A (14:06)
Sasha, that's very kind. I, I, I, I want to use your email about, you know, the, the difficulty and the suffering as maybe a jumping off point to read another email. Now, I, I need to state this is probably going to be a little bit more somber than what people are used to, frankly. This is the kind of email that I shouldn't try to answer because there aren't good answers. And yet, for whatever reason, I keep being brought back to this email. This is from Loretta. The subject that she sends is miscarriages. Anything helps. Dear Dr. Dirk Mott and Dr. Leduc, I am desperate for answers. And then she makes a great joke. Actually, to start off, I have to be, if I'm turning to you two, we are essentially the, you know, the snake oil salesman of answers. And that's why. But then she brings it back. She says, in all seriousness, though I've exhausted my ability to look up answers to this particular point of doctrine, I've never had scriptures, both the standard works and general conference talks, fail me so entirely. Is there anything in historical documents about miscarriage or stillbirth, particularly about where those spirits end up? I had my third miscarriage on Sunday, July 21, 2024. The grief has compounded with each loss, and Sundays are excruciating now. There's been no relief offered. It took a month of nagging my bishop at the time to get him to meet with me and my husband. And after bluntly stating that if there was no heartbeat, the spirit was never there, he told don't get hung up on it. Our ward split soon after, and he never followed up. It took another couple of weeks to meet with the stake president, who reached out after I was presumptive enough to try sending a letter to the First Presidency, who, while a lot kinder than the bishop, only concluded that for whatever reason, God hasn't revealed what happens to children who die before birth. There are no answers. Be easier to endure this trial if I had less of a testimony. I'm confident that none of my children ended up in hell. I'm certain that God knows where they went, but the heavens are silent and it's Been agony to go through each day not knowing where my children are or why that information is being withheld. It's especially hard hearing sermons on the glorious resurrection when I don't get that promise for half of the children I've carried. How can I not be hung up on this when it deals with the fate of my eternal family? Is there anything you can offer as church historians, any hint of a promise that the children I've lost can be mine in the hereafter? Thank you for your time, Loretta. Well, like I said, Loretta, I probably should not have read this email. There are many painful parts of this mortal existence, and I am not going to presume that I have the ability to in any way assuage your suffering, because I probably don't. This is a very personal question because my own wife, Angie, had three miscarriages of her own, several of them fairly late, that required, you know, medical intervention. And so this is not the first time that I've looked up to see if there was any more revealed on what happens when babies are miscarried. And even though it was years ago, I already knew what the answer was because I had already looked it up for myself when I was in a similar place. I don't presume that it was the same as yours because I wasn't carrying the child. My wife was. And she was in a very difficult place. So please don't mistake me for thinking that I know how it feels. I know that I don't know how it feels. I can only express my sympathy and understanding through the difficult time it was for my wife. And I have been there for the talks in church that trigger. And I have been there for the late night moments of grief that wash over you. And I have also asked God why? And even worse, when your job is to find answers, when the entirety of what you do is to compile the various things that have been said and to present a cohesive argument, when you don't have the ability to do that, you feel even more alone. And so the reason why I said we probably shouldn't answer that question, or I shouldn't have is what I don't have is the ability to offer you an answer that comes from prophetic utterance. And that's what you desperately want. In fact, part of your pain is that you feel like the heavens are silent. I wish, I desperately wish for my own wife that there had been more revealed on this topic and there just hasn't been. And when we wonder why hasn't more been revealed? Well, not knowing why it hasn't been revealed. I don't know what the answer to that would be either. Early on in my spiritual journey in life, at least for me personally, and this is only for me, so I can't extrapolate out any further than this. I had questions that I felt like there were not good answers to. One of them comes from the fact that I have a brother who was born mentally handicapped. I know that there are many people listening who have friends, relatives, siblings that deal with mental disabilities and then with physical disabilities. And it was excruciating for me because I don't have to tell a whole lot of people this, but people aren't very kind to mentally handicapped children, or at least children aren't kind to them. My brother was mentally handicapped enough that he spoke with a slurred speech. He had roughly a third grade level of iq, and so he. And he, you know, he walked with a bit of a limp, so he was somewhat physically impaired, but primarily it was mental. And the mockery that he endured all throughout his grade school and high school is. It was incredible to me. The level of just thoughtless comments, the level of just absolute inhumanity. I remember one time I was at a football game in our city park. It was a football game for my younger brother before it was in high school. And there were kids taunting my brother with cerebral palsy and hitting him with a stick. And he was trying to tell them, come on guys, stop. And I see this from afar, so I start booking over there and I see the mom of these two