Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, sorry for technical difficulties getting started, but this conference was record breaking in so many ways. There were a number of historic occasions that happened at this general conference. April 2026. And so we're going to be going over all of it. Welcome to Informed Saints. My name is Jasmine Rapley. We're joined here with Neil Rapley and Steven Smoot. And man, this is going to be great.
In one word, hot takes or what were your thoughts on this conference? One word each of you.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: For me it was revivifying.
So like I, I felt amped from this conference. Right. Like my, my tank is full for the next six months. I'm ready to go. The, the joke I wanted to make is, okay, Star wars reference to start off the bat to start our live stream here and the Empire Strikes Back. Luke has his gunner Dak in the back. He says, how you feeling? The deck says, I feel like I can take on the whole Empire myself. Right. Like that's kind of how I feel right now after General Conference.
And so that's, that's my initial hot take response. That's how I'm feeling.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: All right, Neil.
[00:01:12] Speaker C: Inspiring. I don't know, I don't really have a one word sum up for this one.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: All right, well let's get dive right into what made this one so exciting. So I'm going to be sharing my screen today because there was a lot that happened this general conference, especially when it came to new callings and record breaking baptisms.
Let's share my screen. Let's do screen. Come on.
So basically the biggest thing that happened right now is we've had boom.
General conference recap. There were many announcements. There was a solemn assembly, there was a new primary presidency called with historic, historic connotations or implications and then record breaking baptisms. So on Saturday afternoon it was so intense that the newsroom servers just crashed. People were trying to find out like, who's the names of these new women in the presidency, who's the names of the new 70? And no one could access the newsroom. That's how big a deal this was.
But one of the biggest pieces of news I think was that the former primary presidency consisting of Susan Porter and Amy Wright and Tracy Browning have been released. They've been serving since 2022 and they've been a pretty impactful group of primary presidencies because they've really pioneered a lot of the face to face programming and they've done a lot to like have the growing faith series move forward, which now that I'm a parent is a big part of my life. So they were really, really awesome. And they were released after four years, which was surprising to me because I kind of assumed that most of these auxiliary general offices were about a five year calling. But nonetheless they called instead three ladies, one of which is of Malawian and Zimbabwe in descent. Well, she's Malawian but lived in Zimbabwe. One from Japan and one from Utah.
So Rosemary K. Chibota, this is, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm. I mean, this is definitely the first African primary president we've ever had and I'm pretty sure it's the first African president president of any presidency we've ever had. Does anyone know if that's the case?
[00:03:21] Speaker C: Absolutely no idea.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Yeah, no, not to my knowledge.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Okay, well then this is really exciting. And also Nina M. Garfield and Teresa A. Collins. So, Rosemary K. Chota, when I posted about this, I had so many people in my comments saying like, oh my goodness, she is amazing. She just is so accomplished. I had never heard of her before, but it sounds like there's a lot of good things to come. She is well educated with a master's degree in management and leadership. She serves as a Sunday school teacher. She's been a district young Women's president, but she and her husband have served together as mission leaders in Alabama and they have one child. Very interesting. And then Nina Garfield, she currently lives in Orem, but she is born in Japan, she is half Japanese and she joined the church in high school. So she's a convert.
And also she's a widow, which I think provides an interesting texture to the presidency. I believe Susan H. Porter was also a widow while she served as primary president, but still, you know, it's a variety of life experiences here. And then Theresa Collins lives in Draper, Utah. So I think this is pretty significant because of what it represents for just diversity in church leadership. I think it's pretty exciting to see that we're at a point where we're having African and Japanese and I mean, we've seen it reflected in many of their presidencies and even in the primary presidency we see it as well. But to have a president be a woman of African descent I think is a really, really cool thing to see come full circle. Any other thoughts on primary
[00:05:00] Speaker C: cool?
[00:05:01] Speaker B: No, I, I agree with you. The diversity is really cool.
I'm, you know, we're, we're seeing this, I mean, go figure. We're seeing this trend with an international church of seeing more international leadership and I think that's pretty great.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: It's pretty awesome. So the other interesting thing was there was a release from the presidency of the 70s, Mark Palmer.
I don't remember exactly how long he had served, but he was given emeritus status status and was obviously released from the presidency and he has been replaced with Benjamin Mz Tai from Hong Kong. So again like really cool to see someone straight from Hong Kong in the presidency of the 70. So that was pretty cool. Other notable ones that were released were also Clay Christensen. He has been in for a long time and I really enjoyed his talk. So I was kind of sad to see him go. But that's how it goes sometimes.
And the statistical report came out. I feel like this is one of the big pieces of news from this conference. The statistical report was pretty highly anticipated because we knew Quentin L. Cook had talked about in last conference how there was going to be.
How this has been a period of a lot of convert baptisms in every part of the world. And so there's a bit of anticipation of what the final tally is going to be. How big were the convert baptisms? And as the statistical report laid out, 385,000 was the final tally. Which is pretty exciting. I mean it's pretty wild because especially when you see it in context of like over convert baptisms over time. This is a chart put together on Twitter by Sham Searcher.
He put crunch the numbers and you can see in the last like four or five years it's just really taken off. The former all time high of convert baptisms was in 1991 with around 330,000 baptisms. And now we're at 385, just blowing the previous record away. So that's, that's something to be proud of. I think that, I mean it's, it's very exciting to see that much growth happen with converts just this year. And I think it's, I think in some ways we're seeing a resurgence from COVID 19 where you see a very clear obvious dip there.
But we're seeing that across a lot of religious traditions as well. It's not just the Church of Jesus Christ that have seen a lot of new converts coming in. But I also think it, it helps that we've had quite the media spotlight on us and the Lord's work is just rolling forth. So that was really big. Any thoughts on the convert baptisms or statistical report stuff?
[00:07:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I just was gonna say so I was curious to see what the tally would be for three years, the last three years added together. I was hoping it would be over 1 million, but 2023 was like 251,000 and so the total came out to 900,000 something. So it wasn't a full million. But if we can eclipse 300,000 again for the third year in a row, we will have 1 million plus convert baptisms within a three year span. And I think that's actually pretty remarkable if you think about it. But it again, it speaks to. And I think we talked about this last time because Quintell Cook had talked about like the growth of the church, just how young the church is. Like a, a pretty large percentage of the church really hasn't been members for more than like five or six years when you start adding up all those convert baptisms. But the other thing I wanted to say was a number of years ago, I think it was probably 2021.
