John Bytheway: 00:03 Welcome to Part III of followHIM.

Hank Smith: 00:07 Hello, everyone. Welcome to a special episode of followHIM. John, this is the first time that we’ve ever had a two-part episode with two different guests. So this is a new episode sort of. It’s a second episode. So I might as well just take this opportunity to remind everybody that we’re on social media on Instagram, and Facebook, and you can watch the podcast on YouTube. We’d love for you to rate, and review, and subscribe to the podcast. So I’ll throw all that in since we have a new guest here, but, John, who’s going to be with us for part two of this lesson?

John Bytheway: 00:45 Well, Hank, I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time because we have Dr. Richard E. Bennett with us, and he was one of my favorite professors at BYU. He is all dressed up today more than we are. I feel like I should have a tie on. And Dr. Bennett, I’m going to read his bio from the definitive work on the exodus West called We’ll Find the Place. And I want to read the bio out of the back. And then we’re going to catch up a little bit, as we have been before we started recording. Richard E. Bennett served for nearly 20 years as head of the Department of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Manitoba. He’s the best guy we’ve ever had out of the University of Manitoba, Hank.

John Bytheway: 01:37 He was recently appointed, this says recently, but this is a few years old, to the faculty at Religious Education at BYU. Dr. Bennett holds a PhD from Wayne State University in American History. He’s the author of a score of articles on LDS Pioneer History, which have appeared in magazines and journals such as The Ensign Journal of Mormon History, The Midwest Review, Illinois Historical Journal, and BYU Studies. He’s the author of Mormons at the Missouri: 1846-1852. And another book, And Should We Die, published by the University of Oklahoma press in 1987. He served as a stake president, stake mission, president, regional director of Public Affairs. He and his wife, Patricia Dyer Bennett, are the parents of five children, but there’s more. We have to catch up. Dr. Bennett, can you lift up your suit lapel a little bit there, and show us what you’ve got there on your pocket. Whoa. That badge looks familiar. Can you explain how you got that honor?

Dr. Richard Bennett: 02:40 Yes. Thank you, John. Thank you, Hank. It’s a pleasure to be with you. My wife and I have been Site Directors and Mission Presidents here at the Mormon Trail Center in North Omaha, formally Winter Quarters. And we’ve been here for nine months. It’s a two-year mission call. We have 16 senior missionaries serving here at the Trail Center because we also have the Kanesville Log Tabernacle Center across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa. In the summertime we have up to eight junior sister missionaries who are with us, so it’s a going concern. We’ve had 16,000 visitors this year since COVID has lessened up a little bit. And so it’s a busy, but a wonderful, fulfilling mission call.

John Bytheway: 03:34 It’s so awesome that we get to have you in a place that fits with what we’re talking about a little bit today.

Hank Smith: 03:41 When I thought of Section 136, the top of the list, the very top of the list is Richard Bennett. He is a superstar in our eyes is Richard Bennett.

John Bytheway: 03:54 Yeah, and on this topic, oh, boy, absolutely.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 03:59 I feel blessed. I always worry about former students of mine getting back at me, and so this is your turn guys.

Hank Smith: 04:13 We’ll just say it one more time, that book We’ll Find the Place, W-E-‘-L-L Find the Place. That was a life-changer for me. I loved that book. It’s one I give as a gift to anyone who likes history books. It is so well done.

John Bytheway: 04:31 Now, Dr. Bennett, you wrote something that kind of continues the story from these other books recently with Deseret Book is it Temples Rising? Can you tell us about that?

Dr. Richard Bennett: 04:41 Yes. It’s a result of my research over the years on the pioneer exodus, especially, coming from Nauvoo, but it goes all the way back to, frankly, to the First Vision in Kirtland, and we bring it up to Nauvoo. And then what really intrigued me was the fact that there were some wonderful spiritual things, and temple related ordinances right here at Winter Quarters that were not well-known. Maybe we’ll talk about that. And then along the trail, and then to Salt Lake, and to the eventuation of endowments for the dead for the first time in the Saint George Temple in 1877. So it’s a study of the rise of temple consciousness amongst the Saints, and why it became of such great significance because it’s a process, it’s a development, it’s a marvelous doctrinal flowering in the history of the Church. And so that really caught my eye as I was going through all of this to see what it was that gave the Saints such faith, such devotion and dedication. And, yeah, it’s kind of a fulfillment of some of my earlier research.

