Hey there everybody, here we are again and it's good to be with you.
Hello David.
Life is good.
Life is indeed good.
Great to be alive in this God.
Yeah, beautiful day here on the Wasatch Front.
Which makes it even greater to be alive.
Grandpa's birthday today.
I know.
I miss that guy.
He would have been a hundred and nine years old today.
Yeah.
I was the baby.
Yeah, my dad was the oldest.
You were the second oldest grandchild.
Third actually, third oldest grandchild.
Oh, Craig was older than you.
Yeah, Craig's older than me just by a few months.
I'm sweet that we're thinking about him.
So awesome to remember him.
Yeah, he was a good guy.
He was a sealer in the temple.
Dave, you've been?
Yeah, I've been feeling pretty close to him, Scott.
I bet you are.
I was recently called and set apart as a sealer in the New Saratoga Springs Temple and it's
really humbling and it's made me feel just a little closer to him.
Think about him and all the years that he served as a sealer in the Provo and then the
Mount Tempanoga stemples.
Yeah, yeah.
And you know, Mary did most of his grandchildren.
Yeah, he did.
Sealed most of his grandchildren.
Yeah.
Except my children.
He died right before Rachel was married.
Yeah.
And so it's kind of been, I've been thinking about that, you know, that he wasn't able
to seal my children because he died right before my oldest got married.
But now I'll be able to seal their children.
Yeah, your grandchildren and my grandchildren.
Yeah.
So it's...
That'll be amazing.
It's kind of sweet.
Yeah, I tell people all the time, you know, Craig actually and I were talking and, you
know, other people in the family and I just tell people all the time because I get to
be with you so often.
How much you remind me of grandpa because either way you look, your mannerisms and now
this is just like that.
That makes sense.
So how are you going to juggle that with being a patriarch?
The nut doesn't fall far from the tree.
Well we'll see.
You know, we've had two patriarchs in our stake.
You know, anyway, I won't give the history of that.
It's not important.
But we'll see.
We'll try to balance that out and maybe they'll put me on non-functioning status again, you
know, as a patriarch.
But maybe not.
I think it's not a problem to give a blessing once in a while to the youth and to be sealing
people in the temple.
It'll be kind of a sweet service.
We were going to go on a mission.
I told the temple president that we were considering a mission and his response as well.
The first presidency called you to this.
So if you want to go on a mission, you'll have to take that up with them.
You'll have to ask them about that.
So anyway, it's delayed, I think, any decision right now to serve a mission.
But I still hope that maybe after serving as a sealer for a year or so, maybe we'll still
go on a mission.
I have that opportunity.
Well, I know that I speak for myself and probably most of our listeners because I don't know
listeners if you realize it or not.
But if Dave were to go on a mission, that kind of wraps up our podcast here.
Yeah, well, no, you could continue.
So it's a so it's a well, I don't know.
You're teaching Institute.
You're having your own experiences.
Yeah.
Yeah, we got it.
You could keep that going and it'd be really a blessing to so many if you did.
Leave me that as it may.
The blessing is that we'll get to keep doing this for a little while longer.
I'm grateful for that too.
Hey, gang, last week, we just couldn't pull our schedules together.
I know that we've got so many comments about so many of our really important interviews
that we've done over the the year.
And we played my sweetheart, Deborah Durfee's podcast last week.
We've got a lot of responses again from that.
And we want to say thank you.
Just a reminder, everything we're doing now is being transcribed.
You can just go to the website, which is linked on your provider, whichever, whether you're
using Spotify or Apple or whatever.
There's a link to go to the main feed or the original feed.
And there you'll find transcribed each one of these podcasts so you'll be able to get
those in written form as well.
And again, encourage you to send your questions, etc. to us at he redeemsus at gmail.com.
We have a couple of questions in the queue that we'll be answering this week.
We'll get to those as quick as we can.
Go anticipate that if you send a question.
So Dave, enough of that.
Let's let's talk about what we're going to talk about.
Thank you, Scott.
So we did the last time we were together.
It's been a few weeks.
We were finishing up talking about the unconditional aspects of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
And there are more unconditional aspects of the Atonement of Jesus Christ in my in my
thinking.
And there are conditional aspects of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
And when I say unconditional, I mean everyone, all of God's family, all of the human family
are blessed unconditionally by the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
And I've made the statement and I believe it and I believe it's it's it's taught by
the prophets and the scriptures that all the negatives of life that we experienced that
we did not choose are unconditionally covered by the Atonement of Jesus Christ, either through
the redemptive powers of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which are the cleansing powers
or the enabling powers of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which are the strengthening
powers, or I believe the compensatory powers of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which are
I call the reimbursing powers of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
And these have been clearly, clearly taught.
