Matt (00:01.4)
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Latter Day Lens. It's good to have you with us this week. I'm your host Matt, along with me today is Sean, and we have no special guests, just us.

Shawn (00:13.955)
which is the way I think people want it sometimes. Well, they get it. The way it ought to be.

Matt (00:18.574)
the way it ought to be. Do you know what I did, Sean? We'll see if anything comes of this. I decided last week, I have not talked to Elder Hall since, probably since the mission and probably 30 years. And I messaged him on LinkedIn. said, Hey, you should join us on our podcast as a host. And I don't, who knows how often somebody checks LinkedIn, but.

Shawn (00:42.243)
Ha ha!

Shawn (00:46.177)
He didn't respond.

Matt (00:47.822)
No, no, because I mean, Sean, would you respond to a message on LinkedIn that fast? Like in a week's time? I don't know. I'm only on LinkedIn like once a month or something like that. But I would love, love, love to see Sean and Elderhole and me all on the same podcast talking. Like if I had to say, Sean, who were the two people in the MTC that drove you the most crazy? Who would those two people be?

Shawn (00:53.219)
Sure I would, yeah.

Shawn (00:59.491)
other hole.

Shawn (01:13.091)
Well, you have a you win that like like so clearly you're the number one Yeah, other hole. Okay. All right. Yeah, he's up there. Yeah

Matt (01:19.202)
You

Matt (01:22.798)
He's probably number two, right? He's number two most annoyed you in the MTC.

Shawn (01:29.217)
Yep, and I remember just thinking, man, this guy's not even trying. He's just not trying. And then I'd look at him and say, hey, man, give me your favorite Russian word right now. And he'd just look at me and go, ploha, ploha, which is like the worst American accent for the word bad. And I'm like, yeah, that's right, that's you.

Matt (01:33.102)
lol

Matt (01:39.99)
You

Matt (01:50.574)
man. So we'll see. We'll see listeners if he decides to ever join us. I would love to do it at least one time just to get like me and Sean and Elder Hall all together. I would do it with all of our MTC companions if I could. I don't know what happened to Elder Kate and last I spoke to him he was in Kuwait in the Middle East. Yeah. Yeah and Elder Bell, I don't know, he like disappeared. I think he works for Netflix or something, I don't know. And my-

Shawn (02:01.537)
I love it.

Shawn (02:10.677)
Wait, are you serious?

Shawn (02:18.701)
think it would be a fantastic approach if we could get all of our MTC elders on here and get their opinions on all the stuff that goes on in the world. that'd be so fun.

Matt (02:25.92)
be so fun. Hey, enough of us reminiscing about the good times in the MTC. I'm not doing anything from the mailbag this week because we have a lot of stuff to talk about that I'm kind of pumped to talk about. So we're gonna get right to it. So Sean, here's our first topic. Recent research shows that college can actually make students more conservative. It all depends on the major they choose.

Shawn (02:32.813)
Hahaha

Shawn (02:43.395)
All right, let's go.

Matt (02:52.152)
college students majoring in economics or business actually become more conservative while they're in college. So the question is, should parents who are worried about college making their kids liberal just encourage them to major in business or economics?

Shawn (03:04.899)
Okay, when we don't have guests, you're smarter than me. And so I know that you try and pick topics and you word them in a way that either triggers me or, so I'm going to give you what you want just to begin with, just to give you what you want. And then we'll go into actually, I have a number of questions for you about this before we answer. So I'm going to give it what you want. So there's a really wise educator by the name of G love and his, yeah. Why do you make that face? You don't believe me that G love is a good educator?

Matt (03:16.984)
Thank you, thank you.

Matt (03:24.589)
You

Matt (03:28.899)
home.

Matt (03:34.006)
I was trying to decide is G-Love the same as Warren G?

Shawn (03:36.929)
Nope, G-Love and his band The Special Sauce. He says this, he says, stop daydreaming is what my teacher used to say while they kicked a bunch of crap that I forgot anyway. Education is important to make a man complete, but everything I learned in school, I learned again on the streets.

Matt (03:53.811)
yeah, yeah, I have no idea what that means.

Shawn (03:57.187)
That means, well here I'll ask you the question. You taught me a long time ago that the original intention with a systematic, I don't know, government systematic, but systematic education was either one, to produce better citizens or two, to create opportunities for careers, to train for careers. And I feel like you've gone back and forth on that. Where do you land today?

Matt (04:19.906)
Yep.

Matt (04:25.016)
purpose of college is to train someone's mind in ways that could be applied to all sorts of different careers right so it's not like career specific but it's like training and disciplining your mind. College.

Shawn (04:38.231)
But you had mentioned before that it's with the intent of creating better citizens. it's a government, government has interest in college because it creates a better citizenry. Isn't that not what you preach before?

Matt (04:49.162)
No, I'm no when I say that I'm talking about public education. The reason the government pays for like K through 12 education. That is to help people get jobs and to help people become better citizens. That would be K through 12 high school. The college is like a different college is like, let's say you want to work with your mind instead of like doing physical labor or something like that. College kind of trains you how to use your mind in a way so that you can

Shawn (05:02.039)
So, okay, okay, in college.

Matt (05:18.178)
do higher level sorts of cognitive things for a career.

Shawn (05:20.959)
Nothing to do with career, nothing to do with trades, nothing to do with that is what your opinion is.

Matt (05:25.198)
It shouldn't be, but community colleges do that, but a traditional university education or a liberal arts degree would not be training you for career.

Shawn (05:34.561)
Okay. So help me with the dilemma then if that's what it is, and I'll go with you on that part of my, my deep heart says, anyone who says, okay, I'm going to send my child off. Like if I'm a parent and I have a concern about my child's belief system values, if I say I'm going to send them off to university where a bunch of professors, a bunch of teachers and a bunch of administrators that

Matt (05:58.53)
Brilliant, brilliant people.

Shawn (06:01.269)
administrators at a profit driven organization. And that's where I'm going to hope and lean on my child's mental, cognitive, spiritual education. That seems like a huge flaw to me. That seems like a huge flaw to me. So, so, so for a parent to say, okay, I have concerns that my kid will become liberal. Okay. I better, I better make sure they're become an accountant.

Matt (06:18.36)
Yeah. Well, well, like

Shawn (06:28.161)
because that's the way they're going to learn the fundamental principles in life. That seems so messed up to me. That doesn't seem right.

Matt (06:35.18)
Yeah, okay, I agree with that. I think what happens is college kids are easily influenced by professors because they're at a stage of life where they're curious and they're willing to challenge their preconceived notions. And so I do try to present them with ideas that they haven't heard over and over and over again, right? it is also true that many of the things they learn in high school just aren't factually correct. And so there are some of those like misperceptions I try to correct.

I think what it is, isn't that the professors are doing it in those majors. I think that the people who self-select into those fields are already more conservative. And so then it just reinforces those views as they're in college.

Shawn (07:21.805)
So why, why do you think there's a set of values that someone has, they learned it from their family, their parents, or whatever decisions they've made, and you're saying they decide like, like if I'm a liberal person, I'm going to go into the social sciences, self-selecting, or if I'm conservative, I'm going to become an accountant or a business major. They self-select that.

