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Links:
Brigham Young on fast offerings, December 8 1867, JoD vol 12 pgs 111-116 (Discussion of fast offerings starts last paragraph on page 15)
Church officially refuses to support vax exemptions
The Great Apostameme Facebook group
I Believe Joseph YouTube channel
Transcript:
[00:00] Michelle: Happy New Year and welcome to 100 32 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy. What an amazing year it has been here. We are rounding up the year at nearly 10,000 subscribers. I never knew if I would even get to 1000. So this has been amazing. I have learned so much over this year and I hope that those of you who have been on this journey with me also feel like you have learned a tremendous amount. It has been so valuable and productive. And I can honestly say my faith has grown through this journey, which I think is a wonderful thing to be, to be able to say after addressing so many sources and so many challenging topics. So honestly, right, I do not think that truth destroys faith quite the opposite because faith is to have faith in things which are not seen, which are true, right? So true. Faith can only be in truth. And that’s what we’ve been seeking together. It has been such a journey. It’s been willing to be here with you. Thank you so much for sticking with me. I have to say I am looking forward to some of the amazing things we have planned for next year. One thing I’ll announce right now, we are doing 1/5 Sunday Live Colin Show. Um, next year we might fit in a few others as well. But that’s something that I think will be fun. I’m hoping we have some other exciting things happening and if I can pull off what I want to for next week, which will be my 100th episode as well as the first episode of the year. I think it will be amazing. So plan to tune in for that for sure. And, and hopefully there will be some more information coming up in the meantime, for this New Year Eve as episode, I thought it would be fun to just do something a little bit lighter and a little more fun and to enjoy kind of a record of the past year. So we’re just doing a year end meme review, which I think will be great. I have gotten into memes a bit this year. It’s been fun for me. So I wanted to share that journey with anyone, any of you that aren’t there yet and for any that are already there, I think you’ll have a lot of fun remembering some of these along with us. So thank you so much for being here as we take this deep dive into the not that murky water of Mormon memory. Welcome to this New Year’s Eve episode of 100 32 problems. I am really excited about this episode and hoping it will be a fun one to, to round out the year. I am here with my new friend and now my good friend Jeremy and Jeremy is names and faces have been changed to protect the identity of the innocent. So we will explain a little bit more as we go on. But um we have a lot of people in various communities who don’t feel free at this time to have a strong online presence without using a pseudonym. Am I correct about that, Jeremy?
[03:07] Jere-meme: That’s true. That’s very true.
[03:09] Michelle: Ok. So we went ahead and went with the old school identity protection rather than using a um AAA different, a different new tech method. This worked, this works better for us and I thought was more fun. So I first reached out to Jeremy and asked him if he would be interested in doing this episode and he really wanted to but couldn’t. So we, we, we thought this was a really good solution. So, so I’m very happy to introduce you to Jeremy. Um Well, I should I guess introduce the topic that we’re talking about. What we are talking about is the power of memes. That’s what this episode is about. Jeremy is one of the founders or maybe the founder of the group, the can, can I say it on, on the channel Jeremy? Ok. So it’s this great group that I suddenly was added to that. I was like, what is this magical new land of joy and happiness and humor? And it’s called, it’s called The Great Aposto meme, which even the name itself is a meme because um well, I, I’m sure we will talk about it as we go on in the presentation that Jeremy has put together. We, we were deciding on names. We, I, I was kind of leaning toward Archimedes, but Jeremy chose Jeremy instead. So, so that’s the name that we are going with. And I’m really excited like this might seem like a completely light frivolous topic. This is actually our second time recording this episode. And I, the first time I was kind of just amazed by how important memes actually are in our culture. And so I’m excited to bring you this information. So, first, welcome Jeremy. Is there anything you would like to or feel free to tell us about yourself?
[04:48] Jere-meme: Well, I, I’m one of those that’s kind of partially in and partially out uh with regards to my um how should you even say it? Um I call it
[05:01] Michelle: nuanced belief that work.
[05:05] Jere-meme: There you go. Excellent. That works for me. But I mean, it’s, it’s, this is kind of for fun too, just to kind of represent those that are in the situation. And um you know, it, it wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to find out who I am,
[05:16] Michelle: right? But we did, I, there was another um another member I, I had reached out to, to include in this conversation who also uses a pseudonym. I think his pseudonym is. Can I say that I’m sure I can. His online presence in the group is Dale Dingman and he has come up with some hilarious memes and he also had the decline for decline for the same reason. So shout out to Dale and shout out to the others that I have invited on that just are like, you can’t do it, can’t do it right now for family reasons or calling reasons or whatever, sometimes employment reasons, whatever it might be people, this is a tricky space for some people. So um even people who are active members who believe in the precepts and the basic tenets of the gospel having nuance can be difficult. So
[06:04] Jere-meme: you nail it.
[06:07] Michelle: So I don’t know, Dale has, I mean, um not Dale, that’s someone else. And luckily I did slip and say your real name, Jeremy has put together a presentation for us. So I don’t want to like if I ask any questions in the preliminary discussion that you’re going to cover, then you could just tell me, I, I am curious like how you started this group and why is that something you’re going to talk about or should we talk about that before I can
[06:31] Jere-meme: mention it now? So, OK, I, I’d like to think that I have kind of a built in humor in my brain that I find the, the humor in most everything and, um, I wanted an outlet for it and I was kind of spamming some other group, you know, where, where I was, uh, putting memes up all the time, you know, as things would come into my brain. And, um, I was like, well, I’ll just make my own, you know, I’ll just make my own and I think I started it like a year ago, something like that and just didn’t uh I don’t know, it was more cathartic for me just to put him out there, you know, these ideas that I had and um a handful of people joined and, and now it’s grown and grown ever since. And now it’s kind of got gotten a life of its own where people are on there, you know, posting all the time. We, we have like 20 whatever posts every day. It’s pretty wild. Well,
[07:26] Michelle: and that’s not just posts, those are memes that people put together.
[07:30] Jere-meme: That’s right.
[07:31] Michelle: Wow. OK. So is that what you expected when you started?
[07:35] Jere-meme: Oh, no, no, it was, it was more about me. Just kind of put, having a repository. I wanted to have a place where, you know, you’re talking to your uncle and your uncle says, well, I don’t know why it says that in the scriptures are like you not willing to talk to you about it, but you could just send him a meme you know, and I wanted to have kind of like a master list where somebody could go through and find memes and um be, be ready for the meme war.
[08:03] Michelle: OK. So you OK. So, and was there something else you were going to say when I asked that question about? I don’t think so. Ok, go ahead and interrupt me anytime. But, um, ok, so, so you had humor and mem in your blood. It sounds like you like you were doing memes already before you started your own group to, to keep them? Ok. And so were you mem things before? Well, do you know what? I know my mom who is 89 listens to this podcast, Jeremy. You be willing to define the word meme that we are using that. My mom is probably going to the same
[08:39] Jere-meme: thing. So, ok. Well, it’s in my presentation about 8, 10, 8 fides in or something like that.
[08:47] Michelle: Ok. So we will get to that. So anyone who is like, what are they talking about? Just stick around for a few minutes and all of your questions will be answered and you will, this is gonna be a fun one. I’m actually really excited about it. So, um and I have to say, well, well, first of all, I do want to ask because my kids like, you know, I’m, I’m like a very young xer, but nevertheless, an xer I barely fit into that category and I was like, my kids are like mom, you don’t get me humor, like, you’re not funny, you don’t get it, you know. And so, so I was a little bit like, oh, this, I, I’m one of those oldies, like, ok boomers, kind of what they want to say, even though I’m an expert, you know. But this has been fun for, for me because I’m like, no, I totally get memes kids. I, I am on it. I’m doing it, you know. But um so I’m curious to know if you like, have you been making memes for your whole life or your whole internet life or did you start because of this topic? Do you know what I mean? Like, tell me how you got
[09:49] Jere-meme: into it. So, um I actually come from an art background, like in a, in a, in a former life. I was an artist and I actually had comic comics and papers which was, uh seems like a lifetime ago. But um so I’ve got that in my brain where I, I look for funny things and then I think of a comic. It’s, it’s just been a part of me. Um The uh uh I really didn’t start meing until I started to see issues with some of my faith matters for sure. Ok. Yeah. Well, not, not in the scale that I, I do now.
[10:30] Michelle: Ok. But it, it, it was, it was your faith journey that motivated your me practice.
[10:36] Jere-meme: Largely, I mean, before that it was just a handful of things I ever did.
[10:41] Michelle: Ok. Ok. That’s really good. Um Are there anything else I should ask as preliminaries? Like, let me ask, let me ask one more thing. Sorry, I, I’m, I’m interrupting myself. But, um, did you, when you started me, you said it was kind of cathartic and I want to talk about that going forward too, kind of cathartic and also a way to be creative and to speak to these things. Did you think it was, have you been surprised by how it’s more important than you thought it was going to be? Like you kind of mentioned? OK. Yeah, because it’s, it’s almost like a missionary tool. Like, is that something you want to talk about now or in your presentation?
[11:16] Jere-meme: I’ll do that in the presentation. But, you know, um you know, I was, I was listening to a, um a couple of comedians talking the other day. Um It was like an interview show and one comedian was talking to the other ones talking about how in the olden days we could say things like this, but now we’ll be canceled and, and that kind of thing. And I was, I was thinking about the overlay with what we’re doing with memes where um there’s a lot of things that you might see, you might be a total active member of the church but see something funny and you would love to make kind of poke at it, but you’re afraid that you’re get, you’ll get in trouble somehow. And so the great thing about the memes is that you can get that out there without feeling there’s gonna be repercussions for it.
[11:59] Michelle: Ok? You can speak to the essence of something without having to. Yeah. Yeah. There’s, there’s a subtlety to it and also a directness to it. That’s really an interesting, like when they’re done well. Ok. And it is also a way not everyone wants to listen to two plus hour podcast on a top, but if you can send them a meme or five memes.
[12:22] Jere-meme: Ok. Well, I’ve listened to some of your, you know, three hour Jeremy hoop episodes and there’s a lot of people that would never do that, but we could have our little meme army make 300 you know, me just from one slide and you know, and get it out there.