And I'm really, really grateful.
And it gratitude again, understanding those powers of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, that
are unconditionally ours gifts that he has offered us that he is unconditionally provided
for us.
But we still have to understand them in order for them to have real power.
I think in our lives, God, the power to desire to keep the commandments and to do right and
draw closer to him.
So I guess we still have to make a choice whether to acknowledge them, whether receive
blessings ultimately from them or all the blessings from them.
So I am really grateful to have learned pretty early in my life in my 30s about that.
And it was kind of serendipitous how I did.
You know, I've been serving at the missionary training center, helping new missionaries as
a branch president, receiving confessions every week for new missionaries and helping
them to learn the principles of repentance, which we'll talk more about soon in our podcast.
And those are the conditional aspects of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
How to repent and be forgiven.
But I hadn't really quite tapped into the all the unconditional aspects and blessings
of the Atonement of Jesus Christ until after I was released as a branch president at the
missionary training center.
And that happened by way of a call that I had shortly received after we were really,
after I was released from the, from the MTC, I got a call from a bishop at the prison.
And he asked us if we would volunteer to our family, go up to the prison every first Monday
of the month and to have family home evening with a prisoner that would be assigned to
us.
Well my family was pretty young.
My children were young.
And I was a little nervous about that.
And but after discussing it as a family, I called him back and told him we'd love to
do that.
So we, and I apologize to our loyal listeners because I've shared this experience in our
first season and yet it had such a profound effect on my life and what I learned from
it.
And I hope that maybe you'll learn some additional lessons from it this time if you've already
heard me share it.
So we went up to the prison that first Monday of the month when we began this assignment
and it was a little disconcerting to me when they started to, you know, shutting iron doors
and bars behind us as a family.
How old do you think Rachel, for example, would have been?
I think Rachel was about, oh Scott, I think she was probably about nine years old.
So Rachel's Dave's oldest daughter, you know, and I'll just throw this in quick.
Nine years old, maybe 10 or 11.
I mean, I think it was like, I think it was in 1989.
So she would have been 10 years old.
Okay.
10 years old.
Yeah.
And Aubrey nine and then Taylor would have been six and seven, maybe seven and Devin
a little younger than that.
So anyway, we go there the first Monday and we're introduced to prisoner assigned to us
and just for his sake, I won't share his name except his first name was David.
So anyway, we meet David and we're locked in the non denominational chapel.
Yeah.
Church they have there at the old prison at the point of the mountain, which is now being
torn down.
Yeah, obsolete.
But anyway, we were there and after we had a little opening exercise, we went into a
room by ourselves with our prisoner.
He just so happened to be a black man who was also a Muslim.
And this was his first time participating in the family home evening program.
He thought it would look good on his record.
And he thought, I think that the reason he chose to do it was that it would look good
on maybe the parole board and give him some pardon as a result of being involved in the
program.
Anyway, we met him and he and I had kind of prepared that we would introduce ourselves
as a family.
So we went around the room and we all introduced ourselves in a short, sweet way.
And and then I said, David, now we'd like to hear something about you.
And he said, first thing out of his mouth was, well, I suppose you're wondering why
I'm here.
And I had kind of prepared or anticipated he might say that.
And I said, well, actually, David, if it's OK for for my children's sake, they don't
need to know why you're white.
We don't need to know why you're here, David.
We don't want to we don't want to think about that or dwell in the past.
So just tell us about the present, what you like to do, things that you enjoy.
And let's let's just talk about, you know, who you are and things that you do here.
And and we don't need to go into the past.
I want to focus on the present and the future.
So he did that and he had a lot of fun and he took off his shirt.
I don't know if that was against rules, but he took off his shirt and he started to flex
because he was a weightlifter and he could bench press over 400 pounds.
I think it was 450 pounds, he told us and leg lift, you know, hundreds and hundreds
of pounds and and he I think he even said he was kind of working out to try out for
the Mr. Utah pageant or whatever.
Anyway, he looked like an upside down pyramid.
He was about five nine, five nine, a couple hundred pounds.
But man, he was just solid.
And when he took off his shirt and he started to flex for us to go through some of the moves.
I remember my my girls and probably even my wife, they were they were pretty impressed
and and yet it made me really nervous.
Yeah, he could have crushed me.
Anyway, it was impressive and we immediately he was so charismatic and so fun and we loved
him.
Yeah.
And we really loved him and when we left to left him there in prison, it was hard as we
were driving home.
I looked in my rearview mirror.
We were driving to our home in Highland and he was I noticed Taylor was had tears.
And I said, Taylor, what's wrong?
And he and he said, I really hate leaving David there.