Matt (07:37.687)
Yeah.

Matt (07:42.87)
I think so because like you can get a master's in public administration and you could get a master's in business administration. And so I think the students who say, I want to choose public service as my career, they're just kind of going to be a little bit more liberal than the people who say, I want to choose business as my career, right? Because there's that fundamental difference of like, is government good or is government getting in the way and business is good?

Shawn (08:01.195)
Okay.

Shawn (08:08.661)
Okay. So this survey or this research report isn't saying parents are sending their kids to school and the schools are transforming them into either liberal or conservative or as having these set of values or whatever. You're saying they already have those sets of values and they're following a line of education that, that aligns with that. Is that what saying? And you think that economics and business just align with

Matt (08:28.352)
Yeah, that's what I think is happening.

Shawn (08:35.615)
more conservative values and social sciences align with liberal values.

Matt (08:40.494)
Yeah, yep. As I look around at my university professors in different departments, if you tell me what department they teach in, I can tell you where they probably line up like in terms of party identification. English, humanities, languages, international studies, most of the social sciences, they're mostly Democrat or at least left leaning. And then engineers, business people.

Shawn (08:42.506)
interesting.

Shawn (08:54.357)
Really?

Matt (09:08.778)
economics people, although that one can can switch depending on where you study economics, but the Austrian micro economics people, they all tend to be conservative.

Shawn (09:16.801)
Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. And you're not, and you think that the universities don't have any influence on which way a child goes.

Matt (09:27.342)
I think that if you have a, like a gregarious dynamic personality, like, and you're an enjoyable person, then somebody who's otherwise not like maybe doesn't care, they might say, I really like this person and the way they teach. And so they might say, okay, I'm going to do economics. I want to study with that person. And so then they could make them become more conservative than they otherwise would be because they're sort of guiding them into that field where, and you could do the same on the other side.

Shawn (09:51.437)
So, so what would your advice be to a parent who says, okay, I just read this research and I want my kid to be more conservative. So I'm pushing them towards, yeah, some, an economics degree. What would you say? I like your advice in these situations. Yeah. Tell me what you'd say.

Matt (10:04.854)
I would say what Sean always says, kamukkak, right? To each their own. I would say this, your job as a parent or your opportunity as a parent to shape your child's political ideology kind of ends when they turn 18 and they go make their own life decisions. So you should not make your decision based on what you think they will or won't be exposed to or what you do or don't think they will decide to believe.

Shawn (10:19.861)
You

Matt (10:31.266)
You should trust that you've done a good job teaching them your values and that no matter what they choose going forward, it'll either reinforce those values or the challenges that they get to those values will not knock them down despite whatever they happen to choose to do.

Shawn (10:45.627)
you're a proverbs guy train up a child, which way he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from it, but then they have agency.

Matt (10:50.894)
But sometimes they do right sometimes they do yeah I would say if you're worried as a parent about is you my kid gonna get liberal in college You're worried about the wrong thing

Shawn (11:01.707)
And I thought that would be your main message, which I agree with. Like, come on. It's not wrong or bad to be a liberal person or a conservative person. I think it's bad or wrong to build your identity around those dumb man-made monikers. Do you or do you disagree with that?

Matt (11:07.212)
Yeah.

Matt (11:14.646)
Yeah. No, I agree. I think it is what I worry about most as I think about my kids who are going off to college, I worry about most them being in an environment that is hostile to their beliefs. Right? So there are I would worry way more about like, how's the student body going to treat my kid than I would about how's this professor going to try to indoctrinate my kid?

Shawn (11:27.127)
Yeah.

Shawn (11:40.915)
And a follow up. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

Matt (11:41.358)
Cause you-

Because you said that everybody who goes to University of Utah leaves the church.

Shawn (11:48.579)
I'm just, no, I said anecdotally. The handful of people I know, I've left the shirt. I didn't say that. I didn't say that.

Matt (11:52.321)
Yeah, yeah, no, But but it's not because but no, I'm that's why I you but it's not about the professors there, right? It's about the kinds of kids that choose to go there, and what they choose to do for fun, and what the social pressure is like how you should be right, you could definitely the University of Utah Institute is one of the strongest in the world, you can definitely go there and be a really strong kid, right? A really strong member of the church.

Shawn (12:16.497)
I see. Okay.

Shawn (12:21.131)
Okay, I see.

Matt (12:21.592)
But a lot of people who choose that are not gonna choose that lifestyle, right?

Shawn (12:26.529)
Yeah, so based on this discussion as a quick tangent before we move to the next question, can I get a, can you admit to me, can I get an agreement from you that this type of academic research is very, is harmful when you're producing results that say, and your intention is to teach the world, okay, what we've studied, what our study shows is these types of people who go for these types of majors, they become, and then they.

created art, they use an arbitrary word, like they become liberal and these becomes conservative. That is absolutely pathetically dangerous because they're actually feeding and they're creating these monikers and they're putting people in boxes and their whole purpose of their research is to limit the thinking and the identity building of people. well, I guess if I'm in the social sciences, I must be liberal. Do you agree with me or no?

Matt (13:18.338)
Hmm. I agree with you that this reinforces negative aspects of society and it picks fights. It picks fights with people that we don't need to pick fights with them, right?

Shawn (13:24.375)
Come on academics!

Shawn (13:30.408)
What's wrong with your academic buddies? What are you doing? Why are you doing stuff like this?

Matt (13:35.33)
Because we're told all the time that we're making kids liberal. And so we try to show like, no we're not.

And we can't just like put it in a meme that says, we're not, we have to do a research study. Right, think like that's not our skill set, otherwise we would be doing other things with our lives.

Shawn (13:51.501)
Have you tried? Maybe you should try. I don't think it'll work, but you should try.

Shawn (14:00.309)
Do you agree that that's like if the church paid for some academic group to put out a research study that says something like, I don't know, think of a good example. If you live in Utah, you're a Molly Mormon. And if you live in California, you are a what? A liberal minded Mormon. Like putting those categories of people, putting people in boxes like that, there's no productivity to it. Zero. It's so counterproductive to discussion, to debate, to.

Matt (14:15.32)
Mm.

Matt (14:19.32)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (14:30.097)
It's just it's terrible. I thought was a bad example

Matt (14:31.862)
Yeah, I'd agree. I agree. That's the same as like just creating a meme. That kind of research is like, we should call it meme research, right? It's the equivalent of just, is the meme the right way to say it these days? Okay. Okay. Thanks, Sean. All right, here's our next topic. I have argued many times that Trump is racist.

Shawn (14:44.427)
Sure. Okay, good.

Shawn (14:56.589)
Trigger, let me think, here's Matt over the week. Let me think of trigger topics, because it's just gonna be Sean and Matt.

Matt (15:04.318)
No, no, no, no, it's more like this. It's like, I don't want to say Trump is racist because that feels lazy to me. yeah, right. Right. It feels accurate. But as I talk with you about it on the podcast, I'm like, you know what, it's probably just lazy. I need to like dig into this a little deeper of what it is. I think this, I think when I say he's racist, this is what I'm trying to say.

