John Bytheway: 00:00 Keep listening for part two with Emily Utt Doctrine and Covenants sections 51 through 57.

Hank Smith: 00:06 John, just a few weeks ago, we spent time with Danny Ricks looking at spiritual gifts and that everybody has spiritual gifts. We can use them to build Zion and we can even stretch ourselves, Emily, to learn new things because I love to teach. If you’re going to gimme a calling, make me the gospel doctrine teacher. I am at home there. But occasionally the Lord says, how about you try out this thing that you’re not naturally good at? And I do it and I don’t do a great job. So they usually put me back in teaching, but they stretch out. We need historians, we need finance people, we need teachers. We need mothers and fathers, we need everybody.

John Bytheway: 00:48 I think too that the idea of the Bishop storehouse is not just for cans of Deseret peaches, the bishop’s storehouse can consist of, we have an auto mechanic in the ward who can help brother and sister with their car. That’s the bishop storehouse. They just had some sheet rock fall apart or something. Who have we got? And that’s all the bishop storehouse. That’s part of Zion too.

Sister Emily Utt: 01:14 Consecration is whatever we have that is for the good of the saints. As they talk about in section 57, whatever gift we have as these saints are trying to live the law of consecration in these almost utopian societies early on. It’s not about giving up everything I have. It’s about what do I have that will benefit others? Consecrating my gift to the good of the church. It’s a way really for us to then to practice holiness. When you are doing something good for the good of God, that becomes holy. So as they’re consecrating their land, they’re consecrating their printing press, they’re consecrating their store. It’s not about the money. It’s about what do I become when I give my very best to God? He will then turn it back and multiply the benefit of that.

Hank Smith: 02:08 Emily, don’t you think that can affect the way we look at each other? ’cause we think, well, that weirdo over there needs to be born like me. If he were more normal like I was then… That’s the odd family in the ward. That person, we don’t really know what to do with them. This principle says no, everybody has gifts. Everybody contributes.

Sister Emily Utt: 02:29 And there might be some people who don’t feel like they’re having an impact. Their health may mean that they can’t hold a calling or they can’t be out in their community. Maybe that consecration, that holiness is praying for their ward members. Writing a note, lifting up someone who’s going through a hard time. There is always something that we can do, a gift that we have that can bless others. And the hard part is we think that our gifts should be just like everybody else’s gift. But for me, the gifts that have had the biggest impact that others have given me are those gifts of love and of courage and of support. And when I’ve taught a lesson that I don’t feel like went very well, somebody coming up to me after and saying, I really like that one thing you said. And it lifts a little.

Hank Smith: 03:17 It does.

Sister Emily Utt: 03:18 That’s Zion, somebody seeing the best in somebody else. So I think every member of the church has a gift, has something that they are consecrating to the good of Zion. And then it’s maybe the challenge of all of us to acknowledge that gift in others, to see their gift and to point out. Because we often feel like nobody notices the good that’s happening and then we feel a little prideful that nobody is noticing and then we have to repent. Maybe your gift is thanking people. Some people do it really well.

Hank Smith: 03:49 What do they do with your gifts in your work? What calling do you have? What do you do?

Sister Emily Utt: 03:53 I’m a ward organist right now.

Hank Smith: 03:56 That’s one of your gifts.

Sister Emily Utt: 03:57 I joke that the revelation happened when I was 15 and took organ lessons. Now it’s a, this is a gift I have and I’ll use it to bless my ward.

Hank Smith: 04:06 Yeah. Emily, I gotta tell you, my wife Sara was made the ward organist. She was 12. She’s been the ward organist many, many times. If you want my wife to be as happy as she possibly can be, make her the primary pianist and let her stay for the rest of her life.

Sister Emily Utt: 04:21 Oh, that’s the dream calling. You get to be in primary with all the best music in the church. It’s great. It’s the best. It’s the most fun you can have, but I love that even at a young age. We have this idea that to make a contribution in the church, you need to be an adult.

Hank Smith: 04:37 Yeah.

Sister Emily Utt: 04:37 But calling a 12-year-old as ward organist or having a 9-year-old give the opening prayer in sacrament meeting. They are a member of the church and they have a gift that can be shared. I think that’s beautiful.

Hank Smith: 04:51 That’s fantastic.

Sister Emily Utt: 04:53 So Newell K Whitney, you’re going to open a store and then you’re going to learn some skills. When God calls you as a bishop, you’ll be ready for it. Edward Partridge has been a member of the church for what, three months when he is called as a bishop, the first bishop. Nobody’s ever done this.

Hank Smith: 05:12 The first of a lot of awesome bishops in the church. Emily, I loved what you said. And how can we convince people that their calling matters? It might not be the one that is the most public. What would you say to someone who says, I’m just this, I’m just the compassionate service leader. I’m just the Elders Quorum instructor.