And we all just kind of sadly shook our heads.
It was it was quite a thing.
We just instantly from that day on we really loved him.
Well I had a volunteer card in order to do it to be involved in this program and I could
go up and go to church with him.
And I invited him to start going to the LDS church once in a while.
They would have a little meeting every Sunday and and about once a month, I tried to go
to church and sit with David.
After doing this for a few months, I went up to the prison and the bishop met me at
the door and he said, I heard you were coming today and David came in to see me this week
and he is really scared that when you find out why he's in prison that you'll stop bringing
your family and he really loves your family.
And I think it would be good if after our meeting today if I let you use a room and
let David tell you his story.
And I said that would be fine.
I just didn't want my kids to think of of some of the things he had been involved in.
Bishop said I understand.
So after our little sacrament meeting, you know, some of them passed the sacrament to
visitors and other things there.
And we met in a room and David began telling me his story.
And Scott, I, you know, I was 30, I think I was 36 years old at the time and I was pretty
naive.
I hadn't really even imagined things like this.
He told me that he was born in Kansas City to a prostitute.
And of course they didn't know who the dad was and that his mother was really abusive.
And from the time that he was six years old that she had forced him into child abuse or
I'm sorry, child prostitution.
And that from six on he was a child prostitute.
And I remember him saying to me, so sad, I'll never forget the look on his face.
The age of six years old.
Yeah.
And he said to me as he kind of looked up at the ceiling, my mom made a lot of money off
of me.
And then he told me that when he was eight that he started to object to being involved
in child prostitution, which I thought was interesting.
The age of accountability.
This is what we call sex trafficking today.
So sad.
And he said, so I began to object when I was eight years old.
And that's when she gave me my first dose of heroin.
And from eight years on he was a drug addict.
Eight years old.
He got his first shot of heroin.
And then he pointed to a big dent in his forehead.
You know that he had right in the middle of his forehead.
He said, you know how I got this?
And I said, no.
And he said one morning I was asleep in bed 10 years old and my mother hit me in the head
with a tire iron, crushed my forehead because I had forgotten to take out the garbage that
day.
So he said I decided that my mother would eventually kill me if I didn't run away.
And so he did at the age of 12.
The age of 12 he had he finally ran away and kind of lived on the streets or others who
might take him in.
And I was I was just amazed and heartbroken to hear his hear his story.
Eventually at the age of 14 he said he had a gun.
And this is what he said.
I hated my mother.
But in some strange way I loved her.
And I thought that maybe I could help protect her.
So I went back home.
Now that he had a gun, yeah.
And shortly after he went back home, his mother did something that just I guess triggered
him and out of rage, he shot his mother and murdered his mother, killed his mother.
So he got put into the Missouri State of Missouri juvenile detention program and and at 18 after
being in that for four years and going around to different detention centers or foster homes,
then he got involved in another program.
I think it was the Peace Corps or something and he ends up in Ogden, Utah.
And in Ogden, Utah, a man does something that enrages him.
He's just got this uncontrollable temper and he kills the man.
He murders a man at the age of 18.
This guy had never been never had an opportunity to learn how to control his emotions.
And he runs away at the age of 12.
He's on the streets essentially for at least two years before he comes home.
So his second second murder is committed when he's 18 and he gets 10 years to life.
Okay.
18.
When I met him, he was 32 years old, he was four years younger than me.
And so he's been in prison for 14 years when I met him.
So he surpassed the minimum 10 years and who knows how long and I'll tell the rest of the
story when I finish.
But anyway, so he's telling me all this and Scott, I just kind of never quite imagined,
you know, how hard and unfair really life life can be until I met David and we continued
to go there and our family continued to love him and he gave us Christmas presents, drawn
art that he had paid somebody in prison to draw on a white hanky to each of my children
and had given them a little money which he had earned making just, you know, nothing
in the prison and and we had given him a set of scriptures and anyway, we had this bond
and and we were enjoying loving that relationship.
And then we got ready to move.
Well before I tell that, I guess I need to say because of our relationship with him after
a year, we decided that because Chris had had three stillborns that we were going to
adopt a baby.
And because of our love and relationship with David, we decided to adopt a black baby.
And so we had put in all these applications, the Houston and Denver and Philadelphia and
we were going to adopt a black baby and and felt that that was right.
And several families had been doing that that lived around us in Utah County and and
we were excited about that.
And we got we adopted Isaac from Philadelphia, two months old and he had been in an abusive
situation and we we adopted him.
And we were so excited to, by the way, I wouldn't have done that.
I wouldn't even have considered it if David, our new brother and friend at the prison had
not supported it.
Yeah, well, let me let me just kind of pause you for just a second.
