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

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:00:03 I remember I was sitting on her lap crying as I typically did. I was known for that. She was comforting me and we had some men barge into the house with machine guns, basically opened the door without knocking or anything, barged in saying my mom was under arrest, my aunt too, and took them both. They were both incarcerated. They had 10 year sentences with no lawyer, no witnesses, no trial. They basically were told their charges. They weren’t even supposed to speak. My mom said something in response, but they said, be silent, and then she was taken to prison.

Hank Smith: 00:00:41 Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith. I am your host. I am here with my co-host John Bytheway, who is in commotion and whose heart could fail him at any time. John, that is Doctrine & Covenants 45:26.

John Bytheway: 00:00:59 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:01:00 Let’s be careful with you. Have you been to the doctor lately? Got your heart checked?

John Bytheway: 00:01:06 I just need to breathe for a second. Okay. I’m good.

Hank Smith: 00:01:08 All right, good, good. John, your heart could fail you because you are so excited that we have Shima Baughman here with us today. Shima, welcome back to followHIM.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:01:21 Thank you.

Hank Smith: 00:01:22 John. We had Shima here last year when we did true crime in the book of Helaman. Do you remember?

John Bytheway: 00:01:27 Yeah. Our true crime episode.

Hank Smith: 00:01:30 Our true crime episode, and today we actually are going to lean a little bit on her lawyer experience as we talk about being an advocate. John, I know you love that title for the Lord. Shima as you’ve looked at section 45, what are you excited about?

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:01:47 I wanted to start with some thoughts on the Doctrine & Covenants. This might be shocking, but what it has in common with celebrity gossip magazine that I used to read. And then I wanted to get into the background of section 45, what was going on when Joseph Smith got this revelation, how it relates to our day. And then I wanted to get into some of the themes of Section 45 as a loving revelation for our Savior that explains his role as our advocate. Three ways we can be better advocates. I want to talk about the harvest, what this means as we prepare for the Second Coming. I want to talk a little bit about Enoch and his role in guiding our spiritual preparation in last days. How we can become strangers and pilgrims on the earth. I love that phrase. I also wanted to discuss three themes of the Second Coming that are throughout this section, as well as so many of the others that tie along with it, where there’s discussion of physical destruction and warnings or spiritual reactions and whether there will be mockery or joy or covenantal light. Some ways that we can shine in that preparation for our Savior’s return. And I also want to end talking about Satan as he is the author of our doubt and fears, and Christ is the author and finisher of our Faith.

Hank Smith: 00:02:59 Wow. What a great summary. All of a sudden I’m going, yes, let’s do that. Yes, let’s do that. Right there at the end of section 45. I personally love this little phrase, come to Zion. I had a great-great-grandfather who wrote the hymn, Israel, Israel, God is calling. That’s the key phrase. Come to Zion, come to Zion. John, Shima was here last year, and I’m sure our listeners remember her, but let’s just remind everyone, give us some background.

John Bytheway: 00:03:29 Yes. Shima Baradaran Baughman is a professor and author and listen to this, a distinguished fellow. Now that is academic jargon because anybody who’s watching us on video is going, she does not look like a distinguished fellow. No, that sounds like some 19th century guy with a hat on. She’s a distinguished fellow at the Wheatley Institute where she studies religion and human flourishing. She’s authored and coauthored three books, 30 articles. She’s been in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NPR and other media outlets. She’s originally from Iran. She has an Instagram account. You can follow her @ShimaBaughman. Everybody that heard her before is probably excited that she’s back.

Hank Smith: 00:04:17 John, I have an Instagram account as well. I’ll post something. Shima, she is very busy, you just read and she’ll take time to comment on something that I post and I’m like, oh, Shima, thank you.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:04:28 Well, me and 5,000 other people, but your posts are great Hank, I love them.

Hank Smith: 00:04:34 You’re kind. I’m really grateful for Shima. Let’s read from the Come, Follow Me manual and then Shima, it sounds like we have a lot to do today. The title of the lesson is The Promises Shall Be Fulfilled. One section, section 45, the revelation in Section 45 was received, according to the section heading to the joy of the Saints. And there’s a lot to be joyful about in this revelation. In it, the Savior gives his tender promise to plead for us before the Father. He tells us of his everlasting covenant spreading throughout the world like a messenger to prepare the way before him, and he prophesies of his glorious Second Coming. The Savior does all of this while also acknowledging that these are troubling times in part because of the perils that are to take place before his coming. But that peril, that darkness is not strong enough to extinguish the light of hope. And this is a quote from the section: for verily I say unto you, the Lord declared that I am a light that shineth in the darkness. That alone is a reason to receive this revelation with whatever counsel and warnings and truth he wants to give with joy. Beautiful. So Shima takeover, you mentioned something about a celebrity magazine.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:05:55 Yeah, I think we want to start with a confession right away. I used to read this magazine every time I went to the airport. It’s a very guilty pleasure because it’s basically just celebrity gossip, right? it helped my flights go faster, but it had this section in it called “Stars: they’re just like us”. It would have a celebrity in sweatpants carrying groceries or some unflattering picture of somebody that looked like one of our neighbors. They wear sweatpants and don’t wear makeup too. I think there’s certain scriptures that have the same humanizing effect for prophets. And I think of the early saints, and I love the Doctrine & Covenants so much because this passages that we read really involved the Lord patiently speaking to people who have and continue to make a lot of mistakes and rely on him for mercy and grace, like me and I make mistakes too, and so do the subjects of many of the chapters of the Doctrine & Covenants who are patiently being guided by the Savior who loves them individually.

  00:06:53 This is a great place to turn when you think you’re not worthy, when you think that you’ll never feel his love again, when you need the strength that only he can provide to face another day. The Doctrine & Covenants intimately covers both the courage and the weakness of our early saints when they didn’t get along, they didn’t listen the Lord sometimes. When pride and human foible took over and they were demoted from the higher law. Also, when he expanded their abilities to translate, bless them with the other testament of Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon, angelic visitations, the gifts of the priesthood, temple covenants. There’s so much for all of us to learn right now. There was a time in my life, I have to say, admit another confession where the Doctrine & Covenants was not a favorite book of scripture of mine. Even now as I approach it, even though I have a firm testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, I’m still sometimes reticent to climb back into this complicated mire of church history.

  00:07:47 I believe that the reason God directed our prophets to preserve these records of revelations, some of which are very unflattering, is that the Lord demonstrates that even though as humans we’re flawed, through him we can accomplish the impossible. And only through him can we be redeemed. Much like scripture, basically the entire Old Testament, the acts of the Apostles, the Book of Mormon, we read accounts of the mistakes and weaknesses of people, how they disobey the Lord, use violence against each other, commit sinful acts, but then find healing and hope and redemption through Jesus Christ. And just like celebrities, right? are just like us. Prophets are just like us. And as we read these chapters, I think we have to be careful because what people love about the stars are just like us section, or I guess the modern day equivalent might be the suggested reels on Instagram or videos.

Hank Smith: 00:08:39 okay

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:08:40 They show a celebrity in unflattering light. We might feel like we feel a little bit better than the person pictured. We see somebody being rude on a off day. But I think that when we read the Doctrine & Covenants that we need to be careful to keep at the forefront of our minds our own imperfect lives, rather than gleefully pointing finger at another’s past mistakes without standing in their shoes. And realize that we’re all worthy of channeling His power despite our weaknesses. And the Lord can covenant with us. He can use us for his purposes. He’ll pour his grace over us despite our continued errors as long as we strive, as long as we just strive to be His people.

