S6E11 The Day Bernie Came Inside

Summary

Standard of Truth Podcast – S6E11 "The Day Bernie Came Inside"

Date: March 12, 2026
Hosts: Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat & Dr. Richard Leduc

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Episode Overview

In this lively and humorous episode, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc respond to listener emails, debunk wildly inaccurate portrayals of Latter-day Saint history in a college textbook, and address common criticisms faced by Latter-day Saint missionaries—particularly the claim that one should not pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true. Through their characteristic wit and historical insights, the hosts invite listeners to seek truth through genuine inquiry and reaffirm the power of spiritual experience in testimony.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Listener Banter & Podcasting Conference Experiences

• The hosts recount humorous behind-the-scenes stories, including the ongoing joke that they meander before getting to the main points (04:36).
• Brief mention of an LDS podcaster conference, with shout-outs to other content creators, highlighting camaraderie and the irony of expert feedback (03:37–04:36).

2. Listener Emails: Humor and March Madness Bracket Names

• Notable Email from Maddie (08:02–13:47): Written "between agonizing waves of active labor," full of sharp wit and playful insults. Maddie provides a sprawling list of inside-joke bracket names for the show’s March Madness event.
  • Quote:
    "Why, you might ask, am I sacrificing the sacred focus of childbirth to commune with the auditory equivalent of beige wallpaper?"
    — Maddie’s email read by Richard (09:32)
  • The hosts riff on her style, French-Canadian spelling, and her mock disdain, with extended laughter about the term “beige.”
• Segment includes a selection of the best/funniest listener-generated bracket names: “Greatest MTC District Leader Ever,” “Crinkling Jeeves,” “Keep Betty Alive,” “Seven Levels of Subreddit Hell,” among others (13:24–14:38).

3. The Culinary Textbook Fiasco: "Joseph Young" the Invented Founder

• Source: American Regional Cuisines: Food Culture and Cooking by Lou Sackett and David Haynes (18:27–31:27)
• Summary:
  • A listener sends in excerpts from a college culinary textbook making egregious errors about LDS history, notably crediting “Joseph Young” (not Joseph Smith) as the founder of the Church and as Brigham Young’s father, and alleging the pioneers arrived in Utah in 1838.
  • Dr. Dirkmaat and Dr. Leduc mock the inaccuracies and discuss failures of peer review in academia.
  • Quote:
    "Thus, the group relocated successively westward, and led by Joseph Young’s son, Brigham Young, eventually traveled to the Great Basin in 1838."
    — Textbook excerpt (25:26)
• Insight: They underscore how authoritative errors persist in print—how even ostensibly serious books propagate myths that, if left unchallenged, shape public perception.

4. The Danger of Relying on Poor Sources

• Using both the culinary textbook and a James Buchanan biography, the hosts illustrate how bad scholarship in supposedly reputable works misleads readers:
  • Buchanan, for example, is wrongly said to have sent the army to Utah in response to the Mountain Meadows Massacre—a chronological impossibility (40:49).
• Takeaway:
  • "Just as a word of warning to everybody: if you are looking for a quick and dirty, easy means of finding something on the internet, you are very likely to be misled... you are paying for convenience in accuracy."
    — Dirkmaat (36:17)

5. Responding to Missionary Challenges: Should You Pray About the Book of Mormon?

• Email from 'Crew,' an about-to-serve missionary: (51:39–54:09)
  • Shares struggles with friends' claims that praying to know if the Book of Mormon is true is unreliable because “feelings can get in the way.”
  • Friends quote scriptures (especially Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful...”) to support this.
• In-depth Discussion:
  • The hosts dismantle the analogy and argument. They point out that the warning against praying about truth ignores the biblical command in James 1:5 ("If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God...") and note the irony of refusing to seek personal revelation on the most important questions of faith (60:26).
  • They also address the “Galatians 1:8” argument ("even if an angel brings another gospel..."), highlighting double standards when Christians accept the Book of Revelation, which was delivered through an angel after Galatians was penned (69:16).
  • Quote:
    "Why would an all powerful God tell you to ask him and then allow Satan to be more powerful than God? Why would God say I want you to ask if he meant just make sure you don't ever ask?"
    — Dirkmaat (65:38)

6. Mission Stories: "The Day Bernie Came Inside"

• Story Segment (71:36–82:13)
  • Dr. Dirkmaat shares the titular story: As a young missionary in rural Wisconsin, he and his companion often relied on a quirky branch presidency member—Bernie—for rides. Bernie had unusual beliefs (preferring Doctrine & Covenants, ambivalent about the Book of Mormon) but never joined lessons.
  • One day, Bernie unexpectedly accepts, and during an emotional lesson with an investigator struggling with anti-Mormon arguments, Bernie's "most powerful spiritual experience" turns out to be... finding discounted VHS tapes at Walgreens.
  • Quote:
    "He said, 'I had the most powerful spiritual experience I've ever had in my life last week... I was there to buy an eight pack of VHS tapes for my wife so she could record Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. I found the cassettes... and then I had a powerful spiritual experience, and it said, stop, wait. And right up there by the cash register was the exact same set of VHS tapes for $0.50 less... Most powerful spiritual experience I've ever had in my life.'"
    — Bernie’s story as retold by Dirkmaat (80:06–81:59)
  • Purpose: The story underscores the need for authentic personal revelation over rote testimony, and the value of genuine spiritual experiences.

7. Affirming Spiritual Experience & Inviting Personal Inquiry

• Wraps up by strongly encouraging listeners to trust in God's promise to answer sincere seekers, affirming the reality and life-changing nature of revelation through the Holy Spirit (82:23–85:47).

  • Quote:
    "Please believe them that before us be more than them that be against us. The audacity of someone to argue that the omnipotent God who tells you to pray to him doesn't have the ability to answer you, or that Satan is somehow more powerful than the king of the universe... The testimony that comes from the Holy Ghost cuts to your center. It changes who you are, and who you will forever be."
    — Dirkmaat (82:23–85:47)

• Encouragement to keep seeking and standing firm, with a humorous note on future plans to count all 'fornication' references in scripture (87:03).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "After a while it just kind of sounds like I have an anger management problem." – Dirkmaat (02:38)
• "Why, you might ask, am I sacrificing the sacred focus of childbirth to commune with the auditory equivalent of beige wallpaper?” – Maddie, read by Leduc (09:32)
• "You keep on using that word [superfluous]. I do not think it means what you think it means. Inconceivable." – Dirkmaat (23:49)
• "He has the Mormons getting to Utah before Joseph Smith is in Liberty Jail, let alone murdered in Carthage Jail." – Dirkmaat (27:18)
• "You're paying for the convenience of a Wikipedia response…and you’re paying for the convenience in accuracy." – Dirkmaat (36:17)
• "James 1:5 says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. So if I were you, I wouldn't give up on that verse. I would hammer it." – Dirkmaat (65:38)
• The 'VHS tape' story as a metaphor for varying interpretations of spiritual experience (80:06–81:59).

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Listener banter & conference stories: 00:37–04:36
• March Madness names & Maddie’s email: 08:02–14:38
• Culinary textbook errors (Joseph Young): 18:27–31:27
• Dangers of poor sourcing & Buchanan example: 31:31–42:27
• Missionary email: praying over the Book of Mormon: 51:39–71:16
• Debunking anti-Mormon proof-texting: 57:10–71:16
• "The Day Bernie Came Inside" story: 71:36–82:13
• Affirmation of personal revelation: 82:23–85:47

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Tone & Style

• Witty and incisive: Frequent self-deprecating jokes, sarcasm, and banter.
• Faith-affirming and pastoral: While scrutinizing errors, the hosts gently but firmly invite listeners (especially youth/missionaries) to seek truth sincerely.
• Unapologetically detailed: Willingness to digress for historical or exegetical depth.