So I adopted a little girl about that same time.
And I don't know.
And she's also African American descent.
She's black and I don't know that we would have adopted her if you wouldn't have initiated
that with Isaac.
And so this so this this David's impact had some ripple effect.
Yeah, family.
Yeah, good point.
Absolutely.
Anyway, David was so supportive and excited about that.
And we were so excited to take Isaac to the prison the first Monday of the month after
we had adopted him.
And he again was was just a few months old.
And we were going to the prison and all of our kids were kind of arguing about who was
going to carry him in and show him off to David.
And I said, stop it.
None of you are carrying him in.
I'm carrying him in.
And we went into the prison and I'm holding Isaac and we were we were there a little early.
I thought we would kind of be the first there.
But David was in the chapel waiting for us.
Did he know that you yes, yes, he knew that we were coming.
So it wasn't a complete surprise.
No, in fact, he had he had somehow I don't know how he pulled this off, but he had somehow
starts his shirt so that it was like stiff as a board and he had his top button buttoned
like he was going to church and he had creased his Levi's starched and had a hard crease
in his Levi's like they look like soup pants.
Yeah, his denims and he had polished his black Nikes.
And I thought, wow, all of this to meet this new baby.
What a what a sweet it was really sweet.
It was impressive.
Yeah, I told him I said and he'd slicked his hair back oiled and he slicked his hair back
and I said, wow, David, you look like a million bucks and he said, well, I'm a I'm a godfather
now.
I mean, he thought he was the godfather.
Yeah, sure.
This baby and it was it was sweet.
I you know, I was holding Isaac and I said, David, do you want to you want to hold him?
So he puts out his big massive arms and and I lay Isaac in his hands and he's kind of
shaking and I said, hey, David, David, and I tell Isaac was nervous.
And I said, David, he likes to be held close and he kind of rolled him in his arms and
I thought, no, you're going to crush your man.
And I said, let me show you how to hold a baby.
So I took the baby back.
I took Isaac and I said, you got to hold him like this and I might have been the first
baby he ever held.
Well, he told me that and so I'm showing him the how to hold the baby and then so I give
him back to David, David's kind of rocking him and looking at him.
And then there, David looked into his eyes and Isaac looked into David's eyes and I don't
know, Scott, something happened and it was like you could just see David's count.
It's just fall and he became he became really depressed.
He became there was something just really dark and he handed the baby back to me and
he shook his head.
He started shaking his head.
No.
And moving around nervous, anxious, and he wouldn't speak to us the rest of the night.
We went into a room and after the opening exercise and I said, David, can you tell us
what you're feeling?
And he just shake his head.
No.
And he didn't he didn't say a word the rest of the night and it was terrible.
It was awful and this great event that my family had looked so looked forward to was
just awful.
It was depressing.
It was it was a tragedy and my children were sad and we all didn't know what was going
on and I got angry about it after leaving the prison and not sleeping very well that
night and as soon as I got through teaching seminary that day, I went right back up to
the prison using my volunteer card and went in to see David and went right in.
Let me go into his what he called his house or you know, his his complex and we sat at
a table together across from each other and I said to him, Scott, David, if every time
we come up here with that baby, if it's just going to depress you, then maybe we shouldn't
come up here anymore.
That was mad.
And he looked at me and he took his hand and he raised it above his head and he slammed
it on the table between us.
And I kind of jumped.
I'm sure.
Yeah.
And he said, I just have one question for you.
Why didn't God give me a mother like that?
Right.
Speaking of my little family and and Isis adopted mother, my wife, your sweetheart, Chris, my
sweetheart, Chris, why didn't God give me a mother like that?
He said, that is the first time I have ever held a baby and I have never felt such love.
Wow.
I've never known such love.
And I said, David, David, what?
What can we what can we do to?
And he said, well, I just want to know why didn't God give me a mother like that?
When he asked that question against God, I it's like I had the Holy Ghost go through
me and because I was I went there upset and angry and all of a sudden I understood and
I felt peace and the spirit came back into my life and I knew what to say to him and
I had never considered this.
I never even thought about this and I don't know if at the time it had ever been taught,
you know, in in 1990, probably when this happened.
And I said, I said to him, David, I don't know why you never had a mother like that.
But I do know this and I knew it was true.
If it is your desire to someday have a mother like that because of Jesus Christ, you will
have a mother like that.
I knew that was true, Scott.
I just knew that he was covered by the atonement of Jesus Christ and if it was really truly
his desire and and he would have to do some things and he would have to be faithful and
but I knew that was that was a definite possibility and it it was amazing to me.
It kind of just opened up my mind and I began to think about the power of the atonement
of Jesus Christ because of the atonement of Jesus Christ.
