Proclaim Peace Episode 34 // The Book of Mormon as a Handbook for Peace: Insights and Miracles

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube.

In the final episode of Season 1 of the Proclaim Peace Podcast, hosts Jennifer Thomas and Patrick Mason reflect on their journey through the Book of Mormon and the principles of the gospel that promote peacebuilding. Join them as they celebrate their journey and the pursuit of becoming better peacemakers.

Timestamps

[00:02:45] Podcast origins and purpose.

[00:04:40] Peacemaking through sacred texts.

[00:08:44] Commitment to peace building.

[00:13:03] Mormon peacebuilding potential.

[00:16:10] Peacemakers in times of chaos.

[00:22:22] Turning swords into plowshares.

[00:27:29] Peacemaking as a miracle.

[00:28:32] Peacemaking and miracles.

[00:33:15] Handbook for peace.

Transcript

(00:03-00:05) Jennifer Thomas: Welcome to the Proclaim Peace Podcast. I'm Jennifer Thomas.

(00:06-00:12) Patrick Mason: And I'm Patrick Mason. And this is the podcast where we apply principles of the gospel and read the Book of Mormon to become better peacemakers.

(00:12-00:25) Patrick Mason: Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Proclaim Peace Podcast, where we talk about how the restored gospel teaches us to be better peace builders. I'm here, as always, with my friend Jen Thomas. How are you doing, Jen?

(00:26-00:28) Jennifer Thomas: I'm doing OK, Patrick. I'm a little verklempt. I'm a little sad.

(00:29-00:31) Patrick Mason: Yeah, why are you sad today?

(00:31-00:42) Jennifer Thomas: I'm sad because this is our very last episode of season one of Proclaim Peace. So it feels like a mountain we've climbed, but I'm also really a little bit sad to see it end.

(00:42-00:51) Patrick Mason: Yes, this has been a very long season, like especially now, like a Netflix season is like six episodes or something like that.

(00:52-00:58) Patrick Mason: way longer than we intended, just so all of our listeners are clear. We thought we were starting this in February.

(00:58-01:29) Jennifer Thomas: We'd wrap it up before December started. And I think it is a testament to what was there that we just kept not wanting to sell it short. And I do feel like I speak for both Patrick and myself when I say that if there were 30 more episodes in this book, we could have easily found another 30 episodes of distinct scripture, remarkable guests that link together to tell us about how we could follow the way of peace.

(01:31-01:59) Patrick Mason: So yes, this is our last episode of this first season. And so we wanted to kind of wrap things up a little bit. It is, there won't be, this is not like a season finale on Netflix. There will not be any explosions. There will not be any cliffhangers. There will not be, but we do want to kind of tie things up and reflect on the journey that we've been on over these past almost three dozen episodes that we've done.

(02:00-02:20) Jennifer Thomas: I just want to say that Patrick is a little optimistic there because we were talking before we jumped on this podcast. We are both recording from our homes. And right now, both of us have the privilege and pleasure of having every single member of our families, which is rare, home. So there might be explosions. There might be fights in the background. But that's unintended. That was not part of a plan.

(02:20-02:23) Patrick Mason: or at least Wi-Fi bandwidth issues.

(02:23-02:23) Patrick Mason: Exactly.

(02:23-02:44) Patrick Mason: So, Jen, I think it might be helpful to remind us to go back to the beginning, why we started this in the first place and where this fit, especially within the ecosystem of all of the different projects and initiatives that you're doing with Mormon Women for Ethical Government.

(02:45-04:28) Jennifer Thomas: So I will say, I don't know, for those of you who are followers of MWAG, we have worked really hard to stay in our lane. And our lane is to promote ethical government and help Latter-day Saint women be agents of change, positive peacemaking change in that sphere. And as such, we really don't necessarily see ourselves as influencers of LDS culture per se, or certainly not commentators on doctrine or faith. And so this was a little bit of a departure for us to say, hey, we're going to have an overtly open conversation about how these two worlds overlap. how our covenant belief systems, our grounding in the restored gospel, is impacting our work at MWEG and how it drives us as peacemakers. And as Patrick and I were talking about the potential of doing this podcast, and I would love to hear Patrick's thought about this as well, it just struck us that the Book of Mormon was such a significant text in terms of the opportunity to create and develop peace builders that are based in the way laid out by Christ, but that it had been underutilized in that regard. And in fact, often the Book of Mormon is used to justify just the opposite. It's used to justify war. It's used to justify sometimes vengeance and violence. And Patrick and I both thought that that was a very, if not incorrect, certainly incomplete reading of the text. and that the scripture was kind of pushing us in a different direction. And we wanted to invite people who shared that perspective, Latter-day Saints who saw it as a peacemaking text, to share that perspective with other people.

