This General Conference Was Historic | Reaction And Review | Informed Saints

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Most Latter Day Saints, I don't think, realize how historic this General Conference was. Now, it doesn't have the sweeping changes of the Nelson era, but there were some unprecedented things that happened this General Conference, and so we're gonna talk about them. Welcome to Informed Saints. My name is Jasmine Rapley. I'm joined today with Neil Rapley, Steven Smoot, and we are here to talk about General Conference. The things we thought were really notable, maybe the subtle hints of things that might portend what the future holds with the passing of President Nelson and the new leadership of the church under Dallin H. Oaks. And some of our favorite talks, things we liked, maybe some of our favorite memes, we'll see. We're still. We're kind of winging this. So to start off, let's just. Stephen and Neil, what was the tone of this conference and how is it different from other conferences? [00:00:55] Speaker B: Go ahead, Dale. [00:00:57] Speaker C: No, I have to go first. [00:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:01:00] Speaker C: Well, I mean, there was. I felt like there was a really strong, like, just kind of a tone. I wouldn't say the whole conference was somber, but there very much was, like, a tone of, like, grieving and, like, honoring President Nelson throughout much of it. You know, we've really kind of got, like, this tragedy in Michigan hanging over us as a community. [00:01:26] Speaker A: And. [00:01:26] Speaker C: And several speakers did make allusion to that as well. But it was also very much, let's. Let's continue, like, move forward, carry on. Right. And. And like you said in the intro there, it's. It's historic in a lot of ways. It's been a long time since the Quorum of the twelve Apostles were kind of the ones in charge and running a General Conference, like, during a General Conference. And so that was. That was unique. And it was. Honestly, it was kind of cool to see to have them set that tone and, like I said, basically being able to see that the church can move forward even without a first presidency. [00:02:13] Speaker A: So you guys can correct me, because you're the historians here, but I think this was the first General Conference presided by the Quorum of the twelve Apostles all the way through since, like, John Taylor Wilford Woodruff days, right? Because even in 1951, when George Albert Smith died, they held General Conference. But then, like, the final session of General Conference was the Solemn assembly where they sustained President David O. McKay. And so there was a first Presidency by the end of that General Conference. But we. I mean, this one was 100 presided by the quorum of the 12. There was no profit. There was no first presidency through the entirety of the General Conference. And I don't think we've had that since before Lorenzo Snow. So Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff. Any other thoughts on that? [00:03:04] Speaker B: I was honestly expecting them to sustain the new First Presidency at this conference. I was sort of expecting, like, with David O. McKay, but I guess not. Maybe there's a sense of propriety of actually laying President Nelson to rest before calling the new Quorum the new or the new First Presidency. Maybe, honestly, they just didn't have time. I don't know. Right. Like, I don't want to idly speculate here, but I'm just thinking, like, less than a week, and you've got all this other stuff to do. So, honestly, maybe they just have time. They want to sort of take a big breath before they go through the procedure to reconstitute the First Presidency. Reading the biography of President Oaks from Richard Turley, which is very good, by the way, he talks about reconstituting the First Presidency under President Nelson. And it's a whole procedure where the Quorum gets together and they go through a whole business thing and they propose, should we reorganize the First Presidency? All in favor? And then they do it, and then they ordain the prophet, and then he has to go through the process of picking his counselors. It's like a whole thing. Right. Even though we have this idea, like, oh, the. The president of the quorum of the 12 will assume, you know, the mantle of profit, that's just kind of the de facto expectation. It still is a whole, like, procedure to reconstitute the First Presidency. So I suspect they just probably didn't have time for it. But I don't want to speculate. That's just kind of what I think. I wonder, do you have something in here, Jasmine? [00:04:30] Speaker C: I. Well, I was. Neil, say. Yeah, I was just going to say, I do think that. That a big part of it was just time constraints. They're trying to, you know, they're trying to get General Conference done. And there's also this tragedy in Michigan, and, you know, just the logistics of. I mean, yeah, like, it can seem very rote for us from the outside, but the logistics of bringing the whole Quorum together. And maybe they did meet and talk about it and decided not to, but, you know, President Oaks would need time to think through and. And seek inspiration on who his counselor should be. And there's just a lot of other things going on that he had to prioritize. And so I can kind of see the merit, you know, if it were me in that position, I could see just being like, let's just, let's just push it off. Let's get conference done and then we'll deal with all this other stuff, but let's just prioritize getting this conference out of the way first. Sorry, Jasmine. [00:05:30] Speaker A: Well, to speak to Stephen, how you're talking about, like, it's a whole thing. I posted this earlier this week, but this is from Gary Stevenson in April 2018. So this was the conference after President Nelson was sustained and he kind of explained what that process is. So obviously once the prophet dies, the first presidency gets dissolved and it's an apostolic interregnum or like this gap. And so he said that, you know, the most recent interregnum began when President Monson passed away. And so then on the Sabbath morning. So typically, at least since like the seventies, the. This meeting of the Quorum of the twelve Apostles happens the Sunday following the funeral of the prophet. So for us, that would be next Sunday. They would do this. I don't know if they will. I mean, it's just tradition. It's not like doctrine or anything like that. But it says on that Sabbath morning, the quorum of the 12 met in the upper room of the Salt Lake Temple in a spirit of fasting and prayer under the direction of President Russell M. Nelson, the senior apostle and president of the 12. And then in this sacred and memorable meeting, following well established precedent in unity and unanimity, the brethren were seated by seniority in a semicircle of 13 chairs and raised their hand first to sustain the organization of a first presidency, and then to sustain President Russell Marion Nelson as president of the church. And following the sustaining was the quorum gathered in a circle and placed hands upon the head of President Nelson. Tordanum, set him apart. And. And then this. I kind of skipped this part of the quote, but it talks about. Then President Nelson calls his counselors, and then they do the same thing. They sustain the counselors. They set apart and lay their hands upon the counselors. And this was a deeply sacred experience with an outpouring of the Spirit. I offer to you my absolute witness that the will of the Lord for which we fervently prayed was powerfully manifest in the activities and events of that day. So this, I mean, that's just like a very brief summary of what tends to happen. But like you said, it. It's kind of a big deal. There's a lot going on and you've got to plan a massive funeral for a global religious leader in all of that, like, it is just a lot to do. I agree with you, though, Stephen, that I kind of thought maybe they would do it because the precedent had been set with George Albert Smith that even if the Prophet dies a few days before Conference will still push to have the Solemn assembly so that there is a First Presidency and a prophet for General Conference. But I think the world is very different than it was in the 1950s, I think. I mean, as a church, we're much bigger, bigger. There's a lot more bureaucracy. There's a lot more to get done between running General Conference and running a funeral. And, like, not rushing this really, really sacred process of selecting the First Presidency. Yes, we know that the next prophet is like 99.9999% going to be President Oaks, but doesn't. But it doesn't dismiss the fact that, like, a thing that is very sacred, very prayerful, and led by inspiration. [00:08:21] Speaker B: Can I just add real quick, by the way, you read that awesome quote by Elder Stevenson, Like I said, go read President Oaks biography written by Richard Turley. And he walks through more of the proceedings of that meeting where they reconstituted the First Presidency. I want to point out something, and maybe this is some deep lore that's not really relevant, but it bugged me at the time when I heard this, and so I want to emphasize it. So at the time when President Nelson reconstituted the First Presidency, he of course picked Elder Oaks and Elder Eyring to be his counselors, and Elder Uchtdorf resumed his place in the quorum of the 12. And there was a lot of