kids. And when I say kids, I mean they were teenagers. And I see her see what they're doing to a mentally handicapped kid. And so my thought is, oh, she's going to intervene before I get there and have to kill her children. Because that's, you know, the. Maybe I had not yet developed enough Christ like attributes, let's put it that way. And as I get close enough, I can hear everything she's saying. She turns around and she says to him, I thought I told you guys to stop playing with the stick. She sees him hitting a mentally handicapped kid with it and taunting him. And her response was, well, I told you not to pick the stick up. So I have had many mighty wrestlings in the spirit trying to find an answer. And I know, look, I know the answers that people give. I get it. Oh, you know, you know, he. He was born that way so that, you know, he. He could teach us all something else. Well, frankly, I don't want to be taught that way. I Don't think the abject suffering of someone else is the best way for me to learn. God is God. Why can't he teach me in a way that's not that? Oh, he was born that way because, you know, he was such a noble spirit in the premortal life that that way he couldn't be tempted. Okay, fair enough. That gives some comfort in the abstract. It doesn't stop people treating him like garbage his whole life. I remember when I was 17 years old, going into his room and him saying to me, garrett, why did I have to be born? And used the term that was current at the time. Mentally, why did I have to be born mentally? When you talk about wanting to have an answer, I had none. And like I said, my brother was handicapped. He was. He was slightly handicapped enough that he couldn't. He couldn't do the things that everyone else could do, but he wasn't handicapped enough to the point where he didn't want to do those things. So what he wanted to do was drive a car. What he wanted to do was go to college. What he wanted to do was get married. He wanted. He had the same desires that we all have, but couldn't actually have those because he was too handicapped. And when he asked me that question, I'll tell you what, it cut me through the soul because any answer you give to that question is just not satisfying. Okay? So he was so noble and so great in the premortal life that he had to come here and suffer his whole life. There wasn't another way of protecting him from his noble and greatness. I know I'm sounding a little bit flippant, but I was a 17 year old and those answers weren't satisfactory to me. And when you look, there's not a whole lot of definitive answers. Of course I believe that my brother will rise in the glorious resurrection and he will be perfected, and that that day will come, and at that point there will be a suffering that has an end. But I still don't understand why it has to be so terrible in this life. I don't have an explanation for it. Now, I know that you've already read all of the things that there is on it, so there's really nothing I could say that would, you know, I mean, perhaps maybe for our listeners, we should, you know, read what the Church has said on it. I know this isn't for you, Loretta, but for the other people who may wonder, maybe we should read what the Church's handbook has to say about it. That way we can at least start off on that same page in the church's handbook. It says, children who die before birth, stillborn or miscarried children. Parents who experience the death of an unborn child suffer grief and loss. Leaders, family members and ministering brothers and sisters offer emotional and spiritual support. Parents may decide whether to hold memorial or graveside services. Parents may record information about the childandfamilysearch.org instructions are provided on the website. Temple ordinances are not needed or performed for children who die before birth. This does not deny the possibility that these children may be part of the family. In the eternities, parents are encouraged to trust the Lord and seek his comfort. So on this incredibly difficult and personal topic with so much suffering surrounding it, there isn't a definitive answer. It's not because it's not something that has been contemplated. It certainly has been in the early Christian church. Most of the early Christian fathers believe that, so they believe in creation ex nihilo, right? So they believe that your soul, which they would call it your soul and not your spirit, that your soul didn't exist until you were created at birth. And most early Christian fathers believed that that took place at the moment of conception. So that somehow at conception, you know, you know, people like Tertullian, one of the early Christian fathers, he's going to say, we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul begins from conception, life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does. So many of these early Christian fathers believed that the creation of a human is done at the exact same time as that soul was created. So the very act, essentially, you can't create a human that doesn't have a soul, or at least God doesn't create humans without souls. And so the moment conception happened, there had to be a soul also created. Now, of course, in their theology, souls are being created out of nothing. You didn't exist before that moment. Clement of Alexandria said something, you know, even more detailed, right? That, that the embryo is a living thing for the soul entering into the womb after it has been, by cleansing, prepared for conception, and introduced by one of the angels who preside over generation and knows the time for conception. There is multiple early Christian fathers that make this argument. And so most Christian traditions, even after the Protestant Reformation, maintained this idea that along with the ex nihilo, in other words, creation out of nothing of a human person, that part of that creation is their soul. And that's why they believe that that happened at conception. Now, there are other Christian Groups, they are not as, they are