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Summary Takeaway

Through humor, historical rigor, and personal anecdotes, this episode champions the value of informed inquiry, spiritual experience, and steady faith amid misunderstanding—inviting listeners not to be cowed by poorly-sourced critiques or superficial arguments, but to seek direct answers from God and to find joy in their religious heritage.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the life and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the church with faith, expertise and humor.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Foreign.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkman, and I am joined by my friend Suzuki, sidekick and gangress,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

pulling himself along. Antelope. I can't remember exactly.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I can't remember exactly what the context of that comparison was.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I do, I remember. I remember like it was yesterday. I do. The context. Well, the context was, is that I was taking 17 years to complete a dissertation that any normal person would take three or one or negative. And you were comparing me to something that was literally didn't have any back part of their body. An antelope just with its front legs just pulling itself along the highway is kind of the description that you painted of me, which was incredibly accurate.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. And friend Richard leduc,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

that was, that was all a subordinate clause. If you, if you could see it in our show prep, that was all in parentheses. It was in the, it was in the, the coral pink color that you don't have to read. But we did anyway. I like the idea that our listeners think that we have a script that we're reading. I love that.

Well, hello, Garrett. Thanks for having me back. I'm so glad to be back as we tease Tertullian yet a third time, because I don't think we're going to get to it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We may. You're saying that just because there's something that might make me mad and you know it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yes. We've received many an email. Many of them have made you very angry, not because of the person that emailed, but the, the issues that they're facing and the, and you want to, you know, you want to help them out. And so.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But yeah, after a while, it just kind of sounds like I have a, I have an anger management problem

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

after

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

a while, after the first one, you know.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

What are you talking about?

Well, Garrett, this is.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I definitely have an anger management problem. It was funny because we went to a conference for LDS content creators and podcasters that we were invited to go to. Was very kind, very nice. It was very, very, very good. One of the presenters, though, spent some time on, you know, not having the spirit of contention and I, you know, I had the opportunity at that moment to change who I was. And I had the opportunity to say, you know what, let's do a self examination. And the next time someone says that Joseph Smith's a false prophet to you,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

you're going to take us, you're going

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

to take a step back, give him a quick tip of the cap, and you're on your way.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We met many wonderful people that were there that are also doing a lot of great work. Obviously a friend of the show, Jasmine, who does incredible work. She was there. The blonde apologist was very kind as she's trying to get you to talk about polygamy.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

She want, she wants to just bypass the waiting till season 38 to talk about on our podcast to go on hers and just talk about it anyway.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

She, she couldn't have been kinder. And everyone was just, everyone was just brilliant and incredible. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

When you get people in a room that are just so smart like you do kind of feel like very inadequate, like basically everything they put up on the board, like, you should be doing this with your podcast. We're not doing that. You should do this. We aren't doing that either. What if you did this? We're not doing that. We survive. In spite of the fact that nothing

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

that people say we should do that

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

we do, including getting to the point quickly.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I will say, though, this is a perfect. Well, so there's an email here. First of all, it's a mean trick to put the word beige in an email because that's. Well, you're going to stumble. I'm going to stumble all over a word like beige.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. Someone who puts the word beige in an email is trying to hurt you.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, yeah, no, no, absolutely. And I will, I will say Maddie knows very well what she's doing there. She's going after my intelligence, which is funny and I do respect the humor aspect, but get out of here with. With beige. This email does lead us into our Dead and in Hell bracket challenge for the. I. I don't know. I didn't tell you that that's what I called it in the description. That's funny Standard of Truth podcast Dead and in Hell bracket Buster challenge in

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

the podcast description for you to go join our March Madness bracket, which we're hoping by the time those come out that BYU is not in a play in game for the NIT at this rate.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But so I, I am currently in. Where all of your accents eventually turn into like, even, even a British accent will eventually turn to Missouri.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

To Missouri. Yeah. So when we, we were at the we were at this conference, and Richard had to leave early.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And I said, where. Where are you going? And he said, I've got to get to Missouri. And I. I was like, so did you. So I.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Then I suddenly.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Because we just did a podcast on not, you know, freaking out about the

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

second coming because some guy saw a comet somewhere. That line.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Elder Bednar talked about the stars. And, And I. And I talked to Richard, and he's like, yeah, I've got to get to Missouri.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And I'm like, first of all, no

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

one's ever said those words. No one's ever said Missouri.

Zion's camp said those words like, hey, guys, we probably need to get to Missouri.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I'm pretty sure they did say those words.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And then they immediately said the words, we've got to get out of here. We've got to get back.

Well, so we're actually recording this one pretty, pretty late. And I actually legitimately do have work out here, but no one believes me because it also just so happens that the Big 12 tournament just so happens to also be in Kansas City.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Where do you go to the game?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Did you go to the BYU game?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, I didn't. I watched it on the. On the flight. I need them to win at least one more game so that I can attend. I think they've got West. West Virginia next. By the time that this airs, they will have. They will have lost to West Virginia.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, badly.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, we got West Virginia. We got them. Houston.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Houston have them. Last time we played him. Know what I mean?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But that was. Wasn't that. You don't just go into.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It was like a week ago.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Dude, it was like a week ago, and we got blowed out.

No one just goes into Morgan.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

They're like four or five games over 500. We have several listeners from West Virginia. We actually had a. A young man actually email us just recently from. From West Virginia. And he said, please don't mention the song Country Roads Take Me Home. If you do, it'll. It's very. You know, I'm so tired of the song. And now I just did so, so well.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Garrett, this first email from the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag comes to us from Maddie, and there were several paragraphs that had more than two syllable words, and I cut them out, just three paragraphs worth. Now she's. She's in labor, so we're reading it, but I don't have to read all of it. I think that's the. Anyone?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We never. There's no. We did not spell out in the fine print, you know, that we would read your email did not mean we would read all of it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

At least that's what we're.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

She could have said tan wallpaper, but she said beige. It's ridiculous. She knew. She know very well what.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

She knows what she's doing. But she is in labor. Or at least she was when she wrote this.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Right? She was three years ago when she wrote this email to the purportedly esteemed doctors currently occupying the most unruly. Okay, you know what? You know what? That's pretty funny. Anyway, brethren, I am presently dispatching this electronic missive between the agonizing waves of active. What is that part?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I don't have it in front of me, so you're just gonna have to guess.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Active labor pains.

I'm guessing you just made that up.

I did. Why, you might ask, am I sacrificing the sacred focus of childbirth to commune with the auditory equivalent of beige wallpaper? That sentence alone, I feel like that's just landmine after landmine.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, I feel like France.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

This is like France in, like, 1922.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

The Neal A. Maxwell is strong with her.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, because my husband, whom I love, claims to. Claims to tolerate your work, your banter, and your very existence, and he consumes every agonizing bit of your content and aggressively proselytizes your pedantic rhapsodies to your unfortunate acquaintances. Thus, to pacify him while I dilate, I am compelled to act as his reluctant scribe of the following. And then I deleted those three paragraphs.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We've got a lot of. We've got a lot of very unwilling.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Look, guys, the point wasn't to force your wife, in the middle of labor, to write an email for you.

I feel like that was the point.

It clearly is in this case.

Okay, she said a lot of things that were interesting. And finally, I'm just skipping to the end. So she spells. How did you pronounce?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Looks like she wrote Ricardus.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

R, I, C, H, Q, U, A, R, D, E, S, spelled with the super superfluous for superfluous. Superfluous.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Oh, gosh, it's late where you're at.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Very late.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, you.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You hit me at 7pm I can get superfluous every time you hit me at.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

At you at 11:30 at night. I. I.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Basically everything has to be two syllables.

I'm going to cut that out. That makes me sound. I'm willing to handle a certain amount of me sounding stupid. That one. That one. That one's too far. Letters characteristic of your French Canadian heritage. I truly lament that your. Your medium lacks the visual component. If it did, the audience would witness firsthand look of the.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

The vacuous, bewildered incompetence.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, yes, you saw. Yes, the vacuous, bewildered incompetence I imagine you sport while attempting to decipher litner correspondence. This sentence is your annual eye exam. If you can read it, you pass. I obviously didn't pass. And then there's a character from a Canadian show, I think the Trailer Park Boys, where. Where the guy has essentially spectacles that, you know, you can translate the gold plates. They can see in back in time.

They are very thick.

As of now in March. We are now in March, and because of my contractions are giving me a fleeting sense of philanthropy. My husband insists on providing a public service for suggesting March Madness bracket names. The following are presented in no particular order and should be read with the understanding that they cater to inside jokes that are entirely beneath me. Even though. Even though she is attacking me very hard. It's very funny. I will give it to her. Feel free to sift through and find your favorites. Now, Garrett, there were a couple that stood out to you that you liked, and then I also highlighted a couple as well. Again, we want everyone to click and join us in our dead and in hell March Madness.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Look, there are so many of them. I mean, first of all, there's probably 50 of them that she listed off. And when I say she, I'm guessing

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

that her husband forced her to type this as well. Right.

