Hank Smith: 00:00:00 Coming up in this episode on FollowHIM.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:00:03 What’s one of the primary responsibilities that the Holy Ghost does? The next phrase tells us, the Holy Ghost is there to bear record of the Father and the Son. If anyone’s having any testimony challenges, they happen. The Holy Ghost knows the answer. The Holy Ghost knows everything. And the Holy Ghost can bear testimony to you again, even if it’s happened earlier in your life or if it’s never happened in your life. The Holy Ghost knows the answer to that question. We just have to ask with a sincere heart or using the language from this section, I would say a prayer of faith.

Hank Smith: 00:00:44 Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of FollowHIM. My name’s Hank Smith. I’m your host. I’m here with my co-host John Bytheway. John section 41 verse one God says, I delight to bless you with the greatest of all blessings. And I thought he was going to say your co-host, the greatest of all blessings, your co-host, John Bytheway.

John Bytheway: 00:01:06 You need to get out more. But thank you.

Hank Smith: 00:01:10 I’m sure when Sara hears this, she’ll go, wait what?

John Bytheway: 00:01:11 After Sara.

Hank Smith: 00:01:12 Right? Yeah. John, we are joined today by our good friend, Dr. Ken Alford. So excited to have you here Ken, thanks for being here.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:01:21 Thanks.

Hank Smith: 00:01:21 John, last week we were with Dr. Christopher Jones and we received a huge call to go to the Ohio. You’ve done church history tours, you’ve studied church history. As you think about the move from New York to Ohio, what comes to mind?

John Bytheway: 00:01:38 Thanks for asking it that way. It’s one of my favorite things to think of about these sections because the church had kind of been three families, and now they have this huge amount of converts in Ohio and it’s move to Ohio. And then the question might have been people have brought a lot of their other traditions with them and what do we do? How do we do church? This middle section here is the Lord’s answer to that big question.

Hank Smith: 00:02:05 Yeah, I was struck last week. They that have farms that cannot be sold. Leave them. Go ahead. Right? Wait what? Ken, as you’ve been preparing for sections 41 through 44, what do you see as your highlights?

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:02:20 The crown jewel in this set of sections is section 42. All of these sections are fun and there’s some really interesting things from church history associated with them. But the crown jewel has got to be section 42. It’s the section that the Lord himself identifies as the law. This is my law. If you want to live the life I live, here’s how you do it. These are the laws. All sections are wonderful in the Doctrine & Covenants, but as one of my teachers once said, some of them are more wonderful than others. This is one of the more wonderful ones.

Hank Smith: 00:02:56 You do. There are certain ones that stand out among the others.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:03:00 You can kind of tell because the really good ones get nicknames.

Hank Smith: 00:03:03 That’s true.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:03:04 Yeah. Like the preface, the articles and covenants, the law, the vision, the word of wisdom. The olive leaf. Yeah..

Hank Smith: 00:03:11 That’s true. John, you must be one of the great ones because I’ve given you so many nicknames right? You could be a section of the Doctrine & Covenants one day. John, you know how people love to talk to us about our guests. Where do you find these people? They have such interesting backgrounds. Well, if you want to hear an interesting background, you find out how Ken Alford got to where he is. John, can you tell our listeners about him? He was with us four years ago, but maybe there were some who didn’t hear that episode.

John Bytheway: 00:03:41 He’s giving us another chance. I’m so glad he came back. He’s a professor of church history and doctrine of BYU and a retired colonel in the US armies. Guess who was on time today to the recording?

Hank Smith: 00:03:55 Not me.

John Bytheway: 00:03:56 The guy from the Army, right. And he taught computer science and information systems engineering at the military academy at West Point and then served as a department chair professor of strategic leadership and organizational behavior at the National Defense University in Washington DC. He served in numerous assignments almost 30 years on active duty, including the Pentagon, supporting Pershing nuclear missile units in West Germany, and managing over 5 billion in government information technology contracts. Current research focuses on Latter-day Saint church history. That’s why he is here, including the Hyrum Smith Papers and Latter-day Saint Military Service in times of conflict, Ken and his late wife, Cheryl Lee, have four wonderful children and 20 amazing grandchildren. Is that number still accurate?

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:04:48 My children tell me it will be fixed.

Hank Smith: 00:04:52 Don’t expect any more, but you will get a new product line one day, right? Great grandchildren.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:04:59 Yeah, the current ones are really, really good. But the next ones I understand will be great.

Hank Smith: 00:05:03 That’s what I’ve heard. That’s what I’ve heard. Every product line is a better version. Ken, so grateful that you’re here. Between the last time that you joined us and now you lost your sweetheart, Cheryl Lee and we just want to offer our condolences to you.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:05:20 Thanks. Yeah, I’ll mention her during this episode. It’s taught me a whole different side of life that I hadn’t seen before. There are lessons to be learned everywhere, but boy, some of them come at a real cost.

Hank Smith: 00:05:34 I’m hopeful that she gets to hear this episode. I want to start in the Come, Follow Me manual. The title of the lesson is called My Law to Govern My Church. Just as Ken had said, the law. Section 42, this is how the manual starts. “The church grew rapidly in 1830 and 1831, particularly with a rush of new members in Kirtland, Ohio. This growth was exciting and encouraging to the saints, but it also presented challenges. How do you unify a quickly expanding group of believers? Specifically, what do you do when they bring doctrines and practices from previous faiths? For example, when Joseph Smith arrived in Kirtland in early February of 1831, he found new members sharing common property in a genuine attempt to imitate the New Testament Christians. That’s in the book of Acts. The Lord made some important corrections and clarifications on this and other topics. He did this largely through a revelation recorded in Doctrine & Covenants 42, that he called my law to govern my church. In this revelation, we learn truths that are fundamental in establishing the Lord’s church in the latter days. And we learn that we have a lot more to learn if thou shalt ask, the Lord promised, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation. Knowledge upon knowledge.” I love that idea. We are growing. It’s amazing. Oh no, we’re growing. What do we do?

John Bytheway: 00:07:01 It’s a wonderful problem.

Hank Smith: 00:07:02 Yeah. Ken, how do you want to start this? Do we need some background?

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:07:08 I think a little bit of context would be helpful because boy, you’ve got to feel for Joseph because when the church is organized, you know, on April 6th, 1830, that Tuesday there’s two church jobs. First elder and second elder. It’s a couple of families. If you look at the eight witnesses, it’s the Whitmers and the Smiths, and then their in-laws. The church is very small. And then the Lord calls Oliver Cowdery to go on the mission to the Lamanites, which is really an interesting name for the mission because who don’t they baptize right? They don’t baptize any Lamanites. But Parley P. Pratt being from the Kirtland area, he gets that group of four missionaries. It’s Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Ziba Peterson, and Peter Whitmer Jr. They traveled to Kirtland. Boy. The rest is just history as they say. When they connect up with Sidney Rigdon and his congregation, all of a sudden the population nucleus of the church is no longer where the prophet’s living.