Hank Smith: 00:09:20 Wow, that’s wonderful. And that’s something John, that you and I have talked about quite a bit this year is not judging people by their worst moments, by an off day. Shima said.

John Bytheway: 00:09:32 Yeah. That’s one of the things that I love about the Doctrine & Covenants is because I find myself identifying with these imperfect people. I’m writing down that phrase you said, rather than pointing gleefully at others. Why do we find glee in that?

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:09:49 You know, we love to see people fail. I think it’s a sad reality of humans and we need to be careful.

Hank Smith: 00:09:55 Yeah. Does it make us feel a little better about ourselves to look down on someone else? That’s not the Lord’s way.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:10:03 Yes. So just a little background on what’s going on here. So Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon more than once. The text says that many plain and precious parts of the Bible had been lost. In the summer of 1830, he begins a new translation of the Bible to restore some of these truths. I mean, it was quite radical at the time because the King James Version was obviously at those days the perfect word of God. Now obviously there’s lots of translations, but during that time it was quite controversial. As he was translating the Bible, he had a vision called the Visions of Moses. In 1830 later, he came out with the first chapter of the Pearl of Great Price. And over that next little period, Sidney Rigdon joined the church. Joseph Smith received a revelation that he was to be a scribe. After we get the beautiful story of Enoch and Moses, then there is a time where there’s translation stops.

  00:10:53 March 7th, 1831, we received Doctrine & Covenants 45. This is when Joseph is working to translate the book of John. During this time, the Saints were experiencing a lot of opposition. As Joseph Smith said in this age, there was a lot of false reports, lies, foolish stories published to circulate, to prevent people from investigating this church. And as I think about all of these lies and people getting confused about the Second Coming, as well as the reputation of the church, as you said Hank earlier, that this was a joy to the saints because it, this revelation, really provided this hope in the Second Coming, particularly the part where we learned that Christ will come to the New Jerusalem and to his saints. These scriptures are just as relevant to our modern lives as we have a number of TV shows, probably the most ever streaming right now, telling false stories about the church.

  00:11:46 And these are proliferating and, and not to mention the war against us on social media leading particularly women as we study in the Wheatley Institute. I mean particularly women are being led away from faith, confusing a lot of people from our history, our doctrine and misunderstanding our policies. There’s so many false reports and stories circulating with all these different platforms. We already have a revelation dealing with this, dealing with these challenges. And according to recent data, looked at all the religions and how favored they are. We came dead last amongst all the religions sadly, amongst all the groups of Christians, Muslims, Jews, but we know that the Lord’s people are not popular and Jesus apostles had to hide and teach in secret because despite the good they did, the miracles that they performed, Jesus Christ was crucified and his apostles were hunted and killed. God uses this hatred, even the hatred of men for good.

  00:12:39 And there’s some evidence, the bright spot of this all, you know, this kind of time we’re dealing with in 45 and now that a lot of the negative attention in the past that we’ve seen as we study this there actually in 2012 when we had our other big moment where we got a lot of negative press with Mit Romney running well baptisms and interest in the church spiked up in that. And so I’m praying that what’s happening right now will spike interest in the church and people will want to investigate and learn more and figure out what the truth is for themselves.

Hank Smith: 00:13:07 Wow. I love taking this section of the Doctrine & Covenants saying, okay, let’s look at today because the Lord can do both. He can speak to the saints in 1831 and to the saints in 2025 in one revelation. I really like that take. Let’s look at both 1831 and 2025.

John Bytheway: 00:13:27 It just reminds me of President Nelson in general conference assuring us that we’re going to see great miracles in the spreading of the gospel. It sounds like what you were saying right here, we’re going to see some amazing things even from the attention that sometimes is negative.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:13:42 This is Jesus basically explaining what his own Olivet discourse means. It’s his sermon that he gave to the disciples. This is interesting because there’s so many different structural and linguistic and cultural analysis of this discourse, but this is the only one we have where Jesus Christ himself tells us what he meant. This helps us understand Matthew 24, 25, Mark 13, Luke 21, John, Joseph Smith-Matthew, for you of course, who’ve been to Jerusalem, probably led towards there. But when you walk across over the hill of the mount of olives, I’ve only been to Jerusalem once. As you look into Jerusalem, you’ll see rocks on all the graves. What’s so interesting is that not only do Christians believe that we’re all going to be resurrected the Second Coming, but there’s also a Jewish belief that the Messiah will appear on the mount of olives and initiate the resurrection of the dead.

  00:14:33 They place stones on their graves as a tangible way to mark this resting place of their loved ones so that they cannot be forgotten in this resurrection. It’s a beautiful symbolic act of remembrance anticipating the coming of the Savior. It’s interesting because also Muslims believe that the Messiah will come somewhere in this region. Some groups also believe that Jesus will come back even though they don’t believe him to be the Messiah, they believe he will come back. I think it’s so beautiful that so many of God’s children believe that Jesus Christ will come in the same location as Christ told his apostles. We believe that of course, that there will be signs and wonders and other things to see. I just think it’s beautiful that all of us agree on that one thing. Maybe we can’t agree on a lot, but we agree on that.

Hank Smith: 00:15:17 The Olivet discourse when I teach the New Testament is a favorite of my students. What the Lord does in Matthew 24 is says, look, here’s all the signs of the destruction of Jerusalem that is coming. And then he goes on and talks about his Second Coming, and then the next chapter is really fun. Matthew 25, where he gives three different parables. You’ve got the parable of the 10 virgins, parable of the talents, and the sheep and the goats all meant to prepare us for the Second Coming. When I teach the Olivet discourse, you’re saying, hey, bring in section 45.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:15:51 Why not? It’s the latest and greatest on what Christ said about this. So I love it.

John Bytheway: 00:15:57 In Matthew 24, it’s a little hard to distinguish, is this a destruction Jerusalem event or is this a Second Coming event? And Joseph Smith-Matthew separates him a little bit better so that you can see, oh, this one’s this and this one’s this. And then as we said, and then we get section 45 that’s going to give us more from the original author of the Olivet discourse, which is great. What a treasure.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:16:26 Let’s get into the actual chapter. The first six verses are basically saying, hear him, listen to him, hearken to him, hear his voice. Believe on my name, verse five. I just want to share a beautiful testimony shared in a Utah prison branch that’s helped me to understand what really hearing his voice looks like with the depth of hearing the Lord that I’ve myself not experienced. So the man who I’m going to share a story from, he experienced this depth of faith in serving a prison sentence for drug offenses. He used to be violent. He lost many people close to him. And he says, quote, recently I had knelt down by my bed after lights were out to say my evening prayers. I was thanking heavenly Father for the gift of a son and the price he paid for me. When out of nowhere I burst into tears and began to cry uncontrollably.

  00:17:16 I struggled to hold in my sobs as I was afraid my bunkies would hear me. As this went on for about 10 minutes that night, this dream followed. I was laying on my side in cold stone, in a dark dank cave. I was weeping inconsolably for the death of someone I hold most dear in my hands. I was grasping with all my might something cold and hard. I opened my fingers to see what I was holding. It was three large Roman nails. Every detail vivid and clear, sharp and slightly bent and burnished bright from the friction of being pounded into hardwood. The upper portion in heads were covered in blood that was also smeared all over my hands. It was in that moment that a perfect voice of perfect mildness said to me, you shed so many tears for me, never having seen me in the flesh, yet you know me.