Someday he would have a mother like that and I pondered that and I began to study that
and I found all of those wonderful statements of compensatory blessings that made by the
first presidency in the Quorum of the Twelve and how that the atonement of Jesus Christ
doesn't just cover our iniquities, but it covers all of the inequalities of life.
I love the teaching of from preach my gospel.
All that is unfair in life is covered by the atonement of Jesus Christ.
That's taught throughout the scriptures, Scott, that because of Jesus Christ and his suffering,
King Benjamin taught all of that was done that there would be a righteous judgment,
a fair judgment, a loving, a merciful judgment.
So I began to think about that and all of the people who have lived on the earth who's
never really had the opportunity and maybe David falls in that category so messed up
as a child, you know, so affected negatively.
His mindset, his perspective is all of that and who knows about his mother?
Who knows about how she was raised and where does the cycle stop?
The atonement of Jesus Christ covers all of the unfairness and inequalities of life.
That's the compensatory unconditional aspects of the atonement of Jesus Christ, Scott, that
I had just never considered until I was 36, 37 years old.
And I am so, so grateful to have a deeper understanding of that.
And this story with David doesn't end well, unfortunately, I was trying to do everything
I could with a close friend of mine to get him into a program, a sex offenders program,
and not a sex offenders program, I'm sorry, but a program where he would have to be with
sex offenders, which to him was something that he had never been able to be around for some
reason.
And that would set him off because of his childhood, but he could not be around sex offenders.
And I finally got him to try a program where he would be in a room with sex offenders.
And but that didn't last very long.
He was in the weight room with one of those sex offenders who was had been known that he
had raped a LDS girl and kind of known and he I don't know if he bragged about it or
what, but David had made arrangements to get him alone in the weight room and and nearly
killed him.
I know they they took him to the hospital.
He's critical of the condition.
I don't know if he ever survived really.
But because of that, David was put back in maximum security and we lost the privilege
of continuing that relationship.
The last time I saw him was in an orange jumpsuit.
We'd gone to the the parole board, the hearing in which they were considering his situation.
It was his time to have a parole hearing.
And I saw him and he, you know, his feet were shackled and you know, had handcuffs on.
I remember him telling the judge or the parole board that he turned around and looked at
Chris and me who were there to support him.
I have a family now and I've never felt such love.
But going to Max security and not being able to maintain that relationship and him not
really being able to receive us.
And then we moved to Minnesota and and I lost contact.
And after I came back from Minnesota, I did some research and wondered where David was
and thought I'd try to renew that relationship a little bit after 13, 14 years.
And then I found out that he had been institutionalized basically that the parole board had told
him not to come back.
That he was this is where you're going to be the rest of your life.
You're never going to get out of prison because of his rage, his anger, his violence, even
in prison.
But Scott, I hold out great hope for him.
I do.
I just don't think we understand the the depth and the mercy of Jesus Christ that all of
the unfairness of life is covered by the atonement of Jesus Christ.
I'm not making any excuses for anybody and I'm not saying he's not accountable to some
degree.
Everybody has some accountability.
We certainly have our agency.
I get all of that.
But I can't judge him.
I know that.
I don't know.
I don't know how people are wired.
I don't know how child events like that affect people.
I know that negatives can come out of negatives and I'm not sure that they are fully accountable
individual.
I just can't judge.
I hope all of our listeners know we can't judge.
And I'm telling you when I see some of this terrible things that I that you see every day
in the news, some of the terrible things going on instead of being so quick to be condemned.
I think, wow, I wonder, I wonder how the atonement of Jesus Christ maybe is there for even them.
Right.
Well, and, you know, David is an extreme story.
Right.
I mean, I mean, it's unfathomable for many of us who are listening to to even be able
to comprehend or to we just don't get it.
And there's no possible way we ever will get it.
No.
But, you know, that that's not where these blessings end, though.
And that's not where these examples end, though.
You know, we really shouldn't judge even those of us who are among us who were raised in
good families, exactly.
Who had what are seemingly great upbringings who had those family home evening experiences
on a regular basis, who had those family prayers, because oftentimes I don't know if oftentimes
is really that, but it's not unusual or it's not unheard of, rather, to to even see its
trials and struggles in families, in individuals who come from those types of families.
Absolutely.
And we need to withhold our judgment there, too, because even then, right, we don't know
what what conditions or what things have happened to or have been propagated against
even those people.
You know, parents think they know their children, Scott.
Yeah.
They don't know their children.
No.
They don't.
They don't know how they're wired.
No.
They don't know what, how chemically they're made up.
They don't know about all the events in their life when they were children.
They don't.
There are things that happen that they may never find out about in this life.
