In this episode of the Weekly Deep Dive, hosts Jason and Nate dive into Alma 36 from the Book of Mormon. The discussion kicks off with a humorous interpretation of Alma 36:1 in Gen Z slang, sparking a lively conversation about generational labels and their shifting meanings.
As the conversation deepens, Jason and Nate explore the intimate and heartfelt counsel Alma gives to his sons. They highlight Alma’s refreshing honesty about his limitations and his unique ability to speculate openly about spiritual matters without claiming to have all the answers. This leads to a broader discussion on the preservation of sacred records, where Jason speculates on the practicalities of maintaining these records through techniques like charcoal rubbings to ensure accuracy and prevent forgery.
The hosts also delve into Alma’s personal conversion story, focusing on the profound mechanics of the atonement and the transformative power it holds. They discuss the importance of remembering past spiritual experiences to sustain faith and perseverance, emphasizing the role of enduring to the end.
A light-hearted analysis of child order dynamics adds a personal touch to the episode, with Nate sharing his theory on the distinct roles of oldest, middle, and youngest children. This segues into a touching anecdote about Nate’s young son’s anxiety over the second coming, providing a poignant reminder of the importance of keeping commandments and trusting in God’s promises.
Throughout the episode, Jason and Nate’s engaging and thoughtful commentary invites listeners to reflect on their own spiritual journeys. They encourage listeners to share their thoughts and spread the word about the podcast.
Transcript:
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the add on Education network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here with our friend and this show’s producer, Nate Pyfer.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Alma chapter 36, verse one, according to the book of Mormon for Gen Z. Unofficial chat. GPT translation for Gen Z says it best. What I would want to say, which is. Yo, listen up, my dude.
That’s how it starts.
Yo, listen up, my dude.
I swear to you, if you just follow God’s rules, you’ll succeed in life.
Words to live by.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: That’s it. Done. That’s. I mean, what else can I say?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Yo, listen up, my dude. I swear to you, if you follow God’s rules, you’ll be successful in life.
Thank you, bros. Of Smith.
Thank you, Broseph Smith of the book of Mormon for Gen Z, on a fascial check. Unofficial chat, GBD translation for Gen Z.
I swear, AI just thinks Gen Z. Stupid AI. Give him some slack, dude. Give him a little bit more credit than that.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Come on, come on, come on.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: AI.
Dude, there’s some good. There’s some good stuff to chat about this week, though. Speaking of Gen Z, I’m just glad.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: That the millennials finally get a break. Man, those millennials were getting hammered for a long time, and then Gen Z came along.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: I know.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Don’t worry, Gen Z. What’s the next one? Is it double a? What do they do? Restart the cycle?
[00:01:52] Speaker B: That’s a really great question. I’ve wondered about that myself, actually. I think they might just start making up symbols. It’s kind of like prince. Remember when Prince just became the symbol, the artist formerly known as Prince, then I think he went back to prince once he was able to get out of his record contracts. So, I mean, I really don’t know what’s going to happen to the next round.
You’re. You’re technically a millennial, aren’t you?
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that’s. I always grew up being told that.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: I was Gen X. I know, me too.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: And all of a sudden, I became a millennial. I’m like, wait, what? How?
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Well, people are trying to get a little. A little fishy, in my opinion, because they tried to do that to me, too. And I was born in 81, and you can still find some, like. Now they basically say that it’s kind of a. There’s a blurry line between 1980 is the cutoff and 1981 is the cutoff. But I’ve even seen some things saying, like, 1979 is the cutoff for Gen X. I’m like, give me a break, dude. And at the end of the day, it’s like, I relate. I’m Gen X, man. I’m not a millennial. Nothing against millennials, but I’m not one of you. I’m sorry. I am Gen X through and through, baby.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: You grew up watching the X Men animated series and we’re Gen X. And we’re like, oh, yeah, we got this.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Twitter became X. And I’m just like, yeah, Elon. Way to go, baby boy.
Gen X, baby.
I wonder how old Elon is. I wonder if he’s Gen X.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: And millennial was kind of a positive thing at the beginning. Like, we were in the new millennium, and then all of a sudden, our generation was associated with that and it became not so positive all of a sudden.
Who knows? Anyways, I diverse.
My apologies.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: It is what it is. No, but I mean, we’re kind of getting into it. I mean, the whole talk tonight is a parent talking to their children. I think that. I don’t think it’s. I actually don’t think it’s that far off topic. I actually have some funny kind of anecdotal stuff from talking to my six year old this week that’ll kind of make its way into the discussion tonight.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: I like it. I like it. I like.
There’s not a lot of examples of, I don’t think, I don’t see where prophets sitting down with their kids and counseling with them. We know it happens. We know Adam grabbed all of his kids together and talks to them and describes what’s the meaning of life, if you will, and what happened, what to expect and explaining death and all that good stuff.
We just don’t have the content of his speech. We don’t have the content. And here we have it. Here we have the words of a dad to his kids.
And I like Alma. I appreciate Alma a lot. He’s given us a good amount of content here in the book of Mormon. But what I think I like most about Alma is he’s not afraid to talk about his limitations. Right. And he doesn’t, he doesn’t speak further than what he knows or if he makes sure that you understand what he does know and what he doesn’t know. You know what I mean? You run. Run across that.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it’s a good, I think it’s a good point. Keep going.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I. We’ll see it a couple times here, but we’ve already even seen it in some previous chapters, and I’ve just kind of impressed with that because some people, not to throw out any names, but we’ve had some people get up and say, this is exactly how it is when they’re talking about things that they don’t even quite know about and just make some assumptions. And here, Alma’s not afraid to speculate a little bit and say, this is what my thoughts are, this is what my feelings are. And I’ve thought about this, and maybe it’s just because it’s the nature of who he’s talking to. He’s getting real with his sons, and he’s, you know, just showing them he’s not perfect. He’s trying to figure it out. And in here, we get his story, his, you know, more details about the conversion story that you don’t hear from another perspective. So it makes it nice to me. It makes it more real. Maybe it makes us feel, maybe like we’re Alma’s kids listening in on this, too.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: It also gets a little embarrassing, don’t you think? I mean, this is a family business. What’s it doing out there in the plates? Poor Coriant. And doesn’t exactly.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say, I know that that’s next week, but, uh.
Yeah, this poor dude. This poor. I mean, it’s what, in. In my sphere, it’s why we always say, you know, never date a songwriter or, like, never date a mom blogger. Never, never marry. Never marry a mommy blogger.
Because if you date a songwriter or a blogger, you just have to know that your life is going to sadly be read or listened to by a lot of people.
You know, don’t be the prophet’s kid. Don’t be the prophet’s kid.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: On the flip side of that, though, what Corian did wasn’t necessarily non public. I think everybody kind of knew what he did because he did it in a very public way.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I guess you can kind of try to bail him out that way. But it’s still. It’s still.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: People after him didn’t know.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that’s.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Millions of people after him didn’t know.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: The fact. The fact that we’re here talking about him still.
Couple thousand, couple, a couple thousand years later, just like, sorry, bro, because, you know, you know, there’s plenty of other people at that time, I’m sure that we’re doing stuff way worse than him. In fact, we read about it this week, but because he was related to the author. Sorry, buddy.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Do you think this name was changed to protect his identity?
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Nope, I don’t.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Do you think he changed his name later to protect his identity?