  00:18:09 All of a sudden, bright sunlight burst into the cave and I sat up realizing by the smooth stone floor, the rough stone walls that I was in a tomb and not just any tomb but His tomb. I looked at the nails again and revelation flooded to me. They represented everything that had been done to me, everything I’d ever done to anyone else. More than that, a lifetime of pain, bondage, misery and grief, every mistake and decision and the motivation behind them like a judge wing, aggravating and mitigating circumstances in a perfect infinite way. The Savior knew me through and through because he’d been there, right there with me experiencing it all. But even more important was the blood covering the nails in my hands, even when I was his enemy and as bad as a person I was, he paid that blood price anyway. Just then the light flooded into the tomb and shifted.

  00:19:00 And I looked to the door and when I thought was sunlight took my breath away because standing there in all his glory was the son of God. My testimony of those crucifixion, resurrection evident as the prints of the nails I was holding were clearly visible in the palms of his extended hands and the breath of a whisper he said, I did this for you. And I sat up upright in my bed as a profound peace filled me and the purest, most unfathomable love washed over me and through me. It occurred to me as I’m writing this, that the Savior was also implying that it’s time for me to let go of the hard, twisted nails of my past and the damage done. Embrace the future with faith and allow time to do the healing. Though I had seen the resurrected Lord from inside his tomb, it represented my own rebirth and resurrection. Unquote. This my friends. That is hearing him, hearkening to him, believing on his name to truly understand who he is and what he’s done for us. His invitation to accept him so that we can be healed. It takes my breath away.

Hank Smith: 00:20:05 That was fantastic. To think of someone in such a low point and hear, what is it Elder Holland says, it is impossible for you to sink lower than the light of Christ can shine.

John Bytheway: 00:20:17 What a story. Before this recording, I was speaking to boys at a detention center up in North Ogden. Boy, you feel the Spirit in some of those places. What a revelation for that person to get.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:20:34 I just think it’s as a result of how grateful he was. And I think, am I hearing my Savior? Do I have that kind of belief like this man does in his lowest of low times? I think it’s something I’m going to work towards throughout my life. The next thing we can talk about is the harvest. If you read verse two, it says, when you think not, the summer shall be passed and the harvest ended and your soul’s not saved. And then also again in verse 37, it says, you look and behold the fig trees and you see them with your eyes and you say, when they begin to shoot forth and their leaves are yet tender, that summer is now nigh at hand. I think it’s important to put this into our days and understand what we’re talking about here because we obviously don’t live in an agrarian society anymore.

  00:21:21 There’s not a lot of talk about seasons, harvest and crops in a way that they would talk about it. Spring was a time of new life that was initial work of planting the gospel seeds at the time of beginnings. Some in Middle Eastern scholars have talked about how grain was scarce in the Middle East during this time, and the seed for the coming season was preserved by each farmer since they couldn’t purchase them. So typically by spring, the wheat supply was out and the summer months were difficult for the Israelite families because the children were often hungry. The fathers were sorrowful because as they used the remaining grain for seed, the children wished that they could make bread instead. This explains Psalm 126 that says they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. And the farmers were sad, but they planted their seeds in this act of faith that was rewarded in the fall after spring.

  00:22:11 Summer was a hard time, intense heat, a lot of preparation, careful food management. So you hear a lot Summer is nigh. This is a time discussed for Christ’s coming because it was a hard time when people were waiting for their crops to grow and they didn’t have as much there. And then we have Fall. Fall is the harvest. This is the joyous time for the Israelites. We have Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur. That’s a time where their hard work leads to this happy and holy time where there’s plenty of food and celebration. Fall, you think of the harvest, that’s Fall, that’s when the Savior will come. I remember this time when I was in Peru and it was late August, so basically Fall. And we went to dinner at a home of a family in Urubamba, which is this very beautiful rural farm town.

  00:22:54 And we had dinner and we had brought a chicken from the market that we bought to roast for the family. And I remember them saying, we eat chicken maybe once a year, basically at harvest time because it’s very expensive. And they were yet to harvest their crops. They mostly ate corn and vegetables. And I remember that night a few of us were sleeping over in a tent outside of their house. And there was this full moon. And I’m an early bird, so I’m ready to get in my bed and my sleeping bag and get to sleep. It’s about 10:00 PM And well, we are, it’s announced, right in Spanish of course, I have to try to understand what’s going on. But we learned at the last minute with no warning basically that it’s time for the harvest. We’re all going to work together. And I think this was advantageous, right?

  00:23:34 They had six other people, they’re like, this is time. We’re going to get the wheat. We’re going to harvest the wheat. So we all got sickles inthe night under the moon working really hard to get as much wheat into piles as we could. And we were taught how to do this. Nighttime harvesting is a thing and I think it is good for moisture content or whatever, and the cooler temperatures are good. But yeah, I think about this every time I think about the harvest, because I didn’t last very long. I think of this every time because I wasn’t physically ready. And I remember being so tired and wanting to go to sleep, and I think I did. I think I probably went to sleep at one where some of the people that were there worked all night and helped this family harvest their crops. I just remember thinking if I had been prepared, if I had watched the signs of the field, I would’ve known when it was time for harvest. I would’ve been napping during the day knowing that this is what I was going to have to do. And I think in verse 38, Christ says, even so it shall be in that day when they shall see all these things then shall know that the hour is nigh. Are we aware of what season we’re in? Are we looking for the signs and are we nourishing ourselves in the right ways to prepare?

Hank Smith: 00:24:41 Next time I have house guests over, I’m going to, it’s time to mow the lawn every night. Yeah, this is our one night that we can do this everyone wake up. That’s a pretty incredible experience where you think it’s the moment of, it’s almost like we mentioned the parable of the 10 virgins. Are you ready? because it’s now.

John Bytheway: 00:25:00 Yeah, that’s what I thought of too, was the parable of the 10 virgins. Elder Oaks called them parables of preparation. There’s these that are sleeping while waiting for the wedding. And I’d like to know more about that trip because I’d really like to avoid it. Just kidding.

Hank Smith: 00:25:17 Let’s not go in late August.

John Bytheway: 00:25:18 Okay, wake up, here’s your garden tools. Here we go.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:25:24 I love it.

Hank Smith: 00:25:25 I’ve quoted C.S. Lewis I think I’ve given this quote before, but I love it. He said, the Second Coming is not a day of choosing. It’s a day you find out what you have chosen. We can’t think, okay, when that day comes, I will choose him.

John Bytheway: 00:25:41 I love in verse two, the summer shall be passed and the harvest ended and your soul’s not saved. We often act as if there’s this eternal grace period, but it comes to an end at some point the grace period runs out, the harvest ends. Your souls are not saved. It’s sobering stuff right there.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:26:01 Yeah, and I think when we think about nourishment and you know, harvest and spiritual nourishment, I, it reminds me, so Arthur Brooks came to the Wheatley Institute at BYU, and he said, we’re so overfed in America that we don’t feel hunger. We don’t feel those pangs because we’re constantly surrounded by food. I think these discussions of the harvest and Summer and Fall where people work more hungry in different seasons, they often don’t hit us as hard because we are overfed in every season. My first experience with this was actually not in America, but when I was growing up in Iran, I remember I was young and my mom went to political prison and she was fighting for freedom of religion and speech in Iran. I was raised by my grandma and my incredible aunts. So I wanted for nothing, you know, during that period, except of course I missed my mom.