(04:29-05:47) Patrick Mason: Yeah, for me, I mean, one of the things I've always admired about MLEG from the outside in, because I'm not the W part of MLEG, is the way that the organization and its members are so engaged and committed to peacemaking in the public sphere. but coming from their deepest commitments. Now, some of those commitments are gonna be civic, you know, as Americans and as citizens, but oftentimes, and maybe in the majority of cases, it's gonna be with that M part of it, the religious part of it, right? It comes from their deepest commitments. And so I've always loved, and I think it's, I hope, that the podcast has been a valuable service to those listeners, and of course, to non-MLike members as well, to anybody who's been listening, to think about what is it like to draw on my deepest commitments, the texts, the stories, the teachings that are deepest in my heart, and use those, channel those, almost like a nuclear reactor, take all of that power and then channel it to go out and do really good and impressive things.

(05:49-07:18) Jennifer Thomas: And I think organized, peaceful, simplistic times, not that any of us have really lived in those, but I think we all feel that maybe agitation and anger and confusion and chaos has sort of been ratcheting up over the last few years. I think in easy times, it's really fine, or it's, I guess, human nature, particularly, say, to approach scripture simplistically and just say, OK, I'm just going to take these stories at face value. And I think deeper times that require the kind of commitment you just talked about, Patrick, that require us to act on our deepest values and our commitments, require us to dig deeper into sacred texts and to figure out what scripture has to tell us about how to meet the moment in challenging times. I have to say, I don't know if you agree, but I felt like there was something there as we started to read the Book of Mormon this way, and I have been astounded, really astounded at the depth of what is there for us. And it has been for me, this process and this journey has been for me, both in terms of my professional work, but also in terms of my personal life, a real witness that this book was written for us in this time and has tangible, real lessons that can help us not make the same kind of mistakes that the people in the book made if we decide to follow it that way.

(07:19-08:02) Patrick Mason: Yeah. Can I follow up on that a little bit, Jen? I mean, we've talked several times, you've mentioned to me about the ways that this podcast and going through this, and then the parallel study of the Book of Mormon to prepare for each episode, that it has been a kind of sustaining power for you during some very, not just busy, but very difficult and challenging months as, you know, as you've led this organization in the midst of a very polarized political climate. So do you mind opening up and sharing a little bit about that?

(08:03-10:48) Jennifer Thomas: Yes, so the first thing I will say, my first lesson has been what it means to actually take a name upon you in a really meaningful way and I guess here's what I want to say. I feel like as a baptized member of the Church of Jesus Christ and a person who believes in that covenant that I took at baptism to take upon me Christ's name, I have tried really hard through my adult life to move through the world in a way that represents Him well, that indicates to other people that I'm a believer. I do that to varying degrees of success on any given day because I have a little bit of a spicy personality, but it is something that drives me, right? This desire to be a disciple and to have that be visible. One thing that this podcast has brought to the fore for me is what it really means to do this because I say all the time, I am contractually obligated. This is a conversation I have in my head. I am contractually obligated to be a peacemaker. Right? It's one thing that I've been leading an organization for several years, along with Emma Adams, that is committed to being peacemakers. But now I've got this platform. I'm a reluctant podcaster. I'm talking about peace every other week in front of my friends and my neighbors and people who I don't know. And I got to walk the walk. And so that's kind of, I think, the first thing that I have learned. I have had a very transformative experience committing within myself and being kind of forced to commit to have my deepest values line up with my external actions, if that makes sense. And that has had an impact on how I treat my family. It's had an impact on how I interact with random people driving past me on the streets of Massachusetts. It's had an impact on how I work with people who disagree with me deeply on sort of political issues. And it has It has allowed me to be in multiple conversations of voice that could robustly call for peace and had what I would… essentially call, using the parlance that we are so familiar with, a deep and abiding testimony of peace. So I think that's the first thing. It has transformed my ability to walk the walk, and it has called something out of me. I'm contractually obligated to be a peacemaker, which is really what a covenant is. It's a contractual obligation that I have made with God, voluntarily and independently that I will behave in a certain way. And this has really brought that into really strong focus for me.

