Primary vs. Secondary Questions with Jerry Paskett & and Fred Dodini (Faith to Stay Part 2 of 5) - Latter-Day Lights - LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories

Episode Transcript
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Scott Brandley (00:00):
Hey everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Alisha Coakley (00:02):
And I'm Alisha Coakley.
Every member of the church hasa story to share, one that can
instill faith, invite growth andinspire others.

On today's episode, we're going to talk
about a concept called primaryand secondary questions and how
it can help us when we havedoubts about the gospel.
Welcome to Latter-day Lights.
Latter-day Lights.

(00:33):
Hey everyone, welcome back toanother episode of Latter-day
Lights.
We're so glad you're here withus today, and this is going to
be a little bit different.
This isn't our normal format,and that's because throughout
this month, I'm actuallylaunching my new book called
Faith to Stay, and I've invitedsome of our previous guests to
come back onto the show andshare some of their experiences

(00:54):
with some of the things that Ishare in my book, and so it's
really exciting.
Last week, we did our firstepisode.
We're going to do five total,so this week is our second part
of the series and we're actuallygoing to be talking about
primary and secondary questions,and I'm really excited to jump

(01:14):
into it.
But before we do that, let meintroduce our special guests.
So we have Jerry Paskett.
Hi, jerry, how's it going?

Jerry Paskett (01:24):
Hey everyone, Hi Nice to see you again.

You too, man.
So Jerry is a good friend.
He's been on the podcast twiceand in that time we've actually
become good friends.
He lives here in Ogden andwe've gone and hung out and had
lunch a few times and done somethings together.
It's been a lot of fun.
But his story is back in.

(01:48):
Was it 2020, right?

2021.

Oh, 2021.
So he got COVID and he almostdied and had a near-death
experience and he's come on theshow twice and talked, talked
about that.
That's been really good.
Um, we're actually going topost those episodes in the show
notes so, if you want, you cango and watch both of those

(02:16):
episodes and then dr fred his.
His story is that he was grewup catholic and studied to be a
priest and then, um, at somepoint you're introduced to the
church, right?
exactly and, uh, we had a greatconversation with you on the

(02:40):
podcast as well, so we'llinclude that down in the show
notes.
And then you all know Alisha,my co-host.
This is weird for you, becauseusually you kind of kick it off
right.

I know I'm just sitting here being quiet, just
wait, it's good though.

Yeah.
So I asked Alisha to kind of bepart of the guests instead of
the co-host today, so that wecan have more of a discussion
instead of sharing a story.
And I guess I am kind ofsharing part of my story, so

(03:22):
maybe that's kind of how we'llkick it off story.
So maybe that's kind of howwe'll kick it off.
So in this book, faith to Staythe premise of the book was back
in 2014,.
I became a bishop and rightafter I got put in, I had a
family come and tell me theywere leaving the church and part

(03:43):
of that experience was thatthey had, they were struggling
with, um, the essays that thechurch came out with back then
to try to clear up doctrinalissues and things like that, and
so I went home that night.
I had never heard of them and Iwent home and I read all of
them in one shot and it was.

(04:04):
There was the pressure ofhelping this family to find
their answers, plus all of thesearticles that I read, and it
was overwhelming at the time andI I had a faith crisis while I
was a Bishop and it was hard.
It was a real struggle becauseeverything that I believed was

(04:26):
on the line and the way I gotthrough that was I was inspired
to break my faith down into themost basic elements that I could
think of at the time and I cameup with five questions, and
those questions were is God real?
Is Jesus Christ real?
Is Joseph Smith a prophet?

(04:47):
Is the church true?
And is the Book of Mormon true?
And so that was on my side,that was my experience.
And then I had a second familyleave the church while I was
serving as a bishop as well andI did everything I could to try
to get both of those families tostay in the church, but they

(05:11):
both ended up leaving and it wasreally hard because they were
both families, were close to meand they took their kids with
them, which was even harder.
And I the time I feel like Idid everything I could.
But about two years later a talkcame out by Elder Lawrence E

(05:35):
Corbridge of the 70.
And the talk was called StandForever.
And when I read that talk itwas incredible and that's what I
wanted to discuss.
In fact, it was so powerfulthat I put it in my book and
that's kind of what I want totalk about today.
So that's kind of my backgroundstory on this episode.

(05:58):
So I guess I want to start outby seeing what you guys thought
about the talk.

I loved it.
I, I actually just listened toit like 30 minutes ago and I,
first of all, for our listeners,I think we can put the link to
that talk in the show notes too,so if anyone wants to go and
reference it, it's really reallygood.
Um, I did listen to it on two Xspeed.
I was trying to get it all allin there, but um it, you know, I

(06:32):
I love that he starts off andhe talks about how, like he had
other talks that he could havedone, that were more
entertaining, that had morestories, that were more engaging
, but he just felt like thisneeded to be spoken about.
Like he just felt like thisneeded to be spoken about, like
he just felt like this topic wasreally, really good and um, and

(06:54):
for me, just the simplicity ofthe whole primary versus
secondary questions is genius,you know it's.
It really comes down to like weget so caught up sometimes in
all of the, the icing on thecake, I guess, that we forget
that there's actually cake,right, and we actually forget
that there's like something ofsubstance that matters more.
Um, and and I just I love thathe like put it in such simple

(07:16):
terms, such easy to understandterms.
It actually made me think abouthow, scott, when, when I was in
your ward with you and I was inyoung women's, you came and you
taught um, well, I guess let'sback up.
People are probably going to askwhat, what do you mean?
Primary and secondary questions, right, like the listeners are
probably wondering what are youguys talking about?
So in his talk he mentions thatthere are some key questions,

(07:40):
the primary questions, thefoundational questions, where,
if you know the answer to those,anything else that comes later
on is sub par to those primaries.
Like is God real?
Like what Scott was justtalking about.
Right, like, you've got thosefive core questions.
He and his top only had four.
Right, which one did you add?
The?

very last one yeah.

So he only has the first four.
Scott added the fifth one,which I think is super important
.
And then he says some of thesecondary questions might be
blacks in the priesthood, mightbe the polygamy, might be
talking about racism in thechurch, it might be talking
about changes in the temple.
It might be talking about, um,you know, um, homosexuality and

(08:28):
and marriage and um, you knowjust all of these things that,
like, they're definitelyimportant and they're parts of
our history, and there arethings that can get really muddy
sometimes when we try to talkabout them, but the reality is
that none of those carry as muchweight as the foundational
watch.
So, anyway, I thought it wasgreat.

(08:48):
I remember you saying something.
You came and you taught theyoung women when I was um, a
young women's leader in our ward, and you told the girls and I
think this is before you evenheard that talk, I feel like it
was before you really startedworking on your book and all
that.
Maybe, I don't know, it was along time ago and you said to
the girls you said, really, whenyou think about how to live

(09:09):
your life, you can get so caughtup in the details of all the
things that we have to do.
But it just comes down to thisthere's either a God or there's
not a God, right?
You're like, just start withthat and just live your life
according to the thing that hasthe least amount of risk.
And you're like, if we die andthere's no God, then it
literally doesn't matter how welived, right?

(09:30):
So okay, you can do whateveryou're going to do because
there's no God, there's nothingafterwards, and that's fine.
But if you live your life as ifthere's no God and then you die
and you find out there isone're gonna have a price to pay
, right, like it's.
It's riskier for you to livelike there's no god and to hope

(09:50):
that there's no god than it isfor you to there is one and hope
that there's not one, right?
So, like, I just loved that andit was so again, it was so
simple, it was genius, and Ithink that that's what other
corbridge did.
Corbridge or bridge, yeah, Ilove.

Like it was just so simple.

It was genius and I was like that's what other
Corbridge did Corbridge,corbridge, corbridge.
Yeah, I love like it was justso simple, it was genius and I
was like that's great.

