When Heaven hands you another chance at life, what legacy will you protect for your bloodline?
This Sunday on Latter-Day Lights, hosts Scott and Alisha welcome Joseph Smith Skeen to the show. As a direct descendant of Hyrum Smith, Joe unveils how near-death and a second chance at life became the spark that led him to safeguard his ancestor’s relics—from Alvin’s toolbox that once cradled the gold plates, to Hyrum’s bullet-scarred pocket watch, and even Civil War rifles used at Carthage.
Now an author of devotional books drawn from decades of faith-driven experiences, Joe weaves God’s calling, family heirlooms, and profound revelations into a testimony that proves the Lord can preserve hearts and history all at once.
Tune in to Joe’s story to discover how tangible relics and personal miracles intertwine, leaving you with fresh resolve to trace, treasure, and testify to the sacred narratives in your own family for generations to come.
*** Please SHARE Joe's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***
To WATCH this episode, visit: https://youtu.be/7QAIlCNLGNs
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To READ Joe's first book, "Testimony: How to Find Peace and Strength in a Troubled World," visit: https://a.co/d/eFVf4j9
To READ Joe's second book, "Today's Thought: For Missionaries and Families," visit: https://a.co/d/hIMCcoc
To READ Joe's third book, "Affirmation: Stories and Artifacts of Joseph, Hyrum, and The Smith Family" (use code AFFIRM20 for 20% off,) visit: https://www.ssstechnologies.net/store/AFFIRMATION-Stories-and-Artifacts-of-Joseph-Hyrum-and-the-Smith-Family-p670324639
To READ Scott’s book “Faith to Stay,” visit: https://www.faithtostay.com/
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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Scott Brandley (00:00):
Hey there as a Latter-day Lights listener, I
want to give you a very specialgift today my brand new book,
faith to Stay.
This book is filled withinspiring stories, powerful
discoveries and even freshinsights to help strengthen your
faith during the storms of life.
So if you're looking to beinspired, uplifted and
(00:21):
spiritually recharged, justvisit faithtostaycom.
Now let's get back to the show.
Hey everyone, I'm ScottBrandley.
Alisha Coakley (00:32):
And I'm Alisha Coakley.
Every member of the church hasa story to share, one that can
instill faith, invite growth andinspire others.
Scott Brandley (00:40):
On today's episode we're going to hear how
one descendant of Hiram Smithhas been able to grow and
develop his testimony in thegospel.
Welcome to Latter-day Lights.
Hey everyone, welcome back toanother episode of Latter-day
(01:02):
Lights.
We're so glad you're here withus today.
We have a really special treat.
We'd like to introduce ourspecial guest today, joseph
Smith Skeen.
Welcome, joe.
Joe Skeen (01:12):
I'm glad to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Alisha Coakley (01:15):
Yeah, of course I have to say I'm curious Is the
Smith a middle name or is it adouble last name?
How do you?
Like you've got some historythere with that.
Obviously, Tell me a little bitabout the name.
Joe Skeen (01:34):
So my parents, my mother, is in the Smith family
and she was the daughter ofElder G Smith.
I don't know if you rememberhim, but a lot of people like to
say his name and they don'tknow Other people go.
Oh yeah, I remember him.
He was the last churchpatriarch.
Alisha Coakley (01:52):
Oh, okay.
Joe Skeen (01:53):
Yeah, so she had a name of Smith as her maiden name
, and when my mom and dad gotmarried, all of the boys in the
family got Smith as their middlename.
Alisha Coakley (02:06):
Oh, that's really cool, that's really cool.
I like that and it's easy toremember.
You can yell at all your kidsand you're going to get at least
part of their name, right,right.
Joe Skeen (02:18):
It depends on how you yell it, I guess.
Scott Brandley (02:23):
Oh, that's cool.
Alisha Coakley (02:24):
Well, Joe, tell us a little bit more about
yourself.
Joe Skeen (02:28):
So for probably about the last 40 years I've been a
software developer, have awonderful wife and five boys.
Each of them are married, andso now I've got five
daughters-in-law.
Alisha Coakley (02:44):
Oh, that's cool.
And now I've got fivedaughters-in-law oh that's cool,
and currently I've got 10grandchildren.
So yeah, I love my family baby,and then you'll actually have
more grandchildren than you havechildren in in-law children
yeah the scales will tip to thatside.
Joe Skeen (03:05):
But the grandchildren are the best.
They're your reward for makingsure you take care of the kids
when they're young.
Scott Brandley (03:12):
Yeah.
Joe Skeen (03:12):
You can just spoil the grandkids and send them home
.
Alisha Coakley (03:18):
Oh, that's fun Cool.
And then where do you guys liveright now?
Joe Skeen (03:23):
So we live in Dushane Utah.
Alisha Coakley (03:26):
Okay.
Joe Skeen (03:29):
We used to live in the Salt Lake Valley.
We came out here a few yearsback.
Beautiful area.
Alisha Coakley (03:33):
I feel like all of Utah is.
It's just I mean I'm biased,but Utah is just so damn pretty
everywhere you go, you know.
So are you guys like, is thatnorthern, southern central?
Where in Utah is that?
Joe Skeen (03:50):
There's so many different things in Utah too,
just a lot of variety ofdifferent types of landscapes.
Alisha Coakley (03:56):
Yeah.
Scott Brandley (03:59):
So where is Duchesne located, Joe?
Joe Skeen (04:03):
Oh, in Utah, no.
So do you know where Vernal is?
Uh-huh.
So if you're going from SaltLake to Vernal, you're going to
go right through Duchesne to getthere.
Alisha Coakley (04:13):
Oh, okay, Perfect yeah that's a pretty
area.
You're right.
Joe Skeen (04:17):
Yeah, we're about an hour before hitting Vernal.
Alisha Coakley (04:21):
Okay.
Joe Skeen (04:23):
I've got one that lives out in Vernal, so I've got
one son that lives out inVernal.
Alisha Coakley (04:25):
Well, I know, along with software developing,
you have a talent for writing.
Is that right?
Joe Skeen (04:33):
Yeah, I've actually written three books Wow, which,
if you want to see which onesthey are.
My first book I ever wrote wasthis.
It's called Testimony how toFind Peace and Strength in a
Troubled World.
There's a big story behind thatone.
I'll touch on that.
The second book I wrote wasToday's Thought.
(04:55):
This one is a collection ofemails and thoughts that I sent
to my missionaries.
I had at one point three of myboys in the mission field at the
same time.
My wife would handle the emailsfor the regular day-to-day
stuff and I thought, gee, whatcan I do to really support my
missionaries?
And so today's thought.
(05:17):
I would study the scriptures onthe way to work when we were
living in town, there on thetrain, and I'd ponder the things
that I would read and try tocome up with something to share
with my boys.
So then I'd share them athought about that scripture and
quote of it.
And more often than not my boyscame back to me and said you
(05:41):
know that thought you just sentme it was exactly what our
investigator needed.
So yeah, so I tried to keeptrack of all those emails.
One of my sons came to me afterhis mission and says whatever
you do.
Don't lose those things.
Those are wonderful thoughts.
So I went into a book.
Alisha Coakley (06:04):
That's so sweet.
I love that.
Joe Skeen (06:08):
And then the third book that I wrote is this one.
It's a bigger one.
Oh yeah, it's calledAffirmation Stories and
Artifacts of Joseph and Hiramand the Smith Family.
Hiram and the Smith family.
So my grandfather had artifactsthat he received, was handed
down from Hiram to John Smith,to Hiram Fisher, to Hiram Gibbs,
(06:32):
to my grandfather, elder GSmith, father to son, oldest son
, and he would go around doingfiresides about the artifacts,
sharing his testimony of therestoration of the gospel.
So when he passed away, theseartifacts were donated to the
church and they're on display inthe Church History Museum.
(06:56):
That's neat, but there's notmuch information on it there.
You know they've got littleplacards with just a little
blurb, Right.
Some of them are not even ondisplay because you know they
don't display everything theyhave Right.
So what I did is I first setout to write this book to
(07:17):
especially honor my grandfatherand these artifacts and I kind
of grew into more than that.
And I kind of grew into morethan that.
The first part of the book is itcovers more of a historical
dialogue of the restoration, andthen I show where the artifacts
(07:49):
played a part throughout thewhole thing, like Alvin's
toolbox and even Hiram's clotheswhen he was martyred.
I've got all kinds of stuff inthere.
In the process I found otherartifacts from some of my Smith
cousins that they shared with me.
That I included in here andthen in the back of the book is
just the artifacts.
So it's like two pieces.
And I'd seen some artifact booksthat show little teeny, tiny
pictures and then they have somekind of dry blurb about it.
(08:12):
But in my book I include, likehere's, lots of like landscape
pictures, just beautifulpictures, large pictures of the
artifacts.
I include a lot of little-knownstories about the Smith family
(08:35):
and some insights and thingsthat very few people know, Like
my grandfather he had.
I don't know if you know whatAlvin's toolbox is.
I could go on and on and onkinds of things, so I won't do
too much here, but Alvin'stoolbox is the box that first
(08:56):
held the gold plates when Josephbrought them home.
Scott Brandley (08:59):
Okay.
Joe Skeen (09:00):
And one day my grandfather was rubbing oil into
this box and it wouldn't takein one corner of it because the
plates gold and other especiallysoft metals.
If you rub them on something, alittle bit of that metal rubs
off and metal will not oil.
(09:20):
Wow, Little things like that,you know.
Shortly after that I went tovisit my grandfather and he said
oh, come here, come here, yougot to see this.
It's really exciting.
And I saw it and, sure enough,the description of Joseph's size
of the plates was about thearea that would not take oil.
So really interesting.
(09:42):
But that's, yeah, that's mythird, third book and it's 220
pages long, full color.
Wow, uh, hardback with the dustcover on there just a beautiful
book.
I'm really pleased with the wayit turned out looks gorgeous
yeah, it looks really nice.
Well, thank you.
(10:03):
It took a lot of work.
My third son was the editor forthat book and he did a
marvelous job on it.
He came up with the design forthe layout and so forth, and it
took us about six years toproduce that book.
(10:24):
Nice.
Alisha Coakley (10:24):
That's cool and it took us about six years to
produce that book Nice.
So that's cool.
So let's talk a little bitabout your story, like what you
want to share today, on thepodcast when does your story
start?
Joe Skeen (10:42):
So actually, as far as I can remember back and I
have very early memories, evenwhen I was in diapers in my
parents' house I've always knownthe church was true.
I always knew Joseph was aprophet.
Some of that may have stemmedfrom being so close to some of
these artifacts and having mygrandfather, who shared that
(11:05):
often.
I remember times he would cometo our house and and do a
fireside.
He he'd do them all over theplace but show facts.
I used to sneak into his officeand play with these artifacts
which you cringe and touch those.
But I actually told that to mymom and and she laughed and said
(11:25):
she did it too.
So I'm not too bad about it.
That's cool.
I'm sure my grandfather did ittoo.
Alisha Coakley (11:34):
Oh, probably.
Joe Skeen (11:36):
It runs in the family .
So being a member of the Smithfamily is certainly a blessing
to me, but it does not guaranteethat you have a strong
testimony or even a testimony atall, because, just like in any
family, you've got some peoplewho I mean they've got their
free agency and they make theirchoices.
And so I've seen many membersI'm not saying majority,
(12:01):
anything like that but anytimeyou have members of the family
that stray or make choices to goaway from the gospel, it's
difficult, and it's hardespecially when they're closer
to you.
My uncle, my grandfather's son,actually was an alcoholic
(12:23):
sweetest guy, but he was neververy close, and there are other
examples.
That's just one example.
He passed away years ago, butso just being in the Smith
family it was a great thing.
It is a wonderful heritage anda lot of things I can fall back
(12:43):
on that help strengthen mytestimony.
But along the way I've hadother experiences and that's
some of the things I do cover inmy testimony book.