(10:50-10:51) Patrick Mason: That's really interesting.

(10:51-11:03) Jennifer Thomas: What about you? I mean, has there, have there been, um, ways that it's changed? I mean, I can think of more, but I'd love to hear from you first. Like, have there been ways that has changed how you worked and thought and engaged with people?

(11:04-11:22) Patrick Mason: Yeah, I think for me, this has been a season for me where I've really leaned into peace building and peacemaking in lots of different ways. At work at Utah State University, we're building a peace building program.

(11:22-11:24) Jennifer Thomas: Yeah, you're building a whole thing, right?

(11:24-13:18) Patrick Mason: Yeah, we're trying to and are in the early stages of success. And we're just having incredible experiences with students. We're doing, I think, some really fantastic things in the community, and I think we're building. We're still very much in the early stages, but this has been, you know, like every guest, and in preparing for this, I went back and just looked at the roster of episodes that we had and the roster of guests, and I just feel so fortunate to be like, I've had a front row view to see like the Avengers assemble, like all these incredible people. And I think, so I've been sort of thinking and reading and talking and writing about peace for a long time. It's been about three decades for me. And especially in the early years, it was oftentimes very lonely. And I was actually just writing about this for another essay. And I don't know why, but at BYU, I had some experiences and a particular class that really formed me in this way. And then I went to graduate school and stumbled into this Peace Studies graduate program. And while I was in that graduate program, I was like, well, why am I here? Why do I care about peace? And I realized it was because of my deepest commitments. It was about the things that I care about the most, my religion. And so I did, and where did I go? I went to the Book of Mormon. And that resulted in the very first article I ever published on peace back in 2002. And it was a big part of that was about the Book of Mormon and like the possibilities. That article was called The Possibilities of Mormon Peacebuilding. And it's like that there's so much potential. There's so much.

(13:18-13:19) Patrick Mason: So much, Patrick. Yeah.

(13:19-14:32) Patrick Mason: Yes. Right? And at the time, I felt like I was only like skimming the surface. And I knew that there were like layers and layers and layers beyond what I was seeing. It was almost like being, I can imagine like being uh, an oil man, like in the early years in Texas, and there's just like oil bubbling up on the ground. Right. And then it's like, maybe if we put a drill here, something will happen. And, and, and I feel like that's in a lot of ways, what this podcast has been is it's been like, I've seen this bubbling along the surface and I've been done, done a little bit of excavation along the ways, but like, this is bringing a team of people and like putting the drill down and guess what, no matter how far we put the drill down, it keeps producing more and more and more. So it's been not validating in the sense that I needed validation, because I felt guided by the Holy Spirit along the way and so forth, but it's so enriching to see an emerging community of Latter-day Saint peace builders. I think President Nelson has called us to this, but to see the Avengers assemble, but for peaceful reasons and for peaceful means, not to smash things.

(14:33-17:14) Jennifer Thomas: And that was the second thing that I want to add that has been transformative for me over the last year and a half, particularly in the political field, which is one in which we work, and in the field of protecting democracy and building civil society. I there is great contention right now right chaos anger frustration and particularly immediately following the election um there were I think lots of tensions I'm sure all of you felt them where you felt people who had already been a little bit apart from each other like pulling even further apart, saying, OK, I cannot be in community with someone who thinks so differently than I do, or this person is X, that person is Y, simply because of their vote. And I just want to say, from an MWAG perspective, that the thing that has saved us as an organization, and also the thing that has put us in the greatest position of relevance, has been peacemaking. It has 100% been the fact that we as an organization and the thousands and thousands of women who participate in this organization are committed to doing this a different way. And I think intuition would tell you that in a moment of chaos and violence and anger, those voices are not getting heard. They are the last thing we need. We need to meet an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, like we need to go fist to cuffs and step up and fight with one another. And what I am telling you is that the exact opposite has proven to be true. That in this moment of chaos, it is the peacemakers whose voices are the still small voices of peacemakers, forcefully shared, that are making the biggest difference and having huge relevance in quiet spaces where change is happening. You might not see it, but it is there. And I don't actually know how, without this podcast, we as an organization and our members would have been quite as prepared to rise to that occasion simply because, like you said, Patrick, we have received tutelage week after week after week from people across spheres of influence who were witnessing to the power of peacemaking, the way that it had transformed their lives, the way it informed what they did, And it just has made me, like you said, feel less alone. It's sort of like, no, there are a team of people willing and able to do this and a team of people who can witness to its efficacy. And that is something I draw on deeply in moments of doubt and darkness. I really do.