So what about you guys?

Jerry, yeah, I echo what Alisha said about the
simplicity of it For me after Ilistened to it.
I've listened to it a few times, but when I listened to it the
first time was when youintroduced me to the book when
you were still in the process ofcompleting it, and it jumped
right out to me how simple it isand how easy it was.

(10:38):
If you drill down, whateverthose questions might be for you
, I think that's kind of anindividual thing.
Whatever those questions mightbe for you, I think that's kind
of an individual thing.
Like you added a question, Icreated my own questions, but it
gives you permission toeliminate the noise and in this
society that we live in there isso much background chatter and

(11:00):
so much noise, whether it bereligiously, spiritually,
socially, and it just kind ofgave me permission to really
simplify it Awesome.

How about you, Fred?

Fred Dodini (11:17):
Yeah, I really like the talk.
It addresses something I runinto.
As a therapist I've worked alot with people in and out of
the church who struggle withfaith in general, specifically
for people in the church.
Oftentimes they've beenoffended by people in the church
.
There's a long list of thingspeople use as a reason to leave

(11:45):
and I have a grandson who he andhis wife got married in the
temple but within a year, twoyears afterwards they basically
have left the church and I thinkit's more over some of the
social issues and stuff than itis some of the key doctrinal
questions.
And so it's unfortunately, it'spart of it's the parable of the
you know, the 10 virgins.

(12:06):
We see people who are notprepared spiritually.
They haven't really dug deepenough to get the clear answers
to the primary questions sothey're more vulnerable to the
secondary ones if they haven'treally done their due diligence
there and unfortunately I seethat as that's continuing and
it's growing, unfortunately withthe youth yeah, yeah, I like

(12:30):
what you said about thedistraction thing.

I know that's something that, um, all three of
my kids have either hadmornings like in their
patriarchal blessings or they'vehad just like regular priest
priesthood blessings that talkabout how, um, regular priest
priesthood blessings that talkabout how, um, satan will try to
destroy you, but if not, he'lltry to distract you.

(12:52):
You know, like he doesn't carewhich one he like destroying is
great, but if he can justdistract you, that's good too,
and so I think you're right.
I think and I don't think it'slike the younger generation, I
think it's everybody in this dayand age now is so easily
distracted.
You know, and and we're lookingfor answers to everything Like

(13:12):
we want everything to be perfect.
I think one of the things thatthe talk said was something
about like the.
The absence of evidence is notit's in the negative, or
something like that.
Right?
like didn't he say somethingaround along those lines?
Like everyone's trying to likeprove everything right or wrong
with the church.
They're trying to get into thenitty-gritty of all the details.

(13:35):
Oh well, see this right here.
This can't be true, so it meansthe whole thing has to go out
the window.
Yeah, it's like.
Just because you don't know theanswer to this completely or
you don't understand the fullcontext or whatever, it doesn't
mean that you throw the baby outwith the bathwater, right?

Right.

Yeah, isn't it interesting that that whole
thought process that you justbrought up, Alisha, if that were
reality, that would completelyremove faith.

Oh 100%.

Yeah, and then what do we have?

Right, then where's the test?
Yeah Right, yeah, yeah, I thinkyou're, we have how.
Uh, it's, even even getting atestimony of the primary
questions is harder today, butthose two things go together,
because I think what you said,Alisha if you, if Satan, can
distract us enough so that wedon't even gain a strong
testimony of the primaryquestions, then he still wins.

Yeah, yeah.

And then the secondary questions are just
fuel to the fire, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, and it doesn't prepare us.
It doesn't prepare us forwhatever challenges may come in
our lives.
If our faith is shallow, youknow, and not really founded on
the rock, so to speak, we'regoing to be less resilient, less
able to bounce back from thechallenges that life will throw
at us, especially in the comingyears, as we anticipate more

(15:12):
difficulties.

All right.
So the next question I had washave you ever struggled with
secondary questions that pulledyou away from the primary
questions?

No, we're perfect, Scott.
We never would do that.
Only like 15 or 16 times in ourlife Like that's it.

Oh, okay, some of those secondary questions I mean
some of them not really don'thave anything to do with with
Joseph Smith or the book ofMormon or, you know, polygamy,
all those issues.
Sometimes it's just strugglingwith people in the church, you
know, are they examples of whatthey believe?

(16:02):
That was my.
I had some pretty significantchallenges my first year in the
church.
I was 20 when I got baptized.
Obviously, my family was allCatholic and they really, really
struggled with that decision.
And a small town.
I grew up in Gridley,california.
Everybody knew everybody andthe LDS community was a very

(16:23):
large one in my hometown.
My father was a pharmacist.
There were only threepharmacies in my hometown.
Two of them were owned by LDSpeople and my father owned the
third.
But I remember distinctly thefirst testimony meeting I think
I went to after I was baptized.
This older farmer guy got up inthe audience to share his

(16:45):
testimony.
I knew he was a farmer becausehe was wearing his clean press
overalls and he went on abouthis grandson, how great his
grandson was and, as you know, Iheard about his grandson and
his grandson just during theVietnam era, right.
So he's you know he had gone inthe army.
I don't know if he's drafted orrejoined and served a tour duty

(17:08):
in Vietnam.
He came home and went to thepolice academy and now he was.
Now he was a police officer andhe's out there saving the world
from all these long hair dopesmoking hippies by, you know,
cracking them on the head andmaking the world a safer place.
And I'm thinking to myself waita second, you just trashed some

(17:28):
of my best friends.
I thought we were supposed tolove our enemies and do good to
those who disagree with us andall that sort of stuff.
But I remember talking tomyself in that situation.
I thought, you know, I can'texpect everybody in this church
to believe or understand it thesame way I did at that time.
And you know, and I was alonein it, you know, family wasn't

(17:49):
there.
New, you know, new congregationwith people.
And I just told myself you know, my testimony is not going to
be based on the testimony, orthe lack thereof, of others.
Whether they live theprinciples fully or not is not
my concern.
It's whether I am and whetherI'm true to the things that I
already know.
And, um, it was a challenge.

(18:11):
Another one well, one of thoselds doctors, um, had a little
arrangement with the ldspharmacist across the street
from his office, which is rightnext to the hospital in my
hometown, and you know, when hewould see patients he would call
in their prescriptions to thisother LDS pharmacy across the
street.

(18:32):
Well, some of those people were.
They were clients of myfather's, and so they reached
out to my dad and said you know,we don't like this.
This doctor sent us to thisother pharmacy we want to come
to yours and he had been doingthis for a while and obviously
he was getting paid kickbacks, Iguess.
And my father confronted himabout it and said you know, this
is illegal.
You know that, and if you don'tstop this, I'm going to have to

(18:52):
report this to the licensingboard.
So that doctor hated my dad'sguts for the rest of their lives
and he was really rude to himany time he got the opportunity
to, and after I'd gottenbaptized and joined the church,
this doctor you know my fatherwould run into these guys on a
regular basis, a small town, andhe just insulted my father one

(19:14):
time by saying you know, youmust be a lousy father because
you can't keep your own kids inyour church.
I thought that's the worst thingyou could say to someone who's
you know.
I thought that's the worstthing you could say to someone
who's you know who is and my dadwas a great dad To insult him
that way, to hit below the belt,so to speak.
So that was a challenge.

(19:34):
It was a challenge for myparents because my parents knew
most of these people.
There was another guy who wasactually my first bishop.
He was a butcher, had his ownlittle butcher shop in town.
First bishop, he was a butcher,had his own little butcher shop
in town and about six monthsafter I got baptized he got
arrested for cattle rustling.
Yeah, and everybody knew.

