S6E16 Gathering in Missouri to Move Irrigation Pipe

Summary

Standard of Truth Podcast — S6E16 Summary

Episode Title: Gathering in Missouri to Move Irrigation Pipe
Date: April 23, 2026
Host: Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Guest Co-host: Dallin Dirkmaat (filling in for Dr. Richard Leduc)

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Overview

This episode is a blend of community interaction, humor, and thoughtful historical context. With Dr. Richard Leduc absent due to the recent and sudden loss of his father, the tone is a mix of somber condolences, light-hearted banter, and deep dives into classic Latter-day Saint historical questions. The main historical discussion surrounds the origin and doctrinal place of the belief that Latter-day Saints will at some future time need to "gather" in Missouri, specifically to build Zion or the New Jerusalem. Along the way, the hosts share listener emails, reminisce about Idaho farm life, and reflect on faith, loss, and doctrine.

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Key Discussion Points

Opening: Change of Hosts & Condolences

• Richard’s Absence: Dr. Dirkmaat explains that Richard Leduc’s father recently passed away unexpectedly. He offers condolences and information about where to find the obituary ([03:00]).
• Podcast Banter: Dallin jokes about seizing Richard’s spot, referencing Book of Mormon figures (Kishkumen, Gadianton, etc.), setting a light tone amidst the somber topic ([01:00–04:00]).

March Madness Recap & Listener Engagement

• NCAA Bracket Results:
  • Dr. Dirkmaat humorously updates listeners on their NCAA bracket contest—how he led for a while, but ultimately lost when Arizona fell hard to Michigan ([05:00–07:00]).
  • Notable Listener Teams: Fun team names and winners are announced:
    • “Joseph Young’s Third Vision,” “Winter’s Wonderland,” “Not a Gambling Man,” “Crew’s Dad,” and the winner, “Willard Richards Action Figure” ([07:30–09:12]).
  • Prize: Winner Jonathan offered a book prize (“I beat 374 people and all I got was this lousy book”) ([09:00–10:00]).

Listener Emails and Community Interaction [10:10–28:34]

Email Highlights

• Birthday Shoutout: A belated “happy 85th birthday” for Millie and her daughter Diane, loyal listeners ([10:29–11:24]).
• Reflections on Richard Leduc: Dallin praises Richard as compassionate, smart, and innovative (noting his early venture into grocery delivery years before it was ubiquitous) ([11:51–14:01]).

Humorous Banter about Reading Emails

• The group jokes about Richard’s email reading style, the difficulties of spelling "Dirkmaat," and how to get one’s email noticed ([11:24–16:18]).

Email 1 — “Angry Garrett” Compilation ([16:33–18:10])

• Listener Braden requests a compilation of “Angry Garrett” moments for his wife’s impending childbirth.
• Dr. Dirkmaat’s Reaction: Embarrassed, he jokingly suggests searching podcast archives for terms like “Philastis,” “Hurlbut,” and “John C. Bennett” for best results ([18:10–19:00]).

Email 2 — The “Dandometer” ([19:14–28:34])

• Listener Danica sends a hand-crafted “dandometer”—a tongue-in-cheek scale for what triggers Dr. Dirkmaat’s historical indignation.
• Top Dandometer Triggers:
  • Misusing sources (e.g., “the historical record” is just The Work and the Glory),
  • YouTube “revelations,”
  • CES Letter,
  • “If you only knew what I know” claims,
  • John C. Bennett and Philastis Hurlbut (“fornicating fornicators”).
• Quote — Dallin on the Scale: “Actually, recently, I was helping a younger person write a talk, and they were, like, quoting The Chosen. And I’m like, ‘Hold on a minute... Let’s make sure that’s actually in the New Testament.’” ([20:40])
• Listener Question (Danica): Where does the belief come from that Latter-day Saints will need to move to Missouri at some point?

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In-Depth Segment: The Missouri Gathering Doctrine

[30:03–62:15]

Historical Context: Radical Gathering in Early LDS (and Other) Movements

• Comparison with Shakers: Latter-day Saint gathering doctrine is unique; other “radical” religious groups like the Shakers practiced localized communal living, didn’t vote, and avoided political entanglements—thus, they didn’t provoke the same antagonism ([31:15–33:59]).
• Voting & Political Anxiety: LDS gathering and participation in politics exacerbated perceptions of threat, per both contemporary and later sources ([34:10–36:37]).
• Practicality of Gathering: Early LDS colonies (e.g., in Arizona, Las Vegas, Idaho) are discussed as part of Brigham Young’s vision for physical gathering ([36:41–42:04]).

Memorable Anecdote: Idaho Potato And Irrigation Pipe Life

• The Dirkmaats share lengthy, humorous memories of moving irrigation pipe in Idaho—muck, deer flies, wet socks, and earning “3 bucks” for hours of grueling labor ([38:34–43:35]).
• Quote — Dallin: “I started working in the fields when I was ten... your left hand was 100% dedicated to killing those deer flies. I got good at swatting them. I’d kill maybe half a dozen each path...” ([38:56])
• High School Mascot: The Shelley, Idaho “Russets” — a literal potato mascot ([43:15–43:53]).

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Scriptural and Doctrinal Foundations

Early Revelations and Assumptions

• Doctrine and Covenants: Multiple references to building Zion (“The New Jerusalem”) in Missouri ([44:08–46:22]).
• Tenth Article of Faith: Explicit about the “literal gathering” and “New Jerusalem to be built upon the American continent” ([44:27]).

Changing Understanding Over Time

• Early Saints: Assumed all were to gather in Missouri; it was seen as a privilege, not an obligation ([46:52–48:24]).
• Post-Nauvoo: Saints naturally gathered because everyone was in one region; the practicality and need for all to go made sense.
• Modern Church: Church now tells members to “build up Zion where they are,” given a growing, global membership base ([51:45–53:26]).

Prophet Statements and Nuances

• Brigham Young (1861): Many, but not all, Saints will return to Missouri; the prophecy is not that “every single member” must go ([53:26–54:10]).
  • “Many of the Saints will return to Missouri and receive an inheritance there. This is not exactly... as in the Revelation, but it is according to the nature of things.” (Brigham Young, 1861, ~[53:26])
• Prophetic Consistency: While the location and building of the New Jerusalem is still part of doctrine, there’s no modern prophetic requirement that every member must relocate there. Joseph F. Smith and Joseph Fielding Smith reaffirmed the future building of New Jerusalem ([55:00–58:00]).
• Dangers of Overinterpretation: The lore of “moving to Missouri any day now” feeds speculation and creates openings for “apostate groups” and sensational rumors ([56:00–59:00]).

Practical Faith Perspective

• Key Point: Rather than focusing on what Saints would lose by being asked to move, focus should be on what would be gained—namely, living in “the City of God on earth” ([58:00–59:00]).
• Quote — Dr. Dirkmaat: “Willingness to sacrifice is always a good measure of where we really are at with our relationship with God.” ([58:45])

Listener Anecdote: The Missouri “Move” Joke

• Dallin shares being pranked by “Colorado Robbie” that church leaders had just announced it was time for Colorado Saints to start preparing to move to Missouri (he briefly believed it and started house-searching) ([59:22–60:55]).

