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Hey everyone,

This week Abigail and aaaAAAaaa had to make a last minute trip to Denver. So, they took the recording equipment and convinced their niece and her friend to be Mile High On The Mountain Top.

Enjoy this rousing conversation about so many different things, and some of them were related to Mormons.

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Moroni brings us Alvin’s Afterlife Amaretto Amalgamation, a cocktail built on two shots of Amaretto, Porter's Peach whiskey, lemon juice, orange bitters, simple syrup, and topped with soda water. It’s sweet, a little cough-syrupy if you don’t stir it right, and surprisingly tasty once balanced out. The name comes from D&C 137, where Joseph Smith has a vision of his brother Alvin in the celestial kingdom.

Scriptures: [00:24:31]
Abish covers D&C 136 and 137. Section 136 comes from Brigham Young in 1847 at Winter Quarters, when the Saints were freezing, starving, and watching their neighbors drop dead in droves. God (conveniently through Brigham) commands the Saints to organize into neat little companies with captains, share provisions, repent fast, and stop swearing about their oxen dying. Zion, the revelation insists, isn’t just a destination but the “friends we made along the way”—with a side of martyrdom PR for Joseph and Hyrum. Section 137 rewinds to an 1836 vision Joseph had in the Kirtland Temple, where he saw Alvin chilling in the celestial kingdom despite never being baptized. This cracked open the doctrine of proxy ordinances and baptisms for the dead. Abish points out how much of this section was retroactively cobbled together from Joseph’s diary and later scribes, making it less a prophecy and more a posthumous PR edit.

Church Teachings: [00:44:17]
aaaAAAaaa decides to “take it easy” on the team by running a text-based RPG called Choose Your Salvation: A Zion Text Adventure. Spoiler: no one actually had fun. Set at Winter Quarters, the game required everyone to make “righteous” choices—obeying captains, singing “Come, Come Ye Saints,” testifying to doubters, reaffirming the Twelve, redistributing flour, and bearing witness that Zion will be redeemed. Wrong answers resulted in losing toes, getting crushed under Relief Society bonnets, or dying of poor planning. Eventually, the party “dies,” only to be resurrected into a Spirit World expansion pack, where Alvin waves from a celestial loveseat and a glowing receptionist angel chirps through onboarding. The whole thing is chaotic, hilarious, and a pitch-perfect parody of Mormon gamified obedience.

History: [01:05:05]
Abigail introduces us to one of the strangest fundamentalist spin-offs yet: The Righteous Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Founded by Gerald Peterson Sr. after the assassination of Rulon Allred in 1977, Peterson claimed Allred’s ghost (fresh off the murder scene) laid hands on his head, healed his back pain, and ordained him “the one mighty and strong.” Soon after, he doubled down with appearances from Adam-God, Joseph Smith, Jesus, and basically the whole celestial Avengers lineup. With divine backing secured, he launched his own sect in literal nowhere—Modena, Utah (population ~15). Abigail details their tiny temples (trailers with baptismal fonts), leadership mirroring Salt Lake’s structure, and bizarre relocation to a Nevada outpost near the world-famous Clown Motel. She spices it up with tangents on ghost chiropractors, spiritual Coachella, Mormon Hydra schisms, and the surreal spectacle of this ghost town church trying to play dress-up as Zion.

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Abish introduces the cocktail The Fallen Prophet, a doomed experiment built around the cursed A&W Ice Cream Sundae Root Beer. On its own, the soda tastes like carbonated HoHos, so she tried to redeem it by mixing in regular root beer, then dropping in two shots—Bailey’s and a coffee liqueur. The result? A curdled monstrosity she dubbed root beer cheese. It’s appropriately revolting for an episode marking Joseph Smith’s death, and a fitting tribute to a man whose own concoctions often turned rancid.

Scriptures: [00:30:59]

aaaAAAaaa braves the word salad of D&C 134 and 135. Section 134, a declaration on government, is the church’s attempt to look respectable in 1835 by affirming loyalty to laws—while quietly ignoring all the times the Saints ignored laws, flouted government, or ran from the cops. It’s a mix of lofty ideals about liberty and conscience, undercut by real-life hypocrisy (like Utah’s modern theocracy-lite politics). Then section 135 recounts Joseph Smith’s martyrdom at Carthage. The official version paints him as second only to Jesus, conveniently omitting the polygamy, fraud, and violence that got him there. aaaAAAaaa delivers it all with exasperated snark, pointing out how quickly the text slides into hagiography.