Sister Emily Utt: 05:34 Like these verses say, find a way to make it for the good of the saints. All of us are building Zion through the tiniest small ways. The good of the church happens in those invisible callings. J. Reuben Clark gave a conference talk commemorating the pioneer centennial in 1947. Elder Bednar has actually quoted a little more recently about talking about the pioneers of the last wagon. Those people at the back of the wagon train eating dust for a thousand miles. Those people that Brigham called the warp and weft of Zion, when you’re weaving, the warp and weft is what makes fabric, makes cloth, and that most of us are never going to be the wagon leader. We’re never going to be the Brigham Young or the Eliza R. Snow, but we may be in the back of the wagon train. Those are the people that Zion is built around.

  06:29 Those are the people that actually went out and built it. You may think your calling doesn’t make much of a difference. For the saints that calling is changing the world. You taught one kid the words to I Am a Child of God and when they hit 35 and life was hard, the words of that song came into their head and set them back on the path. Or it’s, I dropped a meal off to a sick member of my ward. It may just be a meal. But for them that moment they feel that God loved them and they knew that He noticed who they were. Ministering. The smallest things make the biggest difference in Zion.

Hank Smith: 07:11 Emily, have you seen that in the sights? I remember once someone saying a doorknob way up into Salt Lake temple was intricately carved and the person who was carving it probably knew that no one was ever going to see this.

Sister Emily Utt: 07:24 Like that poem that we talked about earlier from Joseph Townsend was something he wrote just to God. One of my favorite stories is about a man named Joseph Millet who was living in Panka, Nevada, which is a hundred miles from the middle of nowhere.

Hank Smith: 07:39 I’ve been to Panka. All of our listeners in Panka I’ve spoken in Panka.

Sister Emily Utt: 07:45 It’s a beautiful faithful little community. It’s in the middle of nowhere and there was this man named Joseph Millet who in a time of famine, his neighbor knocked on his door and said, I was out of flour and God told me to come talk to you. Joseph Millet packed up that bag of flour, gave it to his neighbor and then wrote in his journal. It is good to think that God knows a person such as Joseph Millet. It’s just flour, it’s just a prayer, it’s just a meal. But when we fill our lives with these small quiet acts of service, God knows and maybe God is the only one that’s ever going to know. That’s how heaven happens. We practice heaven enough here so when it finally arrives, it’s just another Tuesday because we’re already living our lives that way.

Hank Smith: 08:41 What a beautiful statement. When heaven’s here, this is the way I live. Oh, I fit right in. No one might know that you vacuum the church right on Saturday. They don’t announce anywhere. But you can vacuum it knowing the Lord sees it. And how would you vacuum for him? I love the idea.

Sister Emily Utt: 09:04 We do it for God’s glory. Everything we do that is with an eye to him gets us closer to heaven.

John Bytheway: 09:12 One of the things I did not expect is what it would do for my testimony to see people serving in their callings, whatever it was because I knew absolutely a hundred percent they weren’t doing it for me. They were doing it for the Lord and that these people would still be doing this and I knew that their motive came from their love of God that they would just come and faithfully do what they were asked to do every week. Hank, you mentioned vacuuming. I love the name of our church. It is the Church of Jesus Christ and then we get another of. Of Latter-day Saints. It’s his church and it’s my church. I want to go vacuum my church too. Be a part of contributing to my church.

Hank Smith: 09:57 I love that John.

Sister Emily Utt: 09:59 The other things that matter in Zion, and I also made a little list, which is the weirdest thing to me. In section 57, verse four to five, they talk about purchasing land and making it legally work, which I think is an interesting thing to have in some verses on the production of Zion. So verses section 57:4-5, it is wisdom that the land should be purchased by the saints and also every tracked line westward. Even if the line running directly between Jew and Gentile, as we’re building Zion, we better follow the law. There is order in Zion as you’re going out, don’t go and invade your enemies and take over, follow the law. I think there’s a principle in that for us that there is order and power that happens in this. That as we build Zion following guidelines and following rules, if the way that you need to build your community is to purchase land, do it the right way.

  10:57 Be honest with your neighbors, even if your neighbors aren’t being honest with you. Always be honest in that kind of work, which I thought was an interesting kind of take on Zion. And of course you can’t have Zion without a temple. The holy place is always a part of that work. So in section 57 verse three, behold the place which is now called Independence is the center place and a spot for the temple is lying westward upon a lot, which is not far from the courthouse. As the saints talk about temples in this earlier, if you go back to the plat of the city of Zion, which is coming a couple years later, a temple is any place where God’s work happens. A temple in the plat of the city of Zion is a storehouse. It’s the printing office, it’s the store, it’s the office for the priesthood, it’s school. In this process of building Zion, this process of holiness, anything you do to the glory of God is that. It sounds odd to us to talk about a temple as being a printing office, but if you’re printing the word of God, isn’t that holiness?

Hank Smith: 12:12 I believe I’ve seen some of the plans for what they were hoping to build in Jackson County. There’s a lot of temples.

Sister Emily Utt: 12:19 Yeah. If you look at those early plat of the city of Zion, there are 12 temples in this center place because each temple had a separate function. It wasn’t 12 temples to do ordinances, it was 12 temples that will further the work of the kingdom of God.

John Bytheway: 12:36 Hmm. So they could have been temporal things.