hullabaloo at the time about how, oh, you know, this is Russell Nelson that's rejecting the Progressive apostle and sticking him back in the lower court, Right. And he's just surrounding himself with these yes men like Oakes and everything like that. And some people I even saw try to draw a comparison when I think it was Hubie Brown was not. After the death of David O. McKay, Joseph Ewing Smith did not pick Hugh B. Brown to be his counselor. Right? Oh, that's because of blacks in the priesthood. Just like with LGBT issues. I heard all this stuff going on in the biography of President Oaks. Elder Uchtdorf himself is quoted as saying, when President Nelson interviewed each of us asking who he thought should be the counselors, I recommended two other guys, including Dallin H. Oaks, I recommended to be one of his counselors in the First Presidency. So, look, there's none of this politicking going on like Some people claim there's no, like, there's no Kremlin ology of like, you know, Salt Lake City Temple Square. Like, you know what I mean? So people that try to do this sort of thing, oh, read the tea leaves of who he selected as his counselors must mean he's going to do this or that. Like, look, obviously there's consideration. You have to make judgment calls. They go through an interview process. But it's the Lord at the end who's calling these men by revelation to be our leaders. And so I think we should move away from that mindset of sort of court politics going on with who becomes the new First Presidency. [00:10:24] Speaker C: Could you imagine, like, not being relieved after being released from the First Presidency? Like, like that is so much. That is so hard. Like, even just being in the Quorum of the twelve Apostles is tons of work. It's, it's a lot of work and, and they're doing it in their retirement years and it's, it's hard. Like, I feel like if I were in Elder Uchtdorf's position, I would have been like, so relieved. Yeah, get out and be like, yeah, I'll, I'll take it. That's great. It like this idea that, I don't know, it just seems so strange to me. I don't, I don't sense from any of them like a desire like, any like, power, hungriness. Right. Like a desire to have like, bigger and greater power or control. Like, I think they're all just happy to serve. And I'm. That's not to say, like, I'm not naive. They're. They're all like, they're. They're 14 right now, 15 under normal circumstances. Highly accomplished, really successful men in all kinds of like, fields and industries. And I'm sure they have strong, they have strong wills and they have strong opinions. And there are. Sure there are certainly going to be some, some disagreements and discussions that go on, but I don't. That doesn't mean any of them are, are power hungry and want to like, just rule the church or whatever. Right. Like, I just don't get that sense from any of them. They're happy to serve and they. There's a very much a, like a quorum. Right. A collaborativeness to it all that. I don't know, I feel like you can kind of sense it. [00:12:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:05] Speaker A: So I did think it was interesting though that they did this tribute for President Nelson before doing the funeral. And that was like, what really tipped me off that like, oh, if they want to Do a tribute before general conference. Maybe that's because they really do want to push for doing the solemn assembly during conference. Even though the funeral hasn't been held yet. I don't know what the purpose was besides just wanting to memorialize him. Or maybe, maybe things were changing so quickly. Maybe they're like, well, let's hold a tribute this week and kind of evaluate to see if we want to push for the solemn assembly. And then they change their mind. I don't know. But it was really interesting. So people in the comments and in the chat here are already jumping straight to the temple announcement. [00:12:43] Speaker B: No new temples. Oh no. [00:12:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Or the lack thereof. And so let's maybe jump to that real quick. We can also talk about President Oaks. Talk and address itself if we want. But. So the big thing was this, like, okay, what's going to happen with the temples? President Nelson announced like 200 temples in his time. In every single conference, he never slowed down on announcing the temples. What's President Oaks going to be like? And I don't know if this conference is going to be representative of the future or not, but it was kind of the big thing that like we are not going to announce any temples this conference. What were you guys reactions to that? [00:13:17] Speaker B: I was sad. I mean, it's just always so fun, right? And everybody has like their little bingo card or scorecard ready to go. Where's the next temple going to be? Look, I totally get it. Like with so many temples announced, I actually, I think there was at least one of the previous time. I can think of where something similar happened. Where I want to say it was under President Monson. I'm totally guessing now, but I do seem to remember somebody in the comments can fact check me perhaps where they said like, we're not going to announce new temples right now or not many new temples or something like that. Right. So I don't think this was the first time this has happened within our lifetimes where they've had to kind of pump the brakes a little bit. But you know, I was still sad. Not because like, oh no, it's so bad, things are falling apart kind of sad, but just like, oh, it's always so fun and exciting to get new temples. Right. I don't know, I was looking for the Riyadh Saudi Arabia temple or something like that. That'd be kind of nice. [00:14:07] Speaker C: But I guess my honest to goodness first reaction was like, like it was a question. The first thing that popped into my mind when he said we're not going to announce More temples was how many of the temples that President Nelson announced actually got built or at least under construction. [00:14:28] Speaker B: Let me look that up actually while you're talking. [00:14:29] Speaker C: In the time that President Nelson was speaking and I actually, I do have it up. At least I think I do. Okay, so there are, there he. President Nelson announced 200 temples. There are currently 62 under construction and another 112 that are announced. And so if you do the math that, that's 174. So I assume, I'm assuming that means 26 of the temples he announced got completed. Yeah, in, in that time. So that would be 26 plus 62 would be 84 at least completed and under construction in that time. I hope. I didn't know. Did I do that math right? [00:15:09] Speaker B: I think. Well, Neil, I. Google AI gave me a similar number. 28 temples have been dedicated, four are scheduled for dedication, 56 are under construction, two are scheduled for groundbreaking and 64 are in planning. But it sounds like again, that's just the quick little AI robot announcement. I mean, but we're kind of in the ballpark, it seems like. [00:15:31] Speaker C: Yeah, the numbers I gave for, for what it's worth to people came from churchofjesuschristtemples.org which is not an official website of the church. It sounds like it would be, but it's not so but they've got a page on statistics and that's where I got mine from. But yeah, that was the first thing that came to my mind was like how many? And, and I, to me it just like I kind of was expecting it. I thought, you know, President Nelson, he announced so many temples and from what I understand, plans were not even underway for some of them that he like, he, he announced them way before they got like they used to make sure they had all that, like they had the plot of land and they had permits and everything before they'd announce. And he was just. We've, we've decided we're going to build there and we're going to announce it and we'll get everything else figured out later. So. Oh, this is great. This is. Looks like it's from an official church website and this is from the church. [00:16:25] Speaker B: Church newsroom. So this is pretty official. [00:16:28] Speaker C: So. Yeah. [00:16:28] Speaker B: Hey, so it looks like the Google AI was right or close to right. [00:16:31] Speaker C: Well, the goo. The, the AI probably pulled it right from this page, I'm guessing. But yeah, 28 templates dedicated, four more scheduled for dedication. That's 32 plus 56. Eight and yeah, 88 I think did I do that math right, maybe 98. I don't know, someone in the comments might be better at math on the fly than I am. [00:16:56] Speaker A: We're not getting any math checkers but we are getting some opinions from different people, some saying that like oh, I don't think the temples are going to slow. I do think we need to catch up. You know, the Shanghai temple is impossible with the government right now, so that one's gonna be really hard. Also I do want to shout out a couple donations from D. Tom 76. Thank you so much and also Scott Soward. Really appreciate that every donation helps. We're supported by the Ancient America foundation whose mission is to advocate for the church by supporting content creators and other organizations who defend the faith and bring people to Jesus Christ. And we're really just getting started in a lot of ways so we appreciate all the help we can get. Thank you so much. But the back to the temples. Agreed. I think 200 temples, like it was just we were bound to need a catch up. And