Bottom Line:

• The building of the New Jerusalem in Missouri is still doctrinal, per the Articles of Faith and Church manuals.
• There is no current requirement or prophetic command for all Latter-day Saints everywhere to move to Missouri. Even Brigham Young anticipated “many,” not “all,” would physically gather.
• The doctrine is to be fulfilled, the details of how and when remain unrevealed—members are to watch for prophetic direction rather than speculation.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I hope when I’m 85, I will spend my time listening to something better than this podcast. Wow.” — Dr. Dirkmaat, wishing Millie a happy birthday ([10:30])
• “I have a way of saying it to everyone... D as in David, I, R, K, M, double A, 1 T.” — Dallin joking about spelling “Dirkmaat” ([15:54])
• “If you only knew what I know [raspy voice] then you wouldn’t believe Joseph was a prophet.” — Mocking a dandometer trigger ([27:50])
• “That empty tomb is everything.” — Dr. Dirkmaat, on why faith in Christ matters during times of loss ([65:13])

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Emotional Close: Reflections on Loss and the Resurrection [64:04–66:09]

• Both hosts share the pain and poignancy of losing a parent, reaffirming the Latter-day Saint faith in resurrection and the hope of being reunited with loved ones ([64:04–66:09]).

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Episode Structure & Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamp | |----------------------------------------------------------|:--------------:| | Opening Banter & Condolence for Richard | 00:37–04:45 | | March Madness/Bracket Recap | 04:45–10:10 | | Listener Emails (Humor, Praise, Birthday) | 10:10–28:34 | | Main Q&A: Gathering to Missouri Doctrine | 30:03–62:15 | | Idaho Potato/Irrigation Pipe Stories | 38:34–43:53 | | Doctrinal Analysis: Scriptural/Prophetic Statements | 44:08–61:09 | | Closing Remarks on Loss, Resurrection, and Faith | 64:04–66:09 |

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Summary Takeaways

• The idea that all Church members will someday move to Missouri is rooted in early revelations and the Tenth Article of Faith, but is not a current prophetic mandate.
• Early Saints saw gathering as a privilege and key to building Zion; later, with global growth, “local gathering” became the norm.
• Humorous, heartfelt, and historically grounded, the episode blends community, doctrine, and real-life nostalgia.
• Emphasis is placed on faith, obedience to current living prophets, and trusting the Lord’s timing over chasing rumors or speculations.

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This summary captures both the lighthearted tone and substantive depth of the episode, making it accessible and informative for listeners new and old.

Transcript

[Narrator]

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.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Foreign.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat. We are joined by a special guest host who is joining us virtually and that is my older brother, Dallin Dirkmont.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Hello everybody. Yes, I finally achieved the Kishkuman level coup d', etat. Yeah, we have ousted Richard from his, from his post.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

He's been gaddy anting the heck out

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

of people, just stabbing chief judges everywhere, shoving them downstairs.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

What was the one, what's the one guy's name? Is it Amalakaiha? Amaron's brother? That Mlakai. How that gets Takes the kings from the limited. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All crafty and such. Yes. After many years, folks, Richard has been unseated. No.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

For our longtime listeners have gotten to know Dallin on a couple of episodes where he's, you know, we, we, we talked, we had a conversation with my mom. I think he was on that one. We got to know me. Right? But this is, you know, I mean really, we're just testing the waters here. I mean this, you know, we could end up with just, you know, just Richard being usurped entirely. But no, just kidding. And you know, on a, on a much less jovial note, I will not dwell on this too much because I'm sure when he gets back, Richard will be wanting to weigh in on that. But the reason why Richard's not with us, the same reason why we had, we put up a, we took a premium podcast from the premium side of things and we, we repurposed it and put it up last week. Is that right? As we were beginning to record last week in it, we, we just had hit record actually. Unfortunately, Richard received a call that his, his dad had very unexpectedly passed away. And so it's obviously a very, very difficult time for the whole leduc family and for my friend Richard, he love his dad's a great man. And for those of you wondering, we're going to put up a link on the website Standard of truth dot com. We'll put up a link so you can see that because some people have already emailed me saying, oh, where can I read the obituary? Is there any way I could help? Or whatever and so we'll get a link put up on the Standard of Truth website so that you have a link already to that, and maybe we'll get a link put into the description of the podcast. So it's very sad. I mean, as. As Richard said, you know, we were able to get a premium recorded, but, you know, we're doing this now just the day before the funeral, and things are obviously very, very tough. Anyone who's lost a parent knows how tender that is. And so there were.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

He.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

He did let some people know that. But we're just letting you all know. Hopefully he's back next week. If he's gone indefinitely, it's. It is because D. Kishkum and him. But now that he. Now that he has a mic, it's whenever, let's.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

And you know, I don't think I can dedicate. I don't think I can dedicate the time that Richard does. I mean, my goodness, you guys have to do a lot to pull the show off every week.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

This is. Yeah.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

I mean, now Richard's. Richard's one of the few people I know it's probably busier than me, but. But yeah, somehow he does it. You guys both super busy and somehow make it happen every. Every week, twice.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And the surprising thing is, as you're, you know, referencing just how much time is involved, how bad the podcast still is.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Imagine what it would be like if

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

we had all kinds of time to devote to the podcast and we had like, I don't know, production values or editing or meetings, things like that, that would have, you know, greatly increased it for sure.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

The first things first, because I know we're behind. I mean, right now, everyone's knee deep in the NBA playoffs. You know, they, you know, all of the people in Dallin's neck of the woods down in Phoenix, or they're not hoping to win the series, but they are hoping to lose the next playoff game by less than 30.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

I think that's the goal is, could we lose by 25?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

What if we lost by 21?

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Would it be quite something to have a team that every year you're just hoping they can make that eight seed and then they make it for what? Just to get.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Look, we're a bunch of Utah Jazz fans here.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We. We're hoping for ping pong balls. We.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

We haven't been hoping for playoffs in years.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

All we are is like, you know what? Maybe. Maybe there's some way we get the first ping pong ball and then we draft AJ DeBonsa and he stays in Utah. That. That's what we're thinking, right?