So to start with, when I wasvery young I was in early
(13:05):
elementary we had a very cold,hard winter one year and I
wasn't able to go outside veryoften so I kind of had cabin
fever, and I remembered theprevious summer being out in our
backyard.
We had a nice big backyard andI would climb this willow tree
(13:28):
and we had an apple tree.
But I wanted to be outsideagain, just like I was past
summer.
So this one February there waskind of a little thaw, that a
lot of the snow was melted awayand so I invited a friend over
to play in my backyard.
Well, this is February, theground is still frozen.
(13:50):
So I'm out there in the backyardwith my friend and I decided to
climb this willow tree and Itold my friend hey, you know,
last summer I mean here I'm alittle kid I wasn't thinking
very well, but last summer I sawkatydids up here.
I'll show you where they were.
Maybe they'll be there.
You know, I didn't know theywere gone.
So I climbed this tree and he'splaying around in the yard.
(14:13):
I get up about 20 feet uproughly.
I never measured it, but it wasup relatively high and I was
looking around trying to say,okay, where was that that?
So I shift my weight and grabthis branch and the branch gives
way.
So I fell down and landed onthis frozen ground and broke
(14:37):
about every bone on my body.
Alisha Coakley (14:38):
Now I don't know that I broke every bone.
Joe Skeen (14:40):
But I say about because I don't know that I
broke every bone, but I sayabout because I don't know how
many I broke.
It was bad enough that Iactually hit the ground and
bounced over onto my other side.
I hit hard enough that I hadblood come out of my left ear.
That was how bad it was.
I couldn't hardly even breathe.
(15:04):
My friend, who is kind of scared, he runs up what do I do?
What do I do?
He's frantic.
I couldn't hardly even breatheso I just very hard tried to
squeak out get my mom.
He just goes running, doesn'tknock on the door.
Just right through the backdoor my mom comes, picks me up,
(15:24):
throws me the uh, the van onto aseat, which you know these days
, there again, you're notsupposed to do that, right, yeah
, but anyway.
So she throws me, the van,takes me down to the clinic.
Now the clinic.
They try to patch me up alittle bit.
They tried to patch me up alittle bit and I had a broken
(15:51):
wrist, broken foot, broken andcracked ribs, multiple
concussions.
The doctors told my parentsjust be aware, he's not going to
make it through the night.
Alisha Coakley (16:00):
Really.
Joe Skeen (16:01):
Yeah.
Alisha Coakley (16:03):
Wow it was bad.
Joe Skeen (16:06):
So that night I did pass away.
I remember seeing myself on theother side of the hospital room
and then going through the veil, but then I was sent back.
So I knew when I was comingback that I'd make it, you know,
and from there I was.
(16:26):
I took a long time to recover,but I did survive.
I never told anybody about thisfor years, in fact.
I couldn't tell anybody.
Every time I tried to write itdown or even tell anybody, my
mind would just go blank.
Alisha Coakley (16:45):
Really you just forget.
Joe Skeen (16:48):
Well, but I would kick myself because you know
they're always saying you got toshare your testimony.
Well, here I'd had thisexperience where I know God
lives.
I've been onto the other sideand came back, yet I could not
tell anybody to the other sideand came back.
Yet I could not tell anybody.
So even on my mission, I had acompanion one time who said to
(17:12):
me one day Elder, what if wewoke up tomorrow and found out
everything we have been teachingis not true?
I couldn't even tell him why Iknew that he can't say that.
So I just had to assure him.
Just trust me, elder, it istrue, I actually told my wife
(17:33):
before I told my mom.
But I told them just verysketchy brief that something
happened like that.
When I told my mom she saidthat doesn't surprise me.
The doctor said you wouldn'tlive.
So it wasn't a big surprise toher.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, I even tried telling my orwriting a letter to my
(17:55):
brother-in-law, who wasstruggling at one point with
alcohol and other things, and hewas in the hospital and we
weren't sure he was going tomake it and I thought, oh here
I've got to tell him, put down acouple of words in the letter
and nothing, just went blank.
So, however, one night yearslater, my mother-in-law who was
(18:23):
just an amazing lady her, mymother-in-law, who was just an
amazing lady, just a saint liveda wonderful life.
But I think it was on a 4th ofJuly.
She was in her house and shejust collapsed.
They rushed her to the hospital.
And so we go to the hospitaland they tell us that she's not
going to make it through the day.
And a number of my wife'ssiblings had strayed from the
(18:47):
church and they were sittingthere in the waiting room and
just really somber you couldtell it was just tearing them
apart and my wife and I, yes, wefelt badly about what happened
to my mother-in-law, but we knewshe was going in a good place.
(19:10):
She was a wonderful lady.
So, it didn't affect us the same, but seeing their faces just
really tore my heart apart,thinking, oh, how could I tell
them?
And all of a sudden it was likebeing hit over the head with a
spiritual two-by-four Thunk it'stime to write.
And from that day on, thingsjust flowed faster than I could
(19:33):
write them down, which wastotally different.
It was weird.
So I was writing things downand trying to organize things,
but then one night I wasawakened in the middle of the
night and the Spirit said here'sthe topics that I want in your
(19:57):
testimony book.
Write them down.
Oh man, I'm tired.
I'll write them in the morning,lord.
No, write them now.
Tired.
I'll write them in the morning,lord.
No, write them now.
Alisha Coakley (20:11):
no, really I'll write it in the morning.
Joe Skeen (20:13):
I'm tired, I'll remember.
No, write it.
You know anything?
He's just saying, no, do it now.
So I scrounged around for paperand it's dark and, you know,
scribbled out a bunch of topics.
I don't didn't know if I couldeven read it in the morning, but
amazingly enough, I could and Istill have the paper.
But so it kind of gave me aframework to work on on this,
(20:34):
this first book, and the wordsjust kept coming, just poured
out.
I got to where I had itorganized and gave it to my
brother and his wife to justkind of proofread it.
See where I was at, and theykept saying, oh, you've got to
do more experiences You've gotto do.
I said, no, these are thetopics I was told.
(20:56):
If I'm told that by the story,that's what I'm doing.
If we do other experiences,I'll do them in other books.
So, anyway, so that one, that'show that book came about and it
has a number of otherexperiences in there that I've
had throughout my life andthey're all based on kind of
(21:20):
testimony, building ideas.
So, and that's how I came upwith that subtitle how to Find
Peace and Strength in a TroubledWorld.
And this is back in 2017, Ithink, when I published that
first and I thought, okay, greatLord, I did exactly what you
wanted.
I'm going to start looking atways to promote this book, get
(21:43):
it out there so it can helppeople.
And I started doing theresearch and kind of planning
things.
And here again, another promptit's not time yet.
What do you mean?
It's not time?
I put all my time into this.
I've been waiting to do thisfor so long.
No, it's not time.
Okay, well, if the Lord saysit's not time, it's not time.
(22:06):
So I set it aside and it was notvery long after that I started
writing the artifacts book.
So I think the Lord had that inmind, saying, okay, it's about
time.
And in the meantime, mygrandfather passed away and the
artifacts I mean certain eventsjust said it's time to do that
one now.
I mean certain events just saidit's time to do that one now,
(22:27):
anyway, so that's how the second, that first book, came in, and
then that third one.
The second one was actually inthe middle of all of this stuff,
so that's when my boys were outon their missions.
So, anyway, there are a lot oflessons to be learned about
experience, about being you know, my passing away and coming
(22:50):
back, but the biggest thing isthat God does live.
There is absolutely no questionabout that, and some people
have bigger experiences, somepeople have lower ones, some of
them are just are probably a lotbetter than me, because the
spirit just tells them they know, you know instead of that
experience?
I guess I don't know, but um, Iknow that he lives and it gave
(23:14):
me strength to be able toovercome a lot of challenges
that came after that.
Um, just kind of give you anidea when I became a deacon we
had 14 deacons in our quorum,the quorum's 12.
We had 14.
So we had a lot of kids.
There were a lot of young menin similar age, especially in my
(23:38):
stake throughout.
So by the time I became apriest I was the only one on the
table.
Time I became a priest I wasthe only one on the table.
The rest were gone out of thechurch or there were one or two
of them that would comeoccasionally but sit in the back
, would never go to the tableand say, no, we're not worthy,
we can't do that.
One of those guys did come.
(24:04):
I found out later he turned hislife around and went on a
mission.
So I was glad to hear aboutthat.
But that was.
I didn't hear that till later,after I'd moved away from that
ward.
In our stake the whole stake,three young men graduated from
seminary the year I graduatedfrom seminary and you know there
was a lot of us.
So there were some challenges.
A lot of my peers at the timewhen I was a child were kind of
(24:27):
enticed to go the route intolike drugs and other kinds of
things, and it kind of just tookthem away.
There were times that I waschased down and even beaten.
One time they chased me downand tried to force drugs in my
mouth, and I wouldn't do it, ofcourse, because of what I knew.
(24:55):
I knew what the truth was andin that case, when they chased
me down and tried to get drugsin my mouth, all of a sudden all
at once all jumped up and ranaway, as though somebody had
come to chase them away.
I was on my way to schoolactually at that point, so my
(25:16):
books and things were just allover the lawn where they tackled
me, and so I got up, lookedaround.
I was going to thank the personwho.
So I got up, looked around, Iwas going to thank the person
who chased the kids off.
There's no one in sightanywhere.
(25:37):
So I still, to this day, don'tknow unless the Lord intervened
somehow and just got them off myback.
Anyway, there were things likethat that were difficult, but
that was about the time I was inmiddle school and that was a
very difficult time for me.
Middle school was really hard.
So, needless to say, as a youngboy in middle school, walking
(26:01):
to school without any friendsand walking home alone was very
difficult.
So I started trying to say,well, gee, how can I get people
to like me, how can I find afriend?
And of course at that pointmost of my peers would go around
swearing.
Unfortunately, I learned a fewcolorful words and thought, oh,
(26:25):
maybe it will help me beaccepted by some of them.
So I picked up some colorfulwords and of course I was
careful not to say it around mymom or dad.
But I knew it was wrong, butjust trying to fit in.
(26:46):
But I knew it was wrong butjust trying to fit in.
After that went on for a littlewhile I was out in my backyard
and our backyard kind ofbordered a gully.
So we had our big backyard andthen this fence and this big
gully, which was kind of coolbecause I'd just go down there
and I was in nature down there.
Like I said, Right, yeah.
It was fun, it was great.
(27:06):
So we'd often go back there andI remember one time I had been
down there and I'd come backinto our backyard and I was
walking up towards our house andI heard this voice call my name
, my full name, and at first Ithought, oh, my older brothers
are playing a trick on me.
So I look all over the place,there is nobody around anywhere
(27:32):
and I hear my name again and Igo oh my, I know what this is.
So I answer, I said yay, Lord.
And then I hear the Lord tellme your conduct is not in line
with someone of your calling.
And yeah, it's like okay, Ibetter change.
(28:02):
During that time I felt thatthere's just some interesting
things, especially as I ponderedover the years, that I reflect
back and I go man.
It wasn't just that experience,but there's so many things I
learned from this, even overtime.
During that time I felt suchtremendous feeling of love that
(28:23):
is entirely incomprehensible,greater than any worldly thing
I've ever felt.
If you were to try to comparethe most love that you've ever
felt from anybody here on thisearth and compare it with God's
love, it's almost like trying tocompare a splash of water in
(28:43):
your face to the Pacific Ocean.
It is just infinite.
In fact, the Pacific Oceanisn't even enough.
It's infinite and it's eternal.
God loves you so much.
However, at the exact same time,I felt a huge, very strong
disappointment, just enough tokind of crush you.
(29:06):
I knew what I'd done had beenwrong, you know.
So you know, I had a shortlittle conversation in which I
promised the Lord I would neveruse those words again, ever.
(29:27):
That's a tall order, you know.
If anybody's gotten youswearing boy, they just roll off
your tongue, you know.
But I never, ever have donethat again.
I've never relapsed, and Ithink that's due to the fact
that I remembered a lot ofthings that and I think
(29:50):
President Monson used to tell usmaybe even President Kimball
too, way back then.