If this isn't ChatGPT or Claude or Yoohoo, I would be impressed because this is a pretty significant list, and it's very funny.

Okay, so here's. Here's.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Here's one that I really liked.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Greatest MTC district leader ever. What?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Do you want to do one, or

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

you want me to just do something Crinkling Jeeves?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, I thought that was very good.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's my favorite, actually.

The Faithless Losers bracket.

Justin Griffin fanboys. Made me laugh, actually, when I read it. That was funny.

Oh, that's pretty funny.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

How about Pastor Derek? I think someone already has theirs named Pastor Derek's picture.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

What did you name yours, by the way? What's. What's the name of my team?

I just named it, and there was no Dirk Moss.

Oh, that's a good one. I went with Dead Eye Willard.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's. That's pretty funny. How.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

How Gamblers is good. I like that. Sorry I talked over you. What was that?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I said, how about Keep Betty Alive, Remember?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Because the show keeps going as long as she's still alive. At some point we said we are going to keep going as long as

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Betty's alive because some comment she made,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I believe at the end though I don't know if you caught this, but there was another thing where I think someone was attacking me. And then at the end I wished her sarcastically wished her good health.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I don't know if you remember Gaddy

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

and Gamblers I thought was funny. I like that one.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

How about Bill's mistress? The seven levels of subreddit hell.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, that's good.

The anti Mormon extremism games. That's pretty good. Rogue bust.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Now that's a deep cut.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

The rogue bus is me talking about you getting hit by a bus and that's when you go to Jesus. That. That is a deep cut. I will say that that was good.

The Buckwheat Groat. I kind of like that one too.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Captain Fun Ball. All these are all inside two times. Speed is not fast enough.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Maddie and Johnny, here's hoping that your beautiful child is healthy and that you are now home and able to get some sleep.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

She signed it cordially and with immense disdain.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, I felt the disdain.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. I could only assume that's because, you know, the pains were coming on. Well, let's move on to it. We have another one that actually will go into what I'm going to spend some time talking about today. So let's jump to our next. It was, by the way, Colton in West Virginia that had emailed us. It was a great. He actually created a graphic when I

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

said, someone in West Virginia said, you

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

know, please don't sing the song. Which we just play a clip of it. But I hear that the John Denver.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

John Denver estate is.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, yeah, I think I told you

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

when I went on. I went to the BYU West Virginia game when we got blowed out a couple years ago and I downloaded on itunes essentially every cover. And so when we drove, we drove from Pittsburgh, we drove from Pittsburgh to Morgantown and we just listened to essentially 70 versions of country Roads.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That sounds like the people in your car would want you dead.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It was great because the fifth time the song came on, they started to laugh because it's like, oh, this is funny. And this is a fifth version. By the 70th version, though, it was all I could do to keep him from jumping out of a moving car.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

This next email is. Is another gigantic one. We can't read it all because it's. That would be the end of the podcast if we did okay. But we, I mean, it's, it's very long. Although they do offer to bring Qdoba and Fresca if we ever have a chance to meet up with them. So that, that made me want to do it. But this, this email is. It contains something that is from their, their child's textbook. So I based these questions. They had some questions off of a highly reliable source that I've included pictures of my son's college culinary book. Now, it's important to note I am not just coming at this with no experience. I taught at a culinary college.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You did not.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, not cooking. No, not cooking, no. But the. I taught at Johnson and Wales University in Denver, which is the school that the chef Emeril Lagasse graduated from.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Bam.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, Yep. Bam. That's exactly. Bam is all over the place there. It's bam. You know, it's.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's there.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And. But because it is, you know, they are getting a degree. They still had to have the basics of humanities, right? So you have all these aspiring chefs,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

you know, all these people that are

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

currently working as sous chefs who are, you know, they are, they're trying to get this degree, culinary arts degree, but

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

they have to take, like, history classes. So you can only imagine how much they hate them because this has nothing,

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

you know, so I'm spending a lot

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

of time with the age of exploration,

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

like, and you know what, they were trying to find spices.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

You know, I try, try to make it relatable to them.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Have you ever, you know, wanted to make some gumbo and you went to,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

you went to the cupboard and there weren't any spices in it?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's what it was like all the time in Europe in 1400. You know, that, that's, you know, I wasn't a very good teacher, obviously, but they, this, they sent us images from an actual college textbook

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

and they said,

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I am sure this has gone through

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

extensive peer review and thus the information

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

presented has got to be true to some point. I'd love to hear your take on this claim and whether or not nepotism was what kept the church going. This, like I said, they've got a whole bunch of, of, of great stuff in here, but for time's sake, we're not going to be able to read the rest of Corey's email, but let's, let's read. So, so the name of this textbook, you know, I hate to publicly shame the textbook, and the whole point of the textbook is here's a Culinary Types of Cooking from Different Places. The title of the book is American Regional Cuisines, Food Culture, and Cooking by Lou Sackett and David Haynes. You know, and, you know, David Haynes

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

is a hack

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

in the kitchen or somewhere else. Now, this is also a textbook that was published. I mean, look, if this textbook was

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

published in, like, 1874, this would make more sense. You know, the. If this was a textbook that was still in use, you know, and it

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

was like, you know, the territory of Utah may someday even become a state, even with the Mormons in it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

If it was something like that, then you've got to give it a pass because it's. It's.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But this was published in 2012. Okay? So it's not cutting edge, but it's published in the 21st century. All right? And this is what it says under the. Mormon cuisine in the Great Basin. Okay. Mormon cuisine in the Great Basin. Among the many East Coast Americans traveling westward in search of land. Was a Christian. You know what? I changed my. I changed my opinion.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I'm actually fine with this textbook because it just said, we're Christians. That's how low the bar is for us.

It is.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

What was a Christian religious group known as the Mormons? It didn't say Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, we. We just had a movie coming out that was talking about the Mormons. Right? That was. That was fine. In 2012.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Founded in upstate New York.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Okay.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

By Joseph Young.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Okay. Okay. Well, his friends called him Joseph Young because he was such a baby face. They're like, hey, I honestly did not

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

know how that part alone could have gotten through peer review. But you could not have had. Here's how I know. You literally had no person read it

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

who ever had any idea what the Mormon Church believed.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Because it's not like typos happen all the time when you're thinking. It happens. When I'm talking, I'll be thinking of Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer and Martin Harris in my head. And so I'll be like, and then David Whitmer. But really, it's Oliver Cowdery that I'm talking about. Mistakes happen all the time. I'm not saying. But they. This is not a typo. They keep leaning into, Joseph Young founded the church.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So. But. But what type of peer review do you think this type of book goes through? What's your understanding?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I would guess that if you are presenting a history snapshot of all of the regions and then talking about the food that they served, you would have a reviewer who knows history go over the history portions, and then you'd Have a culinary arts historian go over the culinary part of it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, no, it's pretty. I just look at it as being pretty superfluous.

But now you just keep using that word.

A word that I can easily pronounce.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Inconceivable.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Joseph Young.

Joseph Young. Inconceivable. It was founded in upstate New York

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

by Joseph Young in 1830. Okay, well, they got the date right. I mean, the year.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

There you go.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

The Mormons soon attracted religious persecution in the east due to their unusual doctrines and practices. Okay, by unusual doctrines, you mean believing that the Book of Mormon was the word of God? Because that was. Yeah. Thus, the group relocated successively westward, which is not actually true during the 1830s because Missouri is much further west than. Than Illinois is. But yes. Okay, well, the eastern border of Missouri,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I feel, is Illinois. So, I mean, it's. It's actually hard to go further west from Missouri to Illinois.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Isn't East St. Louis across the river? Or is it not?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I don't even know. I'm not an East St. Louis aficionado.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I'm going to get to the. Well, I'm going to reach out to. Oh, who's the rapper? That's. Oh, my gosh. Okay. I'm gonna get to the bottom of many things. I just feel like. I feel like on. On the geography part, I'm willing to give him a pass because of the Joseph Young comment.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I feel like. Well, so, look, it's not the only

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

time they say Joseph Young.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

They're about to double down on Joseph Young.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Here. Here comes the most egregious part.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Thus, the group relocated successfully westward during the 1830s, and led by Joseph Young's

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

son, Brigham Young, eventually traveled to the

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Great Basin in 1838. Okay, it will take me the remainder of the podcast just to explain how

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

wrong every part of this sentence is. Okay, they.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We already talked about. It's a minor thing, right, to say that they relocated successively westward, which, of course, they didn't. Led by Joseph Young. Joseph Young's son, Brigham Young.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yes. First of waiting for the error. Yeah.