[12:40] Michelle: Yeah. From Yeah, you’re exactly right. So do you want me to add this to sage? Are you ready to go ahead and get started? Let’s go for it. Let’s go for it. Ok. So this is Jeremy’s presentation, which I am really excited for. So take it away.
[12:52] Jere-meme: Ok. Sharing the mean gospel in the struggle for the attention of men and women. So you see this poor little boy tugging on the shirt. Listen, listen, dad, right? As we’re trying to share the gospel with people. Um It’s all about. Can you get their attention? So this, you know, a lot of us who served missions can look at this picture and go, oh, I remember those days, hours and hours and hours of knocking on doors and, you know, at the end of the day you go. Well, how many people did we talk to? Well, in some areas, very few in the olden days, missionaries work. You might knock on 100 doors and engage one person. They won’t open their doors even if they’re home. Right. Um, or even if you do get to talk to them, maybe they won’t listen to you because you’re, maybe you talk too much or they, they’re not interested. So, where are people and where do they open their doors? They are online. This sort of information absolutely fascinates me. Uh, and, and it, it blows my mind and, and, and the, I’m not trying to, um, you know, what, what are your sources, that kind of thing? Just know people spend a lot of flipping time on screens. I don’t think anybody debates that the average American spends seven hours and four minutes staring at a screen per day. And then that blue, the gen Z is, is the high height of it followed by millennials and then so forth. But less and less is the older you get, I guess. But that is a lot of hours. That’s like a full time job staring at a screen
[14:36] Michelle: that’s crazy. And in some ways I would think this is terrible. But watching my kids and their phones in addition to, you know, you almost think it would be higher than that sometimes because I
[14:46] Jere-meme: would think. Yeah, I, I don’t know how accurate these are just, I just think it’s interesting to see, you know.
[14:53] Michelle: Yeah, it’s a substantial amount of time,
[14:55] Jere-meme: substantial. So, American on the right side, their distribution of American screen time TV is 34% video game, 16 movies, 14 online videos, 12 social media, nine other nine and ebook six make up the total amount of screen time. And I was wondering too, I don’t know if this even accounts for work, you know, if that is other may, maybe other is work. I don’t know, maybe,
[15:24] Michelle: maybe this is, maybe this is just leisure time because for me, the majority of my screen time is work, you know, for, for someone who’s a heavy into researcher. But for most of us, I think everybody has a laptop or a desktop open at work. Most people and go ahead. What were you gonna say? Sorry?
[15:43] Jere-meme: Oh, no, no. Yeah, it’s not really clear on this if, whether or not work is covered under other or if it’s um above and beyond because some people spend, you know, eight hours at work staring at a screen and then if they were seriously another 87 hours whatever. Oh, my gosh. That is a lot of screen time. It’s like constant.
[16:03] Michelle: That’s my guess. I’m interpreting this to mean like outside of like leisure time in addition to work. That’s crazy. Ok,
[16:11] Jere-meme: so there are countless bids for our attention. Um Nowadays, my goodness gracious if you have a screen open, everything wants a piece of you, emails, Facebook advertisements, Tik Tok, help telegram bla bla bla bla you know, we’re piled up with all these bids for our attention. We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom. Right? There’s Yeah, I like that one. So because of this sheer amount of information we need to sort at top speed. I I love this episode of, I love Lucy if you remember that one, Chocolate Factory Super super fast. Yeah. And then, and then they start shoving them in their mouths and stuff. It’s really funny because of this need to sort things constantly. People increasingly have the attention span of hamsters. Hamsters are known for only me being able to focus on any task for longer than a few seconds or often they’re unable to Oh my gosh, that crazy. OK. The rule of thumb and digital advertising is that you must capture the user’s attention within the first three seconds of the ad or else you risk losing them completely. So because we’re just constantly sorting and things are coming at us. If it doesn’t catch our attention immediately, boom, it’s gone. We, we scroll on through, it’s gone. So Oh, look at this little, he’s so cute. Right? Um Getting a message out to the truth seekers, the blind, the distracted and asleep through meme and memes. Are this uh Michelle’s mommy? This is what a meme is. These pictures you see that are like, oh that’s so cute. Look at this little guy when you’re back at work Monday morning trying to put on that smile. Oh, trying so hard. Right. Make you laugh. And that kind of thing, you can even spell words wrong. Like they didn’t spell the word, you’re right. But I was
[18:05] Michelle: gonna say since, since we like, I, I I’m like it’s killing me to not address yes. The you is wrong. You, you sort of, it means it’s kind of like whatever.
[18:19] Jere-meme: Yeah. OK. Meme defined an image video piece of text, et cetera, typically humorous in nature that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users often with slight variations.
[18:35] Michelle: OK.
[18:37] Jere-meme: And I would say too regarding the video, usually if it’s gonna be video, it’s gonna be a very short clip.
[18:43] Michelle: Mhm So it is, it’s a so all of the things that are in this present, you can even go to the next slide, all of these slides in this presentation where like the classic idea of a meme is something like this, a picture with some big, some easy to read text on. It just gets a quick idea across, usually, not always. And we had a discussion about this Jeremy, but usually not that much text. It’s usually the picture with a quick text that you can read and often humorous. Not always, but that’s kind of the idea. Right. It’s kind of a, um, we talked about the old Mormon ad campaign. Remember the posters? Those were early memes. Like they have a poster with some text. And so now, but a meme is that same idea online. And I like that it included that as it gets shared, people change it, it gets a life of its own. OK. All right. So mom, I’m hoping you have that. If you don’t let me know, we’ll try to put more definitions in. So OK, mom and any other great grandmothers, I’m a grandma. You’re a grandma. So you’re just goes out. So I can’t just say grandparents but anyone who doesn’t yet get memes, this is what they are. OK.
[19:51] Jere-meme: And this is one that I grabbed up real quick and this is somebody else’s meme. A lot of these are other people’s memes. So le let’s see here. So how others share the gospel, you know, with their books to people, how I share the gospel because one does not simply share the gospel without memes. And people could think people could think memes are just kind of frivolous or silly, you know, but they can really cause an impact. What were you gonna say, Michelle?
[20:18] Michelle: Um I was just gonna say for anyone also they, they do rely heavily on cultural awareness, like, off, like there are lots and lots of movie memes. And so like this, um, the bottom portion of this, everyone who’s watched Lord of the Rings knows exactly what that is. Right. One does not simply walk into mordor. Right. And, um, but people who, so, so if you ever don’t get a meme and you’re like, well, it’s just because you haven’t seen the movie, right? And sometimes they’re still funny. So I wanted to clarify that. I’m everyone who’s like, dad, we know this is for the part of the audience that doesn’t necessarily know. So, yeah, so don’t give up on memes just because you might not have seen that movie. Ok. Yes. Yes.
[20:57] Jere-meme: This was a, a comment that I saw online, um, from a woman that had seen a, a meme and I didn’t, didn’t put the actual meme up here because I thought it was a little too risque for your show. But it said, uh this meme was a big hinge point in my waking up journey. I remember when I first saw it, I was totally scandalized, but I kept coming back to it over the next few weeks and months and et cetera, et cetera. But the point is that the meme helped her to investigate more and to think about things and it helped her to wake up to some stuff. So I think that’s, that’s a, a great testimonial to the power of memes and in the gospel
[21:39] Michelle: that is really, that’s, that’s, that’s really true. It’s really powerful. We can show some examples later on of various memes that have had that effect on people, I think because it really does. It, yeah, you can feel scandalized or just, or just amused first, but it has a way of sticking with you sometimes some good. Ok.
[21:59] Jere-meme: So I’m just pointing out the L DS church does use memes. They even have a, you know, on their website where you can download memes and share their memes. So they, they get that they work,
[22:10] Michelle: they have their own downloadable. I didn’t realize that. So they, the L DS church, like they want us to be meme warriors, right?
[22:18] Jere-meme: Yeah. On the, on the right here is actually a screenshot from the church website with memes that you can download and share.
[22:25] Michelle: Oh my gosh, that’s crazy. Ok. So we are, we are like we’re doing the work we’re doing exactly what we’re supposed to be with the permission of the church that makes me happy.
[22:35] Jere-meme: Um But so do the anti ex Mormon types, right? So they’ve got their, you know about that. I don’t, I’m not going to spend time going over each one of these. But um and so do all the other sects and, you know, fundamental fundamentalist types and, you know, everybody’s got memes that they put out there.
[22:52] Michelle: People can go ahead and screen that, pause the screen and go through the
[22:55] Jere-meme: Yeah, there you go. Uh Gerald’s top 10 reasons why memes work. Oh This is a surprise. You didn’t know this was in
[23:04] Michelle: here. I did it. This is new. I love the scientific. OK.
[23:08] Jere-meme: Number one images get attention content with visuals, get 94% more total views and, and this is I’ve got no source for this but just know that’s totally the truth that you can just say they get a lot more views. If you have visuals. This is I don’t think anybody would buddy would refute that.
[23:29] Michelle: No, I know that on, on Facebook. I’m not on Instagram. I need to get there. But a lot of times people say picture included just to grab attention and it has nothing to do with just the, you know, like if you want to get more reach include a visual. Yeah, exactly.
[23:44] Jere-meme: So what did you first look at when I put this up,
[23:48] Michelle: Brigham’s face?
[23:49] Jere-meme: Brigham’s face, Brigham’s face. I think most people on here would say, yeah, Brigham’s face, I think that the order people would look at this in, they’d look at Brigham’s face, they look at what he’s saying because it’s short, they’d probably go up to the greenish words at the top because they’re bold and it’s the next in kind of the visual hierarchy followed by the two paragraphs that have highlighting in them on the right and then finally, and finally they would probably go over to the left which is all just plain black and white words. That’s, that’s more than likely the way people’s eyes would go. So when I first posted this meme, this is what it looked like and, and it, it hardly had any reach at all. I reposted the exact same meme. This is the, the words from the same meme. It’s the same, same exact words only with the picture and, and a question at the top and, and people were willing, people are might not ever read the words if they were just plain, right on the right those two paragraphs, but they are willing to commit to find out what is Brigham saying? I’m going to commit to one sentence was Hiram’s Joseph was Hiram Joseph’s chosen successor or the one Joseph said would lead the church to hell. Oh, that’s a, that’ll grab you like, oh, I wanna know what that’s about. I’m now willing to read two paragraphs, you know, it kind of teas and helps people get into it.