You know, if you have a badthought, come to your mind, sing
a hymn from church or somethinglike that, and so I used some
of those things and often prayedfor strength.
So I had to rely on the Lord alot, and if somebody like me,
(30:12):
average Joe, can do it, anyonecan do it.
You know, the fact that he hadsaid someone of your calling,
(30:35):
instead someone of your calling.
My conduct was not in line withsomeone of your calling didn't
mean, you know, for a time itkind of bothered me thinking you
know, wow, what am I supposedto be doing?
But really what it is.
All of us have that samecalling.
We're all children of God.
We've come down here to learnand to grow and to choose the
pathway back to our HeavenlyFather.
It really applies to everybody,and so over the years I've
(30:56):
realized that this experiencewas not just for me.
It was to help other people andto help them know they can do
it, they can overcome things,they can follow the savior.
It doesn't matter what you'vebeen into or or how easy it is,
you just slide back into it,step you know, stand up and do
(31:20):
it again.
You know, try again, don't giveup.
So it, try again, don't give up.
So as I reflect over thatexperience, I see it as almost a
preview of what we're all goingto go through at the end of the
(31:43):
world.
We're all going to stand beforethe judgment bar of Christ.
And you know, when I wasyounger I thought, you know, I'd
read the thing where every kneewill bow and every tongue
confess.
The Lord is going to force youto confess or say that it's
going to come freely, becauseyou will remember who you are,
(32:05):
you'll remember your past,living with our Heavenly Father,
and you'll feel his love.
I mean, there's no gee, I'msmooth, talking my way out of
this.
He knows, and you know, heknows and you know that's the
kind of experience we're goingto be in.
(32:26):
And so if somebody thinksthey're going to be able to, you
know, talk smooth, get theirway out of it or put the blame
on someone else or whatever,they've got kind of a sad
reality that's coming.
It's not right, it's just notgoing to work.
(32:47):
But on the other hand, ifyou're following the gospel and
you're doing what you'resupposed to do, trying, even if
you're not perfect.
It's going to be a wonderfulexperience and I'd rather be on
that end of it.
That's what it has to be.
I've also kind of from thatexperience I've heard over the
(33:13):
years it comes and goes peopletry to twist other people by
saying, well, if you don'taccept my behavior, you don't
love me.
Right Now, from this experience, there's no way that God can be
(33:35):
anything else than loving.
But it doesn't mean that heloves everything you do, right,
you know, yeah.
So the love that he has for us,he's always got his hand out
there saying, hey, I'm notpleased with what you're doing,
but here's my hand, come on,let's go, come this way.
(33:58):
He's always there beckoning usto come.
So that's another thing I kindof got out of that experience.
The other thing I got out of itis often we think, you know,
we're supposed to love the Lordwith all our might, and what's
(34:20):
the love of Christ?
Charity is the true love ofChrist, but what it really is is
we need to love like Christloves.
So just like the Savior says,hey, your conduct, it isn't
right, but I still love you.
We need to be that way with ourfellow men.
We need to love them, even ifthey're doing something that we
(34:44):
think is terrible, theyshouldn't do and I've seen that
with some of my peers.
I still love them.
You know, we need to be um.
One little story I put into mytestimony book too is one day um
.
It may have actually come froma dream, cause I remember coming
up with this.
I had this dream that I was.
(35:06):
I saw this man traveling on amountain trail.
He was traveling alone and hegets around this curve and finds
the trail suddenly drops off toa cliff and fortunately he sees
it before going over anddecides okay, I've got to turn
(35:29):
around and go back.
Turns around and goes back andafter a little while encounters
another company headed the sametrail, same direction, and this
man says look, don't go that way, it's trouble, you are going to
be in trouble, it's going to bepainful, you may die, I don't
(35:51):
know, but it's really bad.
And this everybody in thatcompany just scoffs and scorns
this man and says no, you'rejust trying to control me.
You know, I want to do what Iwant to do.
This is an easier trail.
I'm gonna take this.
It was heartbreaking for thisman.
But what could he do?
(36:11):
He had to let them go and hopethat they can fare better.
But that kind of a, that littleparable or story is really what
I have done, cause I've I've hadto be kind of the lone guy and
(36:31):
I tell my peers, hey, don't gothat way.
And that's exactly what theydid to me.
So I kind of tell that parableor story to other people now to
hope that they can see that.
Okay, going down there, I'veseen that drop off.
I had that experience.
I don't want you to have to gothrough it.
(36:54):
And the sons of Mosiah man Iunderstand how they feel they
went through the same kind ofthing, elma the Younger, and
they said the thought of anyother humans going through that
kind of an experience just madethem shake and treble.
They didn't want anybody elseto have to run into that kind of
(37:14):
an experience, just made themshake and treble.
You know they just they didn'twant anybody else to have to
hand, you know, run into thatkind of thing.
So that's that's what I've,that little story I I got and I
put into that book I it'ssimilar to my experience and to
(37:39):
my experience and it does.
I see people make these choices, to go down a path that's going
to lead to trouble later on,and it really breaks my heart
and I know that our Savior it'sthe same thing.
You know Jesus wept.
He does have those emotions.
He does care for us and it doeshurt to see somebody take a
pathway that's going to hurtthem in the long run.
(38:01):
Anyway, so those are some ofthe things that I learned from
that experience.
Scott Brandley (38:10):
I like that story.
Joe Skeen (38:13):
Yeah.
So and you'd ask me you knowwhat stories am I going to put
in here?
And these play together andthey're kind of big things.
There are other stories I'vehad lots of experiences over
this time but those kind of playtogether and they kind of hit
the core of what the leaders ofthe church have been telling us.
(38:33):
Especially when you're trying toshare the gospel with somebody
else, first thing, you do youlove them, right, and you serve
them too.
But before you even do that youhave to have a testimony.
I mean, you love them anyway.
But those two things gotogether.
And if you love them, how do welove them?
(38:57):
Is it conditional?
Shouldn't be.
You should be like our Savior'slove for us.
And that is unconditional,infinite, doesn't mean we love
everything they do.
But they are children of Godand they are here to learn and
grow and sometimes they do makemistakes and you know, we can
(39:20):
kind of be the Savior's hand,have our hand out there to help
them along, if they'll take itAnyway.
So those are some of thestories.
I don't think I'll get into anyof the others but over the years
, many of which I've shared withsome people, but I wish I could
reach more people in the hopesthat I could help them turn
(39:43):
their hearts to the Savior.
That's where I started writingsome of these books.
I've got many more books Ithink will be coming, because
I've already been thinking aboutsome of the other things that
I've done, like when I had thatexperience with the colorful
(40:04):
words to overcome that man.
That's one of the hardestthings to do because Satan likes
to just throw it into your mindand it just comes out of your
mouth before you even thinkabout it.
And I've talked to some people,and some are very good LDS
people.
They're wonderful people andyet every other word they're
(40:27):
throwing out some kind oflanguage.
And you know some of thebrethren have been saying
language matters and you knowsome of the brethren have been
saying language matters and thething is is if you can learn to
control your tongue it eventalks about that in the old
testament, clear back then curbyour tongue.
But if you can learn to controlthat, it's actually teaching
(40:49):
you how to overcome other thingstoo.
I don't know if you you've everheard about the book Atomic
Habits.
You read that one or heard ofit?
Alisha Coakley (40:59):
Yeah, it's really good.
Joe Skeen (41:01):
It's awesome Many times.
The only thing about it that Idid not like.
I mean it was a great book, butI just wish it had a gospel
perspective, because I startedreading that book and I go, man,
this guy was following mearound.
As a kid I did a lot of thesethings because to overcome it,
(41:22):
you start with little pieces andyou start building on them,
little at a time that's whatatomic habits are Start one and
another one, and then prettysoon you've got so many of them
that it becomes strong and younever go back to what you're
doing.
So, yeah, that's the ideabehind it.
So I I even thought of maybedoing in one of my books some of
(41:44):
those concepts, but from agospel perspective and with with
the gospel story.
So so, yeah, I did someartifact videos.
You know, touching back on thatone, a good friend of mine,
robert Hatch he's a video kindof a guy and he produced some
(42:05):
videos for Living Scriptures onthe restoration artifacts.
Me and my mom were both inportions of those videos telling
about the story of therestoration, these artifacts and
the Smith family.
I have those links to thosevideos on my website for the
(42:29):
book, the artifact book.
Alisha Coakley (42:31):
That's neat.
Joe Skeen (42:31):
Do you?
Alisha Coakley (42:32):
have a favorite artifact, like one that, just
like man, you wish you had keptit in your family, or one you
really love to talk about orshow off.
Joe Skeen (42:41):
Yeah, all of them.
Alisha Coakley (42:42):
Oh.
Joe Skeen (42:47):
Yeah, it's hard to see them go, but there's some
good and bad about that.
The good thing about it is theyare now on display, that more
people that are able to go tothe museum there can see them
there.
The bad part is they don't haveall of the stories and
background there.
(43:09):
But you say, okay, the artifacts, which one do?
I wish I had, yeah, all of them, but I know they're not
available.
However, one of the reasons Idid the book is because I don't
want people to forget about theartifacts.
I don't want them to miss thethe um tie that it has between
(43:31):
us and the past.
In fact, in the very start ofthis I kind of in the
introduction, I put a shamelessplug on family history.
Everybody has a story.
Now, they've got the story, andyour ancestors have stories.
It's not just Smith's, it's notjust the Skeens, it's not just
(43:52):
anybody else.
Everybody has it in theirancestry.
And if they dig back and findsome of those stories, they're
not just for you either.
They can help other people.
So that's why, when I saw yourwebsite or your podcast, I
thought that fits in withexactly what I was thinking is
(44:16):
man, everybody's got stories.
We've got to share them.
Yeah, help other people out.
So of the artifacts that arestill there, I got to thinking
you know, I'd love to share thiswith people.
I could do firesides.
I've got really goodprofessional pictures of all the
artifacts.
I could do it remotely.
(44:36):
I did my first one and didn'thave much to show anyone.
I was afraid everybody wasfalling asleep.
You know, I took a slide.
Okay, it was still okay.
I was able to share mytestimony and the things with it
.
There's something about havingthe physical artifacts.
(44:56):
So what I started doing is Istarted collecting different
artifacts from those period timeperiods.
I actually have a rifle from avery similar time period to the
one that Hiram had and in factit even has an octagonal bore in
the middle of the barrel barrel, just like Hiram's did.
(45:17):
So I've got that, I've.
I actually made a replica ofAlvin's toolbox because I had
the exact dimensions of theinside and I wanted people to be
able to see what those platesfit into.
Scott Brandley (45:34):
Oh yeah.
Joe Skeen (45:37):
I've seen people make replicas of plates and they're
huge.
And there are some historianswho say, oh, joseph was wrong,
it couldn't have been that size.
Well, I would take Joseph'sword over anybody else.
He's the one that handled them,yeah, but you see replicas that
people make and these platesare just gigantic.
(45:57):
Because they say, oh, there'sno way they could have written
all of this on those plates forthe Book of Mormon.
And yet Joseph's descriptiononly a third of the book was
even there and the rest wassealed.
Third of the book was eventhere and the rest was sealed.
But the description of theplates from Joseph was about six
(46:18):
inches wide, six inches talland six inches deep.
So six, eight and eight.
And that fits perfectly intothat box and, like I said, the
oil wouldn't go into that onecorner where the plates were.
So I know that had to be thesize.
I've even gotten some of theplates that I put together and
(46:39):
we're trying to make a replicaof the plates.
They won't be gold, they'reactually just silver sheet metal
, but to give people an idea ofwhat the size really was and how
heavy they were.
And let me tell you, any thatmuch's heavy even the 68.
Um, I did had some of this stuffat a fireside.
(47:00):
They did for my son out invernal and we handed the plates
to one of the teenagers there,who is bishop's son, eager to.
Oh yeah, I can hold that.
And unfortunately we did notwarn him.
We hadn't put the rings aroundhim yet.
