Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast LDS Discussions edition. I am one of your hosts for today.

Charlotte Delid, it is April 26th, 2023 and we are here today to discuss I think and I think Mike and maybe even Nemo eventually is

are going to agree that this is actually one of the more if not one of the most important episodes in this entire LDS

discussion series. Today we're going to be talking about the transfiguration of Brigham Young, which is the story that I was told growing up that when there was a succession crisis, Joseph Smith died that Brigham Young's face transformed into Joseph's as a miracle to let the Saints know that they were to follow Brigham out to Salt Lake. That's the quick preview. We're doing this as part of the LDS discussion series. Let me just remind you all who are joining us for the first time what that is.

My friend Mike, which we're about to bring on adult convert to the Mormon Church has put together an amazing website at LDS Discussions.com where he's written 50 plus essays plus a bunch of other content where once he obtained, let's just say a truth enlightening regarding the origins of of accurate Mormon Church history.

He decided to write a bunch of essays where he wanted to process that and share it so that other people would learn the things he was learning that he didn't get taught prior to joining the church or even immediately after joining the church. And so that's what the LDS Discussions website is about and then of course where now this will be 42 episodes into the Mormon Stories podcast series with LDS Discussions.

You can obviously find this episode integrated into the Mormon Stories podcast feed on all the different platforms, but you can also find this LDS Discussions series as its own podcast series on Spotify and both video and audio and on Apple podcasts and wherever you get your podcasts.

And of course we have a YouTube playlist on the Mormon Stories podcast channel dedicated to just these episodes, but this series is definitely one of the most important things Mormon Stories has ever done in its 18 year history and without any further ado, we bring on Mike and Nemo to join us. Hey, Mike, how's it going?

Good. How are you guys all doing out there? Good. It's good to have you. Yeah, it's good to be back. Like I've been teasing this one for a few episodes. This is one of my favorite ones just from the standpoint of kind of putting all of this back together. I think this episode is one that to me is one of the most important. So hopefully everybody, you know, especially if you've never heard about this stuff before. Hopefully this will be a good one for everybody watching.

Yeah, well, we're excited to jump right in. I'll also just add that this particular story was a major crack in my faith shelf when I learned about it. I learned about it, kind of almost pre-internet from a dialogue article that we're going to be discussing in just a second. But if, if not, if having Mike from LDS Discussions weren't enough, we also have the Nemo from the Nemo the Mormon YouTube channel joining us.

Say Nemo. Hey, how are you doing? How are things in the UK? I wish I could say good, but you know, how's the Nemo family? Oh, Nemo family is great. We're all fine. So yeah, we're loving life. That's almost all that matters. If Nemo and his family are okay. Yeah, yeah, everything, everything else can be really fine. Yeah, everything else. Yeah. All right, man. Thanks for joining us. And Nemo, is it is it fair to say that you haven't really dug into this particular time?

Yeah, I think it's a topic yet. And so while you may know conceptually what it's about, you'll be kind of offering a fresh reaction to kind of the details. Is that right?

Yeah, so the overview you offered is essentially all I know about this story. And when I knew we'd be doing an episode on it, I thought, oh, wouldn't it be fun? If I actually just don't look into it too much and kind of offer my live reaction to this on air.

Yeah, and I'll just say not to build it up too much, but like I had been a member for three decades, a lifelong member for three decades before I heard this story. And it was shocking.

The story was shocking to me. And so hopefully we're not building it up too much. But that's why that's why I agree with Mike. It's super important. All right, Mike.

Yeah, should we jump in or what? No, yeah, I mean, I'll I would point out is we've done what you say 42 episodes. And I would say that, you know, when you look at all these topics,

a lot of them are topics that have been covered by other podcasts, other books, whatever. And to me, when I was doing these these overview topics on the website, the two that really stick out in my head today that are the two that are the most important topics because of the fact they're not covered that much is the 116 pages, as well as this one in the 116 pages

episode we did. I thought was important because it gave us a real good window into how Joseph Smith was able to create revelation and create the text of the book, Mormon, when he got himself into a jam or he needed to basically find a way out and we covered all that in that episode. If you have not watched that, I highly recommend it.

The Transfiguration of Brigham Young does a slightly different approach, but it kind of gives you that same window, which is a window into how do these stories that we hear so much of come together and a lot of the stories and we'll go through this as we go, but when you hear about miracle stories in the church, whether it's the priest's restoration, the first vision, or if you look into even earlier religious miracle stories, we don't have contemporary accounts to base it against. And that's why this one is so important because we have the beginning.

We have the end and we can now evaluate all of that and then say, what does this mean to all of these things we've been talking about in the previous 40 episodes. Like I said, I'm totally igniting out about this one because it was, as John said, this one was a massive aha moment for me. And it's such a story that seems very inconsequential, especially when we're so focused on Joseph Smith and the foundations of the church.

This story, though, gives us just such a huge spotlight on to a lot of the things we've been pointing out about earlier stories. I feel like this one's going to be kind of like a little bit of a glue that kind of pulls everything back together. So I'm excited. So I'm good to go with that. So that said, so Nemo just to check in with your British sensibilities. Have we hyped this enough yet? Or do we need to hype a little bit more.

I think you need to lessen the hype.

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