John Bytheway: 05:58 I feel like, Hank, and maybe you felt the same, one of the great, just, I don’t know impressions I’ve had as we’ve done all of these podcasts is how anxious the Lord was to have them build the temples, and then anxious to reveal and bless them with everything that comes with temples. That’s been a big part of what I’ve felt this whole year. The Lord really wanted the Saints to have temples, and, boy, then you go to General Conference, and you’re very eager to be there.

Hank Smith: 06:32 Well, we’ve gushed quite a bit. So let’s get into the second half of this week’s lesson. We’ve already covered Section 135. So now let’s look at Section 136. Dr. Bennett, the jump from Section 135, which is June of 1844, to 136, which is January of 1847, that’s quite a leap. So we’re going to kind of hand it over to you and say, where do we start in order to come into this section with the right vision, with the right perspective?

Dr. Richard Bennett: 07:12 Well, thank you, Hank. I believe that Section 136 has to be one of the most important revelations in the history of the Church. It’s the only canonized revelation of Brigham Young. It sort of sits at the back of the Doctrine and Covenants, almost unknown amongst many of the Saints. And the question is, well, where did this come from? It’s almost like an addendum because everything up until 1835 is pretty well Joseph Smith centered, or oriented, and here comes Brigham Young in a place that we’ve never been before. And so we have to lay a little bit of the groundwork to understand the setting so that we can plumb the lasting importance and significance of this particular section of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 08:05 In so many ways, Section 136 is about the lessons learned from their crossing of Iowa. Now after the prophet, Joseph Smith, was slain and murdered in 1844, I guess, you’ve covered all that in Section 135, but the Church goes through an extremely difficult time eventuating in the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints, that cruel expulsion of the Saints from Nauvoo beginning on the 4th of February 1846.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 08:39 It wasn’t an extermination order like you saw in Missouri with Lilburn W. Boggs, but it was tantamount to the same thing. The expulsion from Nauvoo with the revocation, or renunciation of the Nauvoo Charter meant that there simply was no future for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United States of America at that time. And so the Saints are faced with the prospect of having to leave, and to leave behind everything that they had established, even the temple, which they had built from 1841 to 1846. The irony is it’s not even dedicated by the time they’re leaving. And so they’re leaving everything behind in a tremendous risky enterprise of crossing the Great American Desert. That’s what they called it, the Great American Desert. We don’t have Wyoming and Nebraska, and all these other places. It’s not part of the United States.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 09:42 We’re going into “Indian territory.” We don’t know what’s going to happen there. And so that exodus, and that’s what it is. Exodus means an expulsion of an entire people, men, women and children, families, and everything for the salvation of the church. That’s the term that Brigham Young used over and over again, for the salvation of the Church. We have no other option, no other choice, but “To go to the West.” That’s the words that Brigham Young used. That’s the very words you see in the very first verse of Section 136, journeyings to the West. Where in the West? They didn’t even know that. There’s a clear indication that they thought that they would go someday. Joseph Smith had indicated they’d probably go to the Rocky Mountains sometime, but where? That’s not identified.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 10:37 And so going back, again, the travels across Iowa were so taxing. The rains began to fall almost as soon as they crossed that Mississippi River. Certainly by about the middle of March, when they began to leave Sugar Creek, and Montrose on the Iowa side of the Mississippi, it began to rain and rain and rain incessantly to the point that as they’re crossing Iowa, they’re sinking to the axles of their wagons. And we’re right here in Iowa today. I’m speaking right from Nebraska and Iowa. It’s been raining here for the last several days, and I can just see the Saints sinking into the mud, and they can’t get away from it. They can’t get away from it. Brigham Young says, “I can get away from my enemies, but I can’t get away from the weather. And I can’t get away from my own people who aren’t provisioned, who aren’t prepared.” And so, I mean, they’re having a terrible time.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 11:40 And then later on, of course, as you well know, because they don’t come out all at the same time. They’re going to come out in waves that the poor camps leaving Nauvoo being forced out by cannon and by bayonet by the mobs in September of 1846, 900 of them. I mean, they had to be rescued. Brigham Young was sending back what many could spare to go back and bring out the poor camps. And they’re getting stuck. To lay the foundation they do eventually get to the Missouri River Valley, but by the time they got to the Missouri River Valley, having crossed Iowa taking much longer time than they’d ever anticipated, it’s too late to go to the Rocky Mountains. Every trapper and trader told the Saints and they read this. They had been preparing for this for a long time, that unless you’re away from the Missouri River, away to the West from the Missouri River, by the 1st of June, you’re tempting fate in the Rocky Mountains.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 12:48 And the Donner–Reed Party learned that the terribly hard way in 1846, when they got caught in the High Sierras, and froze to death, and cannibalized themselves in that terrible winter of ’46. The Saints knew they had to be away by the 1st of June. Remember that date because they didn’t get there because of the mud of Iowa. The very first wagons didn’t get here to the Missouri River until mid-June, and they’ve got 1,800 wagons, 1,800 wagons following behind, most of which had been built by the Church with consecrated tithing funds for the members themselves. And so now how are you going to get across that river with that large a mass of people who are exhausted from crossing Iowa?

