Source: Elder Oaks and The LDS Punishment Initiative Channel: Mormonish Podcast Published: May 4, 2026 | Archived: May 24, 2026

Video: Elder Oaks and The LDS Punishment Initiative
Channel: Mormonish Podcast
Published: May 4, 2026
Duration: 2:04:26
Views: 7,283
Category: Entertainment
Video ID: iUi3rtjeAAw

Description

This week’s Mormon Newscast centers on what looks like a renewed willingness by Church leadership under Dallin H. Oaks to draw sharper lines and enforce them. Whether it’s the Church’s trademark lawsuit involving John Dehlin or the excommunication of Landon Brophy, such seems to signal a broader shift toward tightening control over both narrative and dissent a shift Elder Oaks requested not too long ago.

From there, we hit a range of developing stories across the Mormon landscape. We’ve got an update on Wade Christofferson, a look at how political identity among Latter-day Saints is subtly shifting, and a discussion of the now-infamous “tooth” moment involving Tamara W. Runia. We also break down a recent YA devotional message where Elder Stevenson and his wife, Leesa, have us going deeper and deeper into space.

We also zoom out to look at bigger cultural and institutional trends: temples continuing to be announced and built even as overall growth shows signs of strain, a noticeable uptick in horror films using Mormon themes as storytelling fuel, and yes, Utah’s beloved “dirty soda” culture suddenly stepping onto the national stage. As always, we connect the dots, ask the hard questions, and try to make sense of what it all means for those still in, those on the edge, and those long gone.

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Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:02 Hi everybody. Welcome to the Mormon newscast. It is Monday. It is May 4th. Do you think that we should go to our graphic? May 4th is a special day. And I am joined on this special day by Is that why we have the emperor on the thumbnail? [laughter] That’s exactly right. I’m joined by RFM and I’m joined by Bill Real. Of course, I’m Rebecca Bibliotecha. Let’s go to our next slide. I think that’s the one I was talking about. There it is. Happy May the 4th. Right. Do you guys know that it’s Star Wars Day? Were you aware of this? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Very.

0:35 Yes. I have it I’ve had it thrust upon my consciousness consciousness over and over enough to Yeah. to remember. I like the fact that I’m Obi-Wan over there. Yeah. No, I think you’re supposed to be Luke. And of course, Bill, you know, has to be solo. You’re Luke. Yeah. Okay. I asked AI to make, you know, the the power trio there. Exactly. Now, of course, I celebrate Star Trek Day, which is September 8th, but I’m okay celebrating May the 4th be with you, too. So, anyway, happy May.

1:03 I feel like my lightsaber is shorter than it is in actuality. It’s a little stubby, but that’s okay. All right, let’s talk about what we’re going to talk about here tonight. This is going to be a good action-packed so much news. Oh my gosh, it just gets more and more every single episode we put out here. So, um, let’s see. We have, for some reason, I’m not. Are you able to turn? There we go. Oh, I forgot. I have to go to uh RFM. You added this.

1:30 I put this in there when I thought it was Obi-Wan. There you go. Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine. I feel like that’s John’s John Delin’s motto right now. Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you could ever imagine. Down yet. They’re just, you know, getting ready for the swing. Yep. That’s it. Exactly. All right. Yes, I can turn the slides. I got my mouse all situated. So, let’s go over what we’re going to talk about tonight. Is it a new day for LDS excommunications and lawsuits? That’s a big story everybody’s talking about this week. Wade Christopherson update. This was a big story from last week that we kind of put on hold because we wanted to give it the, you know, the place of importance that and the time that it took. Mormon political leanings are shifting. That’s going to be Bill’s story. I should say Wade Christopherson is going to be RFMs and I’m going to talk about

2:20 excommunications and lawsuits. Um, Elder Stevenson tells young adults how to go even deeper. This is a very interesting story that I’m going to cover. Mormon dirty sodas on the national stage. That is Bill. This is a great one. I don’t have my dirty soda with me, but I often do. Rebecca, yes. Is that a talk that Elder Stevenson gave about soaking? Um, we’ll find out. Yeah. Just when you thought that the metaphors and the euphemisms that they learned their lesson, they really haven’t. You didn’t really say that though.

2:50 You’re kidding, right? Oh, no. You’re gonna find out. You’re just gonna have to wait for my [laughter] presentation. Uh, another story we’re going to cover is uh how a missing tooth and super glue inspired thousands of women. This is a very interesting one that I stumbled across. LDS Temple Building uh where membership is shrinking but malls are growing. That’s my story, too. And we’ll end up with build. This is a fascinating story. Horror movies are using Mormon themes.

3:19 Who’ have thought that, right? What could be so horrible about Mormonism? Don’t know. All right, let’s go. I believe I am the first here. U there was an article. Hold on a second. There we go. Um there was an article in the Tribune um about Landon Broofphy, my co-host and his excommunication, all the events leading up to it and and uh the notification last week. But the article took sort of a big picture view and and our thumbnail kind of reflects that of, you know, are there lawsuits? Are there excommunications?

3:52 Are they on the horizon? Is this a new day now that we have a prophet who’s a litigator? And I just wanted to add this slide really quick. I of course made that uh Dalon. Meet Barbara. I understand it’s spelled wrong. You don’t have to correct me. Uh Barbara Don and of course I’m referring to Barbara. I’ll correct you anyway even if I don’t have to. Oh, AI did it and I didn’t catch it. You cannot. Anyway, of course, I’m referring to the Barbara Stryson effect where you draw attention to something that you don’t really want out in front and then it just, you know, gets legs and it gets going. And I noticed that just in the last, I think, five days, um, these three articles, of course, the John Delin lawsuit has been covered locally. You know, we’ve all been talking about it. There’s lots of different posts and information on ex Mormon Reddit, Mormon Stories podcast.

4:38 The Tribune has covered some of it. The Desireette News has said something, but now it’s starting to go national. And these are the three of the ones that I saw in Salon and um the Chicago Sun Times. They tie it to Wade Christopherson. They tie it to what uh RFM’s going to talk about. They’re kind of all over this. And this is Slate. That’s the one that just came out today. So if you guys want to go look those up, they are starting to talk Barbara Stryson effect about this lawsuit that the LDS church has launched against Mormon stories in John Delin. So very interesting. All right, let’s go. Any thoughts on the fact that it’s starting to snowball, either of you, before we get into the article in the trip?

5:19 I’ll save my comments. Okay. I was just wondering if that was a patriarchal grip. Yeah, it kind of looks like it and I did not tell AI to do that. So I went with Thomas Monson and George W. I think there are people involved. Anyway, they’re always trying to do it. All right. U most of you have probably heard that my co-host on Mormonish podcast, Landon did receive a letter that he had been excommunicated. And the letter was a little questionable itself. We’ll talk about that kind of at the end of this Tribune article. The title is a Utah podcaster says LDS church booted him out for apostasy. This first line is my favorite. A Utah podcaster known for criticizing the leaders, policies, and beliefs of the LDS church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, announced this week that he has received a letter notifying him that he has been removed from the faith roles for apostasy. I just love that. How would you like to find yourself in the Tribune with a picture saying that you’re known

6:10 for criticizing the LDS church when all of your relatives are in and friends and family? But anyway, it’s a good picture. It’s a good picture. That’s what I say. Landon just kind of rolls with it. Um, the interesting thing that they bring up in the article and of course Tamara interviewed me and interviewed Landon and a lot of this is on our podcast that we put out right after we got the letter is that you know he hasn’t really been on the podcast for about the last 18 months because of work. I’ve talked about his intensive international schedule. So you really when you tune in to Mormonish won’t see him. I mean he’s on maybe once a month if that. Um, also the fact that he hasn’t attended his ward, had anything to do set foot inside of a building for almost eight years.

6:52 And typically we see excommunications happen when it’s somebody that is attending that’s interacting with members on a daily basis or a weekly basis. They tend to leave people who have, you know, really stepped away alone. But in this case, no. Um, this is not what happened. And uh basically the short version the story is that in the fall he received some phone calls from a neighbor who is now a bishop and he thought it was tithing settlement. He ignored it. He received a notification of an attempt to deliver a registered letter but he’d been out of town too late really to get it from the post office. So he didn’t really know what was going on. He had his suspicions but his philosophy is I’m not going to play their game go through their hoops and I’m not going to give them any power. So he just sort of you know let the letters roll in. He got another letter that said, “On this particular day, we’re

7:40 going to hold a court of love for you.“ Um, we knew the time, we knew the date. I kind of looked at him at that exact time, and I did sort of see the light go out of his eyes, but I don’t know if that’s just me imagining it. And then we got this final letter that I’ll show later um saying that yes, he had been excommunicated. Well, membership withdrawn is what they call it now.

7:59 Court of love and you know, welcome to come back, welcome to counsel, you know, and go through the steps to repent, right? And it said that he he was in direct contradiction to the teachings of Christ or the scriptures or contrary to historical data. Um, and he said he would agree with that, but really what they’re saying is that you disagree with the church. So anyway, he has an attitude about it where he’s like, “Yep, you know what? It makes sense, but it was strange the way it happened.” You know, I really like the way I like the way that uh Landon made that distinction. Yeah. that they accused him and said that he had uh disagreed with the church. Yeah.

8:37 And the leaders and he says notice they didn’t say that notice they did not say that it was in direct contradiction to the teachings of Christ or the scriptures or contrary to historic. Yep. Just the church. That’s exactly right. So, um they put up a link, I guess, to our podcast. They talked about, you know, I mean, it’s pretty funny. It It’s pretty small compared to like a John Delin or an Alyssa Grunfeld.

8:59 It’s kind of interesting they would even reach in and kind of pluck him out and do this. Um, talks about how we try to cover topics joyful life navigating faith journeys outside of Orthodox Mormonism. So, it was a good article, but like I said, it was in a framework of a bigger picture. Um, this of course is the lovely Julie Hanks and she kind of talks about, you know, the fact that is it a new day? You know, why would they go after Landon? Are they now going to target all kinds of people? She’s still on the roles, although she’s taken a lot of heat and pressure from certain LDS podcasters who have gone after her personally for the things that she shares. They talked about Nathan and Valerie Hanmaker Haymaker who kind of anticipated, I think we’re going to get called into a court and they just removed their records. So, it’s almost like everybody’s kind of scampering, right? And they’re treating it in different ways. Somebody like Nemo went through the full process, right? He went

9:53 to the meetings, he attended his court of love, you know, and gave everybody a lot of information about that throughout. Um, our other interesting point was that our podcast has been running for three and a half years, going on four years. Nobody’s ever said a word. Nobody’s reached out. Nothing has happened. You know, why now? I think why now? And then it talked about me. Um, they have a hard time quoting me because they can’t use my real name, but they mentioned that, you know, Landon’s podcast co-host goes by this pseudonym.

10:23 And I’m sure in the comments there are all kinds of people on the trip giving them my real name. I really do not mind that. That is fine. I use a pseudonym. I guess I’ll say it now because when I first started my parents were still alive and, you know, I did not remove my records because they would see that instantly when they looked at their their records and it was just kind of respect for family and that kind of thing. So, we’ll see what happens. I’m anticipating anything. So, they did quote you there, though, didn’t they? What was that? They did quote you right there.

10:52 That’s what I’m saying. They kind of quoted me in an a roundabout way because, you know, that’s a fictitious name. So, in the past when they wanted to quote me and I said, “Please don’t use my real name,” they could not quote me. So, yes, uh they have me saying, “That’s one reason I don’t share my full name. I prefer flying under the radar.” And that’s true. I do. Although h how can any of us really fly that far under the radar? That’s the thing.

11:16 I think you’ve been on the radar for a long time, actually. I don’t know. Started with that whole Temple thing of yours. Uh well, you know, I don’t know. I have a theory about that, too. Anyway, the bottom line is it was a great article. You guys can check it out in the Tribune, but it really was framed in this wider context of President Oaks and, you know, is he now going after podcasters? Do you guys remember this just a few months ago? Yes.

11:40 Um I can’t Let’s see. is too small for me. Artifan, why don’t you just read that really quick? This was his statement at a devotional at BYU. Yeah. Remember to sur remember Remember to survive spiritually, you will need the constant influence of the Holy Ghost. An abundance of speculation and false information in podcasts and on social media surround us. Some may protest or question the truth of church doctrine without knowing or even understanding the fullness of that doctrine. And then there are other people like us who know and understand it completely and still question it. In fact, that’s why we question it.

12:21 Exactly. Don’t be persuaded by false or inaccurate information like I’m giving to you right now. Discuss your concerns with faithful, well-informed friends who are Mormons and who believe what I say. Wow. Well-informed friends. And always take those concerns to the Lord who will tell you that we are right. February 10th, 2026. That’s it was just a couple months ago. That was an interesting part of Landon’s story that he shared on our podcast is that, you know, when he was questioning, he went to every leader he could find.

