Hello and shaken saints and welcome back to class. We are glad to be diving into new scripture in terms of a new period of church history.

Everything we've studied so far in the Doctrine and Covenants has been warm up. It's been preliminary.

We have learned about revelation. We've learned about repentance. We've learned about gaining testimonies and hearing the voice of God.

But all of that has been absent an official organization known as a church.

This has been everything warming up to that moment.

But today, as we're studying section 20, 21 and 22, we actually have the organization of the church.

Finally, April 6th, 1830 has come and gone through the revelations

that we're seeing today. And by the end of it, we've got a church to belong to, an actual

religious organization. In some ways, you think about all that would, I mean, some of the

fears or concerns or worries on Joseph Smith's part of it's one thing not to belong to something.

It's another thing to create something that you want the world to belong to.

One thing to decide, oh, I'm spiritual, not religious.

That's a very common phrase these days.

And that was kind of how his father lived his life.

Spiritual but not religious.

But now to decide

all of this spirituality that we've been learning, do we need to organize it in a way where there

is, there's some structure to the spirit. There is form to go along with all of this faith.

There is a horizontally reaching organization that builds out of this vertical tapping into the transcendence of God.

I am so grateful to be both religious and spiritual.

Both love God and love neighbor.

The horizontal, the vertical, the complete cross is coming together.

...