  00:26:47 But I remember when my mom got back from prison, I missed my grandmother so much and I was about five and I went to my parents’ bed crying. I remember this and I desperately missed my mamani, that’s what you call her in Iran. And she basically raised me for the last two and a half years. My mom, who I give so much credit to now, as a mother of five, I can’t imagine letting my daughter go, but she let me go visit my grandma in a bus ride 20 hours away to visit her alone. What I remember more than even how amazing that reunion was with her was that she fed me nonstop. She made the most incredible Persian food every hour because she didn’t have toys to play with or any other kids. She would cut and peel fruit and feed it to me. I remember being so incredibly full during that visit and I never hungered, I didn’t want to come home because I was so happy that my parents, honestly, after two weeks had finally called and they were like, well, your sister got a new coloring set, so if you want one, you need to come home.

  00:27:44 I finally agreed. But when I think about constant nourishment, I think of my mamani and this lesson of being, we’re very full physically, but do we have and recognize the same need for constant spiritual nourishment? And do I spiritually feed myself as my dear grandmother fed me with healthy snacks and fruit? Do I spiritually feed myself as often as I physically feed myself? For me, I think reading scriptures in the morning, I try to sometimes will read some at night before I go to bed. Even if it’s just a verse, maybe talking to God every chance I get. For me driving, I drive to Provo. That’s a good time to talk to God or listening to music that reminds me of Jesus Christ. If I’m grumpy or envious or having less than Christ-like thoughts. I had to do this yesterday I was feeling very angry.

  00:28:30 There’s a new song by, I can’t even remember who. The Weekend. It’s a song about mercy. So I pulled that up. I was like, okay, this could help. I think in our world today we’re sobered, but as President Holland said, we willfully indulge in spiritual anorexia. We eat three times a day, at least for me. In addition, the treats I have after every meal. But shouldn’t it be the same for spiritual nourishment? This is something I need to remind myself. It’s easier to let that slip, even though hunger pangs, right, that will physically remind you. You need to eat.

Hank Smith: 00:29:02 Enos. My soul hungered. Right you know, my body, my soul hungered.

John Bytheway: 00:29:09 I like to ask my students, have you ever forgotten to eat for three or four days? Nobody ever just forgets to. You know, I don’t think I’ve had a thing to eat since Thursday. No, but spiritually we do that. I have neglected my scripture study for a couple of days or something like that. What did you call it? What did Elder Holland say?

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:29:29 Spiritual anorexia.

Hank Smith: 00:29:31 We willfully indulge.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:29:33 Yes.

Hank Smith: 00:29:35 Shima, as you and I were discussing Doctrine & Covenants and looking at sections that maybe you wanted to take on, we talked about your mom, you are one of the few, I think, of people that I know who could connect with the saints, Joseph Smith and others who keep being jailed for their religion over and over. I think everyone listening would go, wait, what? Can you give us a summary of what that was like for her? What that was like for your family?

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:30:07 Yeah, I mean, it was devastating. We were having a family party and my mom was politically fighting for speech and religion rights in a government that was totalitarian where they didn’t want anyone to speak against them. Once the Aya Khomeini took over, he basically consolidated all the power, killed all his opposition. And my mom was in one of the groups fighting for freedom and democracy still. And so I remember I was sitting on her lap crying as I typically did. I was known for that. She was comforting me. And we had some men barge into the house with machine guns, basically open the door without knocking or anything, barged in saying my mom was under arrest, my aunt too. And took them both. They were both incarcerated. They had 10 year sentences with no lawyer, no witnesses, no trial. They basically were told their charges. They weren’t even supposed to speak. My mom said something in response, but they said, be silent. And then she was taken to prison. Through miracles, saved and removed out of prison and was able to be released after two and a half years instead of 10. But there’s so many miracles that God performed in our lives to have that happen.

Hank Smith: 00:31:18 Wow. And what did she say later? Can we ask? Two and a half years?

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:31:23 Yes. For her, she regrets it. There’s a lot of shame for her in what she did. But as I think about my sister and I, who were the oldest kids in the family, I mean, we just have nothing but praise for her. The bravery that she had to fight for these important freedoms of religions. The Shah was stopping women from being able to veil and saying, you can’t follow your religion or you can’t speak freely. And she fought for all those rights, helped to oust the Shah, and unfortunately had a different government that was oppressive in a different way come in. I don’t regret any of her acts and I know she does. I think she’s removed herself from all politics after this experience and doesn’t want to be involved. She just says things change one by one and through our hearts. And she’s right as about that as well. But I think I’m grateful that she did that work for her country as well.

Hank Smith: 00:32:13 And Shima, you hit this last year, but let’s rehash it. How does a family in Iran fighting for religious rights, how does that daughter end up teaching at BYU right now that, that’s a bit of a

John Bytheway: 00:32:28 another miracle.

Hank Smith: 00:32:29 one thing led to another and I

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:32:33 I love talking about it because I’ve, I’m so grateful. I have no business being here in Provo and living in Utah or in the US. We’re in Tehran. My mom was in prison. My dad did a medical procedure for one of the higher up religious leaders in Iran. Ended up saving him from his neurological problem. He ends up getting this position to do research at UCLA, which he didn’t even apply for. It’s like so many miracles. Like someone had applied for it and applied for Japan. He went to Japan as soon as he could. This was during the Iran Iraq War. And then the opening for UCLA comes out, my dad takes it. He comes to UCLA. There’s a woman who’s a nurse, her name’s Marianne. And if anyone is Persian in California, you’ll know Marianne. And she is the most amazing missionary. She had this prompting to talk to my dad about the church.

  00:33:20 She, after a couple times of ignoring it goes and talks to him. My mom immediately when seeing the pamphlets about families can be together forever, wants to meet the missionaries, she investigates the church, ends up getting baptized and saying, I’m not going back. They’ll kill me for that. It’s right. I mean, they would kill her. And we were miraculously escaped from the country anyway because she was supposed to be on probation even though gotten out of prison. And so we end up getting asylum as refugees because of her political prison time. And then we were able to stay in the US and grow up in the church. It was our greatest blessing. I look at my journals as an 8-year-old, like what was more important to me than the church? Like that’s all I talked about was how grateful I was to be a member of this church. I just can’t say enough about it. So thanks for letting me talk about that.

Hank Smith: 00:34:06 Wow. Just not many of us, John, I don’t think can connect with Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail and not like Shima and her family can.

John Bytheway: 00:34:15 I would love for so many youth to hear about you in your journal at eight years old and that all you wanted to talk about was the church. What an awesome, unusual, unique, beautiful story. Thank you.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:34:30 Thank you. And I think it is a testament to, and we’re going to talk about this later about children, but as children we saw the light. We just intuitively knew even when we didn’t even speak English. I came to the US in second grade, I spoke two words, yes and no. But when I went to church, I felt the Spirit. I felt the Spirit. I knew this was good. I knew this was light and I knew this was going to change our lives. We don’t give our kids enough credit. They know it’s right and maybe they take advantage of it more than I did because I saw the contrast of what I had experienced to what we had in the church.

