The Acts of James E. Talmage | An Interview with Bryan Summers

Bryan Summers was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He served a mission in Carlsbad, California, and earned a Master's Degree in Library Science at the University of Wales-Aberystwyth. He was a county librarian in Yuma, Arizona for 12 years, and is now a mortgage broker in Saint George, Utah. Bryan has served in the Church as a nursery leader, ward mission leader, elders quorum president, and bishop. He is currently a teachers quorum assistant. He and his wife have been married 24 years and are the parents of three boys and three girls. Bryan enjoys backpacking—especially the Timberline Trail on Mount Hood—and once spent three weeks wandering around the Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq and Eastern Turkey. Links Acts of the Apostles: @actsofapostles_ The Talmage Story There is already a discussion started about this podcast. Share your thoughts HERE. Watch on YouTube Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast Get 14-day access to the Core Leader Library Highlights 1:45 Introduction to Bryan Summers 3:00 Things that Bryan learned from being a bishop. The importance of feeling the Spirit. 4:40 Bryan has started a project, Modern-day Acts of the Apostles. He researches apostles and shares his favorite stories on his page. 13:00 Leaders should take a little time to read the apostles' biographies. It can be comforting to read about the apostles' experiences. 15:20 Stories on James E. Talmage. Be careful of the stories you hear. 16:30 Albert Einstein was friends with Henry B. Eyring’s dad. The Mormon Scientist is a great book to learn more about it. 17:20 James E. Talmage’s biography was written by his son. 18:00 Most well known for his book, Jesus the Christ. He wrote the book in just 7 months. 19:20 When James Talmage was an apostle, they would have him speak when there was a hostile crowd. By the end of his talk people were in tears. 20:00 He was brave first and also had a lot of compassion. Early stories on James’ childhood and upbringing in Britain. 24:20 The story of James’ schoolmaster who hated the Church. He got beat a lot for challenging his schoolmaster and stood up for his convictions. Yet he remained friends with the schoolmaster as an adult. 26:00 The story of James’ college friend who constantly teased him for being a prude. 28:40 He was a scientific lecturer from an early age. 31:00 A story from when James was the president of the University of Utah. He would do things over and over again till he resolved something. He was very resilient. 32:50 James was almost like an Indiana Jones of the western territory and went on expeditions to unknown places in the Utah desert. He became a celebrity of the scientific world. 35:50 He was a part of many scientific societies, which was a very big deal back then. 37:00 One of the most popular stories of James E. Talmage. Compassion mixed with bravery. 41:00 The Lord calls you to be you. He was called to be mission president in Great Britain in the height of the anti-Mormon sentiment. He went newspaper to newspaper and became friends with editors from all the different hostile newspapers that were printing anti-Mormon articles. The stories began to stop thanks to him. 45:40 The story of when President Grant tried to teach James to play golf. He was convinced that he needed to take up more recreational activities. 48:40 When writing Jesus the Christ, James was in the temple 24/7. He wrote it in just 7 months and 5 days. 49:00 The death of James E. Talmage at age 70. He passed away from complications of strep throat. This was 10 years before penicillin and was deadly if not treated right away. 52:30 Stories on John W. Taylor, one the apostles excommunicated for polygamy. 55:20 “Being a leader showed me how dependent I was on the Savior.” The Leading Saints Podcast is one of the top independent Latter-day Saints podcasts as part of nonprofit Leading Saints' mission to help Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free ...

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
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(01:27):
and begin to consider some
of these principles we talk about on
the Leading Saints podcast.
Here we go.
Today we're headed down to St.
George, Utah to chat with Brian Summers.
How are you, Brian? Oh,
- Very well, thank you. Good.

(01:48):
- Now you're a long timeleading Saints listener, right?
- Yeah, I am. Yeah. I, I,
I think I started listening back in 2015.
- Wow. 2000. I was justsuch a young, cute,
uh, podcaster, you know?
True. Didn't have a cluewhat I was doing, so .
That's awesome. And wereyou a bishop at that time?
- Yeah, I think I just, just,uh, barely become a bishop

(02:09):
and, and yeah, it wasreally good to find it.
I remember, I mean, a lotof 'em were really helpful.
And I still remember one in particular
with the stake president in NewMexico that just, I listened
to it maybe three or four times.It was very, very helpful.
- Yeah. That's cool. Awesome.
And did someone recommendit leading Saints to you,
or did, did Google put it in
- Front of you?
It must have been Google.'cause I have no memory.

(02:30):
I don't even remember thefirst time finding it.
I just, as long as I've been a bishop,
I just remember having it.
- Oh, that's cool. So, well,
I'm glad, glad it served you well.
And, and it was in, uh, St.
George where you served as Bishop?
- No, it was Yuma, Arizona.- Oh, wow.
- Yeah. - Is that, uh, Idon't know much about Yuma.
Is that a a, a large city or a
- Small?
It's about the size of St. George.

(02:51):
So you got about a hundredthousand people in the summer
and 200,000 in the winter,
- .
Nice. Any highlightsfrom serving as Bishop
that you think back on,
or principles that wouldbe worth mentioning
before we move on toour subject here? Yeah,
- There were a few things I learned.
One of 'em is like, ifyou've got the spirit,
it's actually the easiestcalling in the church.

(03:14):
I think if you have the spirit,
because you just followwhat the spirit says,
things fall in place.
That's if you don't have the spirit, oh,
it's like walking up a stream.
It is the hardest calling in the world.
I, uh, would talk to my parentson Zoom every Sunday night,
and if they said, boy, you look tired.
I noticed a pattern. I would think back
during the day, and it was a day.
I didn't feel the spiritmuch. I was coming,

(03:35):
I was working just ashard as any other day.
Mm-Hmm. But if I didn'tfeel the spirit that day,
like I just looked at by the end
of the day, so the spirit's key.
Yeah. And you gotta get the spirit.
- Love it. Now, have youalways been a lifelong reader
of like, church history or Yeah.
History in general? Yeah.
- Well, I was a huge reader as a kid.
Like as a kid I was a huge reader.
And then in high schoolI was a massive reader.

(03:58):
I would just, uh, some summerdays I would just spend all
day reading and I really got into church
history back then. Yeah.
- Hmm. And primarily it's history that,
I mean, reading about people.
Is that, would you say that's the,
the primary focus of your reading? Uh,
- It is lately, for sure.
I love stories. I absolutely love stories.
And our church is just full ofexcellent, excellent stories

(04:20):
and there's too many stories so that
so many great stories fall,uh, between the cracks.
But I think when I wasa, when I was a teenager,
it was probably more doctrinal.
Hmm. I was reading a lot ofbooks by prophets and apostles
and, and yeah, just anything,
anything my parents had, anythingI could get at the library.
- Yeah. Awesome. Now, this hasled you to this project on x,

(04:40):
which a Ukrainian accountcalled Acts of the Apostles,
which I think is an awesometitle since in the Bible
there's, there's a bookcalled the Acts, uh,
or the Acts of the Apostles, right?
I assume that's what you were Absolutely.
You were basing this off of .
- Yeah, absolutely. I'm trying
to do a modern day acts of apostles.
- That's cool. What, wheredid this idea come from?
- When I was a teenager, my,my dad told me something.

(05:01):
He was put into a stake presidency
by Bruce Arm McConkey whenI was much, much younger.
So I don't even remember it.
I was probably early gradeschool, maybe younger.
But he said something in highschool that surprised me.
He said, you know, the funniestperson I've ever met is
Bruce arm, McConkey .
Which you wouldn't, youwouldn't get from hearing his
- Talks.