  00:08:14 And it happens almost overnight in a sense. I mean, from their perspective, the way transportation and communication works, that had to be really an amazing shock to the Saints New York to realize that, oh, the bulk of the church is now in Ohio. So the Lord in section 37 tells Joseph in verse one, he says, look, this is so important, Joseph, that the main thing Joseph calls the Joseph Smith translation the main branch of my calling at that time. And the Lord says, Joseph, what I’m about to tell you, this is so important. I’m going to stop you translating the Joseph Smith translation, and I’ve got to tell you that had to really get Joseph’s attention because he’s under command to do that translation of the Bible and knows how important that is. The Lord says, I’m doing this for your sake and the sake of the church. So that happens in section 37, in section 38. The Lord does a really interesting thing. This is a brand new church. Even the prophet has not been a member of the church for one year. Things are so different at that time. I can imagine people often ask Joseph, Hey, what about, and he’s like, Hey…

John Bytheway: 00:09:22 I just got here myself.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:09:24 Yeah, I just arrived. We’re all in this together. Let’s ask the Lord. But in section 38, as would’ve been as discussed last week, the Lord walks them through and says, I’m going to pull back the curtain this time and I’m going to share with you some of my reasons. That’s something that doesn’t always happen. Often the Lord lets us know why things happen, but sometimes it’s just the command is there and we are to obey. But in section 38, the Lord very lovingly takes this group of new saints by the hand and says, here’s all the things that are going to happen if you’ll follow this direction. And he reiterates in verse 32, he says, look, it’s a commandment for you to go to the Ohio. This just isn’t a suggestion. This is a commandment. And then he says, there I will give unto you my law.

  00:10:11 This is one of the few times in scriptures where the Lord telegraphs a future revelation. We just don’t see that a lot. And then he says, and there, at the Ohio in Kirtland, there you shall be endowed with power from on high. Wow, what a cool promise from the Lord. Section 38 is received in January. It’s January 2nd, 1831. Not great weather. Joseph leaves in less than a month. The Lord says, go. Joseph says, yes sir. And he picks up, packs up and heads to Kirtland. And he does it in the winter. He arrives in a sleigh because there’s snow on the ground when he reaches Kirtland. That perspective is just so important. And then what happens is the other church members, the faithful members of the church follow and they come after him. And there are some great stories, that you can find in Saints and, and other books about,  Lucy Mack Smith’s experience on the Great Lakes and Ice sheets and just some amazing stories that this is just such an exciting time of church history. I will just say this is one of my favorite periods in church history. It’s, there’s just so much going on and everything’s so new and they’re, the people are so willing to learn and what would the Lord have us do? And it’s just an exciting period. But they have received this promise to be endowed with power.

Hank Smith: 00:11:41 Ken, I think there’s a tendency, at least there was in me originally before I really looked at this, to think this isn’t a big move. Nauvoo to Salt Lake. Now there’s the big move. Come on guys, this is not a big deal. Must not have been a big deal to them because it’s nothing compared to what the church is going to be called to do later. Yet as I read, this is a big deal. Lucy Mack, doesn’t she describe it as like the children of Israel leaving Egypt and Ken, you know more about the history of the United States than John and I times 10. What’s it like to just walk away from your farm

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:12:22 At this time, there’s kind of two groups of people. There’s the people that have been on the same land since their ancestors came over in the colonies and they’re still farming that. And then there’s another group that they are willing to move. I mean if you look at the Smith family, they go from Massachusetts and Vermont into New York and, but moving at this time, we hear moving, I moved a lot in almost 30 years in the Army, but none of my moves compared to any of their moves because I had an automobile, I had planes, you know, we had moving trucks. They had none of the above. Plus these are basically subsistence farmers. They don’t have big bank accounts that they can bankroll this John mentioned earlier, they have to walk away. The Lord says, look, if you, you know, if you can’t sell it, then they basically don’t. Walk away.

  00:13:12 So they’re able, whatever they can put in a wagon, that’s what they take. There’s no GPS at this time. Just even navigating that travel would’ve been for those of the listeners that remember pre GPS days. I remember driving cross country, there were some white knuckle moments when you hit some interchanges, that you weren’t sure which way to go. And you’d guess. And then a couple miles later you’d figure out, whoops, that that was not the right one. So moving is a much, much different experience. And then when they move, Kirtland is no prize. They’re not moving to a city. Kirtland’s, it’s a village at best.

Hank Smith: 00:13:52 Not somewhere waiting for you. Right. When you moved, you probably knew what house you were going to move into.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:13:57 Well, and there were houses I could rent or buy and move into. You move to Kirtland, as we’ll see in section 41 Joseph’s first question is, okay Lord, I’m here, where do I live? I think the moral of this story is that the Lord asked them to do it and they just said, yes Lord. Spoiler alert, looking ahead to future episodes. They do it over and over and over.

John Bytheway: 00:14:24 Yeah.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:14:25 So many of them stay faithful. This is an interesting breed of folks. Yay for what they left us as a legacy. And now the experienced members of the church, when they arrive in Kirtland, they’re the newbies, they’re the new folks. They don’t know Ohio. I think that’s, it’s a bigger challenge doing that than I think we often give them credit for.

John Bytheway: 00:14:44 Do you think that they knew the Lord was going to suddenly say, well actually Jackson County is Zion. Oh.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:14:53 Well we laugh about that. I think when the initial saints got there, no. But when we teach church history at BYU, we give different names to different periods of church history, and from 1831 to 1838 is called the two church centers. They’re only there weeks or months depending on how you want to count it. Before the Lord says, Hey, this is where the New Jerusalem is. I told you I was going to let you know. And now Joseph, you get to split the church you’re going to run two church centers. Take that level of difficulty in moving to Ohio and oh, let’s add Missouri. Oh, and by the way, the Missourians aren’t going to like you a lot, so we’ll add that on top of it.

John Bytheway: 00:15:30 And you’ll have people that are upset with you if you’re not there, Joseph.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:15:35 You’ll have people upset if you are there or aren’t there.

Hank Smith: 00:15:37 Yeah. Yeah. The more I think about this, the more miraculous it is that this whole movement survived. I think it would have trouble surviving just in New York just doing its thing. It’s going to, Hmm, is it going to make it this? How does it make it, if you’re just a young farmer starting a religion, how in the world do you keep this going? What you said Ken is right. Unless it’s the Lord doing it and this isn’t going to be the largest of their moves, not even close.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:16:07 No. And even when many of them get to Utah, what happens? Salt Lake’s not even their final destination. Brigham says, keep going.

Hank Smith: 00:16:13 Can you just mention that there’s new converts? This is so interesting. The established church members who are really just a couple of months established are moving into the city of the new converts. This is so backwards from what we’re used to. You’ve got these new converts who are saying welcome.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:16:33 Well it had to be an interesting dynamic. And the thing is, it continues the entire time the church is in Kirtland. And in fact, later in the period as the temple’s getting built and it’s dedicated, some of the saints kind of get it wrong. They turn to speculation and they realize they can charge a lot for city lots. And it’s one of the things that causes contention and difficulty and even apostasy later in Kirtland. But that’s, that’s many years in their future as Kirtland turns into kind of a boom town. But it’s so interesting to watch the early growth of the church. There’s just a wonderful couple Newel and Ann Whitney. Newel has the gift of turning ideas into money. He’s just got that gift. The Lord tells Joseph earlier in the Doctrine & Covenants, he says in temporal affairs thou has not strength. But the Lord puts people like Newel K. Whitney into his life and Newel K. Whitney has just got the gift.