so I don't know what the future will hold. It's ultimately up to the brethren and the Lord. But like my impulse, my instinct is that we may see a slowdown of temple announcements. I mean President Nelson pushed so hard so fast that I don't know, I just sense that like maybe we do need a period of stability and calm before we like ramp up with more changes. But who's, who's to say what's going to happen? [00:18:06] Speaker C: Yeah, so I do think, I don't know that like slowing down on the announcement necessarily means that we're going to slow down on the building. Like saying hey, we're not going to announce for a while as we like build and as we continue to build all the ones that have been announced and like give it, give it time to catch up. But that's still a lot of temple building we're doing over the next, you know, few years. And then who knows, like once we're, once we get close to, to having those done, maybe we just see another explosion of announcements and maybe behind the scenes they are plan making plans for a while even though they aren't announcing, who knows what, what will happen. But I do just want to stress it like hey, there's still a lot of temple building that's going to happen to get these 200 done. And so that's just not really necessarily a slowdown I think. [00:18:58] Speaker B: Yeah, just a slowdown. And yeah, as you're saying announcements, I don't know if there's any other Temple things going to touch on. But Ryan Strong has a fun comment that we could address here. We could jump right to it. Speaking about President Oates, what about messaging on the Family Proclamation? Do you think canonization is in the cards for the near future? Honestly, I was maybe because my brain is biased and I'm wanting this to happen, but I was thinking it was going to happen. When President Oaks was speaking this afternoon, I thought he was gearing up for it. It sounded kind of like he was gearing up for a big announcement, and then it wasn't. However, as we were discussing with some other friends of ours, perhaps they're waiting for the First Presidency to be reconstituted before that's in the discussion, if it is at all. I will point out that the Pearl of Great Price was canonized in the same session of General Conference as John Taylor was sustained as church president in 1880. So I, if I could wave a magic wand, I would want President Oaks to be sustained and the Family Proclamation to be canonized in the same session of General Conference next April, let's say. Wouldn't that be awesome? [00:20:07] Speaker A: Well, I know this is a very interesting conference because on the one hand, this represents kind of like a new presidency, but on the other hand, it doesn't because at the very beginning of conference, President Oaks clarified that, like, we are going to proceed with this conference exactly as President Nelson had previously planned and approved. So it's hard to say how much of, like, the contents of this conference can really predict or portend what the future may hold. But there certainly was some pretty strong emphasis on the Family Proclamation in this conference from several speakers. And so, I mean, who knows what's to happen? I know, Neil, you have like, you have a different opinion on canonization, if I remember correctly. [00:20:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I, so I, I understand the, I understand why people want it canonized. I have my feelings on that, though, is that by canonizing it, what you do is you actually depreciate the value of a united statement from the First Presidency in Quorum of the Twelve. And I think what, what they've been trying to tell us for kind of a long time, and there was even like a newsroom statement in 2007 or 2008 or whatever that explained that doctrine in the church is determined by the standard works and the united voice of the First Presidency and quorum of the 12. And I think the messaging for a long time has been like, hey, these proclamations that we're putting out, these are establishing doctrine. And you have a lot like, I know There's a lot of debate, and people argue about stuff online. They say, oh, but it's not canon. So whatever. But like, I think when. When they decide to make a statement unanimously as the quorum of the 12 and the first Presidency, that's supposed to carry weight. That's supposed to carry authority, doctrinal weight and authority in this church. And, and what you do, when you decide to take one of those statements and canonize it is you're kind of saying, yeah, these don't actually quite hold that same weight until we take this next step, a next step further. And I don't think they want that. I think they want us taking the Family Proclamation, the Living Christ Declaration that they did, you know, in. In the year 2000, and the restoration Proclamation from a few years ago. I think they want. [00:22:17] Speaker A: They. [00:22:17] Speaker C: They want us treating that as authoritative doctrinal statements as they stand. And I. So I think it depreciates the value of when they speak in this united voice. And one thing I thought, speaking of this topic and connecting it to conference, I thought it was interesting that Elder Rasband told the story of when he was being called into the Quorum of the twelve and he was, you know, I think it was President Nelson, I assume that he was talking to, who held up the proclamation and pointed to, you know, a proclamation of the First Presidency in the Quorum of the twelve Apostles. He said, you are now a signer of this, in effect. Right? That by becoming a member of the Quorum, you are. It's. It's your proclamation as much as. As it is your predecessor's proclamation. [00:23:03] Speaker A: He said, this document is now yours. I think it was how we worded it, but yeah, it was probably. [00:23:09] Speaker C: And so I, I think again, I think there, like, there's definitely some messaging here. Like when this comes from the. The office, like the, these, these 15 men, as in a united voice, it's not just coming from those 15 men. It's coming from the people who hold those offices and callings and, and as they die and are replaced, the people who replace them in the Quorum and in the First Presidency, it continues to be their proclamation, their statement. Right. And that's what gives it that authority. So I would, you know, I would kind of like to see it. I mean, I. Again, if it, if it's canonized, I'm not going to complain, but I, I just, I don't. I don't like the idea of diminishing. Like, hey, let's just take seriously, when they speak in a united voice, like this because they are the head of like they're the, they're, they're the ones who are at the head of the church and they're the ones who have the stewardship to receive that revelation and to make and declare doctrine. And so let's, let's take them seriously when they, when they do. And let's not like split hairs over whether it's canon or not. Like that's kind of my feelings on it. [00:24:20] Speaker A: Taking a pause real quick. [00:24:21] Speaker B: Those are good thoughts, Neil. [00:24:23] Speaker A: He says keep up the good work. And then also we have one from not your average Dan saying, sometimes the temple announcements can detract from the council and purpose of General Conference, becoming a cultural meme. I love to see new temples. However, it was nice to see the pause. We also had a question from Dino Collins saying, I heard President Nelson was the primary author of the Family Proclamation. Does anyone know what the truth of this is? [00:24:48] Speaker B: It was also mentioned in the biography of President Oaks. I'll pull it up. By the way, I turned my camera off just for a minute here for everybody watching. You kept seeing it was going blurry for some reason. I'm not sure why that is. Hopefully we'll get fixed here in a minute, but I might, you might be missing my, my beautiful face for the rest of this stream. Hopefully not. [00:25:05] Speaker C: But we'll, we all know Steven's trying to hide. [00:25:07] Speaker B: I'm not shy, I promise. I'm not shy. I just. Yes, it's just for some weird reason it's blurry and it's distracting. So keep talking. Let me look up. I actually have the Mormoner article on the origins of the Family Proclamation here. I'll put it in the chat real quick. [00:25:21] Speaker C: I don't know who the primary author was, but I know that like people have done like side by side comparisons where they show that like various talks that different apostles and First Presidency members gave in the years leading up to the, the issuing of the Family Proclamation have very similar wording and verbiage. And so a lot of it was kind of pulled from different talks that apostles and prophets gave in like the late 80s, early 90s. And then it came together and then I don't know who was kind of the leader on, on like smoothing out and, and putting it all together. [00:26:00] Speaker B: Yeah, here it is from the Turley biography. In the fall of 1994, at the urging of Acting President Boyd K. Packer, the quorum of the 12 discussed the need for a scripture based proclamation. Da da da. A committee consisting of Elders Faust. That's James E. Faust Nelson, also Nelson and Oakes was assigned to prepare a draft. Their work, for which Elder Nelson was the principal draftsman, was completed over the Christmas holiday. After being approved by the quorum of the 12. The draft was submitted the First Presidency on January 9, 1955, and