Dr. Richard Bennett: 13:39 So they’re not going to be able to go to the West. They can’t go back East because they’ve been expelled, and pushed out. And so they’re stranded here in the Missouri River Valley. And the question is now what are we going to do? And that’s the beginning of Winter Quarters, of course, because they’re going to have to put in a winter quarters. They’re going to have to establish a winter quarters someplace. Thanks to the call of the Mormon Battalion, which was its own drain upon the resources of the Church, no question about that, but we got permission from the United States Army to settle over here on this side of the river, where I am today in Winter Quarters, which is now Florence, Nebraska, which is now a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska, but here in Indian land, as it were in 1846, we have to put in our city before the winter comes. And here they’ve been exhausted crossing Iowa. And now they have to put up a city of 500 to 600 cabins before the winter comes, or they’re going to freeze to death.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 14:43 Rome wasn’t built in a day, but Winter Quarters almost was. The energy of the Saints under the direction of President Brigham Young, who wasn’t the president of the Church, but he was the President of the Camp of Israel. They always called him President of the Camp of Israel because of his position as President of the Quorum of the Twelve. They got so busy building this place. It’s a miracle that they survived the winter to be honest with you. It is an absolute miracle to be able to build that city so fast. Log cabins, 500, 600 of them just on this side of the river, let alone the hundreds of others on the other side of the river, but as it was, they began to die in record numbers for three reasons. Number one, they’re exhausted. I mean, just pushing one wagon one mile in mud, but pushing 1,800 wagons in mud up to your axles, men, women, and children, so they’re exhausted.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 15:50 Number two, the exposure to the elements. The winter is coming. I might just say as an aside here in Omaha last year, it was 23 below zero Fahrenheit, just this year, January. The winter of ’46 and ’47 it was mild up until about December 1st. And then the winter came and they’re exposed. Many of them are living in dugouts, and tents, and in wagons, and in hovels, frankly, in caves, because they couldn’t build them fast enough. So the exposure to the elements was a second factor for the rapidly rising numbers of deaths here at Winter Quarters.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 16:43 And then third, because of the deficiency of vitamins, fruits, and vegetables, they’re dying of scurvy. It’s the children who are going to suffer the most and right across the street from where I am right now here at the Mormon Trail Center right across the street is the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery. And we have 400 to 500 buried there, most of which are in unmarked graves, but we know where they are because of the Sexton records. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. That’s just the tip of the iceberg because over across on the other side of the river in Council Bluffs, they’re also dying in huge numbers.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 17:25 I would venture to say that by the time the Saints leave the Missouri River Valley, most of them later in the 1850s there are about 1,500, 1,600 Latter-day Saints buried in this region, nothing like it in the history of the Church. It was a precipice in our history. It was a moment of tremendous despair, and discouragement, and almost hopelessness amongst the Saints. And unless you understand that, and understand all this, this section doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s something to kind of read over, but this sentence is written with the suffering of the Saints between the lines. The agony and the triumph because there’s both tragedy and triumph here at Winter Quarters.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 18:16 I just talked about the tragedy, but the critical point is the triumph. And it’s going to start here with this revelation in January of 1847. Remember, too, that that Mormon Battalion had taken away 500 of their most able-bodied men in a cause for the United States government, which not everyone had supported at that time because we’ve been pushed out of the United States. I mean, your cause is just, so there’s nothing I can do for you. Are you kidding? We’re getting six cents on the dollar on our houses in Nauvoo and there’s nothing you can do for us. And now you want to come and ask for us to serve in the army? Well, it took some cajoling to get the Saints to understand that this would be a blessing for both the government, and for us, but here we are with fewer men, and we’ve got to survive the winter.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 19:06 And this is important that you see section 136 as a wintertime desperate moment in the history of the Church, a wintertime revelation of hope, and of light, and of faith, and of redemption. I can’t say enough about the significance of this revelation. It’s also a moment in the time of the Church when others were saying that Brigham Young was leading us in the wrong direction. Does he even know where he is going? He hasn’t even said where we’re going. Men like George Miller, Associate Presiding Bishop, a wonderful scout for the Church, but he was breaking with Brigham Young’s leadership here.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 19:47 There was James Emmett who followed George Miller in what they felt was they’re calling as members of the Council of Fifty, which they regarded as having equal authority, some of them in secular matters at least, to be able to say where the church should be going. And so there was division of vision, and of where is our destination? And there was an argument. It’s this critical, critical moment of who’s in charge? Where are we going? What does this all mean? How come Joseph Smith was allowed to be killed in the first place? Why have we suffered so much crossing Iowa? Whose side is God on anyway? And the Saints were looking for divine guidance. I can’t even begin to tell you everything that’s happening that lays the groundwork for this momentous divine guidance for the Church.

