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the Leading Saints podcast.
Here we go.
Today we're headed down to St.
George, Utah to chat with Brian Summers.
How are you, Brian? Oh,
- Very well, thank you. Good.
- Now you're a long time leading Saints listener, right?
- Yeah, I am. Yeah. I, I,
I think I started listening back in 2015.
- Wow. 2000. I was just such a young, cute,
uh, podcaster, you know?
True. Didn't have a clue what I was doing, so .
That's awesome. And were you a bishop at that time?
- Yeah, I think I just, just, uh, barely become a bishop
and, and yeah, it was really good to find it.
I remember, I mean, a lot of 'em were really helpful.
And I still remember one in particular
with the stake president in New Mexico that just, I listened
to it maybe three or four times. It was very, very helpful.
- Yeah. That's cool. Awesome.
And did someone recommend it leading Saints to you,
or did, did Google put it in
- Front of you?
It must have been Google. 'cause I have no memory.
I don't even remember the first time finding it.
I just, as long as I've been a bishop,
I just remember having it.
- Oh, that's cool. So, well,
I'm glad, glad it served you well.
And, and it was in, uh, St.
George where you served as Bishop?
- No, it was Yuma, Arizona. - Oh, wow.
- Yeah. - Is that, uh, I don't know much about Yuma.
Is that a a, a large city or a
- Small?
It's about the size of St. George.
So you got about a hundred thousand people in the summer
and 200,000 in the winter,
- .
Nice. Any highlights from serving as Bishop
that you think back on,
or principles that would be worth mentioning
before we move on to our subject here? Yeah,
- There were a few things I learned.
One of 'em is like, if you've got the spirit,
it's actually the easiest calling in the church.
I think if you have the spirit,
because you just follow what the spirit says,
things fall in place.
That's if you don't have the spirit, oh,
it's like walking up a stream.
It is the hardest calling in the world.
I, uh, would talk to my parents on Zoom every Sunday night,
and if they said, boy, you look tired.
I noticed a pattern. I would think back
during the day, and it was a day.
I didn't feel the spirit much. I was coming,
I was working just as hard as any other day.
Mm-Hmm. But if I didn't feel the spirit that day,
like I just looked at by the end
of the day, so the spirit's key.
Yeah. And you gotta get the spirit.
- Love it. Now, have you always been a lifelong reader
of like, church history or Yeah.
History in general? Yeah.
- Well, I was a huge reader as a kid.
Like as a kid I was a huge reader.
And then in high school I was a massive reader.
I would just, uh, some summer days I would just spend all
day reading and I really got into church
history back then. Yeah.
- Hmm. And primarily it's history that,
I mean, reading about people.
Is that, would you say that's the,
the primary focus of your reading? Uh,
- It is lately, for sure.
I love stories. I absolutely love stories.
And our church is just full of excellent, excellent stories
and there's too many stories so that
so many great stories fall, uh, between the cracks.
But I think when I was a, when I was a teenager,
it was probably more doctrinal.
Hmm. I was reading a lot of books by prophets and apostles
and, and yeah, just anything,
anything my parents had, anything I could get at the library.
- Yeah. Awesome. Now, this has led you to this project on x,
which a Ukrainian account called Acts of the Apostles,
which I think is an awesome title since in the Bible
there's, there's a book called the Acts, uh,
or the Acts of the Apostles, right?
I assume that's what you were Absolutely.
You were basing this off of .
- Yeah, absolutely. I'm trying
to do a modern day acts of apostles.
- That's cool. What, where did this idea come from?
- When I was a teenager, my, my dad told me something.
He was put into a stake presidency
by Bruce Arm McConkey when I was much, much younger.
So I don't even remember it.
I was probably early grade school, maybe younger.
But he said something in high school that surprised me.
He said, you know, the funniest person I've ever met is
Bruce arm, McConkey .
Which you wouldn't, you wouldn't get from hearing his
- Talks.
Yeah. That's not the, uh, typical characteristic
of Bruce arm McConkey.
You hear about .
- No. And my dad is a really funny guy,
and he knows lots of funny, funny people,
and he only knew Bruce arm McConkey for that weekend.
That's the only time he, he did it Uhhuh.
He said, I, I don't think I've ever laughed more than
that weekend with Bruce arm McConkey.
So it made me want to get to know the apostles
and prophets, not just what we see on the podium,
but I, I just want get to know who they were and yeah.
So that's, that's basically it.
And I was telling my dad this,
I was reminding him about this lately,
and he said that, you know,
arm McConkey is the savior on the chosen, you know
how the savior on the Chosen Oh yeah.
Is kind of funny. And he's just, he puts everybody at ease.
He goes, yeah, sure. That was Bruce.
That was Bruce arm McConkey.
- Oh, wow. - So, wow.
And anyways, and you,
you read the book about Bruce Arm McConkey written
by his son, and that actually really,
really comes through. Yeah,
- I remember reading that it's been so many years
that there's certain stories in there that I remember,
like him, he would sort of, uh, rehearse like talks
as he drove down the, the road.
Mm-Hmm. as you remember that, that portion,
because he's known as this orator, right?
Mm-Hmm. that, that was just
so captivating from the lectern.
And you could tell he was well practiced.
I mean, and you think back then in the, I don't know
what it was, forties, fifties, you know, there was,
there probably wasn't a lot of radio stations,
let alone podcasts to listen to. Right,
- Right. Yeah.
- And so, you know, when you're driving hours, hours
and hours of driving, there's, that's sort of
what you do. You know, that's
- How you entertain and - You practice your talk.
- That's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
- Really cool. And then, so from there,
have you been recording just these stories that captured you
as you read church history, or,
and then you decided to put 'em on X?
- Well, a couple
of years ago, I thought it would be awesome.
I wanted to hear a podcast where they start
with Thomas B. Marsh, go all the way to Ulysses Stories,
just one episode, .
And I thought, okay, I'll do that.
So I just started, every time I was at di,
if I saw an Apostles biography, I'd pick it up.
- Oh, - Yeah. And then I tried my first one
with Thomas B. Marsh, and it was dismal.
I mean, I was just stumbling.
I could not get that 20 minutes
or whatever I was trying to do.
And so I put that on the back burner,
but I kept reading the stories and then just making a mark.
If there was a story that I was like, oh, I'd love it.
Basically, if there was any story, I wanted to stop
whatever my wife was doing and
tell her, like, interrupt her.
If it was a story that I wanted to interrupt my wife
to tell her if it was that good, I'd make a little mark.
And at the beginning of this year, I realized, okay,
I've got all these stories, got all
these marks in these books.
And I thought, well, it'll take, it'll take 20 minutes a day
to put a story on Twitter.
And so that's how it started.