Hank Smith: 00:17:31 I love what you said there, turning ideas into money.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:17:34 Oh, he just does my favorite. Newel K. Whitney money maker is everybody’s clearing. So Ohio is virgin forest. These are massive trees. You can’t even put your arms around these trees. They’re so huge. What you have to do is you have to clear that forest before you can even start farming and you have to rip out all the stumps and it’s very difficult work. And say then once you got the trees down, what do you do with them? Well, Newel K. Whitney hears and he’s just got to laugh all the way to the bank. He hears that the Brits over in the United Kingdom have basically run out of wood because of their pottery businesses and other things that they’re doing over in Britain. They’re controlling the forest and they’re starting to reforest and things but they’re having to buy ash and pot ash and, and various things from other, other countries.

  00:18:21 Okay, Whitney tells all the people in the area, listen, if you bring me your trees, I’ll pay you a little bit for them. So for the farmers, this is a deal. I chop down this tree, it’s worthless, he’s going to pay me for it. Boy, what a moron. He’s going to pay me for a tree that I don’t need. Well, what Whitney does is Whitney makes an ashery and if you go to Kirtland today, you can see his ashery. He takes that ashery, he makes a couple of different kinds of ash. Then he puts it in barrels and then he sells it to the British. It’s $50 a barrel or something if I remember correctly. Which in that day and age is outrageous money. Farmers are making 50 to 75 cents a day and Whitney’s getting $50 for a barrel of potash. He sells it on the east coast in the United States and then he chips it over to Britain.

  00:19:09 Well it doesn’t take a lot of barrels to make a lot of money. He’s just got the gift. He’s got a little store. It’s about a 20 by 40 foot store that he builds down at the bottom of the hill below where the temple will eventually be. But he marries Ann by all accounts, they’re great people. Newel K. Whitney becomes the second bishop in the church. Ann tells us, this is from her diary that Ann wrote. And so this is Fall of 1830. So they haven’t seen the missionaries. She said it was midnight as my husband and I in our house at Kirtland we’re praying to the Father to be shown the way and the Spirit rested upon us and a cloud overshadowed the house. So you can imagine this has got to be pretty amazing for them. And the house passed away from our vision. We were not conscious of anything but the presence of the Spirit and the cloud that was over us.

  00:19:59 A solemn awe pervaded us. We saw the cloud and felt the Spirit of the Lord. And then to top this experience off, she said, we heard a voice out of the cloud saying prepare to receive the word of the Lord for it is coming. At this we marveled greatly. And I think that’s really an understatement, from that moment we knew the word of the Lord was coming to Kirtland. So the missionaries come through and they listen, they hear, Ann is baptized first in November of 1830 and then Newel joins the church. They then pray that the Lord might send the prophet to teach them. Joseph then meanwhile has received section 37 and 38. He’s heading towards Kirtland. And when they arrive in Kirtland, he pulls a sleigh up in front of the Whitney store. The account says he bounds out of the sleigh up the stairs, there’s a couple of stairs into the Whitney store.

  00:20:56 He runs into the store part, which is on the left, reaches out his hand, extends it and says, Newel K. Whitney, thou art the man. You’ve prayed me here now what do you want? That’s so great. And Ann says that her husband’s kind of like, who are you? And he says, I am Joseph the prophet. Just a great, great story. And then section 41, which starts our reading this week by some accounts depending on how you read the history is received that day that Joseph and Emma have actually arrived in Kirtland. Something interesting happens at the Isaac Morley farm, not long after Joseph arrives. It involves a young lady by the name of Mary Elizabeth Rollins. And again another teaser, it’s Mary Elizabeth Rollins who scoops up pages of the Book of Commandments and runs into the cornfield to preserve those copies. Same young lady.

Hank Smith: 00:21:46 That’s not here though Ken, right?

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:21:49 No, no, that’s in Missouri.

Hank Smith: 00:21:50 Oh, okay.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:21:51 So that’s yet to happen. I love what happens here. This is from her journal. She’s just a young lady as I recall. She’s what, 12 or 13 years old if I’m remembering right.

Hank Smith: 00:22:02 Okay.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:22:02 But she said quite a number of residents of Kirtland accepted baptism, mother and myself, also in the month of October, 1830, there was a meeting that evening in October and we learned that Brother Morley had a copy of the book. She means the Book of Mormon in his possession. It was the only one in that entire part of the country. I went to his house just before the meeting was to commence and I asked just to see the book. Brother Morley put it in my hand. And as I looked at it, oh I had such a desire to read it, so that I could not refrain from asking him to let me take it home and read it while he was in the meeting. He said it would be too late for me to bring it back after the meeting. He’d hardly had time to read it himself.

  00:22:45 And but few of the brethren had even seen it. But I pled so earnestly for it that he finally said, child, if you’ll bring this book home before breakfast tomorrow morning, you may take it. He admonished me to be careful and see no harm came to it. And then she continues and says, if any person in this world was perfectly happy in the possession of any coveted treasure, I was when I had permission to read that wonderful book. And then she talks about how they took turns reading by the fire and the next morning she does take it back like she was asked. And she said, when I reached Brother Morley’s, they’d only been up for a little while. When I handed him the book, he remarked, I guess you didn’t read much in it. And I showed him how far I had read. He was surprised and said, I don’t believe you.

  00:23:29 You can’t tell me one word of it. So I then repeated the first verse and also outlined the history of Nephi. He gazed at me in surprise and said, child, take this book home and finish it. I can wait. She continues in her journal and says about the time I finished the last chapter, the prophet Joseph arrived in Kirtland. Brother Whitney brought the prophet Joseph to our house and introduced him to the older ones in the family. I wasn’t there at that time. In looking around, he saw the Book of Mormon on the shelf and asked how that book came to be there because he said, I sent that book to Brother Morley and my uncle told him how his niece had obtained it. And he asked, where’s your niece? I was sent for. And when he saw me, he looked at me earnestly and he made me a present of the book and he said he could get another one for Brother Morley. I just think that’s a sweet story. I just really like that.

Hank Smith: 00:24:27 And she loves the Book of Mormon and she loves the Book of Mormon her whole life. So Ken, let’s keep going. We’re in Ohio. Joseph doesn’t have yet an established home, but he’s got a couple places to stay.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:24:40 The thing to keep in mind with the Ohio period of church history, this is the period of church history when the Lord literally rains revelation on Joseph’s head, there is more revelation given in a shorter time that is canonized in the Ohio period than any other time in church history. It’s like 65 sections of the Doctrine and Covenants are received in Ohio. So the Lord is pouring information on Joseph’s head. They also hold right next to their living room, where the revelation is received, is the little room where the school of the prophets is held. Kirtland is not a big place and everything takes place in a pretty compact area and it’s just such a wonderful experience. There’s another good family. Well there’s many good families, but another good family that’s in the Kirtland area is Edward Partridge. He’s a hatter, not a job that we think of today, but he’s a guy that makes hats and he was a successful businessman.