(05:22):
Yeah. That's not the, uh,typical characteristic
of Bruce arm McConkey.
You hear about .
- No. And my dad is a really funny guy,
and he knows lots of funny, funny people,
and he only knew Bruce armMcConkey for that weekend.
That's the only time he, he did it Uhhuh.
He said, I, I don't thinkI've ever laughed more than
that weekend with Bruce arm McConkey.
So it made me want toget to know the apostles
and prophets, not justwhat we see on the podium,

(05:45):
but I, I just want get toknow who they were and yeah.
So that's, that's basically it.
And I was telling my dad this,
I was reminding him about this lately,
and he said that, you know,
arm McConkey is the savioron the chosen, you know
how the savior on the Chosen Oh yeah.
Is kind of funny. And he'sjust, he puts everybody at ease.
He goes, yeah, sure. That was Bruce.
That was Bruce arm McConkey.

(06:06):
- Oh, wow.- So, wow.
And anyways, and you,
you read the book aboutBruce Arm McConkey written
by his son, and that actually really,
really comes through. Yeah,
- I remember reading thatit's been so many years
that there's certain storiesin there that I remember,
like him, he would sortof, uh, rehearse like talks
as he drove down the, the road.
Mm-Hmm. as youremember that, that portion,

(06:26):
because he's known as this orator, right?
Mm-Hmm. that, that was just
so captivating from the lectern.
And you could tell he was well practiced.
I mean, and you think backthen in the, I don't know
what it was, forties,fifties, you know, there was,
there probably wasn't alot of radio stations,
let alone podcasts to listen to. Right,
- Right. Yeah.
- And so, you know, whenyou're driving hours, hours
and hours of driving,there's, that's sort of

(06:48):
what you do. You know, that's
- How you entertain and- You practice your talk.
- That's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.
- Really cool. And then, so from there,
have you been recording justthese stories that captured you
as you read church history, or,
and then you decided to put 'em on X?
- Well, a couple
of years ago, I thoughtit would be awesome.
I wanted to hear apodcast where they start
with Thomas B. Marsh, go allthe way to Ulysses Stories,

(07:10):
just one episode, .
And I thought, okay, I'll do that.
So I just started, every time I was at di,
if I saw an Apostlesbiography, I'd pick it up.
- Oh,- Yeah. And then I tried my first one
with Thomas B. Marsh, and it was dismal.
I mean, I was just stumbling.
I could not get that 20 minutes
or whatever I was trying to do.
And so I put that on the back burner,

(07:31):
but I kept reading the storiesand then just making a mark.
If there was a story that Iwas like, oh, I'd love it.
Basically, if there wasany story, I wanted to stop
whatever my wife was doing and
tell her, like, interrupt her.
If it was a story that Iwanted to interrupt my wife
to tell her if it was thatgood, I'd make a little mark.
And at the beginning ofthis year, I realized, okay,

(07:51):
I've got all these stories, got all
these marks in these books.
And I thought, well, it'll take,it'll take 20 minutes a day
to put a story on Twitter.
And so that's how it started.
- Nice. And so you, youbasically go through
random apostles, you're notnecessarily going in any
particular order, right?
- No, it was very random at the beginning.
Now I try to do like onefrom the first 10 apostles,

(08:12):
then one from the 11 to 20.
So I'm trying not tomiss any eras when I go.
And then I get up toapostle, like 87 or whatever,
and then I'll go back and dothe first one of the first 10
and just try to cycle through.
- Yeah. And to put that into context,
so Elder Reland was the 100th apostle
called in modern times, right?
Yes. Uhhuh. And so, and we've had

(08:34):
a few more since then, obviously.
And so there's roughly beena hundred plus, you know,
with additional, a few moreof apostles called, uh,
that's a life for each one,obviously with full of stories.
And many of them have biographies
or at least things written about them.
And that's where you're diving into.
- Yeah. I don't know whatI'll do when I get to the ones
that don't have a biographywritten about them.

(08:55):
- So Nice.
Yeah. Well, there's alwaysa obscure, you know, passage
or writing out there, journal entry.
Maybe you'll Yep. You'll stumble
across, but maybe not a lot.
So basically, I love seeingon x the, the updates
of the pictures, you know,your, the profile picture
of your acts of the apostlespage updates, depending on
who you're talking about that week
or that for that, uh, thatseries of threads on X.

(09:18):
- Yeah. I try to put areally young picture of them,
usually when they're in their twenties,
or maybe if they're on their mission,
I'll put a picture there.
Mm-Hmm. . Sothere's sometimes, you know,
right now I'm doing Howard w Hunter,
and I guess a lot of peoplehave seen young ones.
Whenever you've got a prophet
or a president, there's a lot
of biographies and a lot of pictures.
But then you have somebody likesay, well, James e Talmage,

(09:39):
like his, his picture when hewas a young man, it's just,
it just endears you to him.
You know what I mean? Yeah.It's, yeah. I like that. Yeah.
- I think when they're,the older pictures, I mean,
anybody who's older lookslike a wise sage, you know?
Yep. It's like this,this guy's got stories
and wisdom that I've gotta hear,
but it, uh, humanizes him alittle bit to see him as a,
you know, they're justfiguring out life as a 20,

(09:59):
30-year-old, like the rest of us.
- Yeah. They don't knowwhere the story ends.
They have no idea what's about to happen.
And you kind of see thatwhen you see the pictures.
- Now, is Howard w Heter thefirst apostle that you're doing
that later became thepresident of the church?
- I don't think so.
It might be, and I can't remember
because I've, I've now got abit ahead of when I've, like,

(10:21):
I'm, I'm working on DavidO. McKay right now in
my readings and
- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- And so, to be honestwith you, I'm not sure.
I might've done one before now.
- Gotcha. But you'll do, uh,whether they became Prophet
of the church or not, you're,you're exploring the lives
of the acts of the Apostles,so that's really cool.
- One through 1 0 3 now
that we got Patrick here, and it's 1 0 3.
No, I did do George Albert Smith.

(10:42):
- Oh, nice.- And George Albert Smith was great.
And I've already researchedHeer J Grant, which has one
of my top five stories.
I cannot wait to tell thatone when we get to it.
Sounds so funny. It's such a good story.
- That's cool. That's cool. And,
and you're mainly focusingon specific stories,
not necessarily quotes orgeneral conference talks.
These are stories fromtheir life. Yeah. I was
- Originally gonna do, Iwas originally gonna do like

(11:05):
stories and quotes,
and I just gravitated to thestories for whatever reason.
I love the quotes. And whenI do Ezra t Benson, Ezra Taf,
Benson's grandfather, I'llprobably have more quotes
because his biography waslike kind of short on stories,
but long on amazing quotes.
So on that one, I think I'll,

(11:25):
I'll do a little bit more quotes.
- Yeah. This is great.
And, uh, we're, we're talkingbehind the scenes, seeing
how ways we can further, uh,you know, share these stories,
uh, through the LeadingSaints platform, whatnot.
But in the meantime, uh,definitely people should check out.
Your ex account willlink to it, of course,
acts of the Apostles.
And just a little caveathere, a few years ago,
I think this was one

(11:47):
of the first people I everinterviewed on the podcast,
he had mentioned justthis off comment about
how much he loved thestories you hear from general
conference or another Mm-Hmm.
, other placesof, you know, I was visiting a,
a state conference, youknow, this is an apostle
or a, the 70 with, you know, Neil Maxwell.
And we were driving to this church

(12:08):
and he said this thinglike, this is wisdom
that's passed within these, these leaders.
And I called it teachers,
or I'm sorry, I called itLeaders, teaching Leaders.
And then I shortened it toLeader. To Leader. Yeah.
And so I had these shortepisodes, this was years ago,
and you can still find 'em on the podcast
or on the website where I, uh,clip out that these stories
that are told from the lectern

(12:29):
of general conference and chair.
And I, I just love hearing these things.
So you have to flag me when, uh,
when you come acrossthose types of stories.
'cause they're, they're allover in these biographies.
- Oh, absolutely. Becausethey're all being mentored by
somebody that was an, a possible forum.
Well, I think the best, and Ithink you'd mentioned earlier
that you'd read this,
but the Henry b ironing biography Yeah.