I remember looking at a chart similar to the one we have on screen here now. And it was actually Kirk Magleby, our director at Ancient America Foundation. He pointed out that there was this dip and then an uptick. And he said, this is a hinge point. And I looked at that and I said it's a little premature to be saying this is a hinge point that we have because, you know, numbers can go up and down and fluctuate for a variety of reasons. But now you look at it four years down the road, four or five years since then, and we see it's just kept going up. And you know, I think he was maybe onto something. There was, that was a moment that was a turning point in, in our church's history and our growth has just exploded over the last few years.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: And it's remarkable, it's true and I will say that.
Go ahead, Stephen.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: I was, I was going to ask, unless if we want to not touch on this just right now, but what do these numbers say about the whole the Internet killed the Mormon Church narrative talking point theory?
Right? Because like I look at these things and I'm like, that's just like clearly not true.
I mean the dip in 2020 can be easily explained as, you know, COVID 19.
That's, you know, that's not because, you know, Reddit became super popular that year or something, you know, so I don't know, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. I just kind of think that that theory has now kind of once and for all been like, you know, blown out of the water that like. Well, and here's the other thing about this. So I have this statement from Elder Cook.
He says in the last 36 months, nearly 900,000 converts have joined the church. These converts constitute approximately 5% of total church membership in the first six months of this year. He gave the statement in 2025.
In the first six months of this year, conversions have risen more 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.
So the other thing that you can't sort of claim is that, well, it's in all the parts of the undeveloped world where they don't have the Internet yet, because that's, that's the claim I've heard before. So, like, yeah, all the dummies, you know, in the Global south, they don't have the Internet. Well, obviously they're being taken in by the, you know, the fraudulent Mormon Church. But people that have the Internet, they're not joining. Seems like that's just not true either. So I don't know if you have any thoughts about that, but I think these.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Well, I think it's interesting.
I think it's interesting that you were hearing a lot of this, especially even before COVID like, oh, people are leaving the church in droves. This, the Internet is killing the Mormon Church. I've heard that a lot in, like, 2016, 17, 18, 19, around that period. And if you look at that chart, like, you do see that our convert numbers were lower. So I'm not going to, like, go ahead and say that, like, oh, everything they said is false. Like, clearly they were feeling something.
And I was just looking at a study the other day that was looking at Utah Mormons specifically. And I'd have. I still have to look at the study a little more closely, but it does appear that Utah Mormons were more likely to disaffect during that period than Latter Day Saints living outside of Utah. And so the biggest critics of the church who are making these claims were often the ones that were living in Utah. And so I could see them, like, feeling that demographic shift that there were more Latter Day Saints in Utah who were leaving the church during that period, even if it wasn't reflected more broadly across the entire global church.
And it's probably important to note that children of record being born is not nearly as impressive as, like, this line of new converts. Recently we've been getting a lot of converts, but our growth in children of record is more modest. And then there's a conversation about retention. Now we're still in a religious decline across the United States. In some ways, though, it's plateaued. A little bit over the last few years. And there's some evidence, like Justin Dyer, we had an episode with him on Informed Saints where he talked about how Latter Day Saints are particularly good at retention. We. When it comes to their faith compared to other religions. So there's a lot of things to say that the Latter Day Saint church has a lot of strength when it comes to growth and retention and membership overall. But that's not to say that there haven't been, like, bumps in the road or that there isn't a more complex conversation when you look into the numbers. But clearly when it comes to converts, we're on the up and up. And when it comes to retention, we do remarkably well. And when it comes to having lots of children, we do better than many other religions, though our fertility rate is declining as well. So I don't know, we're kind of a.
We're part of the larger trend of declining religion, but we also do better than many other religions in some respects.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: So, yeah, I mean, and I think that. Thank you for saying that, Jasmine, because I didn't want to imply that, like, we should just be resting on our laurels. Right. Or that, like, there's. There's nothing else for us to worry about or no complexity in these numbers. I just think that any sort of monocausal narrative, any narrative or explanation for this, that kind of distills it down to one simplistic thing, which, you know, in this case is the. Well, once people get the Internet, they stop being religious and they, they realize the Mormon Church is a fraud. Like, seems like that's just, like, not true.
Yeah, it would be interesting to compare this. So I've read some headlines recently about how there's an uptick in converts to the Catholic Church, especially among like, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, or I guess not Gen Alpha, but at least Gen Z and kind of younger millennials. There's, there's a big surge in conversion to Catholicism. I wonder how that maps, how these numbers from the new statistical report, how that maps compared to sort of new Catholic conversion and you know what that says about, you know, the decline of like, you know, mainline Protestant churches and things like that. I think Ryan Burge is the guy on that sort of tracking these sorts of numbers. Mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, Roman Catholics, etc. So, yeah, more, more interesting stuff to look at in the long term. But I'm excited by this. I think this is great. We're almost near 18 million membership. We'll probably get there in 2026.
And so that'll be great.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:58] Speaker C: I mean I was just going to say reiterating some of what Jasmine said, but there clearly was some stagnation in our growth in the 2010s and I actually, I want to modify what I said. I think what Kirk identified as that hinge point was actually that 2019 bump you see right at the end of that stagnation and that kind of going, that, that decline. And I think it's fair to say had it not been for Covid, based on what we see in the rest of the trend line, we probably would have just seen a continuous upward trend.
But, but yeah, it is important to keep in mind that this is not tracking, this is just tracking convert baptisms. It doesn't keep track of, it doesn't map that on to how that compares to disaffection rates and obviously like activity rates and, and, and all of that sort of stuff is, and how many people act. You know, I know a lot of people have started to talk about keeping track of like membership numbers based on self identification rather than how different religions report their numbers because those, those numbers of self identification are, they reflect how people themselves, what religion they affiliate with, you know, personally. And obviously there's a lot of complexity that goes into tracking all of that. Right.
And so, you know, it would take someone to do a study that, that can compare all of that different sort of stuff. But like Jaz mentioned when we talked to Justin Dyer and he's doing some of that kind of work. Right.
But that's that I don't think any of that should overshadow. Right. The, there's a lot to be excited about here with these convert baptism numbers. And, and as we talked about with Justin Dyer, there's also a lot of, of good work that we could be done in terms of disaffiliation because he noted that a lot of people who disaffiliate really, they just need to feel like they belong. They need someone to come by like. And we heard a lot about ministering right in this conference and, and so get out there, start working with, with your, your less active brothers and sisters. And there's, there's over 50% of them according to the numbers that Justin Dyer had. I think if I'm remembering those numbers right, go watch that episode or read his paper to get the, get the accurate information. But there's a good chunk of them who, who could get, who are willing to come back to church. They just need to feel like they have a friend and like they're welcome Right. And so we shouldn't read too much. I think sometimes people take disaffiliation as a sign of disbelief or like real like strong disaffection, but that's not always the case and that's not even necessarily usually the case. Right. There's a lot of reasons people disaffiliate and, and they may come back and we want them back. We want to try and get them back if we can. So.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Well said.