We just just said we're stillworking on the rings.
We hand it to him and he grabsit and, oh, he drops In the
(47:24):
process.
He scratched himself too.
Dang it, not kind of bad.
Anyway, I've been collecting alot of things like that, like a
replica Book of Mormon, evensome stuff.
My grandfather didn't have Asword from the time period
similar to the sword that Hiramhad.
It's actually a Civil Warperiod.
(47:47):
It's not quite as defined, butit's a replica.
That one's not an actual oldone.
The rifle is it's well over ahundred years old A watch
similar to what Hiram had whenhe was martyred.
So I can show them.
You know, okay, this is wherehe had it.
I even got a vest so I can showthem where it was.
(48:09):
And and the you know the eventsinside Carthage jail and the
events inside.
Carthage GL.
You can understand that and,incidentally, there are lots of
theories about the Carthage GL,too, that are floating around,
and some are very opinionated.
But whether you believe thatHiram was shot immediately, as
(48:33):
he was hit in the front and fromthe back at the same time, or
he spun around, or does itreally matter you?
know he died, so it doesn'tmatter.
However, my uncle did a lot ofand here he is an attorney, so
he dig digs into very solidevidence to kind of show what
actually happened that day, eventhough nobody was actually
(48:54):
standing there taking notes.
They were asked later andeverybody's fighting for their
lives.
So they really can't tell youreally good details.
But from the things that myuncle had found and I include
that in the book too the eventshad to be in such a way that
saved John Taylor's life andWillard Richards' life, Because
(49:18):
if Hiram had been shot both inthe front and the back and the
mob ran downstairs when Josephjumped out, john Taylor and
Willard Richards never wouldhave escaped the jail.
They came back up to finish thejob.
They saw Hiram on the floor,shot him multiple times after
(49:41):
that, which there's evidencebecause there's no blood on any
of those other bullet holes theydidn't know he was dead yet,
right, but by that time Willardand John Taylor were no longer
in that room.
He'd taken them around into thejail room, the cell room, and
so the people went in and theywere primarily after Joseph and
(50:06):
Hiram, but they wanted to killeverybody in the cell.
I covered that.
There's eyewitnesses who heardthem say that even but, um.
So john taylor is over in thatcell room.
He's covered in basically astraw mattress over there not
(50:28):
very good.
Willard richards is standingthere.
He's a big man, he's a sittingduck.
He did not expect to livethrough that.
But they went up and, knowingthey wanted to kill Hiram, they
walk over, kick him over justlike Joseph.
They prop him up against thewell and shoot him several more
(50:49):
times.
They roll him over onto hisfront and shoot them through the
back.
The bullet hole went straightthrough all of his clothing and
hit the watch.
So I know it was actuallystraight.
You couldn't have done it fromthe outside, because that's an
angle from the they're on asecond story, okay, and there
was only one hole in the door sohe couldn't have had two shots
(51:11):
come through and hit him in theback.
So we know he was over therewhen they shot him before they
looked for Willard Richards andJohn Taylor.
Now, about this time earlier inthe day, I have to kind of go
back a little bit.
Samuel Smith before Joseph andHiram were martyred, he had been
(51:36):
injured in Nauvoo or nearNauvoo and he was resting up.
That's why he didn't even go toCarthage to support his
brothers.
So he was bedridden and heheard because people were coming
back who'd been kicked out ofthe jail, kind of making some
warnings.
He heard that, oh, joseph andHiram need my help.
(51:56):
So he arranges for a young manto load them into a wagon and
take them to Carthage.
So they get onto the road toCarthage, which I actually have
a picture of the road toCarthage in here, and so you
kind of get an idea of what thislooks like, because here's this
road and there's some farmland,but there was dense trees all
(52:19):
along the edge of it.
So they're going along with thewagon and the mob was there to
stop them because they wereafraid of the Nauvoo Legion.
They didn't want anybody fromNauvoo getting back to Carthage
because they knew they weregoing to do the martyrs.
So they stopped them and theyrecognize Samuel oh, you're a
(52:40):
Smith boy, we're going to getyou.
He hops out even though he'sinjured, runs into that forest,
makes his way back to Nauvoo,gets away from the mob, hops off
to a horse, goes back and runsreally fast around the mob.
Well, the timing that he'scoming into Carthage is about
(53:03):
the time they're shooting Hiramagain up in the room and a lot
of people heard this.
Somebody yells out the Mormonsare coming.
They were scared to death.
A lot of people heard this.
Somebody yells out Mormons arecoming.
Okay, they were scared to deathof the Nauvoo Legion.
It was the biggest, mosttrained military group in the
state, so they they were fullyexpecting the Nauvoo Legion to
(53:26):
come and level the place.
So when they heard that it wasactually the mob following
Samuel and Samuel comes in, youknow, trotting in Mormons are
coming.
Well, at this point they're moreafraid of the Nauvoo Legion
than taking the time to go findWillard Richards and John Taylor
(53:50):
.
Wow, they exit the whole town,they just go.
And that allowed Samuel to helpWillard Richards, get the
bodies ready to go back toNauvoo and to help John Taylor
and a few others who had come tohelp too.
But what a lot of people don'trealize as well is, within three
(54:14):
weeks, samuel passed awaydirectly due to the increased
injuries that he got fromgetting to Carthage to save his
brothers and, in fact, savingRichard and John Taylor's life.
So, and you know, just lookingat all the events, I even
(54:38):
covered several theories in mybook and said you know what?
The only thing I think isplausible is that one.
So yeah, there's just someamazing miracles that happened.
Joseph actually had a dream andI think he told it to was it WW
(55:01):
Phelps, I think he told it tohe had a dream that he and Hiram
were one day walking alongwater and then saw the city with
a Savior in it and they wereheaded there and Samuel came and
joined them and went there withthem and that was exactly what
(55:23):
happened essentially.
So yeah, some neat, neat stuff.
Scott Brandley (55:30):
That's really interesting.
Joe Skeen (55:32):
I got a lot of stories like that in this other
book and that's why it took mesix years to compile it, because
I poured through every book.
I've got the books that mygrandfather had.
I didn't just take the stuffthat my grandfather had at face
value, I dug in to get to themost primary source on all of
(55:54):
them and obviously I ended upmostly on Joe Smith papers.
Tons of stuff out there.
I also found things in old newsreports from way back there,
like when Joseph and Hiram weremartyred.
There was a newspaper that saidthus ends Mormonism.
Scott Brandley (56:15):
Oh yeah.
Joe Skeen (56:16):
Yeah, nope, didn't happen.
Alisha Coakley (56:20):
They're a little bit wrong.
Joe Skeen (56:22):
Yep, you cannot stop the work that God is doing.
It doesn't matter what man doesor what they say.
Yeah, anyway.
So that's all.
Part of my testimony is godloves you, he lives, and he does
love you enough that herestored the gospels to bless
(56:42):
the lives of not only us buteven our ancestors, all earth.
Alisha Coakley (56:48):
So wow, yeah, love it thanks so much All earth
.
Scott Brandley (56:52):
So Wow, yeah, love it.
Thanks so much.
Alisha Coakley (56:54):
I'm just smiling .
This was just a smiley, just asmiley episode.
I love it.
That was really really neat.
I, you know I'm always a littlebit jealous of people who have
such rich history in in thechurch, and especially when they
know about it right.
Like I, just I think it's soneat that you have taken this
(57:16):
interest in this love and yourancestry and this like pride in
your family line and that you'reyou're not just like holding
onto it all, but you're actuallysharing it with the world.
Um, so I'm curious and we'llshare links for anyone who's
interested in purchasing any ofyour books but where normally
are they at?
Are they on?
Joe Skeen (57:35):
amazon or yeah, um, especially with this last book,
it's a big book.
Yeah, it cost a fortune to puttogether yeah, professional
photos and stuff I can imaginebut this book was so dear to me
my testimony of the prophet andof the restoration and the
(57:57):
artifacts that bear witness ofit I did not want to do a cheap
thing, yeah, but I wanted thisto be case binding on really
high quality paper, full colorthroughout so that nothing is
missed.
Hard back dust cover.
It's a beautiful book.
(58:17):
It's a great coffee table book.
My brother-in-law he actuallyteaches, I think, the deacon's
quorum.
Now he's got this book and hewould take it and show it to
them and the kids are, oh wow,that is cool Because it kind of
brings things to life.
That was the kind of thing Iwanted to do with this, but
still made it kind of tightbecause I wanted it to be more
(58:38):
affordable, to hit a certainmark where people could actually
buy it.
Every year there's a JosephSmith Senior Family Reunion.
I thought I've got to be ableto introduce it there.
That's what I did last Augustand it was a good thing because
I sold out the books.
They recognized all this stuffbecause they know this, these
(58:59):
things too.
So I sold a lot of them and alot of people still came back
later and bought more books.
But so now I'm selling it on myown site.
I was going to try to havesomeone like Amazon handle it,
but it costs too much.
Yeah, Huge percentage, Right, Iwanted it to be available.
(59:22):
I've thought about seeing ifdesert book would carry it,
which would be great.
So I'd be happy to work withthem and I could do that.
I could sell it through that,but it takes.
They get thousands ofsubmissions for different things
to carry every single year, soI'll try pursuing that too, but
(59:43):
right now I'm doing it on mywebsite.
I've got my own website, thebook itself.
The retail price on it is$49.95, and I'm doing a 20% off
on it.
The code to get the 25% off isAFFIRM all caps with 20 after it
.
Alisha Coakley (01:00:03):
We'll make sure to put that in the description
link too.
Joe Skeen (01:00:08):
We ship it.
I actually have tons of bookson hand Because I had to get
them in volume to get themreasonable.
The shipping of the mainshipment from China was crazy.
It just took months.
Scott Brandley (01:00:27):
I have business books I bought from China, so I
can completely relate to whatyou're saying.
It's so expensive here in theUS, but there you can get a
really good quality book for alot less.
Joe Skeen (01:00:41):
And so I'm very pleased with the way it turned
out.
But if there are other peoplethat needed help, I could even
give them pointers or I couldhelp them too.
Scott Brandley (01:00:51):
Yeah, hey, if we break even people that needed
help.
Joe Skeen (01:00:52):
I could even give them pointers, or I could help
them too.
Yeah, hey, if we break even,that's great, but my goal is to
reach as many people as I canwith with my testimony, and
that's really what it boils downto.
Alisha Coakley (01:01:01):
Yeah, okay.
Scott Brandley (01:01:04):
Cool, awesome.
Well, joe, before we wrapthings up, is there any last
thoughts you'd like to share?
Joe Skeen (01:01:14):
I kind of covered them, but I think I'm going to
reaffirm that if anybody everhas any doubt or question, does
god live?
Does he love us?
Does he care?
It's a resounding yes.
It doesn't matter what you'vedone, where you are in your life
right now, what you've said orwho you think you are.
(01:01:39):
By the way, if you think you'resomething less than a child of
God, you're absolutely wrong,because God loves you.
He really does, and he's thereto help you.
And there are people around toloves you.
He really does and he's thereto help you, and there are
people around to help you, andsometimes the angels that help
you are actually, when the Lordtouches somebody else's heart,
(01:02:02):
to reach out to you and help you.
Sometimes it's more miraculous,like what happened to my
backyard.
I did not expect that.
Alisha Coakley (01:02:14):
Well, like I said, it got me smiling the
whole time.
It's always nice to hear justsome just really sweet, you know
, special experiences in historyand all that kind of stuff that
just makes you feel the spiritin a very calm and happy way.
So thank you for sharing allthat with us today.
Joe Skeen (01:02:32):
Well, you're welcome, glad to be of help and I can
help with other stories andexperiences in the future if you
need.
Alisha Coakley (01:02:42):
We love that.
Scott Brandley (01:02:44):
Awesome.
Well, thanks, joe for being onthe show again and thanks
everyone for tuning in toanother episode of Latter-day
Lights.
If you like Joe's story and youwant to help us spread the word
and and help get his story out,go and hit that share button
and let's do our five secondmissionary work and share some
(01:03:07):
light into the world today.