not as broad. They argued that in fact, it happened sometime during the pregnancy. And there are even others that argue that it didn't happen until birth, that finally at birth, that's when the soul was created and became part of that. Now, there are some that. Thomas, Aquinas, St. Augustine, they argued that the soul entered the body later, 40 days, 80 days later. But it's not a settled doctrine, or at least it's not a universally accepted doctrine even inside of Christianity proper. And these are Christian faith traditions that believe that that soul didn't exist before it was created. And so the question that they have is one of the fact that this soul didn't even exist. So what happens when there's a termination of the pregnancy early on? So I'm sure you're aware that again, because you've, you've spent some time researching this, that Brigham Young presented this kind of midway view, that he believed that the soul entered the body at the point that a mother could, could feel movement or some, something to that regard, it's in the, in the Journal of Discourses. So that that is part of at least where one thing is right. This is our home, built expressly for us by our Father of our spirits, who is the father, maker, framer, and producer of these mortal bodies that we now inherit and which go back to Mother Earth. When the spirit leaves them, they are lifeless. When the mother feels life come to her infant, it is the spirit entering the body preparatory to the mortal existence. But suppose an accident occurs and a spirit has to leave this body prematurely, what then? All the physician says is that it's a stillbirth and that's all that they know about it. But whether the spirit remains in the body a minute, an hour, a day, a year, or lives there until the body has reached a good old age, it is certain that the time will come when they will be separated and the body will return to Mother Earth, there to sleep upon that mother's bosom. That is all there is about death. And he goes on to talk about someone else who has died. You know, Brother Thomas Williams is no more dead than he was a week ago. His clay is simply dead. And inasmuch as he has honored this tabernacle that lies before us, it will take a sleep in the dust to come forth immortal in the day of the first resurrection. This will be the case with all of us if we honor our being here. One thing I can add that I'm fairly certain you, you haven't read before comes from Brigham Young again, but this time much earlier. That was in 1874 that he said that in an earlier sermon, he repeats something very similar about the. The movement of. Of a child inside of the mother in this sermon from 1859, that. That was never published. And so this is from the shorthand notes that were taken from that sermon. Brigham Young again makes this reference. So it's clearly something that he believes. He says that eternal life is the greatest gift that can be bestowed upon the children of men. Now, when you consider this, you see that the disposition, the will, the spirit that is as pure as an angel when it came from the heavens and enters the tabernacle, you've been told at what time it enters the tabernacle, and if any of you want to be told again, it is so apparently, he said this more than once. It is when the mother feels life that the Spirit enters into that tabernacle, that it is begotten by the flesh, that spirit from the eternal worlds enters it and forgets all its formerly new, and it descends as Jesus, below all things to ascend above all things. There is the contrast of beings that are crowned with crowns and glory and eternal lives. So clearly that is something that Brigham Young has taught multiple times that it's not at conception, but he believes that the Spirit is entering. The Spirit's entering the body at the time that the mother can feel life. And of course, that's going to be different for all kinds of people. What happens? Right. I mean, that's the great question. And as I said from the outset, it's something that has not yet been revealed. One of the things that becomes very apparent when studying the life of the prophet Joseph Smith is that just because he was the prophet doesn't mean that he had all of his questions answered when he wanted them answered. You know, famously, Joseph prays his entire life, basically from the time Joseph found out that the second coming isn't going to be something that happens thousands of years in the future, but something that's going to happen soon. Joseph prays and prays and prays to know when the second coming is going to happen. He's the prophet of the restoration. He. He's literally the seer of. Of this dispensation of the fullness of times. He knows more about the celestial kingdom, about our purpose in this life. He's brought forth these scriptures, and the response from God is to not answer him. And then eventually, as you know from the Doctrine and Covenants, eventually the Lord actually says to him, stop asking me about this, I'm sure that was not terribly satisfying to Joseph. It was clearly something he desperately cared about, and yet he didn't receive an answer. I know I use this example a lot, and at the risk of overuse, I'll just use it again. Because when you're not very good at what you do, you just keep doing it over and over. Joseph's older brother, Alvin, dies almost immediately after Moroni visits Joseph. Moroni appears and, you know, just a few weeks later, Alvin is going to die. And it's a huge tragedy. The family is just devastated by it. Plus, Alvin was one of their primary means of financial success. And now his labor was gone and things were looking even more bleak. Well, when Joseph receives Doctrine and covenant, section 76, the Lord tells him in that vision, the great vision of how you go to the celestial kingdom. Who's in the celestial kingdom? Who's in the terrestrial kingdom? Who's in the terrestrial kingdom? One of the things that Joseph is told is that to go to the celestial kingdom, you have to be baptized into the church of the