[25:20] Michelle: Yeah. What you actually did was add more text that we have to read
[25:24] Jere-meme: right in the grand scheme.
[25:26] Michelle: But we have a, you gave us a reason to read it because that was my exact experience. Like I would scroll past that especially when I’m just like, like when I usually am on is when I’m like uh tired at the end of the day and taking a break from work. So you know what I mean? I don’t want to commit to reading, but when you give me a reason to read it, then I will. Yeah. Good, good, good example.
[25:49] Jere-meme: OK? You mentioned this one. Pop culture makes it engaging. You know, if you like Marvel, you’re like, oh snap, I remember that, you know the Ragnarok was that Ragnarok? I think it was Ragnarok movie. Um Brigham, you know, this is, this is a poke at church history stuff. Brigham. Yes, Joseph, I will. I, and you have to be the one to lead the church. Oh no, Joseph, not I I am but a man God has chosen you. Everyone else will lead the church to hell, Joseph. I see. This must be with great reluctance. I will do it for you and for the Lord and then the choir sings. Oh
[26:33] Michelle: oh OK. This is so good because people who know the movie get that side of it. People who know church history and, and what you are quoting what you are citing, right? So that’s one thing, memes are like the ultimate, the ultra ultra inside jokes as well, right? Like this can amuse anybody but people who really know exactly what you’re hitting on are dying. OK. That’s awesome.
[27:01] Jere-meme: And, and, and your, and your uncle who won’t if you try to send you, you know, you, you mentioned like, well, they know what you’re talking about if you were to send that person, the pages from the Joseph Smith papers to read or some clips from articles, they’ll be like, oh, I’m not reading that article but if they like Marvel, if they like, you know, uh Homer Simpson or whoever, then maybe they’ll read it because it’s got something in it from pop culture that actually will draw them in
[27:31] Michelle: and, and you can follow the example of what you did on the Brigham meme where you could send the data points behind it. But the meme first, right? Send the meme and then attach the because if they want to argue with you about that meme. Well, here’s all of the evidence and so that’s a great way to do it. OK.
[27:51] Jere-meme: Number three, reader doesn’t necessarily have to look anything up and this is addressing what I just said actually, uh here’s Drake, he’s a uh a pop star rapper guy, I believe um getting a friend to open their scriptures to understand a verse. Oh no, oh no. Getting a friend to read a document in the Joseph Smith papers. Oh no. Oh no. Getting a friend to read that same information with a picture of their favorite movie star or cartoon characters, picture. Oh, bring it up.
[28:24] Michelle: You got it. Yep. And I have no idea who Drake is, but I’ve seen this meme all over the place because it’s soy. So OK.
[28:31] Jere-meme: Exactly. So, laughter and learning humor, boost retention. So I found this study it said humor activates the brain’s dopamine reward system, stimulating goal oriented motivation and long term memory, which means that humor can improve retention in students of all ages. So if you have something funny in it, um it helps it to stick in their brain. Number five, it’s more likely to be shared. It’s kind of a, a low quality uh graphic, but it says visual content is now 40 times more likely to be shared on social networks. So if you just do some print, it’s chances are substantially less uh po you know, it’s, it’s le less that it’s going to be sent out 40 times more likely if it’s got a picture.
[29:27] Michelle: That’s cool. That makes me, I have to interrupt you for a second. I’m sorry, because I’m, I’m a little proud of myself that some of my full text, like I, I did a couple of lists of questions about polygamy for people to find out and it got shared broadly. And so I’m like, oh, what picture? Sometimes a picture isn’t appropriate, you know, and it still can be shared if it’s really good content, but it’s good to know to include a picture if at all possible. So
[29:52] Jere-meme: and so we should probably make that into a meme too or a bunch of me, you know, with pictures and stuff. So that’d be great on the right here is the olden days, you know, she’s got her eighties style hairstyle style hairstyle and she’s out there handing out her flyers trying to get information out. You know, that was the olden days now with digital, you don’t have to go to the photocopy shop. You don’t have to, you know, stand out on a street corner, sweating it up, handing out flyers. You can simply digitally send it out and it gets sent out again and again and again. That’s
[30:27] Michelle: great. Yeah.
[30:29] Jere-meme: Number seven. Breathe for short attention spans. Oh, that got cut off a little bit. Uh You see on the right there, it says gospel topics, essay writers and he’s fitting his facts into the church narrative, which is round. This is a scene from one of the greatest documentaries of all time and it’s called idiocracy. So if somebody has one of those short hamster attention spans, you know, you can get it really fast because it’s this one’s nice and punchy. I can’t read the scriptures for you, but I can give it to you mean sure enough for your attention span like a hamster still to get come on or the rings, you gotta love it.
[31:10] Michelle: That was a good one. I like that one but I saw it.
[31:13] Jere-meme: Ok. So number eight outrageous is more memorable. So if you ever do any study into memory, um you know, if you take something that, you know, OK, these guys that can like memorize a whole deck of cards and you go, how do they do that? If you talk to them about, they’re like, well, there’s the blueberries that were coming out of my eyeballs and they squished on the ground and they turn into ice and like they do these visual things, these outrageous things and it helps it to stick. So, here’s an outrageous picture of this little guy LD is pushing on a growing number of members who question. Yeah. Ok. That is
[31:51] Michelle: a hilarious meme. I love that one. It’s very, very funny. Ok.
[31:57] Jere-meme: Uh So they, they’re anonymous. Um, you know, one of the, one of the major issues that you deal with, um Michelle is that you are doing uh a record over time of your journey. If somebody goes back to video number three and compares it to video 100 and whatever and sees that you’ve changed something, they could make you an offender for a word where they go. You said that you believe da da da, da da and you go, well, I, I’ve evolved, I used to believe that until I was presented with other information and now I, I believe that fill in the blank and people can give you a hard time about that because memes don’t have your name on them unless you want them to, they’re just passed around. You could have an idea and send it out into the inter webs and it just does what it’s gonna do and you could change your mind later on and make a new meme, but it’s not like somebody’s gonna bust your chops because of the old meme that you made also. And I’ll get one, I’ll get one of the reasons for being anonymous. But that, that’s a big reason anyways. Yes, we’re gonna say Michelle.
[33:03] Michelle: Ok. Yeah, you’re gonna get into more reasons because there are a lot of other reasons. Well, and in my defense, I do have to say the only thing I think I have changed my mind about is whether or not we can verify that it is whether or not Joseph dabbled it all in polygamy and whether or not we can verify that. I think that’s the only thing on my podcast that I really changed my mind about. I think other than that, I’ve been pretty consistent and it’s, yeah, it is. It’s because I learned a whole lot more.
[33:30] Jere-meme: Yes. And also any misspoken things that all the technical stuff that you have to go through in the course of an episode. Yeah.
[33:41] Michelle: Yeah. The worst one were the, were the three I was doing with no producer when I tried to say because I don’t believe Joseph was a polygamist and somehow it came out because I don’t believe Joseph was a prophet. I got a lot of response on that one. So, so in the record again, I do believe Joseph was a prophet. I don’t believe Joseph was a polygamist in case anyone is still hung up on that one. OK,
[34:03] Jere-meme: so this is a scene from one of the greatest movies of all time. Let me tell you something. Let me, let me tell you about the interesting church history documents. I’ve been researching la la la, I’m not listening and TB M people say true believing Mormon or you know that that’s usually the in the box. Uh Yeah. Um And then the heretic there is on the right now. Uh I, I put this after this other slide just because, you know, sometimes people, um you know, you could share an anonymous, you, you, you don’t have, you could be the one that made the, the meme and then share it with somebody who won’t hear it from you, but you could give them the meme. That’s just, oh, what do you think of this meme? Um And maybe they might listen to it because you’re not the one that made it.
[34:48] Michelle: Can I, can I say something on this one as well? Are you, are you? Well, I have a couple of questions that this one makes me think of. Um First of all, are you going into the apostate versus heretic? OK. So I’ll say that because that’s, that was awesome. That was a good epiphany for me, from your, from your group. But also I think a really important thing and maybe you’ll go into this as well, but it’s how helpful means can be to the meme maker because often you have things that you need to say that you’re not free to say, right? Just like people who are in the closet more. I’m, I’m wide out in the open. So this doesn’t affect me as much. But I know that when I went through a really difficult time with the church, it was when I was engaging with the bishop over my lot’s wife, insights and I, and I knew that those insights were true and I was told that I had to say I was wrong and that I was never to say those things again. And you know, I, and it was so important to me to be able to write that paper out. I thought was the first time I presented at Sunstone. And there’s something important about saying what needs to be said. And memes give you the chance to do that like they can actually be, be incredibly cathartic and healing to the person making them who feels, it gives them a voice when they feel like they’re not able to express, express themselves and use their voice. And it’s so anyone in that situation consider memes, they can be anonymous, you don’t have to put, but you can say what needs to be said and that’s really
[36:10] Jere-meme: useful, nailed it. Um And this goes back to that same thing last week’s belief that you now realize was just a false tradition. There’s spongebob burning it up. Yeah. So, you know, it allows you to evolve where you can make other memes and put away the old ones. And number 10, anyone can make them who me pe people say. Oh no, I’ve never done that but it’s, it’s pretty danged easy. Uh So right here this is,
[36:38] Michelle: can I speak to that again as well? Like, like that is for me. That’s totally for me because I, you’re an artist. I do not have an artistic bone in my body. Really like none. Zero, you know, and so I, the first time I made a meme, I was so proud of myself and I, I do it the like least efficient way. I know nothing about how to do it. But I had this idea that grew from a couple of ideas. I saw that I was like, oh, it’s brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, you know, and I made a meme and my kids helped me and, and I was like, like, it’s really fun and gratifying and you really can learn to make a meme. I think you’re gonna help us learn to do it better. But I went on from there and made, I’ve made several memes now and it’s really fun and I can do it and I didn’t think I could. OK.