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Well, unfortunately, we're just good enough to never get a ping pong ball and just terrible enough to never win a game in the first round of the playoffs.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, that pretty well describes it. So we did want to. We never got to really publicly talk about our NCAA March Madness bracket. We had so many people who participated. I mean, we brought it up, obviously, several weeks. I was in the lead for quite some time, but I had Arizona as my champion. And those of you who follow college basketball know that Arizona lost in the Final Four. And it wasn't even close. Michigan beat them like a rented mule.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

And it wasn't.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It wasn't even close. I mean, the issue was never in doubt. In fact, probably the worst game I've ever seen a high caliber Arizona team ever even played play. They were a number one seed from the first five minutes of the game. It was obvious they were going to get blown out. And it never got close.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, Michigan was pulling people out of the stands. They were playing the cheerleaders. It made no difference.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

It was. It was absolute.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So. So I went from being first and having a bracket that was like 8,000th in the nation to dropping to, you know, I ended up 33rd. And look, 33rd out of 375 people is respectable. You know, it's an A. If that was the class.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

If we were top 1%. That gets you graduation with honors, right?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah. There you go. I'm. I'm magna cum laude right now with my.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Magna cum laude of the tournament.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Yep. With my arrow.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Congratulations, brother.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But obviously, the people who picked Michigan, they topped it out. So honorable mention to our two highest people that did not pick Michigan, but still played well enough that they ended up high. And the first is Matt, his team.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Joseph Young's third vision. A great play off of the fact that this. We made fun of this textbook that said that it was Joseph Young that led the Saints to Utah. It was, you know, they confused Joseph

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Smith and Brigham Young, and what came out of it was Joseph Young. And so that's what their name was. They came in 13th. They picked UConn to win the whole thing. So they had. They had the right teams in the finals, but UConn lost. And so had UConn. 1. They would have won the whole thing. But our top five, we had one named Winter's Wonderland. They came in fifth, Sponsored by Jersey Mike's was fourth, Not a gambling man came in third, which kind of seems like maybe you should be Gage if. If you came in third out of 374 people. Look, we don't advocate gambling. Also, if you fall on hard times, it's an option.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Ox might be in the mire now and then. Kind of make that extra couple hundred bucks for rent.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Brock came in second.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

His team name is Crew's dad. Crew, being a teenage listener that we have, and apparently that's. He names his team that.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But you know how apt that the number what the winner. Jonathan with the team name Willard.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Willard action figure. Willard Richards action figure.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So a play on, you know, Willard Richards having 50 guns in Carthage jail, according to someone else.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Someone else was Bandolero, I guess.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Yeah, exactly. Oh, there are so many people that had the Willard Richards on there.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Great names, was tons of fun. And Jonathan, you know who you are. If you will email the podcast, email [e-mail] I know it's the longest email of all time, and that's because we discourage emails. But if you email us and give us your info, we'll send you a book that you. I beat 374 other people and all

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

I got was this lousy book that. That's exactly what we're looking for.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So anyway, thanks so much. For what? It's tons of fun to interact with people and, you know, our listeners are the best. Now Dallin is being asked to do something very important.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Oh, no.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

He's being asked to read emails. And before he does, though, one thing that we were going to do was we have a. We have a very. We have a very dedicated listener to the podcast who had a birthday that

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

we were going to give her a

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

shout out for her birthday, but then Richard and I were both out of the country, and then we had this, you know, terrible tragedy. And so we're several weeks remove back. On April 10, it was Millie's birthday, her 85th birthday. And I hope when I'm 85, I will spend my time listening to something better than this podcast. Wow.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Thank you for the charity listen. Millie's just trying to get into heaven now. She's like, what could I do? That demonstrates I love my fellow men.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I know I'll become a fan of the podcast. She and her daughter Diane listen together, so just want to give you a happy birthday shout out. Sorry it's a little late, but. But we're gonna. We're gonna go to the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. And now this is Dallin's first time.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Oh, yeah, he's Rustling the papers.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

He's got it

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

super nervous. You know, I should be a better reader than Richard. But the bar set solo. If I screw this up, I'll never live it down and Richard will never let me.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, cause Richard. So you Dallin printed these out. Richard has them blown up on his computer screen to the point where there's

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

like three words on the screen at a time.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Well, first off, so I don't want to get accused of trashing Richard too much. I do. I've known Richard since, since. Well, since Garrett met him in Utah State, since we met him. I used to go to Logan and meet and hang out with Garrett while he was going to college and met Richard a long time ago. He's one of the most beautiful, smartest, most compassionate people I've ever met. And he is a good soul. He's a standard of what we should all shoot for in seeking to be Christlike for sure. And I'll say one more cool thing about him, and that is so everyone knows, business is his thing, history is Garrett's thing. Well, years ago, years and years ago, Richard actually developed one of the most phenomenal billion dollar concepts that he never made a dollar on. Matter of fact, he lost money on it, but he developed the idea. And that is the. Essentially, when you guys go to Walmart these days and half the grocers or half of the shoppers in the aisle aren't even shoppers, they're people that are gathering up orders that people place online. Right? And this whole idea that people would get their groceries delivered from the local grocery store. Richard pioneered that idea before anyone thought it was cool. And he was the first. And he actually set up his own little shop where he had it all set up, where he was basically testing the concept and, and he was, it was operating.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, he was, he was delivering groceries to people. Yes. But it's funny because the, the, the stores had not even considered it.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Not even considered here.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, I mean, it's like 20 years ago. I mean, I mean, probably 15 years

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

ago, I would say. 15ish. Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

They hadn't even considered the idea of people ordering groceries. And so, you know, he did get quite a few orders and then there was, you know, there was a pretty bad economic downturn and, and, and, and it was not sustainable. Not with his other work that he was doing. But yeah, Richard's a brilliant businessman. You know, this podcast notwithstanding,

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

this one, not, not the best decision ever. But yeah, tip the cap there.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And Richard, okay, take a business model that you know, creates premium content and

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

then just gives it away to missionaries. This is our business model.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

All right, so because I printed it out, I'm not sure which one. We're going with the first one.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Let's read Braden's first.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Let's read Braden first. Gotcha. Okay.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

All right, Good sound effects.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

As Rush Limbaugh used to say, horses

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

clopping by, that's what you guys need.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh years ago and he would always say, my formerly nicotine stained fingers, so. Oh, that's funny. So in my never nicotine stained fingers. Okay, subject, urgent exclamation point. Need help from the VP of sales of help side regarding that. Should I read that, Garrett?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean. Well, at this point, you already have.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

I think it's the way that Braden is trying to get Richard's attention because that's the company.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

I see there's a lot of people.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We get 100 to 200 emails a week.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

And so people try to get Richard's attention by appealing to his vanity, by appealing to his business, by saying, oh, hey, I have a great deal for you. And then you get into the body. It has nothing to do with his work. They're just lying to get on the podcast.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So that's what Braden did.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Got it. So now everyone's going to do that. Now that we just said that. So great. So all you normal, non attention seeking emailers out there, you're toast now. Sorry. Now you've got to come up with something beautiful and extravagant. Okay, Dr. Leduc, should I say LeDoux and LaDuke and all the other.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

No, he spelled it correctly, so.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

No, he did. No, I just. I'm just wondering if I should say all the.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

No, really, you just got to praise him for spelling it correctly.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Just the spelling.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Same with our last name, right?