warmly received. [00:26:34] Speaker C: All right, so it sounds like Dino was right. Nice job, Dino. [00:26:40] Speaker A: Very interesting. And I've heard so yeah, like you said, I've heard people try to claim that like, oh, president or President Oaks was the main, like, thrust behind this because he's a lawyer and this was directly in response to a specific legal case. So this was more of just like a legal political policy thing more than doctrine of revelation. And I feel like Elder Rasband's talk specifically really addressed those head. Head on. And so maybe we just go directly into Elder Rasband's talk because I feel like that one in what it was the Family Proclamation talk, and I feel like this one is like the new gold standard for talking about the Family Proclamation because it really does like hit on the head and address every major talking point I've heard about the proclamation that like, was it in response to a legal case in Hawaii? So it's more of a political document than revelation. Is it revelation and was it, you know, written by just like President Oaks as a lawyer or was it like the combined authority of the 12? And you know, what, what does gender really mean in the proclamation and what does this mean for the future? How authoritative is this document? And I do feel like President or Elder Rasband hit that on. And what was cool about this one is it was, I think it was kind of an iteration of a BYU devotional he gave just a couple weeks ago. So this year is the 30th anniversary of the Family Proclamation. It was given in the October Relief Society meeting before General Conference in 1995. And. And this year, 2025, in October, it's the 30th anniversary. So on that date, September 23rd, BYU had a devotional where Elder Ras Band spoke and talked about the proclamation and in strong and beautiful terms. And so then this was kind of a condensed and refined version of that, I feel like. Did you guys have any thoughts on that particular address? [00:28:34] Speaker B: Elder Rasband? Yeah, I thought it was awesome. And if you go to the Mormoner article that I mentioned earlier, that also lays out a lot of this. It was really great to see a convergence in kind of what we already knew about the origins of the proclamation. But to get what sounded like sort of a head on discussion about it was Nice. No, the Family Proclamation was not just like written as, quote, just a legal brief, quote unquote. Right. Like, yes, that was an important context to why they felt they needed to draft the family proclamation. Oh, yeah, perfect. You've got it right here. So check out this to get some more in depth history behind it. It's also worth pointing out that, like, this is kind of how revelation works, if you want to put it that way. Like responding to current events happening that church leaders are responding to, that they have questions about or they need a response to. What does the church say about X, Y or Z thing? Like, this is not like a new thing. And so just relegating it to the status of purely. It was just this reactionary thing for the same sex case in Hawaii. And, you know, a bunch of anonymous lawyers wrote it. I've heard that claim before. Right. That it was just an anonymous committee of bureaucrats and bean counters that wrote this as if that was therefore meant to diminish its revelatory or doctrinal status. All of that, I think, was addressed very well by Elder Rasband and is also addressed well by this Mormon article. Like, one of the questions, wasn't the family Proclamation written by a BYU law professor? It's like, well, no, we know who wrote it. It was this quorum of the 12 Committee. Of course it went through. Yeah, I was going to say it went through different sort of legal minds to get their opinion on how it might relate to the question about same sex marriage. The legal question, and lawyers were consulted. But it's not like, oh, lawyers just wrote it and then the church just adopted it or something. [00:30:30] Speaker C: It would be so impenetrably written if it were written by lawyers for legal purposes. Like, you do not understand. This is not how lawyers write a brief. [00:30:44] Speaker B: Oh, and a lawyer was on the committee, no less. For heaven's sake. Two lawyers, James E. Faust said Delaney. [00:30:50] Speaker C: Jokes, I do what I would like to maybe put. Like, I just want to push back on these as cultural narratives in general. Like, whatever the truth is about them. Like whoever was actually like the pen to paper writer, whatever the circumstances were that motivated the writing of it. Right. The bottom line is the first presidency in quorum of the 12 sign their names to it. Right. That makes them the authors, for all intents and purposes. They are. They are giving it their stamp. Right. This is the same, Stephen, you study Ancient Near Eastern studies and you study Egypt. Right. Like, if there's an inscription that's commissioned by the king, he may not actually be the one putting the chisel to stone to. To write the inscription. He may not even be the one who composed the words. There might have been some scribe, court scribe or whatever who composes the text. And there's some other, you know, there's some stone mason or whatever who engraves it on. On the stone walls or whatever, but it's still Ramses II inscription because he's the one who commissioned it, and it's under his name and under his auspices that it's being done. [00:31:58] Speaker B: Yes, you're right there, Neil. And I would say Joseph Smith even did this. Joseph Smith had ghostwriters, William W. Phelps and others that would, that would write these things for him. So if you read Van Orden. Oh, goodness, what's his name? He wrote the biography of Bruce Van Orden. W. Phelps. Bruce. Thank you. Bruce Van Orden. He makes this argument that, like, yeah, pretty much a lot of stuff that Joseph Smith wrote in Nauvoo that we attribute to him was probably William Phelps and then Joseph Smith just like, hey, this looks good, man. Let's publish it. But we still attribute it to Joseph Smith as the quote, unquote, author of this thing. So that might include the Wentworth letter, some of these editorials in the Times and Seasons, right? Different things that get published. But anyways, you get my point, right? His presidential platform, for crying out. We know that William Phelps helped him ghostwrite that one because he even says as much in the minutes of the meeting discussing it. So just because it's not even true in the case of the Family Proclamation, in that case, it was an apostolic committee headed by Elder Nelson. But even if it is true that it was just written by some, some church lawyers or bureaucrats or whatever. Yes, Neil, ultimately, the first presidency and the 12, they're the ones who affixed their imprimatur to this, and they published it under their authority and under their office. So in that case, this just becomes a moot point. [00:33:13] Speaker C: And so, yeah, and so it still carries the weight and the authority of a document commissioned and written by the First Presidency and quorum of the 12. And so, yeah, I just think that, like it. I think it's valuable to have, have the, the accurate narrative getting out there. And, you know, obviously, great work on, on the Mormoner page and excellent to have Elder Rasband dispelling some of those myths. But I do think it's just important to recognize that even if those things were true, right, this is still a First Presidency, Quorum of the 12 document. It's. It's their authority and their signatures that go on it. And, and if we are serious about taking them seriously as prophet seers and revelators, then that should be enough for us to accept the document as authoritative doctrinal statement. Right? That's. Yeah, that's how it is. So what I appreciated though, both about Elder Rasband's talk and President Oaks's talk at the end where he talked about the Family Proclamation is I did appreciate that like, we did like neither one was like fixated on, on like the cultural issues that, that people have that, that kind of, I feel like conversations about the Family Proclamation sometimes get reduced to. Right. They were talking about a lot of the principles and there's so much in there for, for us to, to learn from and to study and to incorporate into like our, our family life and our practice. And there's so many principles and stuff that go way beyond just like, you know, just focusing on, on marriages or marriage is ordained of God. You know, marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God. And then taking that as like this anti lg, LGBTQ sort of statement. Yeah, there's, there's more to the Family Proclamation and, and there's so much important information and counsel in there. And both Oaks and Rasband, I felt like, did a good job pointing to a lot of that other stuff that is good counsel for families to follow. Right. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Right. Well said, Neil. [00:35:25] Speaker A: And so if I remember correctly, we had Elder Rasband giving kind of a more thorough discourse on the Family Proclamation. President Oaks talked about the doctrine of the family. And then I think we also had a mention from D. Todd Christofferson. If I remember correctly, it wasn't the focus of his talk, but he did mention the Family Proclamation as part of the framework of what he was discussing. So we did have quite a few mentions of either the document or the doctrine of the Family. And like I said earlier, this was all pre planned and approved by President Nelson. So I don't know how much it like, portends what a presidency under Oaks looks like, yet. It, I, I do find it interesting that President Oaks has been so highly associated with being like a staunch defender of the Family Proclamation. And that is a pretty strong theme of this conference nonetheless. So I don't know what that means, but maybe it's, you know, President Nelson had to mind foresight, maybe, who, who knows? But it was really interesting. And I've been trying to dig a little bit more into President Oaks since President Ellison passed away. And I'm probably going to do like a post on this on my socials at some point later. But I, I compiled a massive document with all 500 pages of the talks that President Oaks has given in General Conference since 1971 and put it into chat GPT, like, asked it to, like, show me some trends and some patterns and like, what are the top themes he often tackles. And because President Oaks is so highly associated with the doctrine of the family and defending the proclamation, I kind of expected that to be a more prominent theme. But I was somewhat surprised to learn if ChatGPT can be trusted on this, that the biggest one was actually like a covenant path framework, that the plan of salvation, the whole goal, the whole picture is us becoming like our heavenly parents. And therefore, in order to get there, we need to keep these covenants. And as part of that is the family. But really like the covenant path and the covenant framework has been definitely the most common theme. This, I mean, it was like, in like 50% of his talk, something like that. And then further down the list of themes is the family. So clearly, like, the family is an important thing to President Oaks, and I wouldn't be surprised if we continue to see more emphasis on the doctrine of the family. But that's not like the thing that he like, it's just not the 1, 2 note that he keeps pressing necessarily, like he's got a much broader picture in mind. So besides just the family proclamation and no new temples, were there any other things that were different about this conference that you guys noticed? I have a few. Okay, I'll just go then. [00:38:04] Speaker B: All right. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out my stupid blurry webcam. Sorry. [00:38:08] Speaker A: I mean, it's probably just your bandwidth. [00:38:11] Speaker B: But it could be. [00:38:13] Speaker A: So when it comes to the things that were different, the fact that it was conducted by many members of the Quorum of the twelve Apostles, because we don't have a first presidency, they weren't the ones to conduct the meetings. And so we had Elder Stevenson conduct one of the sessions, Elder Bednar conduct a session, Elder Cook conduct a session, and Elder Eyring as well. So I thought that was kind of fun. It was like, kind of just like a fun mix up to see these different voices being the ones to lead the meetings. And, and I don't think it has anything to do with like, who's going to be called into the First Presidency, but it certainly made me think of like, oh, could I see them in the first Presidency? Oh, yeah, sure. And. And so that was kind of fun. The other thing that was different is, well, we have a new hymn book this conference granted We've had, you know, new hymns coming out for a long time now, but, I mean, for over a year, but still. This was the first conference where I remember, like, not all of them, but I felt like most of the hymns that were chosen for conference were selections from the new hymn book, including several multicultural ones. So what was it? Was it Saturday evening? There was a multicultural choir from the Utah area and they sang. Oh, what was the name of the song? I don't remember, but it was a Tongan song from a Tongan Latter Day Saint, and it was absolutely beautiful. And it was so cool to feel like we're expanding our cultural repertoire as a people and that we're just like, exposing ourselves to different cultures because we are a global church. This isn't an American centric church anymore, and we need to start acting like it. And so I loved seeing that integrated into not just our weekly worship, but like general conference. The big meeting that we have as a church is highlighting these beautiful hymns from a variety of perspectives and cultures. So I loved the music a lot, personally. [00:39:59] Speaker B: So agreed. I thought, I'm looking up the name of that tongue in hymn that was translated into. Into English right now because it is part of the new one and it's awes. [00:40:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. Really? Yeah. I feel stupid. I couldn't remember the name. Probably someone in the chat is. Is telling me what it is, but okay, so as far as music goes. [00:40:17] Speaker B: This is the way Jesus. [00:40:18] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. [00:40:19] Speaker B: That's right, the song. [00:40:21] Speaker A: Cool, cool, cool. So besides that, besides just like the music and the things that were different, let's talk about, like, standout talks from this conference. We already talked about President Ras or Elder Rasband. We talked a little bit about Dallin H. Oaks. But before we move on from that, I'll just say that, like, that was one of the most moving moments in conference for me was hearing him testify the doctrine of the family. Because usually we hear it in context of pushing against cultural issues, cultural trends, but for this one, like, he really peeled back the curtain. And him testifying the doctrine of the family was a completely personal and visceral thing for him. Like, this was like. It felt like this was his why for why he believes the family is so important is that because he lost his father when he was seven years old and he was raised by a single mother and he felt like he had a fractured family, a broken family, an incomplete unideal family, and yet he saw how his grandfather stepped in and said, I will be your father, and he saw extended Family and ward, family like step into either, fill gaps and heal wounds and really stand together. And so for President Oaks, I mean he just, you know, he wants his father and so like to see how the family proclamation, what that means to him personally and how, what hope he holds for the future of eternity where he can be reunited with his parents forever and how he can be sealed to his posterity and his family forever. Like it just, it gave a more personal side to President Oaks that I had never really seen before. That was moving, it was emotional, it was a beautiful thing and it helped me appreciate his perspective on the proclamation a little bit better. [00:42:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I had never, Stephen maybe was aware of it because he's read the biography, but I had never heard that, that story about his father passing away. I had no idea that his dad died when he was just seven. And you know, it broke my heart hearing, you know, this, the story of this, this poor little seven year old boy. Like we all look at President Oaks as this mature, accomplished legal scholar, former Utah state supreme court judge, apostle, first presidency member, but you know, to just have it, have it like go back to like he's just this seven year old boy who lost his father and is just totally heartbroken over it. Like yeah, that was, that was really different, you know, context for, for that and it was really touching. I agree. I, I liked seeing a little bit more of a personal side to President Oaks. [00:43:07] Speaker A: Okay, so besides President Oaks, his talk, what others were stand out to you? [00:43:12] Speaker C: I think, I think we all know we need to go to Kevin Brown. Elder Kevin Brown, was it? Kevin G. Brown, was that. [00:43:20] Speaker B: I was just gonna say get, yeah. [00:43:23] Speaker C: Get the G right man. [00:43:24] Speaker B: Eternal gift of testimony. That's right. That man, what an absolute banger that talk was. [00:43:30] Speaker C: Yeah. Absolute fire. So amazing. Get that man on the program for next conference. Like so good. I loved, I loved his, his passion and his energy. I loved that he talked about his own experience and related it to the first vision. Right. And could give you the exact address and room in the house where he had that, that like testimony, gaining experience. It was incredible. I don't know if very many people saw it, but Chris Blythe for Angels and Seer Stones went on afterwards and did a little short of his own where he talked about his own sacred grove for where he first like got that witness. And I thought that was great. It would be amazing if there could be a whole trend on social media of people telling their conversion stories and telling where and where and when they first knew the church was true. Right. And had that Sacred Grove experience. That would be. That would be awesome. But, Stephen, it looks like you have some. Or, I don't know, is Jasmine. [00:44:36] Speaker A: I pulled up the memes. I just thought they were funny. [00:44:38] Speaker C: Jasmine's got the memes. Okay. [00:44:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I. He was kind of like this underdog that popped out of nowhere. I mean, not a lot of people were very familiar with this general authority. But then he gets up, gives such a charismatic, passionate testimony of having a