[37:27] Jere-meme: Yeah. You know, back in college I had a Photoshop class. It was a class just on Photoshop and it was so complicated and I think people could think that these um well, you gotta be good at Photoshop. You gotta, you gotta have some expensive software. I, I don’t know how to do that stuff. No, no, no, no, no, it’s on your stinking phone and most people have phones. Um, and so here on the left, here, uh on the far left, um, I just did a screenshot of a bunch of, you know, this is actually for a Samsung phone. I’m sure iphones are the same deal. You know, you can get on there and find meme generator or meme maker or meme, you know, there’s a ton of different apps out there. Generally they’re free and or you get a paid version if you don’t want ads, that kind of thing, but it makes it totally easy. Uh The one in the middle is for collage making, like sometimes you may have like different pictures you want to put together and there’s different apps for that and the one on the far right is uh to cut and paste, like maybe you want to take a head off of somebody and put it on somebody else, that kind of thing. Those are usually the, the three, the three main apps that that I use. Um And I do all my, all mine on the phone um on my phone. So
[38:42] Michelle: OK, New Year’s resolution for me. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but I am I, I am going to try, I’ve never done that. Like I make memes the dumbest way, you know, like, like take the pictures myself first of all, or go into like Google slides and try to put some text on. So I am going to use like one from each column and this next year and make a meme and that is my, my goal. So OK, I’m going to get better at me making
[39:14] Jere-meme: do it. OK. So I’m gonna go ahead and do a meme making tutorial. I recorded this earlier.
[39:21] Michelle: Yeah, let me try to do that for you. Here we go. So this is Jeremy’s special presentation just for us on how to make a meme. So everyone get out your notebooks, take notes and be ready to watch this again because it’s great fun. Here it goes.
[39:36] Jere-meme: Brothers insist. Yeah, we’re gonna do a meme tutorial. I have open here, uh an app called Meme Generator. It’s free on Android. I don’t know about uh iphones but uh if you go to the stores, you can find all kinds of app, free apps uh for the meme making world. And as I kind of scroll through these kind of slow, you can see there’s a ton of them. You just choose a picture and slap some words on there and you’re off to the races. Bada bing, bada. Boom. Easy. Peasy. Lemon squeezy. You have a meme and you can, you know, save it and share it as I scroll through these. I bet there’s a bunch you’re like, oh, I know that one. I know that one, that’s where people are getting that. Um, like I said, this is just one of many, many apps. So, and, and to do it, I mean, heck you just click on one and then you, you just, you know, change the words to be what you want. So there you go. Um, but we’re not gonna do one from a, uh, one of their pictures. I had an idea last night that I wanna do in honor of Michelle Stone and, uh, people like her, you know, as you become a youtube personality and as you become a, um, an authority or a perceived authority on a topic, people start asking you do you to do stuff that they should do for themselves. And I’m not saying that Michelle is, uh, is having that happen, but I imagine she is and, uh, I thought it’d be fun to do something that kind of pokes at that. Um, you know, I, it’s just like with anything, any, any channel, I mean, if you’ve got a gardening channel, uh, people are gonna contact you in the notes and be like, uh, I’m in zone six B, can I plant potatoes in September? Uh, Google it. Silly Billy. Ok. So what I’m gonna do is something about that using this, uh, meme generator, but I’m gonna use my own pictures. So I’m gonna go to Google and I’m gonna put in some keywords to try to find some pictures. I’m gonna do a woman carrying uh heavy, oops, my spelling got bad, carrying a heavy load. Let’s see what comes up with images. I’ll see what catches my eye. Ok. So there’s gonna be a bunch like this that have watermarks on them. I would never use one that has water marks. No, thank you. It just looks bad. I don’t, I don’t like it no matter how much. I like the picture. I won’t use it. Um, and I’m not saying that I won’t use some that are from paid sites. Um, it’s up to you. What you want to do with that. The reality is, is that, oh, I like this one. I like this one. the reality is, is that, uh, the chances of you being, uh, in trouble for using a, a paid photo in your meme is negligible, um, usually just be in trouble if you used it for, um, you know, if you were trying to make money doing advertising with it or something like that. But, uh, anyways, uh, let’s move on. The next one is why don’t we do, uh, overwhelmed. Oops, I spelled that weird housewife and see what that comes up with. See what comes out to me. What sticks out. I like the pictures that I just go. Boom. I like that 10, I like that one. Ok. This is a Superstock one and I’ll use it whatever. Um, I’m just gonna crop out the part that has the thing that says Superstock on it. Perhaps. You think me of, uh, ill morality. Hey, you just don’t do it. Ok. Uh, let’s see here. Um, the last one I wanna do is, uh, adult tying, uh, shoes. Let’s see what that comes up with. Oh, I like this one. The husband or the man tying the little person’s shoes, but it doesn’t, it’s not my favorite. Oh, I like this one. Let’s use that one. Download image. OK. So now I’m going to go back to this meme generator and I’m going to click on this lower right corner that says custom meme and I’m going to do the second from the bottom collage multi panel meme. I’m gonna look for one that’s got a place for three pictures, right? Did I miss one? I thought I thought there was one on here. Oh, right here. Ok. Add picture. Um I’m gonna do this lady first make her a little bigger so you can kind of see what’s going on. I’m gonna do the second one. Is this lady and I’m gonna kinda make the super stock go off the bottom a little bit, maybe like that. And I’m gonna use the third one. The lady with the little girl tying her shoe. That looks good. Next step. Ok. What are my words? I’m gonna say asking Michelle Stone to do church history research that you could do for yourself is like dot dot dot And let’s make this one more line so it fits the space. OK? I like that. I’m gonna say text um asking this woman to carry something for you and I’m gonna go ahead and put a background on that fill, fill the background. Probably don’t need that many lines. I I’ll just do three lines and see how that looks asking this woman to carry something for you. Ha ha ha ha. OK. Uh Now I’m gonna do this next one. I’m not gonna say woman again, I’m gonna say lady, so it’s not redundant asking this. Oops. Yeah, this lady to say mop your floor. Ok. And let’s make that smaller. I wanna see the dishes there and I want it to be kind of a similar size as the other one asking this lady to mop your floor. Uh It’s a little bit bigger but that looks, that’s fine. Ok. Now the next one, asking your mommy, oops, mommy to tie your shoes when you already know how oh snap. OK. Let’s move that we have to put this up high because if we put it over her tying of her shoes, then we won’t be able to see the fact that she’s tying her shoes. All right, let’s, let’s let this one sink in asking Michelle Stone to do church history research that you could do for yourself is like asking this woman to carry something, carry something for you, asking this lady to mop your floor asking your mommy to tie your shoes. Oh, this is a zinger. This is a zinger. I think that this is to help people to go to empower people, you know, to not rely on Michelle to try to do their, there are research for them. Let me move this over just to here. All right, that’s it. So now I’m going to go ahead and press save, save as image. OK? And now this can be shared to your heart’s delight.
[47:58] Michelle: Peace. That was great. I love
[48:06] Jere-meme: it. So easy, so easy. Everyone can do it.
[48:10] Michelle: OK? So I’m gonna add your presentation. Do you, are you keep continuing your
[48:15] Jere-meme: presentation? We’re gonna keep on struck. So I’m gonna do just a few tips here to make your memes more effective. Uh First of all, it’s interesting. This is an actual meme template. It is so dark. First of all, just the picture is bad, you know. But I, I, you can’t, you can’t even read what the dude’s saying. Can you like there’s, the guy is saying something in the upper left one, but you can’t read it. So the guy is saying uh maybe don’t choose some weird, hard to read font, put it in a contrasting color and make it big enough to read and maybe I’ll listen. Yeah. Like so sometimes I see a great meme but like you can’t really read it.
[48:55] Michelle: I’ve done that before. Yeah. Yeah. The idea behind the meme Yeah. The idea behind the meme is you don’t have to work hard. It’s right there. It just, it just shouts out at you. So don’t. Yes, that’s ok. Point taken very, very
[49:09] Jere-meme: good. I, I often times will see kids or even adults on the side of the road, like, with a big song in ballpoint pen that says car wash or something and you’re driving by, like, I can’t read that or they have a bunch of work, you know, it’s like uh you need to understand how eyes work brevity wins. So where does your eye go first with this one? Probably the one on the left apostate one who not agree brethren. So that’s a brief, whereas the one on the right, it’s great, but it’s got more words. Bishop. Why on the day that historians say that Joseph Smith gave the 12 authority to leave the church. Does Joseph’s journal read simply in counsel and warm somewhat. Oh, that’s an easy one. Read. Your scriptures, say your prayers. All the prophet pay your tithing and attend the temple.
[50:00] Michelle: OK. So they’re both great. Just the fewer words, the more likely it is to be read and share. So it’s not saying you can’t use a lot of words just there’s a cost benefit.
[50:14] Jere-meme: Exactly. Um So the one on the right here when you ask me to sum up a lifetime of study into a bite size nugget. So you can judge in a moment of deliberation, whether what I believe is right or wrong. There’s people that do that to us, they, you know, like, well, just give me the cliff note five seconds, you know, and we’re like, oh my gosh, you, you gotta put more effort into it than that. But that’s really what memes are trying to do, trying to put it all into just a punch of information that you can give to somebody. Now, this one on the right is one that I made that I count as one of the most important things that I found, ok, that I think is super interesting and everybody should be aware of. I bet you very few have actually taken the time to read it. It’s, it’s one of those things where it’s like I’ve taken the articles where you don’t have to go find them, but there’s still old timey documents, old timey, you know, that I don’t know if there’s enough there to get people to want to read it. I probably need to have a better catch line at the top. You know, there’s some things I could do but sometimes they just aren’t going to be brief, you know, but as a result and, and like you say, the the result, net result though is less people are going to read it. But still that is a really good bit of information as long as it is.