  00:25:39 He does travel to New York. He and Sidney Rigdon both go to New York to meet with the prophet. Joseph receives a revelation for him. He returns not with Joseph, but he gets back to the Kirtland area right about the time Joseph arrives. Then if you look at section 41, section 41 is given on February 4th, 1831. There was probably no one more surprised by Section 41 than Edward Partridge because starting in verse nine, Edward’s life is about to change forever as the Lord says. And again, I have called my servant Edward Partridge and I give him a commandment. Boy, normally the church leader offers the church job to you. Edward Partridge receives this calling by commandment Edward, this is not optional. This is a commandment from your Lord. And I give him a commandment that he should be appointed by the voice of the church and ordained a bishop unto the church.

  00:26:36 I’ve wondered if that was a surprise to Joseph too. I’ve often wondered how much of the unfolding church organization Joseph is given in advance.

Hank Smith: 00:26:46 This is new, right Ken?

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:26:47 It’s way brand new to Edward. I really treasure what the Lord says about Edward Partridge. His family talks about him of just how gentle father was. When a lot of people talk about Edward Partridge, they use the word gentle and kind. And in fact, when he’s being tarred and feathered later in Jackson County, he said, I took no animosity against my persecutor. And he said some of them basically stopped because they couldn’t figure out why I was being so kind to them. So the Lord’s comment though is that he says, and this because his heart is pure unto me, for he is like unto Nathaniel, one of the apostles of old in whom there is no guile with Edward Partridge.

  00:27:33 What you saw was what you got. There was no deceit in him, I’m guessing no sarcasm. He was the real deal. George Washington said it was an awful responsibility to be the first president because everything he did set a precedent. I think that’s the same with Edward Partridge. Pretty much everything he did set a precedent for what a bishop is. What a bishop is. Not how a bishop should act, what a bishop should do. Of course he’s going to be perfect for the job because he’s called by the Lord. But he’s such a good guy. His life just completely changes because the Lord at this time calls him to leave his businesses. He becomes bishop in that day and age was full-time. And if you can imagine, there’s no wards. And so you’ve got the prophet, now you’ve got a bishop. There’s no high council, there’s no quorum of the 12, there’s no 70, there’s no, there’s not even any high priest at this time. Basically Edward Partridge has temporal responsibility as bishop for all the members of the church. The whole church. Oh, the guy that had to dance the gig on the way home was Joseph because now he’s got somebody strapped into the harness with him.

Hank Smith: 00:28:40 Yeah.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:28:41 And then it’s Edward Partridge who was sent out to Missouri very quickly because Joseph can’t be in two places at once.

Hank Smith: 00:28:47 Can we stop and just do a shout out John and Ken to the bishops of the church. I think there’s somewhere around 25,000 of them in the church today. I bet Edward Partridge would shake hands with each one of them and give them a hug.

John Bytheway: 00:29:03 Give them a hug.

Hank Smith: 00:29:05 Can you think John and Ken of the good bishops you’ve had throughout your life?

John Bytheway: 00:29:09 Yeah, in fact I don’t remember Hank who in the 1970s. Okay, I’m going back now. Who won the World Series? Who won the NBA championship? Who won the Super Bowl? I can tell you who my bishops were. Every one of them. The impact they had that they may not even have known they were having.

Hank Smith: 00:29:28 I think the earliest bishop I remember in my life is Bishop Wayne Torgerson. Isn’t that amazing John? I mean I must have been five, six years old and I still remember our good bishop and my bishop right now, Richard Lewis, as good as they come, and his wife Janine, just as good as they come.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:29:47 In the military, many times I lived in a branch, so we didn’t have a bishop, we had a branch president. But the bishops, I’ve had very different individuals. All so different and all so suited to the calling. I’ve had just wonderful bishops. At one point growing up as a teenager, my bishop was my father. That was an especially fun relationship. Bishop is just such an important job. In fact, Joseph, a little teaser for a future episode. But when Joseph is in Liberty jail and he writes that big letter that parts of which become sections 121 through 123, who does he address it to? He addresses it to the church of the Latter-day Saints and Bishop Partridge in particular, he sends that to the bishop. There is a quorum of the 12 at that time, but he sends it to the bishop. Why? Because the bishops are responsible to assist with the temporal welfare and the saints at that time were in temporal distress. But again, it’s the same good bishop. It’s Bishop Partridge.

Hank Smith: 00:30:52 We can’t forget his wife Lydia. When you call a bishop, you call a wife, you call a family.

John Bytheway: 00:30:59 Especially for the calling of Bishop.

Hank Smith: 00:31:01 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:31:02 And I love the way verse nine ends to leave his merchandise and to spend all his time in the labors of the church. We don’t use that wording today, but I’m like, whoa, doesn’t that remind you of, Hey Peter, lovest thou me more than this nets and the boats and the fish and Peter, you’re willing to walk away. And that sounds like what Edward Partridge was being asked to do. Today we have to juggle it all.

Hank Smith: 00:31:30 When we think of a hatter, we don’t think, well that guy must be doing well. But I think Edward was doing well as a hatter.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:31:38 We have an account from his daughter that he not only had his hat business, but he also was invested in some other businesses. She doesn’t really elaborate what they were, but he understood money. And a hatter at that time could actually earn income several ways. That was the period of the fur hats. So if you had lots of beaver and other fur animals around, but he also specialized in felt hats that people would wear and that were quite popular at that time. He does feel ill suited because very shortly he is called to administer the law of consecration in Missouri and he basically goes to Joseph and says, look, I’m not a lawyer, I’m not a real estate agent. I’m a hatter. I need some help from the Lord. So you’ve got a really fun section coming up in section 51 in a couple of weeks where the Lord takes this hatter by the hand and tells him how to administer the law of consecration to the saints. But I think the important thing is the Lord qualifies him for most callings, my first reaction is, okay, okay, I don’t know how to do this I’m really not sure what I’m supposed to do.

  00:32:45 Isn’t it interesting when you look back on callings as you’re released where you go, boy, yeah, the Lord just gave me everything I needed and took me by the hand and put me with people that could help and gave me experiences to qualify me. And now that I’ve had that experience, I can be a better spouse or parent or neighbor. How wonderful. It’s, there’s a great statement from President Nelson. He said, “think of the miracle of it.” And then he talks about the fact that we get church callings. But I love that how he starts, think of the miracle of it. It is a miracle that we get to do these things. That the Lord trusts us enough to give us these callings regardless of what the callings are. You can learn from every calling that you have. And sometimes they come as just, at least in my life, complete surprises. Like I did not see that one coming. What a great process that is. That the Lord lets us participate in the kingdom that way.

Hank Smith: 00:33:40 Hey John, maybe we can start a little movement among our listeners. If anybody listening wants to, you could get out your phone and you could text your bishop and you could say something like, Bishop, Come, Follow Me this week. Very first bishop is called Edward Partridge. Thank you for being a great bishop. Wouldn’t it be great if the bishop’s out there all of a sudden got a half dozen text messages like what in the world, what is this?

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:34:06 They’ll all be surprised because it didn’t start with Bishop, I have a problem.