Yeah, there's. Speaking of the Internet killing the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, someone said, I recently met a Harvard grad who had joined the church along with an MIT PhD student. Apparently they don't have the Internet either.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Well, MIT and Harvard, those famous infamous Mormon backwater apologist diploma mills.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Bad.
[00:18:05] Speaker C: Yeah, those aren't elite institutions.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: A couple people in the comments have mentioned President Eyring that he kind of predicted that the church would be seeing growth coming soon. Several years ago he made that prophecy. You could see now in retrospect.
So other people have crunched some numbers. I didn't go into looking into all of these, but I would be interested to see all of these graphed like total membership, new children of record converts and missionaries. Because this has been a hallmark year for the church, not just for convert baptisms. But recently in the church news they said that seminary is. And institutes had reached all time high enrollment, I think with like over a million seminary students, which is insane. And so I imagine that there's just. This has been a hallmark year for the church in multiple respects. Media spotlight, growth in numbers, really impressive stuff.
[00:18:58] Speaker C: And that those seminary enrollment numbers I think are actually a really important metric to keep your eye on precisely because they represent the engagement of the rising generation. Right, right. And we're not even talking Gen Z at this point for seminary. We're, I think we're probably talking about Gen Alpha. Yeah, right. But that high enrollment rate is, is indicative of a high activity rate among youth. Right. So it's, it's probably not an exact measure, but it's, it's a good indicator. Right?
[00:19:29] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: So the other big.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Oh, I just wanted to mention because some, some people in the comments were also saying, and we touched on it too with like retention, like that's going to be a big, a big indicator or an important sort of indicator.
In addition to a million kids going to seminary now I think it also says something like the amount of temples we have operating. Oh look, you've got it right there. Right. Over 200 temples operating with over 170. That are like announced.
Like again, unless if you want to take the really cynical and I think stupid and dumb idea that like the church is just building temples to stick them in random places in order to like, you know, trick the government into thinking it's spending money so it doesn't get taxed and these temples are just sitting empty and they're not being used and it's all just kind of like a big shell game to, you know, trick people in thinking we have an active church. Like, no. The fact we have so many temples to accommodate the needs of a growing membership, I think is, is another good indication that these are, these numbers have some meat on them. Right. That they have way.
[00:20:28] Speaker C: The church doesn't, the church just doesn't waste millions and millions of dollars if, if our finances should tell you anything. Right. It's that we don't build and spend money for, for the, for the sake of appearances. Right.
So yeah, I absolutely think that's, that's indicative.
And you know what, it may be true that, that the activity, the volume at all of these temples is probably not as high as what, what it used to be. I know like when I was growing up, the, the volume of usage in the Jordan River Temple, which is the temple by my house, was really, really high. It was one of the most high volume temples in the world. But now there's the Ochre Mountain Temple and the Draper Temple and honestly like even the Orem Temple and Mount Tipanoga Temple and all these temples that have been built around in the area, obviously that volume is going to go down, but it's, it's because there's a high volume in the first place. The church says, hey, we need to, there's, we need to do a better job maybe distributing some temples around this area and meeting people's needs. Yeah. So the volume is going to go down in individual temples, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a need. Right. And that's actually a good thing because it means that it's easier for people to get to the temple in, in places that are easier for them to access.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: On going back to the primary presidency, someone did make a comment saying that there is an African among the presidents of the 70. And that actually is an important clarification. Edward Dube is in the presidency of the 70. And I guess I wasn't even thinking about that because I was thinking like president, but there is no president of the 70. They're like multiple presidents.
So like that is like the highest. So technically, yes, that would be the first is Edward Dube, and then now Sister Chibota is the second. So thank you for that clarification. Any other thoughts on church growth?
All right, the other thing that happened was the solemn assembly. So that happened Saturday morning. And this is a ritual where the Latter day, the body of the Latter Day Saint Church will sustain and have a ritual vote for the new president and prophet. After President Nelson passed away in September, President Dallin H. Oaks. Was it September? Yeah, it was September. It was the end of September. President Dallin H. Oaks then became the. The head apostle, which makes him de facto the new president of the Church. But he was not sustained and set apart, or he was not sustained as the body of the church until Saturday morning. And it's a cool experience because they have every single quorum, every single class stand up individually and put forth your sustaining vote. And this was the first time we got to do that with, like, our daughter. And it was really cool to see her excited about participating in that as well. Any thoughts about that process?
[00:23:10] Speaker C: I mean, I don't have a lot of thoughts. I was just trying to do the math in my head about how many. How many of these I've done as far as I can remember. I can remember doing it for President Monson and President Nelson, but I must have done it for President Hinckley and, and Howard W. Hunter as well, but I would have been really little. I don't really remember. But it is something. It's. It's kind of neat because it allows everyone in the church to participate, but not just like, as in a generic, like in the body of the Church, but like with their peers, you know, And I think for the youth in particular, that's probably a powerful experience. They collectively, as the youth of the church, as the young women and as the Aaronic priesthood holders, get to get to sustain the president of the church. And they're given. They're given an opportunity to do that on equal footing, really, with everybody else.
So I think, you know, that is kind of a neat experience, I think, for, for youth.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: What do either of you think about the fact.
My wife commented on this afterwards? We were talking about it.
What do you make of the fact that the Relief Society voted before the Aaronic priesthood?
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Oh, is that new? I did notice that, but I didn't know if that was new or not. I. I mean, I love it. I think it puts adult women on par with adult men. So I don't know if that is a change from the past, but I. I do agree. I think that's an important but very subtle change.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought that was interesting and significant.
Oh, shoot. There was something else. Oh, yeah? Do you want to know my kind of hot take on this whole thing with, like, sustaining the Brethren and stuff like that?
[00:24:49] Speaker A: I guess we're gonna hear it.
[00:24:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: It's not so much a hot take, perhaps, as it is more kind of an interesting observation.
So in the Book of Mormon, when Mosiah institutes his reforms in Mosiah 29, and we abolish the monarchy and we go to the system of judges, it says that the judges are supposed to be chosen by the voice of the people. Right? This famous phrase in Mosiah 29.
But, like, throughout the rest of the Book of Mormon, the chief judge is, like, kind of appointed by, like, Alma and then his successors.
And, like, the people just are kind of like. They give their, like, vocal ascent to the appointment. I kind of feel like our sustaining process is a similar thing, or at least the way it's kind of evolved today where we're not really, like. Like, the whole idea, like, by common consent, we affirm, you know, the new prophet or whatever.