12:55 He sat for three hours with this bishop talking about questions. And the bishop said, I’ve never heard any of this. And I thought, yeah, that’s why you’re the bishop, you know. And his final discussion was, I will talk to anybody from this stake that can help me give me some answers. Help me find peace. Please send me somewhere to talk to someone. Anyone. He never heard another word for seven and a half years until he started getting the letters about excommunication. [laughter] You are out of here. That was an exmicunication. So, so yeah, this bigger picture is what’s interesting. And before we go on to just this last little part about his actual letter, I want to get both of your takes on is this a bigger picture? Is this John Delin lawsuit Landon all of a sudden out of the blue? Is there something brewing?

13:39 What do you think, Bill? Well, two things. One, I’ll say this. I think it’s a strange thing for a religious system to go after a whistleblower who has especially in recent months uh made note of like the the child uh abuse stuff going on. You know, Landon’s in the comments here again. Maybe hasn’t been on the show as much, but he certainly is vocal in other places. And uh it’s a weird look for a system to be going after people uh John Delin being another one who are shining a light on the child abuse epidemic that goes on in Mormonism. So I’ll say that first. And I don’t want to steal RFM’s thunder here, but something I mentioned to you guys in the chat earlier today is that RFM drew attention to this. I don’t know how long ago it was, RFM. Eight months ago 363.

14:28 Thank you for asking. It’s not there anymore. Yeah, it’s gone. But it was uh a a uh brochure pamphlet document handed out by the church that was I believe authored by Elder Oaks. It was a slide deck for his presentation to the leadership training in well it was two years ago in the summer I think. Did you put that in the slideshow? I think we have that if you want to go from it. I have the first slide and here’s why don’t I can talk skip ahead to that and then I’ll go backwards and talk about the actual ex excommunication letter really quick because I think it’s relevant here we are talking about the big picture and President Oaks and and perhaps this agenda sure okay so let’s see here I let me just take this off the screen for a second hang on a second or take that off the screen for a second that way I can go through without showing all of the things that you have in between I think there’s only three slides in between three or four. There you go.

15:23 Or five maybe. But anyway, here this is the opening slide. Okay. Now, this is I showed all the slides because I had a person leak them to me and then we got take down notes. We had to take it down and then sometime later it occurred to me, well, I can do the whole thing without actually showing the slides. They can read them as they are and as they were when President Oaks used these to tell the leadership in a super secret meeting which was definitely written by him otherwise the church could not have claimed copyright infringement on it there. They also admitted that they were the authors that it was their property.

16:01 So that much is interesting. But having said that this is the opening slide and what he’s saying to all the leaders is we’re not having enough excommunications guys. Let’s get it together. It’s called Repentance and Church Membership Councils Training by President Don H. Oaks. And I am going to include one other slide. It’s from the end of this and I think it’s okay because it’s quoting a talk he gave at BYU back in the year well what was it?

16:28 1990. Yeah. It was published in the enzyme in July of 1992, but it was a talk he gave at BYU in 1990. And I want to say that this is very interesting that he quotes this because it did not occur to me even though I’ve been over this slide deck. You know, I’ve made two podcasts about it, but this idea did not occur to me until today that he quotes himself from 1992 in the enzyme. Yeah, it’s a vanity quote. Don’t you love it when people quote themselves?

16:59 and it’s an extended quote that we need to have more um excommunications that excommunication is a good thing. It involves suffering on the part of the person who’s repenting and we if we focus only he says if we focus only on cleaning the leaves of this tree he’s got a tree and it’s bending in the wind and it’s bending all the way over and getting its leaves soiled in the ground. Okay, so it has soil on its leaves. If we focus only on cleaning the leaves, the weakness in the tree that allowed it to bend and soil its leaves may remain. I wonder if President Oaks has soiled his leaves recently. That’s what I’d like to know actually.

17:40 Soiled its leaves may remain. Similarly, a person who is merely sorry to be soiled by sin by the seashore again will sin again in the next high wind. The susceptibility to repetition continues until the tree has been strengthened. And of course, it’s going to be strengthened by excommunication is the whole point. The reason I think this is interesting is because I am wondering if we’re seeing the same kind of thing with President Oaks that we saw with President Nelson.

18:07 President Nelson comes in slam bang with this Mormon thing. We trace it back to 1990. It was 1990, I’m pretty sure, in April general conference where he gave that talk about how bad Mormon is. and he had to wait and wait and wait till he became president to be unleashed to coin a phrase. And here is Don Oaks and this is the reference. This is from the July 1992 enzyme speaking today. It’s actually speaking two years ago, but we’ll call it speaking today. Sin and suffering by Elder Don H. Oaks and it’s from a fireside address given at Brigham Y Young University August 5th, 1990.

18:46 I think he’s been sitting on this for a long time and been waiting waiting to become the president so that he could re he could become the new torque over the latter-day Spanish Inquisition. I’ll say one more. I’m so sorry. I’ll say one more thing. It is also strange to have a man telling people about how excommunications are necessary for the sinners when this guy was a part of the SEC scandal. Yep.

19:17 Lied about electroshock therapy at uh BYU. Has hateful things still on the church’s website about how to treat one’s LGBT sons and daughters. This guy has as track record as long as anyone in the top leadership at doing harmful, dishonest, deceitful, damaging things. And somehow the leaders of the church are above the repentance process. It they are outside the loop. And yet he gets to stand on his bully pulpit and he gets to talk down to the people who are simply shining a light on the dishonesty and harmful behaviors of the church as if as if the good guys are the bad guys.

20:04 Yeah. No, that’s a great observation and we’ll see. I guess the test will be what happens next, right? [laughter] Let’s see. I think I’ll go back just a couple to answer one question uh very quickly. Let’s see. Did I already move your slide? Did you move my slide there? I did. I moved them. See, we’re always messing with each other. Yeah. Behind the scenes. Great. This is what happens when I try and help out. Nobody knows what’s going to pop up.

20:30 You’re like, “Oh, who added that?” There was this question. Was Landon excommunicated by the Strangites? And I will answer that once and for all. The letter that he received was a little strange. It didn’t use his full name. It just called him Broofphy. Apostasy was misspelled with a C. I don’t even know how you would pronounce that. And the name of the church has a small T in the ‘the’, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There is no hyphen and small D. That is the correct spelling of the LDS church. This spelling is, you know, what the church kind of originally was. And the Strangites owned that, which is why the LDS church in the 1850s had to add the hyphen. So, we were questioning, did this even come from the LDS church? It just seemed very strange. There were no signatures. There were just the name of all the presidents. Everyone’s a president who excommunicated him. So, I

21:21 wanted to learn a little bit more about excommunication letters. I thought that would be interesting. But I will say we know this letter is legitimate because he did receive voicemails from his bishop, a voice he recognized. So, unless everybody’s in on this vast conspiracy, it was real. But you know kind of half you know what or just someone who sounds like his bishop. Exactly. That’s true. Somebody said it’s a team he hasn’t seen I guess in how long or his bishop lives next door.

21:49 Yeah. Neighbors but didn’t know was the bishop. You know it’s one of those things where somebody called you up and suddenly he’s got the name bishop in front of his name and you’re like oh okay a lot has changed. Um but I did talk to a state president friend of mine and he’s you know he looked at the letter and he said oh my gosh how embarrassing. It’s sloppy. I don’t want to judge the education level of the people who are writing it. I did. I looked them up. They’re directors of engineering firms. Like they should know how to write a letter. Um, but he did give me some interesting information that there used to be more of a template for it from Salt Lake, but now there really isn’t anything. Um, it’s just kind of these little instructions here about, you know, make it timely. Make sure they know they’re excommunicated.

22:28 Tell them they can come back. And I really think that’s by design. They do not want an official logo. They don’t want anything going back to the church proper. It’s all local leaders. Just like in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, everything is local leaders, plausible deniability. So, um, any of us who get excommunicated should probably not expect a very formal looking letter unless your particular stake has letterhead and you have leaders that decide to do that on their own. So, there you go. That’s the story. Um, any final thoughts and we’ll move on to RFM’s story. Yeah, I’m still voting for it being a hoax, just so you know.

23:03 Really? Yeah. Well, I think this is going to be really funny if it turns out to be a hoax. It will be very interesting, but yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s not a hoax, but they might up their game for their next excommunication letter. That’s all I’m saying. Has Landon asked his next door neighbor, Bishop, yet? No, he hasn’t seen him, and he’s not going to seek him out, probably. I mean, what do you do? Mowing the lawn? Hey, hey, great court of love. What’d you guys all talk about when I wasn’t there and you haven’t seen me for seven years?

23:30 Huh? We say some sent me this fake letter saying it was signed by the state presidency. It wasn’t, was it? No, that’s an interesting tactic. We might have to take that. Just an idea. Okay, so anyway, this is from a story from Tamara Kinsley, Salt Lake Tribune, April 25th, 2026. It is more than a week old because we didn’t do it last time. It does require some time. There’s several moving parts here and it’s complicated a bit not only in its chronology but also location-wise because it happens in different states.

24:01 We’re talking about Wade Kristofferson and the headline was new accuser emerges in Wade Kristofferson case. LDS church addresses what his apostle brother Dodd knew. Okay. And by the way, that is Tamara Kimsley, not the person coming forward. In November, Wade Kristofferson was arrested and charged with federal crimes after he allegedly attempted last year to sexually exploit a child in Utah. Okay. He was in Ohio at the time. It was over the phone. It involves what was it? Snow and friends if you remember. Yeah. Code words.

24:47 Apparently a member of the family and a grandchild or even possibly great-grandchild. We’re not exactly sure and that’s okay. In Utah over the phone. That’s why he’s charged in Ohio federally though, but he’s in Ohio jail. I I believe that they said no bail for you. So that’s where he is right now. Federal prosecutors said at the time that the father of an Ohio child, this is different. This is a father of an Ohio child, probably another member of the family, had reported that month, that same month of November last year, to police in that state, Ohio, that Wade Kristofferson had sexually abused the Ohio daughter, in other words, this father’s daughter, more than a dozen times.

25:36 No charges have been filed in connection with that report. you know, November is starting to get a long time away. I’m wondering why there’s no charges filed with that report. I know you want to do an investigation and everything and you don’t have to hurry because, you know, he’s he’s in custody on something else, right? So, there’s no reason you have to hurry, but still November, is that five months now? I wonder what the holdup is.

26:01 5 months after Wade Kristofferson was charged with attempting to sexually exploit a Utah child. That’s the one from November. Over the phone, a woman has stepped forward to publicly disclose that as a young teenager decades ago, back in the 1990s, she reported to a Latter-day Saint bishop that Wade Kristofferson had sexually abused her in Illinois. Now, Illinois is where Wade Kristofferson used to live. I don’t think any of this stuff has to do with Utah except over the phone. And I’m talking about uh not just audio, but video on the phone. I think everybody today probably understands that.

26:48 Okay. But Wade Kristofferson lived originally, or at least as early as we need to go in these facts, in Illinois in the Chicago area, Bill. And then after things went south for him, it appears somewhere around that time in the 1990s where he got exccommunicated, he moved to Ohio where he was reinstated and got new callings of leadership. So that’s what’s going on there. Now this lady whose name is given here in a second, I think it’s mauz mounts. Um, she was in junior high school at the time in Illinois back in the early 1990s.

27:35 At the time of her report, she and Wade Kristofferson, a brother of a now highranking Latter-day Saint apostle, that’s Dtood Kristofferson, who’s in the First Presidency, attended the same congregation in Illinois. So, she’s there with Wade Kristofferson and his family, and she’s a kid. Speaking at an April 17 event held at Harvard Divinity School, Kristen Dunar Mounts, M Autz, that’s her name, now 48, said, “I did what I thought I should do.”

28:12 And yes, that’s what we’re told. Which which is going to end up being reported to the bishop. It’s a bit of a delayed report and that’s something that will help us to understand things in here too. In an interview with the Tribune, Mounts, this newly come forward victim allegedly said Wade Kristofferson sexually abused her at least twice in or around 1990, about the time she was in 8th grade.

28:44 while she was staying the night at the Christopherson home. So, she’s probably friends with his daughter or daughters. Something she said she did often as a family friend. And as it turns out, her family and the Christopherson family are all friends with the bishop’s family as well. And they all do things together. I went to my bishop. Now, this is not going to be immediately after, though.

29:13 That’s the impression from the way this story is organized. It’s going to be a time after this. Okay. I went to my bishop, she said at the symposium on religious trauma, the one at Harvard. I reported it to my bishop. I was a child expecting safety, expecting protection. The adults, she thought, would decide what the consequences should be. caution others, set things right. And yes, of course, that’s what most kids think adults are going to do when you report something to them. That was not the case here, at least not immediately.