Hank Smith: 00:34:09 Yeah.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:34:11 Bishop, I need your help.

Hank Smith: 00:34:14 Anyone out there who wants to shoot a text message to your bishop tell them you are doing great and mention their sweet wife. Say Hey, thank you and we pray for our bishops. I bet both of you do as well. We pray for our good bishop every night family prayer.

John Bytheway: 00:34:32 How do you feel when you hear verse nine if you’re Edward Partridge? And then how do you feel when you hear verse 11? His heart is pure before me. He is like unto Nathaniel of old in whom there is no guile. How would you like to hear that? I remember hearing you talk of S. Michael Wilcox and he talked about Jesus and nicknames, how he built people, paraphrasing, but you know Peter, I’m going to call you the rock. What a nickname that must have been. James, John, you boys. You are the sons of Thunder. Yeah. How does that make you feel? Ah, Nathaniel a man in whom there is no guile. Wow. I like this right here. That what that must have done for Edward. It makes me think of that.

Hank Smith: 00:35:19 I think it was Mark Twain who said, I can live like three months on a good compliment. Right? I bet you could live a little bit longer on a compliment like that from the Lord.

John Bytheway: 00:35:29 A compliment that’s canonized, right? I mean we get some condemnations canonized here, but I was like a canonized compliment. Yeah. I love the Lord giving that compliment and maybe showing us how to treat each other too a little bit.

Hank Smith: 00:35:44 I love that. Thanks John.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:35:46 One last note on Edward Partridge, after he’s tarred and feathered and beat to a pulp in 1833 in Jackson County, he never really fully recovers. He’s in poor health the rest of his life. In May of 1840, he’s trying to build a home, but he tells his journal, I’m unable to do hard labor. I can do light labor but not for long. And then he gets sick and dies. His is the first real major funeral in Nauvoo. After the church locates to Nauvoo, Joseph loses his first bishop right off the bat in Nauvoo. But there’s a really tender note in section 124, section 124. Again, another teaser for a future episode. It’s the longest section in the Doctrine & Covenants. In that section, the Lord lets Joseph know Edward Partridge is with me. I brought him home. It was just a really tender note because Joseph had to deeply, deeply love that man.

  00:36:47 He had carried so much of the burden and helped the prophet so much and he was just such a good guy and he wasn’t perfect. There were times when he was corrected and he acknowledged that in his journal. He said, the Lord corrects me, but basically it’s because he loves me. And when he does die early, he dies not too far apart from when Joseph Smith Sr. dies. So Joseph loses his father and his first bishop in rapid succession. And the Lord lets him know, he mentions both Joseph Sr. and Edward Partridge in section 124. I just think that’s kind of a tender, tender mercy from the Lord.

Hank Smith: 00:37:22 I think Sherilyn Farnes, who’s an expert on the lives of the Partridges, I think she told me that Edward dies 10 days after his daughter Harriet.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:37:31 Yeah. In fact, we can send the readers to the Revelations in Context book that’s in the church history section of the church library app. I will just recommend the entire book. It’s wonderful. But there is a chapter from Sherilyn about Bishop Partridge. It’s a really wonderful, wonderful chapter.

Hank Smith: 00:37:53 So if she’s out there listening, Dr. Sherilyn Farnes, we love you and we’re grateful for your work on researching the Partridges. Ken, this has been fantastic. You’re bringing these people to life. That’s beautiful. I love getting to know them. Okay, what do we do next?

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:38:10 Well, just five days later, after section 41, you remember in section 37 and 38, the Lord tells them to go to Ohio. And if you do, I’ll give you my law. On February 9th, the section heading tells us that this revelation was received in the presence of 12 elders. What I would tell you is there’s a note up on the Joseph Smith Papers that I’ve got here, and here’s what it says on the Joseph Smith Papers in documents volume one, it says the earliest extent copies. So the earliest existing copies of this revelation suggest that the law may have been originally a compilation of five distinct revelatory commandments. Each was given in response to a practical question posed by one of the 12 elders present at that 9 February, 1831 meeting, the elders apparently asked questions of Joseph Smith, who then dictated revelatory answers, closing each answer with the words even so, amen.

  00:39:10 There are, I believe it’s five early handwritten copies of this revelation. For most of the revelations of this period, the earliest copies we have are in the Book of Commandments and Revelations or what the Joseph Smith Papers website calls Revelation book one. But this revelation, this is such a major revelation. The saints at that time recognize it that there are multiple copies of this. Sidney Gilbert has one. There are several copies and they vary just a little bit. But what they have, and if you go up on the Joseph Smith Papers website, you can see where the questions have been crossed out. And so they’re not currently in the revelation, but we know what the questions were. And the questions vary from version to version. Here’s one version of the way the questions read, and they’re numbered one through five. So first, shall the church come together into one place or continue in separate establishments? Second, what is the law regulating the church in her present situation til the time of the gathering, the second coming? Third, how are the elders to dispose of their families while they’re proclaiming repentance? So what do we do with our families while we’re on a mission?

John Bytheway: 00:40:23 Well, don’t dispose of them, but it’s a different way of using the word I guess.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:40:28 That’s the word they used or are otherwise engaged in the service of the church. For example, Bishop Partridge goes to Missouri without his family initially. He doesn’t bring them when he first travels out there. Fourth, how far is it the will of the Lord that we should have dealings with the world and how should we conduct our dealings with them? And then the last question they asked was, what preparations shall we make for our brethren from the east and when and how? So they’re looking at the church growing as missionaries are going out and the saints are called to gather to the Kirtland area. Kind of fun to see those questions because as you read section 42, it shifts gears a couple of times and out of those original numerous even so, amen, we still have a couple of them in the revelation. There’s one for example at verse 10.

  00:41:19 Because that first question is answered by verses one to 10. And then it says even so. Amen. And if you turn over to section 42 verse 69, you see a a second one of those. That’s the answer to the second question. Even so, amen. The others have been removed as they remove the questions as they would edit the text for publication for the Book of Commandments first and then the Doctrine & Covenants. But it’s kind of fun to see that. So you can imagine Joseph, with these 12 elders holding a meeting beginning with prayer. They know that they’ve been promised the law. In fact, one record says there was mighty prayer at the beginning of the meeting. They’re beseeching the Lord, Joseph is here. You’ve promised that if he would come, you will give us your law. Or as it says in the title of this week’s, Come, Follow Me, my law to govern my church.

  00:42:13 And that’s what happens. So we look at this wonderful section, the Lord even addresses this group. If you look at verse one, he says, hearken. And by the way, hearken in Joseph’s time doesn’t mean just to listen. It means to listen and obey. And if you jump forward to verse two, it’s the only time in the scriptures that I know of where the Lord defines his own word like this. He says, and again I say unto you, hearken and hear and obey. You know the meaning of hearken I know is going to change over time. So in case you miss it, hearken means to hear and obey. I’m just going to spell it out, but the Lord dropping back that verse says, hearken, oh ye elders of my church who have assembled yourselves together in my name. It’s like he’s addressing those 12 elders that are there to hear the word of the Lord through the mouthpiece of the Lord, the prophet Joseph Smith. And they get to ask questions. Would that not be a cool experience you know you’re in the room with the president of the church and you ask a question and he pauses for a moment and says, here’s the word of the Lord on that question. How cool of an experience.