That's right.
And they don't know what happens when that child goes to school.
I know families who had no idea that their child was being bullied.
Yeah.
Being abused.
Yeah.
And I never found that out until that individual had done so many bad negative things that
they had ended up in so many bad places.
And some people never know what it is.
Yeah, I was going to say, and they sometimes still won't ever find that out.
You know, I don't, I see this so much, you know, in the rooms of addiction recovery.
Right.
I had, I had a guy that I sponsored here last night and, you know, he struggles.
He struggles with some major, major issues.
I'm not going to get into too many details because I know a lot of our friends from that
community listen.
And for the sake of anonymity, I want to be careful about how much I divulge here.
But this young man struggles beyond belief with things that even I and who have come
from there, I just can't comprehend them.
Right.
But because of things that happen to him in his life, there's just challenges that we
will never be able to comprehend.
And if I can't comprehend it, I can't judge it.
And even if I can comprehend it, I can't judge it.
Amen.
Well, the irony or the contradiction of this whole story today is I took a two month old
baby, African American adopted baby who we loved and love even more now to the prison
and then he ends up in prison, the baby.
And Isaac, our Isaac is an example of someone who me as a as a dad loves infinitely unconditionally,
but I can't judge him.
And you know, because of fetal alcoholism, because of being born kind of the autistic
scale higher end, because of bipolar, because of bullying that he went through as a child
in elementary school in junior high.
And Scott, things that I maybe know about, but I can't begin to get my mind around or
comprehend about the negative effects and really how he's wired and how he thinks and
how he functions and then he ends up committing crimes and has victims and ends up in prison.
And yet, Scott, I cannot condemn him as his dad and I certainly cannot judge him.
I I see in some ways, I know that my son Isaac, and I'm so thankful that he's out of prison
now and he's working and recently found a little apartment.
I'm so happy for him and we're trying to help him be self reliant and independent, but his
life is going to be is going to be is going to be rough.
And and yet I believe as his dad, I've had the witness.
I've heard the voice.
God, I've shared that experience.
I know you have that the Savior has him that I have taken him unto myself that the grace
the mercy that is available to him through the Atonement of Jesus Christ is immense.
And in some ways, I worry less about him than I do my own children because he isn't.
He just is not as accountable.
And again, I can't judge my other children because I don't know about all the negatives
in their life.
I, you know, we've had our problems.
Every family does.
That's right.
And I can't judge them.
You know, I have other members of my family who struggle and I know some of the negatives
that happened that occurred in their life and I cannot determine as it as another human
or as their dad, as well as I know them, I can't judge them because I don't know what
ultimately the consequences in the negative effects that come out of abuse.
So I'm just so grateful.
So, so thankful for this aspect of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which I have come to understand
through trials and tribulations and experiences in my life, Scott, that there are so many
things in our all of our lives that are covered unconditionally to really be able to be blessed
by that in this life.
I think we need to try to understand it, receive it.
And I know that one thing it does for me, besides the gratitude and the desire that
it brings gratitude, being the beginning of desire, the gratitude and desire it brings
the humility that it brings into my life.
It also helps me to forgive others and forgiving others is such an important part and part
of the process of repentance.
So I just praise God and thank my Heavenly Father for the understanding that we should
have as members of the Church of Jesus Christ, the understanding we have of the infinite,
the infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ.
We are all covered unconditionally in multiple ways by the suffering of our Savior and Redeemer.
So I hope our listeners will be mindful of that aspect of the Atonement of Jesus Christ
and that we will all be less critical, less to condemn.
I often think about Christ and the woman in John chapter 8 woman caught in the very act
of adultery and we don't know the context.
We don't know the background.
We don't know anything about that woman.
But Jesus did.
Jesus did.
And that's why he could say, Woman, where are thine accusers?
Neither do I condemn me.
Go thy way and sin no more.
If Jesus can't condemn a woman caught in the very act of adultery and he's sinless and
going to pay the price and suffer for her sins, who am I as a sinner to condemn anybody
else except for the grace.
Go I, Scott.
Yeah, exactly.
We say that so often, so often in recovery.
But for the grace of God, there go I.
And that's so true with any of us, really.
I mean, your friend David, and we can distill this right to the confines of our own homes,
guys.
There are just things.
David has just mentioned this.
There are things that have happened potentially to our own children or the experiences that
they have gone through.
And I think sometimes, David, this is the area within our own homes where this can become
a big problem.
Because we do think we know our kids.
We do have expectations.
And it's easy for us to say, Hey, you were raised better than that.
You know better.
And knowing has just never been enough.
Our experiences as well that we go through.