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

It is. It's the same.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

I have a way of saying it to everyone and I don't even. I don't even wait for them to try to understand it. I say it and start spelling it right away. D as in David I, R, k, M, double A1T.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know what the problem is? Even when you start to try to spell it to people, and even when you emphasize it's Dirk Mott, people just think that Dirk is your first name. They still do.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

They do.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I legitimately work with people who think my first name is Dirk, who will see me and say, hey, Dirk, how's it going? I've got that.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Many times.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Yes, that's true.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah. Okay, let's see here. Okay. Here we go. From Braden. I hope the subject line comes across enough to get your attention instead of looking like spam. Nope, too late. Braden. I wish I could say I wanted to learn more about implied referrals or even rice tariffs, but I have an even more important request. Okay. My wife, Ariana, is soon going to labor with our third child and first daughter. Congratulations, sir. She is also a fan of the show and is planning on emailing when active labor begins. However, she has requested a compilation of Angry Garrett clips. We'll get the show interns on that right away to get her pumped with the proper mojo to push a human being into the world. I'm hoping the patent owner of the dendometer will be able to help us with some episodes to look for. She is due April 20, so could have a baby any day now. Really hope this is read and responded to. If not, at least when our unborn. If not now, at least when our unborn child. There I go. I'm Richard. I'm Richard. Ing this thing up right here. Doctor. Dr. Ledoux. Not happy. Okay. At least before our unborn daughter goes into labor. So at least she can use the righteous indignation of Garrett's factual lambasting of fornicating fornicators to bolster her maternal endeavors. All this love, all the best, all the podcasts and everything you guys been doing inspired me anyways.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, well, so unfortunately, we got this apparently after. Well, I mean, we got to this after your wife's probably already given birth, so congratulations. But I haven't yet.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Probably a couple days ago.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, I haven't gotten an email saying that yet, so maybe not. If you are looking for Angry Garrett clips, which I am embarrassed by, so I'm not going to help you find them, but Richard thinks are great, you could always just search through the. You know, if you have the podcast downloaded in your library on your phone, you can search the library. Here are some key terms that will help you find things. Philastis, Hurlbut. Anywhere that there's a hurlbut, there's a chance there's gonna be angry fornicating.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Fornicators is probably gonna be there.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

John C. Bennett.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

There are several things that could trigger

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

it, but you know what? To kind of tie it together. Actually, we have another email where someone's trying to help you find what causes dander meter reactions. You got the next.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Oh, right.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yep.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Okay, so the next. You want to go to the next email, Garrett?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, let's hop over.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Oh, since we didn't do any show prep. I don't know what I'm doing.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, I mean that. And you have no experience.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

And I mean, the show prep was. Hey, hey, plug the microphone in right there.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Here?

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Yeah, plug it in. Okay, let's go.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Don't touch that part. That mutes it. No, I said don't touch it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Don't touch it.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

I hit it like eight times. Okay. All right, so the next one, the one says, hello, doctors Garrett.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I think so. Yes.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yes. From Danica.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Okay. Yeah.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Hello, doctors. First off, I hope you thoroughly enjoy the dendometer I made. Oh, my goodness. She made her own dendometer. And I. This doesn't. This isn't going to translate to voice for the podcast, but it is pretty cool. It's like a fan.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

We could.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We can kind of describe. Yeah, fan chart.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah, it's a fan chart where you got the horizon on the bottom, basically. And then it goes like a peacock feathers, if you can imagine, from left to right. On the left side is one, and it goes all the way up to the top where it's between 5 and 6 and then all the way down to 10, 10 being the highest andometer. Do you want to go and read it? You want me to read it, Garrett?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, I can go through some of these. So number one is when people reference

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

the historical record and they have it in quotes. The work and the glory.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Right, That's.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

That's level one. Right.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Actually, recently, I don't want to name any names and embarrass anyone. Recently was helping a younger person, you know, work on a talk. And some of the experiences they want to share, they were pulled from the chosen. And I'm like, well, hold on a minute, hold on.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

We got to make sure that that's in the New Testament.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

They really love this thing that Mary Magdalene did in the Chosen. Hold on. That might not be actually biblical. So anyway, yeah, it's funny.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Level two was Crinkling Leaves and Richards

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

being a degenerate gambler. Right. So Crink. Crinkling Leaves was. That is not.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We had a podcast on the premium side that was about it's holy places from our past. So it was talking about the church historic sites. And we still may do some more of those.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

But Richard wanted to call it Crinkling Leaves.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Making fun of essentially like, you know

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

those documentaries where you're walking through the forest on the way to the place.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Like, here we are approaching the home.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

You know that BBC.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yes, very BBC.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

And prc.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Very BBC esque.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And I said, no. And yet somehow people still Call it that. Apparently.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Number three. It stands. Sorry. Yeah, it stands to reason in quotes.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Anytime someone says it stands to reason,

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

well, it stand to so much reason. Why are you talking about. No, the next one.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Number four.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

YouTube quote unquote revelations, aka people who think they're a prophet.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yep.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

That.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Now that's actually way higher on the

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

dander meter than they think it is.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah. Yeah, I think fours. That's, that's, that's definitely underselling that. That's up there with John C. Bennett, I'll tell you. Okay, number five, Fun with Numbers.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

This is.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

I didn't know you hated that so much.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Yeah, Richard, I, Well, I don't hate it that much, but Richard's been trying to introduce Fun with Numbers into the podcast, and I have been trying to say no. So they're, they are seeing this as a negative.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

I, I, I prepared some Fun with Numbers myself. I thought, I thought that was the thing. Okay, I'll stay away from that.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Absolutely cut off.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Okay, hold on a second while I delete that page. Okay. Number six, Salman Spalding manuscript, which is perfect. Garrett did a Fireside down here last weekend. They're very rare. Arizona Fireside. And that was a part of the topic that you covered. And you did a beautiful job, man. It was. I got so many people coming up to me afterwards, and they just loved it. You did a great job. But, yeah, the old Solomon Spalding manuscript, that is completely unrelated in any way to the Book of Mormon, even though

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

there's all kinds of people who lie about it and say it's the same thing. It's great, Great example of bad sourcing at work.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

CES letter. Okay. All right. Getting up there.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

That's obviously very. Yep.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Number eight. Well, I know Joseph Smith. Insert false information here because I read it in the Joseph Smith papers. Oh, yeah, this is one. This one doesn't get the fame as some of the other ones, like the John C. Bennett's. But Garrett hates it when people do this because he's like, literally dozens of us worked on the, on the Joseph Smith papers for years, and millions and millions of dollars are spent on a lot of it, donated by private parties even. And we actually have all this stuff together and no one bothers to read it. And especially the people who are saying that Joseph said or did something that just does drive Garrett nuts.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, and especially when people use it. So it's a real tactic for antagonists to do now as well. Right. So they know that if they try to, you know, hand, you know, an anti Mormon podcast to their mom that she's going to be, you know, not listen to it and that.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

So what do they do?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

They're like, you know, it even says in the Joseph Smith papers that Joseph Smith was deliberately doing. You know, that's. So they use it as a way of, like, making the source seem accurate. And again, the problem is, well, you're acting as if you were, you know, reading the papers and you came to.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

I read, I read the first 15 volumes. I came to volume 16.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I'm 12,000 pages in, and I read

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

this quote that really bothers me.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Nope, that's not how you came on that quote.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Someone sent you, sent it to you and said, hey, you should have a really big problem with this.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And then you turned around without doing any other research and said, wow, I do have a really big problem with it. It's funny. People will call that research. That's not research. That's you regurgitating whatever someone just sent to you. That's not research.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah, it's actually, you know, something I've run into where I've been talking to someone who maybe is a lesser active member, and they'll point out some historical things, church or historical things that bother them about the church. And, you know, several times in those conversations, like, well, you know, I've got the perfect person that can, like, can get to the bottom of this because I got my brother in my back pocket, so to speak, in that regard. And he's got, he's, he's, he's a Ph.D. historian. He researched all this stuff. He worked on the Joseph Smith papers. And recently I was basically started that little riff saying, you know, I know someone very well who's an exper on all this. And he pretty much said, yeah, yeah, I'm not really into, you know, all the research and stuff. And I'm like, well, then why are

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

you talking about it?