Sister Emily Utt: 12:40 Yeah, so the bishop storehouse and the print shop are listed as part of the temples in Kirtland. They built a printing office next to the temple as well. The line between spiritual salvation and physical salvation is not even a line. It is one thing. Anything I do, if I plow a field, if I print a book, if I teach the children, if I go out on a mission, whatever I’m doing, if I do it for the good of the saints, that is Zion.

Hank Smith: 13:14 I’m remembering Eric Richards being with us in section 29 where the Lord says in verse 35, no temporal commandment gave unto him for my commandments are spiritual. They are not natural or temporal neither carnal nor sensual. Everything I’m giving you has a spiritual component to it. Verse 34, all things unto me are spiritual. Not anytime have I given you a law which was temporal. Everything we do in Zion, even if it’s selling goods, it’s spiritual in nature.

Sister Emily Utt: 13:48 Of course there should be a store in Zion because a store is spiritual. I think even about callings in the church, a good ward clerk keeps that ward running. The guy in the office, you need that person that keeps you organized just as much as you need that person teaching and that person speaking in sacrament meeting. Everything needs to be done.

Hank Smith: 14:13 Yeah.

Sister Emily Utt: 14:15 Shout out to all the ward clerks in the whole church who keep this going.

John Bytheway: 14:20 I felt like I was inspired to call the counselors. I did because they had strengths that I didn’t have and when we sat down together, I was like, guys, I’m not good at this. Can you help me with this part? They were good at it and I was so thankful that we brought our different gifts to the table to be able to run things. Emily, the way you’re talking, I’m thinking about the guy who was assigned to go turn off the lights and lock the doors at the stake center. All of these are so important. That is an offering to the Lord to go be the guy that locks up the building. Thankful we have that guy.

Sister Emily Utt: 14:57 We all have that stewardship that he is a just and a wise steward over that assignment. It will build the kingdom as a just and wise steward over. My calling as a ward organist will build the kingdom so it doesn’t matter what our assignment is as long as we are doing it to the very best of our ability and finding ways to make it better, not to do more than we need to, but to do it with full purpose of heart. It’s beautiful. The sound of chairs folding at the end of stake conference is music.

  15:34 Because you hear in that, that’s consecration. That is that moment when we give our very best to God and we fold chairs.

John Bytheway: 15:43 I saw one of those funny, is it called a meme? It showed this guy, this young adult that said, what my mom thinks I do: shows him reading scriptures. What my grandma thinks I do: shows him on a mission knocking on doors, and had all these different things. What I actually do, he was folding chairs at the church. You know, and then there was another one that said if folding metal chairs were an Olympic event, the Mormons would win the gold every single year.

Hank Smith: 16:11 Yeah, because we know how to do it.

John Bytheway: 16:13 We know how to push those big racks around and fold chairs. No, put ’em up one notch higher. Yeah. Okay, yeah, we got it.

Hank Smith: 16:19 Emily. We all sustain each other. The Lord builds that into that as the ward organist. I am sustaining you that I am going to help you fulfill your calling. Maybe it’s singing. Is that for the ward organist? Come on, sing people.

Sister Emily Utt: 16:34 Yeah. How I think about it, I was ward organist during COVID, which is an interesting time when we weren’t allowed to sing the hymns and that’s hard, you know, because there’s power that comes when we unite our voices together. My thought was what can I do right now to bring a little tiny bit of the Spirit into people’s lives just in the way I play that will help them deal with how hard and weird this time is by me fulfilling my calling. Maybe somebody else felt the Spirit just a little tiny bit. This was a quote that I heard once said by one of the general board of the young women’s organization, her name was Jenny Mangum, and she said this about Mattie Horne Tingey, who was the young women’s general president at the time. She said, it is one thing to share one’s money and it is better still to share one’s love, but to share one’s courage with those who lack faith and who sometimes falter or who have slipped and lose heart in the struggle. Could anything be more splendid and helpful than this? I love that idea that as we build Zion, maybe all we can share is a little bit of courage. That’s a charge for my life.

John Bytheway: 17:48 Yeah. You don’t think of that as part of the bishop storehouse, but right. When we unite, can I borrow some of your courage?

  17:58 Fun to watch each other in our wards and branches and stakes go through things and help them. Be right with them and say, we’ll all get through this together.

Hank Smith: 18:09 So John, maybe I could go to my bishop and say, here’s what I can contribute to the bishop’s storehouse. Call on me. Right? I don’t know if you know this, but I’m really good with air conditioning. This could be someone who says, I’m really good at fixing cars, like you said.

John Bytheway: 18:24 Mm-hmm.

Hank Smith: 18:25 Please call on me Bishop if you need me.

John Bytheway: 18:28 Actually, a clipboard went around in our Elders Quorum, I don’t know a year or so ago that asked questions like that. What can you do? What can you help with? What can you help people with? I remember reading that power of Everyday Missionaries book and sometimes our approach out there in the world is you need us, but his idea was a better approach, especially with our standard of living here is more we need you. Well, maybe you’re not an active member. We need your help with roofing. You know how to do that. It’s amazing how people will respond when we say we need your gift, your talent. It’s so differently than, hey, you really need our church. But if we go to them and say, we need your gift in this area, it’s amazing how people respond.