Hank Smith: 20:45 Dr. Bennett, you mentioned 1,800 wagons. Can you give us an idea of the number of the Saints at this point? How many are actually trying to move with those 1,800 wagons, and everything?

Dr. Richard Bennett: 21:00 There were approximately 12,000 Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo, give or take. The numbers haven’t ever been established firmly, but I’m going to take that figure as reasonable. And, frankly, Nauvoo is a ghost town by December of ’46. Everyone had left. Now they didn’t all leave following Brigham Young. Some went north to join with Jimmy Strang up in his colonies up there in Wisconsin. Some went south to Lyman Wight. Some went south to Saint Louis, but we can account for about 12,000 Latter-day Saints somewhere, anyway, 4,400 at Winter Quarters. Approximately 4,000 across the river in what they called Henry Miller’s Hollow, which is now Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 22:01 And then 2,000, or 3,000 up and down the Missouri River Valley in 81 little different grove settlements, wherever there were trees, and timber, and water to provide them for. And then they’re scattered all across Iowa back to Mount Pisgah, which is about 100 miles east of here in Iowa, and Garden Grove and Richardson’s Point. They’re like salt and pepper all over Western Iowa. So most of the sites are in the process of moving West that left from Nauvoo, but not, of course, not all of them are going to go all the way to the Rocky Mountains, but they’re in the process of moving out, or being forced out.

Hank Smith: 22:47 Well, you mentioned, so 400 to 500 in the cemetery that’s near you. Did you say another 1,200? I’m just thinking when you talk about 12,000 Saints, and then the numbers in these cemeteries, I mean, that is like, what are we around 10% of the Church? That makes it really staggering to think of imagine losing that huge of a part of the Church to death that way.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 23:13 Those who are buried here in the Winter Quarters Cemetery, right across the street from where I am now, most of those died in the winter of ’46, and ’47. That’s where the total count really begins to spike because of the reasons I’ve mentioned earlier. Across the river, some of those settlements are going to be there for five or six years because it’s going to take a while for the Saints in installments to head West. And so they’re longer over on the Iowa side, and consequently that’s why there are going to be more graves over there, but most of those are unmarked graves just as they are here at Winter Quarters.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 23:50 They didn’t have time to put in stones, and what have you. They didn’t even have time for coffins. Most of them are buried in shallow graves, unmarked graves. This is the place where the price for the Restoration begins to be paid in enormous numbers. Faith has a price, and the Restoration has a price. And this is where the price is going to be paid in huge numbers. And that’s why this is such a sacred area for the church all of which lays the groundwork for this revelation.