[00:07:47] Speaker B: Yep, I do.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: That. That corian kid? Yeah.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: I mean, you know, the joke within us, it’s always the bishop’s kid, right? Bishop’s kid’s always the worst one. But, I mean, my dad was a bishop, but luckily he was on my mission, so I couldn’t be any much more of a knucklehead than I was before I left, so.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Well, for what it’s worth, we talked about this a little bit ago, and it was kind of an interesting pattern that I noticed, starting with the Book of Mormon, but it took me back into Adam and Eve, and it took me to Noah. We’ve talked about it here in the show, but it’s kind of interesting to bring it up again because it fits here as well. And that pattern is that God oftentimes tells his story behind the scriptures, and we think, oh, they all. The author’s Mormon, or the author is Nephi, or the author’s whoever, Moses, in the case of the Old Testament, even though we notice that a lot of that is maintained and recorded by scribes over time, and who knows exactly who wrote it. But we can get into that a little bit later. Anyhow, besides the person that’s physically writing the story, it feels like you get God telling his story behind the scenes. And by that, I mean start with Adam and Eve. They’re the first parents, and they have children. And we know they had to have had several children because you can’t populate the earth with just three sons. Doesn’t work, but only three are mentioned. And you got Cain, Abel, and Seth and I. In that ratio, we’ve got the one that’s cast out and sent away from everybody else and cursed, and the other two that are considered righteous. And you get this one third, two third pattern and almost feels like God’s telling the story about us coming here on earth and one third of the host of heaven being cast out and kind of afflicting the others. And we see that repeat with Noah and Ham, Shem and Shapheth, with Hamline, being cursed to the priesthood. And then we saw that again with Nephi, with six kids, two, Laman and Lemuel, that were complaining, that felt like they were being cast out of Jerusalem and they were losing their inheritance, where the other four were looking at it as receiving a new inheritance, coming to the promised land and being blessed for their righteousness. And again, you get that one third, two thirds ratio, and here you’ve got Alma, and he’s talking to his sons. And you have almost kind of this repeat pattern with Corian, who kind of made these wrong choices, and then you’ve got Helaman and Shiblan, who are praised and counseled and received kind of brighter news. It’s just kind of interesting to see that every time it pops up, for what it’s worth.
All right, let’s dive into a little bit more of this content, and the one exciting one to me. Maybe I’ll jump a little bit out of order on this, as I’m. As I’m going here, and feel free to jump in or stop me or wherever.
Chapter 37. And this is Alma talking to his son, Helaman. And as you recall, Helaman is the one that has left home, does not get to go on the mission with everybody else.
And I think it’s because he had responsibilities in the church. It sounds like he’s the older son, and it sounds like the. And Alma trusted him to take care of the records. And there’s something to be said about this already from the start, what’s happening with the records while they’re going on a mission? And if Alma’s entrusted with them, is he taking the records down to show the Zoramites? And. I don’t think so. I think the records are staying back with Helaman, and he’s got this responsibility of keeping the plates. And so, as I was reading this this week, and verse two, and I also command you that you keep a record of this people, according as I have done upon the plates of Nephi, and keep all these things sacred, which I have kept, even as I have kept them, for it is for a wise purpose that they are kept. And you’ll notice how much that word keep and kept shows up.
Keep these. Not just keep a record of what’s going on, but also keep the plates as I have kept them, and there’s a wide purpose for them being kept. And it got me thinking, what does it actually mean to keep the plates?
In one instance, he’s talking about writing, but that’s not what he’s referring to as far as keeping them.
And he goes on. And these plates of brass, which contain these engravings, which have the work of the records of the holy scriptures upon them, which have genealogy of our forefathers, even from the beginning. Behold, it has been prophesied by our fathers that they should be kept and handed down from one generation to another, and be kept and preserved by the hand of the Lord. And so, again, you keep seeing this idea. This word kept showing up, verse five. And now, behold, if they are kept, they must retain their brightness. And they will retain their brightness. Yea, and also the place which do contain that which is holy writ.
And so that got me thinking, what is the responsibility? Because in the beginning, he’s talking about keeping the records as writing, but then he makes this transition of what it means to maintain them. And when he starts speaking specifically of the plates of brass, I don’t think they’re adding to the plates of brass, do you, Nate?
[00:13:03] Speaker B: I don’t know. What do you think?
I’m just listening for a minute. So you just. You do your thing.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: You’re good. I think the gold plates are what they’re using to write new records. Well, no, let’s stop that. It’s not. It’s not even there at that point, right? Mormon’s going to put these together.
There are plates of gold. I think you get the large book of Nephi. You got the small book of Nephi. And so I think they’re writing in these new Nephite records that are made from metal, and I don’t think they’re combining or mixing these metal plates with the brass plates. I look at the brass plates almost as a record that’s been complete and finished. Maybe they were adding to them.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: It wouldn’t make sense that they would have to, like, I mean. Cause weren’t they kind of taking the bits and pieces from the brass and bringing them over to some of the gold records?
[00:13:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I think they’re.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: So, in theory, you don’t need.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Who would have seen this in scenic. Right. Yeah.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: So you don’t need to be adding to the brass plates.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: No, I look at the brass plates almost as a completed record and that they brought with them and they referred to it. But I don’t think you mix plates. When Joseph Smith finds the plates, it’s not that. It’s the brass plates attached to the gold plates and one massive ring binder. Right. I think. I think the brass plates are a completed record. And the reason I make that emphasis is because he’s talking about keeping, particularly the brass plates. And if it’s not about writing in them, what does it mean to keep them? That they. That they’re not getting ruined over time.
And so that got me thinking about this responsibility.
This was a sacred record that they did not want destroyed. And if you don’t want something destroyed, one of the best things you can do is not let people access it, not let people use it, not let people touch it. And so it seems like these records are being guarded. Kept has the sense of guarded. They’re being protected.
They don’t take the records with them onto a mission of people that hate them or want to destroy them or want to destroy the church, because what are they going to do? This is their one proof that this is true. You don’t want the original record being destroyed.
And as I got thinking about this, go to verse nine. This is in chapter 37 again. Yeah. And I say unto you, were it not for these things that these records do contain which are on these plates, Ammon and his brethren could not have convinced so many thousands of the language lamanites to the incorrect traditions of their fathers. Yea, these records and their words brought them unto repentance. That is, they brought them to the knowledge of the Lord their God, and to rejoice in Jesus Christ their redeemer. And that’s an interesting connection that Alma makes for me.
I thought it was the lopping off of arms personally that did it. I thought it was the miracles and Alma’s crediting the plates, not Ammon’s swordsmanship or divine power.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Yes. To be fair, we saw this with Laman and Lemuel as well, though a big part of the reason that Lehi wanted to make sure they had the plates, because he knew that even, and it talks a little bit about this week when it talks about the Lijona, too. But Lehidhead knew that even though his sons were going to see angels, that his sons were going to see balls of curious workmanship guide them across, even he knew that that wasn’t going to be enough for them. And this is a pattern that we’ve seen even from Lehi’s insistence on the recovery of the brass plates in the first place.
And I believe, I wish I should have gone back and looked, but I mean, I remember there being scriptures of even when they brought the brass plates back, the first thing they do is open them and start reading them and start preaching out of them and start teaching them. I mean, it was, this is the pattern that we’ve seen from the beginning, which I, again, whether or not this is the time to add this, as I was listening and reading this week, these things are true, man. This was not made up like every week. I know we continue to say it every week. This was not made up by some kid on a farm dictating this to one of his buddies just off the cuff like as you read, just the intense, beautiful doctrine pact language.
And this week, especially, talking about when Alma’s going through kind of his repentance process and the atonement and just the language of like having his sins harrowed up and having these things brought back to his remembrance is you, just as you read through these things, you go, this is why the scriptures are used to be.
Tool of convincing is because if you spend the time with a heart that is soft or that is ready to have seeds of faith planted in it, and you just read the words, the spirit testifies of their truthfulness and we can’t say it enough.