(19:56):
I mean, I remember when he wasreleased as the bishop and I
remember seeing him in churchthe next Sunday with his whole
family and you could telleverybody just looked at him
like he was the lowest person onthe earth.
I felt terrible for him becauseum, and his family I mean I, you
know, his wife and kids weregreat kids and good family and

(20:17):
stuff.
So I think a lot of people inthe church struggle with that
more than they do with some ofthese secondary doctrinal
questions.
It's because do I want to be inan organization where some
people don't seem to you knowpractice what they preach and
live their religion and um, youknow, and unfortunately you know
we can point out examples ofpeople who don't you know the

(20:41):
real mormon or whatever.
I mean, there's just you know,and so that I think can be a
bigger challenge for some people.
The doctrinal issues I neverhad a problem with.

And that's interesting.
I love that you brought thatout, because it can be more than
just questions.
It can be situations and it canbe what other other people's
actions I I mean both thoseexamples that you just gave are
total cause for for people toleave the church oh, yeah, you
could totally justify leaving.

Yeah, well you know my parents would come to me and
say how can you be part of thisorganization?
We know these people.
We know they're dishonest,unscrupulous people.
You know and we knew so.
There were some people in ourcatholic you know parish there
that I'd grown up with.
I knew these people very well,some of the most honorable,
faithful people you could meet,you know, and that was how do I

(21:37):
explain this to my parents thatyou know I didn't.
I don't care these other people, what they do or don't do, what
they should be doing.
It's not.
It doesn't change my testimony,my understanding of the
principles and the truthfulnessof it all, but I think it made
it that much more difficult forme to ever discuss the church
with them and we had thatunderstanding from that point on
is we did not talk about thechurch.

Wow, yeah, jerry , any thoughts yeah?

Well I love, lisha said at the very, very
beginning.
She says oh yeah, scott, we'reall just perfect.
You know, when you ask if we'dever struggled with this and I
don't know why, but I have never, ever struggled with the
secondary questions, but itdoesn't mean I haven't been
tested on the primary questionsmany, many times.
I've always been able to viewthe secondary questions as if

(22:31):
people are reciting a secondaryquestion to me.
It's an excuse or a reason tojustify, but fortunately I've
always been able to just go backto the.
Well, if that's the case, thenthat would make it all wrong and
I've been very, very lucky thatway.
But I've had some pretty bigstruggles with primary questions
I've shared some of that onthis podcast with you and

(22:56):
battles with Satan, and when hedoes come knocking and take up
residence on one of my shoulders, he's usually embracing those
things that I really hold nearand dear, and that is the
primary questions, particularlythe priesthood Interesting.

So can.

I ask like what At?

the same time.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
What about the priesthoodquestion?
Like, what's the struggle?
I guess, what's the thoughtprocess that's that makes the
priesthood tough for you?

It wouldn't be so much a struggle as, as for some
, for some reason, reasons thatI don't know I've been very,
very fortunate, very blessed inmy life to see incredible
miracles at the hands of thepriesthood, both in the
receiving and the giving, andI've been very, very fortunate

(23:54):
to be able to communicatethrough the channels of deity,
through priesthood blessings,and so when I do start having
doubts and everything, then itwould require me to deny what I
know and what I've seen, andparticularly since my near-death
experience, the priesthoodplays a huge, huge role in

(24:19):
promoting what I call now aknowledge-based knowledge I've
shared that with you before asopposed to a faith-based
knowledge that we are indeedteaching correct doctrine when
it comes to the plan ofsalvation.
I've seen it, I've been there.
So it gets really kind of scaryfor me when I start slipping

(24:40):
backwards based on that.
Scott, I don't know if I'manswering your question or not,
but I don't get lost in thelittle things because I think
that, and to me the secondaryquestions are the little things
because I feel like they all areanswered in the primary
questions.

Yeah, but it's interesting if we start to focus
on secondary questions.
It's a slippery slope.
You can be pulled down somedark roads.
In fact, the second couple thatleft when I was a bishop that's
how they left started to dosome research and things outside

(25:33):
of church, outside of LDSorg,and that's what it was at the
time.
But she started looking atother sources of information and
ultimately she started goingdown dark roads and couldn't
come back.

She couldn't get back.
She couldn't overcome it.
Don't you think we're allsusceptible to doing that kind
of thing?
And if so, if the answer tothat is yes, how do we avoid it?
How do you, how do yourecognize?
Hey, this can end up nowhere.
I'm not going to gainadditional knowledge or
strengthen my testimony.
I'm kind of sliding backwardshere.
How do you prevent that?

Yeah, that's a great question.
One of the things that ElderCorbidge talked about.
He said you can't learn thetruth by elimination.
I don't know if you guysremember him saying that but it
was so good I copied it downonto some notes here so maybe I
could read it.
He said there are some who areafraid the church may not be

(26:34):
true and who spend their timeand attention slogging through
the swamp of the secondaryquestions.
They mistakenly try to learnthe truth by process of
elimination, by attempting toeliminate every doubt.
That's always a bad idea.
It will never work.
That approach only works in thegame of Clue.
Remember saying that.

Yeah, in the library with the candlestick or
what?
Yeah, go ahead, fred.

Yeah.

Go ahead, Fred.
That's that kind of rationalapproach that I think a lot of
people they want to prove God'sexistence.
When I was the clinicaldirector for the Anasazi
Foundation it's a wildernessprogram in Arizona.
There was a 17-year-old boy,Jewish kid from New Jersey, who
was a really smart kid and hehad a very successful business

(27:30):
he was running for himself inhigh school.
It was making him good amountof money and he was expecting it
with it would finance hiscollege education in the future.
All right, he sold cocaine,yeah, but he told me he was an
ethical cocaine dealer and hewas pretty convincing about this
.
You know, I only sell goodquality cocaine.
I don't cut it and dilute itwith whatever.

(27:52):
I only sell to people who canafford it who are not, you know.
You know pawning their parents'jewelry and stereo equipment to
pay for their habit, and I canbe trusted and my clients know
that.
My customers know that.
So he was convinced.
Well, long story short, how didhe wind up in the wilderness of

(28:14):
Arizona?
His father was a cop, by theway.
Forgot to tell you that, yeah,yeah, and his dad knows he's
doing this but he's not going tothrow him under the bus.
But he kept warning him and onenight the boy was driving

(28:35):
through some neighborhood in asketchy part of Hoboken or
wherever he lived in New Jersey,and he got pulled over by a cop
because his taillight was outand the officer looked at his
license and registration and allthat stuff and then told him to
fix the light and send him onhis way.
The next day he mentioned thatto his father at breakfast and
his dad said you're toast.
And the kid said what are youtalking about?
I didn't have anything in thecar.
They didn't search, nothinghappened.
He said yeah, it did.
They know who you are, theyknow your car and they looked at

(28:58):
your license.
They know you don't live inthat town or that part of town.
So they know you're there forone of two reasons You're either
there to sell drugs or to buythem.
They'll be looking for you thenext time.
It's just a matter of time.
He said he didn't believe it.
Sure enough, six months later,boom, he got popped and his
father, I think, talked to thejudge and said I'm going to send

(29:19):
him to this wilderness programThat'll straighten him out.
So we used to have these greattalks.
As far as religion goes, hisparents were active, you know,
devout Jews and he was anagnostic.
He couldn't believe in God ifhis presence couldn't be
empirically proven.
So we had these greatintellectual conversations about
all this stuff.
And I remember it was about histhird week on the trail, you

(29:41):
know we had not provenempirically that God existed and
I told him I said the only wayI know for people to know if God
really exists is to seek somekind of interaction with him,
reach out and see if he reachesback.
Well, the next week, when Icame back on the trail to see
him, he ran up to me.
He was so excited.
We walked down the creek bed andhe jumped on top of this big

(30:04):
rock and proclaimed, like Mosesof old, that he knew that God
existed.
I said really what happened?
This seems like a sudden changeof mind here.
He said it was only like threedays before they were hiking
through the wilderness and theywere climbing.
He was climbing up a very steepcliff face and he got about

(30:29):
halfway up.
He said it was probably a good20, 25 feet off the ground and
the ledge he was standing onbegan to crumble and he could
feel himself starting to fall.
He did everything he could totry and dig his hands and feet
into the cliff side, but nothinghe knew.
He got to that point where heknew I'm going to fall and I
could die.