29:53 Instead, I was given a punishment, Mount said. I was forced to sit in that congregation Sunday after Sunday and watch him sitting up on the stand serving in the bishop Rick a position of honor and trust. In a statement to the Salt Lake Tribune, a spokesperson for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said that Wade Kristofferson was exccommunicated more than 30 years ago. So, this is a hard fact. I can’t imagine they’d be saying if it weren’t true. He was excommunicated more than 30 years ago.

30:40 He was then rebaptized before again serving for a brief time is what the statement says. That’s why it’s in big purple letters over here on the right on the slide. For a brief time as a member of a bishop Rick this time in Ohio. Remember he moved to Ohio. We’re going to come back to the for a brief time here in a second. This is what the church said. I’m sorry. This is what the church lied that it was for a brief time.

31:14 The statement also stress the statement from the church also stressed that Apostle Dto Todd Kristofferson who must not get soiled he must not get his leaves soiled as part of this a member of the faith’s governing first presidency did not know about any allegations of abuse against his younger sibling until five or six years ago. Says on or around 2020. That sure seems pretty late in the ball game under all the circumstances, both familial and ecclesiastical.

31:46 Mounts, once again, this victim who came forward, alleged victim, who remains a committed member of the faith, by the way, she’s still a strong Mormon, said the recent criminal charges against Wade Kristofferson, the ones from last November, are what compelled her to come forward. She argues that her experience is evidence that reform is needed to better protect members from predators in the pews. By the way, I’m probably about halfway through this story. Do either of you have anything you want to comment on right now?

32:27 I’ve got things to say, but I think I’ll wait to the end. I think it’ll make more sense there. Okay, Rebecca. Yeah, I just, you know, I had been following Floodlet’s coverage of the different alleged victims from the ‘9s, you know, and and they weren’t giving their names when the story first came out and, you know, to so to see someone, you know, come out and I recognized the story from Floodlet when she was unnamed and then put a name and a face to the experience, uh, just absolutely devastating. But to know that she presented this in a address to the Harvard Divinity School, I mean, that’s not just telling your story to a local reporter. She’s putting that out there. It’s it’s big and she’s very brave to do that. I’m glad they picked up on that.

33:14 the press. At a bail hearing Thursday, so this is a week ago, last Thursday in Ohio, a federal magistrate ruled that Christopherson Wade will remain in custody. Prosecutors argued in part that they have strong grounds for the case against him. Well, they always argue that, but this next part’s interesting. They also said they have evidence that quote reflects additional victims at church where he held leadership roles.

33:43 Other alleged conduct includes sexual assault of very young children. So, they’re alleging they have additional victims or evidence of additional victims. I don’t know what that evidence is. Um, and I trust they’re not talking out of their hat, but they actually are referring to actual evidence of actual additional alleged victims. a year or so after the alleged abuse. Okay. Mounts said Wade Kristofferson was called to be a counselor in a bishop brick. She has not reported this yet. So this is a year or so after the alleged abuse. Mount said Wade Kristofferson was called to be a counselor in a bishop. A trio of lay leaders who oversee a congregation. We know that she was in high school then and said she felt the time had come to inform the bishop, a close family friend of the alleged abuse. So this was a year delayed report or disclosure at least to the bishop.

34:53 The three families, she said, the three families, ours, the bishops, and the Christophersons were all really close. Mounts recalled. We did everything together. It kind of makes me wonder if her dad was the other counselor in the bishop brick. It didn’t have to be, but it could be. Mount said she assumed the bishop, a trusted father figure, would believe her and that Wade Kristofferson would be immediately demoted.

35:23 Instead, she said he remained in his post for a time. At some point he was replaced, she remembered, but not on any kind of time frame that felt connected to me and my conversation with the bishop. Meanwhile, she said, Wade Kristofferson was a frequent presence. Now this is in the year this is how I’m understanding her in the year between his molestation of her in 8th grade and uh when he was called to be in the bishop Rick and then she told the bishop right in that intervening year. Meanwhile she said Christopherson was a frequent presence at youth activities and someone often tasked with providing transportation for those activities.

36:16 The church, for its part, emphasized in its statement that it is not aware of any abuse abuse involving Wade Kristofferson’s volunteer church service. Okay. Now, I emphasized that that was not emphasized in the article. The church for its part emphasized in its statement that it is not aware of any abuse involving Wade Kristofferson’s volunteer church service. Okay, I emphasize that because that’s what the church is emphasizing, even if they’re not emphasizing it. What they’re saying is the church is not liable for anything he did that was not related to his church service. It didn’t happen on church property. It didn’t happen as he was acting as a bishop. Therefore, we are not responsible. Now, I know that sounds horrible as a legal as a legal doctrine. respond to Yacht Superior.

37:09 It’s pretty clear, at least in a lot of incidents, it would be like um uh Bill, if you run a a taxi company, you own a taxi company, yellow taxi, and you’ve got a taxi driver who’s out there drinking and driving in the taxi, and he hits someone and kills him, they can sue your company. But if the same guy is not driving the taxi, but he’s at home, it’s the weekend, and he gets drunk and he gets in his car and goes out and kills somebody, you’re not liable. Does that part make sense? Yep.

37:41 That’s what they’re talking about. The problem, I think, here is that as a church, I would think that they would want to have some kind of morality that would lead them to want to protect their own children. even if they would not be civily liable for failing to do so. In other words, protect your children from sexual predation just because it’s the right thing to do. Is that too much to ask?

38:13 Is that part clear? What I’m trying to get at at least, yeah, you’re legally maybe not liable, but morally and ethically and before God almighty, you’re liable. Well, and don’t you think there’s a there’s a fine line um when it comes to youth activities in the 90s? You know, you’d go sleep over at your young woman leader’s house, right? Her husband’s there. Is that a church activity? You know, it’s kind of part of what you planned. So, I think there was a lot of that going on back and forth. He was the youth guy. And I will say, if I can just add this, um, there was when Floodlit kind of put out some information that Wade was very good friends with different people in higher positions in those wards and he was not being disciplined. Even though people were coming forward with alleged claims, it was not until there was a change in leadership and someone was not his friend that somebody decided to look into it.

39:08 Right. And that’s after she goes to college or comes back from college. Yes. When she comes back. So, so there’s protections. old boys club maybe uh you know somebody’s your friend they can’t believe it or give them a pass. Not until is there a change and and that kind of explains why multiple people were saying these things were allegedly happening and nothing was being done. I believe he was being protected because of friendships in the stake and I think I misinterpreted what she had said here. Meanwhile, she said Christopherson was a frequent presence.

39:36 I think she’s talking about after he was released from the bishop. Yeah. Not before. So it’s a year she complains he finally gets released though it’s not in the time that she connects with her reporting it right but finally is released but meanwhile he still is a frequent presence cuz he’s a member of the church of course he is you know it at youth activities of course he’s got kids he’s going to be there and someone often tasked with providing transportation for those activities because you cannot find enough people in the church to do all the transportation you need for the activities you will call on anybody to transport these kids.

40:16 Okay, I think that’s what she meant. Now, this next slide, Mount said she left the Chicago suburb and its tight-knit Latterday Saint community for college in 1995, determined to put the experience behind her, but was summoned into the bishop’s office during a visit home in December of 1996. She recalled that the new leader, new bishop invited her in to speak with her. He said, this is according to her. He said, “Some girls have come forward and have talked to me about some experiences that they’ve had with Wade Krerson.” she remembered. I It’s been mentioned, he went on, it’s been mentioned that maybe you’d had an experience also, and I was wondering if you would be willing to share that with me. She said she did share it with him. Now, you notice a discrepancy here in the chronology because she has uh him being excommunicated in I believe it’s 903.

41:22 Hang on a second. It’s 93, I think it is. And here, oh, I’m sorry. Sorry. The church has him excommunicated in 93 and here it has to happen after 95 I believe because he still hadn’t been excommunicated yet. Otherwise, why would he have to take care of anything? I think it’s 96. And I did question that. Why 93? But other things that I’ve read led me to believe it might be 96. But again, it’s it’s after finally new change in the regime, new leaders, and they’re going back digging through the past going, “Oh my gosh, you know, how is this happening?” Right?

41:57 After she was done recounting the alleged sexual abuse, Mount said she remembers the man, the bishop, the new bishop, saying, “Yeah, unfortunately, that pretty much sounds like the same thing that other girls are telling us. I underlined other girls, multiple, plural, and why is this new bishop the guy who has to take action?” It sounds like, you know, she was not included in what was going on uh with Wade’s membership.

42:25 And so I don’t know about that 1993. I don’t know if that’s I don’t know what the church is basing it on. Obviously, they would have the records, but it doesn’t make sense that she remembers it this way. And you know, coming back after your first year in college, right for uh Christmas. I don’t know, maybe she’s remembering that wrong or maybe she isn’t. But they haven’t gotten to him yet. They haven’t excommunicated him yet. and she has gone from being in 8th grade to the next year when she reports it to the bishops that’s 9th grade, 10th, 11th, 12th grade. She goes off to college for a year and a half and now the new bishop calls her and says, “Hey, you know, we’ve been hearing from other girls some stuff about Wade Kristofferson and maybe you had something like that happen.”

43:10 Okay. So anyway, I think that they were not um taking care of business in a speedy enough fashion. Okay. She said this bishop was the first person that was like, “Are you okay?” Well, that’s something. Toward the end of the conversation, she said he told her, “I’m going to take care of this.” See, what would there be to take care of if he’d been excommunicated? It’s not right. It’s not okay. Unless they were going to report it to police, which I don’t think happened. The next time she visited the By the way, I think we should underscore that. Could you underscore that for us, Rebecca?

43:46 And all of this, the police were never contacted apparently. No, it was handled internally as these things often are. You know, even to the point where when there was discipline, it was never told why. No one was warned. No one was told. No, you know, parents were told to watch out for their kids or talk to their now college age daughters and find out. Nothing ever happened like that. Never. And this is what happens in the church all the time.

44:09 And this is why this is why things are allowed to continue. And it’s just horrifying. I didn’t want that part to get lost. Yeah. In the story because in all of this, the police were never called. Yep. Years and years. And that’s just in this time period from 1990 to 1996 for crying out loud. Okay. Um the next time she visited the congregation, she said she noticed that Wade Christopherson no longer had a calling.

44:36 That means he’s excommunicated or volunteer position in the church. That’s their description of what a calling is. We know what a calling is in the Mormon church. She took it as a sign that his membership had been withdrawn, that he’d been excommunicated. The church’s statement confirmed that Wade Kristofferson’s membership was withdrawn, saying that that action took place in 1993. See, there’s the discrepancy. Members of the congregation were not told the reason it explained as was consistent with church policy and Illinois law at the time. I have no idea why they’re citing Ill Illinois law.

45:11 Isn’t that a strange thing to to say we we can’t tell a church congregation about a predator among them because of some unknown Illinois law that no one understands where it is or what they’re talking about? Yeah. And what the hell kind of church policy is this? I mean, I understand and I was around then, you know, I’ve been a Mormon for a long time. There were times when people get excommunicated and the announcement would be made only in priesthood opening exercises.

45:42 I don’t know if the youth were released or whatever, but you know, this isn’t something for the women folk. Only the men could know about this. And it was about that so and so has been excommunicated and we wanted you to know that. And that was it. because they wouldn’t say why or what it was over and they might say, you know, we need to reach out to them and try in love and all that kind of stuff. But but that was all that was said. There were never any details given. And I don’t know why. I have no idea. I mean, if they had a mur a guy who was convicted of murder and he’s still on the loose, would you not tell the members?

46:17 Maybe. But they did let one rumor fly and that was adultery with someone at work, right? They didn’t do anything to shut that down. They said, “Yeah, we’ll go with that. That’s fine.” I do question. His wife must have asked questions about that. You know, adultery at work. And when it came time to be rebaptized and getting your priesthood blessings back, she would have to weigh in when it’s adultery. That’s all fabricated. It’s not adultery. And 15 men on the high council knew it wasn’t adultery. And they all probably had kids in the ward.

46:45 So, I just cannot fathom this that it’s okay to let it fly. And in their mind, you know, adultery. Yeah, that sounds Yeah, we we want to protect him. Let’s just say it was adultery. Yeah, it’s one of the most horrible parts of the story. Them saying they can’t do anything. Well, you know, we got a church policy. Maybe the reason the Mormon church, you’re in the news all the time over child abuse is because of your policies.

47:12 Maybe the policies need changed rather than holding them up and going, “Well, we’ve got these policies. we we can’t make any moves and you know it’s the policy. They’re the problem. Hands are tied. They’re the worst kind of you know bureaucrats. Well, it’s the policy. We have to follow the policy. Well, why? Because your policy is stupid. All right, let’s go ahead. Per the church’s handbook from that period policy also required state presidents to alert the first presidency of excommunications and submit all related documents. Now that’s not completely true. The first presidency definitely knew about it. But they’re not just alerting the first presidency. Let’s go on where a similar I’m going to quibble with the the word here. Local leaders also would have been instructed to notify church headquarters of Wade Kristofferson’s rebaptism. The reason I’m quibbling is because it’s not alerting them. They have to approve it.