This was not a story made up by some kid.
And it’s the pattern. This is why the pattern holds even now.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: I appreciate that.
I like that. And I agree. We keep getting into this and the layers, the complexity sometimes, yet in contrast, the simplicity, the beauty and the power and what you feel as you read it, it’s just in fact, and this is going to fit with where I’m trying to go as I’m walking us down this road of what it means to keep these plates. Joseph Smith calls the book of Mormon the most correct book. And that’s a bold statement to make. I want to revisit that.
And when we talk about Ammon going on his mission to the Lamanites, is Mosiah, who’s in charge of the records at this time, going to give the only copy, the original, the plates, to his son to take to the Lamanites when he doesn’t know how that’s going to go, what’s going to happen? Is the record going to get lost? Are you going to put the fate of your entire people and potentially future generations in the trust that everything’s going to go all right when Ammon goes into the Lamanites?
I don’t think so. There’s no way these plates are considered the most sacred, valuable thing. They’re guarding them. They’re protecting them. Precious.
It’s like the Old Testament was in the Bible. Where did they keep the Old Testament?
And they kept it in the ark of the covenant. They kept it in the temple. They kept it holy. They kept it sacred. So you’ve got this interesting paradox.
We have to keep it confidential. We have to protect it. We have to keep it sacred. We can’t show it to people unless it gets destroyed, unless it gets changed, unless. Unless something happens to that record. But we also have to make it available to everyone.
And you look at it, and throughout the Book of Mormon, they keep saying, we know that you can’t be ignorant of these things. These things are taught all over the place. And do we not read in this? And we do not read in that. And it seems like the information from the plates is being disseminated among the people.
And so you have to have a means through which they can read the records without actually putting the records at risk.
And we know that Mosiah does not give Ammon the records because it says that he gives the records to Alma to take care of, since his sons all disappear into the lands of Lamanite. So. So even Mosiah having the promise that his kids would be okay, still doesn’t roll the dice with the plates. He needs to keep them protected. So going back to this question, Alma crediting the plates for the conversion of thousands and saying Ammon could never have done it without the plates, when Ammon didn’t even have the plates with him.
So how does that work?
And if we look at it, Ammon is going down into the land.
And if he says to the king, and he says to all of the Lamanites, and perhaps the king believes him because of the lopping off of the arms and everything else, and he’s got him, but how does he convert thousands? And that’s Alma’s and critical point here is it’s not that he converted the king. It’s that how was he able to convince many thousands of Lamanites? And what is he convincing him of? And I think this is critical here, too, the incorrect tradition of their fathers. So what is the tradition of the Lamanites, and how is it being maintained? They’re maintaining their traditions, I suspect, in an oral tradition, this is what they pass it down from father to son to father to son. They robbed us. They stole our stuff. They stole the plates. They took the birthright, the first, the firstborn’s right to rule and take care of the family. They took all of that and left. And they’re blaming the Nephites for what went wrong, because that’s the oral tradition. That’s what’s been passed down. If Ammon comes back with them, with his version of the oral tradition. No, your guys, your parents rebelled and they tried to kill at my father, and they wouldn’t listen. They rejected the prophets, and so they had to take the plates and go with them. It’s going to be his word versus their word. And how are you going to convince them? Who’s right?
You have to have something more than that to convince thousands of people that their history, the way they know it, is wrong.
And so how is ammon able to do this? And as I started thinking about the plates, their importance of converting them even though he couldn’t bring the plates with them. And I’m thinking, how could he use the plates then? And it can’t just be that he is telling them what it was because it’s a he said, she said type situation. And it’s true that ammon could. Like the Old Testament, you have scribes that are writing everything down by hand and then you take that and then the next generations of scribes are duplicating it and writing it all down by hand. And so it could be the ammons coming to them with a paper copy of the plates that is all handwritten that he presents to them. But at the same time, how do you know and trust that ammon is not just making this up? How do you prove the veracity of what’s being there? And, and it got me thinking about the plates and the, the energy they put into engraving them. And I always thought that the blast, brass plates, gold plates, metal plates were being written in metal so that they could be preserved for a long period of time. And I think that’s part of it. But then I started thinking, wait a second, when you’re stamping something in metal, when you’re engraving something in metal, you’re making an original that you can copy from. If you take a piece of paper and lay it over that metal plate with the engravings in it and then rub charcoal across the top of it, you can create an identical image of what’s engraven on the plate. And all of a sudden the plates don’t just become a record that you can’t share with everybody, they become an original and a proof that can be used like an early printing press and you can easily replicate the pages, create copies, disseminate that information out and it becomes something that you can’t easily change.
If I want to prove that this is the, this is what the plates say, I have a picture of the plate that I can take back to the plate and I can compare with the original and verify that that is the actual record. And all of a sudden it’s, it’s, it’s validation. How easy is it to forge a plate? If you wanted to create a false rubbing, you would have to recreate the entire plate and you would have to rewrite it and you’d have to do. And then when you create the rubbing, it’s going to be looking different than what’s in the original record. And so you take that plate and if there that paper and if you compare it with another version of the paper. You can see that there’s a difference. You go back to the original plates and you find that plate and you compare it, and you say, oh, this one is accurate. You have a foolproof, 100% way of validating that the scriptures is always the same and which version is right and that you can go back and look to. And it’s not history that’s been invented, it’s not history that’s been changed. It’s something that can’t easily be forged. It’s non repudiation. Does that make sense?
Yes, and it’s going, in the space of speculating on my part, on how these records are kept. But I think when he’s saying that you’ve got to keep it, you’ve got to maintain this record so that it can be used for reference. You’ve got to create these copies. And you look at scribes and their responsibility to create copies.
Here’s something I don’t think a lot of people are aware of, and it’s the process of transmission of the Old Testament through time.
When people say the Bible, what do they mean by the Bible?
In fact, this is something I come across every now and again. When people find out that I can read Hebrew and look at the Bible, they’re like, oh, so you can read the actual Bible or the real Bible.
What people don’t realize is there are hundreds, if not thousands of different versions of the Bible in Hebrew in the original language.
If you. If you go to the Hebrew Bible and, and you open it up, you’ll see similar to what we have. So, so I’ve got. I’ve got the Biblio Ibrecus du Cartenzia, and. And it’s the.
The Hebrew Bible. You open it up, and at the very bottom, you have a bunch of footnotes, just like you do in our King James Version. But the footnotes aren’t notes that reference cross references of different scriptures that mention where that word is. These footnotes are references to other manuscripts in the hebrew text that has a hebrew word that’s different or different version of that verse.
We know from comparing these different versions that the scribes did not always maintain 100% integrity in the text. From version to version to version, there’s improvements that have been made or that have been changed. In Deuteronomy, it says that the Lord divided the land according to the number of the children of Israel. We found older hebrew manuscripts that instead of saying according to the number of the children of Israel, it said according to the number of the children of Elohim.
But then the scribes looking at that, Elohim, the children of God, why would he do it? And it started to sound like polytheism. It starts to sound like greek. You’ve got Zeus and then all of these gods and the children of God, and each God has this land or this area that they’re going to. We can’t have polytheism. Judaism has to be monotheism. We’re going to change that word from God to the number of children of God to the number of children of Israel, because that’s going to make more sense to us. So in one hebrew manuscript, you have according to the children of Elohim, in one hebrew manuscript, you have according to the number of the children of Israel. And then in the greek manuscript, you have according to the number of the children of angels. And so each translator is taking this and has the freedom and flexibility to write whatever word they want to, and that gets transmitted to the next version. And so there is no one copy of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, that we can reference and say, this was the Bible.