Hank Smith: 19:16 I bet. Emily, you know Melissa Inouye?

Sister Emily Utt: 19:18 Mm-hmm.

Hank Smith: 19:20 She was here last year talking about Mosiah. John, do you remember her story of going away for a week and coming home and the ward had done their entire backyard? I’m good with this. I can fix that. I can make that, and she just wept. She was consecrating herself to writing the global histories of the church and here’s other people consecrating themselves to helping her with her backyard. You’re right Emily. This is Zion. This is Zion.

Sister Emily Utt: 19:54 One of the things I’m excited about as we’re restoring the Lion House is that we get to tell this story of those amazing women that lived there. You have Eliza Snow who’s General Relief Society president and Zina Diantha Huntington Young, who’s one of the most well-known early suffragists in the church. They love to be out in public. They are going to go out and they are going to change the world through speaking and there’s other women in that household who are, don’t ever make me talk in public, but I will support you when you come home. Eliza, when you are getting ready to go out another visit, I am going to bake you some food and I’m going to help you pack your suitcase and I’m going to do your washing and your mending and then when you come home, I’m going to have a warm place ready and you’re going to sit and you’re going to tell me about it. Both of them were able to fulfill their stewardship because they lived in one house together and could do it. Eliza couldn’t have been Eliza without that other sister at home providing that support in the background. That sister at home who didn’t want to have a public voice had a huge impact on the church because she supported the sister who did. Beautiful.

Hank Smith: 21:11 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 21:12 Is there a project on the Eliza R. Snow papers?

Sister Emily Utt: 21:17 The Church Historians Press is publishing the collected writings of Eliza R. Snow. Jenny Reader has been leading on that. A lot of her work has already been published and there’s even more to come. The next frontier in the church history department is women’s history is telling the story of these foundational women that have had a huge impact that we may not know, which is also a great time. You know, go back and read At the Pulpit the collection of women’s sermons, the first 50 years of Relief Society collected writings of those early women and their impact on the church. It’s so hard in these sections because there’s so few women mentioned by name that it’s easy to focus in on the Newell K. Whitneys and the Sidney Gilberts and the Edward Partridges. It’s easy to forget their families that Edward Partridge couldn’t have answered that call to Missouri. If his family was said no, that his family was said, yeah, we’re in too and we’ll go with you and we’ll support you through it.

Hank Smith: 22:16 Emily, I’ve noticed in these sections, the Lord teaches us how to build Zion, but also what to watch out for and which can ruin Zion. I was looking in 56 verse eight. Ezra Thayre, repent of your pride, selfishness. Verse 16, woe unto you rich men that will not give up your substance. Your riches will conquer your souls. Verse 17, woe unto you poor men whose hearts are not broken, whose bellies are not satisfied, whose eyes are full of greediness. Do you notice there’s some warnings of what can destroy Zion?

Sister Emily Utt: 22:51 Yes. What destroys Zion is when we’re selfish, when we put our own interest above the good of the group. When Ezra Thayre receives a commandment and then has a hard time believing it’s really of God that separates him. The work is going to go forward without him. The church kept going even after Ezra Thayre left, but that moment of Brother, you need to repent ’cause you think you know more. Joseph has to learn this early on, the loss of the 116 pages in the Book of Mormon translation, Joseph has to learn, don’t put more confidence in people than in God. Oliver has to learn it. Oliver leaves the church in that financial panic of 1837 and eventually finds his way back. Every single one of us have to learn how to put God above our own very selves and in these verses to Ezra Thayre and others. You learn what happens if you don’t. If you can’t do it, I mean you’re going to live a good life. Ezra Thayre lived a nice long life. Think what he could have been if he had fought through his own pride and found a way to find God.

Hank Smith: 24:11 I noticed verse 15 of 56, your hearts are not satisfied. You obey not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness.

Sister Emily Utt: 24:20 Well that hurts.

Hank Smith: 24:21 Yeah.

Sister Emily Utt: 24:22 I think it’s because maybe pleasure and and righteousness may be well, it’s easier to just not, the weather is so nice. I think I’ll skip church this week.

Hank Smith: 24:32 Yeah, pleasure in unrighteousness. I’m like, oh, can we just turn the page please? Can we?

Sister Emily Utt: 24:38 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 24:38 Yeah. Let’s not look at that one too long.

John Bytheway: 24:41 This is all broken heart and contrite spirit. Sister Sheri Dew, she talked about the process of breaking a horse. We use that phrase, take a wild horse to domestic is called breaking a horse and a broken heart, she said is one that’s submissive to its master and I think of that when I read broken heart, contrite spirit that you’re submissive to the Savior, not to your own desires. Easy to talk about, harder to do.

Sister Emily Utt: 25:11 Mm-hmm. Or even that verse about bridling your passions. It’s not that you don’t have them, it’s that you keep them in control. You are in charge.

John Bytheway: 25:19 It’s not destroy your passions.