48:12 Yes, they have to approve his rebaptism into the church. They have to approve. They’re taking the asterisk off of his record because when he was excommunicated for child molestation, the handbook requires the aster go asterisk go on his record so that you know it will follow him and people know we’ve got a problem here. We need to protect the kids. Well, they took it off when they rebaptized him and then that’s actually not quite right. If I could just explain that the first thing they have to do is request a rebaptism and the leadership the top leadership first presidency has to say okay get rebaptized. So he’s rebaptized after about a year. The next thing they have to request and get the stamp of approval on is restoration of priesthood blessings. Second touch point where the first presidency looked at Wade Kristophers and said yeah yeah sounds good. Let’s give Miss priesthood back.

49:06 Face-to-face interview with an area rep who then would restore the priesthood blessings. Then third touch point, another stamp of approval. Can he have his asterisk removed? Yes. So three times the first presidency looked at Wade, maybe they outsourced it. I don’t know. I feel like they looked at him because of who he was and said, “Seems like a good idea. Let’s let him back in with full benefits.” And that takes time. You know, it’s not just right away. So they’re looking at him every six months. I I don’t know what the whole the whole time frame was. by 2006 he was back into Bishop Rick. But when I learned that those three touch points, stamps of approval where they said it’s okay, I said where’s discernment, but yeah, the article doesn’t quite explain it correctly.

49:50 Thank you for clarifying that for us, Rebecca. This was uh where it is um in the church handbook where it is today anyway, removing formal restrictions or being readmitted to the church. This may be actually repeating what it is uh that you were talking about. I think it is. Okay. But it’s definitely in there and it definitely is talking about sexual abuse of a child. If you’re excommunicated for that, then you have to apply for the first presidency approval to be rebaptized and to get your blessings restored and any a nasty little asterisks removed.

50:24 He WDE Christophersonson later moved to Ohio where the church said remember he again served in a bishop for a brief time. Can these guys tell the truth? I mean, if they tried really hard, do you think they could once? Well, this is a little um meme I think that you created, Rebecca. Yeah. The LDS church claims Wade Kristoffson served only briefly in a bishop calling that gave him access to children after his rebaptism.

50:55 Is this accurate? Now, I had to break it up a little bit because it was so small. The print now, it’s a little bit fuzzy. Hey, Bill, could you read this slide? Are you able to? Yeah, sure can. In a statement to the Salt Lake Tribune, a spokesperson for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said that Wade Kristofferson was excommunicated more than 30 years ago. He was then rebaptized before again serving for a brief time, quote unquote, as a member of the Bishop Rick, this time in Ohio. A brief time is not accurate. The LDS church is downplaying that Wade Kristofferson was returned to full fellowship and served in positions of trust with access to children. Here are the positions that Wade Kristofferson served in once he was rebaptized, had his priesthood blessings restored, and had his asterisk for his CSA, child sex abuse, removed from his church record. All three of these touch points required LDS first presidency approval and having his priesthood

51:54 blessings restored required a meeting with an area rep face to face. And now since you came up with these uh details, Rebecca, could you read the second part of this? Oh no, I can’t. Sorry, too fuzzy. Let Bill keep reading. Uh okay, I’ll do that. Wade Christopherson was the second counselor in a bishop Rick from 2006 to 2011. Are you guys keeping track? This is five years. That’s a full term.

52:22 Yep. And and by the way, often the counselors are always responsible for sitting down with youth and handling some of the youth interviews both for the women, for the girls, and for the boys. And nobody was in danger here because this is a young adult wart. See, but they’re still young. They may be technically adults. There are no kids around. They’re still 18y old girls. And you know, I I still find that questionable that you would put someone with his background in with the young adults.

52:49 Even the problem is the problem is it doesn’t make any difference because if you’re a freaking bishop, you are going to have people who are members of your church trust you with their kids. It doesn’t it doesn’t have to be kids being around you at church as Wade Kristofferson has proven over and over again allegedly. Okay. So, anyway, that’s that’s the problem I see with that argument, but I did want to bring that up. He was a bishop member five years 2006 to 2011 in the Columbus Young Single Adult Second W in Columbus, Ohio. Yeah, I I I will only stop step in here and just say whether it’s Helen Mar Kimell at 14 years old or it’s you know the Partridge one of the Partridge sisters at 19 years old or Fanny Alger at 17 or 18 young people being uh manipulated by predators uh who are older men still gross whether it’s a girl under the age of 18 or a girl barely over the age of 18. Uh it’s still not right.

53:50 Okay. Uh let’s see here. This is three years. Maybe I’m saying this. Bishop Rick 20 paragraph. Yeah. Yeah. Wade Christophersonson then served as first counselor in two different Bishop Ricks from 2016 to 2019 in the Dublin first ward, Columbus, Ohio. This is three years with access to children as a bishop Rick counselor in a family ward. I can’t years. Is that from the end of 2016 to the beginning of 2019? It is or it is early in 16. Yeah, it could be like three and a half.

54:19 I was kind of rounding. Great. It’s great. It’s all more than brief. Let’s just How good I am at math. Yeah. Then he served as ward clerk from November 2019 to 2023 in the Dublin first ward, Columbus, Ohio. Uh yeah. And again, ward clerk is an administrative position, but it’s also a position of trust in a ward. Yes. um that person is also working with at times acting in in some forms as a secretary even though he’s not the executive secretary for the ward. The clerk often does do things for the bishop in terms of helping to get somebody or to check in on someone. He has a position of trust and unless you say he cannot be around kids, every ward clerk is around kids in the church uh with isolated opportunities with them because of what ward clerks do in working with the bishop to arrange things. Okay.

55:15 They got this nice little private word clerk’s office. Yeah. With no window, by the way. Uh there’s that. Okay. Let’s see here. Uh then so finally he was the stake Sunday school second counselor in the Columbus Ohio North stake from 2023 until 2025. This calling would have given him access to the youth in the stake. More than that, remember what ward conferences were like and different stake leaders come into a ward building and now you have certain positions sort of nobody knows where anybody is on that day and different people are being uh ushered out into groups to meet with certain people from the stake. And so the bishop Rick or the ward leaders uh in the past sort of stepped out of the way and the stake leaders were in charge and if a kid was missing from your class, you just took it for granted that the stake is doing what the stake does during ward conference.

56:16 So there is in some ways even uh maybe not as many opportunities but more shadowy opportunities if somebody wanted to be nefarious in how they pursued a child. Um there’s less oversight from the ward leaders who week to week know what’s going on and at a ward conference sort of step back and go, “Oh, the stakes in charge today.” Um so there’s that. Okay. Um they should have a big picture of this guy in the foyer of the ward with a big red circle around it and a big line red line right through it. No, I’m glad you brought that up though, Bill, because when I posted this, I did have, you know, some faithful people that always like to interact with me say, “When you’re the state Sunday school president, you don’t have access to children.” And I thought the same thing that you did. And the people also said, “And just because you’re in a bishop, Rick, doesn’t mean you would have access to children.” And I’m thinking that, you know, even if they’re not in any of those positions, they’re in the ward.

57:13 They’re trusted adults. There’s complete access. If no one knows to be where who who does the temple interviews for the youth in a ward the counselors bishop Rick and counselors sometimes primarily in some ws uh who meets with the various age groups now again the modern churches managed a little differently but if we go back 10 or 15 years what did it look like who wasn’t there a counselor over uh one of the the girl groups and one of the boy groups and the other counselors over one of the girl groups one of the boy groups and then the bishop would take the priest and the laurels and you went down the it went down the road when I was a second counselor exactly like that. It goes bishop the oldest he takes the oldest kids. Um the first counselor takes the next oldest kids and the second counselor takes the third oldest kids from 12 to 14. Hence, when you say he’s the second counselor, he’s actually in a

58:09 more uh fragile, vulnerable group that he’s working with than if he’s bishop, for instance. So, it makes it worse. It doesn’t make it better. Y uh Okay. Yeah. Let’s see here. Did we read the whole last one? I think I had one last paragraph. So the LDS church’s idea of serving briefly is around eight years in three different bishop ricks with access to children and conducting interviews with children. Not to mention his other callings from 2019 to 2025. By the way, Elder Kristopherson knew around 2020 the church wants to admit where it is likely that he interacted with children. Also, Elder Kristopherson’s own family members were abused by his brother and he had known since 2020. I don’t think saying 2020 makes any of this better. Very good.

59:02 All right. Any other thoughts from you, Rebecca? No, it’s just the story that keeps on keeping on. And there were so many places where someone could have said something. This is generational. I think most of it a lot of it is in the Kristofferson family and you know then other people in the wards but somebody somewhere could have said something along this 30 30-year journey and he could have been stopped but he wasn’t until the very youngest most vulnerable in I believe the Christopherson family were abused for instance if Dodd Kristofferson apostle and second counselor in the first presidency of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had done something about this in 2020 when he says he found out about it for the first time though I think he that’s not true but if he had found out about it that late if he had done something about it then this other girl I believe it is from November would not have been

1:00:01 allegedly sexually assaulted is not exactly the right word because it’s over the phone all right but you know what I’m talking about she would not have been victimized. He would not have had the opportunity to uh predate on her and other people that he’s been doing even in the last six years. My goodness, this is incredible. And DTOD, that’s on you. It’s on everybody who knew and didn’t say anything about it. It’s on everybody who thought that the good name of the church was more important than the safety of your own children.

1:00:41 Yeah. Yeah, the church’s statement did not provide a response. This is the concluding part of the article. The church’s statement did not provide a response to a Salt Lake Tribune question regarding whether Wade Christopherson’s membership record was annotated to reflect his excommunication and the reason behind it or if that annotation was removed at all. So, they did not answer that question. Why do you think that was, Rebecca?

1:01:08 Well, I think we can guess why, but we do know from victim statements, and you can find all this on Floodlet, that amazing organization, um that allegedly one of the victims was told yes, it was annotated and yes, it was removed. So, you know, it make the the point is it would have been annotated if the records were correct and let the first presidency know that he was excommunicated for CSA. It’s we did a whole segment on the newscast on this.

1:01:32 It’s it’s an administrative thing. Oh, go through the papers. secretary annotation. So if they were upfront and didn’t spin that adultery thing and sent those records to Salt Lake, he would have had an annotation. Okay, that’s a fact. The fact that he’s in a Bishop Rick again in 2006 means there was no annotation. That says to me it was removed. Either they put it on and took it off or they never put it on at all. And either one is damning to the church. Yes.

1:02:05 Two other [clears throat] two other little things. You know, you mentioned RFM, the phone call, the snow, the friends. It has to go back beyond that. Somebody doesn’t get on the phone with Uncle Wade and over the course of one short phone call with Uncle Wade know what he means by snow or friends. That has to be built up over time. So, there are there are maybe in-person moments.

1:02:30 seems seems like an odd thing to sort of communicate over the phone, especially if you’re a predator and you’re trying to cover yourself. You don’t want to get caught doing this thing. You’re trying to do your your thing in secret. You would have built up the definition of these words with your family members over multiple opportunities and almost certainly some of those would have been in person.

1:02:52 Yeah. And letters. The dad found the letters. Yeah. Where could it be grandpa? It’s all alleged. We don’t know. but wrote letters and and the thing is you would give you would give family members access to older relatives. You know, you would and that’s about the only way I can see an older man being able to write those kind of letters to a younger girl where he described these little games and things.

1:03:13 Yeah. And use the code so that you and the little girl know what it is you’re talking about. But if the parents get a hold of it, well, they have no idea. Can you imagine finding that letter though after overhearing the phone call where the little girl took the phone allegedly into the bathroom and overhearing that as a parent and then going and finding the letters and realizing oh my god I mean that’s the thing this story it’s beyond it’s really hard to report on week after be alive way is he should be in prison he’s going to be safer there I think detood Christopherson could have done a whole lot more to protect members of the church and members of his own family.

1:03:52 It’s a double-edged sword for him because he was neglectful in both responsibilities. I want to say one last thing, sort of an overarching thing. The the church is trying to appear as though it’s more serious about child abuse. It is saying in its handbook, for instance, that it wants its members to report to civil authorities. Um because of the internet, Mormonism is in the news all the time around abuse. So members of the church are going to start, if they aren’t already, they’re going to start getting the message that abuse is wrong.

1:04:27 It should be reported. Um, my church for some reason seems to always be in the news about these things. That’s going to create a uh a slight slightly higher and growing motivation to begin to deal with abuse more appropriately. Yet the church still has the same policies and structures, same unhealthy boundaries, unsafe spaces. It it it’s maintaining the part where the abuse can occur.