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Why did you just bring it up like it was a big issue? You never bothered to study it?

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

It's a very weird thing, right?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Like I said, like I said before, look, everyone's at different places with their testimony. But if you're spending more time on a Netflix series than you are about trying to build your testimony or to find out what it is that that bothers you, whether it's true, well, then, you know, look, where, where you spend your time demonstrates what you really care about. So you can say all kinds of things. Everyone can say all kinds of things. I mean, I've been trying to build my testimony. Well, are you reading your scriptures? Well, no. Are you going to church?

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

No. Are you studying any of the words of the prophets from general conference? No.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So I know you think you're trying to build your testimony. What exactly do you think that means? And so anyway. But number nine, you're going to agree

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

with me on number nine.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, this is.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Okay, this might be nine on yours, but on Richard's, I think it's a 14.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Prosperity gospel. This is Richard's. This is Richard's dandometer to 100 million.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Yeah. The Richard.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Richard hates him. The prosperity gospel more than anyone we know. Yeah. Number nine. Prosperity gospel.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

That you're going to be blessed with riches as long as you're good.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And anyone who isn't, that shows that they're not. Yeah. Anyway, so number 10. So this is the highest level supposedly, of dandometer that you can get.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Oh, yes. This is a quote from you from

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

the fireside on Saturday. If you only knew what I know.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Yep, yep. That's the patented. If you knew what I knew, then

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

you wouldn't have a testimony.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

You always have to say in that voice, though, G. Yeah, you have to say.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Would you say it? Not.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

It's a breathing.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

I mean, you could say it like a smoker's voice. You know, you could be like, if

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

you only knew what I know, then you would. You wouldn't believe Joseph was a prophet.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Like Mo from Simpsons.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Yeah, something like that.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But. But you know, what's the best is. So this scale goes from 1 to 10, and then she created 11.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

That actually breaks the scale and goes.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah, it goes below the horizon.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Yeah.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

If you can imagine the fan chart in your mind. Yeah, it goes below the horizon. What do you guys think it is at home? Do I even have to say what it is?

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

I think they all know John C. John Sebin and the fornicating fornicator who shall not be named, which is Dr. Thalassus Hurlbut.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Right.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Also a subject of the Saturday fireside. Yes.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Oh, very, very good. We appreciate that.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But she also did have a question in her email, so I don't know if you want to read her email. We'll see if we can answer.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Oh, I didn't realize we stopped not even halfway through. That's only the way she.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We saw that she made a chart and we lost ourselves in the world of wonder.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Right. Okay. This is Danica still. Okay. All right. I'm learning as I go. I'm a work in progress. Okay. I actually have one question that will hopefully be a quick one. Where does the Belief that we're all going to have to pack up and move to Missouri at some point come from. And this one, I don't know if we'll tell the story about why this hits home to me more than most, but Garrett probably knows the story. We were joking about the fact that my husband and I are buying land. And what will likely happen is we'll go through all this work, build our dream home, only to get that call that it's time to go to Missouri. Then my brother in law scoffed and he said, I don't think that's actually true. I've never been able to find a reliable source for it. End quote. So says Danica. I figured if anyone would know, it would be the legendary Dirk Moss. No, I am not in labor. This baby train ended at four kids. But I hope my meager offering of the hopefully hilarity of the dandometer will get my email read and it sure did. That worked, Danica. Yep. Anyways, yeah, there you go.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So this is a great question. I mean, so first of all, let's set, let's set the set up. The fact that one of the things that makes Latter Day Saints very unique, in fact, you know what, there are other radical Christian groups during the Reformation who don't have extermination orders and aren't being murdered by, you know, state militias. A great example of this is the Shakers, right? We talked about them a little bit on the Premium podcast this last week. But the Shakers believe things that are totally at variance with traditional Christianity. Much like us. They believe that first of all, that all marital relations are sinful, that men and women should not be married, there should be no procreation. That, that's animal nature if there is so even people who became Shakers, they became celibate. But they also believe that there's a difference between Jesus and Christ.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Right?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Which, I mean, obviously Jesus is his name and Christ means Messiah. But in the way that they developed this theology, they believe that Jesus was essentially a man who had the fullness of Christ spirit rest upon him. So then they believed that in the 1700s that Mother Ann Lee was the female equivalent, that she was obviously a mortal woman, but she had the fullness of Christ's spirit rest upon her. Which is the reason why you see in our scriptures or you hear other references, the fact the Shakers believe that, that, you know, Jesus came back as a woman. Well, they don't believe that Jesus came back as a woman because they believe Jesus is a man. They believe the fullness of God's power called Christ Spirit rested on Jesus. And then the fullness of God's power called Christ spirit rested on Mother Ann Lee. So it's not, it's not really the second coming of Jesus. It's the second coming of Christ, of Christ's spirit. Right. Well, that's pretty radical. I mean, I've talked to enough evangelicals

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

to know that that will get you condemned to hell, if that's what you think happens with that.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So why don't we have story after story of Shakers getting murdered up?

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Why don't we have stories everywhere of Shakers being burned?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Now look, they were persecuted. They were certainly scoffed at. They were certainly driven out of some locales. But why wasn't there this same kind of concerted effort? And one of the main reasons why, even though they're incredibly radical, is because they don't have a general gathering principle as part of their religion. They have localized collective gathering. I mean, look, want to talk about another radical thing Shakers did? They believed in holding all things in common and that you'd get together in a commune of 100, 200 people, you'd work the land together, you'd share all your resources, Men and women would live separately, but that's all that they planned to do. There was never a plan to have every Shaker in America move to one giant commune. They also almost universally rejected interacting in politics. So you didn't have to worry if there was a group of 200 shakers who moved to your town and set up a commune. Oh, does that mean that they're going to vote for some Shaker mayor? Nope, because they're not going to vote at all.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

So you have to worry about who they're going to vote for because they won't.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Because they see that as sinful as participating in man made institutions rather than, you know, abiding only the, the laws of God.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

So it seems like a little bit of a cheat code there where they say, oh, we're not going to vote and you don't have to worry about what we're.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yeah, well, I'll tell you what. It's literally what Thomas Ford said about the Mormons being murdered in Illinois. He wrote in his book, if only the Mormons had agreed to not participate in elections, then the violence against them

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

could have been stopped. Amazing.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

So the price for Mormon peace was the renunciation of their rights as American citizens. Really the most fundamental right of American citizens, and that is to choose your leaders, to have a say in choosing your leaders. And if you go all the way back to John Locke, what does John Locke say? That. That the only way a government can have legitimate authority is if you, as the people, consent to give that government authority. Right. So that's why voting is essential, because governments actually don't have authority. They have power that's given to them by the people. This is the ideal that drives the American Revolution. And so it's pretty hard to find a more un American thing than, yeah, these people shouldn't have the right to vote. That's kind of a. It's really the baseline of American ideal that everyone has a right to vote. Now you have all kinds of people who aren't happy with the results of votes. This is not. That doesn't mean you get to, you know, set the country on fire every time you don't win.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