(12:51):
Is rich in that Mm-Hmm.
, I mean, thestories about what he learned
from Harold B. Lee and Boyd Kay Packer,
and a bunch of the otherones, really powerful stuff.
- Yeah. Yeah. And this isa great thing, you know,
if there's a leader out there,
and I know that, you know,when you're serving as Bishop
or in some of these leadershiproles, it's a very busy time.
But I would really encourage you to,
to pick up these books from time to time,

(13:11):
or read a chapter or two.
And it is so comforting to just sort
of see their life from that perspective.
And you learn so muchand gain so much respect
for these, these individuals.
And then when they stand in conference
and speak, you're, they're just,
you're more endeared toward them.
You know, it's just, it's awesome. For
- Sure. That's absolutely right.
- Cool. Anything elseabout the, the account

(13:33):
that people should look for
or things you're doing there, or,
- Yeah.
Well, yeah, please.
Uh, uh, if you have any comments,a lot of people are, well,
if I make a mistake, Ireally appreciate people, uh,
correcting me sometimes.
I'll say something I justsaid, Howard w Hunter was the
first apostle from Idaho.
Uh, he is actually thethird apostle from Idaho.

(13:53):
I found out Oh, yeah. Reallyquickly. So, so come on.
And or if there's a story,you know, a lot of times I'll,
I'll, like, I did M RussellBallard fairly recently,
and a lot of people hadem, Russell Ballard stories
that just experiences they'd had with him.
It was very touching. MmOh yeah. To hear them.
I love when people share stuff like that.
And so, yeah, please.
Yeah, please feel free to,feel free to reach out to me.

(14:16):
I love, uh, share what you've got.
- I think, uh, and you cancorrect me if I'm wrong,
but I think Howard w Hunt, hewas one of the few apostles
that was called to as an apostle, uh,
from a being a stake president.
Right. Yeah. He didn't gothrough the, the typical ranks
of 70 and whatnot.
And he's just a, a stake
president in California, . Yeah.
- Just a great stake- President. And
- We go a good job.
Yeah. Him and Spencer w Kimball are

(14:37):
the only two I know about.
I'm sure there were other ones,but, uh, yeah. Yeah. He was,
- Yeah.
I still remember readingabout Spencer w Kimball,
the phone call he gets, Ithink, in his, you know,
his son's like, Hey, someone'son the phone for you.
And there he is in thekitchen being called
as an apostle ,
and he's like, you know, the rest
of his life was changed for
- Sure.
Oh, man. Yeah. And, and ourchurch as well. I mean, oh yeah.
That guy was a powerhouse.

(14:58):
- Oh, man. Love it. All right.
So one thing we wanna dois, you know, you've told
so many stories about different apostles
that we just maybe wanna focus on one
or two during this recording.
And of course, you know, I'dlove to have you back on.
Maybe we explore some othersand, uh, learn from them,
and especially the leadershipprinciples that are, that are,
uh, that we can harvestfrom, from these lives.

(15:20):
So we're gonna talk aboutfirst James e Talmage Yeah.
And sort of do a, a, aquick deep dive on his life.
This is one, I mean,any, generally any member
of the church hears James e Chama,
and you think Jesus the Christas far as the book, Jesus,
the Christ that he wrote in the temple.
And I've been in the room, you know, where
supposedly he lived and, andwrote and things like that.

(15:40):
Have you really? Uh, yeah.
So if you're a, that's, Iwas a temple worker there for
a few, a few short months,Uhhuh .
And, and yeah, you can go back there and,
and there's the fireplacethere and things like that.
So, again, I may be wrong.
I'm, we're open to any,uh, correction on, as you,
as you say, we may, uh, perpetuatesome faith promoting, uh,
rumors here that aren't actually stories.

(16:00):
And that's the, that's sometimes the tricky thing is I'll
hear stories at times and I think, Ooh,
that's not actually accurate.
Right. And so we're open to
- Being frank.
Well, one of, one of the onlythings I thought I knew about,
uh, James e Talmage was
that Albert Einstein said he was
the smartest person he knew.
I heard that on mymission. And so Oh, really?
- Yeah. Is it true? No.
- Well, I doubtit. I doubt it's true.

(16:22):
Because James e Talmage was a little bit
before Albert Einstein.
Yeah. You know what I mean?I mean, Albert Einstein,
it's probably mixing some stories.
'cause Albert Einstein was good friends
with Henry b ING's dad.
- Ah, that's right. That's right.
- Yeah. And, uh,- That's another good one.
There's the Mormon scientistthat book about, oh, uh,
president ING's dad is phenomenal.
- Love that book. Oh, man.
I recommend that to everybody. Yes.

(16:43):
- Very good. - Yeah. My favoritepart is when he is telling
Einstein about the plan ofsalvation. You know what I mean?
- I forget that- Part. Oh, yeah.
He's telling about the gospeland the plan of salvation.
And Einstein goes, well,what about dogs? And, uh, he
- Said, he said, what,- What about dogs?
He was concerned about whathappens to dogs, of course.
And Henry Ironing Sr.

(17:05):
He said, well, I'm not quitesure if it's anything's been
said, but God loves dogs.
I'm sure he is up there. And he said
that Einstein seemed verypleased with that response.
- Nice. Awesome. All right.Back to Jamesie Town here. Okay.
So where's a good jumping out point?
I, I assume there's a biographyI've never read. Yeah.
His biography, if there is one. There
- Is, there's a very good one.
It's written by his son,

(17:26):
and a lot of times my favoriteapostle biographies are
actually written by their sons.
Mm-Hmm. Because you can justsort of feel the affection.
And they've got a lot of family stories.
Like, there are several timesin this book on James z Tama,
it's like, he never wroteabout this in his journal,
but we, we told the story
and teased him about it all the time.
There's one story I'll telllater that, that he's like,
yeah, he never wroteabout it in his journal.
Never talked about it, but we

(17:47):
mentioned it to him constantly.
- Nice. Love it.- Yeah.
So it, it was written by hisson, I think, in the late se,
or early seventies or something, well
after he had passed away.
And it's a good one. It'sgot a lot of good stories.
It gives you a good idea ofwhat kind of a guy he was to,
to actually know him, know. Awesome.
- Cool. Yeah. Well, where should we start
with James z Dage? Well,
- The one thing everybody knows about him,

(18:08):
so I'll just get this outtathe way, is Jesus the Christ.
It's actually, if you think about books
that have been written,I think it was like 19.
It was in the 1910s that it was written
and on good reads, it's stilllike in the top, maybe 12.
I mean, it's like, and you lookat the other books below it,
you're like, yep, I heard of that.
Everything after, not so much.
Like, it's, it's amazing thata book's had that longevity.

(18:30):
- So it's in the top12 of, of what? On Good
- Reads.
On good reads of peoplethat still write reviews
and are still saying they read it.
- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.- And most books, I mean,
in a hundred years, most books are gone.
The fact that it's most churchbooks actually are gone.
Very few of them last that long.
But for Jesus, the Christ to last
that long is, is absolutely amazing.
He wrote it in seven months and five days.