Sister Emily Utt: 25:22 Let God be in control of the reins. If we’re bucking against what God wants, it’s going to hurt. It’s going to leave that mark, but if we’re doing what he wants, we’re going to get further and we’ll get there faster.

Hank Smith: 25:39 Emily, our listeners are all over the world. We hear from them. They are single and married and divorced and widowed. When you talk about Zion, sometimes we think, oh, the only way to be really in Zion is to be married and have children and yet what if I’m divorced? Do I fit in Zion? What if I’ve never been married? Do I fit in Zion?

Sister Emily Utt: 26:02 For me, as a single member of the church, my focus is God, my focus is Zion. There are contributions that I can make perhaps because of my marital status in the church that would be harder in other ways. Just this last weekend on a Friday night, I went with some friends and we volunteered at a homeless shelter and served dinner. My thought was if I had children right now, I’d have a harder time carving out a Friday night to go serve in that shelter and I think about the way that I can be of help and of assistance to even in my own family. I have absolutely wonderful nieces and nephews, but I also know that there are some conversations they don’t want to have with their parents. Things are awkward with your parents, so I can be that aunt that can have that conversation with them in a way that their parents can never get through.

  27:00 Every single person on this planet has a contribution they can make to Zion. God doesn’t care what we don’t have. He just cares what we do. If we’re married or divorced or widowed, if we have physical infirmity, if we’re poor, he just cares that we want to help, that we want to try. It’s finding your contribution, finding a stewardship that matters. Somebody who is happy and serving and giving in the church when they’re single, that’s going to continue when they’re married or childless versus with children. It doesn’t matter if we are serving God, when our circumstances change, we’re going to keep serving and it’s going to stay the same.

Hank Smith: 27:45 It’s not wait for the situation to be better or different. Like, oh, I will when…

Sister Emily Utt: 27:51 Just like building Zion, if I wait for somebody else to build Zion and then I’ll move in, Zion’s never going to happen. If I build the life I want and the Zion that I want to be in, and then when it happens, hey, great. I’m already here.

Hank Smith: 28:06 Yeah.

Sister Emily Utt: 28:06 There I am.

Hank Smith: 28:07 You said that earlier on. I wrote it down. Build the Zion you want to live in.

John Bytheway: 28:11 Our contributions to Zion don’t depend on our marital status. I like what the way you said that, Emily, I have a way of doing something. I can do that. Maybe it’d be harder for someone else. I always think about Moroni whose greatest contribution was while a single adult at the end of the Book of Mormon. He’s an icon on a lot of our temples. He’s alone up there and I just thought, boy, that says something because he was alone when he wrote those final chapters, he said he was alone. Thank you for that.

Hank Smith: 28:42 I have two sisters who are divorced. I do not see them in any way as someone who can’t contribute to Zion or even say, oh, you’re a little bit lower grade contributor to Zion, that that’s not how the Lord sees us. It’s everybody contribute what you can when you can. Let’s not judge each other or label each other as a certain type of Zion person.

Sister Emily Utt: 29:08 I would say for me that the fact that I’m single is probably the least interesting thing about me. Right? I want people to know me because I have a book you can borrow or a comment in Sunday School. I want people to know me because of who I am and the contributions that I can make in the world. My marital status should be about item 853 on the top 500 things you should know about me and the same way that I want every member of the church, when I meet someone, I want to know them. I want to know what they’re like as an individual, as a child of God. All the parts of them are interesting. I want to know if they’re married. I want to know the names of their children and the little hobbies and family traditions they have because that’s part of who they are. Just as much as I want to know you as an individual.

Hank Smith: 30:01 So well said. I hope anyone out there listening really maybe need to go back and listen to Emily again, and again, until it really gets into your heart that this is what matters. I love everything you said there.

John Bytheway: 30:15 And another thing is about whether or not you served a mission.

Hank Smith: 30:20 It breaks my heart, John and Emily, to think that a young person who feels at home in the church for the first 18, 19 years of their life, for some reason or another, either doesn’t serve a mission or returns home earlier than they expected to return home, all of a sudden does not feel at home anymore. Ooh, this is your home. This is your church. You belong here.

Sister Emily Utt: 30:50 I think about my own experience when I was 20 and debating what is the next step? What is the next chapter? Should I serve a mission? Should I marry that really great guy I’m dating? Should I take that job? Should I go to graduate school? What do I do? What is the next step? Everybody tells you, you go to college, you serve a mission, but nobody tells you what to do after.

John Bytheway: 31:16 Right.

Sister Emily Utt: 31:16 So at 20, I’m now in that, what is the next step? And as I am praying about it, the answer that actually came was Emily go to the temple. In the process of going to the temple guided me to serve a mission and I don’t think I would have gotten to the mission without the temple. For me now looking back, it’s that reminder that nothing matters more than the covenant that I make.

John Bytheway: 31:42 Wow.

Sister Emily Utt: 31:42 That thing that binds me eternally to him, my mission was a tremendous experience and gave me a lot of tools and foundation that I needed for the rest of my life, but if God had said, Emily, I wanted you to go to the temple and now I’m going to send you on a different path, I think my life would still be wonderful because I was doing it to do the thing that he wanted me to do. So if God says, serve a mission and you come home early and it doesn’t make any sense, give it 10 years because it will make sense.