Hank Smith: 24:23 When I was with you on a Church History tour, I remember you saying how crucial it is that we remember they didn’t know the future. They don’t know they’re going to get to Utah, and build up the Church, and it’s going to be strong, and become a wonderful thing. They’re just trying to survive, and they could be going out here and all die. And so the stress on Brigham Young, and other leadership has to be overwhelming. The emotional toll that has to take, not knowing for sure if this is going to actually work, we could be leading everyone to their deaths.

Hank Smith: 24:58 I remember you saying if you take away the reality of that, you don’t understand it. If you think they’re just going to go out there, and, well, of course, we got to make it because then we got to build the Conference Center, and we got to have Temple Square, and all the Christmas lights. They don’t know that. They don’t see themselves as in the past. They’re living life and trying to figure it out day by day. I remember you really hitting that home to us. You have to put yourself in their shoes not knowing the future.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 25:28 Thanks, Hank, for reminding me of this. It’s not coincidental that in the middle of this debacle, or shall we call this difficult time crossing Iowa at Locust Creek, which is near Corydon, Iowa today that William Clayton will compose perhaps the anthem of the exodus. It becomes the anthem of the exodus at least. And they loved it when they heard it. It was an old English tune, Come, Come, Ye Saints. All is Well, that’s what they called it. And as you said, Hank, that last verse, and should we die. They knew they were going to start dying. He knew that they were going to start dying. He wrote this hymn because he heard the birth of his son back in Nauvoo, but he knew that they were going to start dying, and they all did. “And should we die before our journey’s through, happy day. All is well.”

Dr. Richard Bennett: 26:32 You’ve got to get yourself in those wagons. You got to get yourself in that mud. You got to get yourself in that sickness. And in those hovels, in those caves, and here in Winter Quarters to understand the power of what he was trying to say. They’re going to pay a price, a terrible price, so, yeah, and they didn’t know.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 26:54 Now that brings up one point that I would like to bring up, Hank, if I could, about the opposition to Brigham Young. Some of them thought like Brother Miller, that Brigham Young’s idea of going West to perhaps the Great Basin, or the Bear River country was in the wrong direction. He said, “We should be going up the Niobrara River. We should be going up to Vermilion to what’s called the Yellowstone, and towards Oregon. And he took many with him on sort of a preliminary exodus first to Grand Island, and then later up into the Ponca country on the Niobrara.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 27:40 When he heard this revelation, he and several others broke with the Church because they thought that Brigham Young was going in the wrong direction. And Brigham Young knew that there was going to be this division. Nevertheless, he said, “We go in faith.” It’s not just the weather, it’s the temperament, and the feelings of the people right there in their own camp, some of whom were disagreeing. And then you’ve got all this James Strang, and Sidney Rigdon, and others, Alpheus Cutler, and eventually the Smith family are going to argue, “Hey, it should be going with us. We should be the leaders of the Church.” And so, again, I go back to this point of a critical junction in the history of the Church. Who’s in charge? Who has the vision? Does anybody know where we’re going? We’re dying in record numbers. Give us some counsel. Give us some hope. And that’s why this revelation is a revelation of hope. So that’s the setting, I guess, that we could put together so that we can now then begin to look at the contents to see what it’s really trying to address.

Hank Smith: 28:56 Yeah. I think that’s absolutely critical is this idea of why this even came in the first place because if you didn’t know all this, if you didn’t know this background, you’d say, “Oh, okay. They knew they were going to head West, and end up in Utah.” But if you don’t understand the different dynamics involved, you won’t see the beauty of it. Like you said, “The suffering of the Saints is written,” what did you say? “Between the lines of this revelation.”