- Nice. And so you, you basically go through
random apostles, you're not necessarily going in any
particular order, right?
- No, it was very random at the beginning.
Now I try to do like one from the first 10 apostles,
then one from the 11 to 20.
So I'm trying not to miss any eras when I go.
And then I get up to apostle, like 87 or whatever,
and then I'll go back and do the first one of the first 10
and just try to cycle through.
- Yeah. And to put that into context,
so Elder Reland was the 100th apostle
called in modern times, right?
Yes. Uhhuh. And so, and we've had
a few more since then, obviously.
And so there's roughly been a hundred plus, you know,
with additional, a few more of apostles called, uh,
that's a life for each one, obviously with full of stories.
And many of them have biographies
or at least things written about them.
And that's where you're diving into.
- Yeah. I don't know what I'll do when I get to the ones
that don't have a biography written about them.
- So Nice.
Yeah. Well, there's always a obscure, you know, passage
or writing out there, journal entry.
Maybe you'll Yep. You'll stumble
across, but maybe not a lot.
So basically, I love seeing on x the, the updates
of the pictures, you know, your, the profile picture
of your acts of the apostles page updates, depending on
who you're talking about that week
or that for that, uh, that series of threads on X.
- Yeah. I try to put a really young picture of them,
usually when they're in their twenties,
or maybe if they're on their mission,
I'll put a picture there.
Mm-Hmm. . So there's sometimes, you know,
right now I'm doing Howard w Hunter,
and I guess a lot of people have seen young ones.
Whenever you've got a prophet
or a president, there's a lot
of biographies and a lot of pictures.
But then you have somebody like say, well, James e Talmage,
like his, his picture when he was a young man, it's just,
it just endears you to him.
You know what I mean? Yeah. It's, yeah. I like that. Yeah.
- I think when they're, the older pictures, I mean,
anybody who's older looks like a wise sage, you know?
Yep. It's like this, this guy's got stories
and wisdom that I've gotta hear,
but it, uh, humanizes him a little bit to see him as a,
you know, they're just figuring out life as a 20,
30-year-old, like the rest of us.
- Yeah. They don't know where the story ends.
They have no idea what's about to happen.
And you kind of see that when you see the pictures.
- Now, is Howard w Heter the first apostle that you're doing
that later became the president of the church?
- I don't think so.
It might be, and I can't remember
because I've, I've now got a bit ahead of when I've, like,
I'm, I'm working on David O. McKay right now in
my readings and
- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- And so, to be honest with you, I'm not sure.
I might've done one before now.
- Gotcha. But you'll do, uh, whether they became Prophet
of the church or not, you're, you're exploring the lives
of the acts of the Apostles, so that's really cool.
- One through 1 0 3 now
that we got Patrick here, and it's 1 0 3.
No, I did do George Albert Smith.
- Oh, nice. - And George Albert Smith was great.
And I've already researched Heer J Grant, which has one
of my top five stories.
I cannot wait to tell that one when we get to it.
Sounds so funny. It's such a good story.
- That's cool. That's cool. And,
and you're mainly focusing on specific stories,
not necessarily quotes or general conference talks.
These are stories from their life. Yeah. I was
- Originally gonna do, I was originally gonna do like
stories and quotes,
and I just gravitated to the stories for whatever reason.
I love the quotes. And when I do Ezra t Benson, Ezra Taf,
Benson's grandfather, I'll probably have more quotes
because his biography was like kind of short on stories,
but long on amazing quotes.
So on that one, I think I'll,
I'll do a little bit more quotes.
- Yeah. This is great.
And, uh, we're, we're talking behind the scenes, seeing
how ways we can further, uh, you know, share these stories,
uh, through the Leading Saints platform, whatnot.
But in the meantime, uh, definitely people should check out.
Your ex account will link to it, of course,
acts of the Apostles.
And just a little caveat here, a few years ago,
I think this was one
of the first people I ever interviewed on the podcast,
he had mentioned just this off comment about
how much he loved the stories you hear from general
conference or another Mm-Hmm.
, other places of, you know, I was visiting a,
a state conference, you know, this is an apostle
or a, the 70 with, you know, Neil Maxwell.
And we were driving to this church
and he said this thing like, this is wisdom
that's passed within these, these leaders.
And I called it teachers,
or I'm sorry, I called it Leaders, teaching Leaders.
And then I shortened it to Leader. To Leader. Yeah.
And so I had these short episodes, this was years ago,
and you can still find 'em on the podcast
or on the website where I, uh, clip out that these stories
that are told from the lectern
of general conference and chair.
And I, I just love hearing these things.
So you have to flag me when, uh,
when you come across those types of stories.
'cause they're, they're all over in these biographies.
- Oh, absolutely. Because they're all being mentored by
somebody that was an, a possible forum.
Well, I think the best, and I think you'd mentioned earlier
that you'd read this,
but the Henry b ironing biography Yeah.
Is rich in that Mm-Hmm.
, I mean, the stories about what he learned
from Harold B. Lee and Boyd Kay Packer,
and a bunch of the other ones, really powerful stuff.
- Yeah. Yeah. And this is a great thing, you know,
if there's a leader out there,
and I know that, you know, when you're serving as Bishop
or in some of these leadership roles, it's a very busy time.
But I would really encourage you to,
to pick up these books from time to time,
or read a chapter or two.
And it is so comforting to just sort
of see their life from that perspective.
And you learn so much and gain so much respect
for these, these individuals.
And then when they stand in conference
and speak, you're, they're just,
you're more endeared toward them.
You know, it's just, it's awesome. For
- Sure. That's absolutely right.
- Cool. Anything else about the, the account
that people should look for
or things you're doing there, or,
- Yeah.
Well, yeah, please.
Uh, uh, if you have any comments, a lot of people are, well,
if I make a mistake, I really appreciate people, uh,
correcting me sometimes.
I'll say something I just said, Howard w Hunter was the
first apostle from Idaho.
Uh, he is actually the third apostle from Idaho.
I found out Oh, yeah. Really quickly. So, so come on.
And or if there's a story, you know, a lot of times I'll,
I'll, like, I did M Russell Ballard fairly recently,
and a lot of people had em, Russell Ballard stories
that just experiences they'd had with him.
It was very touching. Mm Oh yeah. To hear them.
I love when people share stuff like that.
And so, yeah, please.
Yeah, please feel free to, feel free to reach out to me.
I love, uh, share what you've got.
- I think, uh, and you can correct me if I'm wrong,
but I think Howard w Hunt, he was one of the few apostles
that was called to as an apostle, uh,
from a being a stake president.
Right. Yeah. He didn't go through the, the typical ranks
of 70 and whatnot.
And he's just a, a stake
president in California, . Yeah.