Church Teachings: [00:51:15]

Moroni takes D&C 134 and runs it against the church’s actual record, exposing contradiction after contradiction. Supposedly governments are ordained of God to protect life and liberty, but Utah legislators with temple recommends keep meddling in laws—weakening protections for sex crimes, pushing anti-marriage equality measures, rewriting medical marijuana bills, and literally enforcing “Zion curtains” in restaurants. The section’s ideal that religion should never infringe on others’ rights is shown to be laughable, given the church’s ongoing interference in civil law and politics. It’s less “follow the laws of man” and more “follow the laws, unless they’re inconvenient for us.”

History: [01:31:32]

Abigail takes us into the mountain—literally—with the story of the Granite Mountain Records Vault. Built in the 1960s, the vault is the church’s apocalyptic filing cabinet, blasting a hole into solid granite in Little Cottonwood Canyon to preserve genealogical microfilms. Excavated with fertilizer bombs and diesel, the vault was constructed to withstand earthquakes, nuclear blasts, and possibly Jesus himself demanding everyone’s family tree at the Second Coming. Abigail mixes in geology nerdery, Utah construction gossip, and tangents about bell-ringing to befriend doves, quack-dish slang, and raccoon food experiments . It’s half Cold War paranoia, half Mormon control-freak energy, and all delightfully weird.

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aaaAAAaaa mixes up the Spiritual Babylon—a chaotic purple concoction of red wine, blue Gatorade, sparkling water, and lime juice. It’s as irreverent as its name, embodying the apocalyptic party vibe of Joseph’s “flee Babylon” rants. The crew spirals into tangents about cursed sodas, root beer theology, and which modern beverage most deserves divine wrath.

Scriptures: [00:20:12]
Moroni takes on D&C 133, the appendix that overstayed its welcome. This revelation is essentially Joseph Smith running a second lap around the apocalypse track: Saints must leave Babylon, continents are prophesied to squish back into Pangea, and Christ arrives drenched in grape blood, stomping the nations like a cosmic vintner. The lost tribes get teased again (hidden in the north? hollow earth? still waiting). Moroni notes how this reads less like scripture and more like a Michael Bay script—complete with fire, earthquakes, and zombie ancestors showing up for one last sealing session.

Church Teachings: [00:39:36]
Abish dives into how the church spins D&C 133 into missionary zeal, pulling on its “preach to all the world” threads. From the mission call “inspiration” lottery, to the infamous white handbook (aka the white Bible), to the lived realities of missionary danger—injuries, accidents, violence, and the bizarre “manacled Mormon” scandal—the segment unpacks the culty control mechanisms in missions. She also covers modern shifts like online-only missions, turning proselytizing into a call-center hustle. It’s equal parts tragic, absurd, and all-too-real.

History: [01:18:06]
Abigail dives deep into the Lafferty family, the Provo clan made infamous in Under the Banner of Heaven. Outwardly picture-perfect—strict patriarch, many kids, Eagle Scouts, mission service—but inside: abuse, control, and eventual radicalization. Ron and Dan Lafferty declared themselves prophets, set up a School of the Prophets, and produced a so-called “removal revelation” that ordered the deaths of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter. Abigail walks through how toxic patriarchy, fundamentalism, and fragile masculinity fused into a murderous ideology. It’s a harrowing look at how Mormon theology, when pushed to extremes, bleeds into violence.

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Moroni starts things off with "Sealed for Eternibubbly", a light and deceptively charming cocktail made with vodka, elderflower liqueur, fresh lemon juice, simple syrup, and sparkling rosé. It’s crisp, celebratory, and just fancy enough to distract from the fact that D&C 132 is basically the celestial prenup you didn’t sign. The segment serves as a bubbly prelude to one of the most infamous revelations in LDS history.

Scriptures: [00:24:25]
Claudia takes us through D&C 132, the church’s original and still-most-awkward revelation on plural marriage. Presented as a divine manifesto, the section is part theology, part legal contract, and part Joseph Smith desperately seeking God’s stamp of approval for his extramarital hobbies. Eternal marriage is framed as the key to godhood, but there’s a catch—women are property, adultery is redefined to benefit men, and “destroyed” is God’s favorite threat. Claudia navigates the tangled verses, pointing out the conditional promises, blatant double standards, and the overall vibe of a man trying way too hard to make “God told me to” sound respectable.