(17:15-18:50) Patrick Mason: Well, let's talk about, I mean, the core of this project has been, you know, the Book of Mormon. It has really been, excuse me, you know, the Book of Mormon has really been the star of the show. And we've tried very much to center who is the really hero of the Book of Mormon, Jesus, throughout the podcast. But we thought that as we ended this season, that it would only be appropriate for us to reflect on some of our own thoughts from the Book of Mormon. And should I go first? Yeah, if you want to, please. Yeah, sure. I mean, there's so many we have, but what I sort of immediately thought about. I've heard in recent months, maybe an uptick, or I mean, there's always kind of a steady stream within the Latter-day Saint community of thinking about the second coming in the millennium. It is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's like built into the name, right, that we're anticipating the return of Jesus. And And I do hear sometimes that this sense of the world is terrible, the signs of the times, there's so much violence, there's so much division, the love of people is growing cold. Oh, these are all just signs that Jesus is coming, it's about to happen. And so it's just like, I'm gonna hunker down and just wait for Jesus to come and fix all my problems.

(18:50-18:51) Jennifer Thomas: And withdraw, right?

(18:52-20:59) Patrick Mason: Yeah, right. Right. And I'll tend to my family and I'll serve in my church calling and so forth. But the world is too big and scary and it was all prophesied anyway. And so we're just going to wait for Jesus to come and fix all of our problems. And I get that. I understand that. But I'm not sure that's what the Book of Mormon invites us to do. And I went back to 2 Nephi, which was like 30 episodes ago. But I was thinking about Nephi himself. When he's writing Second Nephi, Second Nephi has almost no narrative in it because it ends basically with this enormous conflict within his family that divides the family. They can't fix their problems. They don't know how to fix it. The family literally breaks apart. And I think that breaks his heart, even though he has a role in it. He still deeply regrets it. And my theory on this is that he just can't tell any more stories. He's so heartbroken that he doesn't even know how to go from there or what story is there to tell, because that's not the story he wanted to tell from the beginning. And so he moves from history to prophecy. And when he doesn't know what to do, when he feels overwhelmed by his circumstances, he goes to prophecy, and for him, he goes to Isaiah. And to me, it's so interesting that when he really begins his long excerpt of Isaiah, which we have in 2 Nephi 12, that's Isaiah 2. He could have picked anywhere. He could have started with Isaiah 1. Obviously, he could have picked anywhere. But he starts with chapter 2, which is a prophecy of peace. And I think Nephi, when he doesn't know what to do in the world, when the world is falling down all around him, he goes to prophecy and especially a prophecy of Christ coming.

(21:00-21:00) Jennifer Thomas: I love that.

(21:02-21:42) Patrick Mason: It's not just that. It's like the Christ will come, the millennium will come, the mountain of the Lord, and so forth. But then in verse four, he'll judge among the nations, shall rebuke many people, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Now there's a way that you can say, Oh, we got to wait for Jesus to come to do all of this. But I actually think there's a more active part of this. It's like when everything has fallen down, when there's so much conflict around this, when your family is falling apart, like Nephi, what do you do? you beat your swords into plowshares.

(21:42-21:49) Jennifer Thomas: And that's particularly interesting from the guy who brought swords to these people. Exactly. Yeah, that's amazing, Patrick.

(21:49-22:39) Patrick Mason: That's the answer, right? And he doesn't quite know how to do it himself, right? But he knows where to go to for the model and for the template. Right. And, and so that's, that's where I came. I mean, I think oftentimes what I hear from so many people is like, I don't even know where to start. I don't even know, like it all seems so overwhelming. Right. And at least the lesson that I take from Nephi via Isaiah is just start by beating that sword into a plow chair. Whatever sword you have in your hand, Just start turning it into a weapon of peace instead, into an instrument of cultivation, into an ultimate instrument of planting seeds for future generations. Just start with the sword in your hand.