Like, it's not really like we're voting for him or, like, you know, it's more like, hey, he's. He's the guy from the process that the Lord has inspired.
We're all cool with this, right? Everybody, please manifest it. So, I don't know.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: I just truly affirm it more than we're democratically voting for it.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. That's what I mean to say. I just. I bring this up because I. I've seen some people who especially sort of have a more kind of capital F fundamentalist bent who kind of get upset that, like, well, we're supposed to do this by common consent. And, you know, Dallin H. Oaks was just made the profit back in September, and look, six months later, now we're finally, you know, voicing our consent or whatever, and I'm like, yeah, I just don't think that's how that works. Really. It's not like a democratic election, really. It's like, hey, this is the profit. We all cool with this, you know? Or, like, kind of your. Your signaling that you are on board with, like, what's already, the decisions that are made. I don't know. That just kind of popped in my mind yesterday, that connection with the. The way that the chief judge works in the Book of Mormon. You know, Alma just appoints the people. Like, okay, I guess it's Ni Fiha now, that kind of thing.
[00:26:46] Speaker C: I think, I mean, I think there is maybe something to that. There is the, the case with Pahoran where, like, there is kind of an election between his three sons. But it is interesting to note that, like, the options are limited to his three sons. It's not really like an open, an open democratic process where anyone could run.
It's kind of an inheritance and they just can't decide which of his sons deserves it. But I do think, I do think you're right about how the common consent is supposed to work and how it typically works. And I mean, I haven't done a historical study. There's probably people who have. I don't. But my intuition is that it really wasn't that different at the early days of the church either.
And I want to say something about the idea of opposing because, you know, I do hope that people, you know, if you don't sustain them, you are given that opportunity to oppose. Right? You're, you're given your chance to, like, voice your assent or descent if you want to. Right.
And, and I know it can maybe feel like, obviously the vast majority of people just sustain and it can maybe feel silencing if you're one of the few who oppose and you're directed to talk to your stake leaders and stuff like that. But I think it is important to keep in mind that, like, that process, again, I can't speak historically to whether this is how it always worked, but my intuition is that this is really what it was always for. That process is meant to give people who maybe know something about the character of that person that is, is actually really important and potentially disqualifying to be able to speak up, to have that opportunity to do it. Right. And so, so when you take your concerns to your stake president, like, that's fine, and they're going to listen to you and they're probably going to take it up the chain or whatever, but it's not going to make a difference unless, like, you really, like, you knew that person personally and you knew something that just wasn't uncovered in the process of vetting that candidate that is potentially disqualifying for them, especially when it's on the local level.
[00:28:51] Speaker A: Yeah, bishop was called, but maybe, you know, something about their past that was never disclosed or something like that.
[00:28:57] Speaker C: So, so I think, I think we just have to put both the sustaining but also the opposing and proper perspective and understand that, like, just because there's a minor amount of people who oppose doesn't invalidate the common consent process. Like, oh, because these People opposed and their concerns were never heard. It's not like, no, that's not how it works. Unless you really knew something that could be potentially disqualifying for that person to fulfill that calling, then like, yeah, go talk to your stake president about your concerns. We hope that they can be resolved in a amicable way and you can come to sustain these people.
But they're going to carry forward in their calling. Right. And that's going to be what, what happens again, unless there's some major bombshell that you happen to know.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Well, let's not forget the fact that the reason now why we you're told to go to your stake president is because like 10 years ago, let's be real, a bunch of exos and others like kind of performatively were standing up and shouting, you know, all in favor, please manifest. All opposed. No, you remember these infamous kind of things. And so like it's like you guys didn't have any good reason why you were opposing Thomas S. Motts and you just didn't like him because of gay marriage or whatever. Right? That's not what this process is about. So yeah, I think you're right, Neil. And it's interesting to see the evolution of it over time for sure.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: So another interesting thing from this conference was that they changed the title cards. I know this is a super minor thing, but multiple people have mentioned this that they're no longer put Elder Patrick Kieran or Bishop, whoever the Presiding Bishop is right now, or Sister so and so and President Bishop Waddell or President Uchtdor of anything like that and they dropped it. And people have been speculating why. I think the consensus of what I've been hearing is that it really is mostly for translation that anytime you have translate anything into dozens of languages, just like the cost and complexity just goes up. And so they thought maybe it would be easier this way.
But also I kind of like it. It makes it a little bit more intimate, accessible, approachable. And someone also pointed out that potentially it was to just make it easier for non members to be a little bit more accessible to. Or when you're clipping things for social media, it can be just like simpler instead of confusing.
I do think there is a little bit of confusion that gets introduced because I would often forget like they would announce like oh, Elder, so and so of the 70 will be speaking. But then they get up and I'm like, wait, is this in the bishopric or the young men's or the 70, I don't remember. And so, so In. In some ways I miss it, but in other ways, I think it makes a lot of sense.
But what as now that we've kind of gone over the big announcements, here is the kind of the list of who spokes. We've got the Saturday morning lineup, We've got the Saturday afternoon lineup, the Sunday morning lineup, and the Sunday afternoon lineup. So according everything I know, there is no.
The church has not posted the talks online yet. Obviously the YouTube live stream is still up, and so you can like, watch the whole thing if you want, but they haven't posted the individual talks yet or the text of the talks. But now let's take some time to just, like, highlight some of the highlights of General Conference.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: We.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: We're not going to have time to go through every single one, but we collectively have kind of coalesced around a handful that we thought were noteworthy to talk about for one reason or another.
So let's just dive in.
Stephen, do you want to highlight one of the ones that you thought were really interesting to start us off?
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Let's go to President Uchtdorf.
We must encounter the empty tomb.
I thought this was great because this is his first talk that he gave as the acting president of the quorum of the 12.
You know what? As a matter of fact, maybe I can share my screen because I have it pulled up here.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: Go right ahead.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: Let's see here.
Sorry, I'm just trying to fiddle with my.
Oh, it's not letting me share. Oh, well, whatever. It doesn't matter.
So, Elder Uchtdorf, President Uchdorf, I should say, experience the empty tomb.
I think that for an Easter address from the acting president, the quorum of the 12, this talk was pitch perfect.
It was focused on Jesus Christ.
President Uchtdorf is a witness for the name of Jesus Christ in the world and affirming the resurrection, affirming the reality of the living Christ who is guiding his church today.
And so I think he just kind of nailed it out of the park.
I'm. I'm pull it up here. I. I want to see if I can find.
I think it was. Yeah, here we go. This. This was one of my favorites. Okay, so this is kind of a paraphrase and a quotation. Finding the empty tune. Mary and her friends heard. Two heavenly messengers pronounced that Jesus had risen. This encounter at the empty tomb changed them forever. President Uchtdorf said it changed the world.