1:04:56 Meanwhile, it’s giving rhetoric as if it’s trying to get better. What I say all that to say this, which is to the LDS church going forward, I can only think that because of those two things, you’re actually going to have a lot more cases that are made known publicly where victims speak up. And if I were you, I would start making drastic changes to make church a safe space because there there is a threshold where the noise gets so high that the again we are we just saw last week on the newscast that of the 56% of people or 53% of people who were attending church that were surveyed 18% of them no longer believe you’re running into a growing problem that’s only going to get worse so long as your policies stay the same, but your rhetoric makes it sound like you’re taking abuse more seriously because you’re creating an awareness in the minds of your members that is going to cause those two things to bump into each other much harder.

1:06:03 Good point. Well, that’s the rest of that story. Back to you, [clears throat] Rebecca. Oh, wow. What a story. Yeah, I was just reminded of remember just a couple months ago those 100 CSA cases that the church is settling in California. That’s just one tiny little area of California and those are still kind of ongoing, you know, trickling into the news. So, I think you’re right. People are going to start, you cannot help but notice at some point. So, all right, let’s move forward. I think Bill, I think you have the next story.

1:06:33 All right, this will be quick. Uh, Latter-day Saints aren’t becoming liberal. There’s this article, Idaho Statesman. It was in a couple of different places in the last uh week to 10 days, but in several places, the name of the article is how Latterday Saint church members politics have shifted and why. The original image just had an LDS temple in the background. I put an image of the current president. And I took the MAGA hat and made it our little quip of make Adam God again, which I think was uh new name Noah’s doing. But that’ll fit for what we’re doing here to talk about. Latter-day Saints aren’t becoming liberal, but they also they’re also not as tightly locked into the Republican party as they used to be. A recent study shows a noticeable drop in Mormon identification with the GOP over the last couple of decades, but only a small increase in democratic alignment. In other words, they’re not switching teams, but they are becoming politically uneasy. Uh they’re caught in the middle.

1:07:33 What the data was showing, if I can just say it maybe in layman’s terms, the Mormonism has often been very much aligned in terms of its members with the Republican party. And what current data is showing is that Mormons are beginning to distance themselves from the Republican party, but aren’t necessarily aligning with the Democrat party. So they’re becoming more moderate. Uh the tension comes from a mismatch between Mormon cultural values and where parts of modern conservatism have gone. The LDS tradition emphasizes order, institutional trust, moral seriousness, although the policies of the LDS church don’t, and a kind of measured respectability.

1:08:20 But the current tone of politics, especially the more aggressive anti-institutional style associated with figures like Donald Trump, doesn’t sit cleanly with that. in issues like harsh immigration rhetoric or religious exclusivity. And you’ve got a population that’s still conservative at its core, but increasingly uncomfortable with how that conservatism is being expressed. So, they’re taking a step back from the Republican party, but they’re not necessarily teaming up on the Democrat side. And this matters in places like Idaho, where Mormonism still carries real weight both culturally and politically. That’s where this article is from. Idaho statesmen. A significant portion of lawmakers are Latter-day Saints, but even they tend to say their faith guides their moral framework rather than dictating policy directly.

1:09:10 We’ve heard that for decades and decades in uh Mormon Parliament. So, what you’re seeing isn’t a political realignment so much as a quiet internal friction. A group that still leans right, but is starting to feel like the party it helped build doesn’t quite reflect its own values anymore. I’ll just note the bigger picture. We’ve talked about in years past, you know, Salt Lake County, for instance, finally got to the point where it was less than 50% Mormon. And uh uh even in the political uh arena, the church doesn’t have as much strength or influence among the general population. Although, as we pointed out, nine out of 10 politicians still happen to be LDS. But what you’re seeing in uh concentrated Mormon areas is that as Mormons become more sensitive, I think I think this is what’s happening become more sensitive to inclusiveness, empathy, validation of of others being uh just as human as they are even as they live a different expression of

1:10:15 life. as the church has gotten more uh ambiguous maybe on the LGBT issue uh and in other places members of the church I think are listening a little more to their their uh I’ll say inner authority that’s a phrase I sometimes refer to and that people are making decisions to be more moderate politically they don’t exactly align with the Democrats but they’re they’re finding something abrasive about some of the messaging among the Republicans And so Mormons who are almost always just a shoe in uh for being on the side of Republicans in terms of the majority of Latter-day Saints, I think just like Salt Lake County and the number of Mormons there, I think you’re beginning to see members of the church be a tiny bit more politically neutral and it only takes a tiny bit to make big differences in the political landscape. So any thoughts from you guys?

1:11:16 Well, I like that quote there. You said a significant portion of lawmakers are Latter-day Saints in Idaho, but even they tend to say their faith guides that. The reason I think this is interesting because I wonder if former Oregon center Senator Gordon Smith would have said the same thing publicly, the hopelessly church broke senator from Oregon who did everything the church told him to do. No questions asked. He was not representing his people. He was representing the church in office. Um he’s a disgrace to the political office that he held. Um but I wonder if he would not have said the same thing publicly as these Idaho politicians are saying as well. Uh even they tend to say their faith guides their moral framework rather than dictating policy directly.

1:12:03 Yeah. Yeah. I’d be curious to see the demographic of who’s leaning. I mean, think about on the newscast, we’ve talked about women especially are, you know, stepping away from Mormonism based on, you know, political issues and treatment of people, things like that. So, I would be curious about that. But, you know, I think back in the day, my dad was somebody that just marked that box straight party, right? I’m a Mormon.

1:12:24 I vote straight party. I vote Republican, right? And my mom, she was kind of radical. she would actually go through and maybe make some different choices. Maybe a Democrat here and there, not straight party, but that was kind of the Mormon way back in the day. Um, it’s really different now, I think. And I wonder if it is the younger de demographic kind of saying, I cannot align with this. Um, I think maybe out of habit or just not knowing what else to do. Some of the older, you know, LDS people, they’re still, I’ve always been, you know, this and I’m going to be that.

1:12:54 But you’re right, Bill. It makes a huge difference in some of these places where they’ve always just voted the same way and now they’re not. It can change a lot. It can make a big change in big ways. And and just to give you that Oh, RFM, you’re muted. Just to give you that data, [clears throat] Idaho is reporting that there was a 12% decrease among Mormons from the Republican party, but a 6% increase into the Democrat party. So, you can see that it’s not one for one. Six of those 12 just stepped away from the Republican party but aren’t they’re just sort of hanging out in the middle ground.

1:13:32 I was laughing at Rebecca because uh it made me remember when my mom and dad would go out to vote. It was like an event. Yeah. A big deal. Me too. Yes. And my dad would come home grousing that basically all of her votes had canceled out here. So what was the whole point of this anyway? [laughter] I think they were trying to teach us to be civic-minded. But it was a big deal that we are going to go vote. Here’s your TV dinner. You know, we will be back. We’re, you know, it was a big deal. It was exciting. Kind of. You didn’t really understand, but it was exciting. Well, that’s a good story there, Bill.

1:14:07 Um, all right. Let’s move on. Oh my goodness. Here we go. Yay. I know. It’s very exciting. The worldwide, or should I say galaxywide young adult devotional is all about space. No, it’s not about giving people space. It’s about space. Uh, and actually deep space. Now, my theory is um, and I saw promos for this all through the last week. It actually happened on Sunday, is that, you know, what’s one of the more exciting events that just happened in the last couple weeks? I mean, you know, it’s the moon flyby, right? It’s everywhere. Yeah. And so my thought is that they’re kind of trying to capitalize on this big event and they’re having this worldwide devotional for the young adults. It’s um Elder Stevenson who’s he and his lovely wife are the ones that are going to be giving this devotional. Like I said, it just happened yesterday. And so he put out this little promo. Um they’re at the Clark Planetarium. You can see them there with all kinds of cool gadgets and things and planets. And yeah, I’m not going to show the video, but he made

1:15:09 some strange statements. He said, “You’re going to join with us here in an environment that is one of deep space.” I was kind of trying to understand that exactly. They seem to like the word of quite a bit. You know, gatherers of light, but anyway, an environment that is of deep space is where they’re going to be filming from. I know. I don’t know what to think. I feel like this is just an awkward segue because all he’s doing is having these people come out and watch a planetarium show and he’s going to try and make a spiritual moment out of it.

1:15:38 Yeah, that’s You just pretty much gave my story. I can now move forward six slides. Thank you, RFM. That’s right. Going where no Mormon has ever gone before. That’s exactly right. But, you know, so, so they did try to make some connections here. You can see a picture and you know, if you’re familiar with planetariums, which I’m sure you are, you kind of sit back. It’s a dark sky and you know, they show you the different planets. They teach things, but in this case, you can see the giant face of Jesus suddenly appearing in deep space. Right there it is. And Sister Stevenson said we can learn how to deepen our testimonies. They seem to focus on the word deepen, deep space. So everything was sort of a metaphor or some kind of analogy with deep, which was very interesting.

1:16:17 So the picture of Jesus actually showed up in the the planetarium show. I I mean it looks like they’re right there on the stage, right? And there it is. So I had no idea Jesus was that big. Yeah. Well, you know, he’s pretty big in some places. Um I did not watch the entire devotional. It’s over an hour long. It is available on YouTube. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it today, but I did take some screenshots. Um, so here’s one of the analogies Elder Stevenson said. So as you think about deep space, which we so often do. Um, think about how you can deepen your conversion. See, that’s a good one.

1:16:50 There’s the segue. Yeah, that’s a segue. That’s a good one. And then I told them that was a good segue. Much to my surprise, when I went through my slideshow at the last minute, RFM had added something. Do you want to explain this slide? And then I added something to what you added. Well, does it need any any explanation? Whenever you say space, whenever you say revenge, whenever you say cold, whenever you say dish, this is the the quote I’m going to be thinking of is Khan in Star Trek. True. Re there’s an old cling on proverb.

1:17:17 Yeah. Revenge is a dish that is best served cold and with Corinthian leather. It is very cold in space. In space. And I have to see what Elizabeth would look like as one of the security team there. And of course, if you’re familiar with the movie, you know, Captain Curts looks right at the screen and says, “Gone.” You know, I guess in this case, it would be Steven’s son. I don’t know. We’ll have to see.

1:17:42 But it was all about space. The whole thing was about space. So, um here’s a screenshot from the um actual, you know, there it is on the stage. Uh, brother, elder and sister Stephvenson wanted to talk about how can we go even deeper into space. Yeah, it was very powerful and at least a hard R, wasn’t it? Yeah. I, you know, if it wasn’t X, it was a hard R. You know, I feel like they might need to work on their phraseology, their catchphrases. I’m thinking of Camille Johnson and the recent do Hard with Jesus. I think they might need to work on it. But the whole thing was was full of metaphors. Christ is the son. You know, the farther you go into space, it’s cold. The light and warmth of Christ, a tiny little deviation in space will throw you light years off course.

1:18:29 Come back. And then even a section where he said, “God has given the apostles and the prophets to us to be our cheerleaders much like mission control when they actually flew by the moon and yelled, “We’re doing the same for you.” So, it was all full of space and it was very exciting to everybody. So, I don’t know. Uh my question Elder Stevenson talk about uh doing the Kessle run in just under 12 par sex.

1:18:54 I don’t think so. But my big question about it is did he go through the planet names that Joseph Smith gave? People don’t talk about this enough. I mean, while they were sitting there in the planetarium looking up, did he point to things and say, “Now, according to Joseph Smith, there’s collab, there’s Obish, Inish, Goandosh, um, Cayenne, I can’t even pronounce that one, Lindy, Zip, Busousel, Venistry, Wayne, Wayne’s world. I If some of you are hearing this for the first time, these are the names of planets, governing bodies that Joseph Smith was inspired to let us know exist.” Joseph Smith came up with Wayne’s world before SNL was even invented.

1:19:38 Decades. Decades. Shine. Fleece and Fleece. The one that makes me question it because he’s standing out there in the barnyard naming the stars for all of his followers. He says wagon ox. I mean that he’s just looking in the barnyard. That star is called wagon. Yeah. Axen. Anyway, take a screenshot of this if you’re not familiar. And if you don’t believe me, as people don’t, every time I talk about this, here it is in the notes of the Joseph Smith papers, notes on the book of Abraham. And here is where he lists the names. And I kind of thought, you know, if he’s looking in a telescope, and he says, and it has been revealed to me that this one is called Starcarface. I think that’s a great name for a star.

1:20:18 And I feel like that’s what he would probably do today. It is a great name. And that picture, Joseph Smith, kind of looks like Andy Calfman to me. It does a little bit. So anyway, any thoughts about this unusual devotional? I know they were trying to be really edgy and really awesome and they were filming from a planetarium and they were trying to make the word deep work with deep space. Any thoughts, Bill?