Joseph Young is Brigham Young's brother. So not only is Joseph Young not the founder of the church, Joseph Young

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

is not Brigham Young's son, although he probably does name one of his sons Joseph. So I'm sure that's what they were

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

thinking when they wrote this.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Eventually traveled to the Great Basin in 1838. You didn't even Wikipedia this. Look, I know it's 2012.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So I know that Wikipedia wasn't the

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

amazing, you know, stellar source then as it was now. But even ask Jeeves or the Yahoo.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yoohoo search engine in 2012 would have told you that the Mormons arrive in Salt Lake in 1847.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

He has the Mormons getting to Utah

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

before Joseph Smith is in Liberty Jail, let alone murdered in Carthage jail.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But it's okay, because as far as this person's concerned, Joseph Smith doesn't exist

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

because it's actually Joseph Young, who then has a son named Brigham, who then

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

leads the church in 1838.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

There's a couple of things. First of all, it's Nelly. That's the rapper I was thinking about. And East St. Louis is in Illinois. But you also have. There's more than just Salt Lake. I mean, there's the Caspian kind of basin, Kalari Basin in Africa. Maybe that's what they meant, but they

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

do say the Great Basin.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, you know, if you're from the Caspian region, you'd probably.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's a great Basin to you.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's a pretty. I mean, it's a pretty good basin.

It's it, it's it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I've always thought there was a ski resort in, in Idaho called Bogus Basin.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, Bogus Basin. Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And I always thought, who would want to go there? It's.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Hey, you think that this is a place that slopes down? It doesn't. It's just, it's all a lie. So you go there and it's just all cross country skiing.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's what I thought when I heard

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

about it as a kid. It's just, you know, it's not really, it's not really a basin.

Not really.

It's just flat.

Yeah, he's trying to. It had better alliteration to have Bogus. So Bogus is pretty cool. So, you know, Bogus Basin. Anyway, so Joseph Young made it to San Francisco in 1920. I think that's where he left you.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know, look, the other parts of this are, you know, through relentless work and extreme physical endurance, they literally made the desert bloom through irrigation and good agricultural methods. Yeah, that's nice.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Positive.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Much of the modern Great Basin area was settled and farmed by Mormons and their descendants. And today the area is frequently referred to as the Mormon cultural zone. I mean, you know, so then they go on to say the kinds of stuff that, you know. Unlike many other Rocky Mountain settlers, Mormon pioneers remain culinary conservatives because of their religious beliefs. Traditional Mormon culture and cuisine are focused on thrift, simplicity, and generosity. Thus Traditional Mormon dishes are plainly seasoned and easy to prepare and serve to large groups, with the exception of Great Lakes fish, which cuts off there. And I don't have the book, I'm not entirely sure what they're about to

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

say about Great Lakes fish.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Which car? I don't think that we import a whole lot of those.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So by the way, Brigham Young did have a son named Joseph. Yeah, yeah, Joseph Angel Angle G E L L. Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Because his wife.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Mary.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Angel.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yes, Mary angel born in Kirtland, Ohio. So there. So maybe that's who they were talking.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

When was he born?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

He was born in 1834, so 17 years after they made it to the Great basin.

Perhaps his four year old son had founded the church in 1838. Now look, it would be a way better origin story for the church if a four year old did lead us to the Great Basin or the Caspian Sea.

That's the thing is like people are like, well, a 14 year old boy, that's, that's crazy. A 14 year old boy, I don't think it goes far enough. I think a four year old boy would be more, that'd be more fantastical.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, obviously this wasn't peer reviewed at all. But you know what this is in a textbook, you know, published that, you know, you assume through peer review, that is, you know, has a Library of Congress number. So it means that it's going to be viewed by, and obviously is being assigned right now in college, it's published by a, you know, I, up until now, I believe to be a reputable

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

publisher when it came to publishing textbooks.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And this made me think a little bit about just how easy it is for false information to be presented as though it's true. And without a critical eye, it is so easy to just go right along with it. A friend of the show texted me the other day about the fact that,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

you know, he was reading up on

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Wikipedia and he's like, look, I know it's a terrible source, I get it, it's a terrible source. But he, he said that he was, you know, looking up the three witnesses on, on Wikipedia and he, he is

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

really

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

stunned by what he's reading there. That, you know, what, what, what is actually this says. So this is part of what he, he says. Wikipedia says that in March 1838, Martin Harris publicly denied that he had ever actually seen the gold plates.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Now he says, other than it being

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

on Wikipedia, I'm not necessarily surprised at anything I read there, but I was surprised to read this. I thought it was established that none of the three witnesses ever denied having seen the plates, even though they all eventually left. So this is a perfect example of something that, if, if I'm not a Latter Day Saint and I'm just going out into the world

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

that

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I, I might read that and be like, oh, obviously he did, he did deny having seen it. However, you know, the, we've, we've covered this when we covered the, the witnesses. We've, and we've covered, you know, anti Mormon attacks. There is a source for this, but the source is a recently excommunicated member who in the same source also claims that all of the witnesses denied ever seeing the plates and that all of the eight witnesses, which would include Joseph Smith Senior and also Hiram Smith, all said that they were persuaded to sign that they had seen the plates, but they had never actually seen the place and all claiming it. Of course, in a meeting that we don't have any other people saying that meeting took place. But when it's written like that, in March 1838, Harris publicly denied he'd actually ever seen the plates. For all of the claims that Harris denied seeing the plates, they all have one thing in common, and that is none of them have Martin Harris actually saying it. So it's, it's one of the odd ways of denying something, right? It's, oh yeah, he made a public denial that no one else saw that, no one else heard that. He himself contradicted every time anyone asked him about it. But it was public and also everyone saw it, right? I mean, it's, must not be as, as public. I mean, so you, look, you do have people like John Gilbert claiming that, that he saw the plates with his spiritual eyes. Of course, John Gilbert sang that, you know, decades later. It, it, he's not saying it till 1892, for crying out loud. And then you have other people who are kind of making that same claim. Oh no, he, he told us that he only really saw them with, with his spiritual eyes. You know, but you don't have Martin Harris ever saying that. You just have people saying that he said it. When Martin Harris says it, he's saying something very different. And so I think this is all part and parcel of the importance of making sure you're using actual good sources. And look, obviously people go to Wikipedia because it's convenient, but if you're going to Wikipedia just because it's convenient, it's important to recognize that you're going to it just because it's convenient. And convenience rarely makes for accuracy, right? It's kind of Like a convenience store actually, which you go into a convenience store expecting that you're going to find, you know, the, the pack of toilet paper that you need for your trip, but you're also expecting something else, and that is it's going to cost seven

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

times what it would cost in a normal grocery store.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Right? So you're paying for the convenience