Theres many different versions, and theyre all close and they all agree very similarly. But then come back to the Book of Mormon. If what they were doing to replicate and send these records out, and again, stamping a medal and being able to just rub a copy and send that out, there is no room for interpretation. There is no room for changing it, because if you did, it doesnt match the original record, that could be identified as a fraud.
You have one true record that maintains itself over and over and over again. And then the role of the person keeping this record, to be able to use it to reference and verify and validate and send out to people a copy that they can say, okay, this came from the plates, it establishes a truth far more than what you can just say. So when Joseph Smith says, this is the most correct book on earth, even think about that in context of it. This book didn’t go through translations and translations. It didn’t go through copyings and copyings and people being able to change the words at will, how it goes, it has always maintained itself through whatever process it went to, to today, where Joseph Smith translated it from the original plate records. So it’s an interesting history, and that’s where my mind’s gone when, when I start reading about Helaman’s responsibility to take care of this record and the responsibility that it must maintain its brightness, it must retain its quality. If maybe a character starts to get not so deep engraving in there. Maybe you need to go back through it and deepen it a little bit and just make sure that it’s clear so that it can always be read, it can always be maintained. This responsibility became vitally important, and they could lean on it. And almond even says that the plates were used to enlarge their memories. And I love that phrase, that term, because our memory is not perfect, and we start to remember things differently as time goes on. Or maybe we forget some of the details, or maybe it starts to get lost a little bit. Or maybe we take a perspective on that. And when we see it differently, it’s different. But the plates don’t have that bias. It doesn’t have that loss. It’s. It’s what it was. And we can go back and look at the plates, and it can correct whatever we thought and help us retain a more perfect memory. Enlarge what we were not able to remember, what we weren’t able to be there for, and give us that. That non repudiation. Love it.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Let’s keep going. Love it. All right.
[00:31:52] Speaker A: All right. In chapter 37 as well.
And. And also, feel free to jump in anything you want. If.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: No, we’re moving in the right direction.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: Okay. I wanted to read verse eleven, verse.
Let’s go. Let’s go. 1011. Just kind of transitioning out of this record of the plates.
In chapter nine, Ammon Alma credits the plates for having been able to convert thousands of lamanites to the incorrect traditions of their fathers. In verse ten. This is where I’m talking about Alma’s ability to speculate. Speculate. And explain where he’s speculating from, but stop himself short and explain what he knows and what he doesn’t. And then verse ten, it says, and who knoweth but what they will be the means of bringing many thousands of them. Yea, and also many thousands of our stiff necked brethren, the Nephites, who are. Who are now hardening their hearts in sin and iniquities to the knowledge of their redeemer. Now, these mysteries are not yet fully made known unto me. Therefore, I shall forbear. And it may, uh. And it may suffice if I only say they’re preserved for a wise purpose. Which purpose. Purpose is known unto God. For he that counsel and wisdom over all of his works and his path is straight, and his course is one eternal round. And so right here, he kind of takes this. They’ve convinced thousands. And who knows? They might be used to convince thousands of more lamanites down the road or thousands of more of our knee fights, that there’s a reason why. And so he’s starting to speculate about their role, that you might have another ammon like event. You might be able to pull thousands of people out of their errors and convince them.
But he says he’s not sure. I’m going to have to forbear. These mysteries are not yet fully made known unto me. Therefore I’m going to stop.
He knows, and you can almost see his thought process. Why is he making this speculation? Why is he making this jump? Because we’re maintaining this. That means that the plates are not yet done. They have a wise purpose for helping people later on, and they have helped people before. So I know they’re going to help people. I just don’t know the extent. And I’m going to kind of branch out and make some assumptions here. And it sounds like he’s not fully aware of the role the plates are going to have in the restoration of the gospel later on, which is an insight that I think Nephi is very much aware of. I think it’s an insight that Mormon and Moroni are very much aware of the role that the plates will have when they’re pulled out of the ground and translated and become this record that are going to convince not just thousands of people. And so even Alma and his assumptions and trying to piece this together of why they need to maintain the records, I don’t think he even has the right scope and vision of this. He’s thinking thousands.
And the Lord’s saying today, when we look back, the Book of Mormon has helped convinced millions of people of the truth. So it’s kind of cool to see Alma connecting those dots, making inferences, but not quite getting the full picture, and then us having that hindsight and looking back and seeing where he was and the wisdom that he has to kind of stop himself short and make some assumptions.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: I also like that that was proceeded with him reminding Helaman and all of us of how God continues to find ways to confound the wise and truly. That’s what the plates and the Book of Mormon have done and continue to do.
The authenticity of the Book of Mormon has been under attack in question for 200 years.
And you know, about, sorry, I should be careful. Not exactly 200 years, but you know what I’m saying.
And it just continues to defy explanation in so many ways and continues to confound all men that are willing to read it. And as much as it is, just as much as it is continually bombarded with people trying to poke holes in it. It continues to confound the wise.
So I think that Alma set it up perfectly and then perfectly describes what it will do and how it will be able to convince so many of not only the witness of Jesus Christ and his divinity, but also of the truth of the restoration.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
And he drops an interesting nugget in verse twelve.
And it may suffice if I only say this, that they are preserved for a wise purpose, which purpose is known unto God. For he doth counsel in wisdom over all his works.
And in here, I have that crossed reference to Amos three seven. Right. Because surely the Lord God doth nothing and save it. He revealeth his. And it’s interesting.
What is Amos three seven?
[00:36:59] Speaker B: Surely he revealed his secret to his service, the prophets. Yeah.
[00:37:03] Speaker A: That word in Hebrew that’s translated the secret is actually counsel, or his hidden counsel. And here in twelve, you have it stated as counsel. He doth counsel and wisdom over all of his works. And I like this idea. If we have a goddess that’s perfect in knowledge, that knows exactly what needs to be done, and we can see how smart he is and what he’s done to save his children and to give us this, why is he wasting his time counseling and making decisions in counsel? And who is this counsel? Who does God counsel with?
And I like that reference, even in particular with these chapters, because it’s Alma, counseling with his sons. And it kind of gives us that same perspective. What does it mean to counsel? And even if you know all the answers, what’s the wisdom of counseling still with other people? Is somebody actually going to, going to prove something to God that he didn’t know? Why is God counseling?
And I like that he is.
I think there’s wisdom even if you have all the answers to counsel, because you’re also giving other people a chance to reach the same conclusions that you are, or you’re giving people chance to show you different perspectives, or, I mean, God’s not too wise that he doesn’t see.
I think you know what I’m saying, even though I’m struggling in saying, I.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Mean, I look at it like we, if nothing else, I think it’s a pattern that we see within the church where. And I’m glad we even changed the language of it. Jason, you remember when we were serving together in the elders Quorum years ago? I guess it was at this point they really even kind of put in. It’s right when they combine the high priests and the elders Quorum together to form just really the elders Quorum and not have those separate. And there was an emphasis on counseling together and having. Instead of just having a teacher go up and give a lesson that at least once a month we were having elders quorum council. I just think that there’s.
I think that we do it with the ward council, with the auxiliaries. We do it family council. Like, there’s. It’s. It’s a. It’s a.
It’s a pattern. It’s a process that we see. I mean, we talk about even before this life was what the great council in heaven, where we all got together. So I think that it. I can see. I see where you’re going with this. For me, I think it maybe is just a little bit more simple, which is when you ask the question, well, why do we do that? Because if we. If we already kind of know all the answers or if we know all these things, I think that it’s a chance. Look at what. Look at what Alma’s doing right now with his sons, like you said, right. He’s counseling with them. Alma knows the answers, but he’s not. It doesn’t sound like he’s really asking them to give him much feedback in return. But what is he doing? He’s teaching them. He’s instructing them.