John Bytheway: 00:43:15 So section 42 is long, let me see, we’ve got, okay, that’s 93 verses. But they were assembled from, did you say five different revelations?

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:43:26 We think that there were five questions and answers.

John Bytheway: 00:43:28 Yeah, yeah. How interesting. And so by inspiration of course, they assembled these, put them all together. Are those five questions in the app?

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:43:39 To find those five questions, I would recommend going on the Joseph Smith Papers website and you’ll see those questions. They’re lined out on the answer.

John Bytheway: 00:43:49 So it’s kind of like playing Jeopardy where here’s the answer. Now what’s the question?

Hank Smith: 00:43:55 I have an article here, John. We could link under our website, Grant Underwood, the laws of the Church of Christ, a textual and historical analysis that’s right on the RSC website, which Ken knows well, Religious Studies Center. So we’ll link that in our show notes. Just go to followhim.co and and maybe our wonderful Lisa Spice can also find the Joseph Smith papers link and also put that there.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:44:20 So this is just a really wonderful experience that these brethren are having. I haven’t been able to find anywhere the list of names of who these 12 folks were. We can guess who might have been there. But as far as I know right now, that’s what it is because they’re just listed as 12 elders, names are not included. As we look through some of these verses, the Lord in verse nine, they’ve asked their first question. And the Lord, as he’s closing out the answer to that first question says, ye may be my people and I will be your God. And that kind of echoes Leviticus what, 19 as I recall, where God says, I’ll be your God and you’ll be my people Israel. That’s just a nice reiteration of that in our dispensation, that whenever you lived on earth, the gospel can save you.

  00:45:14 And then in the very next verse, he targets his new bishop. I’m guessing Bishop Partridge is one of those. There he says, again I say unto you that my servant Edward Partridge shall stand in the office unto which I have appointed him. I think that’s a great phrase to stand, to be solid. When you get a church calling, you do the job, you stand in that calling until you are released. And that’s your calling to magnify and to bless the lives of those you’ve been called to serve. And I just think that image of standing and I kind of have an image of Bishop Partridge standing in while the wind is blowing and it’s raining. I don’t know if that’s the image they intended at the time, but that’s kind of the mental image that comes to mind when I read that.

  00:46:00 I can just see Bishop Partridge standing alone for a while is the only bishop in the church doing what the Lord’s asked him to do. Then we have a section that talks about teaching. It’s kind of like Section 76, which we call the vision, but it’s actually several visions. The law is actually many laws, but the greater, it’s the law of the gospel starting in verse 11. It starts talking about teaching and it tells us to teach the principles of the gospel. A principle, just by way of reminder, President Boyd K. Packer gave a great definition of principles. He said “a principle is an enduring truth”. He said, “it’s a law, it’s a rule and it’s something that you can adopt to guide you in making decisions in your life.” That’s a gospel principle. The Lord is saying, teach the principles, teach the people how to make good decisions. Teach them how to understand what I am expecting of them. And then he says, those principles are found in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Well the question should be immediately asked, why not the mention the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price? Well, they don’t exist yet is the main reason at this time. The standard works are much easier to carry in your purse.

Hank Smith: 00:47:20 That’s funny. And by the way, what would these men say if I said, oh yeah, I have all of those on my little phone here.

John Bytheway: 00:47:27 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:47:28 I have every word of that and a thousand times more right here on this.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:47:33 And I can put in a search term and it will tell me every scripture that uses that word. And I can have my little box read it to me. I don’t have to use my eyes. I can use my ears.

Hank Smith: 00:47:46 Ken, you’ve been teaching for a couple of decades.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:47:49 Been a few years.

Hank Smith: 00:47:51 How would you advise those of us who are teachers to teach the principles of the gospel?

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:47:58 I have found when you teach the word of the Lord, it’s easy to find the principles. The scriptures are just jam packed with principles. They’ve been assembled and under the influence of the Holy Ghost, in the case of the Book of Mormon, targeted to our dispensation, not every class is perfect. And when teaching goes off the rails, I find it’s because I’m trying to do a Ken Alford show and not teach the scriptures. If it ever becomes a Ken Alford show, it jumps off the rails and goes off the cliff. So I’ve learned if you stick with the scriptures, you’re always on. You’re always on home turf.

Hank Smith: 00:48:35 That’s true.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:48:35 What are your thoughts?

John Bytheway: 00:48:37 I love it. I think that if you get too literal where the scripture says teach nothing but repentance. So you just repeat that word. Repentance, repentance, over again. We can spend time on faith in Jesus Christ and on repentance, which is a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world. It’s right in your Bible Dictionary.

Hank Smith: 00:49:02 Excellent. John I think I’ve talked about this in a previous episode, but I was a Q and A with a wonderful therapist a couple of weeks ago, and there’s 200 or 300 people there, and they got to come up and ask questions of this therapist. And he was a very smart, very brilliant guy. And as they’re asking questions, all that’s going through my head is, oh, I would use that scripture story. Oh, I would use that verse. And there were times where I really felt for him because he was grasping to help this person with this very difficult situation. And he did a great job. But it hit me what a blessing it is to have this at our fingertips. How many times, I’m sure both of you would say the same thing, where someone asks a question and you think, okay, let’s turn to fill in the blank. Let’s turn to Alma 42. Let’s turn to the Sermon on the mount. This is where the power is.

John Bytheway: 00:50:00 We all have this faith and trust in the scriptures that once you go there, we all feel more settled. That’s truth. Another thing we might mention is Elder Lawrence Corbridge’s talk “Stand Forever” where he separates primary questions from secondary questions. This same thing helps us, we’re getting first principles here. Elder Corbridge talked about primary questions. The first vision. Is God real? Does he reveal himself? Does he have prophets today?

Hank Smith: 00:50:31 And also, Ken, I loved what you said earlier, no class is perfect. So if there’s a Sunday school teacher or a primary class teacher listening going, I don’t know how to do this, don’t worry. Neither does anybody else. We are all,

John Bytheway: 00:50:43 We’re all doing the best we can.

Hank Smith: 00:50:45 John, I remember years ago, you and I were talking, it was a long time ago, back when we first met, I think it was your wife and you teaching a Sunday school class, maybe a a 16-year-old class or something. And you said, I just can’t get these kids to pay attention. I just can’t get them to be focused on the lesson. And I thought the entire church needs to hear that John Bytheway cannot get a group of teenagers to listen to a lesson.

John Bytheway: 00:51:09 We had a tough class.

Hank Smith: 00:51:11 It’s a hard thing. And they’re getting more than you think they are.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:51:15 Look at verse 14 for just a moment. And I would note by way of explanation on this verse in the Come, Follow Me lesson on the app, there’s a link to a wonderful short presentation by Elder Bednar in which he explains this verse. Anyone with a teaching calling anywhere in the church needs to watch that video, because here’s the point. Verse 14 says, the Spirit shall be given unto you. And everyone who’s taught more than one lesson in any church calling knows that when the Spirit’s there, everything goes well. And it says, but the Spirit shall be given unto you by the prayer of faith. And Elder Bednar discusses that phrase again, I really, really recommend that video.