Hank Smith: 00:35:01 I’m glad we were able to talk about that. Even though in this particular section, Joseph Smith is not in jail. Not yet. Shima, what do you want to do next?

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:35:10 I was hoping to talk about me and John’s favorite word advocate. And this comes up very deep in this chapter to Jesus Christ, our advocate. And as a lawyer, this is one of my favorite descriptors. I know it’s John’s too, but what is an advocate? So it’s a voice for someone who pleads for another. Love Section 45 verse three where it says, listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him. Our best advocate, Jesus Christ, he laid the foundation for the earth and all things that move upon it. He tells us that he’s experienced what all of us have isn’t that what we learn, right? He takes upon himself our infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy according to the flesh that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people. Christ is the only one truly who could be an advocate for all of us in this life.

  00:35:59 He saved us from death. He’s the only one who can understand all our sorrows and pains. I want to think about, well, how can we be advocates in the last days? What does this mean for us? I often warn my students, sometimes it can be more difficult to be an advocate or disciple of Christ as a lawyer because as Christ said, wo unto you lawyers. They were not words that the Savior used without cause. There’s very few examples of lawyers in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon who are humble disciples of Christ except for Ezra, who we all love as our favorite lawyer. There’s three ways I would love to talk about to be a good lawyer. One is obeying the law in every aspect of our lives. This includes allowing modern prophetic guidance and core commandments to permeate who you are. I would love to tell you about a remarkable disciple of Christ and an advocate.

  00:36:50 Her name’s Anna Rose. She’s a judge in Tanzania and currently pursuing a master’s in law at BYU. She is a servant disciple of Jesus Christ. She glows, she’s a student in my class, I’m so grateful for, she describes her work as a judge and is explained that her country’s one where bribery and deals with judges are common. In her faith journey she talked about how the judges that she served with and continues to serve with describe her chambers as different. They say, well there’s business as usual here, but not in Anna Rose’s courtroom. They say she is a disciple of Christ. This is the kind of reflection we want to have as examples of our advocate serving with love, perfect honesty and integrity everywhere we are. When those I mentor closely at work, at home, including my kids, when they see me act generously and honestly and consistently with the commandments of the Lord and then of course apologize when I so often fall short of what I claim to believe, they will be inspired as well by my advocacy. What we do as advocates to follow the law in our lives is so much more important than what we say to our colleagues or our children. How we behave at work. When we go there as disciples of Christ, the representative speaks greater in magnitude than anything we have to say.

Hank Smith: 00:38:07 Shima you and I didn’t plan on this when we talked about section 45. It wasn’t the word advocate that I thought, oh, Shima would be perfect for this. It was afterward where I looked at it and went, oh. So what’s it like Shima to plead someone’s cause in a courtroom? I’ve never done that.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:38:27 Yes. Well, I would love to tell you a few more stories of how I see this beautiful advocacy. To answer your question first, there’s just this Christlike humility that you gain. So for instance, for me, one of the biggest cases I ever did was this fight over a 50 cent DVD. So the rapper 50 cent in Malawi. And I represented 11 people who were charged with different types of theft offenses. So what happened was there was this 50 cent DVD, these two kids started fighting over it. One of them beats up the other one, the other one then burns down the other one’s house. And then there’s all this looting that happens after this house. And I remember feeling very humbled because as I looked at my client’s faces, like I had no idea who was guilty or innocent. It made me humble because I thought as much as Christ does know who’s innocent or guilty, he loves us just the same. And he’ll plead for our case as well as he would for anyone else’s. I felt this very important call of they have me or no one. And yes, I don’t know the law in Malawi as well as other people, but no other person is here to represent them but me.

Hank Smith: 00:39:35 That’s such a unique position to be in. John, you and I have talked about this before. Imagine being in front of the Father. There’s the Lord next to you and he says, father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin in whom thou was well-pleased. And then you stop things, you’re like, can I talk to you for a second? Yeah what? I don’t know if you got my file, but I sinned quite a bit. Behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, this is not going to work. And I think the Lord would say, I wasn’t talking about you.

John Bytheway: 00:40:10 Yeah, he isn’t talking about what you did. He’s talking about what he did, which is amazing. Probably my favorite advocate verse is First John chapter two, verse one that starts out, if any man sin, if any man, if any woman, if any teenager, if any young person sin, please manifest it by the uplifted hand, it’s this if any man sin. And we all know, okay, we all did. We have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ, the righteous. I mean that verse right there is so, oh we’re all in that boat. We have an advocate, a couple of other titles that are similar that we often hear are mediator or intercessor. Then he doesn’t say, father spare these that are perfect or spare these that are near perfect. He just says, spare those that believe on my name. Thankfully.

Hank Smith: 00:41:04 Yeah, at your judgment he’s talking about his works.

John Bytheway: 00:41:09 Thankfully, very hopeful verses to begin this section where there’s a lot of details of the Second Coming coming up, very hopeful right at the first.

Hank Smith: 00:41:20 And Shima, that would mean the Lord’s courtroom is different than ours. Because I can’t see you saying, behold this lawyer who is so good, who have kept all these laws, spare these defendants here. It’s a different type of courtroom than maybe we have in our head.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:41:37 It is. But I do think that as disciples there are ways we can advocate. That’s what was so fun for me to reflect. Because I think there is this advocacy that you know, our Savior does with the Father. I think there’s some really cool ways we can advocate. The second thought I had was that we could show up for those that we advocate for as our roles as human advocates and disciples. Unlike Christ, we don’t have the same experiences or specialized knowledge to help. But sometimes it’s even more important not to have that knowledge, but to be present. I dedicated many of my years in my career as a criminal officer to be an advocate on behalf of the incarcerated and to bring forward new data that demonstrates that releasing a larger number of people charged with crimes before trial could still be safe for society.

  00:42:24 I tried to explain to judges how using this data we could release the right people and keep people safe. So this is one of my areas of this bail advocacy. And I remember as I was getting ready for this, this bail period’s a really important one where people really do need an advocate when they show up before a judge, without an advocate, oftentimes they don’t have the right preparation and they’re not able to present the evidence that they need. Basically the judge might detain them and if they’re detained, they often lose their job. They’re more likely to get a partial sentence. So it’s a really big decision even though it’s two minutes. And I remember going to these judges presenting my data saying, well this is what you should do. This is who you should release and who you shouldn’t. And my data was really good.

  00:43:07 I did it with an economist, a hundred thousand defendants, 15 years of data saying who’s safe to release? I was so pleased with myself, right? But then as I presented, this one judge kind of sits back in his chair and sums up the experience so well. He says, this is interesting, but I’m just going to go continue to make decisions based on my gut. It’s just devastating. I knew that’s what the response was going to be. Then 13 years later, I saw something remarkable. A colleague of mine wrote in this book called Radical Acts of Justice about a Louisiana church congregation who attended bail hearings to be witnesses with the accused. They didn’t know the people accused of crimes and they had no special skills. They weren’t lawyers, but they simply went to sit next to them as a witness and show them love in a time when they had no one else with them.