Dr. Richard Bennett: 29:27 When I first read this section, I kind of turned it off after the first six or seven verses. What’s this about captains of companies, and presidents of the tens  and fifties? I mean, what is this? It’s so mundane. It’s so technical. Why is the Lord concerned about this sort of stuff? I think we’ve got to start at the beginning here. The word and will. The word and will of the Lord. You can say, and I can understand why people say, “Well, this is Brigham Young’s revelation. It’s all coming out of Brigham Young’s mind and heart.” Well, it is, but I truly believe I’ve studied this enough to see. And in consequence of what eventually did happen that this is from the Lord, that it is a message through the mind of Brigham Young, if you will, and through his capacity to write it, but it really is an inspired revelation.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 30:26 And I can tell you right now that when it was given to the Saints, they rejoiced to hear, finally, again, the word and will of the Lord. We’ll see that as we go through. In their journeyings to the West, and they’ve all been going through all this in their journeyings to the West, and all the trials that you’ve been having here, going through Iowa, and what have you. Then it talks about the companies being organized with captains of 100s, and 10s, and what have you.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 30:59 Now notice in verse 4? “And this shall be our covenant, that we will walk in all the ordinances of the Lord.” Did you know that there had been two more earlier covenants, and that this was really built upon the Missouri Covenant, and the Nauvoo Covenant, both of which Brigham Young had established with the Saints. When the Saints were being driven out of Far West, Missouri in the winter of ’39, again, it’s a winter. Brigham Young learned how to lead people in the winter, clear back then in Missouri, but remember when Joseph Smith is incarcerated in Liberty Jail, who’s leading the Church? It’s the Twelve.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 31:41 And he establishes what they were called, the Missouri Covenant back in Far West, that, hey, we’re going to bring everybody out of Missouri, and take to Quincy. Well, they didn’t know they were going to Quincy at that time, but to refuge, which eventuated in Quincy. And then in September of ’45 in Nauvoo, there’s something called the Nauvoo covenant. When President Brigham Young in his capacity as president of the Council of the Twelve Apostles has the Saints, and I’m talking about outdoor meetings, 4,000, 5,000 of them, covenanted that they’re going to bring out of Nauvoo all the men, women, widows, orphans, children, we must come together. It’s not an individual effort. The Mormon Exodus is a “we” effort. It’s a collective effort. We will find the place. It’s always we. It’s never I.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 32:42 And that’s fundamentally different than say the California Gold Rush, where everybody is in it for themselves to get rich, or what have you. The whole Mormon Exodus, Latter-day Saint Exodus is going to be a we-based collective consecrated movement. And it’s this covenant that Brigham Young first learned in Missouri then applies in Nauvoo. And now we’re coming back to it. And you can almost say that Section 136 is the Winter Quarters Covenant. In verse four, “This shall be our covenant, that we will walk in all the ordinances of the Lord.” And they’re going to bring out everybody. That’s what we’re talking about here. These next few verses. “Let each company bear an equal,” verse 8, “Bear an equal proportion, according to the vision of their property and taking the poor, the widows, the fatherless, and the families of those who have been called into the Mormon Battalion.” It’s lessons learned.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 33:40 What did we learn from leaving Nauvoo? What did we learn from the Iowa experience? We were helter-skelter all over the place. Too many people came out unprepared. You can really say that Section 136 is lessons learned from leaving Nauvoo, and crossing Iowa. So it isn’t just the fact that we’re going to have tens, and fifties. And by the way, those company captains aren’t just to once they get rolling, but also right there in Winter Quarters, get them all prepared now. Everybody be ready. Be much more prepared than you were in Nauvoo. And make sure that we delegate responsibility to all the different company captains, and what have you, because we’ve got to move everybody out of here. We don’t want to stay here. Now this is kind of an irony. Winter Quarters is a powerful message in the history of the Church, but the effort was to move the Church West, not stay here.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 34:39 Notice in verse 10, “That every man use all his influence and property to remove this people, to the place where the Lord shall locate a stake of Zion.” The significance of that is that there was no stake created here at Winter Quarters. There was no stake in Council Bluffs. We had a high council here at Winter Quarters, municipal high council. We had a Pottawattamie High Council over there in Council Bluffs. The Church was being organized with bishops. They had bishops over each ward. They divided Winter Quarters into 22 blocks with a bishop over each block to take care of all these widows, and orphans, and families, and Mormon bBattalion families.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 35:25 So we had bishops for the first time in the history of the Church, taking care of relatively small numbers of people, 200 to 300 people. That’s a breakthrough in Church government to have bishops called for that small number of people, but no stake. And the fact is that Brigham Young didn’t want to signal to stay here. Don’t establish a stake here. Stake is a place of refuge from the storm. We want them to come West. And so you see here, this emphasis on surviving while we’re here, but moving out as quickly as we can in a much more organized way than we ever did leaving Nauvoo because we are forced out of Nauvoo. We’re not going to be forced out of Winter Quarters. We can do it more carefully and deliberately.