- Just a great stake - President. And
- We go a good job.
Yeah. Him and Spencer w Kimball are
the only two I know about.
I'm sure there were other ones, but, uh, yeah. Yeah. He was,
- Yeah.
I still remember reading about Spencer w Kimball,
the phone call he gets, I think, in his, you know,
his son's like, Hey, someone's on the phone for you.
And there he is in the kitchen being called
as an apostle ,
and he's like, you know, the rest
of his life was changed for
- Sure.
Oh, man. Yeah. And, and our church as well. I mean, oh yeah.
That guy was a powerhouse.
- Oh, man. Love it. All right.
So one thing we wanna do is, you know, you've told
so many stories about different apostles
that we just maybe wanna focus on one
or two during this recording.
And of course, you know, I'd love to have you back on.
Maybe we explore some others and, uh, learn from them,
and especially the leadership principles that are, that are,
uh, that we can harvest from, from these lives.
So we're gonna talk about first James e Talmage Yeah.
And sort of do a, a, a quick deep dive on his life.
This is one, I mean, any, generally any member
of the church hears James e Chama,
and you think Jesus the Christ as far as the book, Jesus,
the Christ that he wrote in the temple.
And I've been in the room, you know, where
supposedly he lived and, and wrote and things like that.
Have you really? Uh, yeah.
So if you're a, that's, I was a temple worker there for
a few, a few short months, Uhhuh .
And, and yeah, you can go back there and,
and there's the fireplace there and things like that.
So, again, I may be wrong.
I'm, we're open to any, uh, correction on, as you,
as you say, we may, uh, perpetuate some faith promoting, uh,
rumors here that aren't actually stories.
And that's the, that's some times the tricky thing is I'll
hear stories at times and I think, Ooh,
that's not actually accurate.
Right. And so we're open to
- Being frank.
Well, one of, one of the only things I thought I knew about,
uh, James e Talmage was
that Albert Einstein said he was
the smartest person he knew.
I heard that on my mission. And so Oh, really?
- Yeah. Is it true? No.
- Well, I doubt it. I doubt it's true.
Because James e Talmage was a little bit
before Albert Einstein.
Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, Albert Einstein,
it's probably mixing some stories.
'cause Albert Einstein was good friends
with Henry b ING's dad.
- Ah, that's right. That's right.
- Yeah. And, uh, - That's another good one.
There's the Mormon scientist that book about, oh, uh,
president ING's dad is phenomenal.
- Love that book. Oh, man.
I recommend that to everybody. Yes.
- Very good. - Yeah. My favorite part is when he is telling
Einstein about the plan of salvation. You know what I mean?
- I forget that - Part. Oh, yeah.
He's telling about the gospel and the plan of salvation.
And Einstein goes, well, what about dogs? And, uh, he
- Said, he said, what, - What about dogs?
He was concerned about what happens to dogs, of course.
And Henry Ironing Sr.
He said, well, I'm not quite sure if it's anything's been
said, but God loves dogs.
I'm sure he is up there. And he said
that Einstein seemed very pleased with that response.
- Nice. Awesome. All right. Back to Jamesie Town here. Okay.
So where's a good jumping out point?
I, I assume there's a biography I've never read. Yeah.
His biography, if there is one. There
- Is, there's a very good one.
It's written by his son,
and a lot of times my favorite apostle biographies are
actually written by their sons.
Mm-Hmm. Because you can just sort of feel the affection.
And they've got a lot of family stories.
Like, there are several times in this book on James z Tama,
it's like, he never wrote about this in his journal,
but we, we told the story
and teased him about it all the time.
There's one story I'll tell later that, that he's like,
yeah, he never wrote about it in his journal.
Never talked about it, but we
mentioned it to him constantly.
- Nice. Love it. - Yeah.
So it, it was written by his son, I think, in the late se,
or early seventies or something, well
after he had passed away.
And it's a good one. It's got a lot of good stories.
It gives you a good idea of what kind of a guy he was to,
to actually know him, know. Awesome.
- Cool. Yeah. Well, where should we start
with James z Dage? Well,
- The one thing everybody knows about him,
so I'll just get this outta the way, is Jesus the Christ.
It's actually, if you think about books
that have been written, I think it was like 19.
It was in the 1910s that it was written
and on good reads, it's still like in the top, maybe 12.
I mean, it's like, and you look at the other books below it,
you're like, yep, I heard of that.
Everything after, not so much.
Like, it's, it's amazing that a book's had that longevity.
- So it's in the top 12 of, of what? On Good
- Reads.
On good reads of people that still write reviews
and are still saying they read it.
- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. - And most books, I mean,
in a hundred years, most books are gone.
The fact that it's most church books actually are gone.
Very few of them last that long.
But for Jesus, the Christ to last
that long is, is absolutely amazing.
He wrote it in seven months and five days.
- Wow. - Yeah. I mean, he's a workhorse.
We'll talk about his work ethic later on.
But he was an absolute workhorse. And it's impressive.
But you have to realize, he was also,
he had written lectures.
He'd already done a lecture series on each chapter.
So he'd already done
- Because he was a professor.
Right. That was his day job. Yeah.
- He was a professor. He was a, a geologist.
He was a professor of geology.
And so, and a very, very good lecturer.
As a matter of fact, I was gonna talk about this later,
but I'll talk about it now because I'm thinking about it.
When he was an apostle, if there was a hostile audience,
they would send James z Talmage
because he could get up there
and you'd have a crowd that just did not like the church.
You know what I mean? It just had
heard bad things about the church.
And he could tell the story of Brigham Young
and coming over to Utah, and he would have him in tears.
By the end. He would have 'em at the end.
They'd be like, wow, Brigham
Young's the greatest American ever.
You know what I mean? , he would just,
he was just able to capture people that way.
I don't know that any of those talks were written down
or anything, but that, I mean,
if I had a time machine that's, yeah.
- I would - Love to go and sit
and listen to one of one of those lectures.
- Wow. So, yeah. That's great.
And then you talk about him, the bravery
mixed with compassion.
Yeah. What do you mean by that? Well,
- Okay, so he was, he was an incredibly brave person,
and he was also a very compassionate person
at the same time.
But I think he was brave first.
Like when he was a child, he, uh, was one of the things.
And he, he got that from his family, his grandpa.
He was a third generation member being born in 1862 in Great
Britain, which was unusual.
Oh, wow. It means his dad was one,
or his grandpa was one of the first ones
to be, uh, baptized.
And his grandpa was the leader of an anti-Mormon mob
that was coming in to kick the missionaries out.
They'd heard what they were up to.
They, they didn't want 'em in there.
And there was something about the missionaries dignity,
and just the way they comported themselves that touched him.