(30:49):
You know, he would have fallen25 feet onto these big rocks
below him, he said.
At that moment, as he was inthe process of falling, he said
something caught him in midair,he described like a giant hand
and lifted him up and put him ona safe place on the ledge.

Oh my gosh.

I said sounds like God to me, what do you think?
And so he was convinced thatGod existed, right, okay, but he
wasn't convinced about changinghis ways because he still went
home to New Jersey and continuedto restart his successful
business.
Well, about six months afterthat now he's 18, right he got

(31:35):
busted again.
Now this is potentially hissecond felony drug conviction
for possession and with intentto distribute.
So I never saw him after that.
But I did.
I did call him when I was cause.
I his stories in my book.
And so I call him and said youknow what happened after that
experience?
Do you, do you think about whatyou shared with me out on the
trail, about your experiencewith God?

(31:57):
And you see, I think about itfrom time to time, but it really
didn't change his behavior.
And so I thought there arepeople you can give them all
kinds of signs and they can sayGod exists, but does that change
their mind, their heart, theirdisposition, their behavior?
Do they really committhemselves to that relationship?

(32:18):
Because in his case it didn't.
It wasn't enough for him.
And we've been told thatmiracles don't convert people
Because we forget them after awhile, or in the days of Samuel
the Lamanite.
All these amazing thingshappened and after a while
people just came up with otherexcuses, other explanations for

(32:38):
why these things happened thathad nothing to do with God.
So unless people are willing totake a deep dive into the
doctrines and reach out andestablish that relationship with
God on a very personal levelwhere they will continue to seek
revelation and answers to thosequestions, god is the first
person we should go to with ourdoubts If we know he's there.

(33:03):
Why go to the Internet when thesource of all knowledge is
right over our heads?
And I think for people in thechurch who understand that,
that's the first place they gowith their doubts, because they
trust that God will help themfind the answers.
It may not come right away andit may not come in the way that
they expect it but I'm convincedit always comes yeah.

Well and a lot of the questions that we do.
Well, I think people lookonline because one, it's fast
and easy.

Yeah, right.

But the problem is that we don't know who is
behind the answer to thatquestion online, right, you know
the answer to that questiononline, right, you know, and I
would say most of the time, it'sprobably not someone that you
can trust.
And so you're being, you'reputting your eternal salvation

(33:57):
in the hands of a stranger whomight have nefarious purposes to
pull you away.

And not only that, people might just honestly
be mistaken, like like I don't.
Like my parents.
They grew up in the time where,like, everyone glorified the
Mormon doctrine by BruceArmaconkey, right, like that.
They felt like that was totalscripture from God and like some
of it was really in line withthe gospel.
But there were some of it thatthe church literally came out

(34:27):
and was like this is notdoctrine, like it's not.
Yes, the title is mormondoctrine but it's not.
It's not canonized scripture oranything like that.
It's not something that thechurch doesn't his personal
opinion on things.
And so my parents grew up havingthis information that they like
just adamantly, like agreedwith and then they just spewed

(34:48):
it everywhere you know what Imean and they did so with even
more limited information becausethey were very um inactive from
church and so they weren'tgetting all of the things and
they were doing the things thatwere keeping them from being
able to like fully hear andunderstand the spirit.
You know just they're makingchoices that just didn't keep
them close to the Lord.
So so misinformation and Ithink your own personal

(35:16):
experience sometimes can canoffer even worse information
than someone who's trying tomaliciously give wrong
information, right Likesometimes that can be worse, um
so you know I didn't expect thisconversation to go this
direction.

Maybe this isn't applicable or not, and this is
where you guys have the power ofthe edit, so but you know I
love what Fred said about youknow we should be going to God,
and it reminded me.
I just had an aha moment whenScott asked me in the second
podcast if my prayers weredifferent.
Scott, you and I have talkedabout this privately and I've

(35:52):
really reflected on thatquestion a lot.
And when Fred says we should begoing directly to the source,
it has been my experience andprobably one of the most
powerful experiences in my life.
If I go to the source and I willjust be patient, but more than
patient, I have to know thatthat answer is going to come and
it's going to come on his time,when it's convenient for him

(36:16):
and not convenient for me orwhen I am prepared for it.
But the most important part isI have to be able to recognize
it when that answer comes.
Is I have to be able torecognize it when that answer
comes and whether that be Idon't push it to the side or I
choose not to hear it or I justopenly ignore it, I have to be

(36:38):
able to know and become familiarenough that that can be
answered and I think, a lot ofthese secondary questions if
we're going to go down that roadneed to be approached that way
that he will answer thosequestions, but we have to be
willing to listen and hear it.
Yeah.

Well, and even Elder Corbidge says there are
answers to the secondaryquestions.

Yeah, when we get those answers, we don't know
.

Or when we get the complete answer.

we don't know, because sometimes it's, you know
, sometimes on the surface itjust looks really bad.
I mean, yeah, oh, go ahead,Brad.

No, I was just thinking of, you know, the whole
issue with blacks in thepriesthood.
Right when I joined the church,you know, I became aware that
my feelings were I don't agreewith this.
It doesn't make sense.
It doesn't seem to be inharmony with the gospel.
If there's been a mistake made,the Lord will correct it in
time, and so I didn't give itmuch thought after that.

(37:37):
And that's exactly whathappened, you know, and that was
.
Should it have taken 150something years?

or whatever.

No, it shouldn't have, but it was.
You know, even within theleadership of the church.
If you've read, you know aboutHubie Brown's experience and
Duff Hanks' book.
Mary D Hanks, his son, wrote abook about his struggles with
that question and how there wasconflict within you know the
leadership of the church in theForum of the Twelve over that

(38:09):
issue.
But you know, because they haveto make the decision
unanimously, everybody has to bein the same frame of mind to be
able to invite the Spirit andbe in a place when they're ready
to hear it and apply it and lettheir own personal biases, you
know, put them aside andunfortunately sometimes that

(38:30):
takes a while for some people tocome to that point where they
really are humble and submissiveenough to rely on the Lord 100%
for those answers andunfortunately that's true of
even people at the highestlevels in the church sometimes
that they have their own biasesthey have to deal with.

(38:52):
But that's part of our moralagency, it's part of what we
have been given the freedom tolisten and learn and decide for
ourselves.
And I think people, if they'rereally committed to finding the
truth, that they will find it.
But it takes some humilitysometimes and not everybody is

(39:12):
ready for that.

Yeah.

Interesting.
Okay, this question is a littlebit unique.
I don't know how it's going togo down, but you both have very
different.

What I love that?

yeah.
So jerry and fred, you bothhave very unique stories, um,
and I think they both apply tothe idea of primary and
secondary questions in differentways.
Fred, you were obviously comingfrom the Catholic faith.

(39:53):
The ideas and the doctrinesthat are taught in the church
were unique to you, and you hadto do a lot of research, and I'm
sure you had both types ofquestions in your mind coming in
.
So I'd like to get some of yourthoughts on how those affected
your decision to join the church.
And then from Jerry, having anear-death experience and having

(40:16):
a different perspective rightfrom most people in the church,
how has that impacted your ideasaround questions in the gospel?