testimony that, like, Twitter was just exploding with memes of praise of how cool this guy was. Like, is security. Is security seriously just going to stand there while a man is on fire? And then, you know, like, footage of Elder Brown walking back to his seat. Stuff like that. Like, it's just silly. But, like, I, like 100. It was so. I felt just very energized. I felt so pumped up, like, yes, I should not be ashamed of my testimony. And so often we feel, or, like, we talk about, you know, when you go through a faith crisis or you're having questions like that testimony fading or reflecting back on those experiences and questioning them as if, like, oh, maybe that was just elevation, emotion. Maybe that was just me. Maybe. Am I sure that was really divine. But to hear him so powerfully testify, like, no, your testimony can be stronger over time. You don't have to look back and question. In fact, it should get you through thick and thin. And it was just so fiery and cool. [00:45:47] Speaker C: I. I really. I really appreciated the statement that. I don't know, I'm maybe gonna get it wrong, but something about how there's no greater way to use your agency or he can think of no better way to use his agency than in defense of his testimony. And as you know, as a. As a hack apologist myself, I appreciate when. When defending faith or defending testimony gets mentioned in general conference. I. I appreciate that because I do see that as something that. Yeah, that's. This is something I've consecrated myself to doing is. Is defending my own faith, my testimony. And. And so anytime that gets mentioned and anytime, you know, you have him, he commends that. That's a great way to use your agency. I hope more people will take that to heart, not. Not to shame everybody, but everyone. I hope more people will take that to heart and. And think about what. [00:46:46] Speaker A: That. [00:46:46] Speaker C: What more they can be doing to actively be not only bearing testimony, but defending. Right. Defending their faith and their testimony. We need. We need more voices that. That are willing to do that. [00:46:58] Speaker A: And I just want to point out that not your average. Dan, thanks for your other contribution says to me it felt like loving counsel from everyone in unity touching on topics we will need to endure what is soon to come. A personal reminder of the essentials in a loving tone. P.S. add more Tonys. I assume he means add more Tonys to the quorum of the 12 and to like the general authorities. It's true. I've. I don't think I've had. I haven't heard of like an Anthony or a Tony since like Anthony Ivins. [00:47:25] Speaker C: Anyway, I think, I think there's something else going on with Tony's there. I saw some other jokes online about Tony's and I admit I don't know. I'm not. [00:47:34] Speaker A: That just went over my head. Oops. [00:47:36] Speaker C: I am. I am so not, not hip enough to know what's really going on with the Tony's jokes. [00:47:43] Speaker A: Okay, well, besides Elder Browns, one that I really appreciated was Elder Holland's talk. And I know it's cliche because Elder Holland is always everyone's favorite, but there's a reason for it. So that was Sunday morning session and me and Neil were there in person this morning. It was so cool to just feel, to be in person for that and to feel the spirit because he testified of his own experiences and how we shouldn't be embarrassed of the small and simple things. And I feel that one keenly because so often you hear these miraculous miracle stories or conversion stories or like I went through this experience excruciating ordeal but then I had this pillar of fire experience and I was converted and like that's never been my experience. It's always been like slow and simple line upon line. And I think it can be easy to want to look down on those experience because they came from small and simple means. Now he used that opportunity to talk about like the coming forth of the Book of Mormon came from small and simple means like a 14 year old new York farmer or Jesus Christ healing the blind man came from simple means mud and sand spit. And how like there's nothing more simple than that. And yet it doesn't dismiss the fact that the source is coming from God. The gift and power of God. And so when we encounter our own experiences in life, we shouldn't be ashamed or embarrassed of the simpleness of the means. Instead recognize that it's truly is divine and it is still miraculous and it is beautiful. And at the end he did something I'd never seen before. I mean he sang. I mean he tried to sing. He, he qualified it with I have a very diminished voice now and it sounded like he couldn't even carry a tune if he wanted to because, I mean, just of his age. But he sang the first verse of Amazing Grace, or he like kind of spoke talk them, recited the verse. And it was just so sweet, very beautiful and touching to hear that simple but profound expression of faith and devotion. And that is one of the hymns that I absolutely love. I'm so glad Amazing Grace is in the hymn book now, because that's one that speaks straight to my soul. And so I just. It was cool to hear that over the pulpit at General Conference. [00:49:58] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I really liked Elder Holland's talk, not least of which for similar reasons to Kevin Brown. Kevin Brown mentioned defensive testimony. Ella Holland twice mentioned evidence. Again, as, as someone who, who likes to deal in, in the realms of defense and evidence, I always appreciate those kinds of shout outs. But what I really liked, you know, he, he did talk about the simple means and things like that, but he also talked about how this blind man went before the Pharisees or before the Sanhedrin. I, I don't remember the exact details off the top of my head, and how, you know, they were trying to dissuade him from believing in Jesus. And he's like, look, I don't know anything about, you know, all of this theological stuff or whatever. What I know is I was blind and now I see. And that kind of direct experience, you know, call it experiential evidence, if you will. Someone more philosophically inclined might use terms like that, but that kind of direct experience where, well, what I know is I was blind and then he touched my eyes. He spit in the dirt and touch my eyes and I see now. Right? That's what I know. And I'm gonna follow that. That is, speaks like the power of our own spiritual experiences and our own life experiences and how much they really shape our faith and our testimony and how like, they really do, like, trump all kinds of other, like, people can come at you with all kinds of reasons not to believe or whatever, right? But at the end of the day, like, the experiences you've had with the Lord and the experiences you've had in this church, they're going to, like, they should hold sway. They're like, it's hard to beat that kind of direct encounter with a miracle, right? And you see that in the, in the restoration, in the founding generation. I mean, we talk about the witnesses all the time. These are people, like, why some of them left the church. But why did they never deny seeing and handling the plates, seeing an angel. Because it happened, right? And like, look, they may not have been sure about everything Joseph Smith did, but they couldn't deny that, right? They saw with their eyes, they handled with their hands. And even beyond, just like the main witnesses, like Emma Smith, right, she talks about, we talked about this in our episode with Garrett Dirkmaat, right, how she talks about being a participant in the early events of the Restoration and still it was a marvel to her, right? She couldn't explain it. Nothing that happened after that could dissuade her from the miracle because she experienced it. She was witness to it. You know, Oliver Cowdery, right, was similar. You know, he, he has that famous statement, these were days never to be forgotten, right? Oliver Cowdery experienced these things and whatever else happened and whatever falling out he had with Joseph, he could not deny those experiences and what he witnessed. And, and this miracle still, like, had a pole on all of these people because they, they directly witnessed and participated in it. And, and so I, I really thought that was, that was powerful. And we may not, you know, I don't know about anybody listening, but I've never gotten a chance to see and handle the gold plates or, you know, I was never blind and suddenly could see. But, you know, I've had my own experiences that, that, that have a hold on me and that, that keep me here and, and that, that tell me this is where the Lord wants me. This is the, this is God's true church. And, and, and I feel like, you know, I, I just really appreciated Elder hall and drawing attention to that and, and just being like, look, this kind of experience, it's all the other, like. And I'm not. Look, I love to deal with the arguments, right, and, and all of that. I love to deal with that. But the, the direct experiential evidence, if you will, is, is the highest order, right? And it's the most important. [00:54:06] Speaker A: So we do have some people in the chat correcting and educating us on what the. Tony's joke was all about. It was. So it's Creole seasoning and it was a reference to, to Brother Amos's talk when he's talking about, like, making good gumbo. You need a good recipe, and the perfect ingredient is always Jesus