1:20:36 Uh, no. I He’s like, “No, no, I don’t want to touch that with a 10- foot pole.” 10 foot telescope. [laughter] RFM, any thoughts on that? No, I was just gonna say, “Thank you very much.” Thank you very much. That’s it. So, so I had to add this other quick little star story to this one. There was a big article in the Tribune. The headline is how a group of Utons are working to save the galaxy or at least our view of it.

1:21:00 Really? Some people in Utah are working to save our night skies. Well, I would think one of the first things that they would tackle would be my picture there on the right, and that is the light pollution of the LDS temples that dot the valleys. I read through the whole article, nobody really mentioned anything about the temple. Uh they did mention that there was a high school that had some lights on and that’s kind of what made them form this coalition. I think this is fantastic. This is great.

1:21:24 They did in the article mention the author of the article mentioned how it says after the church of Jesus Christ a letter to saints asked was county to loosen its dark sky regulations in 2022 people around Heber started sounding the alarms over what the loss of light means to their sky the light rules and this is true the LDS church did go in there and say you know what let’s just make it so we can make our big building and the county commission said that sounds great we have 20 years worth of regulations but they’re gone So anyway, it is an interesting idea and they are going to try to work with people and protect the dark skies. But I really hope at some point they recognize that, you know, temples being lit up all night, not good for birds, not good for animals, not good for people, and not good for the dark sky. They did talk about Flagstaff, Arizona, right, as an example of a town that has got their act together. They are the first dark sky ordinance city and they have really strict strict dark

1:22:20 sky rules. This group is hoping they can become something like Flagstaff. Well, they just announced a temple in Flagstaff. And I myself am looking forward to this fight where you have first Dark Sky City, you have all those ordinances, and then you have the LDS church and their lawyers coming in. We will see what happens. There are already petitions, all kinds of things. Um, we’ll see. They haven’t made too many moves yet, but I really want to see what Flag Staff is going to do to protect their first Dark Sky City status. So, Anyway, it’s kind of an interesting article, interesting group. But again, they didn’t say anything about what I consider something that puts out quite a bit of light pollution and that’s the LDS temple. So, I think yep, that’s the end of that. Any thoughts on that light pollution? We talk about it to death, so probably don’t need to go through it again, but it’ll be interesting to watch flight stuff.

1:23:10 That first one, is that bountiful? Yes. Yes. Yes. Can I just say that this is the problem with painting the temple with light from lights that are low and pointed white temple in order to make it glow for you know par sex. Y um but here’s the problem. You can see it here is you can’t paint it on the temple because it’s going to go past the temple. All this light that’s not hitting the temple is going past the temple to the left. And all this over here is going past the temple to the right to the point where you can see this from outer space. And that’s all the light pollution. There would be light pollution even if the light the temple itself were just that bright. But there’s where a whole bunch more pollution comes from with this setup.

1:23:57 No, that’s a very good observation. And people don’t understand it’s a certain reflective coating. It’s called whitewashing. And so yes, they’re able to tell neighborhoods this will not probably glow in your windows. I mean, we saw something different in Cody, but what it they don’t understand is it’ll do exactly that. And it is devastating to migratory birds. I know I sound so geeked out when I talk about that, but it’s absolutely devastating. And I wish more people would take notice.

1:24:23 Well, how delightfully ironic that the the LDS church uses whitewash on its temples. Oh dear. Because it uses it everywhere else, too. Yeah. There it is. All right, enough about deep deep space. Let’s go on to Bill’s next story. Let’s see. I think we’re past that. Oh, you went back. That’s right. You went back. There we go. Let’s move into something much more delicious. I’m actually surprised, by the way, that the that our nation hasn’t gotten on board with the dirty sodas sodas sooner than this. But it’s finally happening, folks. A very Utah, very Mormon workaround. The dirty soda has gone national because members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints avoid coffee and alcohol. Soda has become their go-to treat. And over time, it’s evolved into these over-the-top dirty sodas like Dr. Pepper, which I love. Dirty Dr. Pepper.

1:25:15 A Dr. Pepper mixed with coconut cream and flavored syrups. What used to be a local quirk has now exploded into mainstream. You’re looking over here at the Desireette News. There’s a couple of other articles in the news about this. By the way, McDonald’s introduces the dirty soda lineup. Um, so what used to be a local quirk has now exploded into mainstream largely because of the TV show The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which spotlighted the trend and turned it into a cultural curiosity. So, what you’re really watching isn’t just a drink trend. It’s a window into how a community that draws hard lines around certain substances still finds a way to build its own version of social indulgence and human connection. And now the world is giving it a try. your guys’ thoughts. I think that the risk here is that these little soda shops like Fizz and Swig, if they’re competing against giants like McDonald’s who can deliver such at, you know, a few dollars less per drink, um it may it may cause some

1:26:22 of those little mom and pop shops, which have some of them turned into big franchises at this point, but some of them to sort of struggle maybe to make a living if McDonald’s and other places pick up on the dirty soda. But now I can just go through the fast food drive-thru, get my dirty Dr. Pepper, and probably get it a couple dollars less than what uh the local Swig is selling it for. So, your thoughts on the dirty the dirty soda the dirty soda phenomenon making its way out into the greater world?

1:26:51 Yeah. Have either of you guys ever had a swig drink? No. No. Okay. So, I have quite a bit. And I will say I think this follows the trend of just younger people today. They’re not drinking. I’m reading this everywhere. They are just saying no to alcohol. And so this is something different. And the dirty soda is everywhere. I was on a road trip this weekend. Every Maverick I stopped in had the option to add coconut cream had, you know, half and half there. You, you know, just kind of mix it up and and like I said, the original was Lever and Shirley, a Coke and Pepsi or Yeah, it was a Coke and a milk and Pepsi. A milk and Pepsi. That was it. But um in New York, they’re opening a shop called Cool Sips. Right. is exactly like a swig. And one of the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Whitney Levit, is the new spokesman spokeswoman for it. This is amazing. And she just announced that she is quitting

1:27:43 Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. She’s following her Broadway career. She is going to be the spokesperson for Cool Sips. So, this is big. And I I do defend people that drink Swig drinks. It doesn’t all have to have a soda base. A lot of people, including me, like the sparkling water or still water and, you know, fresh fruit, things like that. So, when you see somebody with a huge cup like me sometimes, it may not necessarily be, you know, heaps and heaps of sugar and a Mountain Dew. It might be a refreshing drink that’s kind of good for you. So, but it’s definitely trendy. You definitely look really cool when you’re walking around with a swig drink.

1:28:22 You know, I understand this isn’t the only kind of product inspired by Secret Lives of Mormon wives. I hear that the famous furniture maker IKEA is gonna introduce a new line of metal bar stools based upon the same program. Oh my gosh. Oh my god. It’s a true story. No. Light for easy. They’re lightweight for easy throwing. No. In fact, one thing that’s a signature item on Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is a big chunky handk knit blanket. Have you seen these blankets?

1:28:51 The yarn is like that wide and they’re so thick and you have to kind of wrap up in it on your couch and then you have to have a swig drink and then you have to talk about, you know, Marciano or all the problems. I finally got one of those blankets last weekend. I’ve always wanted one. They’re pretty expensive. I actually found one at DI. I know, terrible. And I thought I can do it now.

1:29:11 I can wrap up on my couch, my big handk knit chunky yarn blanket. I can have my swig drink and I can talk about Marciano. Everybody get ready. Well, with your gnome dear and nobody knowing your real identity, you can be a real secret wife of Mormon life secret. That’s right. And did you guys know there’s a spin-off? I know. Now I’m turning this into Dish Everything. There’s a spin-off in California now of uh Mormon adjacent influencers, you know, people that maybe grew up here in Utah. And it’s a spin-off. It’s going to be interesting. So, a TV show. Yeah, another TV show.

1:29:47 Where do we get our TV show? We’re much more interesting. California wives. I know. I think we should have a spin-off called The Secret Lives of Newscast people. Absolutely. This called Mormon Newscast. Mormon newscast. Like a sequel to the newscast show. Was that in the early 1990s? I can’t remember when that was. Remember that. Oh, that was news. That was that was I had forgotten about that. It was 1970s was newscast.

1:30:10 Yeah, I think so. Well, thank you for covering that, Bill. Do they not have a swig down where you are in Utah? Oh, I’ve had swig plenty. RFM. Okay. I thought you both shook your heads. No, just RFM. Okay. I was thinking maybe they could do a show, The Secret Lives of Multi Multiple Personality Ex Mormon Dives. Maybe that would be a fun show. Follow him around for weeks on end and see what kind of crazy things happen.

1:30:33 He would probably like that. So, what’s your favorite Swig drink then, Bill, if you have had it? Just the Just the Dirty Dr. Pepper. The dirty pepper was coconut cream. Yep. Well, we’re talking about sugar. I will segue into my next story, which is, you know, sugar is really bad for your teeth. My next story is about teeth. So, if you’re grossed out by teeth, don’t listen to this story.

1:30:53 That was as good a segue as Elder Stevenson’s. I think it was pretty good. I didn’t say of teeth, though, did I? [laughter] The space that is of I don’t know what they’re doing. Oh my gosh, so many prepositional phrases. All right, so this is Sister um Tamara or is it Tamara? I think it’s Tamara W. Rooney. She’s a counselor in the Young Women’s Presidency. You see her speaking a lot.

1:31:15 RFM, you and I reported on her from two conferences ago where she said, “Get ye hints, Satan.” Do you remember that? She she always has a very engaging and exciting way of talking. So, this story is how a broken tooth taught this LDS woman leader about faith and the challenges of life. All right. So, she is speaking at at women’s conference at BYU. And this is the story that she tells. It says, “The first counselor in the young women’s general presidency learned one day when she lost a tooth.” Yes. Right before a speaking engagement of what turned out to be an embarrassing yet enlightening mishap. That’s right. This is probably like the water bottle.

1:31:54 Remember, you find some event that happens in your life, you know, and you kind of turn it into this amazing, inspiring story. She lost part of the water bottle. This is actually from the the the article itself saying she lost a tooth. Not part of a tooth. She actually lost a whole tooth. It says tooth. And that’s why I was so fascinated because that doesn’t happen every day. That doesn’t happen every day.

1:32:13 Past a certain age and you’re to an adult. Yeah. When you’re a kid, they’re dropping like flies. Anyway, it goes on to say, speaking about faith um at midlife’s trials at the kickoff for this week’s BYU women’s conference, Rooney recounted how she was at home preparing to talk to a group of young women for the first time. After her chores at home, she remembered that she needed to floss her teeth before leaving the house. I do that, too. I floss my teeth a lot. Maybe not after reading this article. Um, this is an AI recreation for After because we wouldn’t want any of the young women to think she was remiss in doing her chores.

1:32:46 No, that’s right. So, after Rooney began flossing, one of her teeth flew out of her mouth and dropped into the sink. Okay. So, to me, that’s a shocking statement, but it’s just said so casually. Like a cannon shot. Teeth fell into the sink. Yeah. It sounds like the stuff of nightmares, right? You know, when you’re stressed out, you have dreams about your teeth falling out. I don’t know if you knew that, but that’s true. Running late, she super glued her tooth back in place, but found, as most of us would, that her lip was stuck with the glue to her tooth and threatened to rip if she tried to pull it away. I I’m just saying if the whole tooth came out, is she saying she put superglue in the socket in the wet?

1:33:32 This is what is not clear. And I’m gonna talk about this on the next slide. It says her tooth popped out and she glued it back in. Okay. And they’re saying it very casually. Like it’s something that would happen we could all relate to. To me that’s horrifying, right? And we’ll talk about this in a minute. Eventually Runia told the Marriott Center crowd Wednesday night she was able to use fingernail polish remover. So she’s not only got super glue in her mouth, she’s now also putting acetone in her mouth.

1:34:00 Okay. These are two very toxic substances. um to unstick her lip, but the acetone fingernail polish remover started to work on her red nail polish and it dripped down her white blouse. So, tooth glued back in, lip stuck to tooth, fingernail polish running down the shirt. It’s just a complete comedy of errors. And I’m sure all the women in the Whenever I’m doing whenever I’m doing minor um orthodontic surgery on myself, I make sure to keep my white blouse on.

1:34:31 Yeah. I she says, “I changed my clothes. I grabbed my nose. I got in the car and I remember looking at the rearview mirror and picking off the last little bit of cotton ball from my teeth and thinking I can never tell anybody what just happened.” But then my next thought was, why not? I’m going to speak to these young women and their leaders about being real. Yes. Because I think she thinks this might be an experience that everybody can relate to.

1:34:54 I don’t think she thinks anybody’s going to be surprised that you would do something like this. That’s what I’m saying. Everyone can go, I’m my teeth popped out. I mean to me this is like a major horrifying experience. Um so why wouldn’t I share what life is really like for me? And here’s where the inspiring message comes. These moments Rooney said help strengthen her faith when fears and doubts arrive. At the same time she warned such anxieties can dim the light members are supposed to let shine. A faith is a muscle that needs to be exercised. So get over it. Show your real self. Let people know your teeth pop out and walk with Jesus.