  00:43:53 When people went back and studied this in the days when the church members showed up and sat with the accused, the judge set 50% lower bail amounts for the accused, allowing them more often to be released. And it turned out the judge’s hearts were just touched. To see someone that was loved rather than just a defendant, that they moved along in a two minute hearing. There’s a power simply showing up for people and showing that love where we don’t even need to plead. It’s just that our presence shows the love that they need to move on. And I don’t know if you guys know Paul Heaton, he’s a member of our church, a brilliant professor from Penn. He did a a really cool study where he just assigned people on this bail hearing a friend, he called them a bail advocate. And the people that were assigned just a friend that literally they had no skills. They weren’t a lawyer. All they did was give him a heads up, Hey, this is what’s going to happen at the hearing. This is what happens here. Those people that were signed a friend were 30% less likely to commit a crime or be charged again, recidivate, because they had a friend. I believe so strongly in this power of love and showing up for people. It’s such a miraculous thing that could happen in criminal justice as well as in life.

Hank Smith: 00:45:03 Wow. John, I don’t know about Kim and Shima, I don’t know about your husband, but if you want to make my wife mad, you come after me. I, for some reason, someone goes after her and she’s not super flustered, but something will happen where someone will insult me and she will, you’ll see a fire in her. But it is a good feeling to have an advocate, someone who wants to go to battle for you.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:45:30 I love that. So the third thought we had about advocacy is believing in the power of Christ to change lives. Sometimes to be an advocate for someone, we simply have to love them. But other times we need to hold them accountable and believe that they have the ability to change. This is Doctrine & Covenants verse four and five and paraphrasing. It says, Jesus says, behold the sufferings and death of him in whom thou wast well pleased, wherefore spare these that believe in my name that they may come unto me. There’s a remarkable story about a bishop I want to talk about. This was in the 1975 New Era. His name’s Bishop Haldeman. He had a man who joined his ward who had a long history of driving while intoxicated without a license. Then he was baptized, was fulfilling his duties as a scout master when one day, even though he wasn’t allowed to be driving, he needed to get to work.

  00:46:23 He didn’t have any carpool possibilities. So he drives without a license and of course ends up getting arrested and charged for his crime. He calls his bishop and he says, sorry, I’m going to have to say this but I’m going to have to resign as scoutmaster. I won’t be attending church for an extended period of time and I want to be excused from everything and left alone. He told the bishop briefly, he said, listen, I got this driving offense. I’m going to go to jail. The church doesn’t want to be associated with people of my kind. So I’m disowning myself from the church and from my colleagues. Well, I want to ask you, what does the bishop do? What would you do? I think it’s so remarkable what this bishop does. He investigates and figures out where this man will be attending traffic court. He shows up that day without reaching out to him.

  00:47:04 The judge is there with this lengthy driving record. He’s angry that this man has never served any jail time. He orders him to get one year in county jail. And the bishop sitting there as a witness, he plan on testifying if he had the chance, but then he feels like a failure because he said nothing. Now I’m quoting the bishop. He says, at that point the court clerk handed the judge the next record for the next person to be called up. And there was this delay and the judge seemed to be perusing the record. And the bishop says nothing. He didn’t raise his hand, he didn’t move his head or anything. He didn’t even have an expression on his face. He says, and then all of a sudden, without any reason, the judge raises his hand, looks at the bishop and says in a loud voice, sir, do you have something that you want to say to this court?

  00:47:46 Then there’s a silence. And he says, uh, your Honor, I’m a bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’ve known this man. He’s been a faithful member since I’ve known him since the day of his baptism. He’s never touched a drop of alcohol, smoked a cigarette or drunk a cup of coffee because he promised that he wouldn’t do these things if he got baptized. And he accepted the call to be scoutmaster. He’s a great scoutmaster. The boys love him. There was a pause, you know, it was a few seconds, but it felt like a long while to the bishop. He says, the judge turns to this man and says, is what he said true. He said, yes, it’s all true your honor. And the judge says, will you ever break your promise to this man? And Bob says, no, your honor. I will never break my promise to that man.

  00:48:27 There’s a silence again. The judge says, one of the finest men I’ve ever known was a man, J. Reuben Clark Jr. He was a classmate of mine in law school. He was a great man and I was always impressed with him when we were students. And I believe that he’s one of the presiding officers of your church. And he said, in view of my great feelings for him and the obvious influence it’s had on this man and his promise, I will suspend the sentence. And with that gavel, he suspended the sentence and let him go. I just think, can we believe in people? Can we actually believe in the power of Jesus Christ to save lives, to change people’s lives? Because I’ve seen this, I’ve seen people who have been incarcerated, who have lived these horrible lives, give their life to Christ and allow themselves to change. And can we be those advocates and bring people to Christ to have that same change.

Hank Smith: 00:49:15 Yeah, even when he said, leave me alone. And we might say, well, he wants to be left alone or what can I do? But the bishop was, you don’t want to really be left alone. Let me come after you. John, what’s that story of President Monson going and hunting that kid down? Have you ever heard that? Where on a Sunday he couldn’t find one of his priests and he goes looking for him and goes to the mechanic and he’s down under the car. He called to him and he said, you found me Bishop, alright, I’ll come to church.

John Bytheway: 00:49:51 I’m so glad you’re going into this idea of being an advocate for others. I mean, if we’re trying to be like Christ, I guess we can also try to play that role when we can or try to be that advocate when we can. Can you say that reference again? New Era ’75?

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:50:11 Yes. It was the New Era, 1975. It was written by Harry Haldeman, but it actually was in the Clark Memorandum as well. You can look it up if you look up Harry Haldeman, 1975, New Era.

John Bytheway: 00:50:24 I love the idea that prodigal son went to a far country. The Pharisee, the publican that went to the temple to pray. The publican stood afar off. We might think of a church being far from the prison, but it’s never about distance, it’s about direction. Some of these beautiful stories happen in prison. It’s about their direction. Sadly, we may be in church, but we may be facing the wrong way, or going in the wrong direction. We may be in prison and going the right direction. And I think these stories all teach us not about distance, it’s about direction. It’s kind of the which way are you facing? I know that Elder Holland has said, the Lord cares less about where you’ve been than where you are and with his help, where you’re willing to go. That what a hopeful thing to think about. Which way are you facing, which way are you trying to go?

Hank Smith: 00:51:19 Shima, I want to ask you a quick question. What if there’s someone who’s listening who says, no, these people deserve incarceration, this person deserves this. How do you react to that? I’m sure you’ve heard it before, right? Here you are pleading the case for someone who may be incarcerated and they’re going, why would you keep them out of there? They deserve this. What comes to mind?

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:51:40 Yes, I was going to talk about this later, but we can talk about it now. It depends the purpose of the desert and what you’re trying to punish them with. So if you are wanting to punish someone and put them away because they’re a risk to safety of people, if they’re harming people or themselves, then that’s a different reason than to do it out of vengeance or spite or to be happy. So when we ever get happy when someone is put into prison, that’s where you have to check yourself. And we don’t have the right motivations because Christ has commanded all of us to forgive all men. So he’ll decide who he forgives, but we are commanded to forgive all men and women. I think when we are gleeful, when people are put in prison or punished or think they deserved it, well then we’re putting ourselves in this position as judge.