Alisha Coakley (01:03:09):
Yeah, and don't forget, guys, we're always
looking for new guests too.
So if you have a story that youwant to share, or if you know
someone who has a great story toshare who would be perfect for
this episode or for this forthis podcast, um, be sure, like
Scott said, reach out to us.
We would.
We would love to hear from you.
So, all right, I all right.
(01:03:33):
Well, I think that's all wehave for this week.
Um, until next time, we willsee you, guys later.
Scott Brandley (01:03:35):
Thanks so much.
Take care, bye.
On today's episode we're goingto hear how one descendant of
Hiram Smith has been able togrow and develop his testimony.
(01:03:57):
Welcome to the church.
Alisha Coakley (01:04:02):
That's just making stuff up.
Scott Brandley (01:04:05):
Okay.
Hey there as a Latter-day Lights listener, I
want to give you a very specialgift today my brand new book,
faith to Stay.
This book is filled withinspiring stories, powerful
discoveries and even freshinsights to help strengthen your
faith during the storms of life.
So if you're looking to beinspired, uplifted and
(00:21):
spiritually recharged, justvisit faithtostaycom.
Now let's get back to the show.
Hey everyone, I'm ScottBrandley.
Alisha Coakley (00:32):
And I'm Alisha Coakley.
Every member of the church hasa story to share, one that can
instill faith, invite growth andinspire others.
Scott Brandley (00:40):
On today's episode we're going to hear how
one descendant of Hiram Smithhas been able to grow and
develop his testimony in thegospel.
Welcome to Latter-day Lights.
Hey everyone, welcome back toanother episode of Latter-day
(01:02):
Lights.
We're so glad you're here withus today.
We have a really special treat.
We'd like to introduce ourspecial guest today, joseph
Smith Skeen.
Welcome, joe.
Joe Skeen (01:12):
I'm glad to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Alisha Coakley (01:15):
Yeah, of course I have to say I'm curious Is the
Smith a middle name or is it adouble last name?
How do you?
Like you've got some historythere with that.
Obviously, Tell me a little bitabout the name.
Joe Skeen (01:34):
So my parents, my mother, is in the Smith family
and she was the daughter ofElder G Smith.
I don't know if you rememberhim, but a lot of people like to
say his name and they don'tknow Other people go.
Oh yeah, I remember him.
He was the last churchpatriarch.
Alisha Coakley (01:52):
Oh, okay.
Joe Skeen (01:53):
Yeah, so she had a name of Smith as her maiden name
, and when my mom and dad gotmarried, all of the boys in the
family got Smith as their middlename.
Alisha Coakley (02:06):
Oh, that's really cool, that's really cool.
I like that and it's easy toremember.
You can yell at all your kidsand you're going to get at least
part of their name, right,right.
Joe Skeen (02:18):
It depends on how you yell it, I guess.
Scott Brandley (02:23):
Oh, that's cool.
Alisha Coakley (02:24):
Well, Joe, tell us a little bit more about
yourself.
Joe Skeen (02:28):
So for probably about the last 40 years I've been a
software developer, have awonderful wife and five boys.
Each of them are married, andso now I've got five
daughters-in-law.
Alisha Coakley (02:44):
Oh, that's cool.
And now I've got fivedaughters-in-law oh that's cool,
and currently I've got 10grandchildren.
So yeah, I love my family baby,and then you'll actually have
more grandchildren than you havechildren in in-law children
yeah the scales will tip to thatside.
Joe Skeen (03:05):
But the grandchildren are the best.
They're your reward for makingsure you take care of the kids
when they're young.
Scott Brandley (03:12):
Yeah.
Joe Skeen (03:12):
You can just spoil the grandkids and send them home
.
Alisha Coakley (03:18):
Oh, that's fun Cool.
And then where do you guys liveright now?
Joe Skeen (03:23):
So we live in Dushane Utah.
Alisha Coakley (03:26):
Okay.
Joe Skeen (03:29):
We used to live in the Salt Lake Valley.
We came out here a few yearsback.
Beautiful area.
Alisha Coakley (03:33):
I feel like all of Utah is.
It's just I mean I'm biased,but Utah is just so damn pretty
everywhere you go, you know.
So are you guys like, is thatnorthern, southern central?
Where in Utah is that?
Joe Skeen (03:50):
There's so many different things in Utah too,
just a lot of variety ofdifferent types of landscapes.
Alisha Coakley (03:56):
Yeah.
Scott Brandley (03:59):
So where is Duchesne located, Joe?
Joe Skeen (04:03):
Oh, in Utah, no.
So do you know where Vernal is?
Uh-huh.
So if you're going from SaltLake to Vernal, you're going to
go right through Duchesne to getthere.
Alisha Coakley (04:13):
Oh, okay, Perfect yeah that's a pretty
area.
You're right.
Joe Skeen (04:17):
Yeah, we're about an hour before hitting Vernal.
Alisha Coakley (04:21):
Okay.
Joe Skeen (04:23):
I've got one that lives out in Vernal, so I've got
one son that lives out inVernal.
Alisha Coakley (04:25):
Well, I know, along with software developing,
you have a talent for writing.
Is that right?
Joe Skeen (04:33):
Yeah, I've actually written three books Wow, which,
if you want to see which onesthey are.
My first book I ever wrote wasthis.
It's called Testimony how toFind Peace and Strength in a
Troubled World.
There's a big story behind thatone.
I'll touch on that.
The second book I wrote wasToday's Thought.
(04:55):
This one is a collection ofemails and thoughts that I sent
to my missionaries.
I had at one point three of myboys in the mission field at the
same time.
My wife would handle the emailsfor the regular day-to-day
stuff and I thought, gee, whatcan I do to really support my
missionaries?
And so today's thought.
(05:17):
I would study the scriptures onthe way to work when we were
living in town, there on thetrain, and I'd ponder the things
that I would read and try tocome up with something to share
with my boys.
So then I'd share them athought about that scripture and
quote of it.
And more often than not my boyscame back to me and said you
(05:41):
know that thought you just sentme it was exactly what our
investigator needed.
So yeah, so I tried to keeptrack of all those emails.
One of my sons came to me afterhis mission and says whatever
you do.
Don't lose those things.
Those are wonderful thoughts.
So I went into a book.
Alisha Coakley (06:04):
That's so sweet.
I love that.
Joe Skeen (06:08):
And then the third book that I wrote is this one.
It's a bigger one.
Oh yeah, it's calledAffirmation Stories and
Artifacts of Joseph and Hiramand the Smith Family.
Hiram and the Smith family.
So my grandfather had artifactsthat he received, was handed
down from Hiram to John Smith,to Hiram Fisher, to Hiram Gibbs,
(06:32):
to my grandfather, elder GSmith, father to son, oldest son
, and he would go around doingfiresides about the artifacts,
sharing his testimony of therestoration of the gospel.
So when he passed away, theseartifacts were donated to the
church and they're on display inthe Church History Museum.
(06:56):
That's neat, but there's notmuch information on it there.
You know they've got littleplacards with just a little
blurb, Right.
Some of them are not even ondisplay because you know they
don't display everything theyhave Right.
So what I did is I first setout to write this book to
(07:17):
especially honor my grandfatherand these artifacts and I kind
of grew into more than that.
And I kind of grew into morethan that.
The first part of the book is itcovers more of a historical
dialogue of the restoration, andthen I show where the artifacts
(07:49):
played a part throughout thewhole thing, like Alvin's
toolbox and even Hiram's clotheswhen he was martyred.
I've got all kinds of stuff inthere.
In the process I found otherartifacts from some of my Smith
cousins that they shared with me.
That I included in here andthen in the back of the book is
just the artifacts.
So it's like two pieces.
And I'd seen some artifact booksthat show little teeny, tiny
pictures and then they have somekind of dry blurb about it.
(08:12):
But in my book I include, likehere's, lots of like landscape
pictures, just beautifulpictures, large pictures of the
artifacts.
I include a lot of little-knownstories about the Smith family
(08:35):
and some insights and thingsthat very few people know, Like
my grandfather he had.
I don't know if you know whatAlvin's toolbox is.
I could go on and on and onkinds of things, so I won't do
too much here, but Alvin'stoolbox is the box that first
(08:56):
held the gold plates when Josephbrought them home.
Scott Brandley (08:59):
Okay.
Joe Skeen (09:00):
And one day my grandfather was rubbing oil into
this box and it wouldn't takein one corner of it because the
plates gold and other especiallysoft metals.
If you rub them on something, alittle bit of that metal rubs
off and metal will not oil.
(09:20):
Wow, Little things like that,you know.
Shortly after that I went tovisit my grandfather and he said
oh, come here, come here, yougot to see this.
It's really exciting.
And I saw it and, sure enough,the description of Joseph's size
of the plates was about thearea that would not take oil.
So really interesting.
(09:42):
But that's, yeah, that's mythird, third book and it's 220
pages long, full color.
Wow, uh, hardback with the dustcover on there just a beautiful
book.
I'm really pleased with the wayit turned out looks gorgeous
yeah, it looks really nice.
Well, thank you.
(10:03):
It took a lot of work.
My third son was the editor forthat book and he did a
marvelous job on it.
He came up with the design forthe layout and so forth, and it
took us about six years toproduce that book.
(10:24):
Nice.
Alisha Coakley (10:24):
That's cool and it took us about six years to
produce that book Nice.
So that's cool.
So let's talk a little bitabout your story, like what you
want to share today, on thepodcast when does your story
start?
Joe Skeen (10:42):
So actually, as far as I can remember back and I
have very early memories, evenwhen I was in diapers in my
parents' house I've always knownthe church was true.
I always knew Joseph was aprophet.
Some of that may have stemmedfrom being so close to some of
these artifacts and having mygrandfather, who shared that
(11:05):
often.
I remember times he would cometo our house and and do a
fireside.
He he'd do them all over theplace but show facts.
I used to sneak into his officeand play with these artifacts
which you cringe and touch those.
But I actually told that to mymom and and she laughed and said
(11:25):
she did it too.
So I'm not too bad about it.
That's cool.
I'm sure my grandfather did ittoo.
Alisha Coakley (11:34):
Oh, probably.
Joe Skeen (11:36):
It runs in the family .
So being a member of the Smithfamily is certainly a blessing
to me, but it does not guaranteethat you have a strong
testimony or even a testimony atall, because, just like in any
family, you've got some peoplewho I mean they've got their
free agency and they make theirchoices.
And so I've seen many membersI'm not saying majority,
(12:01):
anything like that but anytimeyou have members of the family
that stray or make choices to goaway from the gospel, it's
difficult, and it's hardespecially when they're closer
to you.
My uncle, my grandfather's son,actually was an alcoholic
(12:23):
sweetest guy, but he was neververy close, and there are other
examples.
That's just one example.
He passed away years ago, butso just being in the Smith
family it was a great thing.
It is a wonderful heritage anda lot of things I can fall back
(12:43):
on that help strengthen mytestimony.
But along the way I've hadother experiences and that's
some of the things I do cover inmy testimony book.
So to start with, when I wasvery young I was in early
(13:05):
elementary we had a very cold,hard winter one year and I
wasn't able to go outside veryoften so I kind of had cabin
fever, and I remembered theprevious summer being out in our
backyard.
We had a nice big backyard andI would climb this willow tree
(13:28):
and we had an apple tree.
But I wanted to be outsideagain, just like I was past
summer.
So this one February there waskind of a little thaw, that a
lot of the snow was melted awayand so I invited a friend over
to play in my backyard.
Well, this is February, theground is still frozen.
(13:50):
So I'm out there in the backyardwith my friend and I decided to
climb this willow tree and Itold my friend hey, you know,
last summer I mean here I'm alittle kid I wasn't thinking
very well, but last summer I sawkatydids up here.
I'll show you where they were.
Maybe they'll be there.
You know, I didn't know theywere gone.
So I climbed this tree and he'splaying around in the yard.
(14:13):
I get up about 20 feet uproughly.