1:35:33 This is actually one of probably one of the more normal things that’s ever happened to her. I don’t know. I just had to think about this for a minute. I I just I really did. So, I I wanted to understand what it meant that your tooth fell out. Okay. So, if her actual tooth fell out like from the root, I had to go to some dental sites. If an adult front and she said it was her front tooth falls out, it’s a dental emergency. Immediate action. 30 to 60 minutes. You’re not going to speak in front of a crowd. You are going to an emergency dentist because they can save that tooth. If it is really popped out by the root, they can save it. Now, my guess was something else. Not a So, this really is a miracle is what you’re telling us.

1:36:13 Yeah, it may be a it may be. I don’t know. If it really fell out by the root and she put super glue on the root and stuck it back into her gums, God help her is all I have to say. What I feel may have happened is that possibly it was a veneer or a crown, but it was front teeth. So, I think it might have been a veneer. That makes more sense that that would just pop off. And it makes more sense that you could glue it back on, you know, because they’re already glued on with this dental cement glue. But that doesn’t sound as cool, girls. My veneer popped off. That doesn’t sound right.

1:36:45 Your tooth popping off is more dramatic and more of an inspirational story. I feel like she I feel like she flosses too hard. I feel like she should back off on the flossing a little bit. Maybe she’s going at it like a lumberjack if she’s popping teeth out when she’s flossing. Yeah. And people in the chat are saying it could be a cap. It could be a veneer. It could be an implant. It could be a crown. I think I think any of these things are more likely than your actual tooth. That’s what I’m saying. But it doesn’t sound as good to say my crown popped off or you know that doesn’t sound right. But but the the reaction and what she did I still think is a little problematic. So of course I had to go to different dental sites. I had to read the back of the superlue. No, you should never use superlue to reattach even a veneer. You know, it says you should not do that.

1:37:32 You should go see your dental professional. You should never never use superlue or any household adhesive to fix a tooth back in your mouth. Doing so is dangerous and can lead to other severe health complications. And this is what I think. And so I feel like perhaps the LDS church because here’s one of their female leaders who you know that the members hang on their every word and pay attention to what they say. She just said it’s okay to put super glue and acetone in your mouth. I think maybe they should put out a disclaimer and say this is not this is not really what I was trying to say. It was just sort of a faithromoting anecdote. So I feel like everything she did was okay except for keeping the white blouse on.

1:38:12 Yeah. Well, you know what? Everybody handles it differently. But I will say women’s conference, it was a great story and our friend Martine brought this to my attention that Camille did speak again and we remember a few weeks ago when she spoke and said when you do hard with Jesus Christ the heart becomes holy, right? And we all, you know, they wouldn’t give up the slogan. It looks like she’s changed it slightly and it’s now at this particular women’s conference, the same one that Runia told her, two story, you can do hard things with Jesus or you can go at it alone.

1:38:45 That’s your choice. So, inspiring words from all of our leaders today. Any thoughts on the tooth story, Bill, or the veneer story, whatever it is. Yeah. So, [snorts] uh, okay, I’ll just say this. I know a person who chipped a tooth. It it was very distracting to see them with the chip tooth. It It really messes everything up in terms of appearance. So, they would go get I guess it’s a crown or whatever, but they would get a fake partial tooth added on to the chipped tooth and it makes so much more sense that that’s what happened because now she’s got something to glue to. Yep.

1:39:23 Um Yeah. Maybe you just don’t go to the thing you have to go to. You call it in for the day. like you say, you go see an emergency dentist and just recognize that you don’t have to go out into the world that way. And uh this whole you can do hard things with Jesus or you can go at it alone. That’s your choice. Well, you know, people are making those kinds of choices every day. And yeah.

1:39:47 Yeah, it is. I think the general first presidency, not first presidency, but the general relief society presidency is going to be having a hard Jesus Christmas. That’s it. I also want to ask this because I I find it hard to believe that a woman who looks like this would actually have this problem that she describes as occurring. Well, veneers, I mean, she does have beautiful, beautiful teeth. So, a cap, a veneer, um, like you said, a chip tooth, some kind of a and those those can fall off. You know, even an implant can wiggle loose, but but all those things are kind of serious. Like, you really do need to go in because something’s going on. And it also pretty painful. And I can’t imagine putting glue or acetone in your mouth. I have to ask you something.

1:40:30 Yes. Are you trying not to get the joke? Am I trying not to get the joke? No, I didn’t. Can you imagine that a woman who looks like this would have something like this happen to her? [laughter] Oh, do you know why? Do you know why I didn’t get the joke? Because my little slide thing is right over her mouth. I don’t think her elevator goes all the way to the top. I don’t want to be personal because she looks like a lovely person. She is.

1:40:50 I’m sorry this happened to her, especially with the white. She’s a role model for all the young women. Although young women, do not put superlue or acetone in your mouth. Wouldn’t be prudent. Now, and there’s one more slide. I think it’s yours. RFM, you added that. Like I said, RFM is always messing around with my slideshow. No, I’m not messing around. I am amplifying it. Amplifying.

1:41:11 This is where she got the idea from. It never happened. This is exactly what I thought of when you told me about popping off a part of the tooth is Aragorn Vigo. Vigo Mortensson, Lord of the Rings. We all know the story, don’t we? I think she does. Yeah. He got his tooth popped out and he was going to going to didn’t do it actually though. He wanted it super glued back in to continue with the filming and I think it was Peter Jackson. He said, “No, we’re not doing that. We’re not out in the freaking go see the dentist.” Yeah, please.

1:41:38 And come back. And he did. And he came back later that same day after seeing the dentist to continue filming. So that was a story that I thought of when you told that story. No, it’s a great story because he’s the hunky heart throb of Lord of the Rings. You can’t have him looking like that. He has to have the perfect smile. [laughter] All right. I think our next story if we’re done with teeth. Oh my goodness. Could have tied it. Yeah.

1:42:01 Well, I think this is the last one if I’m not mistaken. Uh so, you know, we’ve had these movies come out recently. Uh Hugh Grant again. Uh this is a Salt Lake Tribune noticing another horror movie from Faith to Fear. Filmmakers are turning LDS history and teachings into horror movies. There’s plenty there to work with. I can imagine a few dozen more. Um, but this is a movie called The Angel, which was set and filmed in Utah.

1:42:29 It centers on a polygamous trio circa 1881. So before the John Taylor vision with Jesus, before the 1890 Manifesto, another Mormon themed horror film is dropped and it shows how LDS culture is becoming a go-to backdrop for unsettling storytelling. The short ter the short film The Angel pulls in familiar elements, missionary life, belief in divine messengers, strict obedience, and twist them into something dark and psychologically intense, as if they already weren’t on their own. What’s interesting is that this isn’t random.

1:43:06 Filmmakers are recognizing that a system built on blind obedience, worthiness measured by loyalty, and eternal consequences for not being obedient already carries emotional weight. So when you push those ideas just a little offc center, it quickly turns into something that feels eerie and disturbing. I I I can’t imagine that we’re going to run out of movies that do utilize Mormon themes and often in a negative way. So uh this film’s coming.

1:43:36 I don’t know much about it, but here’s another movie that plays on Mormonism. Uh any thoughts from you guys, uh on the cinema? I’m just surprised. There’s a huge glaring omission here in this article and that is Brent Bakavoy and Ronald’s Little Factory. I mean, that is the absolute theme of that movie. I’ve seen it like five times and I was at several different premieres of it. But, you know, it’s about a kid that, you know, was trying so hard not to self-abuse the night before he goes into the MTC that he chains his hand to the bed frame. and they actually go through Marquy Peterson’s uh pamphlet of ways not to self-abuse and have ward members come over and try to help him.

1:44:16 It absolutely deals with those themes and and it won several awards in different horror um showcases and things. So, I’m really surprised they wouldn’t have mentioned that. And his new movie, which he talked to me about a couple months ago, is called Gum. And it’s about purity culture embodied and personified by monsters. And I think RFM kind of knows something about that. if he wants.

1:44:38 I’m in the show. I’m in I totally steal scene 88. That’s it for me. And I’m I’m trying to talk Brent Bakavoy into changing the title from gum into Radio Free Mormon and Friends. Oh gosh. Yeah. No, I think Gum is very provocative because it’s about of course already chewed gum that all of us as young people got that lesson. The girls were told, “Do you want to be already chewed gum?” And the boys were told, “Do you want to end up with already chewed gum?” So yeah, this is a really interesting genre. But yeah, if you guys haven’t seen Ronald’s Little Factory, it’s out there. I think Mormonish even put it out once. He gave us the rights.

1:45:15 But Gum, did they say when that was coming out? RFM? I forget. I I think uh I do know that they just finished shooting, but I don’t know what that means in terms of post-prouction before it’s released. Right. Yeah, Brent’s quirky and awesome and his movies are kind of comedy horror with sort of a John Hughes 80s bent to it. I mean, that kind of a soundtrack. So yeah, they’re really interesting, but we’ll see. Mormonism is everywhere, even in the horror genre. Thank you for that story, Bill. And I think I did switch our slides up, so I have one more last little thing to mention. Now, Bill talked about this last week when he talked about the five meeting houses in Seattle that are for sale, right? Same time or they’re building couple temples.

1:45:56 So I call this temple building where where there’s shrinkage. Seriously? And of course, that’s George Castanza. We all know about shrinkage. Do Mormons know about shrinkage? I don’t think they do. So, I’m kind of collecting place examples of shrinkage where they are building new temples. And so, if anybody has an example local, let me know. So, here’s one that I found. It’s a ward right there where they’re building the ginormous uh Lone Mountain Temple. We all remember following that, the council meetings, all of that. It’s really large, 70,000 square feet, almost 200 feet tall. But here’s a ward right next to it. Right there within walking distance of the temple and they tried to have a priesthood commemoration activity right now. Those were big back in my day and when I had young men. Um that was a big thing. Everybody went you go and you’d camp together as men and you’d celebrate the priesthood May 15th. Right.

1:46:52 Yeah. Exactly. So this email out to this ward right there where Lone Mountain is they’re building that giant temple says it’s been cancelled. not enough people are going to go. Now, it could be something else. Other people have pushed back and said there could be other reasons, but I don’t know. I feel like a growing thriving ward back in my day at least, they all went all the men left town and then when they got back, all the women did the laundry. So, that’s one example where right there next to the Lone Mountain Temple. And the reason I bring Yes.

1:47:21 I I want to be clear on this. Does the church say why it is they’re cancelling? It just says not enough attendance. So, the church says not enough attendance. the the word right there. Why would somebody argue with the church when the church is saying that there’s not enough people going? Because I have a lot of naysayers who I like to interact with on my different platforms. They have said to me, “Look, um they actually took the step of going to Google Maps, figuring out this campground was over an hour away from the ward, and said, you know what, I bet they just are too busy. It’s a thriving huge ward, but all the men are too busy.” And I just say back in my day, that would not be the case. They the word is so thriving that they can’t get enough people to go to the activity.

1:47:59 I got it. Yes, that’s it. And of course, my main point of all of this is the irony because in every one of these temple building towns, what they stood in front of the town council and said over and over is, “We must change your ordinances. We must have this tall temple. We are bursting at the seams. We are so big. Our members, they’re flocking. We must have this.” And there’s no way for any of these councils to know if that’s true or not. And who are they to say, I don’t think that’s true. I tried to tell them it wasn’t true. But you know what I mean?

1:48:32 Fairview is the one that’s just up the road from the Dallas Temple, isn’t it? Uhhuh. Yeah. And we’re going to talk about Fairview, too. I’m telling you, I’m I’m collecting these examples where it’s just like you’re building this temple and your your platform in front of the council was we have so many members. We can’t contain them in these other temples. We’ve got to have more.

1:48:51 And yet anecdotally, these little things are kind of slipping through the cracks that I’m watching. Okay, so Seattle, we did talk about Bill’s story last week where they sold five meeting houses. Um they have three temples, one announced, two about to be built um within a one-hour drive and they just closed the second ward in the area since the beginning of the year. Tremendous growth as it said in the article. Um need to build two more temples in Tacoma and now Mary’sville. Mhm.