(22:41-28:50) Jennifer Thomas: And I would maybe add to that that you are the sword or you are the plowshare, right? The way you start that is by changing you, right? Like your inclinations, your heart, you become instead of a war fighter, which is a word in common parlance now, you become a peace builder, right? And you give up your life and your soul to be a mechanism of peace, right? Well okay so you're at the beginning and I'm at the end so we are a fantastic pairing for this episode and I think I have a similar message but it's a little bit different. So I want to pull from Moroni chapter 7. And this is the discourse that Moroni shares with a small remnant of people, where Mormon is talking to, his father is talking to a small remnant of people who are still striving to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he feels so strongly that this is such a powerful message that his father delivered to a covenant group of people who are trying so hard in the throes of the decline of their civilization that he feels like it needs to be carried forward to the Lamanites and to the people who will come after. And we talked about that a little bit in our last episode and our most recent episode, and I have been ruminating on this ever since. I've always found this to be a deeply powerful, I think all of us have, it's just an incredible chapter of the Book of Mormon. But seeing it through this new lens, as not that it was just something that needed to be shared with me today, Dr. and I, because it's so deep and rich in an understanding of the doctrine of Christ, but because it was a message to people who were voluntarily in the midst of darkness, doing exactly what you just talked about. They were saying in the midst of time of great war, genocide even, they were determined that they themselves would not be swords, they themselves would be plowshares. And in that context, I have read a few verses very differently. And so I just wanted to share those with you. It's verses 35 through 37, which which I have in my life always read in terms of tangible physical miracles. Like whether it's healing, the kind of miracles that Christ did on the earth when he was moving amongst people who were hurting. And it doesn't mean that it's not that, but I've been reading it in a different way in the last few months. And I'll just read those verses really quickly. It says, And now, my beloved brethren, if this be the case, he's talking about Christ, that these things are true, which I have spoken unto you and God will show unto you with power and great glory at the last day that they are true. And if they are true, has the day of miracles ceased? So he's saying, you know, if these things are true, even in the last day, when things are calamitous and difficult and awful, these things still are true. Has the day of miracles ceased? Or have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men? Or has He withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them? Or will He, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the earth thereof to be saved? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. For it is by faith that miracles are wrought, and it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men. Wherefore, if these things have ceased to be unto the children of men, for it is because of unbelief and all is vain." So he's like, if these things have ceased, but he says they haven't ceased, even at the end, he's like, they haven't ceased. And then he just goes on a few verses later to talk about charity. And I'm just going to read this really quickly. And charity suffereth long and is kind and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail. And in the context of this podcast, I was like, OK, I've been looking for a long time for the definition of peacemaking. And that right there is it. That is the definition of peacemaking. It is charity. It stems from a pure love of Christ, a pure love of your neighbor, and this is actively what it looks like. It's not seeking its own. It's not rejoicing in iniquity. And so I guess if I can tie those two things together, they seem disparate, but I guess to me what I have been reading this scripture in profound new ways as a deep and abiding promise to the peacemakers and that the peacemakers of the earth will see miracles. that those might not be miracles of tangible physical healing like I've often thought about those in the past, but they will be miracles of spiritual healing, miracles of the ability to advance the Lord's work in new ways, to build the kingdom, to build Zion. And I guess that is my closing witness at the end of this podcast is the thing that I have learned profoundly over the last 18 or so months is that peacemaking is a miracle. It is actively happening in the spite of what we visibly see. It is winning in places. Its light is being brought forth. But it depends on that last little thing. It depends on people willing to be peacemakers. If it ends, it isn't because God had ended or God has been unwilling to advance peacemaking and charity. It is because there have stopped being people on the earth willing to be those peacemakers and bring that charity towards their fellow man. As long as we exist, as long as there are a handful of us, as long as there are those who are committed to this pathway, miracles will continue to happen. I feel like I'm seeing them daily. Some of them I can talk about, some of them I can't. But I just would witness that miracles are happening as a result of peacemaking. They are. I know they'll continue as long as there are those of us willing to be those peacemakers.

(28:51-29:33) Patrick Mason: That's incredible. I love that. I can't think of a better way to end the season than with those incredible words from Mormon and from your testimony. And I think that's what we've heard from our guests and from the writings of the prophets all along, is that peacemaking is grounded in those virtues of faith, hope, and love. right? We believe in something we can't see. We orient ourselves to a North Star that we don't know, you know, to a far land that we don't know when we'll reach it. And we always do it with love for the people all around us, for all of the people around us, not just some of the people.