The message of the empty tomb is that Jesus Christ is not merely a historical figure, the apostle said, and that he is not confined to the pages of a book any more than he was confined to a grave of stone.
I love that. And the reason I love that is because, you know, like Neil, I'm a giant nerd who spends a lot of my time doing biblical studies and reading books on the life of Jesus, the world of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus. Right.
And it's sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm not just, you know, reading this as like a, like I'm not just trying to approach Jesus as a scholar, as a New Testament, Old
[00:34:56] Speaker C: Testament biblical guy or whatever.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: What was that deal?
[00:34:59] Speaker C: I said the historical Jesus, as they say. Right. Like that's in, in the academy. That's what. Let's, let's study the historical Jesus. And this is, you know, President Uchtdorf's like, no, no, no, no. He's more than just a historical figure.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. There's, there's this tendency to want to separate the, the historical, the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. Right. This famous sort of formulation that you get. Yeah. President Utrop just like kind of takes a bazooka to that whole idea that you can separate these two.
So I, I really, really appreciated that. That was kind of a wake up call for me in some ways to get my nose out of my books and focus more on living discipleship and living as a Christian.
I, my wife and I, in order to elevate our personal Holy Week observation, we recently bought two small crosses that we've been wearing occasionally during Holy Week just to again, kind of focus and remind ourselves of obviously the covenants we've made by wearing our temple garments every day. But, you know, as appropriate and as tasteful, we will now wear our little crosses like on Holy Week, Easter, things like that. You know, just another little gesture that we have tried to make in order to remind myself, ourselves that this is a living faith, a living discipleship. Right. So I love that. That was great.
Let's see what else from President Uchdorf.
We must.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: My question is the encounter at the empty tomb. I've heard so much speculation about. He said specifically that I have had a spiritual. That I've.
I don't know if you have the quota, but like I've seen with my, with my spiritual eyes when I was. Oh, I've stood in the empty tomb. I assume he's referring to the garden tomb in Jerusalem. That I've stood in the empty tomb and with my spiritual eyes, like, I know that Jesus Christ is not among the dead, but is among the living. He is risen. I think was an approximation of that quote. And people have been like, does that mean he had a vision of Jesus Christ? Is this just that he had a strong spiritual experience, a strong impression that this was true and any thoughts on that?
[00:37:06] Speaker C: It means the tomb wasn't real. It means it was, yes.
[00:37:12] Speaker B: In the comments here, saying that, oh, well, Elder Uchtdorf is clearly saying that he never went to the empty tomb and it never existed. Right.
No, I. That stood out to me, that language of spiritual eyes. And I, you know, I don't want to venture a.
A speculation on what that fully may have entailed, but, you know, deep down inside I, I want to believe that it means something more significant than merely, oh, I just had a nice feeling when I was there. You know what I mean? Like, he could have just said that. He could have said I had a strong impression or whatever. Right.
Yeah, I felt eternal.
[00:37:49] Speaker C: He chose. Sorry. Other words. No, no, I'm interrupting you. It's fine.
But I, I do like, One of the tricky things with spiritual eyes is it means different things to different people, right? And it's historically, literally across centuries by, by Christians and, and people of other fa. Other kinds of faith traditions, mystics and things like that. And it's been used to mean and to imply all kinds of different things. Right? And so it's like I. You do have to pay attention to the user and how.
How they tend to use it. And I don't think we have a large enough corpus of. Of Elder Uchtdorf or President Uchtdorf's spiritual eyes statements, right, To. To be able to go through and analyze his usage and what it might particularly mean. But that in and of itself is significant. It is not something he would. He frequently says or asserts to have seen things with spiritual eyes. And so it probably.
It means something specific and probably, like Stephen is saying, it probably means something stronger than, you know, I had a spiritual experience.
The brethren know how to tell us when they've had, you know, spiritual promptings and have had revelation come to their mind and things like that. He chose. He chose this particular language here. And I. Again, I don't want to speculate too much, but what's important to me and, and I. This was one of the ones I had. I had kind of tagged for discussion as well, because I, I really liked it.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: It.
[00:39:23] Speaker C: He is, you know, he is the head apostle, right Now President Oaks is the head. Head apostle, right, but for the quorum within the quorum, right? He is the head Head apostle, and he opened our conference on Easter Sunday standing As a witness. Right. That Jesus is risen. Right. The tomb was empty. Jesus is not found among the dead. And like Stephen, I find that incredibly powerful and incredibly significant. It's his first address as the acting president, as the head apostle, as the head of the quorum, and. And kind of as voice for that quorum to a certain extent.
And. And I find that incredibly significant because obviously we. We put both the. The quorum of the 12 and the First Presidency up there as prophets, seers, and revelators.
They are all special witnesses of Jesus Christ. But the quorum of the 12 particularly has the unique and specific calling to stand as witnesses of the name of Christ. And that's a. That's a big thing. I noticed several of them making that distinction in this conference. And that was a big thing for President Oaks when he became an apostle, and he studied it and he. He said, oh, we're supposed to be witnesses for the name. Right.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: But they have that from the Doctrine and Covenants. That's like the technical language of it, but functionally, it kind of amounts to the same thing, I believe.
[00:40:43] Speaker C: Right, right. And so, you know, there's. There's. They. They have this specific calling of being the special witnesses of Jesus Christ to the world and traveling the world to bear that witness. And so I found it incredibly significant that on Easter Sunday, the head of that body, the head of that quorum, opened the conference by being a witness that Jesus Christ is living. And.
And so, yeah, I. I think that's incredibly significant. And I. I would like to say I. You know, it must have been a very significant spiritual experience of some kind for President Oaks or, excuse me, President Uchtdorf.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: So thank you, Travis, for missionary discussions, for your super chat. Spiritual eyes is based.
Amen. Amen. Yeah.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: You know, what else is based is one of our general authorities thing. He was a money digger when he was a kid. That was pretty.
[00:41:33] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, it was the Argentine Elder Walker.
[00:41:37] Speaker C: Elder Walker, yeah. First. First treasure digger we've had in the. In the.
Since Joseph Smith.
[00:41:46] Speaker A: Supporting the channel is also based as missionary discussions. Thanks, Travis.
So, in addition to Elder Uchdorf, there's a ton of conference talks we're not gonna be able to cover necessarily, but I know I was touched personally by Elder Coze. This was his first address as an apostle, and I felt like the conviction and the call to administer more to the one. But it was also Elder Clark Gilbert's first address as a new apostle, so that was significant. And it was President Uchtdorf's first address as the new President of the Quorum, acting President.