I never measured it, but it wasup relatively high and I was
looking around trying to say,okay, where was that that?
So I shift my weight and grabthis branch and the branch gives
way.
So I fell down and landed onthis frozen ground and broke
(14:37):
about every bone on my body.
Alisha Coakley (14:38):
Now I don't know that I broke every bone.
Joe Skeen (14:40):
But I say about because I don't know that I
broke every bone, but I sayabout because I don't know how
many I broke.
It was bad enough that Iactually hit the ground and
bounced over onto my other side.
I hit hard enough that I hadblood come out of my left ear.
That was how bad it was.
I couldn't hardly even breathe.
(15:04):
My friend, who is kind of scared, he runs up what do I do?
What do I do?
He's frantic.
I couldn't hardly even breatheso I just very hard tried to
squeak out get my mom.
He just goes running, doesn'tknock on the door.
Just right through the backdoor my mom comes, picks me up,
(15:24):
throws me the uh, the van onto aseat, which you know these days
, there again, you're notsupposed to do that, right, yeah
, but anyway.
So she throws me, the van,takes me down to the clinic.
Now the clinic.
They try to patch me up alittle bit.
They tried to patch me up alittle bit and I had a broken
(15:51):
wrist, broken foot, broken andcracked ribs, multiple
concussions.
The doctors told my parentsjust be aware, he's not going to
make it through the night.
Alisha Coakley (16:00):
Really.
Joe Skeen (16:01):
Yeah.
Alisha Coakley (16:03):
Wow it was bad.
Joe Skeen (16:06):
So that night I did pass away.
I remember seeing myself on theother side of the hospital room
and then going through the veil, but then I was sent back.
So I knew when I was comingback that I'd make it, you know,
and from there I was.
(16:26):
I took a long time to recover,but I did survive.
I never told anybody about thisfor years, in fact.
I couldn't tell anybody.
Every time I tried to write itdown or even tell anybody, my
mind would just go blank.
Alisha Coakley (16:45):
Really you just forget.
Joe Skeen (16:48):
Well, but I would kick myself because you know
they're always saying you got toshare your testimony.
Well, here I'd had thisexperience where I know God
lives.
I've been onto the other sideand came back, yet I could not
tell anybody to the other sideand came back.
Yet I could not tell anybody.
So even on my mission, I had acompanion one time who said to
(17:12):
me one day Elder, what if wewoke up tomorrow and found out
everything we have been teachingis not true?
I couldn't even tell him why Iknew that he can't say that.
So I just had to assure him.
Just trust me, elder, it istrue, I actually told my wife
(17:33):
before I told my mom.
But I told them just verysketchy brief that something
happened like that.
When I told my mom she saidthat doesn't surprise me.
The doctor said you wouldn'tlive.
So it wasn't a big surprise toher.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, I even tried telling my orwriting a letter to my
(17:55):
brother-in-law, who wasstruggling at one point with
alcohol and other things, and hewas in the hospital and we
weren't sure he was going tomake it and I thought, oh here
I've got to tell him, put down acouple of words in the letter
and nothing, just went blank.
So, however, one night yearslater, my mother-in-law who was
(18:23):
just an amazing lady her, mymother-in-law, who was just an
amazing lady, just a saint liveda wonderful life.
But I think it was on a 4th ofJuly.
She was in her house and shejust collapsed.
They rushed her to the hospital.
And so we go to the hospitaland they tell us that she's not
going to make it through the day.
And a number of my wife'ssiblings had strayed from the
(18:47):
church and they were sittingthere in the waiting room and
just really somber you couldtell it was just tearing them
apart and my wife and I, yes, wefelt badly about what happened
to my mother-in-law, but we knewshe was going in a good place.
(19:10):
She was a wonderful lady.
So, it didn't affect us the same, but seeing their faces just
really tore my heart apart,thinking, oh, how could I tell
them?
And all of a sudden it was likebeing hit over the head with a
spiritual two-by-four Thunk it'stime to write.
And from that day on, thingsjust flowed faster than I could
(19:33):
write them down, which wastotally different.
It was weird.
So I was writing things downand trying to organize things,
but then one night I wasawakened in the middle of the
night and the Spirit said here'sthe topics that I want in your
(19:57):
testimony book.
Write them down.
Oh man, I'm tired.
I'll write them in the morning,lord.
No, write them now.
Tired.
I'll write them in the morning,lord.
No, write them now.
Alisha Coakley (20:11):
no, really I'll write it in the morning.
Joe Skeen (20:13):
I'm tired, I'll remember.
No, write it.
You know anything?
He's just saying, no, do it now.
So I scrounged around for paperand it's dark and, you know,
scribbled out a bunch of topics.
I don't didn't know if I couldeven read it in the morning, but
amazingly enough, I could and Istill have the paper.
But so it kind of gave me aframework to work on on this,
(20:34):
this first book, and the wordsjust kept coming, just poured
out.
I got to where I had itorganized and gave it to my
brother and his wife to justkind of proofread it.
See where I was at, and theykept saying, oh, you've got to
do more experiences You've gotto do.
I said, no, these are thetopics I was told.
(20:56):
If I'm told that by the story,that's what I'm doing.
If we do other experiences,I'll do them in other books.
So, anyway, so that one, that'show that book came about and it
has a number of otherexperiences in there that I've
had throughout my life andthey're all based on kind of
(21:20):
testimony, building ideas.
So, and that's how I came upwith that subtitle how to Find
Peace and Strength in a TroubledWorld.
And this is back in 2017, Ithink, when I published that
first and I thought, okay, greatLord, I did exactly what you
wanted.
I'm going to start looking atways to promote this book, get
(21:43):
it out there so it can helppeople.
And I started doing theresearch and kind of planning
things.
And here again, another promptit's not time yet.
What do you mean?
It's not time?
I put all my time into this.
I've been waiting to do thisfor so long.
No, it's not time.
Okay, well, if the Lord saysit's not time, it's not time.
(22:06):
So I set it aside and it was notvery long after that I started
writing the artifacts book.
So I think the Lord had that inmind, saying, okay, it's about
time.
And in the meantime, mygrandfather passed away and the
artifacts I mean certain eventsjust said it's time to do that
one now.
I mean certain events just saidit's time to do that one now,
(22:27):
anyway, so that's how the second, that first book, came in, and
then that third one.
The second one was actually inthe middle of all of this stuff,
so that's when my boys were outon their missions.
So, anyway, there are a lot oflessons to be learned about
experience, about being you know, my passing away and coming
(22:50):
back, but the biggest thing isthat God does live.
There is absolutely no questionabout that, and some people
have bigger experiences, somepeople have lower ones, some of
them are just are probably a lotbetter than me, because the
spirit just tells them they know, you know instead of that
experience?
I guess I don't know, but um, Iknow that he lives and it gave
(23:14):
me strength to be able toovercome a lot of challenges
that came after that.
Um, just kind of give you anidea when I became a deacon we
had 14 deacons in our quorum,the quorum's 12.
We had 14.
So we had a lot of kids.
There were a lot of young menin similar age, especially in my
(23:38):
stake throughout.
So by the time I became apriest I was the only one on the
table.
Time I became a priest I wasthe only one on the table.
The rest were gone out of thechurch or there were one or two
of them that would comeoccasionally but sit in the back
, would never go to the tableand say, no, we're not worthy,
we can't do that.
One of those guys did come.
(24:04):
I found out later he turned hislife around and went on a
mission.
So I was glad to hear aboutthat.
But that was.
I didn't hear that till later,after I'd moved away from that
ward.
In our stake the whole stake,three young men graduated from
seminary the year I graduatedfrom seminary and you know there
was a lot of us.
So there were some challenges.
A lot of my peers at the timewhen I was a child were kind of
(24:27):
enticed to go the route intolike drugs and other kinds of
things, and it kind of just tookthem away.
There were times that I waschased down and even beaten.
One time they chased me downand tried to force drugs in my
mouth, and I wouldn't do it, ofcourse, because of what I knew.
(24:55):
I knew what the truth was andin that case, when they chased
me down and tried to get drugsin my mouth, all of a sudden all
at once all jumped up and ranaway, as though somebody had
come to chase them away.
I was on my way to schoolactually at that point, so my
(25:16):
books and things were just allover the lawn where they tackled
me, and so I got up, lookedaround.
I was going to thank the personwho.
So I got up, looked around, Iwas going to thank the person
who chased the kids off.
There's no one in sightanywhere.
(25:37):
So I still, to this day, don'tknow unless the Lord intervened
somehow and just got them off myback.
Anyway, there were things likethat that were difficult, but
that was about the time I was inmiddle school and that was a
very difficult time for me.
Middle school was really hard.
So, needless to say, as a youngboy in middle school, walking
(26:01):
to school without any friendsand walking home alone was very
difficult.
So I started trying to say,well, gee, how can I get people
to like me, how can I find afriend?
And of course at that pointmost of my peers would go around
swearing.
Unfortunately, I learned a fewcolorful words and thought, oh,
(26:25):
maybe it will help me beaccepted by some of them.
So I picked up some colorfulwords and of course I was
careful not to say it around mymom or dad.
But I knew it was wrong, butjust trying to fit in.
(26:46):
But I knew it was wrong butjust trying to fit in.
After that went on for a littlewhile I was out in my backyard
and our backyard kind ofbordered a gully.
So we had our big backyard andthen this fence and this big
gully, which was kind of coolbecause I'd just go down there
and I was in nature down there.
Like I said, Right, yeah.
It was fun, it was great.
(27:06):
So we'd often go back there andI remember one time I had been
down there and I'd come backinto our backyard and I was
walking up towards our house andI heard this voice call my name
, my full name, and at first Ithought, oh, my older brothers
are playing a trick on me.
So I look all over the place,there is nobody around anywhere
(27:32):
and I hear my name again and Igo oh my, I know what this is.
So I answer, I said yay, Lord.
And then I hear the Lord tellme your conduct is not in line
with someone of your calling.
And yeah, it's like okay, Ibetter change.
(28:02):
During that time I felt thatthere's just some interesting
things, especially as I ponderedover the years, that I reflect
back and I go man.
It wasn't just that experience,but there's so many things I
learned from this, even overtime.
During that time I felt suchtremendous feeling of love that
(28:23):
is entirely incomprehensible,greater than any worldly thing
I've ever felt.
If you were to try to comparethe most love that you've ever
felt from anybody here on thisearth and compare it with God's
love, it's almost like trying tocompare a splash of water in
(28:43):
your face to the Pacific Ocean.
It is just infinite.
In fact, the Pacific Oceanisn't even enough.
It's infinite and it's eternal.
God loves you so much.
However, at the exact same time,I felt a huge, very strong
disappointment, just enough tokind of crush you.
(29:06):
I knew what I'd done had beenwrong, you know.
So you know, I had a shortlittle conversation in which I
promised the Lord I would neveruse those words again, ever.
(29:27):
That's a tall order, you know.
If anybody's gotten youswearing boy, they just roll off
your tongue, you know.
But I never, ever have donethat again.
I've never relapsed, and Ithink that's due to the fact
that I remembered a lot ofthings that and I think
(29:50):
President Monson used to tell usmaybe even President Kimball
too, way back then.
You know, if you have a badthought, come to your mind, sing
a hymn from church or somethinglike that, and so I used some
of those things and often prayedfor strength.
So I had to rely on the Lord alot, and if somebody like me,
(30:12):
average Joe, can do it, anyonecan do it.
You know, the fact that he hadsaid someone of your calling,
(30:35):
instead someone of your calling.
My conduct was not in line withsomeone of your calling didn't
mean, you know, for a time itkind of bothered me thinking you
know, wow, what am I supposedto be doing?
But really what it is.
All of us have that samecalling.
We're all children of God.
We've come down here to learnand to grow and to choose the
pathway back to our HeavenlyFather.
It really applies to everybody,and so over the years I've
(30:56):
realized that this experiencewas not just for me.
It was to help other people andto help them know they can do
it, they can overcome things,they can follow the savior.