John Bytheway: 32:18 Maybe you were out during Covid and you had a preexisting health thing and you had to come home and that’s what was really tough for a lot of kids, but you willingly served. That’s what matters. You didn’t cause the pandemic.

Sister Emily Utt: 32:35 And it may take decades for us to understand why God wanted you to do something. I think about Emma Smith in section 25, the Doctrine & Covenants. She’s commanded to create a hymnal. It takes her five years to fulfill that commandment. God will ask us to do something and it and the time, it doesn’t turn out the way we thought it was going to turn out. The saints thought they were going to go to Missouri and Christ was going to come, and the second coming is here and hooray, congratulations. Here we are now 150 years later, we’re still waiting to gather in Missouri and we’re still waiting for Christ to come. But them being obedient at that moment helped them be where God wants them to be. If you are feeling like you aren’t supposed to go on a mission or you’re feeling like, why did God call me if you knew I was going to get sick and needed to come home, give it time, it’ll turn out. The children of Israel wandered for 40 years and they got there eventually.

John Bytheway: 33:40 One of my favorite things that I’ve heard Hank teach is about on the road to Emmaus. Hank, what are the exact words the disciples are walking, we had expected they didn’t say expect. What’s the word they used?

Hank Smith: 33:52 We trusted.

John Bytheway: 33:53 We trusted. We trusted that this was going to be, it’s the unmet expectations that, well, we thought it was going to unfold this way, but it’s unfolding this way. It’s fun to be in a youth fireside and to ask the adults in the room, raise your hand if your life unfolded exactly the way you thought.

Hank Smith: 34:12 The way you.

John Bytheway: 34:13 And then ask the teenagers to look around because nobody raises their hand. Right? And the kids are like, what? Because we all have a plan. My mission president used to say, make your plans in pencil because you need to be able to erase. Things change you know?

Hank Smith: 34:29 Like that.

Sister Emily Utt: 34:29 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 34:31 And John and Emily, I don’t want to leave out those who feel like they don’t belong in Zion because maybe of poor decisions or sin, let’s say I just didn’t serve a mission. I’m a young man. I’ve heard that every worthy young man should serve a mission and I didn’t. I didn’t serve a mission. Can I be part of Zion? Can I now return to Zion? Maybe I’m married now and the time for me that I could have served a mission is passed. The idea that somehow I’m labeled as a well, you could have contributed and you’re kind of there. That breaks my heart. Yes, you could be a full member in Zion. Do we believe in the atonement of Jesus Christ and having him work? Every single member of Zion has made mistakes, has sinned in some way.

Sister Emily Utt: 35:21 Even the names of the people we’re talking about in these sections illustrate that well. Oliver Cowdery, who is there for the translation of the Book of Mormon, he is in revelation over and over and over again. He had a hard moment and he left. He struggled and he wrestled, and he made his way back in and he died a member of the church in full fellowship. You know, it doesn’t matter where you start and it doesn’t matter where you are in the middle because at the end, if you are with God, everything is covered by the Atonement. Or even WW Phelps who used his skill in printing to help bring to pass Zion, and then got into disagreements with Joseph and used that same skill to damage Joseph and to almost really end him up in prison, did terrible things with his gift and then repents and comes back. In that repentant soul, we find even more joy and beauty than if he hadn’t gone through that trial. He writes Praise to the Man. If he hadn’t had that falling out with Joseph and then been forgiven by the person that he hurt, I don’t think we would have that hymn. Sometimes our mistakes and our errors that help us become even better now, not to say you should go out and sin for what good will come of it. We should avoid that.

Hank Smith: 36:54 Yeah.

Sister Emily Utt: 36:54 But God will use everything that we have. If we are willing, God will use us, and at 20, it’s hard to understand what your place in the kingdom is going to be if you didn’t serve a mission. I say give it time making that contribution because maybe in 20 years from now, you’ll meet someone who learns from your experience and is strengthened by your faith.

Hank Smith: 37:20 Emily, what a beautiful idea. We don’t go out and seek sin. We don’t go out and seek mistakes, but it’s going to be part of our life, and if we bring it to the Lord, he can make beauty out of ashes.

John Bytheway: 37:31 I’m thinking of the apostle Paul. Well, should we sin that grace may abound? and Paul says, God forbid. Yeah, let’s not do that. No, that’s not what I’m saying, but I like what Elder Holland said once that God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you’ve been as he does about where you are and with his help, where you’re willing to go. You’re here. You’re here now, and to listener, here you are listening to this podcast. Wow. What brought you here?

Hank Smith: 38:02 Yeah.

Sister Emily Utt: 38:03 You’re on your way to Zion. Good job.

Hank Smith: 38:06 Yeah.

Sister Emily Utt: 38:07 Get there.

Hank Smith: 38:08 And you can hold your head up high. You are a citizen in Zion. I like what you said, Emily. You can go to the temple. You can get yourself to the temple.