And you know, I think, and this has been an important thing for me to learn, you know,
most of you know, and if you don't, you will now, Deb and I were married 20 years ago and
blended a family.
Well, when you blend a family, that means that there were divorces.
And when there are divorces, and I'm not going to get into any of the nitty gritty and the
blame game because that's totally unproductive.
But there are, there are effects that, you know, are brought against your children.
And they are dealing with things.
I didn't come from a divorced family.
And I'm so grateful for that.
You know, I'm grateful for the parents that I have.
But my kids did.
And I don't have any clue what it would be like to come from a to be in a divorced family
and then have to be blended with step siblings and step parents and all those things.
I just have no clue.
And so I think that sometimes it's been easy for me.
I'll just own it.
It's been easy for me to see some of my kids who make choices, perhaps choices that I wouldn't
make for them choices, probably that I made, but choices that I wouldn't make for them.
And it's been, it's been really tempting at times out of frustration.
And you know, when I feel the accuser pulling me into his influence to say, guys, you were
raised different, you know better, you know, I took you to church every other Sunday, blah,
blah, blah.
And but, but I have no idea.
No, you don't.
I have no idea.
And Scott, none of us are perfect parents.
All of us, all of us to some degree have been abusive as parents.
And we don't, we really don't understand the negative effects that has on our children
and how it continues the cycle, how the cycle continues.
Oh, it's so, it's so tragic.
And, and I know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ covers much of that.
But we have to understand it in order to let it go.
Anyway, I, I just am so, so, so thankful how the Atonement of Jesus Christ brings us all
back to equilibrium.
At least it should.
If we really understood it, we would be able to let things go.
We would be more merciful to ourselves, Scott.
I mean, I mean, I, I wasn't raised by perfect parents either.
I had my challenges.
I had my problems.
I, and some of that wasn't all my fault.
That's true for all of us.
Yeah.
My son, Isaac, again, we adopted him two months old because he was, the court had taken him
out of the home that he had been previously adopted by because they were abusive.
Oh boy.
We'll never know how a baby that was abused for two months so severely, and it's such
a critical time to bond how that affects the rest of his mortal life.
Right.
I can't judge that.
No.
But I can show mercy.
Yeah.
And I, I can choose not to condemn.
We can't judge it and we can't, and again, we can't comprehend it, but Jesus can.
Jesus Christ can totally comprehend it.
He knows with full empathy, not sympathy, full empathy, everything that, that everybody,
I was going to say these kids, and when I say these kids, I'm referring to this 59-year-old
kid sitting behind this microphone too, right?
Right.
Yeah.
So, well, not only, not only feel it, not only does he feel it, perfect divine empathy
for it, not only did he suffer for it, but Scott, he offers compensatory blessings.
Yeah.
I believe that we are compensated and this, this whole idea of the compensatory powers
of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I think was taught by the by Elder Richard G. Scott
many years ago.
So this is from a general conference, Elder Richard G. Scott, April 1996, when he, he
taught, find compensatory blessings in your life when in the wisdom of the Lord, he deprives
you of something you very much want or very negatively has happened to you.
Yeah.
To the sightless or the hearing impaired, he sharpens the other senses.
To the ill and the sick, he gives patience, understanding and increased appreciation for
others kindness with the loss of a dear one.
He blesses you with and deepens the bonds of love in riches memory and Kindle's hope
in future reunion.
You will discover, he writes, compensatory blessings when you willingly accept the will
of the Lord and exercise faith in him.
So all of these compensatory blessings, I, I think of, which is in the book, the divine
gift of forgiveness, the, the, the quote by elders, Elder Anderson about that all of us
receive compensatory blessings because living in a world that is becoming increasingly wicked,
God is sending compensatory blessings and an increase of the Holy Ghost for those who
will receive him.
As the world becomes increasingly wicked through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the world receives
compensatory blessings, God.
As an individual goes through things they didn't choose, didn't create in their life
that are negative, God, I, I know, I testify, sends compensatory blessings.
This is one way that strengths can come out of weaknesses.
Those even who are abused and neglected at least will have greater empathy for others
who they know, right, who are abused and neglected.
And there are compensatory blessings that are, that cover us, the, the great term of,
of, I love the, Kaffar, the Hebrew word or the idea of Atonement, covers us.
I love that imagery that we're covered through the Atonement of Jesus Christ unconditionally
and so many different aspects and events, experiences in our life.
Well, it's through these compensatory blessings that things, for example, like alcoholics,
anonymous works, it's two alcoholics working with each other and the only way that another
alcoholic, you know, that we found, and I don't want to raise a debate, so don't send
emails about that, you know, this is just according to the experience of Bill Wilts and
the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous himself.
But it was through the, through one alcoholic working with another.