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

with

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

a, with, in that case, you know, a hugely inflated price. You're paying for the convenience of a chat, GPT response, of a GROK response or whatever, an AI response and, or a Wikipedia response, a quick Google skirt, Google search. You are, you're paying for the convenience in accuracy. And you have to know that you're paying for it in this accuracy. You have to know that because otherwise, you know, like my friend, boy, I was really stunned by this. I always was told that they, they never denied seeing the plates. First of all, none of these accounts ever even say that he didn't see the plates. All of them say, you know, some kind of, that it was a visionary experience, which of course it is given the fact that an angel is showing it to him. Right. But the claim of course is that, oh, this, this constitutes him denying it. And again, it's not actually him that's saying it. So just as a, as a, as a word of warning to everybody, if you are looking for a quick and dirty, you know, easy means of finding out something from the Internet, you are very likely to be misled. Now some of that will be, you know, very well meaning, you know, misleading. I, I don't really think, given the fact that they had very kind things to say about the faith, that this culinary arts textbook intended to write an anti Mormon screed that would do a, you know, a double fakie ollie off of the ramp. You know, I, I, I don't, I, I don't think that that was the intention, but the information was wrong, even though there it is printed in a book. So that shows that even something being published, even by a reputable publisher is not necessarily a foolproof way of avoiding error. I can think of another example of this. There is a, a biography of James Buchanan that was written, you know, it was written probably a couple decades ago now. But you know, I, I don't think the material facts on the ground have changed a whole lot from James Buchanan's presidency. You know, still dead, you know, still a bad president.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Is there the James Buchanan papers by chance that, that uncovered all kinds of things in attics and libraries, you know, honestly.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So in order to have a papers project done for you. You need to, A, have people who care about you, and B, you need to have papers. James Buchanan has neither. I mean, there are obviously some James Buchanan papers, but there are very, very, very few that survive. And there's at least according to one source, that they were destroyed by his, his niece. You know, when to protect his, I mean, that's, there's at least those are claims. I don't want to go too far into the claims, but.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So wait, so isn't he already, isn't he already the worst president, viewed as the worst president of all time? And so, like, she's protecting him. It could have been worse.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, like, what if we started comparing him to, like, dictators around the world or something? Like, what if he came in behind Pol Pot or something like that?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Right, because, because in addition to doing nothing that essentially led to the Civil War, he also wrote, you know, mean

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

letters to, you know, I don't really know, honestly, orphans. But this biography of Buchanan,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I, I,

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I, I'm assuming unintentionally, because it was written by a historian, it was written to be an academic biography. I'm assuming it was unintentional, but it's the kind of unintentional thing that makes you go, who read this? And the answer is nobody who has any idea what they're talking about. Because in this biography, what did it say?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It said

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

that James Buchanan ordered an army to Utah to occupy Utah after he learned about the Mountain Meadows Massacre perpetrated by the Mormons.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I see.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Now why would that be a problem, Richard?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Boy, is this, was this book possibly peer reviewed by the same people that wrote that spices book.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know what?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We need to get crack research on

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

that by get, you know what? They probably came out about the same time. There you go. And maybe it's just one giant pool of terrible Mormon content reviewers, but of course, the problem with that, I mean, first of all, it creates this incredible justification for Buchanan's blunder, right? It's called Buchanan's blunder for a reason, Right? It's this hugely expensive, massive military expedition to put down a rebellion in Utah. The only problem is Utah's not rebelling, Right? You know, the pretense of sending the army is that the Mormons have burned the territorial library. Again, one of the more easy things to determine, it's, it's only slightly more easy than determining whether or not someone is dead, right? You go find that person, and if they're alive, then I guess they weren't murdered. That it's very Simple. It's like, oh, the Mormons murdered all these people. Are they alive?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, they are.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I guess they didn't murder them then.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

By the way, at the time of Buchanan's blunder, Joseph Young was 23 years old.

So was he then, at 23, the original founder of the church in 1830, had he found a way to time travel?

I feel like in the future of my life, I will always compare things to how old Joseph Young would be at a given age.

I want that for our podcast.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, so, so it's a real problem because every historian, even, even antagonistic historians, and I put historians in quotes because most of them writing actually, you know, are not PhDs on it. But most academ, even antagonistic writers who've written books about surrounding the Mountain Meadows Massacre, even they explain the massacre taking place in the context of the army heading to the West. Now, of course, they're going to be like, and the Mormons overreacted. In the Mormons, there's all kinds of things. And look, it is a horrible, horrible event in Latter Day Saint history. You do have dozens and dozens of otherwise seemingly good Latter Day Saints who, who make this horrible decision to attack this wagon train for fear that they are going to raise an army from California and come and had they waited a day, they would have received Brigham Young's letter to them telling them to let all the wagon trains pass in peace. I mean, it's a horrific tragedy, and there are absolutely Mormons who are participants in these murders, but it didn't cause James Buchanan to send the army. And by saying that, what do you do? First of all, it's completely false. But the second thing it does is it justifies James Buchanan's bad behavior. Oh, sure, he sent the army, but he did it because those Mormons were out there murdering everybody. But of course, the most important thing that you do as a historian is you try to explain what events led to other events. That's why chronology matters so much. I mean, everyone hates taking history classes like, oh, because they wanted us to know dates, you know, that kind of stuff. But the reason why it matters is if you think, you know, that Hitler came to power before World War I. Well, that's kind of a problem because you don't actually understand what led to World War II. Then you don't, you don't understand the, the dynamics that were at play. And, and, you know, in this book, you saw something very similar. And again, this is, this was a, a, from a large publishing press, a historian who wrote it, and I'm guessing thousands of people have read that book. Primarily, people are writing anything about the, the lead up to the Civil War because they want to understand Buchanan and there's so little to go on. And they all read something that is demonstrably false, that's completely inaccurate, that if you were to take to any other historian familiar with the Utah War and, and, and Buchanan's blunder, they would say, oh, my goodness gracious. You, you not only have this wrong, you have it as wrong as you possibly could have something. You. He did not respond to the Mountain Meadows massacre and send an army to Utah. He sent an army to Utah, which caused panic in Utah, which caused some settlers to elevate a conflict they had with passing, passing immigrants to the point of this horrific tragedy. That doesn't excuse the Latter Day Saints who participated. It was a horrific murder. But if you want to understand why history happened, then you kind of have to understand when things happen and why they happen. So I think part of what I wanted to spend a little bit of time on was going to the right source to get our, our answers. We had a missionary email us, you know, not too long ago, and the point of their email was to say that they, you know, how do you respond when someone says that you can't pray to find out whether or not the Book of Mormon is true? You know, Richard, you've been holding these, these mission prep classes in your house for. I don't think it's just the missionaries from your stake. It seems like it's missionaries far and. Well, I feel like people are taking the train into your mission prep classes.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Is that the truth?

It's actually been a lot of fun. It was for our ward, and then it's kind of spanned out to a bunch of youth from the stake, and then now it's people from all over, mostly because of, I mean, the food, the food budget on this. I need it actually sponsored by, you know, Zion's bank or something because it's, it is running. Running aggressively expensive. But yeah, it's been, it's been awesome. We, I think we had about 50 or so kids on Sunday, and we talked about the restoration. Before that, we did the Reformation, and it's been, it's been really awesome. I think one of the things that you say all of the time and that I steal and give you no credit for when I'm not with you is that because it makes me sound smarter is the idea of for missionaries to go out and to preach the gospel, to help them to really understand what it is that we have and how special it is. I remember the first when I went to go preach the gospel in California, and people would say, I mean, there's already a bunch of Christians in California. Why are you going to. To do that? And at the time, I did not know. And now I, I desperately want for these young people to know just how special the restored gospel is and how different it is. To your, to your point.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, this. I, I wasn't planning on reading this, but. But we had. Sorry. It's a perspective. He has a missionary email address. So that's.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

He.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

He's been called obviously, since he, you know, he was trying to get that free premium access.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We're, we're just, we're working on it. I. Continuing the effort. We. Adding 100 a day as we move to our new system. Thank you, everybody, for, for sending in. We're getting to everyone, I swear.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, they, I feel like they believe you at this point are like the Soviet, you know, public works system, and

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

you are in line for 10 years

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

to get the plumber to your house. I think that's, that's you.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I mean, you, you fast forwarded. That's a great Reagan joke, by the way.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I think we've told it before on the podcast, but the, the great Reagan joke is that, you know, the Soviet Union decided Reagan used to tell jokes about how inefficient Communism was. I mean, which, I mean, seems like. Seems like there'd be a bevy of

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

material there that it'd be very easy to come up with, to come up with something. And one of the jokes Reagan told

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

was that the Soviet Union decided, you know, they couldn't be behind the west anymore, that they were going to, you know, provide for all of the households in the Soviet Union a car, that they were going to provide them a car from the state. And so, you know, the man goes and he waits in line for hours and hours and hours, and he finally gets to the front of the line and he sits down and he says, he says, you know, takes all his information. He says, all right, comrade. Yeah, come back here in 10 years, and we will have your car 10 years from now. We will have your car 10 years from this date. And the guy says to him, well, morning or afternoon? And he said, come that comrade, comrade. He's, you know, 10 years. What difference does it make? 10 years. You know, Reagan didn't do a Soviet accent, but.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And he said, well, because the plumber's

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

coming in the morning ten years from now.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So I Mean, the point was to describe just how utterly inefficient. Right.