But.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But the point is that you participate in a system whereby you've conceded some sovereignty with the idea that whoever wins the most votes in your local election will be mayor. And not just your buddy, but Latter Day Saints, of course, did believe in participating in voting. They not only believed in participating in it, they encouraged their believers to participate in it. I think you can still see that today. I mean, the church, at least in the United States, you know, without taking a partisan position, always strongly encourages Saints to participate in elections and in the electoral process. Well, that's a real problem if you don't want them Mormons voting. Right.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

So suddenly the fact that 2000 Mormons

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

move to your town becomes a real problem if you know they're going to vote against your candidate. All this is to say that the gathering of Latter Day Saints is very much a spiritual blessing, but also a unique aspect of Latter Day Saint theology that causes some of the antagonism towards it. Because. Because in a body, Latter Day Saints are far more powerful. They're more powerful politically, they're more powerful economically. This is the reason why Brigham Young is moving the Saints out of Illinois and moving them to the middle of nowhere in Utah and then even sending, you know, colonies down to where Dallin lives in Arizona. I mean, we were just having a conversation the other day.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

You know, what.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

What are the Mormon colonies doing in a place like Thatcher?

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

What? I mean, before air conditioning exists.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah, before air conditioning is the key part of that. Man, I can't even imagine.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

It's.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

It's amazing, though. We moved here seven years ago. It's amazing how many members of the church I've met. Who. Their family. They're from here, and their. Their parents are from Here, their grandparents are from here. They go way back. There's a lot of them. I, I mean, a good percentage of our ward at least.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, we had colonies in Las Vegas as well. We created a fort down in Las Vegas. I mean, imagine living through a Las

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Vegas or a Phoenix area summer, no air conditioning.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Almost as bad as dealing with, you know, biting flies and mosquitoes in Idaho.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, I mean, those people were

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

also sent up there to colonize. So I guess I don't know which

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

one I would choose.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

I don't know if you've ever been

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

to southeast Idaho and moved irrigation pipe in a field, but there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million deer flies every step you take. I don't know what the numbers actually are, but I know that it is. And they don't care if you put repellent on repellent to them, it tastes good.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah. There's no way to really ward them off. I started working in the fields when helping out when I was 10 years old. I think a lot of my fellow friends and from the Shelly, Idaho area did the same. But as I got older and then worked in the fields for several more years, I got so good at holding that irrigation pipe with one hand, most of my right hand, right as I'm walking with it. My left hand was 100% dedicated to killing those deer flies. I got good at swatting them. I'd kill maybe half dozen each, you know, each from each path, you know, from where you're moving the irrigation pipe to the new setting. On the way back, you had both hands free, but it was easier just to run. You run to the next bite, pull it out, and then go at it again. See how many you kill before you got to the next spot. The wheat fields were the worst, especially in July. Oh, boy, those deer flies love wheat fields in July.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Yep, yep, yep. It's funny because you wanted, you wanted wheat early, before it got too tall and dumped a lot of water into your irrigation boots. But you wanted, you wanted potatoes later, right? Because potatoes earlier are also a dumpster fire because the furrows are so muddy and so sloppy that every step you

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

take, you're just, you're, you're, you're just

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

slopping all over the place as you try to move the pipe and the potatoes.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

That's right, yeah. The furrows are too fresh from them making the furrows. So the first couple irrigations, when you cross that field, you sink down a good 12 inches.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

I mean, how many times did your Irrigation boot come off because you stepped in the mud and your foot comes out of it.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah. And then the last few weeks of the potato harvest, or, sorry, the potato season, then you have to power walk your way across with the irrigation pipe because the vines will trip you. So you have to either high step it or you gotta just do a power pull with each step so that when the vine grabs your boot, you rip through it so it doesn't trip you and you fall on your face.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I've taken a rain bird to the forehead because I tripped while I was holding it. And.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah, yeah. So the potato field is definitely more treacherous. But yeah, late in the season on the wheat fields, it doesn't matter what you do. You will get your boot full of water. By the time you get to end of that irrigation line, you have to pull it off, dump it out, dump

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

it out, put it back through. Wet sock.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah. You can wear gators, you can wear bib, you can wear like, people wear all kinds of stuff. None of it really works. You can mitigate it a little bit and reduce it, but it will not keep that water.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

By the time you get back, you're like a World War I soldier. Yeah.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

You get home, back to the house, pull off your boots, and your, your toes are all wrinkled. Your. Your feet have been soaked in water for three hours.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

And then you cash your gigantic paycheck,

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

which they paid you 10 cents per pipe that you moved.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah, I think you got up to 11 cents or maybe 12 by the

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

time someone was big time. But you're like, oh, I had enough experience. They paid me 11 cents a pipe.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah. So I started. So just my own experience. I started doing this when I, you know, in 86. But by the time I was doing a bunch of on my own without my siblings, my older siblings, was probably 88. But you had to move 30 pipe. I mean, you're pulling them out from the mud and the muck, you're emptying the water out because the water just got shut off at half an hour hour earlier.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And so super heavy, super heavy.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

You got to put it on your knee while the water drains out of it. And then you got to walk, you know, about 50ft with it, set it down and reattach it. And this you had to do, you know, do you do the whole thing? There's usually 30 pipe in a line, because that's about, I believe my math's right. If you go do a line is about a quarter of a mile. You do the whole thing. 30 pipe hot. Whether it's windy. You got to go do it. You got the deer flies, you got the muck, and you get done. You. You made three bucks.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And so you try to do.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

You move.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You'd move four or five lines, but you know, you had to do it twice a day. So you got up super early in the morning, you had to do it before school. Then you had to come home all nasty and muddy and get ready for school. Then as soon as you got home

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

from school, you had to go do it again and then go to football practice.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean,

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

the football coaches will have you go home, do the pipe, then you come back. So, yeah, when it was potato season, during football season, when they overlapped, I practiced late at night, always after all the pipes.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mentioned before that our high school mascot is an actual giant potato potato.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

So it's literally. It's literally a potato with a trident, like. Like Neptune with a crown on its head. And people laugh. We're. I never thought was weird, but then as I got older, people laughed at us. You guys are the potato mascot. Like it was a bad thing.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We had someone, our mascot had a costume that was a giant potato with a spear that they walked around in. And our cheerleaders had burlap potato sack

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

bag skirts that they wore as their skirts.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

They did. They had burlap skirts. I was not joking. You guys think we're kidding? We've got the yearbooks to prove it. But I don't know if they still have that potato. The potato mascot walk around, but I'll bet they do. And someone listening in Shelley, Idaho can certainly email in and let us know.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

We digress greatly, but the whole point was the Saints also had to gather. They gathered in these various colonies, right? But they gather in these groups. And of course, the idea that we're going to Zion, I mean, this is

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

not something that's just made up, right?