And he ended up actually like leading them to safety
and hiding them in his house.
And while he was hiding them in his house
and telling the mob, no, they're not here, uh,
they ran off somewhere else.
He heard the message and was touched
and became a lifelong, very faithful, very faithful member.
And so there was bravery in his family.
There was absolute bravery in his family.
And there is a story that,
and this is one that he never really told.
He talked about it in his journal.
We know about it 'cause his son told it.
But he would talk about it every once in a while.
And it was the story of his baptism.
And, and there was, uh,
anti-Mormon sentiment back then was pretty strong.
And so you could not baptize during the day.
You couldn't go to the river because people would come
and they'd just make it a miserable experience.
I mean, they would just come and they would jeer,
and they would, they would make life miserable for you.
So what they would do is they would go to the river
after dark, and they would, somebody would go walk
around the town a half hour
before to make sure
that there weren't people walking around.
When the town seemed quiet
and safe, the crowd would hurry to the river,
then they'd do the baptism.
When they got there on that night, he was 11 years old.
He didn't get baptized at eight, he got baptized at 11.
And when his father stepped into the river, there was all
of a sudden, this just unearthly shriek.
The way he talks about it was just like,
it was worse than anything you've ever heard.
Just like a yell whale just, I mean,
just made their hair on the back of their,
their neck stand up.
And his father turned to him,
and his father said, he asked, well, this is in his words,
father asked me if I was too frightened to be baptized.
And I answered by directly stepping into the water.
And as soon as he stepped into the water, the noise ceased.
There was no more noise.
And they went and they did the baptism.
- And Wow. So they didn't
know where this sound was coming from? No,
- They had no idea.
They had no idea. Cow
and James e Talmage was a, he was,
he had a scientific mind as a kid.
He never would speculate what it was.
If he didn't know what something was, he wouldn't try
to like come up with a theory about what it was.
They just, so, like, he would never speculate about it.
He would just tell the story flat.
But what I love about that story is that 11-year-old boy,
you think of these deacons last week that were, uh,
set apart, the 11-year-old set apart his deacons.
He was that age. And, uh, even with that noise,
he stepped into the water.
It's dark. And so I love, I absolutely love that about him.
- Yeah. Wow. And, and,
and one thing I'm, I didn't know I didn't, I mean,
technically James z Talmage was British then.
Oh, yeah. He was. Wow. Yeah.
- Yeah. - And the third generation, which,
so his grandfather after joining the church didn't,
didn't come to Zion per se, right? No.
- No. And his father, his father did with James z Talmage,
when James z Talmage was a teenager.
Mm. He did. So,
but his father, yeah, his father was a grown man,
and they were still living, working in, in Great Britain.
They had branches there, and
- Wow.
Yeah. So do, do you know if, did James Z Town have much
of a English accent, uh, as in his adult life?
Or did that wear off?
- That's an excellent question.
And I don't know. I don't know. Oh,
- That's interesting.
Yeah. I just don't think of him as a, as English,
so That's awesome.
- Yeah. So he was British, and,
and so the next day they asked people around town, Hey,
did you hear that noise last night?
And nobody had heard it. Nobody had heard it. Wow.
And so that's the end. You're kind of an interesting
- Story.
Interesting. Yeah. Just some, uh,
maybe some spiritual warfare going on there.
The, the demons were not, uh, happy of
what was happening. So not
- Happy. Yeah. Yeah.
- Wow. So tell me about this, uh,
school master that hated the church.
- Okay, so yeah. So he went to the
Hungerford National School in the west country of England.
And he was young,
and his school master hated the church,
just absolutely hated
and would bring it up all the time in school.
And so, James z Talmage, he was not one
to ever back down from anything, even
as a young, as a young man.
I mean, he wasn't disrespectful or anything,
but he would challenge the, uh, school master.
And since they did corporal punishment back there,
he got beat all the time by a school master.
As a matter of fact, he always referred to that school
as the place where I received so many thrashings.
That's how he ref referred to that school.
But what I love about it is, one, he had the courage
to stand up for his convictions,
but the rest of the story just makes me love James e
Talmage, and actually his old teacher as well.
So when he was an adult, he was quite famous in the sci,
the scientific community.
And he would go over to England all the time.
And when he did, he always visited that school master.
He would never go over
to England without visiting that school master.
And the school master was really, really proud of him,
just super proud of him, especially
because of his scientific achievements.
He'd, he'd bring James e Talmage
to the school to visit the children.
He'd, he'd introduce him to his friends,
and he would never understand
how such a good scientist could come from that church,
that he never really changed .
Like he never, he, he just didn't believe
that he thought this was a one off.
But James z Talmage had such compassion
and such love for people
that he would visit him every single time.
And they, they had a great relationship.
- Wow. That's awesome. That's really cool.
And then, uh, a college friend, uh,
tell me that story. Yeah. Okay.
- So this was later,
this was when he was in college, college.
He went to, I don't know how to pronounce it,
Lehigh in Pennsylvania.
It's still a college, but he went over there
and then went to Johns Hopkins.
And it was a real libertine type place.
Uh, there's a lot of well to do,
and like the upper echelon, the kids of the upper echelon.
But man, they were, they did not keep the law of chastity.
And they bragged about it.
And they were, it was a lot like, I guess,
young people nowadays, you know what I mean? Like
- A party school, right. It was
- Kind of the party school.
Yeah, absolutely. It was kind of the, the party school.
And there was one, one person,
and James e Talmage liked them all.
He really did. He was disturbed.
He was constantly disturbed.
But he liked, he liked them all and they liked him.
They genuinely liked him.
And there was one student named William
that would tease James all the time for being, you know,
old fashioned and a prude.
And he would always try to bait, he would always try
to bait him into arguments about morality.
And eventually, uh, James e Talmage hadn't had, had enough.
And he says, alright, William said, James,
let us assume for the moment, you are right.
And there is no God and no hereafter.
And suppose we were both to die tonight, which one
of us would've lived the fuller life.
And, uh, William answered, oh,
I suppose people would say you had,
but I prefer the present enjoyment rather than whatever
great funeral oration you're gonna have.
And then, uh, Jamesy Thomas
was like, no, fair enough, fair enough.
Now, for the sake of argument,
let us assume that I am right.
And all of us will have to account for our actions
before God again.
We suppose we both died tonight.
Now, which of us has the advantage?
And William, the way he describes it, he just took it in
with the same sort of detachment,
and then all of a sudden he blanched
and his face went white.
He kinda looked scared, and he whispered, my God,
he whispered, may it not be so,
and then the conversation just sort of resumed
and changed to other topics.
But William never, never again tried debate
James into a debate.
And James never forgot the look on his face right there.