Church Teachings: [00:59:12]
aaaAAAaaa breaks down how the church currently frames D&C 132 and plural marriage, from “it was a commandment then but not now” to “we still believe in it eternally, just not in this life… unless you’re a widower.” He threads in the ways official statements dance around the section’s original intent, how leaders talk about “restoration” while quietly scrubbing the messier parts from manuals, and how modern apologetics work to make Joseph’s behavior sound palatable. For some reason, he slides into an accidental British accent, which somehow makes the whole discussion feel even more absurd—Downton Abbey, but with more sealing rooms.

History: [01:26:37]
Abigail zooms out to explore the broader history of polygyny, tracing it from its biblical roots through the LDS introduction and eventual institutional abandonment (at least publicly). She covers how polygyny has functioned as a tool of control in various cultures, the theological gymnastics used to justify it, and its ongoing presence in Mormon fundamentalist movements. The segment makes clear that while the church officially left plural marriage behind in 1890, its doctrinal ghost still haunts Latter-day Saint theology and culture.

Follow us on Insta @gr8_and_spacious, Twitter @gr8andspacious, and Reddit u/gr8_and_spacious for behind-the-scenes shenanigans, hilarious memes, and maybe even a sneak peek at our next episode..
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Abish opens the episode with a triple threat of chaos: three different shots, each one progressively more unhinged than the last. The Devil Went Down to Susquehanna is a fiery nod to Joseph’s early river baptism days. Keys to the Kingdom hits like a priesthood ordination gone wrong. And The Voice from the Heavens? Let’s just say it leaves you speaking in tongues—or maybe slurring them. Fueled by this liquid sacrament, the hosts dive into an awards-show-style game complete with categories like Most Unhinged Utah Baby Name, Best Girls Camp MLM Pitch, and Best Mormon Loophole Sex Position. It’s a red carpet event for Mormon absurdity.

Scriptures: [00:37:38]
aaaAAAaaa takes us through D&C 128–131 and reads three of them straight because these sections are self-parody at this point. Section 128 is Joseph Smith’s attic-era magnum opus: an over-the-top epistle introducing baptisms for the dead, with a side of heavenly red tape and the Book of Mormon’s first Latin flex. It’s part travelogue, part musical number, part legal notice to all of heaven. We get rivers, mountains, angels, choirs of the dead, and enough dramatic imagery to fill a Broadway stage. Sections 129–131 keep the weird going, from secret handshakes to tell angels from demons, to the idea that resurrected beings have bodies but spirits don’t (don’t overthink it), to celestial marriage being the ultimate graduation ceremony. The takeaway? Joe’s in hiding but his imagination is running wild.

Church Teachings: [01:07:22]
The church teachings segment leans into the theological aftermath of these sections—how the LDS Church today frames baptisms for the dead, temple ordinances, and that obsession with keys (spiritual and otherwise). We also get into the church’s obsession with authority and ritual correctness, and how every “key” seems to come with a new set of rules, requirements, and reasons for why you’re probably doing it wrong. It’s a masterclass in how an attic epistle became a multi-billion-dollar temple construction program.

History: [01:23:20]
Abigail continues her Fundie Files series with part two of the Jeffs saga. This chapter finishes the rise of Rulon Jeffs, patriarch of the FLDS dynasty. Rulon’s leadership style combined authoritarian control with prolific polygamy, solidifying a hierarchy that placed him as both prophet and family overlord. Abigail unpacks how this groundwork allowed his successor, Warren Jeffs, to centralize even more power, turning the church into a near-totalitarian cult. The road to Warren’s reign is paved with manipulation, religious absolutism, and, frankly, some of the creepiest family dynamics in Mormon fundamentalism.

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aaaAAAaaa serves up the Epistle Fizz, a bubbly concoction for the prophet on the run. Inspired by Joseph Smith’s hiding-in-the-attic-era letter-writing spree, this champagne-based drink has the spiritual energy of a brunch prophet dictating ordinances in exile. The segment spirals gloriously, covering everything from champagne economics to Chuck Mangione’s devastating backstory, with a side of ✨ trauma fizz ✨. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll maybe start a new dispensation in a crawlspace.