1:49:21 selling five buildings. Two words have closed. Can I just mention something, Rebecca? Yes, go ahead. It is an hour drive between the two, but smack in the middle of the two is the Seattle Temple that’s been there since uh 1980. That’s what I’m saying. There are three temples within an hour’s drive of each other. Yes. So it just, you know, because I know that part of their argument or what they present is we have a growing membership and we need to be able to, you know, to build these temples. Again, they can do what they want. But I just I don’t like good when people are misled because I work with these towns. This is my favorite one that came up over the weekend. So we’re all familiar with Fairview. We’ve all been following that forever. There is a meeting house um on the location of where they’re going to build the temple in Fairview, right? This is pretty common. There’s a there’s a big piece of ground. There’s the meeting house and then there’s Fairview. Now, their

1:50:13 growing numbers was a huge part of what they talked about at every council member. There is a Dallas temple, like you said, RFM. It’s about half an hour away, but they talked about just exploding numbers and needing to have this temple in Fairview because the membership was exploding. Well, they just closed a ward that met in the building on the temple site. To me, I find that extremely ironic and and I don’t know if it signifies growth. They combined it. It was the seventh ward. They kind of closed it and put the membership into two other wards, the third and the fourth ward. But this is a ward that met on the site where the temple is that they told the council, uh, you know, we’ve got to have it. So, I of course passed this on to Fair View and they were like kind of scratching their head. They were lying all along, including about the the steeple doctrine that they made up out of whole cloth.

1:51:07 They were lying about the growth and that’s why we need the temple. Yeah. And that’s it. So, I’d love it if anybody else has any little anecdotal. I mean, I know these are small, but they’re just very ironic because if you watch any of those council meetings, it’s always, you know, our numbers are are exploding. You know, we’ve got to pollute your skies with light now. We’ve got to build this, you know, giant ass temple. So anyway, any thoughts, Bill, on on that? I know you covered it last week, so you’re aware of this. I think you said some things today that were really good today when we were talking about this.

1:51:38 Uh, you know, just the idea that there’s there’s an appearance of growth. There’s they’re saying growth in in certain ways. And maybe they’re telling the truth. Maybe we are having record convert baptisms. Maybe there are record number of missionaries uh going out year after year. But man, it just so many indications of data pointing to the church in decline. And I’ll just note that temples are an outward appearance of growth. The closure of wards is demonstrable decline. If there are more wards closing than opening up, I don’t care how many temples you build, the church is in decline. Yep.

1:52:19 Yeah. Yeah. It’s an indicator. And I will say just with one last little slide, what is growing uh big shopping districts right next to temples. Um an incoming $2.3 billion 470 acre mega development aims to be the plaza of the northland. This is Kansas City. There’s a temple there and there’s going to be a huge development. I mean, we don’t need to go through everything, but you know, it’s going to be sports complex, entertainment v venues, hotels, conferences, u mixed use restaurants. um they’re just building up this infrastructure around the area where the temple is and and I feel like this is kind of the way of the future going forward. Make this, you know, secure little island, very lucrative, you know, jobs. They they often will fly people in from companies they trust to go work in areas to do this. It can be very lucrative for the people that get these contracts. And I think this is kind of

1:53:13 part of the playbook, right? Just like City Creek. It’ll be interesting to watch what happens. All right. Any final thoughts about anything that we’ve talked about or we will move on to what’s coming up this week. The last thing I want to say before we move on to that is I just want to say that I hope my tie isn’t the wrong shade of blue or anything. I’d hate to get us in legal trouble because of my choice in neck wear.

1:53:40 Is there some shading on that tie? I think two shades of blue. That’s right. We might have to crop that out. Yeah. Okay. So, I just want to put that caveat in there. Oh, it’s a good thing that you brought that up. Okay. So, what we all have going on this week, Mormonish is on Tuesday night. That’s tomorrow night at 6 PM. The title of our episode is I was told to cease and desist and threatened with excommunication by the LDS church. And this is our friend Ganesh Sherion. I know he’s such a happy, friendly, smiley, you know, happygolucky guy. You would not imagine that he had this experience about three years ago in conjunction with working on his book that he just published and he shared this experience with us. Yes. And I just I just as you kind of put these pieces together, people being shut down, people being threatened, silenced, you know, maybe maybe we need to widen the window or the net and look farther into the

1:54:37 past a couple years. I’m not sure. that this is a really interesting story that Ganesha is going to share and it’s all about the process through which he went to get his book published and how certain points along the way he did receive letters from church uh legal department and he did receive letters from local leaders that he was sounds interesting you know Ganesh has another side too he has character I had to give him a cease and desist letter myself once oh yeah no he does he’s very friendly so anyway tomorrow night 6 pm mountain time that’ll be awesome what do you guys have coming We got something great.

1:55:12 Great great. It’s on Wednesday. We are going to be dissecting the fun and fabulous debate that Robert Gurr had with Bill Real couple weeks ago and uh we’re going to go and revisit that and we’re going to take it apart and examine it. And uh the my favorite part I just always have to say it is when the Nephites ate all the horses and that’s why there’s no horse remains to prove the Book of Mormon is true.

1:55:40 Cray cray. There were so many things said in this that were just cray cray. So this should be a lot of fun. This is what I’m doing tomorrow is I’m going through it and I’m getting video clips together. So if you want to add or make sure that any are in there, Bill, I’ll make sure I send those to you because even though it’s about Bill’s debate, it’s my show. It’s my idea. I think I announced it Friday. I think I said, you know, it’s Bill’s debate, but Bill wouldn’t do this himself.

1:56:04 Me, I will definitely do this. It’s because Bill is self aacing, something that I don’t suffer from. Yeah. I think to hear Robert’s answers on why there are no horses, to hear his answers on uh polygamy with with child brides in Mormonism, uh those two alone will make this show worth it. But there’s going to be I’m sure a because I I lived it. There’s going to be a whole bunch of other sound bites as well. So excited to to hear what you put together here, RFIM.

1:56:32 And I’m going to want to find out what you were thinking during this debate and before and after and all that good stuff, too. Love it. I can’t wait. Is this debate still on his website or his channel? Because, like I said, I went before and it wasn’t there. Is he proud of it and putting it out there like you guys are? Uh, I know it was put on his channel. I it’s on Mormon discussion as well and it’s also on the moderator’s website.

1:56:58 Um I think Robert Gur’s channel is something like LDS Christian I think is the uh is the name of the channel but I can look into that. I’ll try to have that data ready when we talk about this on Wednesday. Yeah. This debate went so bad for Robert Gurr that before the debate he actually had a full head of hair. Right. Don’t you find though that sometimes when there’s a debate, you know, of this nature, you know, both sides think, I did really well. I obviously aced it. I killed it. I just wonder if there’s that [laughter] element.

1:57:28 I have no idea what he thinks. But if he thinks anything like that, he’s wrong. Uh I’ll just a little note, I’ll put this into the show Wednesday so folks can see it. But uh he posted in a thoughtful faith Jacob Hansen’s group on Facebook that he was doing this debate and Jacob Hansen said don’t. You’re going to lose. You’re going to you’re going to get your rear end kicked. And he’s like, “No, you wait. You see the master plan that I have and you get to see it all carried out because Jacob says, you know, he says, no, you can’t debate Mormonism with Bill Real. You’ll get your ass kicked. That’s why I don’t debate Mormonism with Bill Real or anybody else. Who knows anything about Mormonism?

1:58:09 Yeah. Uh, so it’ll be interesting. I’ll I’ll put I’ll grab the image of that post and some of the responses. That’ll be fun. By the way, Jacob Hansen, at least Robert Gurr has the courage of his convictions. Something which I might say you are lacking. Yeah. And I’ll say too, I think Robert genuinely believes. Now, I don’t like his answers. I don’t think they’re rational, but he appears to me to be a sincere believer who’s not playing games. He just wants to defend the religion that he loves and lives. Jacob Hansen is is a whole another kind of animal.

1:58:43 Yeah, Robert Gerr actually talked about Mormonism. Yeah, sort of. [laughter] Okay. And then the next uh is something that you’ve got coming up, Bill. Oh, sorry. Yes. This is just the next in the series of a logical deconstruction of Mormonism. This is why is dudero Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. I don’t even think it’s that long. Maybe 6 to 8 minutes long. That’ll show up Thursday morning around 9:00 a.m. Um but again, this has been a fun series to be doing.

1:59:10 I’m really excited. We’re about 10 in or so. Um three of them haven’t been released yet. They’re recorded, edited, ready to go, but they’ll release each Thursday. U but when this is all done, this will be 30 episodes. And I’m really excited about this project. that if anybody’s willing to take it seriously as a believer, they would over and over and over again recognize that the critic has the more rational argument on these issues that were hand selected because they demonstrate such. So, there’s that.

1:59:39 Yeah. Elder Stevenson has heard about this and his comment was that you’re into the series pretty deep, Bill. And I should go deeper. You can still go deeper. You can always go deeper. Yeah. So, Friday night, Mormonism After Dark, Radio Free Mormon, and uh we’re we had a great time last Friday. We always have a great time. And we’ve we’re hitting our stride with this. We’ve got sort of a format now which allows people to come on and say a few things that are on their mind and hopefully um get everybody a chance to do that. Now, this past Friday, we actually used up the capacity of the screen. First time it’s happened. We found out what that capacity is. It’s 10. 10.

2:00:20 10 is the max that StreamYard will allow on a screen at one time. And I want to meet that again this coming week. There’s a lot of people who show up and I appreciate them all. There’s other people out there who are thinking about showing up, not showing up, maybe because you’re a little bit uh I don’t know, concerned about it. Don’t be concerned. Just, you know, drink some liquor, loosen up, and come on the show and we’ll have a great time. Okay? I promise. So that’s going to be Friday.

2:00:47 And then Saturday, RFM’s going to have something great to be determined. I’ve got several ideas. We’ll see what happens. I’m sorry. What, Rebecca? I watched your Mormonism After Dark from the forest on Friday night. Mostly. Tell me about it. Was it good in the forest? It was fantastic. It was kind of scary. I was like at a campfire. I was watching Mormonism After Dark. I was going to call in, but I was with faithful relatives. I didn’t know if they’d understand.

2:01:12 So, what the heck was happening in the forest? Um, not much. We went to the stock car races. That was really fun. Kind of, you know, slum the cars ran into trees. Uh, no. This was not in the forest. This was We left the forest, went out and went to But you know what? I will tell you, I did learn one thing. Easter, people give you Peeps, right? You know those little marshmallow chicks. Nobody really likes them. Kids like them.

2:01:33 They’re kind of If you roast those over a campfire. Yeah. I’m not kidding. They are incred. They puff up really big, kind of start whistling, and then Oh my gosh, they’re incredible. I just have to throw that out there. I did that. They catch on fire. Just like regular marshmallows. Yeah. But they have kind of a candy coating. You have to be careful. That can scald the inside of your mouth. You have to wait a minute. But I would recommend leftover Easter Peeps, make a bonfire.

2:02:02 I hope you didn’t scald your mouth. I did not. If I did, I’ll use some acetone and super glue and I’ll try to make things better. Sounds like a plan. All right. So, you’re not telling us what your Saturday is, but you Oh, it’s gonna be something great. We’ll have something. Okay. I mean, that’s so far out there. I can’t even start thinking about this. I mean, tomorrow I’m spending the day uh you know, going through the debate and uh I will get to it. It will be fantastic.

2:02:26 Trust me on this. It always is. Last time it was with me and Colby and we we dissected and vivisected uh Jacob Hansen and his getting filleted by Ali Beth Stucky. Uh, it’s great. It’s got over 14,000 views. Everybody likes to watch a good Jacob Hansen dunking. And this is a good Jacob Hansen dunking. And Kobe’s amazing. Anything he’s on is well well worth watching. So, all right. I think we did it. Oh, there it was.

2:02:53 Radio Free Mormon. That’s our last slide. All right. Any final comments or I believe that we have we’ve covered it as much as we possibly can for this week. It was a lot. Any last words, Bill? Can I just say one really fast thing? Somebody in the live chat said, “Bill, you ought to turn those 30 episodes into some sort of book.” I just wanted to note that’s exactly what I did. So, if I can just take that off just a split second, I’m actually quite pleased with this. Uh uh so far 13 uh reviews on there, 4.8, a logical deconstruction of Mormonism. Uh you can get it. It’s available for $7.99 on Kendall, zero as an audio book if you’ve got a a a membership with uh that, but I think it’s like $7.99 for that as and a9.99 paperback. So, um I’ve sold quite a few of them already. The reviews have been great. So, I think people are enjoying it.

2:03:43 I’m going to buy it right now. I totally forgot to buy it. I keep meaning to. I I’m going to do it as soon I Oh, I have to end the show. Then I’ll buy it. So, all right. Well, thank you everybody for hanging in there with us. Thank you, RFM. Thank you, Bill Real. We will see everybody next time, Monday. Always on Monday, 6 pm Mountain time for the Mormon newscast. Thank you, everybody.

2:04:04 Good night. That’s a wrap for this week’s edition of the Mormon newscast. We appreciate you tuning in and sharing this time with us. Keep the conversation going and stay informed [music] on all things Mormonism. Until next week, wishing you peace and joy. See you next Monday at 6 p.m. on the Mormon Newscast.