn you into something far more powerful than you ever planned.

[Hank Smith]

Coming up in part two of this episode.

[Emily Utt]

One of the things I'm excited about as we're restoring the lion House is that we get to tell the story of those amazing women that lived there. You have Eliza R. Snow, who's General Relief Society president and Zina Diantha Huntington Young, who's one of the most well known early suffragists in the church. They love to be out in public. They are going to go out and they are going to change the world through speaking. And there's other women in that household who are, don't ever make me talk in public. But I will support you when you come home.