So different same kind of question different
perspective.
Yeah, well, you know, I left theseminary about two years before
I joined the church and thereason I left it was because I
knew that there were doctrinalerrors within Catholicism.
It became apparent to me, youknow, we're studying the

(40:54):
doctrines, we're studying thehistory of the church and
Augustine and Thomas Aquinas andsome of the great theologians,
and it just, you know, maybe itwas just the spirit warming me
up and preparing me forsomething more, but I started
with questioning my own faithand realizing that there were
errors here and that I had torely on God to answer those

(41:19):
questions.
And I think I shared with youthe experience I had in prayer.
It was just a month or so afterI'd left the seminary, where I
was just kneeling by my bedsaying my evening prayer and I
said, heavenly Father, if thereis truth to be found on the
earth, please lead me to it.
And I got a powerful responseand an answer that my prayer had

(41:42):
been heard and would beanswered in a specific time
frame.
It would be in two years andwould be answered in a specific
time frame.
It would be in two years.
Now, why two years?
Maybe because I wasn't quiteready at that point to hear the
answer that it would come at atime in my life when I was
prepared to act on it, which Iwas.

(42:03):
But I had always struggled withthose questions and when I read
the Book of Mormon for the firsttime, the answers just flew off
the pages.
You know a lot of the stuffthat was incomplete in,
certainly, the Catholic Vulgateversion of the Bible.
The Book of Mormon began tofill in those blank spaces and
then, after taking themissionary discussions and
praying and getting thetestimony, the other stuff

(42:25):
didn't matter, it was irrelevanttestimony.
The other stuff didn't matter,it was irrelevant because those
primary questions were alreadyanswered.
The other things would fallinto place in time, even if I
didn't fully understand thepolicies.
Why the Lord brought backpolygamy, I don't know.
Was it the Abrahamic test,which some people think it was?

(42:45):
I don't know.
The whole issue of thepriesthood I had studied.
I'd read accounts by blackmembers of the church and the
early black families that Josephhad ordained and all that stuff
, and I knew the context of theDred Scott case, which was about
the same time, and I thought,well, maybe there's some
historical precedence here,maybe there's a reason for this,

(43:08):
but it didn't challenge myunderstanding of the doctrines.
So for me at least, since I'dalready struggled with my
original faith, my originaldoctrinal upbringing and stuff
like that, I felt prepared.
When questions came up about youknow, the Church of Jesus

(43:31):
Christ of Latter-day Saints andJoseph Smith and the Book of
Mormon and all those things, itwas so easy to dismiss those
questions and concerns becausethe primary questions had
already been answered.
And I never had that experiencegrowing up in the Catholic
Church.
It was always cloaked inmysticism and you know and that
sort of thing.

(43:51):
You didn't get clear, decisiveanswers.
And when the Spirit speaks toyou and gives you that answer,
you never forget that experience.
And so I think back to thoseprimary experiences when my
testimony first began to takeshape.
Those experiences will never,ever change Worlds without end.
I'll never come to a point intime when I redefine those

(44:15):
experiences as the effects of afrenzied mind.
That's not going to happen,right, because they are too
vivid, too real and they havebeen reinforced so many times
over the years, the same strongspiritual impressions.
So again that my experiences uh, changing churches, I think is

(44:40):
partially what prepared me todeal with whatever opposition I
would face when I made thatdecision and there was some
opposition.
Yeah, wow, whatever oppositionI would face when I made that
decision and there was someopposition.

Yeah, wow, jerry .

Scott asked me the question again.

I remember what you asked, but I want to hear it
again.
So how has having had anear-death experience changed
your perspective when it comesto questions of the gospel?

Okay.
Well, if you remember, as we'vetalked about this, it took me
several months to put the piecesof this puzzle together.
I think I described it as athousand-piece puzzle thrown on
a table and somebody says putthis together, and they take the
box top away.
I had no idea what it lookedlike, I didn't know what I was
putting together, but I didrealize very quickly on having

(45:37):
been a member of the church.
A lifelong member of the churchhad good parents that brought
me up in the gospel.
I that brought me up in thegospel.
I realized pretty quickly aftermy near-death experience that
spirituality is one thing and myreligious beliefs are quite
another.
And within my spirituality iswhere I find the primary

(46:01):
questions.
I can't have one without theother.
I understand that theordinances and such that are
required to be a member of thechurch to participate in those
they all link together.
But since my near-deathexperience, the spirituality has
been my primary focus point andwithin those lies my questions

(46:26):
about God, the Father, and liesmy questions about my Savior as
a brother and the Holy Ghost asmy friend and my compass.
Within those primary questionsis when I ask myself about my
priesthood and could I deny thatI asked myself about the Book
of Mormon.

(46:46):
Could I deny that?
Would I deny it?
And as a result of that, I findit pretty easy not to, as Fred,
and I love what Fred says.
Yeah, I don't understandpolygamy, but that's okay.
I don't understand the blacksand the priesthood thing, but
you know what, I'm great with it.
I don't get caught up in thatnoise, and it's been even more

(47:11):
so since I had that experienceat the veil and all of the
miracles that accompanied allthat that I went through and
those conversations with deitythat I've been able to be
blessed with.
So did that answer yourquestion?

Yeah, I mean, there's no right or wrong answer
.
I just wanted to get yourthoughts on it.
Yeah, I appreciate it, Alisha,do you have any thoughts?

You know, I was thinking about it and I mean, I
don't have as cool of anexperience as either of these
gentlemen here, but I think myperspective is a little bit more
of like someone who either ofthese gentlemen here, but I
think my perspective is a littlebit more of like someone who
was raised in the church, who,like I, never had to relearn
something and I also didn't havea big experience like like

(47:59):
Jerry did, where I was pretty tolike more spiritual knowledge
and in that sense, right, likesomething that was like so big
and grand and and so for me it'sbeen kind of like, yeah, it's
like a different type ofinvestigation, right.

(48:21):
It's like like, how do you takesomething that you believed your
whole life and pick it apart tosee is it really real, you know
, is it really true, is itreally complete?
Like that is is scary, to saythe least.
It's really really scary, youknow, because now, all of a
sudden, it it deals with, likewho you are as a person, and I

(48:45):
think that's something that, um,just even in the last year and
a half, like I'm currently, Ihope, at the bottom of like I
don't think, I hope, I hope Idon't have to drop even further
down from like all of thepersonal stuff that I'm dealing
with in my life, like I hopethat I'm at like the worst of
the worst and then we're justgoing to go up from here because
I have had to.
You know that puzzle analogy,jerry, that you're talking about

(49:11):
, it's like for me it's like I'mtaking, I'm taking a glass
puzzle, right and I'm shatteringit myself.
That's what I feel like.
I created this whole glasspuzzle.
I'm shattering it and now Ihave to be like what do I need
to recreate?
What are the most importantpieces for me to put back

(49:33):
together, to create a whole newpuzzle, but that still is really
transparent and really honestand really real and solid and
that can be like like just abarrier for me.
You know, um, I've had and Ithink maybe this is like
something that that we candiscuss for a minute too is um?

(49:54):
Scott, you have five primaryquestions in your book.
Elder Corbidge had four in histalk, jerry mentioned the
priesthood, which is not one ofthe four or the five that we
discussed.
For me, one of my primaryquestions was when my brother
died, and it was is there reallylife after death?
Like, is there more afterwards?

(50:15):
And so I think we all kind ofhave there's some core primary
questions, and then there's someprimary questions that are
individual, right, does heavenlyfather love me?
Could be someone's primaryquestion where it's just
knowledge to everybody else,right?
And so I think sometimesthere's there's additional
primary questions that are super, super important to the

(50:35):
individual um, and where am Igoing with this?
So I I just I think that, um,when you're, when you're having
to ask those and I believe Ican't remember which one of you
guys said you were talking aboutneeding to be ready to hear the

(51:00):
answer from Heavenly Father andto act on the answer, it puts
you in a really vulnerable state, and I know one of the
questions that I have receivedanswers on it is an answer that
I really don't like at all.
My answer is basically HeavenlyFather saying I trust you

(51:21):
figured it out.
I'm like what?