(18:53):
- Wow.- Yeah. I mean, he's a workhorse.
We'll talk about his work ethic later on.
But he was an absoluteworkhorse. And it's impressive.
But you have to realize, he was also,
he had written lectures.
He'd already done a lectureseries on each chapter.
So he'd already done
- Because he was a professor.
Right. That was his day job. Yeah.
- He was a professor.He was a, a geologist.

(19:14):
He was a professor of geology.
And so, and a very, very good lecturer.
As a matter of fact, I wasgonna talk about this later,
but I'll talk about it nowbecause I'm thinking about it.
When he was an apostle, ifthere was a hostile audience,
they would send James z Talmage
because he could get up there
and you'd have a crowd thatjust did not like the church.

(19:34):
You know what I mean? It just had
heard bad things about the church.
And he could tell thestory of Brigham Young
and coming over to Utah, andhe would have him in tears.
By the end. He would have 'em at the end.
They'd be like, wow, Brigham
Young's the greatest American ever.
You know what I mean?, he would just,
he was just able tocapture people that way.
I don't know that any ofthose talks were written down

(19:54):
or anything, but that, I mean,
if I had a time machine that's, yeah.
- I would- Love to go and sit
and listen to one ofone of those lectures.
- Wow. So, yeah. That's great.
And then you talk about him, the bravery
mixed with compassion.
Yeah. What do you mean by that? Well,
- Okay, so he was, he wasan incredibly brave person,
and he was also a verycompassionate person
at the same time.
But I think he was brave first.

(20:15):
Like when he was a child, he,uh, was one of the things.
And he, he got that fromhis family, his grandpa.
He was a third generation memberbeing born in 1862 in Great
Britain, which was unusual.
Oh, wow. It means his dad was one,
or his grandpa was one of the first ones
to be, uh, baptized.
And his grandpa was theleader of an anti-Mormon mob

(20:36):
that was coming in tokick the missionaries out.
They'd heard what they were up to.
They, they didn't want 'em in there.
And there was something aboutthe missionaries dignity,
and just the way they comportedthemselves that touched him.
And he ended up actuallylike leading them to safety
and hiding them in his house.
And while he was hiding them in his house
and telling the mob, no,they're not here, uh,

(20:57):
they ran off somewhere else.
He heard the message and was touched
and became a lifelong, veryfaithful, very faithful member.
And so there was bravery in his family.
There was absolute bravery in his family.
And there is a story that,
and this is one that he never really told.
He talked about it in his journal.
We know about it 'cause his son told it.
But he would talk aboutit every once in a while.

(21:19):
And it was the story of his baptism.
And, and there was, uh,
anti-Mormon sentiment backthen was pretty strong.
And so you could notbaptize during the day.
You couldn't go to the riverbecause people would come
and they'd just make ita miserable experience.
I mean, they would justcome and they would jeer,
and they would, they wouldmake life miserable for you.
So what they would do isthey would go to the river

(21:40):
after dark, and they would,somebody would go walk
around the town a half hour
before to make sure
that there weren't people walking around.
When the town seemed quiet
and safe, the crowdwould hurry to the river,
then they'd do the baptism.
When they got there on thatnight, he was 11 years old.
He didn't get baptized ateight, he got baptized at 11.

(22:02):
And when his father steppedinto the river, there was all
of a sudden, this just unearthly shriek.
The way he talks about it was just like,
it was worse than anythingyou've ever heard.
Just like a yell whale just, I mean,
just made their hair on the back of their,
their neck stand up.
And his father turned to him,
and his father said, he asked,well, this is in his words,

(22:25):
father asked me if I was toofrightened to be baptized.
And I answered by directlystepping into the water.
And as soon as he stepped intothe water, the noise ceased.
There was no more noise.
And they went and they did the baptism.
- And Wow. So they didn't
know where this sound was coming from? No,
- They had no idea.
They had no idea. Cow
and James e Talmage was a, he was,

(22:46):
he had a scientific mind as a kid.
He never would speculate what it was.
If he didn't know whatsomething was, he wouldn't try
to like come up with atheory about what it was.
They just, so, like, he wouldnever speculate about it.
He would just tell the story flat.
But what I love about thatstory is that 11-year-old boy,
you think of these deaconslast week that were, uh,
set apart, the 11-year-oldset apart his deacons.

(23:08):
He was that age. And,uh, even with that noise,
he stepped into the water.
It's dark. And so I love, Iabsolutely love that about him.
- Yeah. Wow. And, and,
and one thing I'm, I didn'tknow I didn't, I mean,
technically James zTalmage was British then.
Oh, yeah. He was. Wow. Yeah.
- Yeah.- And the third generation, which,
so his grandfather afterjoining the church didn't,

(23:28):
didn't come to Zion per se, right? No.
- No. And his father, hisfather did with James z Talmage,
when James z Talmage was a teenager.
Mm. He did. So,
but his father, yeah, hisfather was a grown man,
and they were still living,working in, in Great Britain.
They had branches there, and
- Wow.
Yeah. So do, do you know if,did James Z Town have much
of a English accent, uh,as in his adult life?

(23:49):
Or did that wear off?
- That's an excellent question.
And I don't know. I don't know. Oh,
- That's interesting.
Yeah. I just don't thinkof him as a, as English,
so That's awesome.
- Yeah. So he was British, and,
and so the next day theyasked people around town, Hey,
did you hear that noise last night?
And nobody had heard it.Nobody had heard it. Wow.
And so that's the end.You're kind of an interesting
- Story.

(24:10):
Interesting. Yeah. Just some, uh,
maybe some spiritualwarfare going on there.
The, the demons were not, uh, happy of
what was happening. So not
- Happy. Yeah. Yeah.
- Wow. So tell me about this, uh,
school master that hated the church.
- Okay, so yeah. So he went to the
Hungerford National School inthe west country of England.
And he was young,
and his school master hated the church,

(24:33):
just absolutely hated
and would bring it upall the time in school.
And so, James z Talmage, he was not one
to ever back down from anything, even
as a young, as a young man.
I mean, he wasn'tdisrespectful or anything,
but he would challengethe, uh, school master.
And since they did corporalpunishment back there,
he got beat all thetime by a school master.

(24:53):
As a matter of fact, healways referred to that school
as the place where Ireceived so many thrashings.
That's how he ref referred to that school.
But what I love about itis, one, he had the courage
to stand up for his convictions,
but the rest of the storyjust makes me love James e
Talmage, and actuallyhis old teacher as well.
So when he was an adult, hewas quite famous in the sci,

(25:15):
the scientific community.
And he would go over toEngland all the time.
And when he did, he alwaysvisited that school master.
He would never go over
to England without visitingthat school master.
And the school master wasreally, really proud of him,
just super proud of him, especially

(25:35):
because of his scientific achievements.
He'd, he'd bring James e Talmage
to the school to visit the children.
He'd, he'd introduce him to his friends,
and he would never understand
how such a good scientistcould come from that church,
that he never really changed .
Like he never, he, he just didn't believe
that he thought this was a one off.

(25:55):
But James z Talmage had such compassion
and such love for people
that he would visit him every single time.
And they, they had a great relationship.
- Wow. That's awesome. That's really cool.
And then, uh, a college friend, uh,
tell me that story. Yeah. Okay.
- So this was later,
this was when he was in college, college.
He went to, I don't knowhow to pronounce it,

(26:16):
Lehigh in Pennsylvania.
It's still a college,but he went over there
and then went to Johns Hopkins.
And it was a real libertine type place.
Uh, there's a lot of well to do,
and like the upper echelon,the kids of the upper echelon.
But man, they were, they didnot keep the law of chastity.
And they bragged about it.
And they were, it was a lot like, I guess,

(26:37):
young people nowadays,you know what I mean? Like
- A party school, right. It was
- Kind of the party school.
Yeah, absolutely. It was kindof the, the party school.
And there was one, one person,
and James e Talmage liked them all.
He really did. He was disturbed.
He was constantly disturbed.
But he liked, he liked themall and they liked him.
They genuinely liked him.
And there was one student named William

(26:58):
that would tease James allthe time for being, you know,
old fashioned and a prude.
And he would always try tobait, he would always try
to bait him into arguments about morality.
And eventually, uh, James eTalmage hadn't had, had enough.
And he says, alright, William said, James,
let us assume for themoment, you are right.
And there is no God and no hereafter.