They've got a leak and the plumber can't get there for 10 years.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

For 10 years.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But that's the same day he'll be getting his car.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So, you know, everything's coming up that comrade. So anyway, this is from crew from. From North Carolina. He actually had some very nice things to say. He said, I've loved your podcast for three years. So that means he's been listening.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, my.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Since he was a teenager. That's.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So is he. Is he. Did he say whether he was an AP or not?

He hasn't gone on his mission yet. He just hasn't called.

Answer my question, Garrett.

He's already an FTC district leader. It's funny for.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

For other people, you get to the

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

MTC and after a few days, they appoint a district leader for him. In his call, it said, you have been assigned to be the district leader of the MTC and to hold the mail key. Did that first. And then it said where he was going. No, it didn't even say where he's going. It just says, you to a place that will be determined later based on your faithfulness.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

He says, I've loved your podcast for three years, and I can't begin to explain the legitimate change in my life after listening to it. After listening to the podcast, I've been so intrigued with church history and other sects of Christianity and, of course, learning as much as I can. I've learned so much, I've sought other sources to learn even more. The podcast has been essential to my growth in my faith in Jesus Christ. Living in the south, he's from Boone, North Carolina. Has come with passionate Protestant friends who want to debunk my faith and girls who will ghost you after learning what

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

church you go to.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That has actually happened three times. Boy, that's. Oh, that's tough. That's rough crew. I mean, you have an awesome name, so I think that's, you know, that's drawing it in.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, that is going to draw them in.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But. And then they, like. So they're asking you, like, you know, which Baptist church y' all attend? You know, and then they're just assuming.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And like, oh, I don't attend a Baptist church. Oh, you is a Pentecostal church.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

The assumption is that it could possibly

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

be a non Protestant church.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Do you think they get to Snake Handler before they get to Mormon?

I would guess they get to. You are Christmas and Easter Catholic before they get to Mormon.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, but they do ghost him after that, so. I'm sorry to hear that. Let me tell you what, when you get back from your mission, that's when you really want to start dating anyway.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So just, just hopefully you'll be ghosted less when you tell them that you actually served as a missionary for that church for two years, baptizing people into

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

the faith that they believe is false Christianity.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Do you think that he's tried the, the King Follett approach with those young ladies?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I feel like at this point he might as well.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

He might as well.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. Yeah. So look, he goes on to say that, you know, he needed to learn more about, about the church because of his friends and, and he said he was introduced to this podcast by his dad, so. Thank you, Cruz Dad. He says, my friends usually come with an array of arguments and problems with the church. They usually are surprised at my depth of knowledge of the scriptures, no bragging, and usually back off. And then they let their emotions get in the way of common sense. Some of my more well versed friends push ideas over and over and over again and I guess I wanted to see what your opinions are on, on one statement that seems to come up a lot, that we shouldn't pray over the Book of Mormon because our feelings can get in the way. They usually reference a couple scriptures, but it just doesn't make any sense to me. I usually ask if we should pray about the Bible and they say no,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

we don't need to.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I always reference James 1:5, but they say your feelings can still get in the way for some reason. I can never formulate a great response. I had one friend say it's the same reason why you shouldn't pray if you should have relations with your girlfriend because your feelings will get in the way. Now that is, that is probably, I mean I, I get it, it's probably coming from a teenager, but that's the worst analogy I think I have ever read out loud on the podcast. I'm pretty sure Joseph Young, when he

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

founded the church in 1830, when he was negative four years old, I'm pretty sure that he would have never heard a worse analogy than this.

The premortal existent Joseph Young when he

was, by the way, Brigham Young's dad. So people are worried about all kinds of stuff, but they should be more worried about the fact that the pre mortal Joseph Young was actually Brigham Young's. Brigham Young's.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know what though? I mean, but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that it's Joseph Young. Brigham Young's brother.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But. But they said that Brigham Young's his kid, so, I mean, what am I supposed to do with that?

Look, here. Here's the thing, though. I think we all. We all know families that, you know that. I mean, my wife's family, where they're. They have so many kids that the oldest, you know, you'll have, like, an uncle that's younger than their niece or nephew. I mean, so, you know, these things happen. I don't know that I've ever heard a son being older than their dad. That's new. But,

I mean, look, I.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And I'm just glad that I found

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

out that we don't use any spice in our cooking and that it's designed to provide for large families.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's true.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah. I think there's.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

There's certainly some.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Some truth.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And like I said, again, I. I don't think they were trying to be negative. Now, you said they mentioned multiple scriptures. My guess is they were quoting to you. I think it's what, Jeremiah 17, where, you know, it says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And who can know?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It is.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It is.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It is proof texting to the nth degree. When they pull that stuff, right? They're pulling random scriptures at a. Random Old Testament chapters and verses, and it's like, okay, all right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Especially given the fact the next verse says, I, the Lord, search the heart, and I try the reins even to give every man according to his ways

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

and according to the fruit of his doing.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

My guess is the same person isn't

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

arguing that you are judged by your works.

Okay, so at this. At this influencer conference, I went out of my way to talk to several people that I love the content that they produce and the things that they do to tell them how. How much I love it and how impressed I am by it, and especially how they keep their cool, especially with some of them that are in areas where it could be contentious. This is one thing. Now, I love our Christian brothers and sisters, Garrett, but when I was on my mission, there were, like, 10 verses that you would go and talk to somebody that was generally evangelical and would generally get contentious, and they would spout those 10 verses off like they were the end all be all without any context, without any understanding. The verse you just read was a perfect example of that. Romans 10, 9, just Ephesians.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yes, you heard Ephesians more times than you heard anything from the Gospels.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

But it was. It was such a frustrating thing where it was. And I had. I had Missionary companions that would, that would be, you know, very frustrated. It's like, boy, these, they really know their, their Bible. And it's like maybe they do, or maybe they just find like the six verses out of context without any actual meaning behind it that they're saying to prove a particular point. This Jeremiah verse is one that I got several times, and I apologize that I am a little flustered and irritated

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

by that, but I feel like your dander suddenly up.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, look, my, my dander being up, there's no consequences for that. What am I going to do about it? But I am, I am. It was a huge irritant to me because the smugness of the way that they would say these verses without any understanding of it was just beyond infuriate. I need to, I need to relax. I'm gonna, I'm gonna mute myself.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So, look, this claim is one to say, well, you shouldn't really pray about it. Right. That, that, that even though Jesus tells you to pray, that in fact you can't actually know because it's so easy to be deceived. Now. You know, part of the reason why that analogy was so terrible about whether or not you should pray to have relations with your girlfriend is you don't have to pray about whether or not to have extramarital relations because the Bible says, I don't know 7,000 times in it that you shouldn't fornicate or commit adultery.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So you don't really need to pray. That's why that's such a terrible analogy. Yeah. I mean, because your emotions will just get in the way. So if you pray about whether or not you're supposed to fornicate with your girlfriend, you'll just, you'll just like have the feeling that you should. And that's the same thing about wanting to become a Mormon and join a highly despised group that completely sets you outside of the culture that makes everyone hate you and treat you like garbage. And no girl date you, which is obviously what you want to do.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And that's the reason why you get that answer.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

What, what a, what a terrible analogy. Again, I know it's coming from an 18 year old, so I should dial it back. But the problem is it's not actually coming from an 18 year old. It's coming from the, the, the parent or the adult or the pastor who told them that. And I, I was in this situation once. I, I know we're out of time, so I probably can't even tell the story, but I feel like.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, I feel like there's there's time for this. But there is a question now. How many verses in the Bible do you think there are that tell you not to fornicate? What would be your guess?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, I. I would have to say that there is upwards of. I don't know if it's because they. Sometimes it says it more than once in the same verse.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Well, so this is the problem. Yeah. Is it in the same verse multiple times? And how are you defining it? Is. Is lust the same? So.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So yes, because the Lord said that he who has lusted after a woman committed adultery.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So there is a range. Plus or minus 20.