He wasn't expecting it to land quite that well, but,
- Wow.
Interesting. So, I mean, in those developmental years, or,
or those young adult years, I mean, he,
he faced some opposition, right?
Like it wasn't, uh, and, and, and that he had to be brave,
but also had moments of, of compassion As he ,
he leaned in and, uh, called people to repentance, called
- People in repentance.
And the best, nice, nicest way possible
that they really like.
I mean, it struck him. You, you could tell. So
- Yeah, love it. All right, where do we go from here?
- So he was a lecturer at a very early age.
Like he would lecture around the territory about science.
And he had, so one
of the things I learned from James e Talmage is
that just do it.
And it's not always gonna be great at the beginning,
but when you're starting a new skill or new leadership,
or you just got called to something that you're overwhelmed
with, just get in there and just do it.
People like it when you're, you're vulnerable.
And they, they like to see you get better.
And they like to see the lord's, they like
to see the Lord in your life.
The Lord building you up.
There was a great story about when he was,
he must have been 17 or 18.
He was a protege of Carl g Maser at BYU
at the Brigham Young Academy.
And he would do these lectures at night,
and it was hard to get people interested in science.
And then he did one where he was,
when he was 18, he was already al already doing,
uh, lectures on science.
And he tried to make it really, really interesting.
And he was good. And the, the people
that came really liked it, but not everybody would come.
It just didn't seem like the most fun thing to do.
But one night he was trying to show how you,
if you explode oxygen and hydrogen, you can make H2O.
And so he is doing it in the glass cylinder
and the glass cylinder bursts so suddenly and loudly,
and with such force that all the lamps extinguished in the
room, and the glass just shattered over the entire audience.
One young lady was struck in the forehead by a piece
of glass, and she fainted.
And there were some other injuries, but nothing too bad.
I mean, everybody, nobody had to
go to the hospital or anything.
And the admin at the Butte Rham Young Academy apparently
were really afraid that
after that, nobody would dare come to one of his lectures.
But the exact opposite happened.
All of a sudden it became like the most popular thing to do.
It'd be people had heard about that,
and all of a sudden there were standing room clouds.
Only everybody wanted to come to it.
- Wow. He's a good marketer for science there.
Yeah, absolutely. Did you wanna see something explode? Yeah.
That's awesome. And that was at, uh, Brigham Academy.
That, and he was a professor at that time?
- He, well, yeah, he was a teacher.
I don't know if he was, if he
would've called himself a professor.
'cause this was actually before he went
to Johns Hopkins. He was young.
- Oh, gotcha. Yeah, - He was, he was, oh, yeah, he
- Was 18.
He said he was 18. That's right. Okay.
- So this, yeah, this was before.
And then there's, there's another story about
him when he is older.
This is when he is president of the University of Utah.
And he kept a pretty regular schedule.
And he got home late one night,
which was surprising to his family.
But he came home just bloody
and just covered in mud and grass.
And, and they thought maybe he'd like fallen into a mo.
I mean, they didn't know what happened.
Maybe he was mugged or something, they didn't know.
But what had actually happened is he, the bicycle
with a chain just came into, was just invented.
It, made bicycles a lot safer.
And that became his regular mode of transportation.
And he would ride all the way home from the University
of Utah, except for one place
where there was a plank, over a ditch.
And he would get off and he would walk across
the, the plank.
But he felt comfortable enough riding his bicycle that
he decided that he was just gonna go over it.
No big deal. So he did,
but he went a little too oblong, slid right off the,
right off the plank into the ditch.
And he was bruised. He's a little embarrassed.
And he thought, okay, well, I'm not going home
until I get over that plank.
So he went and he tried it one more time,
went into the ditch again, just did it over and over again.
And he was not gonna, he was not gonna quit.
And I don't know, he lost count on how many times
or how long it took, but eventually he got over
and just to make sure he'd learned the lesson, he went back
and he did it three more times.
And so that was how he problem solved.
He just did it head on. He wasn't afraid of failure.
He would just get up and do it again.
He did say though, that he never went over
that ditch without feeling a tinge of fear.
- Bet. And,
and this is, I mean, just kind
of reveal something of his character.
'cause they see him as such an accomplished scientist
that it probably took some, some resilience to get there.
Right. Oh, to keep trying and messing up
and, you know, moving forward.
- Absolutely. A good way to think about him,
and I don't know that there's any spiritual lesson
to get from this, but I do think it's fascinating,
is he was almost like an Indiana Jones
of the Utah Territory.
So a lot of his scientific stuff was just doing expeditions
out into where people hadn't gone.
So he would just have like four pack animals, some students,
some other teachers, and they would just head off into the
Utah desert and look for stuff like they were, I mean,
they weren't the first person to go down the Grand Canyon,
but they went down the north face
of the Grand Canyon when not very many people had
and explored down there.
And it actually became, well, let me start earlier actually.
This is actually, there is actually
a spiritual lesson to be learned here.
So when he was sent,
he asked Carl g Mazer if he could go east
and just if it would be a good idea,
and they said, well, you should go talk to John Taylor.
And they decided to just treat it as a mission
and set him apart as if what he was doing was a mission.
And Wilfred Woodruff set him apart.
And he said something surprising that I don't know
that I would've trusted,
but he said, when you go over there, get what you have
to do, and come right back to Utah, do not get extra
diplomas and honors, come back to Utah.
And then they promised everything will
come when you come back.
And it's absolutely true.
He found this, this type
of mineral in the capital reef area,
and he would just start sending it
to museums all over the world.
And it was a really like, cherished thing, like they were,
it was some museums like prize possession.
And that's one of the ways that he got to know so many,
so many scientists around the world.
And he was able to trade that, those rocks for
stuff from, you know, Europe.
So Utah all of a sudden got all these amazing things here.
And he never would have
received the honors he did if he had stayed east
or gone to the continent,
because he would've been one of many,
he would've done very well.
He would've done very well. Yeah.
But coming back to Utah and just going out with pack animals
and finding stuff, all of a sudden he became like a real
celebrity in the science world.
Like they invited him to the Royal Society,
Royal Scientific Society of Edinburgh.
I think I got that name wrong,
but which was normally somebody
that lived in America, couldn't do.
But they, they pulled some strings
and he didn't ask to be a part of it.
They were just, they loved him so much
and they were so impressed
with the stuff they were bringing.
All these scientific societies from Utah
or from Europe, were inviting him
to be in these just amazing, amazing societies.
And so Wilfred RedR was really prophetic when he said
that he never would've become the man he was,
if he'd have stayed there searching for that, it all came
to him just by being here and being him.
- Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely work
for him to do here, .
Yeah. And to have the influence there. That's awesome.