(27:18):
And suppose we were bothto die tonight, which one
of us would've lived the fuller life.
And, uh, William answered, oh,
I suppose people would say you had,
but I prefer the presentenjoyment rather than whatever
great funeral oration you're gonna have.
And then, uh, Jamesy Thomas
was like, no, fair enough, fair enough.
Now, for the sake of argument,
let us assume that I am right.
And all of us will haveto account for our actions

(27:39):
before God again.
We suppose we both died tonight.
Now, which of us has the advantage?
And William, the way hedescribes it, he just took it in
with the same sort of detachment,
and then all of a sudden he blanched
and his face went white.
He kinda looked scared,and he whispered, my God,
he whispered, may it not be so,
and then the conversationjust sort of resumed

(28:00):
and changed to other topics.
But William never,never again tried debate
James into a debate.
And James never forgot thelook on his face right there.
He wasn't expecting it toland quite that well, but,
- Wow.
Interesting. So, I mean, inthose developmental years, or,
or those young adult years, I mean, he,
he faced some opposition, right?
Like it wasn't, uh, and, and,and that he had to be brave,

(28:23):
but also had moments of, ofcompassion As he ,
he leaned in and, uh, calledpeople to repentance, called
- People in repentance.
And the best, nice, nicest way possible
that they really like.
I mean, it struck him.You, you could tell. So
- Yeah, love it. All right,where do we go from here?
- So he was a lecturerat a very early age.
Like he would lecture aroundthe territory about science.

(28:45):
And he had, so one
of the things I learnedfrom James e Talmage is
that just do it.
And it's not always gonnabe great at the beginning,
but when you're starting anew skill or new leadership,
or you just got called tosomething that you're overwhelmed
with, just get in there and just do it.
People like it whenyou're, you're vulnerable.

(29:05):
And they, they like to see you get better.
And they like to see the lord's, they like
to see the Lord in your life.
The Lord building you up.
There was a great story about when he was,
he must have been 17 or 18.
He was a protege of Carl g Maser at BYU
at the Brigham Young Academy.
And he would do these lectures at night,
and it was hard to getpeople interested in science.

(29:28):
And then he did one where he was,
when he was 18, he wasalready al already doing,
uh, lectures on science.
And he tried to make itreally, really interesting.
And he was good. And the, the people
that came really liked it,but not everybody would come.
It just didn't seem likethe most fun thing to do.
But one night he wastrying to show how you,

(29:49):
if you explode oxygen andhydrogen, you can make H2O.
And so he is doing itin the glass cylinder
and the glass cylinder burstsso suddenly and loudly,
and with such force that allthe lamps extinguished in the
room, and the glass just shatteredover the entire audience.
One young lady was struckin the forehead by a piece
of glass, and she fainted.

(30:10):
And there were some otherinjuries, but nothing too bad.
I mean, everybody, nobody had to
go to the hospital or anything.
And the admin at the ButteRham Young Academy apparently
were really afraid that
after that, nobody would darecome to one of his lectures.
But the exact opposite happened.
All of a sudden it became likethe most popular thing to do.
It'd be people had heard about that,
and all of a sudden therewere standing room clouds.

(30:31):
Only everybody wanted to come to it.
- Wow. He's a goodmarketer for science there.
Yeah, absolutely. Did you wannasee something explode? Yeah.
That's awesome. And thatwas at, uh, Brigham Academy.
That, and he was a professor at that time?
- He, well, yeah, he was a teacher.
I don't know if he was, if he
would've called himself a professor.
'cause this was actually before he went
to Johns Hopkins. He was young.

(30:51):
- Oh, gotcha. Yeah,- He was, he was, oh, yeah, he
- Was 18.
He said he was 18. That's right. Okay.
- So this, yeah, this was before.
And then there's, there'sanother story about
him when he is older.
This is when he is presidentof the University of Utah.
And he kept a pretty regular schedule.
And he got home late one night,
which was surprising to his family.
But he came home just bloody

(31:12):
and just covered in mud and grass.
And, and they thought maybehe'd like fallen into a mo.
I mean, they didn't know what happened.
Maybe he was mugged orsomething, they didn't know.
But what had actuallyhappened is he, the bicycle
with a chain just cameinto, was just invented.
It, made bicycles a lot safer.
And that became his regularmode of transportation.

(31:34):
And he would ride all theway home from the University
of Utah, except for one place
where there was a plank, over a ditch.
And he would get offand he would walk across
the, the plank.
But he felt comfortableenough riding his bicycle that
he decided that he wasjust gonna go over it.
No big deal. So he did,
but he went a little toooblong, slid right off the,

(31:56):
right off the plank into the ditch.
And he was bruised. He'sa little embarrassed.
And he thought, okay,well, I'm not going home
until I get over that plank.
So he went and he tried it one more time,
went into the ditch again, justdid it over and over again.
And he was not gonna,he was not gonna quit.
And I don't know, he lostcount on how many times

(32:16):
or how long it took, buteventually he got over
and just to make sure he'dlearned the lesson, he went back
and he did it three more times.
And so that was how he problem solved.
He just did it head on. Hewasn't afraid of failure.
He would just get up and do it again.
He did say though, that he never went over
that ditch withoutfeeling a tinge of fear.

(32:38):
- Bet. And,
and this is, I mean, just kind
of reveal something of his character.
'cause they see him as suchan accomplished scientist
that it probably took some,some resilience to get there.
Right. Oh, to keep trying and messing up
and, you know, moving forward.
- Absolutely. A goodway to think about him,
and I don't know thatthere's any spiritual lesson
to get from this, but Ido think it's fascinating,
is he was almost like an Indiana Jones

(33:01):
of the Utah Territory.
So a lot of his scientificstuff was just doing expeditions
out into where people hadn't gone.
So he would just have like fourpack animals, some students,
some other teachers, and theywould just head off into the
Utah desert and look forstuff like they were, I mean,
they weren't the first personto go down the Grand Canyon,
but they went down the north face

(33:21):
of the Grand Canyon whennot very many people had
and explored down there.
And it actually became, well,let me start earlier actually.
This is actually, there is actually
a spiritual lesson to be learned here.
So when he was sent,
he asked Carl g Mazer if he could go east
and just if it would be a good idea,
and they said, well, youshould go talk to John Taylor.
And they decided to justtreat it as a mission

(33:44):
and set him apart as if whathe was doing was a mission.
And Wilfred Woodruff set him apart.
And he said somethingsurprising that I don't know
that I would've trusted,
but he said, when you goover there, get what you have
to do, and come right backto Utah, do not get extra
diplomas and honors, come back to Utah.
And then they promised everything will

(34:06):
come when you come back.
And it's absolutely true.
He found this, this type
of mineral in the capital reef area,
and he would just start sending it
to museums all over the world.
And it was a really like,cherished thing, like they were,
it was some museums like prize possession.
And that's one of the waysthat he got to know so many,

(34:28):
so many scientists around the world.
And he was able to tradethat, those rocks for
stuff from, you know, Europe.
So Utah all of a sudden gotall these amazing things here.
And he never would have
received the honors hedid if he had stayed east
or gone to the continent,
because he would've been one of many,

(34:49):
he would've done very well.
He would've done very well. Yeah.
But coming back to Utah andjust going out with pack animals
and finding stuff, all of asudden he became like a real
celebrity in the science world.
Like they invited himto the Royal Society,
Royal Scientific Society of Edinburgh.
I think I got that name wrong,
but which was normally somebody

(35:11):
that lived in America, couldn't do.
But they, they pulled some strings
and he didn't ask to be a part of it.
They were just, they loved him so much
and they were so impressed
with the stuff they were bringing.
All these scientific societies from Utah
or from Europe, were inviting him
to be in these justamazing, amazing societies.
And so Wilfred RedR wasreally prophetic when he said

(35:33):
that he never would'vebecome the man he was,
if he'd have stayed theresearching for that, it all came
to him just by being here and being him.
- Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely work
for him to do here, .
Yeah. And to have the influencethere. That's awesome.
Any other scientific exploits? He, he had,
- I mean, the first thing, the first thing
that really brought him notorietywas he got a microscope.