That's the answer.

a lot of times Like I don't like that one at
all, because these are like bigdeals for me, like the things
that I'm having struggles withare like really big deals for me
for the first time in my lifeand I'm like all right, well, I
hope you're not mad at me when Imess this up.
You know what I mean and and Iknow that, just like you're, you

(51:48):
know the 17 year olds that youmet at the foundation there are
definitely things that I couldbe doing better, like.
There are habits that I couldbe changing.
You know things that I could bedoing differently or not doing
at all or vice versa, um, that Idon't know why it's not

(52:12):
changing your behavior.
For example, we know the word ofwisdom is true, right, like.
We know the word it's like,meant for our health.
Why do we keep gorgingourselves on popcorn and candy
and and sodas?
And you know what I mean Like,like and don't we feel bad
sometimes?
I know for me, like, sometimesI I would feel bad going to the
temple knowing that I had extraweight on me, especially when I
was at my heaviest.
You know, knowing that I wasn'treally, I mean, I was doing the

(52:34):
knots of the word of wisdomLike I wasn't smoking and I
wasn't drinking, and yay me, butI wasn't doing the dues, and so
was I actually good to go tothe temple, you know like that's
such a personal thing and andso, anyway, I just think we get
all caught up.
This is my point, and maybethis goes into, like your last
question, that, um, that you hadlike written down for us, scott

(52:57):
, but, um, do you want to, doyou want to ask it?

scott, but um, do you want to?
Do you want to ask it, or youjust want me to skip right?
Okay, what would be your adviceto those who may be struggling?

with secondary questions.
Yeah, so I mentioned this inanother podcast before.
There was this talk given along time ago called all in.
They made a podcast out of it.
It was this great, everybodywas on fire with this talk,
right, and?
And the preface of it is afamily that loses their child
and they show up to church thenext day or whatever it was
Right, you know, and um, andthey're all there and they're

(53:31):
grieving and it's like how couldyou do?
Like, how could you do this?
How can you show up?
And the family's reply isbecause we're all in.
We're all in when it comes tothe gospel, right, and I have
loved that talk forever.
It has been such a core piece ofof my own testimony and I'm
growing and doing and servingand I'm at a stage in my life
now where I'm starting to seethings a little differently and

(53:55):
it's almost like I think it'sthis podcast, I think it's our
podcast.
Thank you, scott, I think it'sthis podcast, I think it's our
podcast.
Thank you, scott, forintroducing so many members of
the church who are just everydaymembers of the church, who some
of them are not all in yetbecause that's not where they're
at in their journey, but dangit if they aren't trying to be
at least halfway in.

(54:16):
You know what I mean.
Like they're trying and I don't.
I don't think that with thegospel it has to be all or
nothing.
I don't think that's.
That's what Heavenly Fatherexpects from us 100% of this
life.
It's great If we can get thatway, because the blessings are
immense, you know, like, for us,for posterity, for the world,
the blessings are just going tobe humongous If we can just be

(54:39):
all in a hundred percent of thetime.
But does that mean that we can'tstill do good if we don't have
those secondary answers for ourquestions?
Like, does it mean that even ifwe don't have all the primary
questions answered, that wecan't be used by heavenly father
?
No, of course, it's not what itmeans.
So if you can't answer all ofthem, answer one, just find one

(55:02):
Right and like, stick to it.
Like once you know it I thinkElder Corbidge talked about that
you know like, like, live thetestimony that you know, right,
don't, don't worry if you don'tknow all of it, it's okay, just
live what you do know.
And I feel like everybody, ifthey truly seek for at least one

(55:24):
answer, one primary answer, andit could be.
Does heavenly father love me?
You know?
Do I have a purpose in thislife?
Is there really a God?
Did the savior really atone formy sins?

If you can, answer at least one of them.

It's okay If you're a hot mess in the 99
other, you know, don't staythere.
By any means.
Don't stay there.
You're going to want to growand develop and you're going to
want to have more questionsanswered, but don't feel like
you have nothing to give justbecause you don't have all to
give.
You know, and so that would bemy advice is just find the one
question you know, just justfind the one piece of your

(56:02):
testimony and hold on to that.
And if life gets in the way andagency gets in the way and
mistakes get in the way andsituations get in the way, like,
just hold on to what you know.
Don't try to don't try to, youknow, tear that down and rebuild
it when it's already good andfunctioning and you know.
Whatever else, and if it doesget torn down, if you do have to

(56:22):
pick it apart, don't throw awayeverything you know.
Just because it's shattereddoesn't mean it's useless, so
don't throw it all away.
Go through those pieces, findthe ones that are the most
important, hold onto them andmake sure that you're gluing
them back together in somethingthat is going to is going to
keep you connected to yourheavenly father, cause I think

(56:45):
that that, above all, is whatI'm learning is I just have to
believe and I have to keepcommunicating with my heavenly
father.
If nothing else, I can lay outa laundry list of all the things
I'm doing wrong and all thethings that I have questions on,
and all the things that I, youknow, like I'm angry about or
whatever else, but I still needto talk to him.

(57:07):
I still, you know, I still justneed to be there and just trust
what I already know.
So that's my advice.

Don't Well, and I think, I think, if, if and
when the world falls around you,which it will multiple times in
your life, if you can hold toeven one, like you said, even
one of those primary questionsthat you know, that you just
know in your heart and soul youcan keep going.
Absolutely and the other thing Ithink that you mentioned that I

(57:38):
liked is God wants us to askquestions, so it's okay to have
questions that might not beprimary questions and, like
Elder Corbett says, there areanswers to those questions, but
they're not as significant asthe primary questions and we
shouldn't dwell on them or spenda lot of time trying to answer

(58:03):
those questions.
We should focus our time onanswering the main questions,
because those are what are goingto pull us through, like fred
mentioned.
So I'd like to get, uh, yourguys's thoughts.
Um, what would be your adviceto those who may be struggling
with questions?

Go ahead, fred.
Well, as I said before, I guessyou know, go to the source.
We expect to find answers inbooks or, you know, in a
conference, talk or thing.
Those are great resources butultimately, personal prayer,
personal revelation.
You know, as Peter was told,when the Savior asked the

(58:49):
apostles whom the people thoughthe was, and they said well,
some think you're John theBaptist back to you know, come
back to life.
Or Isaiah, or Jeremiah, one ofthe prophets, and he says who do
you say I am Peter's, the onewho says thou art the Christ,
the son of the living God.
And the Savior said flesh andblood has not revealed this to
you.
Don't rely on flesh and bloodfor an answer.

(59:12):
This can only come from theSpirit.
And that's when he changed hisname to Peter, which is a
reminder that the rock uponwhich the gospel is built is
personal revelation.
It's not Peter, it's not Peter'sposition in the church, it was
his experience.
That's what we should all beseeking is that same revelatory

(59:34):
experience, because we reallycan't trust anything else.
And when you've had thatexperience, you never forget it.
It leaves an indelible mark ofsorts.
Bruce Armour Conkey once wrotethat he believed the body is the
book of life because everythingis recorded here on the cells
of our body.
The concept of cellular memoryI'm familiar with it through,

(59:57):
you know, as a therapist.
People have been through realtraumatic experience and stuff.
It leaves a mark, it leaves amemory chemically that's
recorded in the cells of ourbody and it's even passed down
to the next generation.
Those experiences can change ourgenetics and we can pass them

(01:00:18):
good or bad, we can pass that onto future generations.
So and I thought you know,that's perfect justice.
When we stand before the bar ofGod, we don't need anybody else
to testify against us.
Our body will.
All that information that'sstored there will be made
manifest.