Any other scientific exploits? He, he had,
- I mean, the first thing, the first thing
that really brought him notoriety was he got a microscope.
He bought a microscope when it was first coming out
and would start just looking at everything.
But the one thing
that really got him noticed was Brian Shrimp.
He put Brian shrimp on microscopes,
and then he'd send it to other microscope enthusiasts
all around the world, .
And so his first big thing
that he got was the Royal Microscopic Society.
They asked him to join.
And back then the scientific societies were a big deal.
I was trying to think of anything that was as big a deal now
that would be as impressive.
And I actually couldn't, I mean, it, I have a story later on
where people reacted to him being in those societies.
And I don't know that there's anything nowadays that would,
that would cause quite the reaction.
I mean, it was, it was like all
of a sudden somebody is just like, Hey,
do you wanna be a member of Congress?
No, you don't have to. You don't have to run for it.
Just come on and be in Congress.
It'd be something like that. You know what I mean? Okay.
Come, come join the royal family.
Almost is, is what it was looked on.
I mean, that people loved those scientific
societies back then.
- Wow. Interesting. That's awesome.
Well, should we, uh, move on to, let's see,
compassion mixed with bravery.
Before we were talking about bravery
mixed with compassion, but
- Yeah, absolutely.
And this is actually, this is, I've, this story
I had more re I've had more response
to than any other story.
Like, like this is what,
this was the first time I told a story that people, like,
just people that weren't interested in my,
in my Twitter feed.
Absolutely. Just, you know what I mean?
They were still sharing it. It got shared like crazy.
It got more likes at anything since
you guys might have heard this.
It's, it's been talked about a couple
of times in general conference once by Elder Wlan
and once fairly, like in the last five or six years,
and I completely forgot about it.
So in 1892, Utah was hit with the theory theory epidemic,
and people were dying like crazy.
The Release Society found a non-member family near death,
and people didn't really know him, so they stumbled on him,
and then they couldn't get anybody to help
because people were scared that, you know,
especially if you had a family, you didn't wanna go
and get diptheria and then pass it on to your kids,
or you die yourself.
And so they couldn't find anybody to help.
Now, James z Talmage was a young father at this time.
He was just starting to get known in the
scientific community.
And when he heard about it, he absolutely,
he just rushed there, no question asked.
He was there. And what he found was absolutely horrible.
One child, a 2-year-old, laid dead on her bed,
and then a, a boy of 10 and a girl of five riving in agony.
And there was a 13-year-old
who was improving, but she was still feeble.
She couldn't do anything. And the mom
and dad were just, just dazed
and just, just just dazed with grief and fatigue.
And the disease had been there long enough
that the house was just in a state of, of utter filth.
And so after administering to the children, James,
he spent the rest of the day cleaning.
He swept and he disinfected,
and he, he burned all the filthy rags
and bathed the children.
And the release society had brought clothes.
And so he was able to put them in, in clean clothes.
And, and the next morning when he returned, he found out
that the 10-year-old boy had died during the night.
And the little girl of five was in her last ago.
He took her in his arms and he did his best to comfort her.
And then this is what he wrote in his journal.
She clung to my neck off times coughing bloody mucus
on my face and clothing.
And her throat had about it, the stench of ification,
yet I could not put her down during the last half hour,
immediately preceding her death, I walked the floor
with a little creature in my arms.
She died in agony at 10:00 AM Now,
because of the plague bodies were required
to be buried immediately.
And so they were buried in a single grave.
And he said the grief of the parents
and the surviving sister were absolutely pitiful to behold.
And James, he gave a brief graveside sermon,
and the bishop was there too.
And he dedicated the grave and he actually got that theory.
James e Talmage got that theory.
So he had to go home and be quarantined for a week.
But he survived. I mean, of course he survived,
but like that right there is, I mean, how many people,
I mean, as a father, you know what I mean?
I, I don't know. That's the kind of, that's the kind
of bravery and compression that I don't know.
I mean, that's just, that's the man i I want to be,
and I hope I would be if that ever happened.
- Oh, yeah. And,
and again, it's just these little, these hidden stories
that build upon these men that now look like, you know,
they, they became apostles Mm-Hmm.
of, of Jesus Christ, you know,
which is quite a title and a tough platform to stand on,
but you know, God is, is working in him, just like we think
of the stories of Joseph Smith's life.
Right. All of these apostles had these experiences,
just like we all do in our life.
Mm-Hmm. that sanctifies us as
and makes us able to stand in these calling
and serve Absolutely.
And lead any other stories of compassion mixed
with bravery, or is that the,
- That's the big one right there.
It's, I mean, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that's the big one right there.
And that's, that's one of my top favorite stories
for many apostle ever.
I mean, it just, something about that it find
so touching and just, yeah. Just powerful.
- Yeah. All right. How about, uh,
the Lord calls you to be you.
Okay. That manifests in the life of James z Dage. Yeah.
- So when he was an apostle, he was called to be, uh,
the mission president of Great Britain, and he succeeded.
David O. McKay was the one right before him.
Like, there was a lot of, like, if you were called
to England, you an apostle
and a really cool, you know,
just an amazing apostle was gonna be your mission president.
Mm-Hmm. . And when he came to Great Britain,
it was the anti-Mormon sentiment was at its highest ever.
I mean, it was just the way
that newspapers knew they could sell a paper was they would,
they would write a headline.
This is an actual headline,
Mormon Mysteries unveiled a girl's awful revelations.
And they would put that on the paper and it would sell.
I mean, it would absolutely sell. Are you
- Saying fake news existed back then? This
- Is ?
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It did.
And in London, on the West end, one
of the most popular plays was a play called
Eve and the Elders.
Oh, wow. Yeah. I actually tried to find the play
to see if it was maybe online
or maybe on Google Books or something.
I couldn't find it, but it was quite popular at the time.
And I don't know anything about it except
that the elders are members.
And Eve, of course, is she's in a lot of danger.
And so at that time,
there was very little missionary work was very hard to do
because everybody just thought the Mormons
were absolute trouble.
And so, James e Talmage, I think the Lord, a lot
of the things that happened earlier in his life were
preparing him for just this moment, for just this moment.
So he would go to a hostile newspaper to speak
with the editor, and when he would go to the front desk,
he would offer his calling card, and whoever was the clerk
or whatever would go back, come back,
and they'd be like, uh, regretfully, the elder's schedule is
so full, he couldn't possibly find time to visit.
So Elder Tam expected this.
And he would say, oh, I, sorry, I just forgot something.
He would write down on his card,
he would write F-R-S-E-F-R-M-S
and FRGS,
and that was the, the fellow of the Royal Society
of Edinburgh, the fellow of the Royal Microscopic Society,
and the fellow of the Royal Geological Society, .