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I mean, you don't have to go very far. I mean, you have many revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants talking about. Remember Doctrine and covenants, Section 28? The whole reason why you had Hyrum Page and his Seer Stone deceiving people is because these false revelations were declaring where this city of Zion was going to be built. So the early Latter Day Saints, they all anticipated that they were all going to be moving there. You have this from Joseph Smith's Articles of Faith, right? It's the tenth article of faith. We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and the restoration of the 10 tribes. So it's not just this Figurative idea that it's literal that Zion, the new Jerusalem, will be built upon the American continent and that Christ will reign personally upon the earth and that the earth will be renewed to receive its paradisiacal glory. So this is actually an article of faith. So we still have, it hasn't been dropped from the articles of faith. But I think that the question really more centers on this idea of, well, are we really all going to have

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

to get up and go move to

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Missouri to build that, to build the city of Zion? Well, it depends on where you're reading, when you're reading, what prophets are saying about this. Because today we have a worldwide church and well over 17 million members. Back when most of these things were received, there were not very many members. The idea that, you know, you would build this city with just like five people, well, of course you're going to need everybody to build the city. But they would have viewed this prophecy or the declaration where the city is going to be built almost exactly the

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

opposite of your brother in law, where he is, he's sitting there thinking, yeah,

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

well, we're not going to have to go move to Missouri. Look, first of all, I'm on your brother in law's side. I don't want to move to Missouri. And you know how you know that, if you ever go to Missouri, that's the main way that you know, how

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

you know that you have a bad day is when the pilot announces, we've just touched down in Kansas City. Oh boy, there's going to be some great barbecue.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But you know, I mean, I understand that concern, but Early Latter Day Saints, it would have been the exact opposite. Why was Hyrum Page able to deceive some of the earliest members of the church? Because he was declaring where the city of Zion was. It's because everyone desperately wanted to be there. So they would actually look at your question or your, your brother in law's question. And those saints actually wouldn't comprehend why the question's being asked. They would say, you understand that, you understand the point of the City of Zion, right? It's, it's God's city. It's going to be a place like the city of Enoch, where there's no rich and there's no poor, where everyone treats each other with love, where like the City of Enoch, the gospel is lived so much that everyone is so happy, so devoted to God, that God takes it to them, to himself. I mean, I don't know what kind of deal you got on your, on your current house, but whatever it is, is it, is it better than being in the City of God on earth? Like, I do understand. Like, look, one of the, as the

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

dendometer chart that we got demonstrates, one of the things I don't like is

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

people saying like, you know, and that's why we got to move to Adam on Diamond and we've got to buy a bunch of land. Because I know someone who knows someone who said that he talked to an area authority who said that they're building apartments there already. Right? I mean, that's not how we get revelation. But the mentality is certainly very different now. When the Latter Day Saints first were driven from Zion, it's one of the revelations that Joseph Smith received because his question was, how can we be driven out of the place you told us to build in preparation for Jesus coming? And the Lord said that they would eventually be restored, but then did not give them a timeline. And saints in those early days were always looking for when they'd be able to go back and build the city of Zion. So first and foremost, it's important to note they're not asking the same question that we're asking. Because the assumption among believers in Joseph and Brigham's time is absolutely, I'm going to where the City of Zion is. Right? Like your brother in law Steven is like, well, we're not all going to be asked to go. Frankly, I hope I'm asked to go. I hope I'm one of the ones who gets the invite. We're talking about the place that's preparing for the second coming of Jesus Christ. I hope I'm on the invite list. And so their mentality is very different. So you're not going to have a bunch of people saying, boy, are we like all going to have to go. Second of all, for practical purposes, all of the saints at that point. So after they leave Nauvoo, all of the saints for quite some time are actually in Utah or these other colonies in the west where they're sent out. So we don't have any saints in Missouri in 1850, stunningly, for some reason, it was not a place that a lot of saints wanted to just go hang out and live. Almost as if there was a bad mojo from the things that had happened before. So because of that, if the city was going to be built at all, if the Revelation Doctrine and Covenant Section 58 was to be proven to be a revelation from God, the saints were going to have to go back and reclaim Zion and build this temple that Revelation had declared would be built there. So, yeah, that was gonna. The understanding was, well, that's gonna take most of us to go do it. I mean, we saw what happened when only some of us did it last time, and they murdered the heck out of us. So. So it's gonna have to be all of us to do it then. You know, during the. The Joseph Smith and Brigham Young eras, the of literal gathering, wherever you were baptized. So if you were a saint who was baptized in England, now, look, it's not like they'd be like. And if you're not in Salt Lake in the next six months, your membership's gonna be revoked. I don't know why. You know, the church authority there sounds like a game show host.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

But

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

the understanding was that you would, as soon as you possibly could, you would immigrate to join the rest of the body of saints. And while that is difficult for some people, the vast majority of people for who we have records for, it's what they want to do. I mean, they want to be with other people that believe the way they do. They don't want to be persecuted alone in these other places. And so for decades, Latter Day Saints gathered in Salt Lake and these other places after their baptism, regardless of where they were baptized. And then, you know, the shift in the early 20th century where the church started telling people to build up Zion where they were. And so you now have kind of two messages. You have all of these early statements about going back to Missouri and building the New Jerusalem, which were made when basically the saints were all in one place. And then you have saints globally, all over the world. And the practicality or the idea like, you know, should someone who's baptized in Ghana start saving for their, you know, their plane fare to get to the city of Zion when it's built? I mean, there's a lot of other. A lot of other practicalities that come involved. So, you know, in a technical sense, we don't have modern prophets that are saying things like,

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

everybody better get ready to move to Zion.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