(35:54):
He bought a microscope whenit was first coming out
and would start justlooking at everything.
But the one thing
that really got himnoticed was Brian Shrimp.
He put Brian shrimp on microscopes,
and then he'd send it toother microscope enthusiasts
all around the world, .
And so his first big thing
that he got was the RoyalMicroscopic Society.

(36:15):
They asked him to join.
And back then the scientificsocieties were a big deal.
I was trying to think of anythingthat was as big a deal now
that would be as impressive.
And I actually couldn't, I mean,it, I have a story later on
where people reacted to himbeing in those societies.
And I don't know that there'sanything nowadays that would,

(36:36):
that would cause quite the reaction.
I mean, it was, it was like all
of a sudden somebody is just like, Hey,
do you wanna be a member of Congress?
No, you don't have to. Youdon't have to run for it.
Just come on and be in Congress.
It'd be something like that.You know what I mean? Okay.
Come, come join the royal family.
Almost is, is what it was looked on.
I mean, that people loved those scientific
societies back then.
- Wow. Interesting. That's awesome.

(36:57):
Well, should we, uh,move on to, let's see,
compassion mixed with bravery.
Before we were talking about bravery
mixed with compassion, but
- Yeah, absolutely.
And this is actually,this is, I've, this story
I had more re I've had more response
to than any other story.
Like, like this is what,
this was the first time I tolda story that people, like,
just people that weren't interested in my,

(37:19):
in my Twitter feed.
Absolutely. Just, you know what I mean?
They were still sharing it.It got shared like crazy.
It got more likes at anything since
you guys might have heard this.
It's, it's been talked about a couple
of times in generalconference once by Elder Wlan
and once fairly, like inthe last five or six years,
and I completely forgot about it.
So in 1892, Utah was hit withthe theory theory epidemic,

(37:44):
and people were dying like crazy.
The Release Society found anon-member family near death,
and people didn't really knowhim, so they stumbled on him,
and then they couldn't get anybody to help
because people were scared that, you know,
especially if you had afamily, you didn't wanna go
and get diptheria and thenpass it on to your kids,
or you die yourself.
And so they couldn't find anybody to help.

(38:06):
Now, James z Talmage was ayoung father at this time.
He was just starting to get known in the
scientific community.
And when he heard about it, he absolutely,
he just rushed there, no question asked.
He was there. And what hefound was absolutely horrible.
One child, a 2-year-old,laid dead on her bed,
and then a, a boy of 10 and agirl of five riving in agony.

(38:28):
And there was a 13-year-old
who was improving, butshe was still feeble.
She couldn't do anything. And the mom
and dad were just, just dazed
and just, just just dazedwith grief and fatigue.
And the disease had been there long enough
that the house was just ina state of, of utter filth.
And so after administeringto the children, James,
he spent the rest of the day cleaning.
He swept and he disinfected,

(38:49):
and he, he burned all the filthy rags
and bathed the children.
And the release societyhad brought clothes.
And so he was able to putthem in, in clean clothes.
And, and the next morningwhen he returned, he found out
that the 10-year-old boyhad died during the night.
And the little girl offive was in her last ago.
He took her in his arms and hedid his best to comfort her.

(39:10):
And then this is whathe wrote in his journal.
She clung to my neck offtimes coughing bloody mucus
on my face and clothing.
And her throat had aboutit, the stench of ification,
yet I could not put her downduring the last half hour,
immediately preceding herdeath, I walked the floor
with a little creature in my arms.
She died in agony at 10:00 AM Now,
because of the plague bodies were required

(39:31):
to be buried immediately.
And so they were buried in a single grave.
And he said the grief of the parents
and the surviving sister wereabsolutely pitiful to behold.
And James, he gave abrief graveside sermon,
and the bishop was there too.
And he dedicated the grave andhe actually got that theory.
James e Talmage got that theory.
So he had to go home andbe quarantined for a week.

(39:54):
But he survived. I mean,of course he survived,
but like that right thereis, I mean, how many people,
I mean, as a father, you know what I mean?
I, I don't know. That's thekind of, that's the kind
of bravery and compressionthat I don't know.
I mean, that's just, that'sthe man i I want to be,
and I hope I would beif that ever happened.
- Oh, yeah. And,
and again, it's just theselittle, these hidden stories

(40:17):
that build upon these menthat now look like, you know,
they, they became apostles Mm-Hmm.
of, ofJesus Christ, you know,
which is quite a title and atough platform to stand on,
but you know, God is, is workingin him, just like we think
of the stories of Joseph Smith's life.
Right. All of these apostleshad these experiences,
just like we all do in our life.
Mm-Hmm. that sanctifies us as

(40:37):
and makes us able tostand in these calling
and serve Absolutely.
And lead any other storiesof compassion mixed
with bravery, or is that the,
- That's the big one right there.
It's, I mean, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that's the big one right there.
And that's, that's one ofmy top favorite stories
for many apostle ever.
I mean, it just, somethingabout that it find
so touching and just, yeah. Just powerful.

(40:59):
- Yeah. All right. How about, uh,
the Lord calls you to be you.
Okay. That manifests in thelife of James z Dage. Yeah.
- So when he was an apostle,he was called to be, uh,
the mission president of GreatBritain, and he succeeded.
David O. McKay was theone right before him.
Like, there was a lot of,like, if you were called
to England, you an apostle

(41:20):
and a really cool, you know,
just an amazing apostle wasgonna be your mission president.
Mm-Hmm. . Andwhen he came to Great Britain,
it was the anti-Mormon sentimentwas at its highest ever.
I mean, it was just the way
that newspapers knew they couldsell a paper was they would,
they would write a headline.
This is an actual headline,

(41:40):
Mormon Mysteries unveileda girl's awful revelations.
And they would put that onthe paper and it would sell.
I mean, it would absolutely sell. Are you
- Saying fake news existed back then? This
- Is ?
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It did.
And in London, on the West end, one
of the most popularplays was a play called
Eve and the Elders.