Okay.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I'm going to say that there is a minimum of 80 verses in the Bible that say that you. For that you can't fornicate or good at this game.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

90 to 110, depending on the definition.

Okay. That'.

I feel like Leviticus has like, you know, 87 of those.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I feel like that's the reason why. Well, so why are you not praying about it? Look, first of all, please do pray about it if you are tempted to commit adultery. If Bill had prayed about it in the first place, we wouldn't be in this position of having to kick him out of Zion. Right, Right. But you're not going to get the answer that, yeah, it's okay to fornicate, which is entirely at odds with all of recorded scripture. Right. Asking God whether or not something is true is completely different. In part because as you did such a good job, crew, you're quoting the Bible. The Bible says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. So if I were you, I wouldn't give up on that verse. I would hammer it. You are the one telling me. You are the one telling me that the Bible is the absolute word of God and that every word in it is absolutely true. Then you then need to show me a verse that says I should not pray to God because the Bible says I should. So you tell me, where is the verse? You know, try to find it somewhere in Hebrews or Ecclesiastes. Let's find a place where the scriptures say, do not pray to find out truth. Because you have a very. I mean, look, I. I hate to break it to you. Jeremiah saying that your heart is deceitful. Who can know it? But. But God knows it. Who? That is not a statement about not praying to God. There's no way to make it a statement about not praying to God. Now I get it. That in the. In the total depravity of man culture, that we are all so utterly worthless that we couldn't possibly do anything towards our own salvation. I understand that that's the place that it's coming from, but that is not what the Bible says. James 1:5 says, if any of you, any sort of. So not just people that are already, you know, super great biblical scholars, not just people that are 18, not just people that are clearly thinking about whether or not they're fornicating. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. And then it says, who giveth to all men liberally? So the very claim that they're making, that if you ask God you are going to be deceived by Satan, what are they admitting in that statement? That even though God told me to ask God in his word, which is the absolute truth, Sola scriptura. Right. That even though God told me that, that God forgot to tell me. Oh, by the way, even if you do pray to me, I'm going to allow Satan to have more power to deceive you because Satan's just that much more powerful than the all powerful God. Maybe a better question to be, to ask would be this. Why would an all powerful God tell you to ask him and then allow Satan to be more powerful than God? Why would God do that? Why would God say I want you to ask if he meant just make sure you don't ever ask. It's kind of weird. Like that's a pretty big mistranslation. I want you to ask. Unless you ever do, don't do it. Yeah, that, that's in a different, you know, a different version of the scriptures. So I, I, when I was in Wisconsin, there was a time once that I, I did have an investigator. Back then they were called investigators. I know we have lots of missionaries right now screaming at, you know, the, the podcast.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

No, they're friends, they're friends, they're friends.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But you realize how weird that sounds to me as I'm telling a story. I once had a friend on my mission that makes it sound like, you

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

know, that, that I met somebody there, that we were hanging out, you know, which is probably true for most of

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

the missionaries in Wisconsin. But anyway, she was a, a 19 year old girl, I think 19. She might have only been 18 actually. Anyway, she's young. She was dating and had been dating for quite some time, the youth pastor of an evangelical Christian church in the area. As you might imagine, the youth pastor, not a huge fan of Mormons. And when, when, when he found out that we were meeting with her. This is exactly the argument that he made to her. Those Mormons are going to try to tell you to pray about this, but you can't do it, because if you do, that's how Satan will deceive you into believing that it's true. And she was such a. Just such a sweet and, you know, truly an Israelite in whom there is no guile. I mean, her name was Maya, and she, you know, she said, but when I pray about it, I feel really good about it. Yeah, that's, that's Satan deceiving. That's Satan making you think. Yeah, but when I, when I read the Book of Mormon, it makes me want to be a better person. It makes me want to. It makes me appreciate what Jesus did for me more. No, no, that's, that's all part of the way that they're trying to deceive you. Because though us or, you know, me or an angel in heaven preach unto you a different gospel, you know, let them be a curse. I mean, the, the, the other verse I'm sure you heard, you know, several times on your, on your mission was, you know that from Galatians, right?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That, that though we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. I mean, which, you know, then they say, and, and how did you, you know. In a very dark voice, right?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Yeah, it's always dark.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And how did Joseph Smith get his plates from an angel? So clearly, this is what Paul was referencing. If. What did that angel come and do? He brought a different gospel. And that's, that's, you know, it's right there in the Bible to not listen to it. Now, of course, the person who quotes Galatians 1:8 doesn't ever then explain to you that the Book of Revelation is clearly false doctrine and must be false doctrine because it was received at least 30 years after Galatians was written, although some scholars place it even further beyond that. And how exactly did it come? Well, it, it's crazy. An angel appeared to John and gave it to him. And, you know, oh, but, but that's different. That, that's not a different gospel. Oh, really? Nearly all of the Book of Revelation cannot be found in any other book of the Bible. Nearly everything that's in there is standing alone. It is. Sure, there are some things that you can find in other places, but there's a lot that you only get in the Book of Revelation. So if I'm going to reject something because an angel brought it, then I And it comes after Galatians 1:8. Then I have to. If I'm going to be logically consistent, I have to reject the Book of Revelation because it is new information, it's delivered by an angel, and it's after Galatians 1:8 was written.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Although there are at least seven references to not fornicating in the Book of Revelations.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's important to know. I feel like we should have a, you know, we should have a ticker of the number of times either we

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

or the scriptures reference.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Don't fornicate.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's. It's more often than it should.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, I mean, from my perspective, it's not enough.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

We need to say it more. It's essential. Don't fornicate. Don't fornicate. Don't fornicate.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know, so I, I realize that these things are troubling now.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

I said I was going to tell

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

a story and I, I don't want to leave everybody hanging. And we already skipped Tertullian again, for crying out loud. We' to actually finish Enoch. But I'm going to tell the story, okay? Because this, this girl Maya that we were meeting with again, she was so sweet and she would meet with us and she would really feel the spirit and she would read and she would pray and then her. She'd go meet with her boyfriend and her boyfriend's dad. And it was just one litany of anti Mormonism after another. Well, in this very small town in Wisconsin. So I was in Wisconsin, in a rural part of Wisconsin, which is what we like to call all of Wisconsin.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

That's not in the, the eastern portion of it. I mean, you have Madison and Milwaukee

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

and Green Bay and Fields. I mean, if you get far enough to the west, sure, you're going to get to lacrosse, but that wasn't in our mission.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And so if you were in La

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Crosse, you were already a bad missionary. That was, that was already going on anyway, because we had, we had nowhere to, no way to get around. We only had a car every other

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

month, but our area was a hundred miles away. So. So what do you think we're doing the other month?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's like, oh, hey, we love to

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

share this message with you.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Boy, this has been really great. Could you guys come back to, you know, next week and share another message?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

How does July sound for you? Because that's when we have a car again. That was literally what we had to do because we only had a car every other month.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So we had to have members drive us around and in rural Wisconsin, where there's almost no members, and the very few you that you have there are trying to eke out a meager existence by working at what we like to call jobs. It's hard for them in the middle of the day to give you a ride for 50 miles away to somebody that you're teaching.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And there was one guy who was always willing to give us a ride,

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

and he was straight crazy. He was.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

His name was Bernie, and Bernie would always give us a ride everywhere.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Bernie had some very odd beliefs. I've told his story once before when I told the story very early on in the podcast about the Doctrine and Covenants and about its name.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

He was the guy who did not believe the Book of Mormon was true.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, he didn't believe it was false.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Take it or leave it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. It just didn't matter to him.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Like the Book of Mormon. I've tried reading that Book of Mormon. I could take it or leave it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

He was the first counselor in the branch presidency, but didn't have a testimony

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

of the Book of Mormon.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, he didn't hate it.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

He just. It was completely useless to him. It was meaningless. The only thing that mattered was the Doctrine and Covenants.

Well, yeah, Compared to the Doctrine Covenants. Yes.

Because it has the word doctrine.