  00:52:27 And I think that’s really dangerous because we’re not asked to be the judge. We know that Jesus Christ is the ultimate loving, kind, perfect judge. We’re not asked to be judges. We’re asked to forgive all, even those who despitefully use and persecute us. This happens all the time, every year. There’s this dissonance in my criminal law class where people are like, yeah, but Professor Baughman, I mean what about people that are really dangerous, and that’s what we talk about, murderers and rapists. But our role is different than Christ. We should punish and try to rehabilitate those that are harming people and put them away for the time they need. But we should be joyous when they come back to Christ and give them an opportunity to change if possible because I think that is our role that we need to help bring all souls unto Christ. And I believe that everyone incarcerated, even they all chose Jesus Christ. Once we all did before we came down here, we all chose Jesus. We didn’t choose Satan. So there’s some good in them and they can come back. And I do believe that we should work hard to try to allow them to come back to Christ as much as we can, not try to be happy when they continue to suffer and to sin.

Hank Smith: 00:53:36 I’m not an expert on this. I could ask my friend Derek Sainsbury, but when Joseph Smith ran for president 1844, that was one of his major points of his platform is turn prisons into schools.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:53:48 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:53:49 Reform people. Just really quick, you go to Matthew 18 where the Lord says, look, here’s how you’re supposed to deal with each other. You read that last parable of the unforgiving servant. It’ll make you uncomfortable. I think the Savior’s parables are meant to make you uncomfortable. That one is tough. Where the Lord says to the servant, who wouldn’t forgive, I forgave you. I forgave you just because you asked.

John Bytheway: 00:54:17 President Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk at BYU called Judge Not. And judging from the perspective of a judge, there’s times in our lives when we have to make judgements, the Savior tells us how to judge righteous judgment. There were five years of my life as you know, Hank, where I actually had the title of a judge in Israel. And I’ll tell you, I still remember times driving to the church with the words of the song in my mind, who am I to judge another when I walk imperfectly, to participate in a membership council. Super humbling times where you really, really, really want help from the Lord in those cases because he can read hearts perfectly and we can’t as humans, but he can. The goal was to get in tune with that.

Hank Smith: 00:55:06 That’s great. Shima, we’ve had you here for a while. What do we do next?

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:55:12 I want to go through verses 11 through 15 where we talk about Enoch and the God of Enoch. And I want to spend a little bit of time on a few points that we can learn from Enoch. Sometimes I think when we talk about revelations in the Doctrine & Covenants, and even people talking about the Book of Mormon, I think there’s some incorrect statements made by members where they’ll say something like, oh, there’s little external validity to these revelations or little historical evidence to support the Book of Mormon. I strongly disagree, as I’m sure you both do. But I think this mention of Enoch reminds me of a really beautiful external validity of the Doctrine & Covenants, Enoch’s account that Joseph Smith is revealing in Moses six and seven is referred to here in Doctrine & Covenants 45. It’s strikingly similar to the 1948 discovery of the Book of Giants, which is this kind of collection of fragments that discusses Enoch.

  00:56:03 And it was discovered in Qumran the same place that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. Obviously in 1948 this happened. Joseph Smith had no access to these uncovered records. But what’s amazing is that he reveals a lot of very similar things in Moses six and seven as what’s found in these records. In 1948, for instance, there’s secrets, wickedness, murder amongst these people in the land that Satan had great dominion upon them. It says in Moses, they sought for power. And then the Book of Giants talks about slaughter, destruction, moral corruption that filled the earth. There were secrets that killed many. So again, a lot of these similar themes, they also both refer to Enoch as a wild man, which is remarkable. Why would they both say that? That’s nothing in Genesis. There’s only a few verses in Genesis and it’s nothing about that referred to him as a lad.

  00:56:51 Enoch and his whole city were brought to heaven as we know, but we didn’t know that in Genesis, the Bible only refers to Enoch going alone. All of these similarities are quite remarkable. And even external Yale scholar, Harold Bloom said Joseph Smith produced writings on Enoch. So strikingly akin to ancient suggestions. And he said, I have no judgment one way or another on the authenticity of this. But he found enormous validity in these writings, said that it only attributes to the prophet’s genius or demon. But whatever it was, it was remarkable. Interpreter Foundation also talks about these discoveries in that there’s so many similar, similar themes, secret works, murders, visions, you know, with Enoch adversaries ending with their destruction specific occurrences. That would just be remarkable if any 19th century document were to exhibit this. But the fact that it has all of these different things, probably a great number of those that we are not going to talk about.

  00:57:45 But I just think it’s really neat because there’s no explanation that Joseph Smith would match this level of detail with ancient records that were not even available during this time. No one knew what happened to Enoch until more recently. I think it’s remarkable to mention that because I think sometimes the Spirit converts us and our testimonies are based on the Spirit, but also as a lawyer and as a thinker and as an analytical person, I like to see evidence and mark it when it’s there. And I think some people’s brains work that way. So I wanted to just mention that as we were talking about Enoch.

John Bytheway: 00:58:16 Obviously there’s the Spirit and sometimes there’s just things that make sense. I have in my notes, and this is probably Hank from four years ago, I don’t remember who we had talk about Section 45, but I’ve got in my margin that Joseph Smith was working on the JST at this time of the Old Testament of the book of Enoch. Here comes this extra information. It also reminds me of there was a video on YouTube Hank called the Old Testament in eight minutes that a couple of members of the church made. It’s really good. The kids narrate it, goes really fast. Talks about the city of Enoch being taken, well that is unique to us. So in the comments section somebody’s like, Hey, wait a minute, where did, where’s that? When did that happen? The city of Enoch being taken. So I thought, yeah, well it’s a couple of Latter-day Saints that made that video and had a little extra info about Enoch.

Hank Smith: 00:59:07 Yeah. Here is Joseph Smith going along in 1831 doing his little Bible project and he gets to wherever in Genesis, it talks about Enoch, and John, I remember this from our Old Testament year that he basically said to the Lord, is there anything more you want to talk about? And then well 144 verses more on Enoch, and this is where Shima is drawing from. Pretty incredible both what Shima showed us and then this Joseph Smith. That’s incredible Shima. It really is. It’s not, Hey, my testimony is based on Joseph Smith knowing the story of Enoch. That’s going to get you nowhere. But it is that external validity. I think Neal A. Maxwell called it fertilizer on a testimony. You have a testimony, you’re growing it, but it’s not bad to have a little fertilizer every once in a while.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 00:59:58 I love that. I never heard that one. One of the other things Joseph Smith mentions about Enoch is that he was a lad. And this is something we didn’t know obviously in the old. And I think there’s something beautiful about that. And we talked about earlier how sometimes children have the greatest wisdom because they have this simple ability to receive light. I remember after my family had come home from living in Malawi, I talked about living there a little while ago. I went back for a consulting trip to this rural part of Malawi where I was doing some looking at fair trade practices and tea plantations. And two weeks after I’d gotten home, so I’d already forgotten about the trip. I got really sick one day and I’m sitting in bed. I have this huge headache, which was not usual for me to ever sit in bed.

  01:00:39 So I’m sitting in bed and my five-year-old son Kian comes in, he says, mom, I think you have malaria. He was absolutely right. So all of a sudden it struck me, I mean the most common illness in Malawi’s malaria. While we were there, Kian spent so much time hanging out with all of our Malawian friends, other people that come to the house. And every time they were sick it was like, oh, I have malaria. Because that’s what they had. It’s crazy because it’s treated with a couple of pills, but if you don’t treat the symptoms, you could get worse and die. I got the pills and I treated myself. But I remember thinking if I had gone to Provo with a bad headache, you think the doctors would’ve said, oh yes, you have malaria. With all their specialized knowledge, they would never have occurred to them that I would have malaria because all of the complexity of all the diseases, they know their training.