And the clerk knew exactly what the, everybody knew
what those were just by the initials.
And the clerk would look at it, look back at him,
and be like, I'll be right back.
. He would go and he'd be like, oh,
they would love to see you.
He may not today. Can you come back tomorrow?
Or they'd see him right then.
I mean, everything would just change
what I said earlier about those societies.
Like they were as respected as anything.
As a matter of fact, around that time, the Prince of Wales
was gonna be inducted into the fellow
of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
And that was like the best thing for the Prince.
I mean, the Prince was honored for that. Wow.
And so that's what it meant.
And so, so once he would talk to the editor,
and everybody that talked to James e Talmage
absolutely loved him, absolutely loved him.
Once he would talk to James Z Talmage, all
of a sudden they just, they didn't have the taste
for putting that in.
And so he would just go to newspaper
to newspaper and do that.
And then every once in a while, a story like
that would come, and James
z Talmage was friends with the editor.
He goes, do you mind if I write a rebuttal?
And he would write this rebuttal
and just anti-Mormon in the newspapers just
sort of went away. It just went away.
- Hmm. - Wow. So nobody else could have done that.
That was the one thing that, I mean,
he was probably the one man on earth at
that time who could have done that.
Yeah. And I do think, like in leadership,
like there are things you can do that nobody else can do.
Like, you don't have to be the bishop
before you who is super cool.
You don't have to worry about being him like the
Lord called you to be you.
- Yeah. And there, I just think of, you know,
the diplomatic efforts of different members of the church,
whether they're an official calling
or maybe they're a politician
or somebody who's well respected in a business community,
you know, they can, there's stories
of those people reaching out
and that those types of things happen in
smaller communities as well.
You know, maybe absolutely. The bishop can't get into
that house, but you know what their next door neighbor,
who's the executive secretary five years ago
or whatever, like, they have a relationship there
and maybe there's some connections that,
or they can work on the, the established respect,
the mutual respect in that relationship to reach out
and help and, and build, restore the good name
of the church in that area,
or the good name of the bishop, or whatever it is. Yeah,
- That's absolutely right. Yeah.
- All right. We're winding down here with James down again.
I mean, such an accomplished person.
He deserves his own podcast, to be honest.
But I, we know, Brian,
you're a little busy, so .
So where, where do you want to go next as we wrap up?
- Well, okay, there's one quick story
that's just a great story.
And it's, I'm so glad I know it now.
And it's, it's one of those church history stories
that you just, you wish you knew it your whole life,
but like I'd said earlier, like,
there's just too many stories.
Yeah. Uh, our church is just full of stories.
Even the best stories are just gonna
fall between the cracks.
And so he was known as a workhorse, and he would work hour
after hour, day after day, and he wouldn't do recreation.
It just did not interest him.
And this really concerned his family. It really concerned.
The other members of the 12 Hebrew J Grant
was constantly telling him, you gotta take up a sport,
you gotta do some, you gotta do a sport
- Like recreation or something. .
- Yeah. Yeah. And Hebrew J Grant was really
serious, really concerned.
And he is like, I know just the thing for you,
you were gonna love golf.
I took up golf. It's my favorite thing. Yo.
He was like, he was like,
and James z Talmud was just like, no, no, thank you.
I'm busy. I'm, I'm doing everything.
And, and so eventually, uh, president Grant, well,
he figured if, if he had just made one,
one good shot, he'd be hooked for life.
He was just sure of this .
And so eventually they reached the Compromise President
Grant would teach him how to play golf.
And after learning to make one good shot, if he decided
to quit, president Grant would cease his request.
And so, okay. So on that day, they get to the golf course
and there's President Grant, there's Elder Talmage,
there's several other general authorities.
Didn't say who, but there was
a bunch of other general authorities.
And they met with Elder Talmag at Nibley
Park for the first lesson.
And after President Grant demonstrated how to grip the club
and how to do a golf stroke, it was Elder Taags turn.
And I don't know, do you play golf?
- I mean, yeah. I, couple times a year.
I'm not like an avid golfer. Yeah. Okay.
- Very good. Well, I'm a new golfer.
I played a few times, and I'm absolutely horrible.
And so, so, you know,
like when you're starting out with golf, it's,
you're either gonna hit it a few feet
or you're gonna miss, I mean, it's,
it's a, it's a tough sport.
Elder tallman hit the ball 200 yards,
and it stayed in the fairway , so,
- Oh my goodness.
- Yeah. You read about the spectators.
This is how they wrote about it.
They were just momentarily struck, dumb,
and then they burst into applause.
And President Grant shook his hand
and said, congratulation,
that is a shot you'll remember for the rest of your life.
And Elder Mage was like, you mean
that was a fully satisfactory golf shop?
And President Grant was like, oh, yeah, it certainly was.
And then Elder Mage said
that I have fulfilled my part of the agreement.
And President Grant said, you have,
let's go down to the clubhouse now.
I'll help you select your first set of clubs.
And Elder Mage said, oh, thank you.
If I have fulfilled my part of the agreement,
then I shall call on you to live up to yours.
I should like to get back to my office
where I have a great deal of work.
And he never played golf again.
That was the last golf ball he ever shot.
- Oh my goodness. Mic drop moment.
Just as that'll do. Yeah.
Oh my goodness. I love that. Isn't that great?
- Yeah. - Love that.
Well, we ke we can't not talk about his effort in writing
Jesus the Christ as, you know,
just a hallmark effort accomplishment that, uh,
he did. Tell us more about that.
- Yeah. So it was, took him seven months and five days,
and he was at the Temple 24 7.
I mean, he was a real workhorse.
And that was one of the things
that got people worried about him.
That was why people were worried he was working so hard.
But he just, he just felt like if he had a project,
he was gonna see it through
and he would just give it his all.
- And now it, uh, I mean, it's blessed so many lives
and continues to bless the lives of missionaries
as they read it on their missions.
Oh, it's, I remember that's was
my first interaction with it.
- It's absolute classic. Yeah.
It's a very, that's a powerful book.
- It is. It's all right. What about his death?
- Well, so one of the things,
and this is one of those moments where it's, he died,
actually, you get to the end of their life
and you realize he died at like 70.
And you realize, oh, man, that, that feels young to me.
That actually feels young to me, especially
with Russell M. Nelson, just with all
of his energy at 99, you know what I mean?
And just what a blessing he is been, what a blessing he is.
Been to the church at his age,
but he died at 70 from a,
from complications of a strep throat.
And it was about 10 years before penicillin. Oh, wow.
And yeah, so, and if it wasn't treated right
away, it could be deadly.
And so he finished a radio address
and took his, one of his kids, maybe it was his son,
maybe his daughter, maybe all of them out to get ice cream.