Scriptures: [00:33:55]

Moroni makes his glorious return—now remote, but still Moroni as hell. He walks us through D&C 125–127, where Joseph Smith is ducking the law and trying to micromanage Zion from a secret attic. The Saints are told to settle Zarahemla, Iowa (yes, that’s real), while Brigham Young finally gets permission to go home and maybe do laundry. We also get the first formal mention of baptism for the dead, which Joseph introduces like, “Oh hey, this is a totally normal thing now.” All of it comes in the form of letters dictated like scripture from the world’s most paranoid Airbnb tenant. There’s bureaucracy, veiled threats, and a healthy dose of delusional optimism. Just another Tuesday in Restoration land.

Church Teachings: [00:49:54]

Abish explores the church’s weird, codependent relationship with suffering. Why do Mormons treat hardship like a virtue? Why is enduring pain seen as proof of righteousness? In this segment, she breaks down how Church rhetoric has long framed suffering as spiritually productive—even desirable. Drawing on talks, manuals, and vibes, she critiques this theology of martyrdom and offers an alternative that doesn’t involve being gaslit by the Plan of Salvation. Saints deserve joy, not just refined anguish.

History: [01:31:40]

Abigail opens the Jeffs chapter of her fundamentalism series, and buckle up—it’s only getting darker from here. We begin with Rulon Jeffs, a fundie leader who systematized polygamy and spiritual authoritarianism, marrying dozens of women—including his own stepmothers—and grooming the path for his even creepier son, Warren. This segment unpacks the rise of the FLDS’s power structure and how Rulon’s death opened the door to Warren’s cultish reign of terror. It’s a sobering deep dive into the prophetic succession that turned fringe theology into institutionalized abuse.

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aaaAAAaaa opens the episode with a drink that pairs just as well with exhaustion as it does with divine real estate plans. The "Weary Traveler" is built from Five Wives Tamarind vodka, 1 oz pineapple juice, 0.5 oz of lemon juice, 0.5 oz of simple syrup, and 0.5 oz of Chambord, but the real secret ingredient is that you can just pour and pray those ingredients together and it still tastes amazing. As the name suggests, it’s a tribute to the Saints being given an assignment by the Almighty to build a boutique hotel for said weary traveler. Also discussed: the origin of branding in Mormonism, pioneer fatigue, and whether celestial inns come with continental breakfast.

Scriptures: [00:24:58]
Abish takes the wheel for D&C 124, set in the early Nauvoo period. God’s newest revelation reads like a holy Google Doc—detailed instructions for building a temple, a boarding house, and a divine leadership org chart. The Nauvoo House, essentially God’s Airbnb for VIP guests, is to be funded by Saints who just barely survived Missouri. And the temple? It’s the big one—where God promises to reveal the “fullness of the priesthood,” which definitely doesn’t sound like a secret society if you say it real fast. Joseph gets busy handing out divine callings, committee assignments, and redemption arcs to all his friends (and future traitors), including Brigham, Hyrum, and the ever-slutty John C. Bennett. It's both a revelation and a resume-building workshop.

Church Teachings: [00:57:47]
aaaAAAaaa returns to explore the Mormon Church’s long, messy love affair with business ventures. He tracks the evolution from the Nauvoo House’s cash-for-boarding model to ZCMI, sugar companies, luxury malls, cattle ranches, and ultimately, Ensign Peak Advisors. Basically: the Church started with tithing and ended with portfolio diversification. Along the way, he responds to modern rationalizations that God just wants His kingdom “temporally independent,” while pointing out how far that has spiraled into billion-dollar investments and "consecrated capitalism."

History: [01:17:27]
Abigail continues the tangled saga of Mormon fundamentalism with the terrifying tale of the LeBarons. Picking up where Musser and the Allreds left off, she introduces us to Ervil LeBaron, the polygamist prophet turned cult leader who orchestrated a spree of murders in the name of priesthood succession. From issuing hit lists to organizing the assassination of Rulon Allred, Ervil’s theology was 10% scripture and 90% mafia. Abigail traces the roots, the splintering sects, and the horrifying legacy that turned rural Utah and northern Mexico into the backdrop for real-deal religious violence. If it sounds like a Netflix documentary—it already is.

Follow us on Insta @gr8_and_spacious, Twitter @gr8andspacious, and Reddit u/gr8_and_spacious for behind-the-scenes shenanigans, hilarious memes, and maybe even a sneak peek at our next episode..
If you've got a burning question, a hilarious anecdote, or just want to say hi, shoot us an epistle at greatandspaciouspod@gmail.com.
And don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a review of our podcast!