Shawn (15:12.097)
Yeah, nice preface, Lazy Matt.

Shawn (15:31.159)
Okay.

Matt (15:32.086)
I think that Trump wants the United States to be more like a period of time in the past for which many Americans are nostalgic. So if you look at his executive orders, there's like this, like, Biden administration says we're getting rid of the name Fort Bragg because Bragg was a civil war general and we're not going to celebrate the civil war. And Trump's like, no, we're going to call it Fort Bragg again. Or

Like, there's, puts an end to DEI programs and colleges and universities and the federal government, is like, why get rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion? Like all those words seem like good words. Like, why would we get, or when he says we're going to create for the 250th anniversary of our nation, there's going to be a statue garden in Washington, DC that honors like people in our past. And I think that that, I think that aspect of him, of what he's trying to do resonates with a lot of his supporters.

Which again, I think is why a lot of people call them racist because the things that he's trying to like embrace in the past were not universally kind, right? Like some people don't like the way that America was in the past. Some people think that the past was racist and that like these people were celebrating had were racist, intense and stuff like that. And so my question is, is it wrong for me?

Shawn (16:42.519)
Yeah.

Matt (16:54.946)
to call that sort of nostalgia for the past racism. Yeah, that's why.

Shawn (16:58.371)
Okay, I'm gonna come at you pretty hard here in the interest of a good discussion, right? Okay. So it feels like you're conflating disagreement with racism. And it feels like when you start using the word racism under like pretty broad and ambiguous reasoning, like for example, associating nostalgia for the past with racism by just default.

Matt (17:04.557)
Yeah, yeah.

Shawn (17:26.679)
we dilute the meaning and its power. like, like, here's an example, right? Charlottesville 2017, right? I don't think there's any, any retelling of Charlottesville 2017, any historical retelling that could possibly rewrite that history as not something completely racist, right? We have video, we have photo, we have documented journalists showing that this was a rally entitled white supremacy.

Matt (17:34.347)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (17:47.533)
Right.

Shawn (17:55.765)
with Nazi flags. Yeah.

Matt (17:55.926)
Yeah, you unite the white, right? And Jews will not replace us and all that sort of stuff.

Shawn (18:01.315)
Right. So when you conflate that with someone who has nostalgia for the fifties, because like, like my dad, who's like, man, families were stronger. The economy was stronger. Um, and I have a good nostalgic feeling for that. But then when you say, well, that's racist, if you like the fifties, because there was some, a lot of racist things going on. When you conflate those two, you ruin the ability for us to say, look how horrible 2017 is. Matt.

I talked to, I talked to 10 people. Nobody knows about Charlottesville 2017. No, because we've diluted the word racism. We're calling the fifties racism and the civil war racist. And we're calling all these errors racist. We've diluted the word and now racism means nothing. It's a, it's a, so, so no one knows it because well, everything's racist. That's, that's just one thing that happens. And it's such a huge problem. We need to be able to, to,

Matt (18:36.044)
they not?

Matt (18:48.92)
Hmm.

Shawn (18:59.105)
reserve that word for what is truly racist. And the 50s.

Matt (19:03.16)
So then what am I supposed to call it? So like the 50s, fine. You could have nostalgia for the 50s and not be thinking about Jim Crow South. But when you wanna celebrate civil war generals and you wanna talk about like the wonderful glorious days in the South, like that's all built on slavery. That's all built on.

Shawn (19:20.109)
Do you mean when you say civil war generals, do you mean both sides or do you mean?

Matt (19:24.886)
No, no, the ones in the South, right? People want to celebrate Robert E. Lee in the Dukes of Hazzard, their car is called the Robert E. Lee, or no, the General Lee, right? There's this, there's this element of the South that wants to celebrate those generals that I view them as traitors and treasonous people that were trying to hold on to slavery in the South. And there's this narrative that's like, no, they were trying to protect our liberties and things like that. Well, whose liberties? Not everybody's liberties.

Shawn (19:31.777)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn (19:49.123)
Okay, so but by just defaulting and saying that's just a racist, the premise there is racism, I think we're diluting it. Let's have a historical discussion. Let's definitely talk about the merits of what happened and what their motives were. But when everything, and not just that, but when everything else is just labeled as racist, racist doesn't mean anything. And therefore, Charlottesville 2017 is just another, you know, Civil War statue. It's just another,

You know what mean? that make, to me?

Matt (20:19.83)
Yeah, yeah. But my fear is that it's switching the other way, that white people have never truly experienced racism. And so when you get things like DEI, that I would not think of that as a racist policy, right? I would think of that as something to correct racism. But then white people are like, now you're treating me racist, you're punishing me because of my skin color. And I say, but historically, you don't have all of those burdens that racial minorities carry with them every day.

So what you're experiencing a tiny, tiny bit of maybe discrimination because of your skin color and you're calling that racism when that's clearly not racism.

Shawn (20:58.765)
So again, anecdotally, right? I don't know if it's useful to bring anecdotes, but my friends, my black friends say there's never been a better time on the, on this, in this country for us, for black people than today. We have freedom. don't have real prejudice against us. We can do whatever we want, be wherever we like. have the opportunity to become whatever we want. And when I have this discussion with them, they don't consider their life, at least here in Southern California.

Matt (21:01.614)
Yeah.

Shawn (21:28.587)
is surrounded by racism. And when they hear people go, no, no, no, no, everything's racist. The systems are racist. The, the, every bit of history is racist. The whole country is racist. They don't understand that. And they don't like that. They understand that there are elements of our history that were really, really, really, really bad, but they feel like we've gone past that. So by framing everything in that term, it's really dangerous.

Matt (21:30.539)
Right.

Matt (21:46.776)
Yeah.

Matt (21:50.274)
So I was reading.

I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday and they showed this figure of what's happened to the population in California. They go back like 20 years, but if you look just since the pandemic, it's really interesting what's happened in California. Since 2000, the beginning of the pandemic, there's been this huge net migration out of California of U.S. citizens. Like in 2021, it was 400,000 U.S. citizens left California. But do you...

Shawn (22:12.309)
Yes, that's right. Huge,

Shawn (22:18.467)
That's right.

And if Sam was here, if Sam was here, he would say, well, that's because it's liberal state. That's what he would say.

Matt (22:26.37)
But do you know what has also happened is California has become the largest immigrant state in the United States. So those 400,000 people leaving California have been replaced by immigrants from other countries. And so you have an equal number of immigrants from other countries coming into California so that California's net population is like a 4 % gain or something. Even as a half a million people have been leaving the state of California, that many more people from other countries have been moving to California.

Shawn (22:55.971)
I mean, that's got to be different from the last four or five months, right? There's no one coming in now. And sadly, all of my friends are like hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside, which is really sad.

Matt (23:00.428)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean this is-

Matt (23:09.112)
So that makes me wonder Sean, if like your experience in Southern California is different, right? That like your racial minority friends are like, we're in a state that's very, very friendly to racial minorities and immigrants. And the people who don't like that, they all left the state and all those, I mean, don't, who are these?