But I really liked Emily Bel Freeman's. I was so pleasantly surprised at how just solid and doctrinal and compelling her address was. I also loved Elder Ronald A. Rasband. I think that one probably is my favorite talk from this conference because he focused on the hands of Jesus Christ. And I'm totally going to be using this talk a lot when I teach temple prep in the future because he has some fantastic verbiage about the outstretched hand of Jesus Christ and the prince in the hands of Christ's hands and in his feet to like recognize Jesus and how he is. The purpose is to perform miracles and to reach out and to bring into a closer relationship with him, which is what the temple endowment is all about and the sacred symbols that are involved there. And so I loved it. I think he's fantastic in the way he brought together these different ideas of Christ's hand outstretched and us reaching out to Christ's hands was just really, really touching to me.
Neil, what was a favorite talk of yours?
[00:43:16] Speaker C: Well, I, I also really liked Elder Rasban and it was another one that was focused on the resurrection. He is Risen, I think is the actual title. And he quoted that quote from, from Joseph Smith that I thought of during, while I was listening to President Uchtdorf that the fundamental principles of our religion is the testimony of the prophets and apostles about Jesus Christ.
I also liked President Freeman or Sister Freeman.
You know, she gave a great talk. I liked hers. It was also very Easter thematic, but she kind of looked at it through the eyes of Peter.
And I, I think, you know, I, I really liked her contrasting of best days and worst days because it made it very relatable. I mean, who hasn't had good days and bad days, right? And who hasn't sometimes had those roller coaster moments where you go from having a really good day to a really bad day just all at once because some heartbreaking news hits you right as context.
[00:44:14] Speaker A: She talked about how her daughter had just recently got engaged and she got the news that her husband's cancer had just got come back. And so it was like a best day and then it suddenly became the worst day. And yet no matter how bad your days are, your best days are still
[00:44:24] Speaker C: ahead because of Jesus and, and, and Peter.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: That roller coaster is what I feel whenever you come in the office, Neil,
[00:44:32] Speaker C: I always bring Stephen down.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: I.
[00:44:36] Speaker C: It's actually really interesting to me how, how like nuanced and complex a character or a figure Peter is within the New Testament, which to me, at least I I'm no New Testament scholar, but that really kind of speaks to the historicity of the tradition there for me. Because Peter is supposed to be the head of the church. You'd think if this was all being made up, he would be made to look really kind of top notch, squeaky clean, right? But he ends up coming out very, very human and very complex in the Gospel accounts.
But I, you know, I had actually been thinking a lot about the, over the last few days, the encounter of Jesus on the Sea of, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee when they were out fishing.
And I think sometimes we talk about that experience where Peter is like, he's reverting back to what he knows, right? He's going fishing and he's not, he's not following. He's not doing what he's supposed to be doing. And so he needs the Savior to come here and, and prompt him once again to go. And, and, but I, I, and, and there's, I think there's value and we can learn things from, from that particular framing.
But I, I've been thinking a lot about it because I feel like, you know, I feel like if I were in Peter's situation, that's probably what I would have done too.
Not because, not to permanently just go back to fishing. But you think of the trauma they all just went through and, and the weight that must have, that Peter must have felt on his shoulders because he knew the rest of the 12 and the other disciples were all looking to him as a leader, like, what do we do? What do we do now? What, where do we go from here?
And like, when, that's when I'm kind of in that position where I'm at a crossroads in my life, I liked, there are certain things I like to go to and do that allow me to clear my head, right? And allow me to think.
And it's not fishing for me. But I imagine there's probably a lot of people who listen to this that, yeah, they love to go fishing when they need to think, right? I don't know if very many commercial fishermen, which is what Peter would have been like to, like to go recreate and fish recreationally to clear their heads. But I like to imagine Peter was not trying to run away from his duties and responsibilities, but he was going and doing something that would allow him to clear his head and think.
And on that occasion, it, we don't think of it this way because it's, it's almost. Even though it's, it's literally a theophany. It's almost so mundane, the way, you know, Jesus is on the shore.
He tells them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. They sit down and they sup with him, they eat with him. But this is a theophany, this is a revelation, right? And so Peter went to clear his head, in my kind of head canon, if you will. He went to clear his head and think. And that was a process that brought about revelation for him.
And he had this encounter with the Lord and he got this commission, go feed my sheep, feed my lambs, right? And he got to affirm his love for the Lord three times. And that's a best day kind of experience. I feel like, not a worst day. That's a best day moment. And so I think, I really like that she drew on Peter's experience and she included that story. I think there's so much we can mine from it and learn from it.
[00:47:53] Speaker A: I. I agree. And I loved her, her drawing on Peter specifically because he sometimes is picked on as the.
The apostle who didn't always quite get it, but yet bringing him as example of he really was following Jesus Christ. And he still has best, like, he had great days as well as the ones that were he taught lessons with.
The other talk that I really liked was Elder Mutombo Mumbo.
What a heartbreaking talk. He talked about how he and his wife, in their early years of marriage, lost four children. I can't even imagine the heartbreak of losing four children. And then because of that, in the culture he was in, he's from the Dr. Congo, I believe they.
It would have demanded that he separate from his wife.
And yet he was sealed in the temple. And in that, in the midst of grief, when there was a lot of external pressure to separate from his wife, and there were people like, apparently like standing outside of his house ready to do it. He walks out there and politely says, no, I was sealed to my wife. And we. She is my eternal companion. And it was like. I mean, it brought me to tears. I mean, just the thought of the heartbreak. But also how the gospel of Jesus Christ helped him stand up to cultural practices. Sometimes people try to paint the church of Jesus Christ as this oppressive patriarchy that just harms women and harms minorities. But here is at least one example of a man who used the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ to push back against cultural traditions that would have harmed his family and would have harmed his wife particularly. And like a beautiful moment of bravery and courage to stand up against his peers and community because he knew of the truth of the gospel, that he has made a covenant to be with his wife no matter what and to stand by her. And that also relates really well to Elder Neil L. Anderson's talk, which was on marriage. There was actually quite a few in the Sunday afternoon session that were like back to back on marriage. He spoke all about the importance of that sealing covenant and sticking with your spouse through thick and thin. And every spouse goes through challenging times, but it is so important to stick through that covenant because it brings incredible fruits. I mean, the, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is unique in that we believe that the ceiling is the crowning ordinance. In many other faiths, marriage is a nice thing you can do or it is an option to do, but maybe the clergy is a higher way. But rather for Latter Day Saints, entering into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage is how you enter into the highest form of clergy, so to speak. The highest form, the highest order of priesthood is entering into the order of matrimony. And it's this beautiful thing that, that we believe it is so sacred that it's the crowning ordinance. And so I love both of those talks that highlighted the need for that and to just work through things that are hard. Life is hard, but marriage can be your greatest blessing.