He’s saying, hey, here’s my lived experience. Hey, look to the scriptures. Hey, this, you know, it’s like. It’s the pattern, hopefully, of what we should be doing in our ward councils, in our family councils. I imagine that the council before this life was similar. And again, like, I. That’s how I at least kind of read that.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: Did I. Is that. Is that not the point you’re trying to make?
[00:40:44] Speaker A: That’s 100% the point I’m trying to make. And it’s an opportunity to learn, and it’s opportunity to talk about things.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: And I think that sometimes we think of the word counsel, as in the everybody.
This is going to sound terrible, but I think if you think through it with me all the way, it doesn’t sound as bad as it might come out, is. I think sometimes when we think of an idea of a counsel, there’s kind of the assumption that everybody has as important of a voice or as an important of it as an opinion. I don’t see it like that.
I think that one of the beautiful things about a council would hopefully be somebody with knowledge having the opportunity for other people to seek wisdom from that person or to seek counsel from that person or advice from that person. And that’s not to say that obviously in our ward councils or in our family councils, that one person knows everything. But what I will say is in certain councils, not all opinions are created equal. And I guess that shouldn’t be that shocking of a thought. But the thought of counseling with God, I don’t think, is us going to God and giving him advice by any means. I think it’s a chance for him to be willing to, like Alma, with his sons here, give us the opportunity to have him instruct us on the things that we’re doing well, the things that we need to improve on the. And that. That’s maybe where I see counsel more than the knights of the roundtable deciding whether they’re going to war or not. You see what I mean? I guess both, even the knights of.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: The roundtable have, I guess, a little bit of as much as that table’s round. I think Arthur still has a lot of say in this.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: You’re right.
There is still a power structure somewhere. Yeah, that’s a better way to say it. A presiding voice still. But I mean, even in a war council, like. Yeah, it’s like we believe that. I mean, we’ve learned that the twelve apostles and the Prophet Council, they get together once a week and meet in, you know, in the temple and, and they counsel. But there is still structure within that council. There is still a presiding voice. I guess that’s, that’s the best way to put it, you said is presiding.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: And I love that. As much as he’s doing this on a large scale in the church, I’m sure he’s counseling with his prophet. I’m sure he’s counseling with the apostles. I’m sure he’s counseling.
And what we see is the heavenly counsel. With whom shall I send? And you see this on a large scale, but then go back to Isaiah. Come, let us reason together. Come, let us counsel together. And how many times did the Lord offer us to counsel with him on a personal level, with the decisions that we’re making in our life? And how many times do we counsel with the Lord when we’re facing something challenging and we’re breaking down and we’re crying and telling the Lord, this is what I’m dealing with, and this is what I’m trying to do, help me figure this out. And that invitation is there. Not just he’s. There’s nobody that’s not important enough for the Lord to sit down and counsel with and help on an individual and a personal level as well. And we have access to that you.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: Did bring up a good point, though, in the pre earth life council, when he said, whom shall I send? He wasn’t asking for our suggestions. I don’t feel like I think he knew the answer to that question before he posted it. And so I think that’s all I’m saying, I guess, is it still comes back down to, I love the idea, by the way, too, with our children when they come to us and say, how do I solve this problem? So much of the time, we want them to learn the process of figuring it out, that we don’t just give them the answer. And so I guess in a theory, that’s counseling with them, right. It’s asking them, well, what, what do you think? Well, what do you think you should do?
And give them the opportunity to maybe really work it out?
But. But to your point, when he said, whom shall I send?
We all weren’t like, send Billy, you know? Okay. I guess that’s what we’re doing, right? Like, it wasn’t. It wasn’t a democracy. I feel like in that sort of a way, we weren’t voting on who to send. I think that there was a plan in place, and it was our opportunity to reason and work through and see what his plan was to, you know.
[00:45:29] Speaker A: And maybe there’s an interesting blend here. I mean, as you’ve pointed out, counseling in a lot of cases, is instructing, is teaching, is Alma’s counseling his sons. He is providing them with the framework. He’s providing them with the instruction, the backstory, and he’s teaching them so that they’re enabled to be empowered to make the decision that’s going to best suit them. Right? And I. Maybe at the heart of counseling lies agency, which God values so much. And in order for us to make that choice, let me just counsel with you. In other words, let me explain to you the importance of the decision and what goes into making that decision and what we need to do, and then turn that back to you with the agency that I’m giving you and ask you, whom shall I send? Now that you’re aware of the situation, now that you’re aware of what needs to happen, now you’re aware of the responsibilities, and now you’re aware of who the first person is. Who shall I send?
And maybe that’s him teaching and guiding and showing us the way it has to be, and yet allowing us the freedom, the flexibility to decide if we’re on board with his will still or if we want something else.
And so you’re right, Nate. I don’t think a council can ever just be open it up and just free falling chaos about what’s going on. There’s got to be somebody that presides. There’s got to be somebody that has some direction, some vision, some focus that can at least provide, at the very minimum, context for it, for the people that they’re counseling with and direction and where we’re going so that we can make the best choice with. With everything laid out on the table.
[00:47:16] Speaker B: Yep. Let’s keep going.
[00:47:19] Speaker A: All right. And there’s some diligence there that he repeats. And let’s see, maybe I’ll finish up at the end of 37, but take an opportunity to go back to 36 before I pass it. And I think 36.
Alma’s retelling his story to Helaman about what he went through and the experience and his fall and salvation and just kind of open this up.
Nate, is there anything you wanted to jump in on verse 30 or chapter 36?
[00:47:56] Speaker B: No. The one thing that I did really like in that early chapter was the language that Alma used when he was recalling his repentance experience and how I feel like it kind of gives us. You’ve brought this up. And again, I don’t know how deep we want to go on some of this because so much of our chatting about this in the past has been very speculative. And so I always just want to make sure that we always preface these discussions with that. But the way that Alma kind of talks about his having to atone for his own sins, and a lot of what came to him was that his sins were brought to his remembrance and the shift of God remembering those sins no more. And the. And it’s trying to understand almost the mechanics of how the atonement works. And you touched on it briefly last week, which is, did Jesus atone for himself? And our way to receive salvation is through him. Right. Becoming him. He is the door. He is the gate. And if we don’t take advantage of that, are we then responsible for our own sins? Right. And this, I feel like this is something that has been talked about in the past, too, by prophets and things. It’s not pure speculation on our part, but maybe just encourage everybody to go back and reread that, because there are some really incredible insights into maybe what the mechanics of the atonement and paying for our own sins if we don’t have. If we don’t take advantage of the gift that Christ has given us and go through him. But a lot of it was he didn’t want to be in the presence of God. It terrified him to think that he would be in the presence of God because all he could think about or remember were his sins, the things that he had done wrong. And so much of the time we think, oh, maybe we’re getting kept out of heaven because we get to a judgment bar and God, as the judge says, sorry, you didn’t make it to the celestial kingdom, you’re getting sentenced to the terrestrial kingdom, whatever it is. And we’re like, oh, okay, cool. We didn’t check off enough boxes or whatever it is, right? But the way this very much reads is this is a person that is so aware and. And in their mind can only think about the terrible things that they’ve done, that they don’t want to enter into the presence of God because of knowing the guilt and the pain and the hurt associated with that. It just kind of gives you a little perspective. It’s like, oh, maybe it is us that make that decision in going, hey, it to me sounds like it would be more of a hell to have to go into the presence of goddess, knowing how unworthy we are to be doing that.