[51:39] Michelle: Ok? So go back to that one at the at the risk of having you pull out a face at me that is in the first meme. Now that you’ve got everyone intrigued by what you found, do you want to tell us what it is?
[51:54] Jere-meme: So, a while back, I did a really deep dive into the topic of fast offerings and just trying to find out where did that come from? You know, it’s, it’s not in the scriptures. Well, it is in the scriptures, it’s in Isaiah. Um only if you connect dots that aren’t really there. So I, I went back and I found these two articles um that talk about fast offerings and their origin. And it’s like it, it is, it’s just wild like, you know, you read in the, the church uh curriculum and it will say things like God instituted the law of the fast offering to provide for the poor. It, it says that but there’s never gonna be any footnote on it because there is no footnote on it because if you go back to the history of it, the, the one I can’t, it’s a small writing on my screen, but one of them is basically saying the history is that Joseph Smith had, there’s a bunch of people that came into the city and he did a short term fundraiser to um provide for their needs and they called it a fast offering, right? And then much, much later, um Brigham Young instituted again and it became a practice uh in the church, but it doesn’t say anything about revelation or God instituted it or it’s from the scriptures or anything like that. It was just they, they made it up
[53:17] Michelle: super good to know. So this is like one of those maybe where you do the meme without um it could be one where you do the meme, then get the point across and then attach, attach the um information for people who wanna learn, learn more is another option. So OK, that’s awesome. Thank you. And people will be able to look those sources up or I can include them below because that’s like a whole new bit of information for anyone who hasn’t seen that before, which chooses me. So, thank you. That’s awesome.
[53:44] Jere-meme: Now, um this is kind of a home for people who are kind of like the guy with the tie there, kids, kids, you’re both just awful. It’s kind of we, we find ourselves in this place where it’s like we’re not, we’re not um completely on board with everything the current church is teaching for, you know, the current narrative with everything. I mean, it may just be one single doctrine or maybe many doctrines or practices or something. And then we’re not on the other side and X mo is really not a very good name. These, these names stink. We are so bad about defining, you know, who, who people are because a lot of people go with TB M. True Blue Mormon. Well, I’m a True Blue Mormon, I believe in the book of Mormon. The people that go to church right now, most of them, they don’t, they don’t believe in the book of Mormon. You know, and most people are like, well, I’m in, I got kicked out of the church but, but I still believe, like, I, I’m not anti Joseph Smith. I’m not, you know, like, so these labels stink but just trying to say that like the people in this group generally are kind of in the middle land where they’re like, well, I see that there’s some issues with the church. All is, well, not all is not. Well, in Zion and I want to have a place to kind of hash through some of that stuff with other people. I
[54:58] Michelle: love it. Let me, let me chime in on the TB M. So usually that’s true Blue Mormon or True believing Mormon, how I’ve come to interpret that now is kind of people who are really concerned with boundaries. Like they’re the people who say if you think that why don’t you just leave or you need to be kicked out the people who are like anxiously waiting for someone like me to be kicked out of the church, you know, like, like it, it, it does tend to be a little bit of a, um, maybe like, it’s used kind of as a pejorative I would say, right. And so, so I don’t think it’s people who just have a test like I know a lot. So my best friend who I just was talking to last night is as faithful as they come. But she will engage with me and have awesome conversations. Right? So it’s just about being open to ideas or being like you’re not allowed to say that. Right. That’s what I think you’re trying to encap, we’re trying to encapsulate with that. And now, yeah, the exos are like, throw it all out. Joseph was a con man and anyone who, and the church has only bad and anyone who believes it is kind of stupid, right? Like anyway, maybe that’s overstated, but that’s kind of what it’s getting to. It’s like there are a lot of us that don’t fit into either category.
[56:02] Jere-meme: Yeah, exactly. So this is an important distinction to make words matter, right? Um So apostate the definition, the actual definition of apostate on the left is someone a person who forsakes his religion cause party et cetera, forsake means complete, complete leave, right? You’re completely gone. Whereas heretic is a professed believer who maintains religious opinions contrary to those accepted by their church or rejects doctrines prescribed by that church. So that’s what this group is about being a heretic, not an apostate where you just completely have said, oh, there’s no God, there’s no, you know, scriptures are fairy tales and whatever,
[56:49] Michelle: right? I love. This is this is a distinction that memes in this group brought to my attention. I was like, oh, I love that because so an apostate, this is the way I would describe it. Like where I do an apostate is someone who from the, who is on the outside who no longer considers themselves a member of the tribe who doesn’t affiliate or, or at least doesn’t make, you know what I mean? They do not attend church, they don’t grapple with the questions, right? They have left and a heretic is like, we’re the ones kind of that are like in the battle, taking arrows from both sides. Like it is a hard place to be, but we’re the ones on the inside. Still TB M still true. Leading members of the church who just say, hey, this idea of the prophet can never lead the church astray and follow the prophet isn’t great and it’s not scriptural, right? Like that’s kind of where we are. It’s like, like, like there’s value in the church, there’s so much value in the gospel. There’s value in the scriptures and reading the scriptures kind of shows us that all is not well and Zion, oh look the scriptures even tell us all is not well and Zion and don’t say that, right? So, so anyway, I think it’s good to, to say we are on the inside wanting to be on the inside, right? We like, like I know that many people have left the church or some have been kicked out but still consider themselves believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. So, so I think that’s a really useful distinction whenever people call me. Um whenever someone wants to call me an apostate for now, and I’m just gonna say, nope, I’m not an apostate. I’m a heretic.
[58:23] Jere-meme: That’s right. Get it straight. And the challenge with that, the, the, the challenge with that though, Michelle Michelle E Kins is that the church has um has changed the definition, you know, to be, I mean, well, well, it, it’s if, if you, if you look online, it, it’s, if you are disagreeing publicly with the brethren, you know,
[58:47] Michelle: then you can be labeled being an apostate.
[58:50] Jere-meme: Correct. Yeah, you’re, you’re in apostasy according to I believe the handbook. So, oh, this is a meme about that. But how do you know she’s an apostate because she said something different than the quorum of the 15. But do not heretics also say something different than church leaders. Oh, yeah. There are ways of telling whether she is an apostate. Does she talk about these beliefs publicly? Yes. Yes, she does. She’s an apostate, excommunicate her.
[59:24] Michelle: That’s great. I almost feel like they should also say, throw her in the river, see if she floats. Yeah.
[59:32] Jere-meme: And I could have added a bunch more. Uh
[59:34] Michelle: This is great. This is great.
[59:37] Jere-meme: So, in our group the apostle group, you know, on one extreme, you might have somebody who attends church every Sunday holds a calling and pays tithing, raises her hand to sustain leaders, believes almost all L Ds doctrines, but firmly believes tithing the poor is wrong and would be happy to show you the scriptures why this is the case. So there’s some people that just like maybe they are one thing that’s kind of like a hang up, you know. Um and they’re there to talk about that and other things and in, in the group and then on the other extreme, you’ve got people who are happy to attend any Christian church that seeks to follow Christ believes in God and the book of Mormon, but doesn’t believe there’s been an actual prophet since Joseph Smith views current L DS leadership more like directing more board of a corporation. So, you know, you’ve got people that are like much more extreme on one end and just coming into the group, you need to realize there’s, there’s all kinds in the group.
[1:00:28] Michelle: Yeah. Yeah, like sometimes I just scroll past memes that are like, I, I personally don’t like um super critical, I don’t like being hypercritical of leaders or, you know, some people do. And so, so I, I think like, recognize not every meme is going to be for you and give yourself permission to scroll by, right? And I have, I’m sorry to be picky, but I have to correct your meme here. You totally put the women on the wrong side. You have the sleeveless one in the first category, which is a big,
[1:01:02] Jere-meme: oh my gosh. I, I’ll have to fix that. Maybe we can fix it and post so and just so, you know, too, there may be people who, who are totally like, oh, I want to get in that groove and stir it up. Well, I’m, you know, yeah, trolls. So just know that it, you won’t last long. If you break our rules, if you’re annoying, if you’re promoting your abominations, you’re gonna get kicked out quick. So you might as well save your time and not give us grief.
[1:01:35] Michelle: That’s great. And I also have to say we have some, there are some people in the group that are like using it as a cross lighting tool in terms of like their Christian religion or to save people from the abomination of Mormonism or to come in and like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna like, even even be sort of a TB M and I’m gonna call all these people to repent it. Like it’s just annoying. Don’t do it. That’s, that’s another group for you. Yeah,
[1:01:57] Jere-meme: exactly. Um, and I put this one in here, I heard you got kicked out of the vegetarians. Facebook group. Yeah. Those people got no class. Aren’t you a meat eater? Well, yeah. Well, what were you posting about? I was telling them how dumb they were, were for not eating meat and you’re surprised you got kicked out. Hey, those people just want an echo chamber. It’s not my fault if they don’t have, if they aren’t open minded to other opinions.
[1:02:22] Michelle: Exactly.
[1:02:23] Jere-meme: Ok. So, yeah, I know that the group, it’s not a, oh, come in and say whatever you want group, it’s not, it’s not an open discussion group. It’s more, it’s a niche group for people who are, again, believe that something is, needs to be fixed in church doctrine or practices. Right.
[1:02:44] Michelle: Yeah. And also people who use various groups to come on and sell their wares to promote whatever they like. Like just don’t. It’s
[1:02:53] Jere-meme: a, so we have two main different camps uh in our group out of the closet Apostle Meers. These are people that are posting online of, you know, their, their various thoughts, very frankly. Everyone knows, they see issues in the modern church. They have no fear of repercussions. They’re like, you know, I already got kicked out or I’m, you know, whatever you do what you’re gonna do
[1:03:16] Michelle: or even if they do have fear of repercussions, they just kind of do it anyway.