[00:50:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I just, on that, I did want to say the, the other talk that I, that I connected with that in my head and I, I'm. I apologize because I can't remember his name. I think he was a 70, though. He spoke on Saturday. He was of Chinese descent, but he had spent, he actually joined the church while in South America, if I'm remembering correctly, somewhere in South America.
[00:51:20] Speaker B: Elder Wu, you're thinking of.
[00:51:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that is it. Wang Lang Wu. Yeah, so. And he talked about cultural traditions that he had to, he felt like he had to let go of as he tried to, you know, comport his life in a way that was consistent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And you know, he talked about loving. And I feel like you don't hear a lot of stories of converts from non Christian backgrounds in General Conference terribly often, but he talked about, you know, growing up and, and taking the cakes to the, to the Temple of the Gods for his religion back in, in his homeland and, and how he loved it because then he got to eat the cakes. Right.
But you know, obviously he joined, when he joined the church, he discontinued that, but he just, he also mentioned having to abandon other kinds of cultural practices and, and the social pressure he felt to continue Those, but, you know, ultimately choosing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I do think those are important kinds of stories because we all, you know, some people might look at that and it's, oh, it's this colonial American church forcing these, these people of other cultures to give up aspects of their culture. But let's be real, the teachings of the church don't exactly align with American culture and values either. Right. No matter where you are in the world, you are being asked to give some aspects of your culture. And obviously it's great. We're a multi ethnic church, we're a multicultural church. There are going to be cultural practices from wherever you are in the world that you can continue and you can embrace and you can fold into your gospel devotion.
[00:53:03] Speaker A: Yeah. He made clear it was those that are in conflict with God's commandment.
[00:53:06] Speaker C: But there are also, no matter what part of the world you're from, there are going to be parts of your culture that conflict with, with the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
And it's going to be a test for anyone who is a part of the church, whether they're a convert or they broke or whether they grew up in the church. Those are going to be moments that test you right. When you have to go against the grain. And so I thought those were both great talks along those lines.
The other thing, just as a 90s basketball fan, I couldn't help but think of Dikembe Mutombo when, when Elder Mutombo was speaking. And I just, I, he's also from the Congo, I'm fairly sure. And so I can't help but wonder if there's a relationship there, if they're, if they're distant cousins or something. But I don't know if there were any other 90s basketball fans who, who had similar thoughts. But I just, as soon as I saw the name, I was like, ah, Dikembe Mutombo, hall of Fame center.
[00:54:04] Speaker A: Very nice. So are there any other talks that we think are particularly noteworthy that'd be worth bringing up here this year? Evening. So we've got sun Saturday morning we had a kicker by Elder Oaks kicked it off. Kieran Ye Gilbert, Bednar Tay Basera hiring. I mean, I don't know. Here's our lineup here.
[00:54:26] Speaker B: I'd like to take a moment to talk about President Oaks's address this morning, perhaps.
[00:54:31] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I was, I was gonna say we still haven't talked about President Oaks's address this morning.
Go ahead and start us off on that, Stephen.
[00:54:39] Speaker B: So a couple things.
Number one, I Thought it was interesting, his emphasis. Well, I mean, I guess it makes sense, it's Easter, but the, the resurrection, the universality of the resurrection.
Let me pull up the quote here. He said something like, I wonder if we fully appreciate the enormous significance of this belief in a literal universal resurrection.
The conviction that death is not the conclusion of our identity changes the whole perspective of our mortal life. It helps us live together in love in this life, in anticipation of joyful reunions and associations in the next. So, okay, what I'm thinking about that is the universality of the resurrection.
Like, I think most of Christianity, except for, like, I think Jehovah's Witnesses and some others, like, affirm a universal resurrection.
And like, I've just always kind of taken that for granted. Like. Well, of course we believe that. Right. But I don't know if you have any thoughts on this, like, the enormous significance of a universal resurrection. I suppose it's.
I mean, besides the reasons given by President Oaks, I suppose one of the reasons why it is so significant is it's a statement of God's universal love for all of his children. And I don't mean that to sound like hackneyed or cliche, but, like, it's kind of true.
Like, he loves them all so much that, like, we all get to continue to exist forever. You know what I mean? Like, as opposed to, you get a couple of years on this rock floating in space, and then you're toast for all eternity. Right. Like, I don't know. I, I'm going to have to think about that some more about the significance of the universal resurrection.
So I really appreciated that.
Of course, that's a significant thing in the Book of Mormon, even more so than in the Bible. You get like, you know, First Corinthians 15 or whatever, but like, it's, it's all over the Book of Mormon.
[00:56:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:56:35] Speaker B: Universal resurrection.
[00:56:38] Speaker C: I, I think I, I had very similar thoughts to you. I mean, I think a big part of the reason that's significant is it does speak to, like, the absolute universal love that, that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for us, as, you know, as their, as their children, as Heavenly Father's children, as brothers and sisters to Christ and the universal power of the atonement. I think sometimes we talk about grace, like, Latter Day Saints don't believe in it. We're all, like, we put this emphasis on works and we don't believe enough in grace. No, no, no, no, no.
That gets it so backwards. We believe so strongly in grace that there's a universal element to Salvation. We, we are almost universalists.
That's how strong our belief.
That's how strong our belief in grace is.
[00:57:27] Speaker B: Our.
[00:57:28] Speaker C: We believe so much in grace that you don't have to join the church, you don't even have to believe in Jesus Christ to receive a kingdom of glory. Now, of course, a caveat to that is every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. Right. And so at some point, everyone who ends up in a degree of glory, I think will confess that it was. It was by the grace of Jesus Christ that they got there. Right.
[00:57:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:57:50] Speaker C: But we believe, we believe in an almost universal grace.
And. And that's incredibly powerful. And I, I do. Like, that's a great message. That's a powerful message for a prophet to talk about on Easter. I felt like, I felt like Oakes and Uchtdorf were great. Almost an inclusio. Right. For the session. Great bookend.
[00:58:10] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:58:12] Speaker C: But I don't know if you want. You wanted to say more, Stephen? I wanted to maybe segue to the other part of Oaks Talk before that,
[00:58:18] Speaker A: let's shout out Miguel Gal. Gotty by 80 sent us a super chat. I've learned a lot from you three and many of your guests love the channel. Thank you. So thank you very much. That's awesome.
[00:58:27] Speaker B: Thank you, sir.
[00:58:29] Speaker C: Yes, sir. Thank you very much.
I was just going to segue to the second half of President Oaks's message, if that's okay, because I, I felt like there was incredible continuity with.