(01:00:38):
We won't have any excuses.
We won't be able to justifyanything.
Yeah, manifest.
We won't have any excuses.
We won't be able to justifyanything.
Yeah, I just think it's.
If we don't rely on personalrevelation, if we don't believe
that that's possible, you knowGod's not going to speak to me.
I've heard people tell me that.
Why do I pray?
God's not going to talk to me,I'm not worthy, or whatever else
it is.
I thought, what makes youdifferent than anybody else?

(01:00:59):
The promise is the same foreveryone, even for those who may
not be worthy at the moment.
If they offer a sincere prayer,they're worthy at that moment
and maybe they're prepared tohear and listen.
Finally, because they've beenhumbled because of their sins,
because of their weaknesses, andthat's what it takes for a lot
of us.
As the Savior said, I give menweaknesses, so they'll be humble

(01:01:21):
and they'll come unto me.
I can turn those weaknessesinto strengths, and that's the
biggest challenge, I think, forsome people is believing that
they can receive answers anddirection and then have the
confidence and the courage toapply them in their lives.

Scott Brandley (01:01:41):
Yeah, I think that is a big challenge,
especially with the Internet.
People are just they're notwilling to put trust in God.
They're putting trust in theInternet In a false God really
Awesome.
Thanks, Fred, Jerry.

(01:02:02):
Any thoughts, thoughts, anyadvice?

Jerry Paskett (01:02:05):
well, and rather than me sharing advice, I would
rather share an experience, andthat is when you introduced me
to the book, when it was in adraft form.
Um, I took it to heart and Isat down and I made my own list
and, rather than, you know, giveadvice.
I would encourage everybody tosit down and I made my own list
and, rather than, you know, giveadvice.
I would encourage everybody tosit down and, as Felicia said,

(01:02:26):
it might be one thing, it mightbe five I sure wouldn't throw
out a whole shopping list butfour or five, six, whatever,
whatever it means to you, createyour list and then have that
really deep, honest conversationwith just you and with God and
say do I really believe in this?

(01:02:46):
And if you do, you will beprepared and you'll be braced
when those secondary questionscome and, as we've talked about,
they won't really matter.
Yes, they all have answers andthey're all important, but it
won't be something that'sfaith-shaking.
Scott, I can't tell you howpowerful it was and how many
times I have seen it since Icreated my own list, where

(01:03:09):
people get lost in the noise andI start thinking what about the
basic questions?
What about those principalquestions that you ask, you know
, is the atonement real?
Is God the Father, truly ourspiritual Father In my case?
What about the priesthood?

(01:03:30):
What about Joseph Smith and thetranslation of the Book of
Mormon?
And I think, why are yougetting lost in the weeds here?
Get back in your lane, answerthose questions.
So it's not advice, but I wouldsure encourage people to look
at it from that perspective.

(01:03:50):
It can be very very powerful.

Alisha Coakley (01:03:55):
Yeah, I'll tell you this.
There's a book called JonathanJames and the What-If Monster.
I love it, it's so cute.
It's an Asporn book, look it up, adorable Kid's book.
And in the what if monster, Ilove it, it's so cute, so Asporn
book, look it up, adorable kidsbook.
And it's this little kid.
He has this what if monster.
And this little monster is, isnext to him all day long, right,
and he goes over and he wantsto climb a tree.
In the what if monster says butwait, what if you fall?
And then he wants to go and hewants to, um, maybe go roller

(01:04:20):
skating.
And I said, oh, but what if youskin your knee?
Or he wants to go say hello toa friend on the playground, but
what if they don't like you?
And so throughout the firsthalf of this book, you know,
jonathan James wants to do thesethings.
But then his little what ifmonster is so scared he just
keeps saying, well, what if thisand what if?
And it's all negative.
And about halfway throughJonathan James looks at the
monster and he says you know,halfway through Jonathan James

(01:04:44):
looks at the monster and he saysyou know well, for example,
what if I go over and I I, youknow say hi to this guy, and
what if monsters?
Oh what if he hates you andhe's like?
What if he's my very bestfriend?
You know what if I climb thestreet?
What if it's the most amazingexperience ever?
What if I get a view of thewhole town up there?
You know what if I end upsaving this kitten's life and
then it comes home and I have apet forever?

(01:05:04):
What if it?
You know, the food that I justtasted is so delicious and you
know it just makes me superhappier.
And so he kind of counteractsthe negative what ifs with the
positive.
You know, like, well, what ifit's something good?
I think sometimes when we don'thave the answers to questions,

(01:05:27):
we get so caught in the negativewhat ifs or the negative
answers that we forget therecould be a whole different
perspective.
That's good.
Um, I loved that Molly Bonnerwhen he made the movie great, uh
, green flake, uh, which isamazing.
It's go watch it.
It's, um, about the firstenslaved, um, black Elliot, like
one of the first black, uh,members of the church that like
went across.
So how did we do this?

(01:05:48):
Anyway, my name is green flick,that's the name of the movie
and it's really good and it'sabout, um, like slave LDS
members who were black and itwas like early parts of the
church and it's supercontroversial.
And he talks about, um, thestatement.
There's a quote by Joseph Smiththat makes Joseph Smith sound

(01:06:09):
really racist, right, eventhough, like, he loved the
people that were employed withhim, you know whatever else.
And, uh, and Joseph Smith makesa comment to was it Abram?
I can't remember his name now,but anyway, he makes a comment

(01:06:33):
to another black member of thechurch and, um, and he doesn't
want to say this thing, he'swriting up a draft or something
like that.
He doesn't want to say thisquote because this, this draft,
is going to go out topredominantly a white population
, um, and he's trying to getlike freedom, like he's trying
to like help, like make slavesfree, essentially give, to give

(01:06:54):
them some rights.
And Joseph Smith doesn't wantto write this.
But the black member of thechurch says to him um, something
about you need to put it in alanguage that they're going to
agree with.
So it's something like you wantto keep them together, like
keep their own people together,so they're not mingling with us.
So it sounds super racist, butthe perspective that he is

(01:07:17):
anyway is so different.
It's almost like if the goal isfreedom, maybe you need to put
your words into a way that makesthe audience that you're
listening to be on your side,like they're doing it for the
wrong reasons, but you'regetting the right result you
know type of thing and it's justit was interesting because I
heard that in that movie and Iwas like he does it so much more

(01:07:37):
eloquently than I did and andum, and it was just one of those
moments where, like what, ifthere's perspective?
And then I thought of the storyof um, like when, uh guys, this
is the most common story ever.
Who denied Christ three times?
Peter, yes, peter, uh.
So they're sitting at the lastsupper right and Christ says

(01:08:03):
before the, he says to Peter, hesays, before the cock crows
three times, you're going todeny me Right.
And everyone in Peter says,okay, I would never do.
You know, whatever, I'm notgoing to do that.
The next thing, you know, thecock crows three times and
Peter's like, oh my gosh, I justdid it.
You always look at it like, oh,maybe Peter was really scared
and he didn't want to get caught, and you know he was just
wimping out and whatever else.

(01:08:25):
What if, when Christ told Peterbefore the cock crows are going
to deny me three times?
What if that was a commandmentand not a premonition or a
forecasting right?
What if he said I need you todeny me three times for the plan
to move forward?
Now, what would yourperspective be of Peter?