It doesn't matter what you'vebeen into or or how easy it is,
you just slide back into it,step you know, stand up and do
(31:20):
it again.
You know, try again, don't giveup.
So it, try again, don't give up.
So as I reflect over thatexperience, I see it as almost a
preview of what we're all goingto go through at the end of the
(31:43):
world.
We're all going to stand beforethe judgment bar of Christ.
And you know, when I wasyounger I thought, you know, I'd
read the thing where every kneewill bow and every tongue
confess.
The Lord is going to force youto confess or say that it's
going to come freely, becauseyou will remember who you are,
(32:05):
you'll remember your past,living with our Heavenly Father,
and you'll feel his love.
I mean, there's no gee, I'msmooth, talking my way out of
this.
He knows, and you know, heknows and you know that's the
kind of experience we're goingto be in.
(32:26):
And so if somebody thinksthey're going to be able to, you
know, talk smooth, get theirway out of it or put the blame
on someone else or whatever,they've got kind of a sad
reality that's coming.
It's not right, it's just notgoing to work.
(32:47):
But on the other hand, ifyou're following the gospel and
you're doing what you'resupposed to do, trying, even if
you're not perfect.
It's going to be a wonderfulexperience and I'd rather be on
that end of it.
That's what it has to be.
I've also kind of from thatexperience I've heard over the
(33:13):
years it comes and goes peopletry to twist other people by
saying, well, if you don'taccept my behavior, you don't
love me.
Right Now, from this experience, there's no way that God can be
(33:35):
anything else than loving.
But it doesn't mean that heloves everything you do, right,
you know, yeah.
So the love that he has for us,he's always got his hand out
there saying, hey, I'm notpleased with what you're doing,
but here's my hand, come on,let's go, come this way.
(33:58):
He's always there beckoning usto come.
So that's another thing I kindof got out of that experience.
The other thing I got out of itis often we think, you know,
we're supposed to love the Lordwith all our might, and what's
(34:20):
the love of Christ?
Charity is the true love ofChrist, but what it really is is
we need to love like Christloves.
So just like the Savior says,hey, your conduct, it isn't
right, but I still love you.
We need to be that way with ourfellow men.
We need to love them, even ifthey're doing something that we
(34:44):
think is terrible, theyshouldn't do and I've seen that
with some of my peers.
I still love them.
You know, we need to be um.
One little story I put into mytestimony book too is one day um
.
It may have actually come froma dream, cause I remember coming
up with this.
I had this dream that I was.
(35:06):
I saw this man traveling on amountain trail.
He was traveling alone and hegets around this curve and finds
the trail suddenly drops off toa cliff and fortunately he sees
it before going over anddecides okay, I've got to turn
(35:29):
around and go back.
Turns around and goes back andafter a little while encounters
another company headed the sametrail, same direction, and this
man says look, don't go that way, it's trouble, you are going to
be in trouble, it's going to bepainful, you may die, I don't
(35:51):
know, but it's really bad.
And this everybody in thatcompany just scoffs and scorns
this man and says no, you'rejust trying to control me.
You know, I want to do what Iwant to do.
This is an easier trail.
I'm gonna take this.
It was heartbreaking for thisman.
But what could he do?
(36:11):
He had to let them go and hopethat they can fare better.
But that kind of a, that littleparable or story is really what
I have done, cause I've I've hadto be kind of the lone guy and
(36:31):
I tell my peers, hey, don't gothat way.
And that's exactly what theydid to me.
So I kind of tell that parableor story to other people now to
hope that they can see that.
Okay, going down there, I'veseen that drop off.
I had that experience.
I don't want you to have to gothrough it.
(36:54):
And the sons of Mosiah man Iunderstand how they feel they
went through the same kind ofthing, elma the Younger, and
they said the thought of anyother humans going through that
kind of an experience just madethem shake and treble.
They didn't want anybody elseto have to run into that kind of
(37:14):
an experience, just made themshake and treble.
You know they just they didn'twant anybody else to have to
hand, you know, run into thatkind of thing.
So that's that's what I've,that little story I I got and I
put into that book I it'ssimilar to my experience and to
(37:39):
my experience and it does.
I see people make these choices, to go down a path that's going
to lead to trouble later on,and it really breaks my heart
and I know that our Savior it'sthe same thing.
You know Jesus wept.
He does have those emotions.
He does care for us and it doeshurt to see somebody take a
pathway that's going to hurtthem in the long run.
(38:01):
Anyway, so those are some ofthe things that I learned from
that experience.
Scott Brandley (38:10):
I like that story.
Joe Skeen (38:13):
Yeah.
So and you'd ask me you knowwhat stories am I going to put
in here?
And these play together andthey're kind of big things.
There are other stories I'vehad lots of experiences over
this time but those kind of playtogether and they kind of hit
the core of what the leaders ofthe church have been telling us.
(38:33):
Especially when you're trying toshare the gospel with somebody
else, first thing, you do youlove them, right, and you serve
them too.
But before you even do that youhave to have a testimony.
I mean, you love them anyway.
But those two things gotogether.
And if you love them, how do welove them?
(38:57):
Is it conditional?
Shouldn't be.
You should be like our Savior'slove for us.
And that is unconditional,infinite, doesn't mean we love
everything they do.
But they are children of Godand they are here to learn and
grow and sometimes they do makemistakes and you know, we can
(39:20):
kind of be the Savior's hand,have our hand out there to help
them along, if they'll take itAnyway.
So those are some of thestories.
I don't think I'll get into anyof the others but over the years
, many of which I've shared withsome people, but I wish I could
reach more people in the hopesthat I could help them turn
(39:43):
their hearts to the Savior.
That's where I started writingsome of these books.
I've got many more books Ithink will be coming, because
I've already been thinking aboutsome of the other things that
I've done, like when I had thatexperience with the colorful
(40:04):
words to overcome that man.
That's one of the hardestthings to do because Satan likes
to just throw it into your mindand it just comes out of your
mouth before you even thinkabout it.
And I've talked to some people,and some are very good LDS
people.
They're wonderful people andyet every other word they're
(40:27):
throwing out some kind oflanguage.
And you know some of thebrethren have been saying
language matters and you knowsome of the brethren have been
saying language matters and thething is is if you can learn to
control your tongue it eventalks about that in the old
testament, clear back then curbyour tongue.
But if you can learn to controlthat, it's actually teaching
(40:49):
you how to overcome other thingstoo.
I don't know if you you've everheard about the book Atomic
Habits.
You read that one or heard ofit?
Alisha Coakley (40:59):
Yeah, it's really good.
Joe Skeen (41:01):
It's awesome Many times.
The only thing about it that Idid not like.
I mean it was a great book, butI just wish it had a gospel
perspective, because I startedreading that book and I go, man,
this guy was following mearound.
As a kid I did a lot of thesethings because to overcome it,
(41:22):
you start with little pieces andyou start building on them,
little at a time that's whatatomic habits are Start one and
another one, and then prettysoon you've got so many of them
that it becomes strong and younever go back to what you're
doing.
So, yeah, that's the ideabehind it.
So I I even thought of maybedoing in one of my books some of
(41:44):
those concepts, but from agospel perspective and with with
the gospel story.
So so, yeah, I did someartifact videos.
You know, touching back on thatone, a good friend of mine,
robert Hatch he's a video kindof a guy and he produced some
(42:05):
videos for Living Scriptures onthe restoration artifacts.
Me and my mom were both inportions of those videos telling
about the story of therestoration, these artifacts and
the Smith family.
I have those links to thosevideos on my website for the
(42:29):
book, the artifact book.
Alisha Coakley (42:31):
That's neat.
Joe Skeen (42:31):
Do you?
Alisha Coakley (42:32):
have a favorite artifact, like one that, just
like man, you wish you had keptit in your family, or one you
really love to talk about orshow off.
Joe Skeen (42:41):
Yeah, all of them.
Alisha Coakley (42:42):
Oh.
Joe Skeen (42:47):
Yeah, it's hard to see them go, but there's some
good and bad about that.
The good thing about it is theyare now on display, that more
people that are able to go tothe museum there can see them
there.
The bad part is they don't haveall of the stories and
background there.
(43:09):
But you say, okay, the artifacts, which one do?
I wish I had, yeah, all of them, but I know they're not
available.
However, one of the reasons Idid the book is because I don't
want people to forget about theartifacts.
I don't want them to miss thethe um tie that it has between
(43:31):
us and the past.
In fact, in the very start ofthis I kind of in the
introduction, I put a shamelessplug on family history.
Everybody has a story.
Now, they've got the story, andyour ancestors have stories.
It's not just Smith's, it's notjust the Skeens, it's not just
(43:52):
anybody else.
Everybody has it in theirancestry.
And if they dig back and findsome of those stories, they're
not just for you either.
They can help other people.
So that's why, when I saw yourwebsite or your podcast, I
thought that fits in withexactly what I was thinking is
(44:16):
man, everybody's got stories.
We've got to share them.
Yeah, help other people out.
So of the artifacts that arestill there, I got to thinking
you know, I'd love to share thiswith people.
I could do firesides.
I've got really goodprofessional pictures of all the
artifacts.
I could do it remotely.
(44:36):
I did my first one and didn'thave much to show anyone.
I was afraid everybody wasfalling asleep.
You know, I took a slide.
Okay, it was still okay.
I was able to share mytestimony and the things with it
.
There's something about havingthe physical artifacts.
(44:56):
So what I started doing is Istarted collecting different
artifacts from those period timeperiods.
I actually have a rifle from avery similar time period to the
one that Hiram had and in factit even has an octagonal bore in
the middle of the barrel barrel, just like Hiram's did.
(45:17):
So I've got that, I've.
I actually made a replica ofAlvin's toolbox because I had
the exact dimensions of theinside and I wanted people to be
able to see what those platesfit into.
Scott Brandley (45:34):
Oh yeah.
Joe Skeen (45:37):
I've seen people make replicas of plates and they're
huge.
And there are some historianswho say, oh, joseph was wrong,
it couldn't have been that size.
Well, I would take Joseph'sword over anybody else.
He's the one that handled them,yeah, but you see replicas that
people make and these platesare just gigantic.
(45:57):
Because they say, oh, there'sno way they could have written
all of this on those plates forthe Book of Mormon.
And yet Joseph's descriptiononly a third of the book was
even there and the rest wassealed.
Third of the book was eventhere and the rest was sealed.
But the description of theplates from Joseph was about six
(46:18):
inches wide, six inches talland six inches deep.
So six, eight and eight.
And that fits perfectly intothat box and, like I said, the
oil wouldn't go into that onecorner where the plates were.
So I know that had to be thesize.
I've even gotten some of theplates that I put together and
(46:39):
we're trying to make a replicaof the plates.
They won't be gold, they'reactually just silver sheet metal
, but to give people an idea ofwhat the size really was and how
heavy they were.
And let me tell you, any thatmuch's heavy even the 68.
Um, I did had some of this stuffat a fireside.
(47:00):
They did for my son out invernal and we handed the plates
to one of the teenagers there,who is bishop's son, eager to.
Oh yeah, I can hold that.
And unfortunately we did notwarn him.
We hadn't put the rings aroundhim yet.
We just just said we're stillworking on the rings.
We hand it to him and he grabsit and, oh, he drops In the
(47:24):
process.
He scratched himself too.
Dang it, not kind of bad.
Anyway, I've been collecting alot of things like that, like a
replica Book of Mormon, evensome stuff.
My grandfather didn't have Asword from the time period
similar to the sword that Hiramhad.
It's actually a Civil Warperiod.
(47:47):
It's not quite as defined, butit's a replica.
That one's not an actual oldone.
The rifle is it's well over ahundred years old A watch
similar to what Hiram had whenhe was martyred.
So I can show them.
You know, okay, this is wherehe had it.
I even got a vest so I can showthem where it was.
(48:09):
And and the you know the eventsinside Carthage jail and the
events inside.
Carthage GL.
You can understand that and,incidentally, there are lots of
theories about the Carthage GL,too, that are floating around,
and some are very opinionated.