Shawn (23:26.395)
No, that's ridiculous. Again, you're framing everything around this lens that you want to create, which isn't reality, of racism. Take those glasses off.

Matt (23:35.022)
It's just the way it-

You're saying that's not it. Who are these people that are leaving California? They're probably white, right? I mean, they're moving to my neighborhood in Idaho. Probably white.

Shawn (23:43.039)
Shawn (23:47.811)
Why would you possibly, that suggests, okay, so the real reason people are leaving is for, is bad policy, crime, homelessness, and the cost of living. That's why people are living. And guess what, Matt? There are non-white people who are affected by those things just as much. Like how racist is it to say, well, if you're a rich, wealthy person, then you can't be a black person. That's as racist as saying,

Like that is so racist! Like that's why I hate this lens.

Matt (24:18.71)
No, I wasn't saying it was, I wasn't saying, I'm saying like Boise is like one of the fastest growing cities in America, right? Idaho's got this booming population because of people coming from California. It's not the rich people from California that are coming to Idaho. So it's true. It's probably like middle-class people that can't, yeah, I mean, I don't know. haven't, I haven't looked into it at all, but I just wondered like maybe something else is happening where.

Shawn (24:33.719)
No.

Shawn (24:41.835)
It's no, it's has nothing to do with racism at it. It's, it's absolutely documented and clear that it is first and foremost, the cost of living. Second, the regulations that are so crazy is so hard to build a home or to build a business because the regulations are so high. Third, it's homelessness. Like anyone has visited this place. There's camps of homeless tents all over the place. Those are the reasons people are.

Matt (24:46.466)
hahahaha

Matt (24:58.135)
Yeah, yeah,

Matt (25:01.88)
Yeah.

Matt (25:06.99)
Yeah. Do you know the upside of it though, Sean? Cause I was in Riverside on Sunday. You're going to get mad at me when you, when you find out I was in California and I didn't say hi to you. I was in Riverside on Sunday. I was at the YSA ward and a member of the mission presidency was there speaking and he was just talking about missionary statistics. Church growth from like baptisms, missionary work is booming in California right now. Like all these immigrants coming in, they're joining the church. No, I mean, I don't know who they are, but.

Shawn (25:15.103)
You can...

Shawn (25:37.203)
That's interesting. I'm sure in Riverside, yes. Where I live, no. I wish it was, but it's not. In fact, we just got our steak building. They took back our steak. They were going to build a brand new steak building. said, you're just not growing fast enough, so we can't build you a steak building. So maybe it depends on where you're at. I don't think the church is booming here. In fact, remember, it was like two years ago. Maybe you don't remember. Two years ago, California had a special broadcast from the prophet and said, guys, stop leaving. Please stay there. Please stay and build the kingdom there.

Matt (25:40.771)
Yeah.

Matt (25:51.704)
you

Matt (26:07.66)
Hmm, wow.

Shawn (26:08.493)
So I don't think it's booming. I wish it was.

Matt (26:11.086)
So in the Riverside Mission, they used to average around 300 baptisms a year. Last year, they had closer to 400 baptisms in that mission. And so far this year, they have over 200 baptisms in the Riverside Mission. They're on the pace to like almost double their number of baptisms.

Shawn (26:23.757)
Yeah, they mix.

Shawn (26:27.809)
I think it makes sense. I've got some people who serve, some friends who serve in LA in Riverside area and they have a lot of success now. Yeah. And it's all Spanish. It's all Spanish speaking.

Matt (26:39.222)
Yeah. Ah, huh. Well, okay, so maybe my argument about your friends don't experience racism because they live in California isn't that, maybe it's not that.

Shawn (26:50.947)
I don't think it's that. Explain to me, what is the, I mean, I think I get it, but the obsession, like I would expect from academics to understand logically that yes, if we don't stop talking about racism, we don't want to repeat what happened in the past, but how illogical it is to conflate history and just opinions of what history, parts of history with everything is racist.

It's so illogical, it's so harmful, I don't understand how academics don't see that.

Matt (27:23.51)
Well, there's there's regionalism in the United States. So if you go to the deep south, Sean, you will experience racism, like hardcore, deep abiding racism. And it's in the roots. It's in the, it's in the everything of the people in the south. And I, I grew up in Utah, so I didn't see a lot of it. I would see like what we would call like microaggression or like, again, I've talked about how college kids like to tell racist jokes and stuff like that, but there's not like

deep racism. But when I started meeting people from the South and people raised in the South, there's just a racism there that's just, it's just deep. It's in the, and so then what that does is it manifests itself. If you're going to study public opinion in the United States, there's always going to be this 10 to 20 % of Americans that racism really does explain almost everything they do politically.

Shawn (28:14.541)
So if I buy in on that, which I will, I believe you, why, if it's 20 % of the people, why frame the entire country or a whole presidency as racist? Why don't you say it like you just did? 20 % of the country, just like 20 % of the country is gonna be, I don't know, communist or 20 % is gonna be ex, that's the Pareto principle, right? So call it that, don't call it everything is racist.

Matt (28:32.918)
Leftist, right? Communist. Yeah.

Matt (28:38.516)
Yeah, well so I do frame it that way.

Well, I do frame like I do talk about people on the left as communists and they don't get offended when I say that about them because they're proud communists, right? I can be like AOC Bernie Sanders. They're appealing to like the the socialist left and they wear that label with pride.

Shawn (28:55.971)
Just like there's 20 % of the people who are probably proud to be white supremacists, maybe?

Matt (29:02.392)
but they don't wear that with pride, they hide it, right? So that's the challenge is like.

Shawn (29:05.347)
In Charlottesville they wore it with pride?

Matt (29:08.662)
Right. And so when you have politicians who sort of like talk that talk or seem to be trying to appeal to those voters, then the question is, are they racist, hiding it because you can't get elected if you're openly racist or are they just saying whatever that crowd wants them to say to make them happy? that we've just think about those questions a lot. There's 33 % of Americans love Trump no matter what he does.

And if there's like 10 to 20 % that are racist, then it's like, okay, what about these other 13, 20 % that love Trump? Like, where do they fit in? Are they also racist, but they're sort of like hiding it? That's why it just seems, some things just seem racist, right? If somebody does something that's consistent with what a racist would do, then it's hard. It's like if I started acting like a socialist.

Shawn (29:52.195)
That's...

Shawn (29:55.585)
That's a horrible standard. That is a horrible standard. You don't say, well, you seem like you're going to kill me and so I better kill you. That's a horrible standard. yeah, but like judging, look, I'm not a defender of Trump, but you have to show me evidence that he is racist. He has a diverse cabinet. He's always in business, higher diversity.

Matt (30:15.15)
But no black people in his cabinet. I don't know.

Shawn (30:19.853)
Well, he has a diverse cabinet, a more diverse cabinet than Biden did.

Matt (30:25.336)
but no black people. I don't know. And then there are people that worked for the Trump organization for years that talk about how racist he was. And then, it's all, I don't wanna go conspiracy theory on you, Sean, but it's hidden. It's all been scraped from YouTube. You can't find it. It's somewhere in Ex's archives that Elon Musk is using to keep his position in Doge, that he's using it as blackmail.