(42:01):
Oh, wow. Yeah. I actuallytried to find the play
to see if it was maybe online
or maybe on Google Books or something.
I couldn't find it, but itwas quite popular at the time.
And I don't know anything about it except
that the elders are members.
And Eve, of course, isshe's in a lot of danger.
And so at that time,
there was very little missionarywork was very hard to do
because everybody just thought the Mormons

(42:22):
were absolute trouble.
And so, James e Talmage,I think the Lord, a lot
of the things that happenedearlier in his life were
preparing him for just thismoment, for just this moment.
So he would go to ahostile newspaper to speak
with the editor, and when hewould go to the front desk,
he would offer his callingcard, and whoever was the clerk

(42:44):
or whatever would go back, come back,
and they'd be like, uh,regretfully, the elder's schedule is
so full, he couldn'tpossibly find time to visit.
So Elder Tam expected this.
And he would say, oh, I,sorry, I just forgot something.
He would write down on his card,
he would write F-R-S-E-F-R-M-S

(43:05):
and FRGS,
and that was the, thefellow of the Royal Society
of Edinburgh, the fellow ofthe Royal Microscopic Society,
and the fellow of the RoyalGeological Society, .
And the clerk knew exactlywhat the, everybody knew
what those were just by the initials.
And the clerk would lookat it, look back at him,
and be like, I'll be right back.

(43:27):
. He would go and he'd be like, oh,
they would love to see you.
He may not today. Canyou come back tomorrow?
Or they'd see him right then.
I mean, everything would just change
what I said earlier about those societies.
Like they were as respected as anything.
As a matter of fact, aroundthat time, the Prince of Wales
was gonna be inducted into the fellow
of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

(43:47):
And that was like thebest thing for the Prince.
I mean, the Prince washonored for that. Wow.
And so that's what it meant.
And so, so once he wouldtalk to the editor,
and everybody thattalked to James e Talmage
absolutely loved him,absolutely loved him.
Once he would talk to James Z Talmage, all
of a sudden they just,they didn't have the taste
for putting that in.
And so he would just go to newspaper
to newspaper and do that.

(44:09):
And then every once ina while, a story like
that would come, and James
z Talmage was friends with the editor.
He goes, do you mindif I write a rebuttal?
And he would write this rebuttal
and just anti-Mormonin the newspapers just
sort of went away. It just went away.
- Hmm. - Wow. So nobodyelse could have done that.
That was the one thing that, I mean,
he was probably the one man on earth at

(44:29):
that time who could have done that.
Yeah. And I do think, like in leadership,
like there are things you cando that nobody else can do.
Like, you don't have to be the bishop
before you who is super cool.
You don't have to worryabout being him like the
Lord called you to be you.
- Yeah. And there, Ijust think of, you know,
the diplomatic efforts ofdifferent members of the church,
whether they're an official calling

(44:49):
or maybe they're a politician
or somebody who's well respectedin a business community,
you know, they can, there's stories
of those people reaching out
and that those types of things happen in
smaller communities as well.
You know, maybe absolutely.The bishop can't get into
that house, but you know whattheir next door neighbor,
who's the executivesecretary five years ago
or whatever, like, theyhave a relationship there
and maybe there's some connections that,

(45:11):
or they can work on the,the established respect,
the mutual respect in thatrelationship to reach out
and help and, and build,restore the good name
of the church in that area,
or the good name of the bishop,or whatever it is. Yeah,
- That's absolutely right. Yeah.
- All right. We're winding downhere with James down again.
I mean, such an accomplished person.
He deserves his own podcast, to be honest.
But I, we know, Brian,

(45:32):
you're a little busy, so .
So where, where do you wantto go next as we wrap up?
- Well, okay, there's one quick story
that's just a great story.
And it's, I'm so glad I know it now.
And it's, it's one of thosechurch history stories
that you just, you wish youknew it your whole life,
but like I'd said earlier, like,
there's just too many stories.
Yeah. Uh, our church isjust full of stories.
Even the best stories are just gonna

(45:52):
fall between the cracks.
And so he was known as aworkhorse, and he would work hour
after hour, day after day,and he wouldn't do recreation.
It just did not interest him.
And this really concerned hisfamily. It really concerned.
The other members of the 12 Hebrew J Grant
was constantly telling him,you gotta take up a sport,
you gotta do some, you gotta do a sport

(46:14):
- Like recreation or something. .
- Yeah. Yeah. And HebrewJ Grant was really
serious, really concerned.
And he is like, I knowjust the thing for you,
you were gonna love golf.
I took up golf. It'smy favorite thing. Yo.
He was like, he was like,
and James z Talmud was justlike, no, no, thank you.
I'm busy. I'm, I'm doing everything.
And, and so eventually,uh, president Grant, well,
he figured if, if he had just made one,

(46:36):
one good shot, he'd be hooked for life.
He was just sure of this .
And so eventually they reachedthe Compromise President
Grant would teach him how to play golf.
And after learning to makeone good shot, if he decided
to quit, president Grantwould cease his request.
And so, okay. So on that day,they get to the golf course
and there's President Grant,there's Elder Talmage,
there's several other general authorities.

(46:57):
Didn't say who, but there was
a bunch of other general authorities.
And they met with Elder Talmag at Nibley
Park for the first lesson.
And after President Grantdemonstrated how to grip the club
and how to do a golf stroke,it was Elder Taags turn.
And I don't know, do you play golf?
- I mean, yeah. I, couple times a year.
I'm not like an avid golfer. Yeah. Okay.
- Very good. Well, I'm a new golfer.
I played a few times, andI'm absolutely horrible.

(47:19):
I'm absolutely horrible.And so, so, you know,
like when you're startingout with golf, it's,
you're either gonna hit it a few feet
or you're gonna miss, I mean, it's,
it's a, it's a tough sport.
Elder tallman hit the ball 200 yards,
and it stayed in the fairway , so,
- Oh my goodness.
- Yeah. You read about the spectators.
This is how they wrote about it.
They were just momentarily struck, dumb,

(47:41):
and then they burst into applause.
And President Grant shook his hand
and said, congratulation,
that is a shot you'll rememberfor the rest of your life.
And Elder Mage was like, you mean
that was a fully satisfactory golf shop?
And President Grant was like,oh, yeah, it certainly was.
And then Elder Mage said
that I have fulfilled mypart of the agreement.
And President Grant said, you have,
let's go down to the clubhouse now.

(48:02):
I'll help you selectyour first set of clubs.
And Elder Mage said, oh, thank you.
If I have fulfilled mypart of the agreement,
then I shall call onyou to live up to yours.
I should like to get back to my office
where I have a great deal of work.
And he never played golf again.
That was the last golf ball he ever shot.
- Oh my goodness. Mic drop moment.
Just as that'll do. Yeah.
Oh my goodness. I lovethat. Isn't that great?
- Yeah.- Love that.

(48:22):
Well, we ke we can't not talkabout his effort in writing
Jesus the Christ as, you know,
just a hallmark effortaccomplishment that, uh,
he did. Tell us more about that.
- Yeah. So it was, took himseven months and five days,
and he was at the Temple 24 7.
I mean, he was a real workhorse.
And that was one of the things

(48:44):
that got people worried about him.
That was why people wereworried he was working so hard.
But he just, he just feltlike if he had a project,
he was gonna see it through
and he would just give it his all.
- And now it, uh, I mean,it's blessed so many lives
and continues to blessthe lives of missionaries
as they read it on their missions.
Oh, it's, I remember that's was
my first interaction with it.
- It's absolute classic. Yeah.

(49:05):
It's a very, that's a powerful book.
- It is. It's all right.What about his death?
- Well, so one of the things,
and this is one of thosemoments where it's, he died,
actually, you get to the end of their life
and you realize he died at like 70.
And you realize, oh, man,that, that feels young to me.
That actually feelsyoung to me, especially
with Russell M. Nelson, just with all

(49:27):
of his energy at 99, you know what I mean?
And just what a blessing he isbeen, what a blessing he is.
Been to the church at his age,
but he died at 70 from a,
from complications of a strep throat.
And it was about 10 yearsbefore penicillin. Oh, wow.
And yeah, so, and ifit wasn't treated right
away, it could be deadly.
And so he finished a radio address

(49:50):
and took his, one of hiskids, maybe it was his son,
maybe his daughter, maybe allof them out to get ice cream.
And he had a cough that just would not,
that would just not get better.
And then the next day was Pioneer day.
And so he couldn't go to the doctors
because all the doctors were done,
and he wasn't about to imposehimself to any doctors,
but then by the next day, itwas just, it was too much.
And he, uh, he passed away from it. Wow.