But whether you believe thatHiram was shot immediately, as
(48:33):
he was hit in the front and fromthe back at the same time, or
he spun around, or does itreally matter you?
know he died, so it doesn'tmatter.
However, my uncle did a lot ofand here he is an attorney, so
he dig digs into very solidevidence to kind of show what
actually happened that day, eventhough nobody was actually
(48:54):
standing there taking notes.
They were asked later andeverybody's fighting for their
lives.
So they really can't tell youreally good details.
But from the things that myuncle had found and I include
that in the book too the eventshad to be in such a way that
saved John Taylor's life andWillard Richards' life, Because
(49:18):
if Hiram had been shot both inthe front and the back and the
mob ran downstairs when Josephjumped out, john Taylor and
Willard Richards never wouldhave escaped the jail.
They came back up to finish thejob.
They saw Hiram on the floor,shot him multiple times after
(49:41):
that, which there's evidencebecause there's no blood on any
of those other bullet holes theydidn't know he was dead yet,
right, but by that time Willardand John Taylor were no longer
in that room.
He'd taken them around into thejail room, the cell room, and
so the people went in and theywere primarily after Joseph and
(50:06):
Hiram, but they wanted to killeverybody in the cell.
I covered that.
There's eyewitnesses who heardthem say that even but, um.
So john taylor is over in thatcell room.
He's covered in basically astraw mattress over there not
(50:28):
very good.
Willard richards is standingthere.
He's a big man, he's a sittingduck.
He did not expect to livethrough that.
But they went up and, knowingthey wanted to kill Hiram, they
walk over, kick him over justlike Joseph.
They prop him up against thewell and shoot him several more
(50:49):
times.
They roll him over onto hisfront and shoot them through the
back.
The bullet hole went straightthrough all of his clothing and
hit the watch.
So I know it was actuallystraight.
You couldn't have done it fromthe outside, because that's an
angle from the they're on asecond story, okay, and there
was only one hole in the door sohe couldn't have had two shots
(51:11):
come through and hit him in theback.
So we know he was over therewhen they shot him before they
looked for Willard Richards andJohn Taylor.
Now, about this time earlier inthe day, I have to kind of go
back a little bit.
Samuel Smith before Joseph andHiram were martyred, he had been
(51:36):
injured in Nauvoo or nearNauvoo and he was resting up.
That's why he didn't even go toCarthage to support his
brothers.
So he was bedridden and heheard because people were coming
back who'd been kicked out ofthe jail, kind of making some
warnings.
He heard that, oh, joseph andHiram need my help.
(51:56):
So he arranges for a young manto load them into a wagon and
take them to Carthage.
So they get onto the road toCarthage, which I actually have
a picture of the road toCarthage in here, and so you
kind of get an idea of what thislooks like, because here's this
road and there's some farmland,but there was dense trees all
(52:19):
along the edge of it.
So they're going along with thewagon and the mob was there to
stop them because they wereafraid of the Nauvoo Legion.
They didn't want anybody fromNauvoo getting back to Carthage
because they knew they weregoing to do the martyrs.
So they stopped them and theyrecognize Samuel oh, you're a
(52:40):
Smith boy, we're going to getyou.
He hops out even though he'sinjured, runs into that forest,
makes his way back to Nauvoo,gets away from the mob, hops off
to a horse, goes back and runsreally fast around the mob.
Well, the timing that he'scoming into Carthage is about
(53:03):
the time they're shooting Hiramagain up in the room and a lot
of people heard this.
Somebody yells out the Mormonsare coming.
They were scared to death.
A lot of people heard this.
Somebody yells out Mormons arecoming.
Okay, they were scared to deathof the Nauvoo Legion.
It was the biggest, mosttrained military group in the
state, so they they were fullyexpecting the Nauvoo Legion to
(53:26):
come and level the place.
So when they heard that it wasactually the mob following
Samuel and Samuel comes in, youknow, trotting in Mormons are
coming.
Well, at this point they're moreafraid of the Nauvoo Legion
than taking the time to go findWillard Richards and John Taylor
(53:50):
.
Wow, they exit the whole town,they just go.
And that allowed Samuel to helpWillard Richards, get the
bodies ready to go back toNauvoo and to help John Taylor
and a few others who had come tohelp too.
But what a lot of people don'trealize as well is, within three
(54:14):
weeks, samuel passed awaydirectly due to the increased
injuries that he got fromgetting to Carthage to save his
brothers and, in fact, savingRichard and John Taylor's life.
So, and you know, just lookingat all the events, I even
(54:38):
covered several theories in mybook and said you know what?
The only thing I think isplausible is that one.
So yeah, there's just someamazing miracles that happened.
Joseph actually had a dream andI think he told it to was it WW
(55:01):
Phelps, I think he told it tohe had a dream that he and Hiram
were one day walking alongwater and then saw the city with
a Savior in it and they wereheaded there and Samuel came and
joined them and went there withthem and that was exactly what
(55:23):
happened essentially.
So yeah, some neat, neat stuff.
Scott Brandley (55:30):
That's really interesting.
Joe Skeen (55:32):
I got a lot of stories like that in this other
book and that's why it took mesix years to compile it, because
I poured through every book.
I've got the books that mygrandfather had.
I didn't just take the stuffthat my grandfather had at face
value, I dug in to get to themost primary source on all of
(55:54):
them and obviously I ended upmostly on Joe Smith papers.
Tons of stuff out there.
I also found things in old newsreports from way back there,
like when Joseph and Hiram weremartyred.
There was a newspaper that saidthus ends Mormonism.
Scott Brandley (56:15):
Oh yeah.
Joe Skeen (56:16):
Yeah, nope, didn't happen.
Alisha Coakley (56:20):
They're a little bit wrong.
Joe Skeen (56:22):
Yep, you cannot stop the work that God is doing.
It doesn't matter what man doesor what they say.
Yeah, anyway.
So that's all.
Part of my testimony is godloves you, he lives, and he does
love you enough that herestored the gospels to bless
(56:42):
the lives of not only us buteven our ancestors, all earth.
Alisha Coakley (56:48):
So wow, yeah, love it thanks so much All earth
.
Scott Brandley (56:52):
So Wow, yeah, love it.
Thanks so much.
Alisha Coakley (56:54):
I'm just smiling .
This was just a smiley, just asmiley episode.
I love it.
That was really really neat.
I, you know I'm always a littlebit jealous of people who have
such rich history in in thechurch, and especially when they
know about it right.
Like I, just I think it's soneat that you have taken this
(57:16):
interest in this love and yourancestry and this like pride in
your family line and that you'reyou're not just like holding
onto it all, but you're actuallysharing it with the world.
Um, so I'm curious and we'llshare links for anyone who's
interested in purchasing any ofyour books but where normally
are they at?
Are they on?
Joe Skeen (57:35):
amazon or yeah, um, especially with this last book,
it's a big book.
Yeah, it cost a fortune to puttogether yeah, professional
photos and stuff I can imaginebut this book was so dear to me
my testimony of the prophet andof the restoration and the
(57:57):
artifacts that bear witness ofit I did not want to do a cheap
thing, yeah, but I wanted thisto be case binding on really
high quality paper, full colorthroughout so that nothing is
missed.
Hard back dust cover.
It's a beautiful book.
(58:17):
It's a great coffee table book.
My brother-in-law he actuallyteaches, I think, the deacon's
quorum.
Now he's got this book and hewould take it and show it to
them and the kids are, oh wow,that is cool Because it kind of
brings things to life.
That was the kind of thing Iwanted to do with this, but
still made it kind of tightbecause I wanted it to be more
(58:38):
affordable, to hit a certainmark where people could actually
buy it.
Every year there's a JosephSmith Senior Family Reunion.
I thought I've got to be ableto introduce it there.
That's what I did last Augustand it was a good thing because
I sold out the books.
They recognized all this stuffbecause they know this, these
(58:59):
things too.
So I sold a lot of them and alot of people still came back
later and bought more books.
But so now I'm selling it on myown site.
I was going to try to havesomeone like Amazon handle it,
but it costs too much.
Yeah, Huge percentage, Right, Iwanted it to be available.
(59:22):
I've thought about seeing ifdesert book would carry it,
which would be great.
So I'd be happy to work withthem and I could do that.
I could sell it through that,but it takes.
They get thousands ofsubmissions for different things
to carry every single year, soI'll try pursuing that too, but
(59:43):
right now I'm doing it on mywebsite.
I've got my own website, thebook itself.
The retail price on it is$49.95, and I'm doing a 20% off
on it.
The code to get the 25% off isAFFIRM all caps with 20 after it
.
Alisha Coakley (01:00:03):
We'll make sure to put that in the description
link too.
Joe Skeen (01:00:08):
We ship it.
I actually have tons of bookson hand Because I had to get
them in volume to get themreasonable.
The shipping of the mainshipment from China was crazy.
It just took months.
Scott Brandley (01:00:27):
I have business books I bought from China, so I
can completely relate to whatyou're saying.
It's so expensive here in theUS, but there you can get a
really good quality book for alot less.
Joe Skeen (01:00:41):
And so I'm very pleased with the way it turned
out.
But if there are other peoplethat needed help, I could even
give them pointers or I couldhelp them too.
Scott Brandley (01:00:51):
Yeah, hey, if we break even people that needed
help.
Joe Skeen (01:00:52):
I could even give them pointers, or I could help
them too.
Yeah, hey, if we break even,that's great, but my goal is to
reach as many people as I canwith with my testimony, and
that's really what it boils downto.
Alisha Coakley (01:01:01):
Yeah, okay.
Scott Brandley (01:01:04):
Cool, awesome.
Well, joe, before we wrapthings up, is there any last
thoughts you'd like to share?
Joe Skeen (01:01:14):
I kind of covered them, but I think I'm going to
reaffirm that if anybody everhas any doubt or question, does
god live?
Does he love us?
Does he care?
It's a resounding yes.
It doesn't matter what you'vedone, where you are in your life
right now, what you've said orwho you think you are.
(01:01:39):
By the way, if you think you'resomething less than a child of
God, you're absolutely wrong,because God loves you.
He really does, and he's thereto help you.
And there are people around toloves you.
He really does and he's thereto help you, and there are
people around to help you, andsometimes the angels that help
you are actually, when the Lordtouches somebody else's heart,
(01:02:02):
to reach out to you and help you.
Sometimes it's more miraculous,like what happened to my
backyard.
I did not expect that.
Alisha Coakley (01:02:14):
Well, like I said, it got me smiling the
whole time.
It's always nice to hear justsome just really sweet, you know
, special experiences in historyand all that kind of stuff that
just makes you feel the spiritin a very calm and happy way.
So thank you for sharing allthat with us today.
Joe Skeen (01:02:32):
Well, you're welcome, glad to be of help and I can
help with other stories andexperiences in the future if you
need.
Alisha Coakley (01:02:42):
We love that.
Scott Brandley (01:02:44):
Awesome.
Well, thanks, joe for being onthe show again and thanks
everyone for tuning in toanother episode of Latter-day
Lights.
If you like Joe's story and youwant to help us spread the word
and and help get his story out,go and hit that share button
and let's do our five secondmissionary work and share some
(01:03:07):
light into the world today.
Alisha Coakley (01:03:09):
Yeah, and don't forget, guys, we're always
looking for new guests too.
So if you have a story that youwant to share, or if you know
someone who has a great story toshare who would be perfect for
this episode or for this forthis podcast, um, be sure, like
Scott said, reach out to us.
We would.
We would love to hear from you.
So, all right, I all right.
(01:03:33):
Well, I think that's all wehave for this week.
Um, until next time, we willsee you, guys later.
Scott Brandley (01:03:35):
Thanks so much.
Take care, bye.
On today's episode we're goingto hear how one descendant of
Hiram Smith has been able togrow and develop his testimony.
(01:03:57):
Welcome to the church.
Alisha Coakley (01:04:02):
That's just making stuff up.
Scott Brandley (01:04:05):
Okay.
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