Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories Foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners.

To help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community, please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the page under Support.

All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons Like You.

Thanks for your support.

I am just very excited for today's podcast as I always am.

Approximately yesterday, August 5, sort of the internet melted down, it may have been earlier, but the internet melted down with news that among other things, the LDS Church had released in cooperation with the community of Christ, some new documents related to Joseph Smith and the Joseph Smith Papers Project.

But more interestingly, a photo of the seer stone that apparently Joseph Smith used to possibly translate the Book of Mormon.

It's a brownstone, but the internet is alive with discussion and controversy and memes galore exploring and in some ways celebrating and or poking fun of this stone and tons of people are talking about it.

And many of you might know that I just recently finished my PhD in psychology and so I'm no longer in serving under indentured servitude where my time is so limited.

So I am going to be reliably releasing a weekly episode of Mormon Stories and other cool projects in the foreseeable future.

So this represents sort of me getting back on that horse, this format of having multiple people on to discuss topics dates back to probably 2007 or before where people really cool people, you know, like John Hamer or J. N. S. C. Wright would appear on the podcast and we would talk about interesting things.

That's how Mormon matters podcast first started. So we're going to be bringing back that format to some degree, possibly with some partnerships in the near future, but that's what today is going to be about.

And so to introduce the panel that we have today, we have none other than the John Hamer.

He's been with us on Mormon Stories several times. He's the past director of the John Whitmer Historical Association. He is the pastor of the community of Christ in Toronto.

You know, this is interesting because again, the community of Christ sort of was part of the press release in this announcement.

Also, you know, you'll be able to listen to past interviews with John Hamer on Mormon Stories. He also appears on Infants on Thrones podcast and he's just a fabulous guest as always. So John Hamer, welcome to Mormon Stories. Welcome back.

Thanks and really happy to be here talking about this.

Alright, other panelists are J. Nelson C. Wright. J. as a professor of political science at Northwestern University near Chicago.

He's been on the podcast as well several times with his wife, Terran, where they've talked about their journeys sort of in and out and in and out of Mormonism.

And Jason's, you know, just always a fabulous guest as well. So Jason, Jay, thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Welcome back.

Well, thank you, John. Always a pleasure.

We have a new two new guests on Mormon, a Mormon Stories podcast. The first is Jamie handy. Jamie is a, she has a master's in genetics. Where's that from, Jamie?

...