Maybe it’s a lot more of us keeping ourselves out of the celestial kingdom because we wouldn’t feel right there, we wouldn’t feel comfortable there. And then obviously, just the association with the three days that he was in hell and Christ was there to pull him out, it just makes me, a lot of the language just kind of made me think, like, oh, is this a little bit of insight onto actually the functioning of the atonement, of us feeling what it’s just like to pay for our own sins to be dead, and then to see Christ being willing to come and help us remember those sins no more as well.
That was the only thing I just wanted to kind of briefly throw out there.
[00:52:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think there’s some significance in being told what it’s like versus living it. Right. I mean, you can have a council all day long where say, hey, you’re, this is terrible, and the sins, and this is what it’s going to feel like, and this is how I’m going to provide a salvation for you.
But Alma is experiencing it firsthand, just to live that there’s something to that. There’s something about the experience and experiencing it and coming through that. Right.
And I think the only other thing I wanted to kind of bring up on this is perspective.
When he’s focusing on the responsibility and the weight of living up to his consequences for what he has done, that’s all he can think of. That’s all he can see. And that perception has just swallowed him up in this agony and this pain. And he describes it as excruciating.
And yet, when his mind. I love it, how he says in verse 18, as my mind caught upon. Caught, hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart, o Jesus, thou son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness and encircled about with the everlasting chains. Right? And behold. And now, behold. When I thought this, I could remember my pains. No more. Yeah, I was harrowed up. I was hard up by the memory of my sins. No more. And, oh, what joy and what marvelous light I did. Behold. Yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceedingly as was my pain. And it’s a matter of perspective that all of a sudden shifts and changes. And Christ, this transformation we see in a couple times. We saw an enoch as we talked in the book of Moses, when he’s this warrior captain that’s been fighting these enemies and these giants and these wicked people forever, and he sees the Lord raining destruction on them and the flood and that they’re going to be all wiped out. And all he can see is the victory. Like, yeah, this was the. This was the residue of the earth. Not worth anything. And they’re finally done. And he turns and he sees heaven crying and God crying, and he says, how can you cry? This is the residue of the earth. This is, like, the greatest day ever. We won. And God’s like, don’t you get it? These were your brothers. These are my children.
And all of a sudden, all it takes to go from this moment of triumph and happiness is just a simple change in perspective. Instead of focusing on all these people as these wicked. Whatever, he sees them for who they are. And now he can’t be consoled, and he refuses to be consoled. And yet I, God, shows him that his son is going to come, that he’s going to die, that he’s going to be saving the world. And now all of a sudden, he can shift out of that. That bitterness, that sadness for the fate of others, not even his own fate, but the fate of others. He’s able to switch out of this bitter sadness into rejoicing in Christ and the atonement and what it means. And part of the power of the atonement is that ability to transition out of depression and sadness and guilt. And just by being able to change perspective, it’s incredible, the power that has.
And you see it with Lehi.
He was the other example that he’s crying on behalf of his people with all of his heart, God, save these people. And God’s answer to his prayer is, I’m going to kill them. They’re going to perish by the sword and be carried away captive into Babylon. And it makes zero sense that Lehis saying, oh, well, how great and marvelous are you, God, you’re so powerful and you save everyone, and you’re so merciful and your goodness that are over all the inhabitants of the earth, and you won’t suffer anyone that perished to come to you. He’s not saying it sarcastically, but then Nephi gives us that inside perception that he saw the coming of the messiah and the redemption of the world. And so maybe this is just that key component of counseling, too. Like, like you were hitting on Nate, is the idea that you do have someone that can change the perspective, that can provide you with the context you need. Because maybe that’s all you need is just the right context and the right person to focus on. That can make everything else kind of melt away and disappear. And even the harshest of things, the atonement, has the power to bring us salvation. I guess.
[00:56:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I just. I like it. Glad it got brought up. The word remember, we use so much for all of the good things. It’s why we have the scriptures. It’s why we each week covenant to remember Christ. It’s why we’re told to remember who we are and what we represent by our parents when we’re 16, going out on dates. Remembering is always.
Is mostly used in such a positive way.
You know, remember the good things, remember who you’re named after. You know, the list can go on and on. I did like noticing that that’s where the pain of Alma atoning for his, you know, making right his wrongs, all of it had to do with he was that the remembrance of his iniquity was brought. Brought to the forefront of his mind. And you’re just like, oh, yeah, I mean, that’s. That has to be the other side of this, is that.
Yeah, man, it would suck to only have to remember all of the terrible things that you’ve done or said. It did kind of make me think maybe we’ve talked about this before, because functionally, too, does God truly forget the sins that we’ve done in a literal way? Because if God knows everything, can God forget something?
That’s a tough question.
I hope the answer is yes.
[00:58:05] Speaker A: I mean, it says it is.
[00:58:07] Speaker B: I know.
[00:58:08] Speaker A: I mean, you bring up the paradox.
[00:58:10] Speaker B: There’s a paradox there. But what I guess the reason I think of that is because, you know how, you know how you kind of get that pit in the stomach when you realize you might have accidentally sent the wrong text message to somebody.
I’ve been. I have had some friends that have accidentally sent a text message to a person that they were talking about to other people in a very non flattering way. And yes. You know what I mean? It’s like you kind of get that pit in your stomach even thinking about it, or you think you may have actually hit reply all on an email that you shouldn’t have hit reply all on. You see what I’m saying?
I take that and I pump that full of steroids and I think, man, in the next life, is every lie I’ve ever told gonna be known by everybody? Is every time I bad mouthed somebody behind their back, but tried to still stay civil and be a friend to their face, am I gonna be exposed? Is a phony.
You know, when you start kind of thinking about that, I really do hope that some things can be forgotten before I get to the next life because that’s going to be a pretty awkward time for a lot of people, me at the top of that list. But do you see what I’m saying?
I always hope. I hope that there’s a way that those things won’t be at the forefront of people’s remembrance. But I know the pit in my stomach even now thinking, oh, man, I hope I don’t have to remember that. I hope I don’t have to.
I hope I don’t have to approach basically, you know, every person you’ve ever met in your life and say, oh, yeah, about that. I was having a rough day, you know?
[01:00:07] Speaker A: Yeah. But at the same time, like, sometimes it just gets swallowed up, right? I mean, yeah, somebody does something and the memory of them doing it is swallowed up by the memory, or the active memory, if you will, of who they are now, which is completely different of who they were. And it’s hard to even believe that they were that way before or that they even did it. And you can’t even associate with that. It’s almost like it gets associated with somebody who no longer exists anymore. And I think we’ve been there, right? You can look at it and say, that person that did that no longer exists is dead. It’s not even me. I don’t even care if you remember that person because that’s not me. I’m not that person. I don’t do that. I don’t live that way. It’s almost as if the memory gets associated with somebody who no longer exists.
And instead, when people think about you, they think about you differently because they think about who you are today. And. And maybe. Maybe you can remember with. Without forgetting, but at the same time, you don’t think about that with that person anymore because it’s not who they are, and you can appreciate. So almost the same similar way that the atonement swallows up that pain and that guilt. Just. Bye. But it’s not just that you stop. It’s that it’s been replaced by something better.
If the atonement was just, you don’t have to pay for your sins anymore, and it was just not pain. That’s one thing. But to replace it with something else to focus on that causes us such great rejoicing, causes such great joy.
Maybe it’s that substitutional value that you have to replace something in there that replaces that memory, that takes that center focus, that shifts everything. I don’t know. There’s no additional value.
[01:01:49] Speaker B: No, it’s like, if you have one of those 50 gallon jugs of water, even if there’s a little bit of bleach in it, you can hopefully dilute it down with 100 gallons of good, pure, clean water.