  01:01:23 But I just think of my son, my 5-year-old who basically knows one disease, it’s malaria. And he nailed it, diagnosis with me. He nails it and makes me think sometimes the gospel is so simple. And all that we learned was when we were little and it’s still all true. And if we really focus on that and think about, Enoch was a lad when he discovered the greatest truths because the simplicity of the gospel is what we strive for. The more I grow in wisdom, the more I realize complexity is overrated. Realizing that these simple truths are what we can have to get closer to our Savior. That’s what I think about.

Hank Smith: 01:01:55 John, you remember the youth theme? It must have been a long time ago, let no man despise thy youth.

John Bytheway: 01:02:01 Yeah. Which in King James, I didn’t know what that meant. Don’t be bad when you’re young. And actually I think what Paul was saying to Timothy was don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young.

Prof. Shima Baughman: 01:02:14 I love this language we talked about earlier, the strangers, the people of Enoch were called strangers and pilgrims of the earth. One of the other great lessons of Enoch, the second lesson I would say is that his city were strangers and pilgrims. I had went through a period of struggle with my faith towards the end of my marriage, my first marriage, and after my divorce through my entire life, I was this devout member of the church. As you know, miracles brought my family to the church and I’d always had a strong testimony of Jesus Christ. During that time, I really struggled with some aspects of my testimony and the church history. I remember after being divorced for two years, I met and married my husband Ryan, who happened to be 38 and single. And I felt like I’d won the lottery. I never thought I’d find love again or have the opportunity to have more kids.

  01:02:58 And there he was, this faithful, humble man. I think he’s pretty handsome too. And before we got married, we were going to the temple aiming for like once a month, which really means like every, I don’t know, month or two or three depending on the month. I remember it was February of our first year of marriage. So we’d barely been married six months. We hadn’t been sealed because we met April 30th, got married August 8th, and we had to wait to be sealed in those days I had to wait for divorce, cancellation, all that. But anyway, we were fighting a lot. Ryan had this really beautiful inspiration. He said, what if we tried going to the temple once a week? Honestly, we were both desperate to keep our marriage intact for different reasons. Ryan had waited 20 years to find someone he should marry. His mission president said he’s going to get married within six months.

  01:03:42 Well, it took him 20 years to 18 years, I guess, to find me. I had been through a painful divorce. I’d been married for 13 years and I was so desperate to make this marriage work. I remember walking down the aisle in my wedding to Ryan and my father so wisely saying those final words that every girl wants to hear before your father walks you down the aisle. He says, so this is it, right Shima? And I’m like, ouch. And I know he meant it with great love, even though it hurt. But I so desperately wanted it to be it. I was willing to try anything. Then there we are. We go to the temple every week for that first year of our marriage. Our marriage changes. We often go in, I have to say, not talking to each other, we’d been mad at each other.

  01:04:25 But we walk out of the temple holding hands and giggling, laughing at whatever we were fighting about. Because the temple softened us. It helped us feel love again. It forced us to feel the Spirit and let go of contention when we didn’t want to. We had this eternal perspective that we wanted when we left that we didn’t when we came in. And there were so many blessings that we saw from going to the temple regularly. And after a number of years attending weekly, we’ve now been married almost 10 years, I have to say it’s changed us in so many ways. First way I have to say is from the age of 14. I want to say this specifically because I know there’s a lot of women that watch your podcast. I think a lot of women right now are having problems and questions about their role as a daughter in God’s kingdom and in the church.

  01:05:08 And I did wonder the same thing. I thought, how do I fit? It was through repeatedly attending the temple and doing initiatory sessions in the temple that I was able to grasp the power of the priesthood that I had access to, to bless my life, to bless those that come into my orbit, to bless my future posterity. And I could appreciate this divine identity I had as a daughter of God and a future queen with my heart linked to my Savior every time I renewed these covenants. And second, I think the more regularly I was in the house of the Lord, I could delight in hearing God’s voice. As I mentioned, I most often worshiped in these initiatory ordinances. And I remember one of the most beautiful parts was where I felt cleansed ritually through the ceremony. There’s a ceremony, kind of like you talk about in Exodus that we do in the temple.

  01:05:55 I remember Satan though in my voice, in my head in those years, the first year I went, every time I went saying, who are you kidding? You don’t deserve to be here. Satan would proceed to vividly play in a horrific video montage for maybe the first year or even more. Every time I showed up, all of the sins that I’d committed, that I had repented of, telling me, I’m not worthy, you’re not going to be forgiven. I had gone through the processes, I didn’t feel worthy. And I remember the Lord as I went through these ordinances over and over being washed and anointed over and over, finally having these sacred words of the Lord that are whispered to me during this ordinance. Finally taking over the voice of Satan. And I finally believed I could be made spotless through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

  01:06:45 And in those early years when I didn’t feel like I fit in the temple. I can’t even tell you the number of people, workers at the Salt Lake City temple where I used to go, prompted to tell me, you are a beautiful daughter. They’d come out of nowhere. People I never knew saying I was loved, that God loved me, everything you could hear. And I honestly never heard those words ever since. Except that one year when Satan was working so hard to get me out of there, because all he wanted is to, for me not to go to the temple every week and feel like I wasn’t worthy. That can happen to a lot of people, that we could feel this voice of Satan that could take over if we’re not careful to go as often as we can to let the voice of the Lord take over. That’s not the end of it. Because as we think about being strangers on the earth, after getting through my initial fear of all the sins I had had that I repented of, but Satan kept reminding me of, God started whispering to me in the temple that my favorite pet sins that I’d held onto for a long time had to go.

  01:07:41 And I remember I loved poker. I loved playing poker with my dad and with friends and something I did growing up and that left and it was gone. And God whispered little things, dressing more modestly came next. I made some changes there. I had got messages to do more, to serve the poor or the sick or in prison. I rejected most of what was on tv, and on social media. And as I got to intensely studying the words of living prophets and scriptures when the temples were closed particularly, I could reduce the darkness I felt not having been in the temple in those times and remember thinking and feeling like this exact language that we have in this chapter that I felt like more of a stranger on the earth and a stranger to my former self. Spending more time in the house of the Lord helped me to understand that this is how we can seek to become strangers on the earth.

  01:08:31 Because when we’re trying to be, live a covenant with God and keep his commandments, we do have to reject what’s around us. And in the dark, to walk with Christ. I think we need to do much more. Reject this commonplace immorality. When we’re grateful for our covenants of chastity that bring us closer to our Lord and Savior, we reject the standards of the world, the philosophies of men that confuse and complicate the teachings of God. But we sometimes will miss the popular songs and shows and concerts and movies. We can’t retain hatred for any of our brothers and sisters, even those we feel justified to hate. We can reject division and political discord and materialism, inequality, and anything that contradicts the laws of God no longer tempts us when we feel strangers on this earth. I think of the prophet where he says that any violence becomes difficult for him to watch. Even a sports game when there’s contention, he turns it off. That’s a good test of if we’re a Zion society, am I liking things that are popular? Am I a stranger or a pilgrim on this earth? Or am I one and the same with the earth? Right? Am I fitting in? Am I popular? And I think that’s a really good test for me of whether I’m strange enough because we need to be strange to be Zion.