Shawn (30:27.117)
Yeah, see what you're doing? You're cherry picking. You're,

Shawn (30:36.24)
I mean show me that evidence. I'd love to see that evidence because

Shawn (30:52.483)
There you go. Okay, so there you go. Let's go back to what we are. We are the latter day lens. We are not the racist lens. We are not the liberal lens, the conservative lens. We should not be viewing the world based in the bias that comes from our history or our experiences or our, I don't know, our academic culture or anything, right?

Matt (30:57.838)
the

Matt (31:15.264)
I agree, you're right Sean. We'll set the racism aside for a long time and our listeners will be very happy because they're probably tired of hearing about racism. So let's talk about Russia and Ukraine. That's something we haven't talked about in a while. So, my goodness, I can't even watch the news because it makes me feel sad inside. But right now Russia's just bombing Kiev again, right? And they're lining up troops, they're playing the game of risk where they try and like expand their territory into

Shawn (31:23.457)
Okay.

Shawn (31:28.802)
Yeah.

Matt (31:44.45)
various regions of Ukraine. Today or recently Trump has said stuff like Putin's crazy and I don't know, you better be careful. Did you see what Dmitry Medvedev tweeted back when Trump said you better be careful or some things are going to get real bad? Medvedev was like, yeah.

Shawn (32:01.923)
No, but Medvedev, for our listeners, Medvedev is the old, he was the president of Russia who sold out. Yeah, but he sold out and basically Putin says, look, I'm going to be the president again. You can be my prime minister if fall in line. So he's just a lackey.

Matt (32:06.242)
He's the old president. I think he's the prime minister. Yeah.

Matt (32:17.74)
Yeah. He said what Trump means when he says real bad as world war three, like basically Russia is responding to Trump's rhetoric is saying like, whatever, like you do something to us. It's going to lead to world war three. Yeah. Yeah. So my question is, should we be happy that Trump has finally come to this realization that Putin is crazy? Like I knew Putin was crazy 10 years ago, or is this too little too late?

Shawn (32:31.107)
Jeez, really?

Shawn (32:39.331)
Yeah, exactly. I have no hope that Trump and JD Vance have the right view on this. Right now. And it's interesting because for our listeners, I know you and I are a little biased, right? We serve our mission in Ukraine. We know what those people are. We know what the history is. But objectively, you can look if if I look at a country, I don't know, take take fine Ukraine or take some other country. If I see that they go from chaos and corruption.

Matt (32:48.494)
Yeah.

Shawn (33:08.555)
and they are progressively over the years moving towards freedom and democracy and ridding themselves of corruption, then that should be an ally, I think. And Ukraine, there's no better example in this planet than Ukraine making the progress towards a free governing society. And then Russia hits them. And so to me, that's the reason for us to support them. Go ahead.

Matt (33:19.672)
Yeah.

Matt (33:33.742)
And that's exactly why Russia hit them. 2014, when they invaded Donetsk, which was the region of Ukraine they wanted to control, it was because in that election, Ukraine finally voted for a president who was not gonna be controlled by the Kremlin. the...

Shawn (33:52.801)
And right before that they had caught, they, they revolted against the Kremlin placed president and they kicked him out of the country because of corruption.

Matt (33:59.022)
Right. And in 2022, Putin believed that he could reinstall that person. His name's Yanukovych. He believed that he could reinstall Yanukovych as president of Ukraine. So the whole thing is about Ukraine standing up for democracy and saying, we don't want to have other countries telling us what to do. And this is Russia's response to that.

Shawn (34:21.123)
And so when I bring that up, because I want my president and dingbat vice president to look at that and go, okay, this is a society in the East or on that border who separates Europe, our allies in Europe from this despot in Russia. What a great opportunity for us to get that as a free country to be on the side of the West. That's a perfect ally. That's a perfect partner.

Let's make sure that they can self-govern because they want to self-govern the way we self-govern. They value our principles.

Matt (34:53.12)
Isn't it crazy that over the weekend Trump announces he's going to put 50 % tariffs on the EU who've done nothing at all, right? And Russia is like dropping missiles, dropping bombs, just pummeling Ukraine. And now he says, maybe I'll have to put some tariffs on them. It's like, what's wrong with you, man?

Shawn (35:12.597)
It's so weird, dude. It's so weird. mean, listen, the whole terror strategy, I get it. I want to see how that plays out. I'm interested to see if that backfires or if it's a genius move. But that can be separate from this idea that let's militarily support our allies.

Matt (35:27.818)
If it's a genius move, we try it? If it's a genius move, can we try it, right? Try it with Russia first. See how it works. There's a strong man, right? Let's see what happens.

Shawn (35:32.801)
Sure, sure, sure. But do you agree with me though that I have no faith in Trump or JD Vans to make the right decisions on all this? I do have hope that a more, a less reliant Europe now is deciding let's step up and support Ukraine and win this thing. And that's not a bad thing, that's a good thing, no?

Matt (35:55.438)
I do think it's good for Europe to stand up. I did say before the election that this is what Trump was going to do. My best hope right now is that Trump loses interest in the whole thing because he is kind of that way. If he can't declare victory, he likes to move on and just claim victory. So if Trump were to do that and let Marco Rubio work behind the scenes and let members of Congress do what they want to do and he's just like, I don't care, do whatever you want to do. That's my best hope for right now.

Shawn (36:24.939)
good, I like that. Yeah, because did you see, was it France who came out or Germany? I don't remember which one. They says, look, we will remove all of the weapons we're giving you. They were tied to this requirement that you cannot shoot them into Russia basically. And just on Sunday, I think they said, go for it. Unlimited distances. So I think Europe left to their, just give us a little bit of support, but if Europe left to like,

Matt (36:25.974)
as the Trump moves on.

Matt (36:40.439)
Yeah.

Matt (36:44.034)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Shawn (36:53.121)
decide on their own, they're going to do the right thing and help us or help Ukraine win the war.

Matt (36:57.25)
The problem is that since World War II, we haven't been manufacturing weapons in Europe, right? So the United States manufactures weapons. So we've been giving Ukraine our old weapons and using that money to replenish. Yeah. But Europe has, doesn't have that, right? I mean, I guess you can give them old Polish Soviet era weapons. Like it's a different situation. It's not just about money. The money has to buy something and that something has to be produced somewhere. So.

Shawn (37:11.715)
build new ones.

Matt (37:27.438)
It's encouraging that Europe is stepping up. I'm really happy about that, but I'm still nervous. I don't know.

Shawn (37:35.009)
I like your solution. give you points for your solution. Hopefully he moves on from it and let Congress and you think Marco Arubio will do the right thing and do a good job there?

Matt (37:44.62)
I mean, I'm hopeful that Marco Rubio will do the right thing. I don't know. I'm hopeful.

Shawn (37:51.285)
Sounds like you're a Marco Rubio fan.