It won’t kill you. Maybe that’s what it is, dude. We just need to fill. We need to fill our lives with a bunch of other really great, kind things about everybody else so that we can, uh, we can delude the. The poisonous stuff out. Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe that’s the lesson.
[01:02:21] Speaker A: Maybe that’s what it is.
[01:02:21] Speaker B: All right, let’s keep going.
[01:02:23] Speaker A: All right, I got. Flipping back into Alma 37 right towards the end, and. And you’re hitting on this, Nate. Oh, remember my son. In fact, uh, he. He says this a lot. Verse 32. And now, my son, remember the words which I have spoken unto you. And then 35. Oh, remember, my son, and learn wisdom in that youth. And as you flip through the pages, it’s all over the place. 38, verse five. And now, my son Shiblan, I would that you should remember and that. That power of remembering and going back into 37, remember to cry unto the Lord for their support, to seek him out and to be diligent. And he kind of goes into this talk about the liahona and what it was for and all these miracles, and he says in verse 40, and it did work for them according to their faith in God. Therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause those spindles that should point the way that they should go. Behold, it was done. Therefore they had this miracle and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God day by day. Nevertheless, because those miracles were worked by small means, it did show unto them marvelous works. They were slothful and forgot to exercise their faith and diligence. And then those marvelous works ceased and they did not progress in their journey.
And that idea that there’s a diligence and a perseverance and that we’re going to have to remember some of these things, we’ve talked about it before. It’s almost like these events, these miracles, these experiences, is storing water to help get us through the desert. Because we’re going to go through times that maybe we become a little bit slothful and we start to fear and we start to not have these experiences as often or maybe a time we’re going to go through a little bit of darkness. And we need to remember those experiences to help us rekindle that flame or have more miracles and have the spirit and just keep us the role of diligence and being able to persevere once you’ve entered in, by the way, there is something to this enduring to the end. There is something we need to have consistency. We need to remember, we need to turn back and we need to keep refueling those stores to get us to where we need to be.
[01:04:56] Speaker B: Love it.
[01:04:59] Speaker A: Shiblon is the end of this in chapter 38. And, and I mean, wait, Shib.
[01:05:04] Speaker B: Oh yeah, Shiblon’s great. I was gonna say we’re not, we’re not into homeboy next week.
[01:05:09] Speaker A: Cory Anton. Yeah.
[01:05:10] Speaker B: Corianton. Sorry, buddy.
[01:05:12] Speaker A: I mean, everything about this, doesn’t it just validate any, any, what’s the word I’m looking for?
The, the prejudices or the assumptions about the middle child.
I mean, Corey Anthon is about to get several chapters of content. And not just several chapters, several valuable, incredibly powerful chapters of counsel from his dad trying to help him course correct. And Helaman gets some amazing content and helping him along his way. And then you have the middle child, he’s got 15 verses dedicated to him, right. I mean, you can’t even, I’m almost laughing just looking at this page because on the left side of the page you’re finishing the council to Helaman and on the right side of the page you’re diving into the council to Cory Anton. And Shivlan’s just got this little 15 verses. He also gets the recounting of Alma’s story and he gets some interesting perspective on it, but it’s such an abbreviated version compared to what he gets to Helamana. I mean, the middle child, he’s not super great. He’s not super bad.
[01:06:27] Speaker B: I have a, I actually have a theory on child order.
First of all, where do you fit? Where do you fit? You’re in the middle, right towards the top, but towards the top. Okay.
[01:06:40] Speaker A: Of seven.
[01:06:40] Speaker B: Okay. I mean, I don’t know. It’s. This works better when there’s fewer kids, but I have a, I have a theory, and it’s only because I see it professionally. The oldest loves the management side, which, by the way, checks out if Helaman’s oldest. Right. He’s the one in charge of the records. He is given. You know what I mean? He’s kind of given the administrative responsibilities because as the oldest children, we are babysitting our younger siblings first.
We kind of live up to the idea that, like, yeah, our parents had to kind of figure it out on us. I’m the oldest. Right. Our parents kind of had to figure it out on us a little bit. We’re the ones, hey, make sure that your sister gets to class on time when we’re the ones driving. There’s a very administrative, you know, we like to manage a situation which is, in my profession, very much the studio producer, the, you know, the overs. What I do for a living. Right. I oversee the projects. The youngest is always the front man or front woman. They’re the ones that wear the wild outfits. They’re the ones that are just the entertainers kind of from start to finish, because what have they been doing their whole life? They want to hang out with their older siblings. That’s exactly right. They want. But the thing is, they also usually have a lot of safety in and a lot of really kind of room to be expressive and whatever, because the parents have usually kind of figured out what they’re doing. And so they really are kind of allowed space to be wild. Right. In really great ways and things like that, too. But you see a lot of very, very expressive, very artistic, very creative youngest children. And in the middle, I love the middle children. Anytime I get the chance to work with them, because they’re the peacemakers. They’re truly like the ambassadors. They’re like, very much. You know, there is such. I know that as society, we kind of give middle children kind of the neglected. You know, they’re the ones that kind of get forgotten about because they’re usually, parents are usually having to deal with the problems of the old child.
They’re just loving and pampering and spoiling the young child, and so the middle children kind of get forgotten. All I know is that in the few instances of the people that I work with, I don’t work with a lot of middle children.
I work a lot with oldest and youngest. But anytime I get the chance to work with the middle children, they make the best bandmates. They make the best, like, collaborators in a studio because they’re just so patient and actually really beautiful, and they’re amazing peacemakers.
They’re good at bringing the temperature down in rooms in creative environments or whatever. So for whatever it’s worth, when I read this, I actually read this in a very tender way. I think of my middle children. I used to really only have one middle child, and I have regretted at times in life, like, nothing, showing that child enough love. But when I think about a big picture, it’s like I have such a deep love and soft spot in my heart for my middle child and now middle children, that when I read stuff like this, I don’t read it with kind of the common wisdom, you know, I don’t read it with what we kind of associate with the middle children. I actually read this as a very much like, you’re a good dude, and I love you. Keep going, buddy. You know what I mean? Like, I don’t, I don’t read this. I don’t read this as he’s being neglected. I read it as Helaman really does have some more responsibilities. He’s in charge of the records. He’s, you know, he’s been a really great older brother. It sounds like. And it sounds like this middle dude has just been resilient, you know, he’s just been a good, solid dude. And it makes me actually really, really love, again, just the few verses that he gets.
[01:10:50] Speaker A: Well, he doesn’t need as much attention, right? He doesn’t need as much correcting, and he doesn’t need as much direction. He’s just kind of, he’s solid. He’s just going along.
[01:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah, but, and that’s enough, dude. Like, I guess I’m just saying, like, that’s enough. I read it, and I go like, that’s awesome. That’s probably enough for him to.
[01:11:09] Speaker A: I love your perspective on that, because.
[01:11:11] Speaker B: Then we get to the youngest, who’s the wild child. I’m just telling you, it plays out so much.
I try to tell dude all the time. I’m telling you, when people come in to be like, hey, the kids that graduate from BYU, they come down all the time and say, hey, can I ask you how to make this work? And I’m always like, yeah, you can come over. And the first question I always ask them is, what order of child are you? And when they tell me, it really does give me, like, perspective to go, oh, yeah, you would probably be really good for a studio setting, or, yeah, you know, like, you’re supposed to be on a stage running around doing high kicks with just crazy fashion, you know, like. Or, oh, hey, you’re one of the few peacemakers. You should probably just go be an accountant.
Like, go make some money, be able to support a family.
Don’t compromise every relationship you’ve ever had in your entire life. Like, I have had to to make this work. So that’s what the middle. The piece, the peacemakers. I’m always just like, oh, dude, you have the temperament to go and just be really rich and not nearly as stressed out as I am all the time. There you go. There’s my. There’s my final.