And he had a cough that just would not,
that would just not get better.
And then the next day was Pioneer day.
And so he couldn't go to the doctors
because all the doctors were done,
and he wasn't about to impose himself to any doctors,
but then by the next day, it was just, it was too much.
And he, uh, he passed away from it. Wow.
- And Don was the legend, right? Yeah,
- Absolutely.
I mean, he was definitely, yeah, I mean, just an amazing,
just an amazing man.
So you read about these people,
you read about these apostles, and then you get to the end
and you almost, you know, you feel like you know him a
little bit and it's always touching at the end.
It's always absolutely touching when you get to that.
- Yeah. Well, this is awesome, Brian.
This has been so informative and helpful
and, uh, just exploring a little bit of the life of,
of James Zt and obviously did, what's the name
of the, his biography?
Is it just the life of James Zt or Talmage, or,
- It's the Talmage story,
and I don't, I think it's on Kindle.
I'm not a hundred percent sure about this.
I think it's on Kindle. It might be out of, um, print.
I got mine at a di or somewhere.
It'll, it'll show up ,
but it's definitely worth tracking down. It's a great book.
- Awesome. Is there any specific biography that isn't,
that they're having a hard time finding, or,
- Oh, yeah, there are.
There's actually quite a few.
I would have, I've got a list of biographies
that are like over a hundred bucks, you know what I mean?
Because they're just Oh, yeah. Way out of print.
- You gotta save up for those. Yeah,
- Exactly.
Or some of them are at the BYU library.
So eventually I'm gonna take a Saturday and come up
and read as much as I can.
, I mean, just spend, spend the whole day just
reading one of the biographies
and taking all the notes when I get to
that point when I run out of my biographies.
- But maybe take a break and go, uh,
swing a golf club once. Yeah,
- That's right.
Yeah, go shoot at 200. Be
- Nice.
No, that's cool. That's cool.
Well, I would encourage people again,
to go check out your account on X again.
Any anywhere else you would, you would send them,
or is that sort of the, that's
- All.
I've got the spot. Yeah. That's all I've got. Yeah.
- Cool. Well, we've talked offline a little bit.
We're gonna figure it out. I'd love to have you on and,
and sort of do this type of thing more and more.
And it may not be every hundred
and third apostle in, you know,
that we've had in on the podcast feed,
but we're gonna do some things on the YouTube channel,
maybe share some things there on social media.
So make sure that, uh, you're listening people subscribe
to the, to leading Saints on YouTube,
and we're gonna put some really cool stuff there.
But I'd love to have you back on and, and explore more lives
or just have you record on your own with, uh, you know,
share some good stories as you do, as you share 'em on X.
And, uh, maybe the next one we'll do is John W. Taylor.
Yeah. Uh, which is obscure individual,
but maybe t's John W. Taylor, who he was.
- Okay, so John W. Taylor was, uh, he was the son
of John Taylor, the prophet,
and his son, John w Taylor's son was Samuel Woolley Taylor,
who wrote the Absent Minded Professor and Flubber.
So the grandson of John Taylor wrote The
Absent Minded Professor.
And uh, that's so cool. He wrote a book about his
dad, John W. Taylor.
He was one of the apostles that was excommunicated
for polygamy after the Manifesto.
Wow. And it's so funny, and it is so like, like
- It gets doesn't expect me to say so funny. Well,
- It's the funniest, definitely the funniest Mormon history
book ever, because he
- Was obviously a good comedy writer
for his time. Right? Yeah.
- He was a very funny, Samuel Willie Taylor is a very funny
writer, so he knew how to write, he knew how to write,
that book reads so fast.
But John W. Taylor was very, very, he was a character.
He was very, very funny. And and you think
because of the end it would be like
dark and, you know what I mean?
It'd just be like kind of a bummer.
But he does something at the end that is so faith affirming
and so courageous.
I cannot wait to tell the story
that he became one of my heroes.
I mean, he really, well, I'll just tell this part of it.
Yeah. He really became, like,
he was a rock star at his time.
Like, he was the kind of guy that like people would come
to hear because he was really, everybody loved him.
He was very friendly. He was very, very funny.
And so when he got excommunicated, there was a real fear
that he would try to bring people away.
And some people came to him
and asked him to, and he said, I will.
This is Christ Church.
I will never, I will never, how did he put it?
Well, oh, we'll do it the next time.
But anyways, he, he was somebody who loved people,
and he really could have gone and started another movement,
and he refused to do it because this was Christ Church.
And he would never, he would never, never,
never betray awesome.
Betray that. But the way he does it, so I,
the way I did it was not as, as powerful as when he does it,
when he does it, it's just, it gives me chills.
Yeah. But it, it really gives you an idea of
what it was like to live in Utah in the early,
late 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds.
And it's just one, one banger story after another.
- That's awesome. All right.
Let's, uh, organize something and,
and maybe, I don't know, I'm playing around
with some new things in 2024,
but maybe even do a, a fun live stream
where people can join in
and ask some questions or something.
I don't know. We'll figure it out. I'll love that. Yeah.
And, but I'd let, yeah,
let's learn more about John W. Taylor and the, the highs
and lows of, of his life and his apostleship.
Okay. And again, if people wanna check out more X
of the apostles, head on over to X
and we'll link to it in the, in the show notes.
It'd be awesome. So, Ryan, the question we ask people,
as you know, you've, you've had an opportunity not only
to study the lives of leaders,
but to be a leader to yourself.
And how has being a leader helped you become a better
follower of Jesus Christ?
- Uh, I love that question.
Being a leader helped me understand how dependent I was
on the Savior when I had to give words of comfort
or be aware enough that I could talk to either, you know,
notice somebody new coming into church,
or somebody that needed a kind word.
I couldn't do that on my own.
And before I was a leader, I think I would just sort
of let the days go by.
I mean, I would just, I wouldn't think much about it,
but being a leader, I had to, I had to humble myself
and go to the Savior and realize
that I cannot do this without, without him.
- That concludes this episode of the Leading Saints podcast.
Hey, listen, would you do me a favor?
You know, everybody's got that friend who listens to a ton
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So would you mind taking the link of this episode
or another episode of Leading Saints
and just texting it to that friend?
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Remember, go to leading saints.org/fourteen
to access the remarkable presentation
by Anthony Sweat about ambiguity and doctrine.
- It came as a result of the position of leadership,
which was imposed upon us by the God of Heaven,
who brought forth a restoration of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ.
And when the Declaration was made concerning the own
and only true
and living church upon the face of the Earth,
we were immediately put in a position of loneliness.
The loneliness of leadership from which we cannot
shrink nor run away.
And to which we must face up with boldness and courage
and ability.