John Bytheway: 38:18 That’s so good. It reminds me of the antidote. I should have known this better. The prescription for so many problems that seems counterintuitive is read the Book of Mormon.

Hank Smith: 38:31 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 38:31 Right? How’s that going to help me with this? You’d be shocked because it gets the Spirit of God into your life. Just as you said, Emily, actually just go to the temple. What? How’s that going to help? Just go and see what happens when you get the Spirit of God into your life and let him, take the Holy Spirit for your guide as we read in section 45 a few weeks ago.

Hank Smith: 38:56 Yeah. I don’t remember some of the questions being, are you perfect? Did you serve a mission? Did you keep the law of chastity growing up? The Lord is, let’s move forward. Let’s get ourselves into that temple.

John Bytheway: 39:07 Yeah. What did Jesus say in section 45? Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father. Wherefore father spare these, my brethren and my sisters who have been perfect. No, who did this, this, this, who did this, this, this calling? No. Who believe on my name. Thank you for that who believe on my name that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.

Sister Emily Utt: 39:31 I think it’s that idea we go back to where we started today, who is contrite? God wants those that are bruised and those are the people that will be in his kingdom. If you just try.

Hank Smith: 39:45 Awesome. When I thought of getting myself to the temple and I go into the church’s website and I can read my covenants in the temple, and here is the fifth of the five, the law of consecration, which means dedicating our time, talents, and everything, with which the Lord has blessed us to building up of Jesus Christ’s church on the earth, which we in these sections call Zion. We can all do that. Emily, before we let you go, this has been wonderful. I have new notes all throughout my scriptures here. There seems to be for some, a narrative out there that the more you learn about church history, the less you are going to believe in Joseph Smith and in the Restoration. Yet I’m talking to someone who has spent years, you look pretty young, but I’m guessing it’s years studying church history, walking the historic sites, learning about them. I’m pretty sure you’re a believer, so how has that happened? How has that narrative that the more you know about church history, how has that not destroyed your faith? I think you would say because of church history, it’s built your faith.

Sister Emily Utt: 41:01 Mm-hmm. I could talk about this for hours. This idea that just in life in general, sometimes we get to something that’s hard and that hurts and we stop and we don’t push through it. When we work out and we go to the gym and it hurts for the first little while until those muscles are built up and if we stop when it starts hurting, we’re never going to actually get better. I’d say to people that are struggling with church history, allow it to be hard and keep going. Keep pushing through. There’s a quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes that for the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn’t give a fig, but the simplicity on the other side of complexity I would give my life. The more I’ve studied church history, the more I have seen God working with very imperfect people, people very much like me, and if God can work through them, what is he able to do with me?

  42:08 The simplicity I have found on the other side of complexity, I take back to a verse in first Nephi. Nephi is being shown the vision of the tree of life, and God is asking him to explain, tell me everything. What does this mean? Nephi says, I know that God loves his children. Nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things. As I’ve studied church history, for me, it’s become more and more clear that God loves us and less and less clear about everything else, that I’m okay living with some unknowns that I don’t know everything that happened in the past. I can’t know Joseph’s heart and mind, and I can’t know Brigham Young’s heart and mind, but I can know that God loved them. What can I do to do that for other people as well? There’s another quote that I love Joseph Smith speaking to the Relief Society in the Red Brick store in Nauvoo.

  43:03 He said, if you would have God have mercy on you, have mercy on each other. I want future historians, future members of the church to be merciful to me, to be forgiving when I say something wrong, when I sin, when I mess up, I want people to be kind to me so I better find ways to be kind to people. In the past, as I’ve studied church history, I’m constantly looking for ways to be generous to them, to acknowledge that Joseph made some mistakes, that Brigham Young made some mistakes, that everybody makes mistakes, but if I can push through the hard and find ways to be merciful to them, I hope it means that people will be merciful to me too

Hank Smith: 43:50 And that’s becoming Zion, right?

Sister Emily Utt: 43:52 You have to become Zion and it’s hard. It’s work. The study of church history and the study of history in general, this is my profession. I’ve gone to school for this. It’s not just read a couple of books and you’ll be okay. It’s, if you really want to know this, dive deep. Don’t just read church history, read other history, read theory, read the way that we approach the question. Then that will help you understand how to answer the question for yourself, and I’ll also say, go to the source. My understanding of church history and the scriptures has changed because I’ve spent a lot of time in the scriptures, because I’ve spent time in Wilford Woodruff’s journal and Joseph Smith’s journal, and I get a perspective that I wouldn’t get reading 17 other books of other people interpreting Joseph’s story. I want to hear Joseph’s words and that will help me understand Joseph better.

John Bytheway: 44:53 Hmm. We know from the creation story that there was a spiritual creation before there was a physical creation, and what I’m hearing you teach in all these chapters is we need to spiritually create Zion here before we’re going to physically create Zion in Jackson County or anywhere else. I like that idea. God’s trying to do the spiritual creation in here so that we can make that physical creation of Zion later on. Not just a place, but a cause, but an idea, a principle of the pure and heart. I love it.

