Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host,

John Delin. It is October 26th, 2021. And I am very, very excited for today's episode. As I always

am, today we are going to be covering Rod or Rodney Meldrum's Book of Mormon Heartland model.

And we are super excited to have back with us on the program, Dr. Simon Sotherton,

and of course my frequent co-host and dear friend, Harado Sumano. Hey gentlemen,

welcome to the podcast and Simon, it's so great to have you back.

Thanks John, it's going to be back. How are you?

Great. And what time is there in Australia Simon?

Just after 9 o'clock, quarter past 9 o'clock in the sunny spring day.

In the morning, right? Yeah. All right. And Harado, thanks for setting this up. It's so awesome

when you bring to me an awesome episode. Yeah, Simon is awesome. So we are super glad to

having back and I'm super excited. Harado, really quick. I have noticed a particular passion

of yours for this episode. And so I just thought it would be interesting to just have you begin

and maybe talk about why you care so much about this issue. And also, if there's anything about,

you know, your origins, you know, being born and raised in Mexico that makes you feel

passionately about this topic. Yes. So as some may know, I was raised a Mormon in Mexico. And

I grew up learning or being taught that I had Lamanai blood and that I was

descendant from the Lamanites. And growing up in the church, like we always heard about how the

Mayan ruins, because I'm from the Yucatan Peninsula, actually, where Michael Co did most, or a lot

of his research on Mayan culture. And you had Michael Co on Mormon stories talking about

Mormon evidence, correct? Twice. Yeah. That's one of my proudest interviews. He's a Yale

Mesoamerican archaeologist and he's a legend and he just passed away. Him and Robert Rittner both

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