Matt (37:53.838)
there's a lot of things he's done since he become secretary of state that frightened me a lot. Again, when I watched C-SPAN and I watched Marco Rubio make the rounds, like, what? I can't tell what he's saying to try to make Trump happy. And what he's saying, like he'll have members of the Senate that are his friends that are like, Marco, one year ago, this is what you said. Now you're saying this, which is true. And it's impossible to know like what he actually thinks.

Shawn (38:00.425)
Shawn (38:17.581)
Which, you believe that's him playing the political game. Question, would you vote for him if today elections were happening and he was up for the Republican nominee, would you vote for him?

Matt (38:27.648)
No, I couldn't do that right now. I have to wait and see who he is. Who he was in the Senate is not who he is right now, so I don't know who he is. All right, let's move to the big question. So on a different podcast, I interviewed Justice Tom Griffith. He, for our listeners who don't know, he was an appellate court justice on the DC Court of Appeals. So that's like...

Shawn (38:29.868)
Okay.

Shawn (38:33.762)
Okay.

Shawn (38:37.247)
I see. Okay. Gotcha.

All right.

Matt (38:55.042)
There's the Supreme Court and just below the Supreme Court there's the Appellate Court and the DC Appellate Court is like the highest ranking of the Appellate Courts. So I think of the last of the Supreme Court justices, think like four or five of the most recent Supreme Court justices kind of came from there. I think Scalia came from there. I Kavanaugh came from there. anyhow, they're really close to the Supreme Court justices because they're in DC and they're high ranking and all that sort of stuff.

Shawn (39:25.249)
Nice interview, dude. You landed that interview. That's cool, good job.

Matt (39:26.432)
Yeah, Yeah, he's great. He's an active member of our church and wonderful, wonderful guy. So I asked him a couple of questions that I think we should talk.

Shawn (39:35.693)
That's like in my world, the two top political powerhouses getting together for a discussion, you and him, that makes me happy.

Matt (39:42.158)
That's sort of what he said to me too. He's like, I can't believe you're willing to talk to me. And I said, anything for you, Judge Griffith. Okay, so there's two questions I asked him. The first one I asked him is because I talked to Sean a lot and I have friends in our church that there's this belief that like, like that what really happens, what we see on the surface isn't what's really happening behind closed doors. So I was like,

Shawn (39:52.321)
Nice.

Matt (40:12.65)
Is it true that Supreme Court justices and these appellate court judges, is it true that they're really just trying to be impartial and interpret the constitution or interpret the law? Or do they have friends behind the scenes, donors, all these like really powerful people that are just sort of guiding them and they make their decisions based on their interest or the interest of their friends and they just use the constitution and the law to sort of justify what they think.

And what do think he said, Sean? What would you, if I were to ask you, how do think they really to make these decisions? What would you think?

Shawn (40:46.477)
Yeah

Shawn (40:50.989)
I know you want me to say one thing, but I kind of have more trust in judges for some reason. I don't know if it's again anecdotally, but I don't know. feel like they do try for the most part to do the right things. And this guy's not going to sell out his industry. So I think he's going to support his industry and say positive things. I think they say there's altruism there. That's what he's going to say.

Matt (41:10.754)
That is what he said. He said that he'd never ever even one time seen somebody do something nefarious like that. Because we talked about these stories of like Clarence Thomas gets gifts from donors and he's like, I've never seen that ever matter ever because people have such high respect for the constitution and for the law. He's like, we have differences of opinion and there's times we try to persuade each other. He's like, but they really

Shawn (41:25.517)
Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Matt (41:39.404)
just don't think that way. And he talked about how the Supreme Court justices have dinner, just them, no staff, nobody else, they have dinner 60 times a year, just the Supreme Court justices, and they are not allowed to talk about cases or anything else, because they're just trying to friendships and camaraderie with each other. Yeah. The other question I asked is, are Supreme Court justices good people? And what do you think he said to that? He actually told me a story that I thought was so cool.

Shawn (41:50.253)
Wow.

Shawn (41:56.461)
That's cool. I love that. That's awesome.

Shawn (42:04.567)
What'd he

Matt (42:08.866)
He said that when the DC temple was having its open house, he wrote an email to every Supreme Court justice and invited them to come to the open house. And he said five of them came. No, no, he said seven of them came. Two of them had other obligations and couldn't come. When I tell you the two that couldn't come, I won't tell you because it'll taint the way that people think about Supreme Court justices. He said that Justice Sotomayor, who is very liberal, and Justice Kagan,

Shawn (42:29.815)
HAHAHAHA

Matt (42:38.572)
both absolutely loved our temple open house. At the end of the open house, he offered justice. He said to Justice Kagan, you know, I thought about sending the missionaries to your house as a thank you gift, but I decided not to do that. I thought about giving you a copy of the Book of Mormon as a gift, but instead I decided I'll give you this little postcard that we have of the picture of the temple on it. And she's like, actually, I'd love to have a copy of the Book of Mormon if you have one. And so he had President Nelson and President Oaks both signed a copy of the Book of Mormon.

that he delivered to Justice Kagan. And he says, Justice Sotomayor loved it. When she took her oath of office to become a Supreme Court Justice, she took her oath of office on what she called a Mormon Bible. And that was a gift to her. She had to sentence somebody who was a member of our church. And as part of that, she decided she was gonna learn about his background. So she looked into the teachings of our church. And in the sentencing, she said to him,

Shawn (43:11.742)
Cool.

Matt (43:33.804)
You should live up to the standards of your church. If you were doing what your parents taught you to do, you wouldn't be in this situation. And it touched his mom so much that she sent him a copy of, or sent Justice Sotomayor a copy of probably like a triple combination or maybe a quad or something like that. Yeah. So she took her oath of office on that. She's like, I love your church, your church. And she loved the temple. Yeah. So my big question is twofold. So the first one is.

Shawn (43:37.165)
Wow.

Wow.

Shawn (43:48.119)
Yeah. Wow, that's amazing.

Shawn (43:55.747)
That's so cool.

Matt (44:01.792)
Should we do we like President Hinckley said, whenever he has to make a judgment about a situation, he tries to err on the side of mercy. My first question is, when we have to make a judgment about elected officials or politicians or what they're really doing, should we be like President Hinckley and err on the side of mercy? That's the first one. And the second one is, could we learn from Judge Griffith about how to be better missionaries like

Shawn (44:23.575)
haha

Matt (44:30.424)
He invited every single Supreme Court justice to a temple open house. And there's times when I'm like not willing to give a copy of the Book of Mormon to my friends or like not invite them to like there's times when I'm just hesitant and scared to do that. And he's like a hunter, he had no fear. He's like, of course I would invite them to the temple open house. So should we be more like that in our missionary work? Those are the two questions.

Shawn (44:40.383)
Hahaha.

Shawn (44:55.211)
Okay, good questions. All right, so here's my opinion on question number one. What would Joseph Smith, John Taylor, Brigham Young say to that question, do you think? What if they were here in this podcast and you said, should we err on the side of mercy when it comes? Well, you kind of loaded the question, because the question is, should we err on the side of mercy, right? It's more, should we err on the side of belief, like trust and belief?

Matt (45:15.274)
altruism giving them yeah

Yeah.