[01:12:20] Speaker A: But at the same time, I mean, it’s kind of funny. I mean, you’re.
You’re the studio, you’re the producer. You’re. You’re your. Your management, if you will.
You’re. You said you’re the oldest, but at the same time, you’re out there on the stage pulling out canned snakes. Yeah.
[01:12:38] Speaker B: Okay. The thing is, is we all still share a lot of things, but that’s not my love, though. That’s what I should say.
[01:12:45] Speaker A: That’s all I have to say. Oh, yeah.
[01:12:46] Speaker B: No, I mean, dude, that. That video will still always slay, but I’m just saying, that’s not where we. That’s not where we shine. That’s not where we thrive. So I do still have fun. I do still have fun dressing up in Star Trek uniforms for May the fourth shows just to, you know, upset everybody involved. But I still enjoy that. But that’s not where I thrive.
But you see what I’m saying? I just. I’m just saying, it’s like, I read this, and I. And I read the middle child, who we kind of a society think are the forgotten ones. And I think that if you actually ask any parent about it, every parent will tell you, yeah, yeah. We do visually have to give more attention to the oldest, and we do seemingly spoil the youngest. But the middle children are just anchors, man. I just love them. So shout out to all the middle children out there. You’re the anchors. I love you, the peacemakers. I love you. I love you, middle children.
[01:13:44] Speaker A: Well, and I guess maybe some of the best counsel that we could probably end on. Chapter 38, verse twelve. I love what he’s saying here. Use boldness but not overbearance. And also see that you bridle all your passions, that you may be filled with love. See that you refrain from idleness.
It’s good. It’s good counsel from a dad.
[01:14:07] Speaker B: It’s good stuff. All right, we’re out of time. Is there anything else you want to hit on real quick before we wrap this up?
[01:14:13] Speaker A: No, I’m happy.
[01:14:15] Speaker B: I’m happy, too, buddy. All right. Appreciate all of you listening. You can get a hold of us at the email address high deep dive.com dot. It actually talked about fruit this week again, too. Remember how we kind of talked about that last week? A little bit about by their fruits, you shall know them, but how do you know if a fruit’s good or not? It’s like, well, sometimes you got to take a bite of that fruit and see if it’s good or not. But anyways, it touched on that a little bit this week. And also, I did want to mention, I need to pay off the teas that I gave earlier about talking with my six year old son. For some reason, for some reason, he has just been obsessed, but, like, in a very anxious way about the second coming. I don’t know where he even, like, heard about. Like, we. We don’t talk in our church a ton about the second coming. It gets brought up, but we don’t, we don’t. It’s not like, it’s not like a. The main staple of all of our focus, but for some reason, it got brought up in one of his classes and. And it’s. It’s been. It stresses him out, like, every night, and even tonight, he’s like, dad, can we just go through it again just to make sure? I don’t have anything that I need to be, like, nervous about, for sure. But there was something said this week over and over and over, and I love it, which is, if you keep the commandments, you’re going to prosper in the land. And I will say this, even though we are in separate countries, you might not feel the same anxiety that a lot of us are feeling over here in America right now, but for a lot of people, myself included, it does feel like a very touchy time in politics, in the world, in culture. You know, if you’ve been paying attention, there’s a lot that people like me who have anxiety for the future, not for me, but for the world that my children are going to live and grow up in. I took a lot of comfort this week, which is keep the commandments and you’ll prosper in the land. And again, we have to.
I’m speaking to myself.
We have to remember the promise, and that is God’s plans. Don’t get frustrated.
And it talks a little bit about even, like, the last days in the chapters this week.
And my conversation tonight, as I was getting my little dude to bed very much was like, stay close to God. Remember that if you keep the commandments, that there’s nothing you ever have to be worried about. And he’s like, well, it says that there’s going to be war. He asked specifically if we’re going to have to fight the Nazis. I’m like, well, we’ve beat the Nazis before. We can beat him again if we need to, buddy. I don’t know if that’s who we’re going to be at war with, but, you know, he’s very much like, well, what does war mean? And I’m like, man, war’s hella buddy. Like this is there. There would be a lot to be afraid of if God hadn’t made us the promise that we don’t need to be afraid as long as we keep the commandments. So I did want to at least just briefly touch upon that and remind myself and hopefully maybe bring comfort to anybody else that, like me, maybe share some of those same anxieties that I do believe in. The promise that God says, keep the commandments and you’ll prosper in the land.
[01:17:40] Speaker A: I call that the prosperity promise. In fact, I kept running into it all the time. This is an old copy of my scriptures. But you notice right here at the beginning, I just started writing down every time I saw it.
[01:17:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I like that, dude.
[01:17:51] Speaker A: 22 times is how many times I came across it. And maybe I’ve missed a few, or maybe I’m off, but 22 times. And usually when repeat something, there’s some value there in that, right? To say. To say something like that 22 times. And I think. And I think that goes along with what we’re saying on the change of perspective, right? Because if all we can see is.
It’s like Alma, is. If all you can see is the bitterness, the sadness, the destruction, it’s good to be aware of that. But if that’s the only thing you can focus on, it sure makes life miserable and hard to deal with, right? And I think what Christ does, the atonement does, is gives us something else to focus on, that replaces that with hope, that transition, that switch, and maybe easier said than done, but that’s the value of Christ.
[01:18:39] Speaker B: I also do think that we need to still fight like hell for salvation. Like, I’m just saying, like, I’m not suggesting that we should say, well, it’s in God’s hands. I think that part of keeping the commandments is doing everything we can to still fight for good and to still do everything that we possibly can to live in a righteous place and to bring goodness to our communities and to our country and to the world.
I don’t say that in any sort of a way to say that we need to ease up on the gas pedal. But what I do say is we need to do everything we can and know that we have evidence through the scriptures, through the history of the world, God takes care of his people, and. And I believe that we are his people, and we need to just take comfort in that as well.
[01:19:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s. That’s always pulling in with the Lijona, right? They got to give diligence, and we become idle, and we’ve become slothful, and it just stops working. You’ve got to find a way to stay engaged. Like you say, you got to find a way to.
If you give up, that becomes even almost more.
[01:19:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. But I also don’t think that I need my six year old staying up at night, staring at the ceiling, thinking that we’re gonna have to be fighting with the Nazis again.
[01:20:04] Speaker A: It’s just so funny, because I’m just like, where did I know? But it is funny. Just like.
[01:20:08] Speaker B: But let me just say, there is a bigger point there, too, which is, like, I laugh because I think of my little dude going. He. He has no frame of reference, so he knows that it says in the scriptures there’s going to be a war. He knows that at a certain point, we’ve been to war with the Nazis, and so in his innocence, that’s what’s keeping him up at night. But then again, like, let me take two steps further out. Do you think that at any point, God’s going, well, I look at my son, Nate Pfeiffer, staring at his wall. You know what I mean? Nervous about x, y, and Z.
That’s so adorable that he thinks that that’s the thing that he needs to be worried about. Right?
I’m just saying, like, there is maybe a lesson that I need to learn from this as well, which is, like, take a few steps back, you know, and put it back in God’s hands. Anyways, I just want to make sure I paid off the earlier anecdotal tease. You can get a hold of us at the email address. Hi deepdive.com, we really do enjoy hearing from you. We appreciate you so much sharing with your friends, helping us grow the audience of the podcast.
We would hope that you can find anything of value, maybe out of this from some of the perspective, but if not, we appreciate you listening to it anyways and letting us know. So that’s all we got for you this week. So until next week.
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