Hank Smith: 36:17 It seems that these covenants, Dr. Bennett, Richard, are we do not leave anyone behind.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 36:24 I like that. That’s very good, Hank.

Hank Smith: 36:26 Right.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 36:28 It’s a collective “we” enterprise. And that’s, frankly, honestly, that’s why Brigham Young was so esteemed by his people. You kind of like Brigham Young from a distance, you know that? He had a personality which grated some people the wrong way, but he was a lion. He had the nickname, the Lion of the Lord. And one of the reasons for that is that he was a lion in defense of the widow, and the orphan, and the children. Don’t forget them. Don’t forget the sick, or the dying, and the poor. We come all together, or we don’t come at all, and all in favor of that. He had them all line up right out in front of the Nauvoo Temple, and that Nauvoo Covenant to do that. And now the same thing is happening here. Just a couple of blocks from where I’m sitting right now, that revelation was proposed just down the hill from where I am here at the Mormon Trail Center right down in what is today Florence. This revelation has a place, and it’s right here.

Hank Smith: 37:28 I remember standing in that grave, that cemetery with Alex Baugh, who I think is a friend of all of ours, and he had tears in his eyes, and he said to me, he said, “Hank, I try to be faithful, but I am no Stillman Pond.” And here is a man who comes to Winter Quarters, and buries I don’t know how many family members.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 37:56 His wife died and four or five of his children died. Their names are inscripted right in the cenotaph across here. It’s amazing, men like Stillman Pond.

Hank Smith: 38:06 Unbelievable. Yeah. And Alex said, “I don’t know if I’m a Stillman Pond.” And so I’ve always thought about Stillman Pond when I think about Winter Quarters. He represents a lot of people losing a lot of family members, and having to leave them behind as well as you move West, right? Leaving these graves behind and heading West.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 38:26 Well, in the marvelous monument that’s here in Winter Quarters Cemetery by Avard Fairbanks, it’s called “The Tragedy of Winter Quarters.” It really is the tragedy, and the triumph of Winter Quarters because it captures in a sublime way the suffering of the Saints, the grief of the Saints, but their faith and determination to move forward no matter what. And you see that in this tremendous monument it captures that in a way that is breathtaking. We wouldn’t have the Winter Quarters Temple, which is just across the street. We probably wouldn’t have that temple were it not for those pioneers. We might not even have the Church in part if it hadn’t been for the faith of the pioneers. It’s that kind of a moment when the Church, Brigham Young said, I’ll put it this way. Brigham Young said, “If we don’t make it, this church will be driven to the seven winds.”

Hank Smith: 39:20 We’ll be done.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 39:21 Meaning that if this doesn’t work, if this exodus doesn’t make it, we may never see that valley, let alone the future. We may never see the future of the Church because of people going one way, or another. It was so critical that this succeed because as you say, we couldn’t see the future, but the Lord knowing the future gives us this revelation through his servant, Brigham Young. He’s not even the president of the Church yet, but he is receiving a revelation in his capacity as president of the Camp of Israel, you understand that. He won’t become the president of the Church until December of 1847, so.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 40:03 Notice verse 22, talking about hope. “I am he who led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.” Another earlier exodus. “And my arm is stretched out in the last days, to save my people Israel.” And that word save, when they’re dying by the hundreds, if not the thousands, the Lord is saying to his people, and don’t think that they didn’t read it because this was read to all the Saints by all the various high councils, and bishops, to all the different groups on both sides of the river, to save my people. You can see why that word means so much to them at this moment. That I know you’re dying. I know you’re suffering. I know this is a tough, tough moment, but I’m going to save this. Even through the dark times, I’m going to save this church. I’m going to save Israel.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 41:10 Talk about hope. That’s one of the great messages of Section 136. The word and the will of the Lord to save his people in their afflictions. And like you say, John, one in 12 are dying. One in 12 are dying. You take a look at the numbers that are dying today of COVID, and what have you? Maybe one in 300, or 400, or 500. One in 12 are dying here at Winter Quarters.