That's the only way that that was able to come.
Why?
Because of the compensatory blessings that began even in this regard back in the 1930s
and has expanded to a worldwide organization, not organization, but a worldwide program
that has millions and millions of people participating in it with success because of the compensatory
blessings that come through each other from Jesus Christ himself.
Yeah, that's so true, Scott.
You know, when I was interviewed by Elder Anderson to help him write his book and he
interviewed me and he went through each member of my family and when I got to Isaac and I
said, Elder Anderson, we adopted a son and he's in prison.
He kind of leaned back in his chair and he said, did you know that Elder Scott had this
adopted son who was in and out of prison?
I said, no, I didn't.
Then he said, well, we all did.
And we all knew that's why he gave the best talks on the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
And then he said to me, I think Isaac has blessed you and helped you understand the Atonement
of Jesus Christ in other ways that people cannot understand it.
Which is really incredible.
And think about this.
So think about that compensatory blessing.
And the trials, I mean, it's been a great trial in our life, in our marriage, in our
family.
But the compensatory blessing is of being able to, and it is a blessing, Scott, to be
able to understand this aspect of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Yeah.
And it's been a blessing to you, but in turn, it's also been a blessing to Isaac because
he has parents who understand that and through that understanding are able to provide for
him and greater outpouring of love because of that understanding, David, that has come
to you.
Is that not true?
Yes.
And all of the classes that I've taught and the students who have heard this story that
I've shared today and the book that was ultimately written in the course that has been designed
and is now worldwide is all is all a part of this experience I had as a 36 year old
young man with a prisoner.
Yeah.
And learning by the Holy Ghost in that prison that if he desired it, he could someday have
a mother like that.
Yeah.
That was an unbelievable revelatory experience for me, Scott.
And then I learned it was because of the compensatory blessings available to us through the Atonement
of Jesus Christ.
And the same is true for my son, Isaac, who is has gay tendencies, lived a gay lifestyle,
has done some terrible things.
Scott, I gave him a patriarchal blessing and I knew by the power and gift of the Holy
Ghost in that blessing that I could at least say, Isaac, when you desire it, you shall
have your own family.
And I could see it and I knew it was possible and I knew if he desired it, he could receive
that blessing.
If not in this life in the next and so many compensatory blessings may not be always understood
or received in this life, but they will surely be received in the next life for all of those
who because of choices, not of their own will receive all of those blessings in the next
life.
When you think about all of those who haven't married or who haven't had children, because
of choices, not of their own choosing, not negatives that they didn't choose, all of
those things that happened to us in this life, we will be able to receive in the next life.
The Prophet Joseph Smith thought all that we lost in this life that was not our choice
or because of our doing will be restored to us in the next life.
All the blessings, we didn't have the opportunity to receive in this life.
We will receive in the next life, Scott, and that's only possible because of the plan of
redemption and a redeemer and the gift of his atoning sacrifice.
So I just I know that's true.
I really pray that our listeners will come to an understanding and fill the spirit of
that and incorporate that into their lives.
I know and testify it will bring you greatest greater peace.
Your understanding, more rest, more joy, even in all of your negatives that you experience
in your life.
When you understand the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the compensatory blessings
of it, it can really bring you peace.
So I hope our listeners will come to that understanding.
Just in closing, what a great story and it's been just a great spirit here in this room
today.
It's through out each of us as we listen to this podcast.
But you know, you just said, blessings may not be understood in this life, the compensatory
blessings that are available for each one of us for various and many, many ways that
we may not even quite yet understand or receive or receive in this life.
But they may not be understood or received in this life.
But you know what we can understand and what we can receive in this life, we can come to
understand and know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And as we come to know Him and as we fill the blessings that are brought to us through
the Spirit of the Holy Ghost, as we come to know Him, we know that that's the administration
of the Atonement in our lives because of the Spirit that we're feeling, that Spirit of
the Holy Ghost.
And we will be able to come to know Him and receive blessings of comfort and peace that
are not available to us in any other way.
And that's my promise.
I've seen that in so many ways in so many Institute students that we've had been able
to have experiences with.
With so many sponsors and alcoholics anonymous and other addiction recovery programs, I've
seen firsthand and in my own life, those compensatory blessings, even if those compensatory blessings
don't fully restore in this life, they can provide comfort and understanding and a sense
of relief through that in this life.
Hey, gang, thanks so much for being with us this week.
We look forward to being with you again next week and then tell them, remember, you have
been redeemed through His blood.
We challenge you this week to look for those compensatory blessings in your own lives,
identify where you would wish to see them and begin to seek Him so that you can fill
them and or at least fill His peace and His love through them.
Thanks for being with us.
See you next week.