[1:03:20] Jere-meme: Exactly. Exactly. And then on the other extreme, we’ve got the in the closet apostle or they want to learn and post without worrying, who knows? They’re not ready to face church discipline for beliefs outside the mainstream and don’t want to end up in a divorce court when their unwed spouse catches wind. Um They want to be able to do missionary work on their own uh with work to their own people without being labeled as an apostate, thereby making their opportunities to be heard disappear. And I’ll talk more about that. Oh,
[1:03:52] Michelle: here’s, here’s
[1:03:54] Jere-meme: we will now hear a divorce case between when Judy and Bob Jensen. Judy says that she caught Bob mentioning to a friend online that not all prophetic counsel should be taken as the word of God. She, she says this is a sure sign of apostasy and she can’t be married to a man who won’t be in the celestial kingdom. She seeks their collection of Janice K Perry sheet music and, and mini Christi. So you know, there are people that you know that they’re working on their, their spouse, they want their spouse to learn over time. And
[1:04:25] Michelle: this also is a great example of the memes and maybe you’re going to get to this. But so often I will see memes and I don’t know whether to do like a laugh, uh thumbs up or like a cry. Do you know what I mean? Because that’s one powerful thing about memes. They can make you laugh at the tragic, which is important, but it also gives voice. It is tragic that family relationships are so damaged by, you know, by faith, faith transitions or by people learning more. It is really a hard thing. So, so that’s, that’s one thing like no, no shame, no hate to the in the closet memes or in the closet like like yeah, more power to you so great.
[1:05:07] Jere-meme: It’s a private group and I have people who, who’ve contacted me privately for two reasons. One reason is to say I want you to make this group public, make it public. And they, there are people that are short on empathy for people who are still in the closet. They’re like, you need to just, you need to not be afraid and, but the, but the reality is this is that um when somebody is labeled an apostate, even if they’re still in the church, it can ruin their opportunities to still share to certain people. They’re trying to share to because people in our church will stop listening or a lot of them, you know, they will, they’ll shun you. So, um
[1:05:52] Michelle: and like you said, if my mom or dad find out or if my wife or the husband finds out or it’s just tricky. I, I mean, I shouldn’t say finds out. It’s just I need to say things that, that I’m not ready for everyone to me. Yeah. Mhm.
[1:06:10] Jere-meme: Um And so this is the one that Dale had posted when your favorite podcaster asked you to talk about something, but you’re in an Annon who needs your secret identity. And so there’s people that are posting, yeah, there’s people that either have fake uh account, you know, fake names or they just post anonymously on, on everything. So this, this is a note that I got from a friend of mine who is serving as a bishop who I had spoke, you know, who had gotten a hold of some of my beliefs, you know, nowadays. And he said I will pray for you my brother because it takes a lot of courage and faith to speak up. Maybe if enough people speak up something can change, we need people who think like you in the church. And, and the funny thing is, is like, what am I talking about? I’m talking about scriptures and church history. Why does it take courage and faith to speak up about church history and scriptures? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And he, and this is a man who, who, who ha he has to private message me. I have people that private message me. Oh my gosh, I can never say anything about this stuff out loud because you know, I’d be ostracized, you know, um in the upper right corner here, this is a quote from a friend of mine. I was sharing out some stuff about uh Gilardi’s uh Isaiah writings and one of my friends responded, my mom and siblings told me Gigliotti was recently excommunicated again. Not sure I would read anything recent of his if that was true. And so that that’s what can happen is if, if some, if you’re labeled uh you know, apostate, oh then then you can shut doors. So just know that you can be anonymous in our group so that you don’t have, don’t have to shut the door of being able to help out. There are people that share our beliefs that are still every church, every church Sunday they’re teaching in primary, they’re teaching gospel doctrine and they’re dancing around some of these issues just because they don’t want to offend people or maybe they’re just slyly slipping things in to get help people to think about stuff. You know. So, and
[1:08:27] Michelle: I will say I’m one like, I guess I’m a good taste case study because I am attending every Sunday serving in my colleague, my husband serving in his colleague. We have a son on a mission and I’m very, I, I’m hoping that I’m hoping that that people can see that more space is available to um you know, to speak openly and have a little bit less fear because I think that’s a good movement for us. I think, you know, God has never given us the spirit of fear. And if we are in a church where we have fear to speak what feels to us as truth. And like you said, and just like, I think that’s a culture, cultural um component that many of us hope will, will start to change. Because I don’t think it’s a, you know, a lot of people will talk about how good the church gospel is. And how problematic the culture is. And in some ways, I love the culture, but that’s one part of the culture. I do not love that. Call their bishop idea. Like, let’s minimize that.
[1:09:22] Jere-meme: One of my friends um actually had his name removed from the church. And after a while, actually, he called me up, we were chatting and basically, he just expressed how much he just missed like the culture and going to church. And he’s like, you know what? Now, I can’t, I can’t be influential in church. I can’t teach lessons. I can’t. And he went through a list of things that he can’t do now to be influential to people. And he was actually trying to go through the process again of rejoining the church just so that he could still have an influence on his friends and family and stuff at, at church.
[1:10:00] Michelle: You know, that. And for me, it’s not even as much about like influencing, like I’m not necessarily trying to like at church. I don’t bring any of these topics up, like, and everyone does it their way. For me, it just doesn’t feel appropriate, you know, when I was many, many years ago, grappling with things, I probably said a little bit more in com you know, but I just try really hard to be inspired if I’m going to make a comment that, you know, that is very in line with the gospel. I don’t feel, I don’t, I, I guess for me it’s like if everyone brings their variety of issues to church because we have Frog Mos who are still attending. We have, you know what I mean? It’s like we can’t worship together. So I don’t do that, but I do um I do still like without trying to change the ideas of the church at church. What I personally find great value in the church for myself and my family and God has told me to stay. So it’s not even that people attending are trying to do something. It’s just, I’m, I am a TB M in every way except for a couple of historical things I don’t agree with. Right. So there’s room for people like that too anyway. So I just wanted to clarify that not everyone is even trying to influence in a different viewpoint, I guess in trying to influence in and like let’s be a little bit open open to letting people attend to have different ideas and
[1:11:19] Jere-meme: views. And so often it’s this influence that I’m speaking of is let me help you see what the scriptures say. I’m not, I’m not talking about fitting some weird belief system. I’m talking about guess what the scriptures say, you know. Oh my gosh, that’s crazy. You know. So um I put this on here. I’m not sure how much time we want to spend on this, but maybe people can pause the screen and read if they like to. But I, I just put a couple of these up here just, you know, it’s, it’s a long history that we have of this, you know, shunning, you know, people that have beliefs that are outside the, the norm of, you know, what’s, what comes from Salt Lake. And then we, we have what comes into to our groups when your private Facebook group has a mole. There, there are people that join these groups just purely to take screenshots and to share them other places and to get people in trouble. And it just happened
[1:12:19] Michelle: to me this week. It’s, it’s last week. It’s the worst. I hate it because it’s just gross. People that do that. It’s gross. And then they go, you know, it’s gross.
[1:12:31] Jere-meme: And so this lady is saying, hi bishop, I hate to bother you. But there’s something you need to know. You have a member in your ward who is in apostasy who posts things online that are unflattering to the church. Who am I? Let’s just say I’m a concerned member. So there, there are actually reports of people saying that their bishop got a letter from out of state or people are researching where somebody lives and calling their bishop or state president to say, hey, do you know that? So and so said, don’t follow the prophet or you know, like just there, there’s people that have a, a reporting um mentality and are trying to wrap people out for what they see is they’re perceived stepping outside of the lines.
[1:13:17] Michelle: And I have to say, I don’t want that side of our church to win. That is to me, like, like when I deal with these people, it makes me, that’s what starts to make me go. I don’t want to be in this church. I don’t want to be a Mormon. I don’t because it’s like these, if these are what Mormons are, you know, it’s really like, I wish, I wish people who are engaged in this could see what they are doing to the church that there’s nothing Godly or Christ like about it. It’s the adversary who’s the great accuser, right? And it, it pushes people out of the church and leads them away from the church. It is so awful in every possible way. Please let’s not do that anymore.
[1:13:57] Jere-meme: Submit to our most modern creed or face the inquisition. That’s
[1:14:02] Michelle: what right. And I do like it when people will contact me privately and say, hey, I’m concerned about what something you said or you know, like, like go ahead and call me out to, to me and let’s have a conversation. But this reporting thing is awful. OK?
[1:14:16] Jere-meme: I threw this in here kind of random. But he, he’s, you know, this meme me adding it to my meme collection and that’s my hope is that people will, will go, oh man, that’s such a good one and they’ll save it, you know, and, and so often in conversations online and such, you know, I’ll be in these groups talking about doctrine or something and instead of giving a paragraph or like cutting and pasting like lots of words meme, boom, it answers the question. You know, you can have those just immediate immediate response to somebody. This
[1:14:49] Michelle: is actually a great, a fantastic idea because as you said, there are so many memes in that group that going and trying to find that one. Yeah. You know, it’ll take Yeah. So if you Yeah, hours you can. I’m sad. I haven’t been doing this. That’s not my, I’m I’m not great at like compiling sources. So that’s such a good idea to just have your list of memes that you can just post when you need, when you need them. That’s brilliant. I’m glad you included that one.
[1:15:18] Jere-meme: Ok. So now we’re, we’re just gonna go through some funny memes. Yay, fun, fun and interesting ones. So uh church history be like unedited edited by the church. I actually don’t wear makeup. This is how I look naturally. You know, you, you did that temple episode where you’re going through the uh you know, saints and such and looking at the footnotes and you, you, when you start to really look into it, you start to see it more on the left panel than the right.
[1:15:49] Michelle: Yes. That’s great. It’s, it’s the one is you could use the like, what are the websites like tu where it’s like, what, what I ordered. What I, yeah, yeah.
[1:16:04] Jere-meme: Another topic we do a lot of is church culture. A recent convert made the mistake of bringing a cross to an L DS chapel on Sunday. A little overboard with, uh, our disdain of a cross. It
[1:16:17] Michelle: is funny to be able to poke at our culture with, you know, like, like we have funny cultural practices. Maybe you have the one, but it’s the guy that’s, there was a recent one where the guy is drinking the monster saying coffee is against the word of wisdom. You know, we have funny stuff like that. Ok.