Shawn (45:23.593)
What do think they'd say? What would Joseph Smith, John Taylor, Brigham Young say do you think? No, they would not. They would say, you really think that?

Matt (45:25.922)
They would say, yes, we should. We should trust in our leaders.

Matt (45:31.532)
Well, there was a time when Joseph Smith decided to go to Washington DC to plead our cause before the President of the United States.

Shawn (45:36.611)
Yeah, then what was the answer there? Sorry, I like you doing the right thing, but I can do nothing for you.

Matt (45:40.47)
Your cause is just.

Matt (45:45.314)
But that was true because we hadn't fought the Civil War yet. It was true. The president couldn't do anything in the state of Missouri. So that really was true.

Shawn (45:53.832)
I didn't know that. He could have done something. He could have influenced that.

Matt (45:54.614)
Yeah, yeah, before, but no, nothing at all. No, he couldn't. It was before the 14th Amendment. So states, the extermination order was completely constitutional because the federal government, the Bill of Rights did not apply to individuals against states, only against the federal government. So states actually could exterminate people. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shawn (46:02.049)
Was the extermination order in place?

Shawn (46:18.763)
Okay, I'm educated there, I didn't know that. Okay, that's good history. I'll ask you about that later, because that's a good tangent. okay, my answer would be this. I don't think it's unmerciful to err on the side of skepticism. I'm not saying judgment. I'm not saying judge people. I'm not saying conclude that they're all corrupt and they're all lazy. I'm not saying do that. I've never said do that. Maybe I've slipped out.

Matt (46:31.7)
Mmm.

Matt (46:42.752)
No, you never have. Yeah.

Shawn (46:44.885)
Okay, thank you. It may be somewhat slipped out my mouth once, but I apologize for that. I don't think that. But skepticism is the right way, I think, to look at what you call public servants. I think a public servant doesn't exist. There's no such thing. This is a job for them. They get paid to do this. They're not altruistically serving the people. This is a job for them that gives them power. That's the truth. They're not servants. Like, Matt, you're a servant. You go and help people.

Matt (47:11.886)
Your skepticism comes from this belief that power corrupts. And so a person with power is susceptible to corruption. And so we should be weary of like leery maybe is the word, right? Leery that maybe they have corrupt intent or they might be using their power in malicious ways. we're not vigilant to stop them from doing that, then maybe they'll do that.

Shawn (47:40.759)
let's latter day lens it because there is this clean, pure principle that is articulated. We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men as soon as they get a little authority as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. So the principle there is the temptation is very, you know, it's there, right? So why not under that principle, look at those in power with some skepticism? I'm not saying judge them. I'm not saying jump to any conclusions.

Matt (47:54.946)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (48:00.844)
Yes?

Shawn (48:10.221)
Be in a healthy way skeptical and let them provide the fruits that earn some judgment. So don't know mercy is the right word. don't think, okay.

Matt (48:20.11)
I'll tell you why, Sean. Because each of us makes a choice to not think of the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that way. Because if I approach their general conference talks with skepticism, then it doesn't feel like I'm sustaining them. I've said I'm going to sustain them, and so say, because they have power, they have considerable power. And I choose to say,

they're choosing to, they're just doing their very best. They're trying their best to do what they think is right. And so it changes the way I look at the things they tell me because I choose to not approach them with that sort of skepticism. Even when they haven't earned it, right? Like brand new member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, I don't know anything about that person, but I choose to say they didn't want that calling. They're just doing it because they love God.

Shawn (49:00.981)
inch, very inch.

Shawn (49:06.659)
You

Shawn (49:10.531)
Okay, that is very, very interesting response. Let me just for the sake of debate, come back with a suggestion that that's a category error.

because there's a huge difference between someone saying hire me to lead politically, hire me to have the power and give me your trust to have the power to do this. And I'm campaign for it. I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna do this. And in the end, I'm gonna get hired, right? Okay, now you've got what we claim is a process, an ancient process that has happened since Adam and Eve.

Matt (49:41.847)
huh. Yeah.

Shawn (49:51.947)
where God through revelation and priesthood authority calls someone to actually serve. And then he says, don't just take their word for it. Don't even blindly believe that these people are your leaders or my servants. Instead, go find out for yourself through a process called revelation, faith, repentance, revelation, humbly come and seek the knowledge that these people are my servants, i.e. holy prophets.

Matt (49:57.837)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (50:21.185)
And then you can believe with, what does it say? Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Then you can believe with substance and evidence that these people are called of God. That's the basis where I don't have to be skeptical.

Matt (50:30.446)
But you do the same thing with Supreme Court justices. You could say the probability of somebody getting chosen as a Supreme Court justice is so small that there must be divine intervention in making that happen.

Shawn (50:36.471)
Pray about him.

Shawn (50:45.311)
What? Why would you conclude to that? Why would you, okay, good. Teach me that, teach me.

Matt (50:48.238)
Well, asked, I asked Judge Griffith, I was like, how did you get appointed? And he's like, well, the describing that is the same as when I somebody he's like told this story where he's like, how do you become a billionaire? He's like, well, you work hard, you try and do the right thing. And then you marry a billionaire who dies and then you become a billionaire. Right? It's like the, the process of becoming a Supreme court judge is the same kind of thing. Like you have to know the right person at the right time who knows the president.

Shawn (51:06.732)
Okay, but-

Shawn (51:12.099)
Okay, but show me the lottery lens or any scripture that says that winning the lottery is just because the odds are against you. The higher the odds against you, the more divine it is. Where does it teach that?

Matt (51:18.954)
Ha ha ha

Matt (51:24.972)
Yeah, yeah. Well, there are a lot of people that believe that God has a hand in guiding our nation, right? like in some, there's like, there's this power that comes from the support of the people. There's this power that the leaders of our church get because the people just trust them to do what's right. And they don't have to spend a lot of time reestablishing their authority or reestablishing like that you can trust them. And I think that the same kind of thing could happen to leaders of our country.

Shawn (51:32.152)
Okay.

Shawn (51:52.885)
Okay, I think that's a more compelling argument. Maybe.

Matt (51:54.828)
Yeah, I don't know. Okay, what about the other one? What can we learn from? Because I'm not sure I even believe myself the thing that I just said.

Shawn (52:03.843)
Which by the way, Matt, I've had multiple, multiple people tell me, hey, why does Matt flip-flop? And I've had to explain to them something that I love about you so much, which is he doesn't flip-flop. Matt is so good at seeing both sides of things. And I love that he dives in to articulate his argument to either convince himself or to, right, you convince yourself one way the other. So I love that you allow yourself to dive into preaching and people don't be bothered by that. I love it so much.

Matt (52:27.287)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Shawn (52:33.985)
Because when we argue it, always comes to... usually you come to the right conclusion.

Matt (52:38.594)
Yes. Yeah, I was jogging with my wife the other day and she was like, cause she, she tries to keep us engaged in conversation when we run. Cause she knows I hate running. So she'll try and talk about things I like to talk about. And the other day she's like, I think it's interesting that over the years, I ask you the same kinds of political questions and it's just sort of funny to see how you change and what you say shifts over time. I just changed my mind. That's all. There's nothing wrong with changing your mind.