Yes.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Now, if he had read enough in the Book of Mormon, he'd have learned that the word doctrine was also in

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

the Book of Mormon, and maybe that would have swayed him. But I think he got. You know, he got through the first chapter of Nephi, and it didn't say the word doctrine. And he was like, that's it. This is just garbage. This can't help me at all.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Anyway, he would give us a ride, and. And it was very uncomfortable getting a ride from him because he drove very, very, very slow. He had no air conditioning in his car, or if he did, he refused to turn it on.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And so it was very, very hot and very slow, and he didn't want.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know. You know, when you tried to talk to him, you just didn't get anywhere. But the nice part about him giving us a ride, which was very gracious. I mean, we were incredibly grateful. There's a reason why we kept calling him, because there was no way for us to teach anybody without him helping us. The nice part was he refused to ever go inside for our lessons. So every place we stopped, we'd be like, hey, hey, Bernie.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And don't think I'm not being disrespectful. We actually had someone write in and be like, it's not okay that you're calling him Bernie. We tried calling him Brother Maine. And he got mad at us, and so we called him Bernie because he got mad at us if we didn't call him Bernie. So it wasn't as. It wasn't disrespect.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It was.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

He told us, you refer to me as Bernie.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And so we said, okay. And, you know, I'd get a new companion, and he would call it by, you know, oh, brother.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

And so. And he.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

No, no, no. You refer to me as Bernie.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Okay, okay, we'll refer.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And he was kind of mad when he said it. Not the kind of, like, friendly thing like, oh, you know, you could just call me Garrett. It was more like, you will call me Garrett.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Oh, okay.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

If it gets us a ride 40

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

miles away to a barn that we're

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

trying to teach someone in.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Great. Anyway, so Bernie, he, again, nice guy, wonderful guy. But we always asked him, even though we, you know, we'd probably taken him to, like, 20 appointments at this point. And we always asked him, hey, do you want to come inside and teach with us? But he always said no. He always just sat out in the car, and we always be like, are you sure you don't want to come in? I mean, they'd love to meet another man. Nope, nope. I'm fine out here. I'm fine in the car. And, you know, at this point, we had learned some of the crazy. And so we were fine not having him come in. You know, heaven.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Heaven forbid, the person we're teaching turns to him and says, hey, what do you think about the Book of Mormon? We don't want him saying, like, I could take it or leave it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I don't know.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

It's fine.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And so we. One day we went to teach Maya, and because she actually called us, very upset because she had just been hammered with a bunch of anti stuff and had a whole sheet of papers and wanted us to come meet with her. And so we went to go meet with her. And I asked, like I always did, hey, Bernie, you want to join us for this lesson? Assuming at this point that he would say no, because he had literally always said no for months at this point, had always said no. And he said, you know what? I think I will. And so this is the day Bernie came inside. It sounds like a children's book. And we go inside, and of course, you know, she's very distraught. And we're having this conversation about how you can know the truth, because, you know, this Pastor and pastor's son have just hammered her that your feelings are from Satan. You, that is not how you would find out the truth. The only truth comes from the Bible. These Mormons are, you know, are cult worshipers. You know, that kind of stuff. And so we started having a discussion about how you can, you know, understand truth and how the Holy Spirit speaks to you. And then my companion made a very fatal, fatal mistake. He had been taught in the MTC that you should then turn to the member who's teaching with you and ask them to bear testimony of the principal that you're talking about. And, and, and look, that is a sound principle. You should do that. Missionaries who are listening, unless it happens to be Bernie who's with you.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So my companion turned to him and

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

said, bernie, have you ever had a powerful spiritual experience? And Bernie said, I had the most powerful spiritual experience I've ever had in my life last week.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Now, when someone says that and you're

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

teaching someone who's in a fragile state in your mind, you're just saying, please say you were hit by a car.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

Please say you were diagnosed with incurable disease and then someone gave you a priesthood blessing and you were healed.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Please say something. Because this guy is well into his 70s, and his, he, the most spiritual experience he's ever had in his life happened last week.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

So you're just hoping.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, he starts to tell the story. I went into the Walgreens and I was looking for VHS tapes because my

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

wife wanted to record Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Okay, that checks so far.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That all checks out. And so at this point, I'm like, oh, my goodness, this girl is in

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

such a fragile state.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I'm like, please, Bernie, please say that someone came into the Walgreens with a

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

gun and they asked you whether or not you're a Christian. And you said yes. And they, they pulled the trigger. And, and it didn't, the gun didn't go off. And that was the most spiritual.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Nope, nope. He said, I, I was there to buy an eight pack of VHS tapes

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

for my wife so that she could, she could.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

For those of you missionaries, VHS was the thing that people watched movies on before they watched them on DVDs, before they watched them on streaming. And the only part of that that you understand is streaming. But you're, you know, go ask your grandparents. They'll tell you all about vhs. They might even tell you about a Betamax that they had at some point. And, and so he says, you know, I, I, I, and I found the cassettes. I found Him And I started walking up to the front. And then I had a powerful spiritual experience. And it said, stop, wait. And I'm thinking, please, please say a criminal, a car is about to crash

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

through the front of the door. Please say something.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And he says, and right up there by the cash register before I checked out was the exact Same set of VHS tapes for $0.50 less. Most powerful spiritual experience I've ever had in my life. Our confused teenage investigator was not less confused as she.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

She.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You could tell that she was like, oh, okay, I, I guess it helps you when you're shopping.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

She said, and you know that in fairness, that's how it came across.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Anyway, I know we're way over time, but let me just say this to crew, to other people, please believe

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

that

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

them that before us be more than them that be against us. The audacity of someone to argue that the omnipotent God who tells you to pray to him doesn't have the ability to answer you, or that Satan is somehow more powerful than the King of the universe. I know that there are many people listening that can testify that they have felt the Holy Ghost speak directly to their soul. And I believe that the Holy Spirit speaks in different ways. I think for some people it, you know, it's that burning of the bosom that you, that you get with Oliver Cowdery and Doctrine and Covenants. I think for other people it's this clarity of mind. I think for other people, they, those words are spoken directly to your heart, not, not on, on stone tablets, but the fleshy tables of the heart. And I think when people have felt that, when you have felt the Holy Ghost speak to you, your conviction and your conversion becomes certain. You don't know everything, but you know one thing, and that is that the Lord Jesus Christ is your savior and that he restored his church through the prophet Joseph Smith. And if you think about those most powerful spiritual experiences you've ever had in your life, they might not all feel the same, but the, the takeaway from all of them is the clarity of knowledge that you had. So crew, keep up the good fight. At some point, someone will stop ghosting you when you tell them you're a Latter Day Saint. But even if they don't, it won't change whether or not Joseph Smith saw God. People want proof for what we believe. The proof is right there in the Book of Mormon. All you have to do is read it and then ask God, who is sovereign over all things, whether or not it's true. And as the promise in The Book of Mormon says you will receive an answer that it is, and that is a tried and true method. There are tens of millions of people over the course of time who have tried that and have come away with the answer that it is God's word. So I know it's frustrating when they, you know, they spit at you while you couldn't possibly know. I think you can stand your ground pretty confidently. The Bible tells me to ask, and I'm gonna do what the Bible says. It says ask. It nowhere says, don't ask. It says ask, and I lack wisdom. I want to know. And so I'm going to ask. And God will give to me liberally. Not Satan will give to me liberally. I get it. If you're Saul and you're cooking up the witch of Endor, you know, you're

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

having her cook up the. The. The. The.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

The prophet Samuel, that you might feel like you're doing something evil there. We're not asking you to go into the occult and go find a Ouija board. We're asking you to kneel down and with a real intent, talk to your father in heaven and say, God, I know you are there. Is this true? And my testimony is if you do that with that real intent, God will answer you. And when you get that answer, boy, no one could convince me. It's just my feelings, because I've had feelings. The testimony that comes for the Holy Ghost cuts to your center. It changes who you are, and it changes who you will forever be. And I say that in the name of Jesus Christ. So I apologize. That was preachy. That was long. Richard's angry. He's sad. He's mad. He looks very disheveled because everything is superfluous to him.

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

About this podcast, though, I will say that I am getting to the bottom of the fornication references. Verses per fornication reference. We're going to get to the bottom of that next episode along with Tertullian. So I look forward to that episode.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I'm now going to need you to have to include in that total the number of times you Tertullian references fornication. You know what?

[Dr. Richard Leduc]

All right, we will get. We will get to that, and we will see you next time.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Thank you so much for joining us.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmot and Dr. Richard Leduc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.