(50:12):
- And Don was the legend, right? Yeah,
- Absolutely.
I mean, he was definitely,yeah, I mean, just an amazing,
just an amazing man.
So you read about these people,
you read about these apostles,and then you get to the end
and you almost, you know,you feel like you know him a
little bit and it's alwaystouching at the end.
It's always absolutelytouching when you get to that.
- Yeah. Well, this is awesome, Brian.

(50:34):
This has been so informative and helpful
and, uh, just exploring alittle bit of the life of,
of James Zt and obviouslydid, what's the name
of the, his biography?
Is it just the life ofJames Zt or Talmage, or,
- It's the Talmage story,
and I don't, I think it's on Kindle.
I'm not a hundred percent sure about this.
I think it's on Kindle. Itmight be out of, um, print.

(50:54):
I got mine at a di or somewhere.
It'll, it'll show up ,
but it's definitely worthtracking down. It's a great book.
- Awesome. Is there anyspecific biography that isn't,
that they're having ahard time finding, or,
- Oh, yeah, there are.
There's actually quite a few.
I would have, I've gota list of biographies
that are like over a hundredbucks, you know what I mean?

(51:15):
Because they're just Oh,yeah. Way out of print.
- You gotta save up for those. Yeah,
- Exactly.
Or some of them are at the BYU library.
So eventually I'm gonnatake a Saturday and come up
and read as much as I can.
, I mean, just spend,spend the whole day just
reading one of the biographies
and taking all the notes when I get to
that point when I runout of my biographies.
- But maybe take a break and go, uh,
swing a golf club once. Yeah,

(51:36):
- That's right.
Yeah, go shoot at 200. Be
- Nice.
No, that's cool. That's cool.
Well, I would encourage people again,
to go check out your account on X again.
Any anywhere else youwould, you would send them,
or is that sort of the, that's
- All.
I've got the spot. Yeah.That's all I've got. Yeah.
- Cool. Well, we've talkedoffline a little bit.
We're gonna figure it out.I'd love to have you on and,
and sort of do this typeof thing more and more.

(51:59):
And it may not be every hundred
and third apostle in, you know,
that we've had in on the podcast feed,
but we're gonna do somethings on the YouTube channel,
maybe share some thingsthere on social media.
So make sure that, uh, you'relistening people subscribe
to the, to leading Saints on YouTube,
and we're gonna put somereally cool stuff there.
But I'd love to have you backon and, and explore more lives

(52:19):
or just have you record onyour own with, uh, you know,
share some good stories asyou do, as you share 'em on X.
And, uh, maybe the next onewe'll do is John W. Taylor.
Yeah. Uh, which is obscure individual,
but maybe t's John W. Taylor, who he was.
- Okay, so John W. Taylorwas, uh, he was the son
of John Taylor, the prophet,

(52:41):
and his son, John w Taylor'sson was Samuel Woolley Taylor,
who wrote the Absent MindedProfessor and Flubber.
So the grandson of John Taylor wrote The
Absent Minded Professor.
And uh, that's so cool.He wrote a book about his
dad, John W. Taylor.
He was one of the apostlesthat was excommunicated
for polygamy after the Manifesto.
Wow. And it's so funny,and it is so like, like

(53:05):
- It gets doesn't expectme to say so funny. Well,
- It's the funniest, definitelythe funniest Mormon history
book ever, because he
- Was obviously a good comedy writer
for his time. Right? Yeah.
- He was a very funny, SamuelWillie Taylor is a very funny
writer, so he knew how towrite, he knew how to write,
that book reads so fast.
But John W. Taylor was very,very, he was a character.
He was very, very funny. And and you think

(53:26):
because of the end it would be like
dark and, you know what I mean?
It'd just be like kind of a bummer.
But he does something at theend that is so faith affirming
and so courageous.
I cannot wait to tell the story
that he became one of my heroes.
I mean, he really, well, I'lljust tell this part of it.
Yeah. He really became, like,
he was a rock star at his time.

(53:47):
Like, he was the kind of guythat like people would come
to hear because he wasreally, everybody loved him.
He was very friendly.He was very, very funny.
And so when he got excommunicated,there was a real fear
that he would try to bring people away.
And some people came to him
and asked him to, and he said, I will.
This is Christ Church.
I will never, I willnever, how did he put it?

(54:08):
Well, oh, we'll do it the next time.
But anyways, he, he wassomebody who loved people,
and he really could have goneand started another movement,
and he refused to do itbecause this was Christ Church.
And he would never, he would never, never,
never betray awesome.
Betray that. But the way he does it, so I,
the way I did it was not as,as powerful as when he does it,
when he does it, it'sjust, it gives me chills.

(54:29):
Yeah. But it, it reallygives you an idea of
what it was like to livein Utah in the early,
late 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds.
And it's just one, onebanger story after another.
- That's awesome. All right.
Let's, uh, organize something and,
and maybe, I don'tknow, I'm playing around
with some new things in 2024,
but maybe even do a, a fun live stream

(54:49):
where people can join in
and ask some questions or something.
I don't know. We'll figureit out. I'll love that. Yeah.
And, but I'd let, yeah,
let's learn more about JohnW. Taylor and the, the highs
and lows of, of his lifeand his apostleship.
Okay. And again, if peoplewanna check out more X
of the apostles, head on over to X
and we'll link to it inthe, in the show notes.
It'd be awesome. So, Ryan,the question we ask people,
as you know, you've, you'vehad an opportunity not only

(55:11):
to study the lives of leaders,
but to be a leader to yourself.
And how has being a leaderhelped you become a better
follower of Jesus Christ?
- Uh, I love that question.
Being a leader helped meunderstand how dependent I was
on the Savior when I hadto give words of comfort
or be aware enough that Icould talk to either, you know,

(55:32):
notice somebody new coming into church,
or somebody that needed a kind word.
I couldn't do that on my own.
And before I was a leader,I think I would just sort
of let the days go by.
I mean, I would just, Iwouldn't think much about it,
but being a leader, I hadto, I had to humble myself
and go to the Savior and realize
that I cannot do thiswithout, without him.

(56:03):
- That concludes this episodeof the Leading Saints podcast.
Hey, listen, would you do me a favor?
You know, everybody's got thatfriend who listens to a ton
of podcasts and maybe theyaren't aware of Leading Saints.
So would you mind takingthe link of this episode
or another episode of Leading Saints
and just texting it to that friend?
You know who I'm talking about, the friend
who always listens to podcasts

(56:24):
and is always telling youabout different podcasts?
Well, it's your turn to tell
that friend about Leading Saints.
So share it. We'd alsolove to hear from you.
If you have any perspective
or thought on this episode, youcan go to leading saints.org
and actually leave a commenton the, uh, episode page,
or reach out to us atleading saints.org/contact.
Remember, go to leadingsaints.org/fourteen

(56:45):
to access the remarkable presentation
by Anthony Sweat aboutambiguity and doctrine.
- It came as a result ofthe position of leadership,
which was imposed uponus by the God of Heaven,

(57:07):
who brought forth arestoration of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ.
And when the Declarationwas made concerning the own
and only true
and living church uponthe face of the Earth,
we were immediately put ina position of loneliness.
The loneliness of leadershipfrom which we cannot

(57:28):
shrink nor run away.
And to which we must faceup with boldness and courage
and ability.