firstborn. Well, what does that mean? It means you are not going to the celestial kingdom unless you are baptized as a member of the church. Well, Alvin died before there was a church. I don't know how often Joseph wondered and stewed about that, but I know that in 1836, four years after his vision of the celestial kingdom, and even. Even longer, you know, 13 years after his brother died, he sees a vision of the celestial kingdom. And when he sees Alvin in the celestial kingdom, his response tells you all you need to know about what Joseph thought about where his brother was. You and I hear that Alvin's in the celestial kingdom, and we go, of course he is. He was awesome. He believed in Joseph's visions. Of course, God's not going to keep him out of the celestial kingdom because he died early. That's not what Joseph knew. Joseph had a revelation from God that said, you can't go to the celestial kingdom unless you've been baptized. Well, if you ask Joseph Smith in 1835, is Alvin going to the celestial kingdom? Joseph would have been probably quite sorrowful. He would have been quoting scripture, telling you, no, the Lord said you had to be baptized in order to go to the celestial kingdom. He would have been earnest. He would have been quoting scripture, and he would have been wrong. You can't expect a prophet to know things before they know them. Sometimes we want our. We. We want to will our prophets into somehow receiving revelation that God is not deemed fit to reveal without Knowing why God hasn't deemed fit to reveal it, how in the world could I possibly judge whether or not he should have revealed it? I don't know any of the circumstances. And yet when you're suffering, you desperately want to know. I know what that feels like to not ever get a satisfactory answer to my suffering. Even with Joseph learning that his brother was in the celestial kingdom, one could easily ask, well, why did God wait? Why did God wait for 13 years to comfort Joseph Smith on that? We're not talking about, you know, someone who's just not really reading his scriptures once in a while. He's literally producing scripture during that time period. He is the prophet and seer of the restoration and one of the things that causes him the most pain. For whatever reason, God doesn't give him an answer right away. Even that answer didn't explain how Joseph was told. Alvin and everyone else who would have gone accepted the gospel will go to the celestial kingdom even if they weren't able to be baptized and doesn't provide any explanation for how. And so now, if you're Joseph in 1836, you have to believe an absolute contradiction, what appears to be a contradiction. You have a revelation from God that says you cannot go to the celestial kingdom unless you're baptized. And you have a revelation from God that says even if you're not baptized, you can go to the celestial kingdom. They appear to be incredibly contradictory. And that contradiction, that lack of knowledge, of course, is going to cause more pain. I don't know why God didn't reveal baptisms for the dead until 1840. At the same time, it was a super controversial doctrine. Many people leave the church over the idea of baptisms for the dead. And you can tell how controversial that doctrine is because after Joseph is murdered, all of the churches that break away, all of the Rigdonite, Josephite, Hedricite, every ite that you can name, all of those break off. Churches immediately threw aside baptism for the dead as a false doctrine or a speculative doctrine or a doctrine that it wasn't something they were going to follow. Why? Well, because no one wanted to believe it. Because the entire Christian world was premised upon the fact that you had to accept Jesus in this life to be saved. And Joseph had now received revelation that said, accept no, everyone can be saved, Everyone that we have. That knowledge doesn't in any way mitigate the suffering that Joseph had until he got that knowledge. Why didn't God tell him in 1823, while the whole house was mourning and crying over the death of Alvin. Why didn't God just, he's already sent an angel to Joseph. Why doesn't he just send an angel then and say, joseph, don't worry about it. I know that Presbyterian minister just told you that Alvin's going to burn in hell, but he's not. By the way, hell doesn't exist. I mean, there are lots of questions we can ask about why we don't have knowledge. Let me give you another example from Joseph Smith. In December of 1833, Joseph began receiving the reports of the horrific violence that took place in Zion. In July of 1833, W.W. phelps published an article in his newspaper in Missouri, which was very much a slave state, inviting free black members of the church to move to Zion there in Jackson county and appeared to be at least helping them understand what the anti black laws were in Missouri as a means of helping them avoid running into those laws. This is going to come as a surprise that the pro slavery Missourians became enraged. They immediately formed a mob and demanded that the Saints leave the county. All of their property, all of their possessions. They've lived there for over two years and leave the county without any remuneration at all. When the, when they balk, when the Saints balk and say, we can't do that, we'd have to, you know, we bought this property, we own it, they begin to tar and feather and beat several of the members. They tear the print shop down, they rifle through and steal a bunch of the members stuff. And when the members say, okay, okay, okay, we'll leave. Well, as 1833 winds on, the Missourians decide that the Mormons aren't leaving fast enough. Well, they said they were going to leave it. You know, this is going to become a common theme for Latter Day Saints actually, that even when we say we're leaving, apparently that's not fast enough. And so the mob then attacks Latter Day Saint settlements. And it is, it's so violent, the attack, that not only are multiple people wounded, there are people who die. When Joseph receives these reports.