(01:08:46):
I don't want to do that, but Iwas given a commandment to do
that.
Now, I don't know if that'swhat happened.
I don't think any of us do.
All we have is what was said byChrist and what was done by
Peter, but we don't have thecontext behind that.
And so when I think about that,I think about how many other

(01:09:07):
things do we not have all thestory for?
And is there a way that I canlook at something that I don't
know and I say there's aperspective out there that can
still make this true and good.
There's something out therethat I don't know yet.
Is there something out therethere has to be?
I don't know anything about theuniverse, you know there's so

(01:09:29):
much stuff.
I don't know what makes methink that I'm going to have all
this figured out.
Right, you can use that for goodor evil, but that's just my
second advice.
It's just remember that there'sa perspective.
Ask yourself.
Second advice is just rememberthat there's a perspective.
Ask yourself what if?
What if there's something goodhere?
What if you know what I mean?
What if there's a perspectivethat I've never considered
before, that changed the wholemeaning to the story or the

(01:09:51):
question, or the scripture, orthe experience you know?

yeah, well, that's good and especially with
everything that's online today,there's a lot of perspectives we
don and we don't know what wecan trust, but we can trust the
prophet, we can trust thescriptures and we can trust that
God's going to give us answersto our prayers.
Like you guys said, if we stickto that and stick to these

(01:10:20):
primary questions, the mostimportant questions of the
gospel, we're going to be okayand I don't think Satan's going
to be able to pull us away.
Fred.

Fred Dodini (01:10:31):
Have any of you had questions that you have been
praying about for decades andyou never felt like you've
really gotten a clear answer toyet?

Yeah.

Do you, would you mind sharing?

I don't know Well yeah, I don't know decades.
I'm only like 20 somethingyears old, ongoing yeah.

You're 20 something again you're 20 something again
, I know because I think thereare a lot of those kinds of
questions that are relevant tous, very personal questions
often times, and the Lorddoesn't always give us the
answers.
You know, I've had a few ofthose questions and it's been 50

(01:11:23):
something years that I've beenwaiting for the answer and it
still hasn't really clearly comeyet.
And you know, I just got to apoint where I said, well, okay,
in time, maybe on the other sideof the veil I'll get the
explanation, but for now I canlive with not knowing.
Yeah, and sometimes we have tobe able to tolerate that

(01:11:45):
ambiguity of not knowing, buthold on to the things that we do
.

Yeah, yeah, I should say I think a lot of
those questions, fred, are likewhy did this happen to me?
Or to them, right, it's?
It's more of like well, ifGod's a loving God, why would
this happen?
You know, I think that's theones that are the most difficult
.
It's usually not like about,you know, the, the political

(01:12:13):
topics in the church, althoughthose are hot topics and people
can get heated from it.
I think it's more of like thewhen bad things happen to good
people, like how, why?
You know those are hard.

And those usually don't get answered in
this life.
I was going to say somethingsimilar.
Yeah, Well, cool you guys.
This has been awesome.
Thank you so much for coming onand hanging out with me and
Alisha.
Well, Alisha, thanks for comingin.
Yeah, so um really appreciateall of you guys' thoughts and

(01:12:54):
and input and inspiration andyour friendship.
It's awesome to be able to hangout with you again and and get
to know you a little bit betterand to have you be able to share
with us.
Before I wrap things up, gocheck out Dr Dodini's book shine
brighter right, that's the nameof the book.

(01:13:16):
Yeah and Jerry, you don't havea book, do you?

No, no, no, no, just lots of stories.
I actually have been thinking,as it's all developed, um, as
everything's unfolding, I'veactually been thinking about
putting it all together, but Idon't know how to do that.
But I'm trying to figure thatout.

Okay, I would like to hear about your near-death
experience sometime.
I've interviewed several peoplewho have had near-death
experiences and read a lot ofbooks about them.
I'm always interested inhearing other people's
experiences along that line.

I'm happy to talk about it there you go.

Before you close Scott, I'm happy to talk about
it.

Well, there you go.
Before you close, scott, I'mgoing to give you a shameless
plug for your book.
The first time I read it was asa favor to you.
I wanted to read it, but then Iturned around and I read it a
second time, and just for all ofyour listeners as this unfolds.
It's an amazing work.

(01:14:25):
It's written on a very, verygrassroots level to where, you
know, simple-minded people suchas myself understand it and
grasp it easily.
I never, ever, felt like I wasbeing preached to.
I was just being talked to andyou were just sharing and the
insight that you gave so to tothe listeners.

(01:14:48):
It's well worth.
I think it ought to be in everyhome possible.
I agree.
Basic and pure.

Yeah, it can be in every home possible because
Scott with his big, hugeCanadian American heart, is
giving it away for free.
So you guys, he, just he hasbeen nine years putting this
book together, mind you, nineyears, right Longer than I have

(01:15:15):
been legally allowed to drive acar now, and he is 20 ish
something carno and he is a20-ish something and he has put
so much time and energy andmoney into it and when he told
me that he was giving away forfree, I'm like there you go
again, scott being amazing, so Iwe will have links to how you

(01:15:37):
can do all that kind of stuff inthe show notes there's so many
links in the show notes, you'rejust going to spend all day
going in the show notes, that'sokay, yeah, they'll have fun
doing it.

I'll read it.

It's an awesome book, Scott.
You did such a great jobputting it together.

You did yeah.

It took me way longer to read because there
were so many things in there.
I was like, wait, what?
Okay, let's stop and thinkabout this.
You know like, wow, you knowlike, just wrapping my mind
around the whole concept, I knowa lot of serious.

How'd you figure that out?
And there it is, right there infront of you.
Scott's got it figured out.
I'm like wow.

Like I don't have to do nothing, I just have
to let Scott go.

I spent a lot of time pondering and researching
and thinking and praying.
You can tell it's been a hardprocess to put it all together,
but I'm just glad it's done.

I'll put a plug in for Clarissa too.
She designed the book coverRight, and so I know there was
like a picture that you guyskind of liked and she kind of
like took inspiration from that,and Clarissa is just an amazing
artist, which is Scott'sdaughter, his oldest daughter,
and it's just beautiful.
I keep telling her she justneeds to.
She just needs to like createprints that could be sold and

(01:17:02):
give them that cover, becauseit's a great cover to the books
too.
So tell her she's awesome.

Yeah.
So for those of you that arelistening, you can go to
faithtostaycom, which is thename of the book, and you can
get the free digital version,which is a full version.
It's got lots of pictures andthings in there, and you can
also get the free audio versionof the book.
And I'm also giving away as agift the actual digital art.

(01:17:37):
So the picture on the front.
It's called Take my Hand andI'll put a picture on the front.
It's called take my hand andI'll put a picture on here, but
essentially it's Christ reachingout in a storm to grab your
hand, to, to bring you in in andsave you, and it's very
striking, it's, it's an amazingpicture, and so I'm giving that
away.
It's for free as well, andthat's the high resolution

(01:18:01):
version.
So you can make 16 by 20 printsif you want to, or as small as
five by seven, and you can makethose for your kids, for your
grandkids.
The whole reason I wrote thisbook is because I felt inspired
by God to write it, and so I'mnot trying to make money on it,

(01:18:24):
I'm just trying to help people,because that's what I feel like
I was meant to write it for, andI do have it on Amazon if
somebody wants a print copy, butI basically put it pretty much
at cost Any profits that aremade from the book on Amazon.
I'm donating to the Markoviaproject, which anybody that's

(01:18:47):
followed the podcast knows thatbackground of that story it's.
It's another couple that we hadon the podcast and they started
a nonprofit in Markovia,honduras, and they're helping
kids go to school, get aneducation, and they started
micro loans to help families tosupport their kids.

(01:19:07):
So it's just a fun organization.
But anyway, yeah, go check itout.
Faith to saycom.
It's awesome and thanks againfor you guys coming on the show
and thanks, jerry for the kindwords I really appreciate it and
Alisha and we will be back withpart three next week, so tune

(01:19:29):
into that and we will talk toyou then.
Until then, take care bye.

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Primary vs. Secondary Questions with Jerry Paskett & and Fred Dodini (Faith to Stay Part 2 of 5) - Latter-Day Lights

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Primary vs. Secondary Questions with Jerry Paskett & and Fred Dodini (Faith to Stay Part 2 of 5) - Latter-Day Lights