But that can sometimes be miscontrued. I'll have students sometimes say things like, we're not really still going to do that. Right? We're not really still going to build the New Jerusalem. Right? That was back then. But God said, we don't have to anymore. Well, we don't have any place where God says, we don't have to do it anymore. The Gospel Principles Manual says that the New Jerusalem is going to be built in America. The Articles of Faith continue to say that the New Jerusalem is going to be built. But the idea that not everyone is going to be involved in this is something that I think even Brigham Young understands. In 1861, he's giving a sermon about all the things that have been taken from the Saints, right? He says, do we own anything in Illinois? Yes. In Ohio? Yes. The Lord will call back the Latter Day Saints. Although it is written in the Revelation, speaking of the Saints being driven from Jackson county, that they should be driven from state to state and city to city, and but few would remain to receive their inheritance. I did not receive any inheritance in Jackson County, Missouri. I was never there. I do not think of anyone present who was there, except for Judge Phelps. So W. Phelps is obviously there in this meeting. There are a few others in the territory who received theirs. The point being, there are actually very few members who were already in Jackson county where the city was supposed to be built before mobs drove them out and started killing them and burning their. Their houses down and taking their stuff over. This is not worded. So he goes on to say, a few will remain and receive their inheritance. Will we return and receive an inheritance there? Brigham says many of the Saints will return to Missouri and receive an inheritance there. This is not exactly. This is not worded exactly as in the Revelation, but it is according to the nature of things. So it seems that at least by 1861. Now, look, this is done during the American Civil War. By 1861, many latter day Saints think the American Civil War is going to be the pathway to whereby Missouri is humbled enough that they're going to be able to leave Utah and en masse, move back to build the City of Zion. In fact, Brigham Young has to multiple times tell them, no, it's not time. No, it's not time. Because you had apostate groups. You know, whenever there's a doctrine that people all hold, like the building of the City of Zion, you can bet your. You know, you can bet the money that you don't spend gambling on sports that there will be someone who will rise up and start to speak ahead of prophetic counsel. You have that right now with Missouri. You have people right now. There are excommunicated people right now leading an apostate group, claiming that it's time to go back to Missouri because Jesus has already appeared in Adam on diamond. And why are people taken in by that? Because this, the. The gathering in Zion is such a big deal that it actually opens the door for people to claim they have knowledge that hasn't yet been revealed. It's important to Note that while the City of Zion is going to be built, Joseph Smith is going to declare that all of north and South America is the Land of Zion. All of it is. So I mean, the idea of gathering to Zion, I mean, if you happen to be a saint in Guatemala, you're already in the Land of Zion, even if it's not the New Jerusalem. So, but, but even by 1861, Brigham Young, you can tell, is saying, I don't think every single person is going to go to Missouri. Many are going to go, but not, not all of them. But as to whether or not the City of Zion is still going to be built, Joseph F. Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith was very adamant that God has, you know, never rescinded that declaration. So how is it going to work? I don't know. When is it going to happen? All you have to do is do a search on YouTube for second coming and you'll have all kinds of people that will tell you when it's going to happen, happen. And that's why it's so important that we follow current prophetic utterance. I would say, though, hopefully we can, we can start adjusting our mentality to where we're not thinking about everything that we're going to have to give up if we were called to gather in the City of Zion and instead think about everything that we would gain by being in a place that's the City of God on Earth. Yes, you probably are going to lose some material wealth. Yes, there might be jobs that have to change and, and, and businesses that go under and all kinds of things surrounding it. And you would be no different than all of the early Latter Day Saints who gave up their lands and gave up their cattle and gave up everything with the promise that they would receive an hundredfold in the kingdom of their Father. And this willingness to sacrifice is always a good measure of where we really are at with our relationship with God. Anything to add to that, Dallin?

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Well, you know, I've got a funny story to tell about that. I don't know if it's appropriate, but we all love Jobless Rob, but. I know and love Jobless Rob also. But there's another Rob that Colorado Robbie will call him that played a mean joke on me once. And along the same lines of this topic here, and there was a huge regional conference where they had a general authority come and they made a big deal of it. Everyone's gotta come. You gotta tune in. And I just. Heather and I could not make it. It was. I had been traveling all week. I Wasn't feeling good. And so I skipped out of it. And so we didn't. Neither of us went to it. And afterwards I messaged Colorado Robbie and said, hey, what happened in the meeting? I missed it. I couldn't make it. And he said, oh, wow, you missed it. So he said that it's time for Colorado Saints to start preparing to move back to Missouri. And he had me, I had just woken up, you know, from a nap. I believed him and I trusted him. You know, he's a good guy, buddy. And I came in, I came running up the stairs to tell Heather, mike, we're supposed to start getting ready to go to Missouri. I started pulling out my.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

I pull out my. I pull up my.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

My Zillow app. I'm starting looking. I'm going to buy some property. Let's see what that.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

I got to get it before everyone else gets it.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah. So for about 20 minutes there, I was the victim of a cruel joke by Colorado Robbie. But yeah, that.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And it was.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

But that joke was only possible because this lore exists out there, you know, that we might move someday.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Look, that we're going to build the new Jerusalem. That is absolutely doctrine. It's still there in the articles of faith.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yes.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

You know, in a lot of ways, your brother in law is right in the sense that you don't have prophets saying, and every single saint in the world, wherever they are, is going to be moving to Missouri to build it. I mean, already by 1861, Brigham Young is saying many saints are going to go build it, but apparently not all of them. If you're saying many, otherwise you say all of the saints are going to go. Right? Yeah. So I don't know what that's going to look like. But I do still believe as multiple revelations declare that the new Jerusalem is going to be built. And I know that there's a lot of people like, well, practically, how would that even work? I mean, how is this even. And there's always questions. People always wonder how things are actually going to work, work. But that's part of having faith, believing that as we approach the second coming of our Lord, that God will open up a path not only for people to hear the gospel and to be converted, but also that these promised blessings that come from this gathering, literal gathering, to build the city of the new Jerusalem, that it will take place. So I think we've probably covered enough war and we put Dallin through enough torture so far. We've gone over, we've gone, you know, we've hit the hour Mark.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

And that's right when Richard's like, if you were Richard right now, you'd be. You'd be doing this. The whole time.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

You'd be doing this. Okay.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Slapping your.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Slapping your time, saying that we're out of time, but.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Well, I thought. I thought we were gonna do Book of Enoch Part 6. We're not doing that today.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, I mean, why don't we just have Moroni part 11 at this point?

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

I came prepared to talk about the Book of Enoch. I'm thinking this was episode six.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

We'll see if Richard will let you on next week. And it'll be all Book of Enoch all the time.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

I'm going to be unavailable next week. I'm going to make sure my phone's off. Yeah.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

So make sure you're totally ready for it.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Well, thank you so much for joining us. Again, our condolences to the Leduc family and to Richard. Dan. Richard's dad was a huge fan of the podcast. He loved it. I mean, every time we ever saw him, the only thing he ever talked about was the podcast. And I know he was super proud of his son, Richard, for the fact that, you know, he'd been a part of creating something that, you know, hopefully helps build the faith of people and hopefully helps them feel like that there is a reason for the faith that they have. And that's what we hope for. And we hope that the blessings of knowing about the resurrection and the gospel will, you know, eventually help assuage some of Richard's grief and sorrow. And, you know, Dallin and I have lost our dad. And, I mean, that's been more than a decade ago.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yeah.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And I would be lying if I said there weren't times that I didn't still desperately miss my dad. I mean, it's. The reality is when you lose somebody, that there is a. An empty hole in your heart, and, boy, it's just there and it's not fillable.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

A lot of times it's a little things I missed the way he would say, hi, it's your dad, when he would call. He had the way of saying it. I just. It's a little thing.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

Do you think that I would answer

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

the phone, hear my dad's voice on the other end and not know who it was?

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Especially other cell phones will tell you who's calling.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

I can see staff. The other thing that I thought was

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

funny is that for a while, you know, he'd call you, but he didn't really want to talk to you. He wanted to talk to you. For around somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 seconds to two minutes.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

Yes.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

You hit two minutes and you hear your mom. And the phone was getting passed off

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

to Renee and you know, here's your mom.

[Dallin Dirkmaat]

But he was all about the salutation. It was about the hello. It was not about the subject of the conversation.

[Unidentified Speaker (possibly another guest or co-host)]

Yep. But, yeah, we miss our dad.

[Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat]

And so, you know, we know. We know, at least in some regard, what Richard's going through, and it's difficult. And I know there's lots of people listening who've dealt with horrible tragedies. So it is great when those things happen to remember that in the end, we believe that we will have all of our loved ones back again. That is the great promise of Christianity. And that is the reason why that empty tomb is the greatest thing that's ever happened. The reason why we believe is because that tomb is empty. That empty tomb is everything. And so, as Joseph taught, you know, we miss the people that we. We lose, but it will be just a short time and we will have them again. So thank you so much for joining us.

[Narrator]

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.