and how we need to add more Jesus in our lives, like more spice in our lives. So Tony's is a reference to that. [00:54:32] Speaker C: Okay. Elder Amos's talk was great and I, I really enjoyed that. Yeah, that accent was just great. [00:54:43] Speaker A: Yeah. So the other talk that I really appreciated was. I think it was the first Talk of conference. I'm trying to go. So, no, it wasn't the first. Yes. So after Elder Oaks's introduction to conference, Gary E. Stevenson gave the real first address discourse of conference. And he. I thought it was really sweet. He gave kind of a tribute to President Nelson. And really, his whole talk was a tribute to President Nelson because it was about peacemakers. Now, at the very beginning, President Dallin H. Oaks gave an introduction to say, yes, the elephant in the room is President Nelson has passed, and we're in an apostolic interregnum, and his funeral will be on Tuesday. And so the conference is going to go exactly as planned. We're not going to have a solemn assembly this conference. And he also said, and we ask all the speakers to keep their tributes to President Nelson to a minimum so that we can, you know, keep the program moving forward. And so it doesn't just become a eulogy in itself when this is supposed to be focused on teaching the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I thought everyone, you know, kept to that really well. But Gary E. Stevenson, you know, talked on peacemaking, and that was one of the big things that President Nelson emphasized during his tenure. And I feel like it was just such a needed thing. So I know going into this conference, we've had the broader conversation of violence against Latter Day Saints, with the Michigan shooting, violence committed by former Latter Day Saints, with the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the passing of President Nelson. It's just been such a heavy time for Latter Day Saints. I know I went into this conference just feeling the weight of all of that and just looking for some balm, some relief. And I felt like this talk just instantly was a salvo. It was just something that completely spoke peace to my soul and helped me put into perspective what we're really supposed to be doing here. It is not about, you know, getting angry at those who we feel have wronged us. It's not about pushing back. It's about being disciples of Jesus Christ. And that means standing up for what you believe in. But it also means being a peacemaker. It means, you know, blessed are those that are persecuted for my name's sake. And how can we love our neighbor better? How can we love the Lord better? How can we do all of this? So that was something I really appreciated. Oh, there's. Okay. The next one that was given. I'm not going to go through the whole list, but I'm tempted to was Sister Browning. What I loved about Sister Browning's talk was that she talked about primary music I don't know the history of General Conference, but at least in my living memory, I don't ever remember a talk given about the importance of primary music. But I thought it was so great. Like, as she was giving her talk the entire time, I'm just like running tick tocks through my head of people who have made fun of primary songs for being this brainwashing indoctrination. But all I, but as I'm like thinking of those and then hearing Sister Browning testify of the power of this music, it's like, well, yes, of course you, like, every child is brainwashed and indoctrinated with something like, as a parent, don't you want to have influence over like what those teachings are? It's. If you're not going to teach them what you believe in, the world is going to teach them what they believe in and the Tick Tock's going to teach them and you Instagram's going to teach them. And so of course we want to teach our children the things that we value and the things that are important to us so they can then make their own decisions as they grow up. And so I love the emphasis on how primary music can be instructive, obviously, and educational, obviously, but it also, music speaks to the soul and that is like the language of the spirit for me. I, I just resonate with music. And so hearing primary music talked about in such an inspiring way, honestly, just, it, it really, it was cool. I loved it. [00:58:25] Speaker C: So I, I do want, like, the idea of brainwashing is like, it's not really a thing. What, what does happen, right, is socialization. And you're, you know, every, every child is born into a, into a culture and into a society and into a family of some kind, and they get socialized to certain norms and certain beliefs and all kinds of things. And yes, for, for religious people like ourselves, socialization to our religious beliefs is, is part of that. And one of the ways to do that is through music. And I, I really liked Sister Browning's talk. I was trying to find a quote that she gave that, that I, I can't remember exactly what it was, but I, I really liked. She did have a quote I really liked. It meant a lot to me as a father who is, who's raising a, A little girl who is just getting to the age where she's starting to try and sing along and she, she will learn the words to songs and she'll try to sing along and she'll do actions and stuff like that. And so, you know, kind of witnessing in real time this developing testimony, if you will. And, and, and she's learning, you know, these different gospel truths and stuff through music and through song. It, it was really touching to me to see a general conference talk dedicated to that, to that concept. [00:59:51] Speaker A: That is really cool. So I'm just getting words that there is a chapel in Sydney that just got destroyed by fire. I know we're focusing on general conference here, but in the context of violence against Latter Day Saints, just heaviness. A Mormon church in Sydney's west has been gutted by fire in the early hours of this morning. So it sounds like it happened around 3am this morning. There's no injuries or casualties, but they're still investigating the source of the fire, so. Interesting. So it's not clear if it's arson yet, but there is another church building under fire. Cool. Well, any other talks that people really loved from this general conference? Those were kind of my big highlights. [01:00:39] Speaker B: Yeah, can I, can I, can I share something real quick? [01:00:42] Speaker A: Please? [01:00:42] Speaker B: Here, let me actually share my screen too. I think it's going to be this one here. So Elder Cook on the Lord is hastening his work and I hope that if this is blurry on the stream, maybe I'll have you do it. Jasmine, Sorry about that, but I just wanted to share some numbers from Elder Cook about in recent years, years and months. So this was what Elder Cook in six months, nearly 900,000 converts have joined the church. So that's just south of a million. These converts constitute approximately 5% of the total church membership. In the first six months of this year, conversions have risen by more than 20% over the previous year in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America. In North America, we have seen a 17% increase. That's kind of awesome. And here's this great little infographic here. That's great because like, basically what it means is that the CES letter has failed. And I think that it's good to have a correct perspective on church growth and church membership. There's this narrative that like the church is just circling the drain with its membership and with its growth. Now certainly there have been problems and there's been slowdown in some parts of the world and there's challenges. But this idea that like it's a net negative every year or that like just people are fleeing and bailing left and right, that's just not really accurate based on the numbers here that Elder Cook is reporting. I also saw somebody who said in response to this infographic, yeah, but you know, the church is only growing in places where they don't have easy access to the Internet. And I know, Jasmine, that you one time have kind of tackled this talking point as well. First of all, that's not the flex that you think it is. And you need to kind of, dare I say, check your privilege a little bit here. If your response is dummies without the Internet, they're the ones who are joining the church. You mean the people like in Africa or South America? Those people. Yeah. Maybe think that went through a little bit more, but it's also just not true. A 17% increase in North America based on this right here. So I just thought that was great to highlight. Now we don't want, we don't want to. I just want to say we don't want to rest on our laurels here or pretend like there aren't issues to face or things to address or whatever. Right. But, but this narrative that I see it all the time, right, that. [01:03:27] Speaker C: The. [01:03:27] Speaker B: Church is hemorrhaging members, the growth has just flatlined everywhere. The Internet has sort of, you know, killed Jordan Church once. And that's just patently false. And so it's good to keep that perspective. [01:03:41] Speaker C: Obviously, Steven, that 17% increase in North America is coming from the people who don't have Internet in the United States and Canada. It's. [01:03:50] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. Maybe they're like up in like northern Canada in the Arctic Circle or something. [01:03:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Before