[00:58:42] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. With President Nelson.
[00:58:44] Speaker C: With President Nelson.
[00:58:45] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[00:58:47] Speaker C: As he came around to talk about the importance of loving neighbor. But not only loving neighbor. Right. But loving your enemy or your adversary, as. As he put it.
[00:58:58] Speaker B: That's. By the way, that that is the hardest teaching or commandment that Jesus gave for me to live because it's hard for me to love my enemies. I want to dunk and destroy my enemies in the comments section online. You know what I mean? Like, I want to own them with facts and logic. So, like, yeah, that was another good wake up call for me along with President Nelson was this idea. Love your, love your adversaries, love your enemies. Right? Yeah, yeah, that's. You know, the natural man in me doesn't want to do that. Like, my, my evolutionary caveman brain wants to like, you know, Club Miami's over the head and take all their stuff. Like, not really. I'm being hyperbolic, but, you know, like, naturally my tribalistic evolutionary monkey brain wants me to not do that. But, like, this is what's so awesome with how radical this is from.
From Jesus, and it's reaffirmed by his prophets today.
Let me see if I can pull up the quote here. Today we might say that we are commanded to love our adversaries. All mortals are beloved children of God. That was from. From President Oaks. It's especially tough to kind of grasp that, like, when, at least here in the United States, our country is, like, kind of at war with another country right now. And, like, we're in the middle of, like, oh, we got to blow them all up for, you know, whatever geopolitical reasons.
And it was very striking to kind of hear these messages coming out at a time when, like, I guess we're on the verge of, like, a war, basically, if not when already.
So I. I think that was. That was very timely. I don't know if that was just a coincidence. I like to think it's on purpose and there's something meaningful to that, of course. But, yeah, like you said, Neil, I. I see lots of continuity with President Nelson. Is this the first time that we've had a prophet talk about culture online being toxic? I think is. Is. Is President.
Is President Oaks slipping into therapy speech now? Online therapy speech? No, I. I'm just teasing a little bit, but, like, no, I thought that was interesting. I think that's our first time. We're kind of tackling the bull by the horns in that regard.
[01:01:11] Speaker C: Yeah, I. I'm not sure if this was the first time, but, I mean, I. Like I said, I felt there was a lot of continuity. President Nelson often talked about how polarized our world is today, and he may have.
I need to just go back and look at what he's actually said specifically. But he may have talked specifically about that polarization online, specifically. I don't know if he used the word toxic anywhere, but that did.
[01:01:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, no, that stood out to me. He said, we show you my President Oaks impression. We live in a world. No. Yeah. Of him. He said we live in, like, a toxic corporate culture or something like that.
[01:01:50] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I. Right. I. I know President Oak said toxic. I'm just. I'm saying I don't know if President Nelson had ever.
I didn't hear you.
[01:01:57] Speaker B: I didn't catch that.
[01:01:59] Speaker C: But. But, yeah, I felt like there was again.
[01:02:02] Speaker B: He.
[01:02:02] Speaker C: He just was. He was picking up right where President Nelson had left off.
And it. I think it speaks to just how urgent this is in this world today that we do need.
Like, there is so much polarization. There is this toxic culture online, and I'm no different than Stephen, I, you know, my initial urge when I see someone saying something, when I see comments on our videos, right. From people who, who don't like us or, or don't, don't like what we're saying and usually are making comments that come across at least make it seem like they didn't actually watch the video.
It, you know, I have those, you know, I have these impulses to want to, you know, get in the comment section and destroy them. Right. With facts and logic or whatever.
But, you know, we're.
The message we're hearing from President Oaks and that we were hearing from President Nelson before him. Right. Is that we're being called to a higher path and we need to find a way to.
And that path isn't to back down, mind you, it's not to, it's not to back down from the bold claims that we make as the Restored Church of Jesus Christ. It's not to back down from the principles that we hold in common with, with other Christians and with other people of, you know, similar values and like minded, either religiously or just culturally. Right. It's not to back down from the things that we think are, are important and to not engage civically and not engage religiously.
But it is a call to engage in a way that can build bridges and engage in a way. You know, he's made it a point to talk about the pluralistic society that we live in and engage in a way that allows us.
Yeah. That allows us to live side by side with people who don't agree with us and don't live the same lifestyle. Right. Go ahead.
[01:03:58] Speaker B: He said as followers of Christ, we should seek to live peaceably and lovingly with other children of God who do not share our values and do not have the covenant obligations we have assumed. In a democratic government, we should seek fairness for all.
In countless circumstances, strangers, suspicion or even hostility gradually give way to friendship when personal contacts produce mutual respect.
So I think that's kind of what you're getting at here.
At the same time, I do recall that he did say that we don't need to surrender our unique positions or claims.
But yeah, the emphasis is towards being peacemakers.
That's interesting.
We don't need to get into politics, but in a democratic government we should seek fairness for all. I hope that that at least helps at least a few people in our current political discourse. Right. If not our politicians themselves, it'd be really nice if they would kind of internalize what the Lord's prophet has to say about this. But, oh, well, No, I think that was interesting, and I think that was significant.
[01:05:08] Speaker C: Agreed.
Well, I don't know. Do you?
[01:05:16] Speaker B: I was just gonna say I don't know if there's anything else. I think we've covered President Oaks pretty well.
I don't know if we have time.
What do you think?
[01:05:24] Speaker A: I think at this point, this has been a great thing. We obviously haven't gone into detail on all of the talks. There's many more we could do. But if you want a broader overview of all of the talks, you can check out the shorts I've done on my own channel. Jasmine Rapley. And guys, study these talks. The church is really quick at getting them out, usually within, like, 48 hours. So definitely the full recordings of the sessions are up, and then they'll usually, like, get the individual talks up really, really fast. I know as soon as they publish, like, oh, okay, they're already on top of it.
[01:06:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:06:02] Speaker A: So study them, because these are the things that we need in our day today. I mean, I already have things that I want to implement better in my life, in my own discipleship, and I thought it was a great conference. Any final words, Stephen?
[01:06:17] Speaker B: No, I can't think of anything. This was a. This was a great general conference. Like I said at the beginning, I feel like I'm ready to take on the whole empire after being revitalized and a real shot in the arm from this.
And so it's great. I'm excited. There's lots of emphasis on the Book of Mormon, lots of stuff from the Book of Mormon. It's going to be good for my class this week that I'm teaching on the Book of Mormon, so that's going to be nice. So. Yeah, no, it was great.
[01:06:40] Speaker A: Perfect. All right, guys, well, you know how it goes. Study deeply, believe boldly, and we'll see you next time.