Hank Smith: 00:52:04 Those are new Ken. They’re called insights from the apostles. They’re new on the app. These aren’t old videos.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:52:11 They’re really wonderful. They’re very helpful. They’re just short, pithy, and right to the point. Elder Bednar points out that many teachers worry about the next phrase in verse 14. That next phrase says, and if you receive not the Spirit, you shall not teach. I’ve actually heard Elder Bednar mention this. I’ve heard it in some of the wards I’ve been in where a teacher will come into the Sunday School President or Primary presidency. I can’t teach today because I don’t have the Spirit. Oh. Or I’m not going to be at church today because I know I’m not going to have the Spirit in class. And Elder Bednar makes the wonderful point. He says that phrase, the prayer of faith, ask the Lord for the Spirit. And then he says, recognize that when you say amen. That’s not the end of your prayer. And he says, as teachers will get to work, the Holy Ghost will back them up.

  00:53:00 He said, go into your, paraphrase a little bit, but go into your classroom confident that the Spirit wants your students to learn and that you’ve done the preparation and God will make up the difference. I think that phrase, by the prayer of faith, that phrase appears a little bit different in three of these four sections. It’s just a really wonderful phrase. There’s a difference between praying and applying faith to that prayer. Because faith as it tells us in the lectures on faith, faith is a principle of action. It’s great to say, heavenly Father, please X, but it’s way better. Heavenly Father, please help me to make X occur.

Hank Smith: 00:53:42 And here we go. Yeah.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:53:44 It’s worth multiple listens. And so I just highly, highly recommend that. And all those new apostle clips that they’ve added and of course are so topical and so wonderful, a shout out to the app developers.

Hank Smith: 00:53:55 After you text your bishop, hit your gospel library app, Come, Follow Me. And it’s right there. Insights from the apostles. Ken, I love that you said that because that verse can be really scary. And it’s not, it’s not meant to be.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:54:09 No, it’s the Lord, I think trying to give you a pat on the back.

Hank Smith: 00:54:12 Yeah.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:54:14 Could we back up this, we skipped over 13 very briefly. I just want to note it says, and they, the church shall observe the covenants and church articles to do them. Now that phrase covenants and church articles, it’s normally phrased church articles and covenants. The Lord just reverses the order here. But it’s the same thing. If you have a paper copy of the scriptures and you look at the footnote that’s referring you to section 20. Section 20 was known by the early church members as the articles and covenants. What the Lord’s saying basically is, okay, this law that I’m giving you for my church, it includes all of the things that were said in the articles and covenants. Even today in the section heading for Section 20, it calls it the articles and covenants. It was the very first of the Doctrine & Covenant sections that was published in this dispensation. It was actually published in a newspaper in Missouri, the Evening and the Morning Star for a time that was the only Doctrine & Covenants that church members had. But I think it’s kind of fun that the Lord says, okay, remember that earlier material you got? We’re just including that. It’s part of this law that I’m giving you now.

Hank Smith: 00:55:28 Ah, interesting. And we still use that today.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:55:32 Oh, it’s very important today. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:55:34 Yeah. Section 20.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:55:36 If you look at verse 17, there’s just a wonderful, wonderful principle in there. And that is that the Comforter, the Holy Ghost knows everything. That member of the Godhead who knows everything, what’s one of the primary responsibilities that the Holy Ghost does? The next phrase tells us, the Holy Ghost is there to bear record of the Father and the Son. If anyone’s having any testimony challenges, they happen, the Holy Ghost knows the answer. The Holy Ghost knows everything. And the Holy Ghost can bear testimony to you again, even if it’s happened earlier in your life or if it’s never happened in your life. The Holy Ghost knows the answer to that question. Tying it to Moroni 1:10, we just have to ask with a sincere heart or using the language from this section, I would say a prayer of faith. How wonderful that is. We can go direct to the source.

Hank Smith: 00:56:33 You made me think of Section 121. The doctrine shall distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven. And that feels like the Holy Ghost to me. I know everything and I’m going to give it to you in this gentle distilling nature.

John Bytheway: 00:56:55 I’ve heard Elder Bednar say, “what I say is for everybody, but what did you hear that I didn’t say?” He’s talking about listening for the Spirit to teach you things. The Comforter can tailor make it just for you. It’s just the way we read the scriptures. We’ve all read some of the same chapters, but we’ve had the words hit us differently because of our circumstances at the time.

Hank Smith: 00:57:20 Yeah, it’s beautiful

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 00:57:21 Elder Bednar’s idea of the between the lines and the scriptures that if you’re in the scriptures and studying the word of the Lord, the Holy Ghost can use that opportunity to teach you all things that you need to know at that time in your life. Then we enter into a section that is kind of a reiteration of the 10 Commandments saying these still apply in your dispensation, but a couple of them have a really nice relook on them. He says, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not lie. He does say in verse 24, thou shalt not commit adultery. But before he does, he just has this wonderful verse. Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart. And I apologize if I get a little teary because I miss my sweetheart, but I want to just share if I could, because he’s addressing, obviously the husbands here talking about the wives.

  00:58:14 This applies absolutely as much to the wives feeling that way about their husbands. And after my sweetheart died, I went through and I kind of scooped up all her journals. I assembled all the ones I could find and just to have pieces of her. This is a journal she kept when we were, when we were dating, we were in college. Then again, I apologize, I’m sometimes like a Utah thunderstorm. I cloud up and rain quickly and then I’m dry again. This is from Wednesday, April 25th, 1979. And I will tell you that’s the day before we got married, okay? In the Salt Lake temple, married by her Uncle Reid, she saved our tags from the wedding ceremony. It says, well here it is, the eve before the most important day of my life and Ken’s life. And she talks about taking out her endowments that day then my sweet wife was smarter than I was.

  00:59:11 Well always, but in this instance smarter than I was. She committed to paper the way we were both feeling. I just want to share her words and again, I apologize in advance if I don’t make it through, but she said, it’s almost hard to believe that tomorrow I will become Mrs. Kenneth Lowell Alford. This has been a long awaited day. Tonight I make a promise to myself and to father in heaven, sorry, that I will always love Ken and support him in righteousness. I will never consciously do anything to hurt or disgrace him, and I will do everything in my power to make our house an eternal home. And I felt that way, but again, I wasn’t smart enough to write it down. So bless my sweetheart for doing that. And I will tell you she absolutely kept that promise. She never raised her voice in anger to me in 43 years ever.

  01:00:24 Not once. It just wasn’t in her nature. At her funeral, I invited our children to speak and they all did. And my three daughters who had not coordinated their talks, had all included a comment that their mother never yelled at them ever. Now my son got up and he said, well, I’m going to have to break tradition here. Mom didn’t yell at me, but she raised her voice once and he said, I don’t remember what I did, but he said, I knew I had goofed up in a major way because mom raised her voice and mom never raised her voice. I would just suggest when it says, love your sweetheart with all your heart, there are things we can do to make marriage heaven on earth. I’m just looking forward to the day when I can be back with her.