we continue on, just want to shout out missionary discussion. Thank you so much for your donation. Travis Anderson. You are the gentleman and the scholar. [01:04:05] Speaker C: Well, I don't know about the good old Travis with Travis, but. [01:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah, just kidding. [01:04:11] Speaker C: Love for Travis. [01:04:12] Speaker B: No, just kidding. [01:04:13] Speaker C: We're friends with Travis. [01:04:14] Speaker B: We, we like Travis. Thank you for that. [01:04:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I actually found this infographic really fascinating and obviously it was talked about in, in Elder Cook's talk. I had never thought to put like the recent convert totals in perspective of like what percentage of the church that constitutes. And it's actually really interesting to think about like 5% of the church have not even been members, have only been members for three years or less. And that kind of puts a new perspective for me at least on a lot of things like church curriculum and programs and things like that. Like realizing like, honestly for me as a lifelong member who has this bookcase of, of books behind me and all of it, like this is, I am not actually the target demographic of like church produced curriculum. Right. Because they're trying to meet the needs of this, like this 5% of really new, you know, just brand new church members who are still trying to get the basics down and things like that. And I, I can appreciate the challenge. I mean, obviously the rest of us are also part of the target audience for church curriculum and things like that. But I can appreciate the challenge of trying to produce curriculum that can meet the needs of these brand new members of the church, but also for people who have been in the church their entire lives and you know, and sometimes and people who are, who are recently reactivated and have been out of the church for 15, 20 years or whatever and, and people who are coming from just all kinds of different life situations and backgrounds. Like it's hard, it's hard to figure out like how do we produce curriculum that's going to meet all of these people's needs. And so that really kind of put something that, that sort of stuff in perspective for me. We are a young church. We're a lot younger than we maybe think or realize. Sometimes a lot more of the church is, is rel. Like and being in Utah, sometimes it's hard to appreciate because you have a lot of like long time pioneer stock. But there's a lot, a lot of people are a lot more new to the church than we realize sometimes and they're some of the most active and engaged people for sure. [01:06:31] Speaker A: I see some people in the comments, a couple people have mentioned that it felt like a farewell address from Elder Holland. So I don't know how long we have with Elder Holland, but he certainly, I mean he was passionate about it and who knows how much longer we have there. Those were kind of all the highlights. Neil, did you have any other highlighted talks you wanted to point out real quick? [01:07:00] Speaker C: You know, we could go line by line through all of them. I mean so many were really good. Peter Johnson, Power of Ministering to the One I thought had a lot of great stuff in it. Elder Christofferson's talk on look to God and Live. Really good using the Brazen Serpent story and, and how that's used in the Book of Mormon. Just want to shout out. I have a paper on that that was published by the Interpreter Foundation. Serpents of Brass and Fire. It's actually, it's really kind of dry and technical and doesn't relate that much to Elder Christopherson's talk, but go check it out if you want to. But yeah, a lot. There was just so much good stuff in this conference. [01:07:49] Speaker A: Oh, we just had a Gary Gentry donate and say in our word here in Florida. We've surged with 25 plus baptisms this year so far. Oh, my gosh. We typically have. Wow. Each year. That is. That is pretty huge. That's incredible. Neil, you said you had one more. [01:08:06] Speaker B: Awesome. [01:08:07] Speaker C: Well, I. I don't know if I. I mean, I guess I do. Elder Matt Holland. Oh, yeah, he talked about Jonah, right? And he. He made this relation to the plan of salvation to the fall. And I mostly, like, this is almost a question for you and Stephen, because I couldn't find it. I think thought someone had talked about. Not a general authority, but I thought in. In some scholarship somewhere, someone had talked about Jonah being related to the temple. But I could not find anything along those lines ahead of time for this. So I don't know if you guys have any. Any commentary or insight on that in. [01:08:49] Speaker A: Particular, but I know someone's done, like, a paper on Jonah as a temple text. I haven't really looked into it much, but I did like his talk. I thought it was very creative to connect Jonah's trials to, like, Jesus Christ, the sign of Jonah, which is the man who is three days in the tomb and then rose again. The way he, like, connected those two stories, I thought was really creative and. And cool to reflect on. [01:09:17] Speaker C: But I did want to maybe. [01:09:20] Speaker B: Actually, I will say real quick, started to cut in, Neil, but with. With the whole Jonah and interesting tidbits from it. I know that Dom Perry, in his Hebrew lessons that I took at byu, and I think he's published on this, he has tried to make an argument that fish and then was sort of like revived or brought back to life. I think that he kind of gets that from the idea that when he says my Nephesh was in Sheol at one point, right during this is like. I think this is Jonah 2, where it's like the. The prayer inside the. The fish. So I think. I don't know, maybe that's kind of a stretch, but it is kind of. It's a poetic, you know, thing that he's saying or whatever. So did his Nephesh literally die in Sheol in the underworld, or is it just sort of a figurative thing? But that would tie in nicely with, of course, the. The Christological reading the Elder Holland made that, I mean, Jesus himself makes in the New Testament. So that's kind of interesting. [01:10:24] Speaker A: Yeah, you keep cutting out a little bit on your audio, so you might want to cut your video to help. But I agree, and I love that. I think it was Elder Holland, who was the one who also included a Hebrew reference to Hesed, the covenantal love of Jesus. And I Love, you know, that's like a very ancient concept. This idea that hesed is a very special kind of love. It's not just like affection or infatuation. Like this is something where you're bound together because of something as saw it as a covenant. And so wherever you see loving kindness in the King James version, that's often using the Hebrew word hesed. And so like I loved Elder Holland tying that in wherever we can bring in Hebrew and conference, the better in my opinion. [01:11:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I tried. I tried to tie in Hessed to a sacrament meeting talk once and I like barely knew anything about what I was talking about. This was like 15 years ago or something, I don't know. And it did not work out great. But Elder Holland did a much better job. But I did actually kind of want to maybe use that as a springboard. The. His talking about Jonah did remind me as I was listening that at the virtual Fair conference coming up next weekend. So if people, if people aren't aware of it, there is a. There's a virtual conference. It's free. You can. It's just going to be live streamed just like this right now. Right. So you don't need to go anywhere or be anywhere for it. But Virtual fair conference next weekend, October 9th through 11th, on the Ancient Truths for Modern Faith Defending the Old Testament in Latter Day Saint Doctrine. And the lineup they've got for this is absolutely stellar other than this Stephen O. Smoot fellow they've got on the lineup. But John Gee. John Gee will be presenting on Jonah there at that conference and it's titled the Historical Jonah, which is intriguing because Jonah is generally regarded as an ahistorical. Stephen can maybe speak to the genre it's considered being. It's like. Is it like allegory would be the right word? I don't know. But he's going to be making a case for historical Jonah. So go check out that conference. There's a lot of other great presentations it looks like. I just thought that would be worth shouting out here. [01:12:51] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [01:12:52] Speaker B: I agree. Except for the Steven Smoot guy, but all the others look really good. [01:12:57] Speaker A: Well, go check out the fair virtual conference coming up this week on the Old Testament to prepare for. Come follow me next year, which is Old Testament, but that's pretty much our wrap up of conference. We thoroughly enjoyed it. I love conference every year and I feel like this time it was really a balm to my soul with all the heavy stuff going on. So the talks haven't been published yet, but they usually show up in the Gospel Library app within the first couple days after conference, so you can check those out on the church's website. There'll be summaries on the church newsroom currently. And please study these over the next few weeks and months because these are the words of our living prophets today. And we will see you guys next time. [01:13:37] Speaker B: And I will try to fix my wi fi. Sorry about that.