Hank Smith: 45:26 Emily, I want to ask you a question that I’ve never asked any of our guests. I can just picture you walking around these sacred sites, the Logan Tabernacle, the St. George Temple, the Kirtland Temple, and you’ve probably just had time as you’re working to think, if you could talk to these people, if you could talk to these builders, what would you say as you’re walking around going look at this, what would you say to them? What do you think about why you’re in there?

Sister Emily Utt: 45:56 Sometimes I’m annoyed at them because they didn’t keep a journal. Why didn’t you write that down? Make my job so much easier. Usually when I’m in these spaces, I just want to have a conversation with them the way that I would have a conversation with my ministering sisters or with my friends or with the family. I just want to tell me about your life. Tell me about what you’re thinking about and what you’re going through, because their stories are interesting. One of the the great joys I have as a historian then is bringing to life those stories and those people that would otherwise be unknown. Most of us are never going to have a museum wing named after us. Our name is not going to be on a building somewhere at an archive, but all of us have left something behind. Every single person who’s lived have left behind a place that they worshiped in, a place where they worked, a place that they impacted. That great joy for me as a historian is to be able to bring to light those unknown places, or to tell the stories of the Joseph Millets and the Reynolds Cahoon’s and the Edward Partridges of the world. When I walk those sites, I just like to thank them for what they did and what they worked on. I like to be able to go in these spaces symbolically, hug them and say, thank you. Look at what you did.

Hank Smith: 47:26 I want to be there when Emily meets them and they say, thank you for what you did. Wouldn’t it be great, John to watch her meet these people?

John Bytheway: 47:36 Who she’s actually become acquainted with.

Hank Smith: 47:39 Right.

John Bytheway: 47:39 To a degree that most of us have not. We don’t. Yeah. To see Emily meet Edward Partridge, it’d be cool.

Sister Emily Utt: 47:46 I want to see you meet him as well. You know if he’s one of your church history heroes.

Hank Smith: 47:51 Oh, he is mine.

Sister Emily Utt: 47:51 Absolutely. That’s going to be cool. He’s going to be right there at the pearly gates with you when you get there.

Hank Smith: 47:55 Edward and Lydia Partridge, and they represent to me what you said, not the main level. The people doing a lot of work where we think, oh, I’ve heard that name before, Emily. Thanks for that. I hope all of our listeners are feeling like she is a believer and she knows these things. I don’t have to be scared of church history. You describe it like it’s beautiful.

Sister Emily Utt: 48:20 It’s messy and it’s complicated, and it’s human. So are we. We are just as messy and complicated as human as people who lived in the 1830s.

Hank Smith: 48:31 Right.

John Bytheway: 48:32 If you could see the rest of my office, you would say it is messy and complicated.

Hank Smith: 48:39 John Bytheway, aren’t you happy that Emily Utt came onto our radar?

John Bytheway: 48:45 Yeah. I can’t stop thinking about what a fun job she has, going to see these old places and feeling the spirit of them and the spirit of the people in them. It makes me want to go visit some sites again, which I will later on.

Hank Smith: 49:00 Yeah. Just touch the building.

John Bytheway: 49:03 To thank these people and say, oh, thank you for the legacy you left behind for inspiring us. It reminds me, somebody mentioned this and I can’t shake the thought. I thought it was so interesting that back in New Testament times, we looked at the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. The guys who come at the end and get paid the same, and some are like, hey, that’s not fair. Somebody said to us, Hank, look at it dispensationally. We are the ones who show up at the end with temples all over the earth with handbooks and manuals and websites and everything. They did all this work before us, and we are getting the benefits, and that’s humbling, isn’t it? We are the laborers dispensation who showed up at the end and are benefiting from a 17 million member church with all of this material for us and resources for us, and so it’s humbling. I want to be grateful to those Saints who were called to be a bishop. Oh, really? What’s a bishop? You know.

Hank Smith: 50:04 Oh, man.

  50:05 Yeah, and the idea that we might line up with them and they would be okay with that? Yeah come on up here. You belong with us. No, I don’t. I promise you. No, I don’t. Emily, thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for career.

Sister Emily Utt: 50:20 Well, I’ve got another 20 years to go. Let’s do more.

John Bytheway: 50:23 Let’s do it.

Hank Smith: 50:23 Let’s do more.

John Bytheway: 50:23 Let’s do some more.

  50:25 This won’t be the only time that you’re on followHIM. We just need to talk, to contact Kevin. Sounds like he has the ways of getting you to come on a podcast.

  50:36 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 50:37 With that, we want to thank Emily Utt for being with us today. It has been wonderful. Come on to YouTube, share where you’re listening from. We would love to share that with her, and that’s a little piece of church history in itself, that here you are, a member of the church in wherever you are from, from St. George to Bangladesh. Come share and then come back next week. We’re going to continue on, learning about Zion on followHIM. Thank you for joining us on today’s episode. Do you or someone you know speak Spanish, Portuguese, or French? You can now watch and listen to our podcast in those languages. Links are in the description below. Today’s show notes and transcript are on our website. Follow him.co. That’s follow him.co. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwika, Iride Gonzalez, and Anabelle Sorensen.