Hank Smith: 01:01:17 Thank you, Ken. Thank you. And having known Cheryl Lee, I can see exactly what you’re saying. Lest to anyone out there feel terrible that they’ve yelled at their kids. Don’t worry. John Bytheway has.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 01:01:31 My kids cannot say that about me at my funeral.

Hank Smith: 01:01:33 Is that true? Okay.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 01:01:37 No. I married an angel who’s really an angel right now.

Hank Smith: 01:01:40 She is. She’s your angel. I love it. Thou shalt love thy wife, thy husband, like you said Ken, with all thy heart shalt cleave unto her or him and none else.

John Bytheway: 01:01:55 What I love about this is the Lord could have quoted our Exodus 20, our list. We kind of remember that as a bunch of thou shalt not, or many of them are. This is not just thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt love thy wife, thy husband, with all thy heart. It reminds me of what is the great commandment in the law. And both of those begin thou shalt love, which is fascinating.

Hank Smith: 01:02:27 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 01:02:28 That it’s about love and here it’s not what not to do, but here’s what to do. Also, Hank doesn’t that make love sound more like an action word, not just a feeling.

Hank Smith: 01:02:38 Right? Like a choice.

John Bytheway: 01:02:40 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:02:41 I think it was Steven Covey who told a story about going out with a friend. His friend said, we just fell out of love. And he said, well then love her. And he said, oh Steven, you don’t understand that the feeling’s gone. And he said, well then love her.

John Bytheway: 01:02:56 Then love her.

Hank Smith: 01:02:58 And he said, what do you mean? He said, love is a choice. You choose love, you go and you choose love. Now Ken, not everyone listening is going to have this angel spouse. What would you say to those who are thinking, what am I going to do? Our marriage is not working.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 01:03:21 Life can be challenging. I think the first thing that you do is you look within and ask as the ancient apostles did, is it I Lord? It’s always tough if not impossible to change someone else, but it’s always very possible to change ourselves. And I think the second thing I just say is the Lord understands how to fix everything. There is nothing so broken in mortality that God cannot fix it. One of my favorite verses and especially since she has passed is Revelation 21 verse four. It says that the day will come when he, Christ, will wipe away all tears. There is nothing that can happen to you in mortality. And sometimes awful things happen and sometimes people make terrible choices and sometimes people treat each other in ways they shouldn’t. But there is nothing that can happen to any one of us that Christ cannot fix. That is just very comforting to me.

Hank Smith: 01:04:30 I love that.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 01:04:30 Being widowed is not a great thing, but I know that Christ will fix this. We’ll be back together. We’re still married, we’re still sealed. We’re just not able to see each other right now. In the span of eternity, this is going to be a blink. I just remember the Lord’s comment to Joseph in Liberty Jail. It’s just a small moment, Joseph, and I bet if you ask Joseph today, how long was Liberty jail he’d go, it was just a small moment because he’s got a different perspective on it than he had on March 21st, 1839. I guess I would encourage folks that where life is not where you want it to be right now, to have a prayer of faith and recognize Christ will just dry all tears. He’s going to absolutely fix everything. The time is going to come when nothing’s going to be broken. Not in us, not in relationships, not in anything. Christ can fix everything. I think that’s the most important thing to remember.

Hank Smith: 01:05:34 I’m grateful that you’re here because you show us with your description of your marriage, you showed us an ideal, which I love, but you also showed us when things aren’t ideal, what you can do. John, you’ve been bishop and I know that in our private conversations you have loved ones who have been through struggles in marriage. What would you say to someone who is saying, it’s not working for me. I don’t have what Ken and Cheryl Lee have.

John Bytheway: 01:06:02 I’m grateful that for all bishops out there, that is at section 107 where bishops are kind of told they have the gift of discernment. Because there may be times when a professional counselor can really help, as we’ve talked about before, Hank getting to that point that you mentioned, Ken, Matthew 26:22. Is it I? When both spouses are willing to say, what can I do better? Just even getting to that point, knowing we’re not perfect. I remember reading a book called Living a Covenant Marriage, and I think it was Brother Matheson who said, if I can just get couples to apologize to each other, the rest of my problems seem to melt away. He said.

Hank Smith: 01:06:49 I want to throw one thing out at you both to get your comment on. Interesting that Ken points this verse out to us. Verse 22, love thy wife with all thy heart. Verse 23. And he, you can swap those as Ken did or she. He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her, denies the faith and shall not have the Spirit. And if he or she repents not he shall be cast out. The principle I see there is that there are boundaries. So I’ve got a spouse perhaps who refuses to repent. The Lord says there’s a boundary there if he or she repents not it’s okay to have a boundary. Sometimes we think being Christ-like means well, you just take the abuse, you just take the behavior. I don’t think that’s the case either of you?

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 01:07:46 That’s where you need to counsel with the Lord. And I’d say counsel with your bishop, the abuse as President Hinckley said, “is never acceptable” and abuse comes in many forms. And if anybody’s in that situation, I would just counsel you to talk to the bishop and see if there are church services that might be appropriate. Mental health services, the church has lots of resources to help people. President Holland talked not too long ago about this topic as well. No one has to put up with the circumstances that should not be put up with.

Hank Smith: 01:08:19 Yeah.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 01:08:19 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 01:08:20 The Lord himself doesn’t say, Hey, just do nothing.

John Bytheway: 01:08:23 I think how fascinating that there came a point where Nephi had to take his wife, his children, and just, we just got to go. There’s no agree to disagree here. We are in a dangerous place. We’re not safe. We have to leave. People have wondered if that’s one of the things that was so difficult for Nephi, oh wretched man that I am, I couldn’t keep the family together in a way. I’m glad that story’s there because it says, Hey, there’s a time where you may need to go.

Hank Smith: 01:08:56 Yeah. I did speak with a person recently who in his marriage, he felt like pornography is fine and that he has no intention of stopping his use of pornography. I thought, how can we choose to wound? My daughter has been told on dates, well, you won’t find a young man who doesn’t use pornography. And I thought, yes you will. Yes you will. That is a very healthy boundary to have. I hope we’ve maybe clarified some things or maybe we’ve just muddied the waters, but I think it’s an important point to pause.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 01:09:34 I would send us a couple verses down because the Lord in the 10 Commandments says, thou shalt not bear false witness. Oh, the Lord takes that commandment. And when he reiterates it in this dispensation, he changes it just this little bit. He says, thou shalt not speak evil of thy neighbor, nor do him any harm. That’s different than bearing false witness. That’s a higher law. That’s a higher standard.

Hank Smith: 01:09:57 Coming up in part two of this episode.

Dr. Kenneth Alford: 01:10:02 And then two seconds later, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Somebody is just pounding on my front door. Oh, I threw on a robe, went down, opened the door, and my neighbor from across the street, I’m living in Indianapolis at the time, and my neighbor across the street screams at me. Are you okay? Is the family all right? And my first thought I must confess was, well, yeah, I was fine till this maniac neighbor knocked on my door at three o’clock and woke me up. And then he said, you don’t get it. And he grabbed me by the front of my robe and he pulled me out onto the snow and he flipped me around.