Shawn (52:47.619)
You

Shawn (52:57.441)
You

Shawn (53:04.067)
I'd love that you change your mind because I know you care more than anyone I know to see both sides of it. Like you dive in and you really explore those both sides. And you kind of, like that. You kind of have to let yourself, like, you have to let yourself kind of, what's the right word, Matt? Be open, but sit in that line of thinking, right? Be there for a minute. Put your feet in those shoes.

Matt (53:23.938)
be open.

yeah.

Matt (53:33.121)
Yeah.

Shawn (53:33.527)
to really try and see if where I'm gonna judge this or not. And you're good at doing that.

Matt (53:37.23)
Thanks, Sean. Okay, now, because I don't know if listeners know this, but Sean has a Return Missionary podcast that's about to drop. So this is right up your alley. Missionary work, Sean. Should we be more bold? Are you ever afraid, Sean, are you ever afraid to share the gospel with a professional contact or colleague?

Shawn (53:48.545)
It is.

Shawn (53:58.291)
well, that's a different question. I'm not afraid. No, I'm not. But that your story of this judge, he had tact, right? He had context. He was so smart. He knew Sotomayor probably put her hand on the Mormon Bible, what she called it, and knew that that's a smart invitation to make. He probably already had rapport and built a relationship of trust with all these people he invited. That's a smart tact.

Matt (54:00.29)
okay.

Matt (54:09.303)
Yeah.

Matt (54:15.437)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (54:19.181)
Yeah.

Matt (54:24.279)
Yeah.

Shawn (54:26.772)
It's not very smart to just cold come up to my colleagues and be like, I wanted to invite you to read the Book of Mormon out of the blue.

Matt (54:32.767)
hahahaha

when there's an opportunity that presents itself or when you feel like this is a good time to share this to not be afraid, right?

Shawn (54:45.503)
Absolutely, more missionary work. Absolutely, yes, we should always, what did Peter, Peter said it, Peter said, what'd say? Always be ready, be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Always be ready. Yeah, I feel that in my heart of hearts. I'm excited, I wanna always be talking to people about why I'm so freaking annoyingly happy. Right, and I know you're happy and I know that you're.

Matt (54:51.521)
Yeah.

Matt (55:02.604)
Yeah.

Matt (55:09.868)
Yeah.

Shawn (55:14.357)
Same way, right? You're willing to share with anyone, aren't you? Or do you have reservations?

Matt (55:17.57)
Yeah, well, when I was fresh out of graduate school, there was the National Political Science Conference was being held in Philadelphia and it happened at. It happened at the exact same time as the Philadelphia Temple Open House. And so I wasn't going to go to the open house because I had a conference and I live in a land full of temples. But there was this professor from BYU that put out on this listserv to the religion and politics scholars. Hey everybody.

Shawn (55:25.411)
You're you're you're you are so cool.

Shawn (55:32.983)
Okay.

Matt (55:46.082)
Here's your chance to go into Mormon temple. If any of you guys want to go through the open house, let me know. And he like arranged this, it's a huge turnout. So many people wanted to go. And when I saw him do that, I would feel so ashamed because I would have never done that. I would have been afraid of like, I don't know, like I'm new in my career and what would they think of me and all of that sort of stuff. So I love when people are just like, here's a chance to come and see and they'll just invite everybody and not be afraid. Cause sometimes I do get a little afraid.

And he might, he was, he was older in the career. He probably had more friends, right? It was maybe less costly perhaps for him than it might've been for me. But my wife, same thing when she went to the conference in Philadelphia with one of her friends who wasn't a member of the church. She's like, do you want to go to the visitor center at the temple while we're there? Like, cause it's right there at downtown Philadelphia. And I just think it never occurs to me to be like, Hey, come see the temple. Don't you want to see this?

Shawn (56:31.736)
Hmm.

Shawn (56:38.819)
So that's interesting. So my wife is a part of a not professional, but it's a called choir here. It's a choral group called the San Diego Saints Choir. they were, these two women were inspired to go, they discovered that in any given area here in San Diego, there was a lack of trusted events that members felt like we could bring our members to, right? Like we've all been in the situation where it's like,

okay, we're having an award party. I don't know that I want my member, or okay, it's fast and testimony meeting. I'm not sure I actually want my member there. Okay, there's two missionaries in our ward now. I'm not sure I want those two specific, right, talking to my neighbor. And so we discovered that there's this lack of trusted spiritual events that we just know with confidence that you can go to it. The spirit will be there. It will be professional or it will be impressive. And so the Saints choir has kind of divided

Matt (57:09.653)
you

Matt (57:19.478)
You

Shawn (57:37.239)
positioned themselves as everything and they've developed this reputation. Every event they put on, everyone now just knows this is going to be the most spiritual profession, just amazing thing. And so people are coming and they're inviting their people. I love that Temple Open Houses, I love the church does that because it's a guaranteed opportunity that someone's going to like it or be interested. So I think if we had more of that, it'd be a lot easier for us to do missionary work.

Matt (57:53.581)
Yeah.

Matt (58:00.717)
Yeah.

Matt (58:05.11)
Yeah, Temple Open House should be an easy invite for people, But social church, church should be an easy invitation. Haven't you, haven't you always wanted to, haven't you always wanted to see the inside of one of those chapels? There's going to be a gymnasium. There's going to be an organ. There's going to be a lot of kind of messed up rooms, like chairs around.

Shawn (58:09.345)
Yeah, they should be, don't you think?

Shawn (58:13.889)
You don't agree with my analysis for what I just said?

Shawn (58:28.727)
Like have you ever seen walls made out of block? Have you ever seen purple or green carpet?

flower couch.

Matt (58:39.114)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know. I'm inspired, Sean. I want to do better. I mean, I live in Rexburg, so I don't know what opportunities I have to do better, but.

Shawn (58:44.791)
Shawn (58:49.141)
I know what you're doing that's better. You're writing an amazing book.

Matt (58:52.206)
that's right. That's true. This book is going to be awesome. we'll wait until it's done before I talk more about it. But yeah, that's true.

Shawn (58:58.445)
Well, then that means we've got two things to tease. So coming in the future, you've got this really fascinating book I can't wait to read. And then I've got this really big project. It's a mission prep project. I've taught a class over the last seven years. And finally we put together, I've got 18 episodes now ready to drop. It's coming.

Matt (59:15.554)
Yeah, I want you to drop it Sean because my son goes in the MTC in a month and I want him to consume this content rather than the crazy Instagram stuff he's watching right now.

Shawn (59:25.751)
Okay, I'll send you the stuff, but yes, we're teasing a drop of both of these things and then the future. It's good. We're working on good stuff.

Matt (59:28.12)
Yeah.

Matt (59:33.294)
Yeah, good job, Sean. Hey, listener, thanks so much for joining us. Reach out and let us know. Text us if you have any questions. If you would like an advanced copy of Sean's podcast, too bad. You're going to have to wait till it drops. We'll talk to you again next week.