(29:34-29:46) Jennifer Thomas: I think in pursuit of being disciples of Christ, right? Disciples of the actual Prince of Peace. And as long as we align ourselves with him as he is our North Star, those miracles will continue to happen.

(29:47-30:00) Patrick Mason: This is the end of season one, but this is not the end of the Proclaimed Peace podcast. We have plans for season two. We're excited about what that will look like. It will not be 35 episodes. We've learned our lesson.

(30:00-30:02) Jennifer Thomas: We'll be different, right? Yeah.

(30:02-31:06) Patrick Mason: It'll be different. I'm really excited about what we can do. But we will say to our listeners, we've provided this as a resource. MWEG has dedicated resources to make this happen. Podcasts don't happen for free. So we're looking for resources and for support for people who believe in this, who want to be able to support us and be able to create season two and not take away resources from MWEG that they're using for other essential projects. And so we'd invite anybody who has benefited from this and wants to support it at any level. You can just go to our website, proclaimpeace.org. It'll route you to the MWAC website, and you'll see there a place where you can donate to the podcast. We don't operate on a subscription model. We want this to be available to anybody who can listen. So if you're not in a position to contribute, that's totally fine too. But if you are, and if this content is valuable, this is the time when we ask you to give back a little bit so that we can continue to make this content and make a second season of this podcast.

(31:07-32:14) Jennifer Thomas: I think this is a great opportunity for all of us to see if we can make Zion happen, right? I think Patrick and I both believe that both peace and Zion are only, they're not built by huge people, one person swooping in and solving the problem. with the exception of Christ. They are built by thousands of people doing what they can to add to it. And we hope that you'll consider adding your voice and your little might to the fundraising for this podcast. We do think that if everyone who listens, we know our listener numbers are are such that if you'd just be willing to give us $5, $10, $20, we could reach this very shortly. And it could be an example of what it looks like to have thousands of people come together to accomplish something big and add their little piece to it. So we hope you'll consider doing that. And if this has been a valuable tool for you to kind of keep it going so that we can extend that tool into the next season and reach even more people. It will also allow us to kind of help this podcast, which we hope will be evergreen to some degree, reach more people as well, just even the first season.

(32:14-32:21) Patrick Mason: Well, it's been an amazing season, Jen. Thank you so much for inviting me to be your co-pilot on this.

(32:22-32:28) Patrick Mason: We jumped off a cliff, Patrick. We really did. We just ran and jumped blindly off a cliff, and it worked out. There was a parachute.

(32:29-33:36) Patrick Mason: And we have to give major thanks to the person behind the scenes who makes all of this work. Her name is Christine Baird. She's our incredible producer who makes us sound way better than we are. And we're grateful for all of her expertise. And so it's a big effort and thanks to all of our guests and to all of our listeners who've given us incredible feedback and kept us going and reassurance and everything else. So we, I will say, I think, just my closing thought on this, Jen, is that I come away from this with a deeper commitment to peace, a deeper belief that The Book of Mormon, this book that I love so much, that has shaped me in so many ways, that it's a great handbook for peace. And it has oriented me, as always, towards the Prince of Peace, who I'm trying to follow. And I'm excited to see what miracles exist in the future.

(33:37-34:01) Jennifer Thomas: And I will just add my small witness to that, that this opportunity has really given me a renewed and increased testimony of the Prince of Peace, and that his promises are sure, and the things that he's asked us to do, while they might seem hard and counterintuitive, bear deep, rich, and lasting fruit, both for us and for the people in our spheres of influence. So I'm just grateful for him and the messages that he shared that have resonated through the centuries.

(34:02-34:07) Patrick Mason: Well, thank you. Thanks to all of our listeners and we'll, uh, we'll see you in season two.

(34:07-34:08) Jennifer Thomas: Fingers crossed.

(34:13-34:32) Patrick Mason: Thanks everybody for listening today. We really appreciate it. We just want to invite you to subscribe to the podcast and also to rate and review it. We love hearing feedback from listeners, so please email us at podcast at mweg.org. We also want to invite you to think about ways that you can make peace in your life this week. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.

(34:37-34:53) Jennifer Thomas: Thank you for listening to Proclaim Peace, a proud member of the Faith Matters Podcast Network. Faith Matters holds expansive conversations about the restored gospel to accompany individuals on their journey of faith. You can learn more about Faith Matters and check out our other shows at faithmatters.org.