[1:16:35] Jere-meme: So here, here’s you at church. Michelle me trying not to make a contro controversial comment at church or like that, you know, like should I say something? Should I say something? Ok, here’s one of yours. My
[1:16:49] Michelle: first name. Yay
[1:16:52] Jere-meme: Polygamy. We, you know that polygamy is one of many topics we cover, but I, I put a bunch of the polygamy ones on here just for, just for you. This is an inside joke.
[1:17:03] Michelle: Yes. Again, the inside joke thing. Yeah. Go ahead.
[1:17:06] Jere-meme: Yeah. Well, if you, if you know, you know on this one. Mhm um Polygamy apologist, explaining how Joseph had 34 wives but no Children.
[1:17:19] Michelle: Ok. So good.
[1:17:21] Jere-meme: Uh I wish to be a descent of one of Joseph Smith’s polygamous wives who disappears. You guys here are um L DS church mommy. On the right. Brigham’s polygamy statements. Um She’s showing love and attention to Joseph’s polygamy statements are almost crowning. And then Hiram’s Pmy statements are deep underwater, dead skeleton.
[1:17:48] Michelle: These are perfect and we should, we should say I’m glad you included these because it’s my podcast. And so people who listen to my podcast will, will get all of these right? But the great aposto, as you said, there are millions of topics. I mean, there are like, there’s a wide range of topics covered. We just chose these, oh, this,
[1:18:06] Jere-meme: there’s lots of Brigham ones. Uh when someone says that one of Brigham’s quotes that makes them sound bad to be read in context, context, look something nice was in it too. And then you got Brigham’s actual quote, which is the doggy. Do do I’ve had that happen so many times where it’s like a racist comment or something that Brigham made and, and you can massage it all you want it, it was racist, it was bad, you know. And then they go, well, it makes it worse.
[1:18:31] Michelle: Yes. Yes, it does. It’s like, no, why did he say that? He spent a page and a half building up to it and,
[1:18:40] Jere-meme: oh my gosh. Yeah. But, but he did say, you know, I don’t know. So, but he did say that we should care for our brother in that. Ok. Ok. That makes the better.
[1:18:53] Michelle: That so
[1:18:53] Jere-meme: funny. So I gave this just an example we, you know, we don’t have to read all these, but just, there’s a lot of these memes that are just a picture of who said it and the quote with, with a reference I love when it’s got a reference where somebody can go. Where did you get that from? You know, references are so important for stuff like this. So somebody can look up online journal of discourses. Volume three. Number one, boy, it really does say those words in here where he was talking about putting the screws on somebody for not paying tithing war, war. W I’m gonna levy your property. So this is one that uh I put together another church history one that uh you know, some of these, I’m not going to dwell on. I’m just gonna skim over them real quickly. But these are, you know, that, that one is visually very interesting. You know, it’s like a roar shock of Brigham’s head. I think it created some interest and um I did not put any uh references on there, but somebody could easily look those up if they try to.
[1:19:57] Michelle: This was the one I saw as I was preparing for my fourth temple. One that I was like, I didn’t include that. So that’s and, and I did include it because I saw the meme. So yeah,
[1:20:10] Jere-meme: so we do a lot of these two. I I would call it a fishing, mean that awkward moment when an investigator wants to get baptized and you share 3537 instead of first ne 537. So it doesn’t tell you what the scripture is. If you want to know, you gotta look it up. You got your scriptures up.
[1:20:31] Michelle: We’re not gonna tell him,
[1:20:32] Jere-meme: we’re gonna keep going. I’m just gonna keep, so there’s, there’s a bunch, I mean, you, you’ve got fans in our group for sure, uh your, your podcast. And so this is one that was made. Uh Thank you for defending Joseph, not you Smith from false accusations. And you’ve got some of the uh face, familiar faces that are uh you know, uh uh proponents of uh Joseph the mono. There you go. I threw this one up here really quick. Just, you know, like I said, there’s a lot of these memes that we have. It’s just trying to get you to read a little quote, a picture of, of drawing of Hiram with him talking about um polygamy saying bad stuff about it. And
[1:21:19] Michelle: it’s good to connect that one to Hiram dead at the bottom of the pool. The quotes of Hiram have just been scrubbed from that what you had. And so that’s a good thing we recognize. Where
[1:21:31] Jere-meme: are his quotes? So, yeah, they’re around, they’re just buried. This is, this is a quote from you. It was just the thumb, the red brick store. So
[1:21:41] Michelle: episodes I should interject here as we’re going through. I think Jeremy I think the rest of the presentation is memes that you’ve just grasped. And so, so I asked him to do this because I just wanted to go through a bunch of them. But I want to just let people know that you can also just go on the great apostle me. Like, like I want, let’s talk for a minute and then we’ll come back and finish some more of these. Is that OK? And we can um so I’m gonna just like, um take this off for a minute. But I do think like, hopefully you’re getting the idea of how memes can be used. And if there’s not a meme, you have found that does what you need it to do. It’s such an important tool. I love Jeremy’s idea of like either gathering them or creating them and share a meme in those conversations that are, you know, ideally with some humor, maybe a little bit of bite you. Like, it’s a really effective communication vehicle that’s available to us in this day and age. It’s so fun and it is, I guess it’s important to know how helpful and cathartic. It can be to people who are grappling with these things to both see them with, with the one that um you had deleted Jeremy that you hadn’t included the meme but talked about how it makes someone an epiphany. I need to find this one. But the one about welcome, like, like it’s Jesus hugging a man saying, I’m so glad you never drank coffee. It, it kind of does the same thing, you know where it’s like, oh,
[1:23:07] Jere-meme: do I really expect that’s going to be the case?
[1:23:09] Michelle: Really? Right. Right. It just kind of lets us look at things with like not saying anyone should drink coffee. Just maybe we should change our paradigm. A little help us be a little less judgmental. A little less pharisee and a little more led by the spirit than just
[1:23:26] Jere-meme: I think that there’s still a certain amount of people that dismiss means just as thinking that they are um uh frivolous or you know, but they are a powerful communication tool and, and the fact that they can just be passed around like crazy and changed,
[1:23:47] Michelle: right? They have massive cultural impact even in, in all realms. And so it’s really like, it’s important to really um understand what is happening in this realm and to utilize it. If you feel so, you know, if you feel called to it, we’re gonna go through and just continue with some of these. Anyone wants us to stick around, we’ll just go through some memes quickly and probably leave you hanging. But we will leave a link below to the great Aposto meme for anyone who would like to join in and then, you know, it would be super fun. I want to invite people in the comments. Please share your favorite memes. Let’s like load the comments with memes that people could just scroll through and amuse themselves for a little while or you know, speak some important things that they feel need to be shared. So please share your favorite memes in the comments. In the spirit of sharing. My producer collected several memes that she and I thought were funny. So I’ll share a few of those here. This first one is so on point. Dad is Santa Claus a hoax. Of course not, son. Think how many people would have to be in on it, right? How many times are we told that collusion cannot happen even though we see it happening all the time. Oh This one. No, we can’t claim that slavery is OK because it’s in the Old Testament. But of course, polygamy is not only OK, it’s absolutely necessary because it’s in the Old Testament, right? This speaks to a much bigger principle. This is so great. I happen to love Jordan Peterson and this Kathy Newman interview was a riot. So yet the evidence for Joseph Smith’s polygamy is questionable and deserves critical examination. So what you’re saying is that you’re an apostate and I shouldn’t listen to you pretty much. That’s exactly what tends to happen. This one made me laugh. I, I would like to think that I and many others can put a stop to these bad ideas. So that was, that was rather a fun one for me to get to see this one also made me laugh aloud the entire war trying to stop me from quoting Brigham Young. It’s so true. Even sometimes when I’m at like discussion groups with very educated church historians or scholars, you cannot quote Brigham Young without getting a lot of pushback. So this one was pretty funny. And then this one, it just, I love the ones that just poke at our culture, right? Better pray that we’ll travel home in safety just like we need to pray that the, um, that the donuts and soda will nourish and strengthen our bodies, right? And then this is just so apropos for all of those people who just think polygamy is gonna be just fine, really consider the reality of the situation. Then this one’s great. If there was any historical evidence of Joseph that Joseph Smith didn’t practice polygamy, the church would tell us. Yeah. And then this is another one of my all time favorites. Where did Hiram’s anti polygamy speech go. This fabulous one sent by my producer is dedicated to my husband and my Children and all of my friends who have to talk to me in real life as painful as this one is. I absolutely love it. And I’m glad to know that there are many out there who relate and then this one hit close to my heart. Yep. We need to reach for those unapproved sources if we want to actually learn the truth. I hope you enjoyed those memes. I want to give a shout out to the channel. I believe Joseph, I’ll put a link below. He makes great videos and he said in several of these memes, he does a really good job with both. So, um anyway, I thought that one was fun and then we can continue going through a few more of yours. Anyone who’s like done seeing memes for today, go ahead and share some in the comments. Anyone who wants to. Yeah, we’ll see you later. Thanks for joining us. Anyone who wants to stick around, we’re just gonna keep, keep going through some of these pretty fast. Yeah, and probably not talk much about him. Go ahead. Yep. Yeah,
[1:27:50] Jere-meme: this is one on your topic. I always thought that was so funny. This uh this talk by Brigham where he was like, I will free every woman in this territory at our next conference. What the first wife? Two. Yes, there shall be not be one held in bondage. All shall be set free. General discourses and then here, here’s the, the slave with the, you know, the band around. His next thing set free, free to wander the streets, penniless and ostracized. Those are the whining polygamous wives. You know that, you know, it just this idea of you, you’re gonna be free in like a uh desert uh you know. Yeah. Um Yeah. L Ds Church in 1890 telling its members to stop practicing polygamy with a big wink. Yeah. Oh,
[1:28:38] Michelle: that’s great.
[1:28:41] Jere-meme: Actual photo. Somebody, uh, somebody, someone explaining how Jacob Two doesn’t condemn polygamy. I know. Oh, my God.