Hank Smith: 41:34 Yeah, I was thinking about, I mean, if there are roughly 17 million members of the Church today, what would we think if 1.7 million if 10%. Wow. I mean, it’s huge. I love what you’re saying about the we part. And then this seems to emphasize what you just read, 23, 24, “Cease to contend, cease drunkenness.” Of unity, not Zion, the place, but Zion the pure in heart. If it’s going to be we, we’ve got to be unified as we begin this exodus. I love, too, that you mentioned, I mean, the Lord is mentioning the original exodus, and I’m seeing all these footnotes of Exodus, and like on the last page I was noticing in verse three, Exodus 18:21, they also had captains of hundreds and captains of fifties, and captains of ten when Moses was trying to do everything, and Jethro was telling him you got to delegate. I love that story. So it has an echo of the original exodus, I think.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 42:43 They deliberately pattern themselves after that. More so, as time goes on they begin to see that this is not just a journey, that this truly is an exodus, not unlike what the children of Israel did. Here’s a critical point about their destination. You’ll look high and low in Section 136, and you won’t see a word about them going to the Salt Lake Basin. You won’t see a word about going to Utah, or anything like that. You would think that if this is the exodus, the revelation on the exodus, well, where are we going? Here’s some of those, like I said earlier, some like George Miller, and others who were contending with Brigham Young saying, “Do you know where you’re going? Where are you taking this? Do you really have an idea where you’re going?” And here comes the word and will of the Lord when the Lord speaks and says, “Not a sentence, not a word about their final destination.” But what does he say?

Dr. Richard Bennett: 43:43 “Cease to contend one with another,” like you said, John. “Cease to speak evil one of another. If thou borrowest of thy neighbor, thou shalt restore that which thou hast borrowed.” Probably tools when they’re making their cabins, and everything else. “And if you shalt find that which thy neighbor has lost, thou shalt make diligent search until thou shalt deliver it to him again.” I mean, it is very, very mundane sort of things, make sure you get it back. Well, the point is this from my perspective, they’ll find their place if they follow their God. Don’t worry too much about the place. Worry about your covenants. Worry about your obedience.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 44:27 In fact, that goes right back to verse 2, remember that? “With a covenant and a promise to keep all the commandments and statutes of the Lord our God, and his ordinances.” It’s a revelation on obedience. And here the Lord speaks to the prophet, Brigham Young, and I firmly believe that the Lord is inspiring Brigham Young in all of this because I don’t think that you can make these things up if that’s this moment. There’s too many equations here, too many movable parts for someone just to come up with a silly little revelation.

Dr. Richard Bennett: 45:00 The critical thing is to live the gospel, and it will all work out for you, even in your difficulties. And the things that seem important to us, the Lord is saying there’s more important things than that. And so I really think that the principle of the exodus is obedience, and consecration, and covenant. “Zion shall be redeemed in mine own due time.” That’s the principle here of obedience. I think that’s a marvelous statement of prophetic leadership.

Hank Smith: 45:39 Yeah. The idea of “trust God.” I liked what you said there. They’ll find their place if they follow their God. I can take care of the place, but you have to choose to be the right people. There’s a lot in here that we can use today, don’t you think John, Richard? I mean, “Let your words tend to edify one another.” If you borrow something from your neighbor, get it back to them. Don’t speak evil of one another. They’re still human beings aren’t they out there? I’m sure they’re having human conflicts with each other, especially when you get hungry and tired.