[1:28:49] Michelle: Ok. Uh,
[1:28:50] Jere-meme: here, here’s one of those you gotta know the church history stuff on John Taylor and Brigham Young. After working hard in the print shop, it’s about the, the bogus, you know. It’s funny.
[1:28:59] Michelle: Yeah. A lot of people don’t know that Brigham had to leave. The reason Brigham had to flee navoo early in February instead of in the spring is because of counterfeit.
[1:29:07] Jere-meme: Yeah. Um, like in the scriptures, he’s reading the book of Mormon. You done messed up, repent. This can’t be like it’s kind of small. This can’t be right. I’m sure it doesn’t apply to me, but this part definitely does. If I ever break my bow, I know just what to do.
[1:29:28] Michelle: Selective application. Yeah.
[1:29:31] Jere-meme: What kind of anti Mormon trash have you been reading book of Mormon?
[1:29:36] Michelle: There’s truth to that. Yeah, it can cause problems. Ok.
[1:29:42] Jere-meme: So if Brigham’s crew had edited the book of Mormon first Nephi 16 7, and it came to pass that I Nephi took several of the daughters of Ishmael to wife and also each of my brother took at least a few of the daughters of Ishmael to wife and also Zam took the eldest daughter of Ishmael, the wife because we ran out of extra women, seeing his distress and knowing it was necessary for his exaltation. I gave unto him a solemn oath that when we came across more women we, he’d have first pick to which he was satisfied. This is what I, I don’t know. No, no. Church historians that won’t do. You’ll never be able to make them both good. There is just enough merit between them to make one sort of good sort of man on the face and the face that L DS apologists make if you can get them to actually read section 132 all the way through. Yeah, there’s, there’s parts in there that they’re like, well, what about this? This part’s creighton like, yeah, there’s parts in there that are in keeping with other doctrine. But then you’re like, what about that part about all the virgins? And they’re like, oh, when your historical church document that opposes polygamy failing into nothing. Exactly. So this one, this one got a lot of fraction. This one has been passed around a lot to Joseph Smith practice polygamy. There is no better source than the prophet himself and his beloved wife Emma. And then just a couple of quotes with, um you know, with the dates on it and this, this one has gone around like crazy. So that, that’s a very effective
[1:31:17] Michelle: meme. That’s one of the things I love about that one also is it’s one that’s positive like I like making the positive case and that’s one that I love about this. And one reason that I think it gets shared because also you don’t just want to poke and criticize you. You know, like for me, I want to create ones that, that, that just make the positive case and like look at their relationship. It’s important we should pay attention. Yeah, I love that.
[1:31:40] Jere-meme: This one is a funny one. To me. This is satire. Church news, December 8th, 2023. The Church history department has released a previously unknown photograph that was used to inspire recruitment into Brigham’s whistling and Whittling Brigade. The photo has been confirmed to be one of John James Rambo, an immigrant from England. Church historians places age at around eight years old at the time of the photograph. This is poking fun at the, at the many sources that make it want to sound like these were very young boys, you know, like eight year olds out, you know,
[1:32:18] Michelle: you know,
[1:32:18] Jere-meme: but enforcers,
[1:32:20] Michelle: you know, it was adult men with Bowie knives actually drawing blood and beating people up and threatening to kill them. Yeah. Oh, this one’s funny. I do tend to like the ones that are just short and to the poop. It’s like it’s still Winnie the pooh. But look, he’s fancy. Yeah,
[1:32:39] Jere-meme: exactly what enduring to the end feels like when you’re L DS, what enduring to the end actually is, you know, actually seen in Christ. OK. Here’s, here’s the special one for Michelle Mormons still thinking it’s coming back polygamy. They’re holding on to polygamy. I got you. I got you brother Michelle Michelle Stone comes out. Danny devito Michelle Stone with a, with a two by four to whack him in the head. Oh, no, you don’t.
[1:33:08] Michelle: And I have to say with this one when it first got shared to me, which is part of why I think it was so brilliant. When I first looked at it, I, I thought it was an enemy that had made. I thought it was a critic. Someone who hated me who made it because the first thing your eye goes to is Danny Devito with Michelle Stone with a two B, you know what I mean? Obviously the villain of the show and like, right, I thought that this was so funny and even after I read it, I, I was like, I don’t know if they like me or not, but I laughed the entire day when I saw this one, I thought it was so funny. I loved it. It’s so clever.
[1:33:44] Jere-meme: Here’s uh Joseph Smith throwing out John C Bennett. And then right behind him is Brigham Young. It didn’t solve anything, right? Uh Are you two friends? Jacob two. No. Doctor K went through two. Yes,
[1:34:01] Michelle: that’s so good. These are so good.
[1:34:04] Jere-meme: You know what I like. You know what I really like donuts. I’m pretty sure God. God wants me to have as many doughnuts as I want. The more I think about it, the more I feel like God is revealing to me that doughnuts are a celestial food. This is just poking at that. We need to be wary of following the vain imaginations of our heart. You know, we need to, we can,
[1:34:25] Michelle: we can swap out donuts for wives if we’re feeling a little bit creative. Right.
[1:34:29] Jere-meme: Exactly. Or any number of other doctors, this just happened. There’s a bunch of just Jacob two versus 132 memes on here when Mr Shell Stone provides a plentiful, plentiful sources and citations to back her claims. And a trained historian dismisses her research as false, using only his or her word as an authority with no backing of sources or citations. Warrant warrant. Ma
[1:34:54] Michelle: Yeah.
[1:34:55] Jere-meme: Stop taking phone calls from Michelle Brady Stone. She knows too much. You know, sometimes you call to these different places and whatever point they’re gonna go. What’s your name?
[1:35:05] Michelle: My name,
[1:35:09] Jere-meme: uh My name is Judy Simpson.
[1:35:12] Michelle: So funny.
[1:35:13] Jere-meme: This is what a lot of our, our group does. You can’t remember, you can’t touch the sacred cows. Me, y you know, we’re, we’re poking fun at the sacred cows. Some of my favorite historical
[1:35:25] Michelle: them even not poking fun. Just investigating. Yeah. Ok.
[1:35:30] Jere-meme: Some of my favorite historical fiction books, Becoming Mrs Lewis Saints and The Boy In the Striped pajamas. Oh, it’s a lot of us feel this way when you pull up one of church history strings, you know, it just like, it just keeps on unraveling and unraveling and unraveling. So we can identify with this poor kitty eb MS and Anti Mormons. Joseph Smith said. And then the Neo or the, you know, whatever we are. I know more than you.
[1:35:58] Michelle: Yeah. And this was in response to that same theme of what is the source of the Joseph Smith quote is that Brigham Young Joseph Smith said, or is that
[1:36:07] Jere-meme: exactly? And a lot of the Manuel will just say Joseph Smith said, even though it was a second hand or third hand, it doesn’t say Larry Smith. Yeah, exactly. From an offhand comment. Probably not from any journal. I like this one. A lot source. Here you go. I don’t want a source. I want you to be wrong.
[1:36:26] Michelle: Oh, that’s so good.
[1:36:28] Jere-meme: Yeah, there’s a lot of people that are just like give you busy work and when you help them out they just bust your chops. So, what scriptures are you studying these days? Oh, you mean, come follow me? No, I mean, what book or chapters are you studying the scriptures? Yeah, I don’t understand what you’re asking. Uh You should go and check out, come follow me. You know, when people start putting emphasis on the curriculum and not on the actual scriptures themselves. Yeah. All I want for Christmas is William Clayton’s diaries. Yeah, I think a lot of us do, uh do you support or promote any teachings, practices or doctrine, contrary to those of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Are you talking about the 18 thirties church, the 18 fifties or current? They all taught different things. Uh Do you sustain the president of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints as prophet seer and revelator? Will you please define, for me what you mean by this by sustain, also define prophet seer and revelator. Hey, look, man, I just work here.
[1:37:30] Michelle: I think this speaks to the struggle. I mean a lot of people have to negotiate how to, how to best navigate temple recommended issues when they are heretical when they are, when they don’t have the standard beliefs. And I actually think so this speaks to like we don’t need to burden the bishop or the state president with that. You know, it’s like like it’s ok to navigate that by yourself with God, find out what you believe and how you feel. You should answer the questions then go or don’t. But you know what I mean? We like the temple recommend interview those poor bishops just trying to get through a bunch of them. You know, we can have some sympathy for them. Yeah.
[1:38:09] Jere-meme: Mhm Learn everything you did in all your years such as treacherous story in my spare time using the internet, Michelle Brady Stone while homeschooling 11 kids mic drop. Oh dear. That’s a good one. I like that one for you. These are two couple about you. This is the last one making L DS. Church historians look stupid one video at a time. It’s
[1:38:41] Michelle: funny. Yeah. Ok. Ok. It’s so funny and I don’t want to make enemies of anybody but, um, but it
[1:38:48] Jere-meme: does to other people on your behalf. Ok. This is not you being, you know, I’m not or anything
[1:38:55] Michelle: like that.
[1:38:57] Jere-meme: Other people posted those for you.
[1:38:59] Michelle: And I am grateful I’m always grateful to know that people appreciate some of what I’m doing, you know. So thank you again, Jeremy for coming. This was so much fun, I think really instructive and entertaining, which I think is a great way to wrap up the year and have just a fun infotainment
[1:39:18] Jere-meme: girl infotainment. There we go,
[1:39:19] Michelle: there we go. We can always rely on you for infotainment. So anyway, I thank you. Thank you for sticking with this podcast this year. We have wrapped up another year of 100 and 32 problems, which has been great and I’m excited for more to come. So Jeremy, thank you for coming. Oh, and I will be working a little bit with Jeremy going forward and you’ll see some of his work on like graphics. I’m really excited. So anyway, yay. So thank you again and we will see you next time. All right. Thanks
[1:39:48] Jere-meme: everybody.
[1:39:50] Michelle: Thank you again for sticking with us. I hope I get to see a lot of your memes in the comments and again, please plan to tune in next week. There should be some information coming before that. Hopefully. So I think it’ll be, um, a big episode and a lot of things to look forward to. There is so much to keep learning this next year. So, thank you again and I will see you next week.
