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An “apostolic interregnum,” two plays, and an eatery

An “apostolic interregnum,” two plays, and an eatery

Last updated on: October 4, 2025 at 5:03 pm by Dan Peterson

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An “apostolic interregnum,” two plays, and an eatery 2025-10-04T17:03:19-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square in the Conference Center
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

The president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is dead. The First Presidency of the Church has been dissolved. As the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, led by President Dallin H. Oaks, has assumed leadership of both the Church and this weekend’s general conference, we are seeing a kind of reenactment of the story told in the Interpreter Foundation’s theatrical film Six Days in August, the story upon which our forthcoming documentary series Becoming Brigham will expand.

Here is an instructive and directly relevant article on the subject of “Seniority and Succession of Latter-day Saint Apostles and Prophets” I also recommend an article written by Tad Walch for the Deseret News: “We are in the midst of an apostolic interregnum. What is that? After a prophet’s death, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles leads The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” And I share a related story that has impressed me since I first heard it:

When President Lee passed he was attended by President Marion G. Romney, his second counselor, and President Spencer W. Kimball, the President of the Council of the Twelve. President N. Eldon Tanner was in Arizona at the time. Brother Romney, as the representative of and counselor to President Lee, was in complete and total charge at the hospital. He gave President Lee a blessing. He felt the spirit of peace and satisfaction, the calm assurance that whatever eventuated would be right. He did not promise President Lee that he would be healed. The President had become ill very rapidly, just in a matter of hours or moments. Shortly after this blessing, he passed away. At the moment he passed, Brother Romney, in harmony with the system and the established tradition and custom of the Church, stepped aside, and President Spencer W. Kimball was then in complete charge and had total direction. President Kimball was at that moment the senior apostle of God on earth. And as the last heartbeat of President Lee ceased, the mantle of leadership passed to President Kimball, whose next heartbeat was that of the living oracle and presiding authority of God on earth. From that moment the Church continued under the direction of President Kimball. (Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “Succession in the Presidency,” BYU Speeches [8 January 1974])

In the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. (LDS Media Library)

For decades, every year, my wife and I have attended all of the performances staged by the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. In fact, over the many years that I taught at Brigham Young University our attendance at the Shakespeare Festival was not only a tradition but something of a marker of the end of summer. This year, alas, we were unable to make it work. Too much travel, too many conflicting obligations. And this has really saddened me. I hope that we can do better next year.

We were, though, able to take in two plays last night. (Today is the final day of the 2025 season.). We drove down to Cedar City yesterday. We had lunch with an old friend at a Thai restaurant there. He was at our wedding in the Salt Lake Temple long ago and now, after many years of living back in the Chicago area, he resides in Cedar City. After lunch, we walked over to the Randall L. Jones Theatre, where, as she has done for many years, our friend’s remarkable mother, now in her late nineties, was playing the piano in the theater’s lobby. We chatted with her while she continued to play. I have no idea how she does it.

Then, in the Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre, we saw the two-actor play “Ken Ludwig’s Dear Jack, Dear Louise,” which, we’ve been told, was an audience favorite for the season. I can certainly understand why that would be; I loved it. It was entertaining, sometimes comical, and, in the end, quite moving. John DiAntonio, who is the Festival’s artistic director, and Caitlin Wise were superb. (I believe that they’re husband and wife in real life.)

The play is essentially an exchange of letters during the Second World War between an Army doctor and an aspiring actress and dancer in New York City. They’ve never met, because he’s stationed in Medford, Oregon, and then deployed to the battle front. Which reminds me of counsel that I sometimes gave as a singles ward bishop to couples who were becoming serious. Once in a while, they would be very concerned because, come summer, they were going to be in different places and would only be able to keep in touch via correspondence. I told them that I didn’t think this a bad thing. In fact, I said, maybe it was a very good thing. I told them — and I believe it — that spouses should be best friends, and that a period of mutual absence, without the distraction of physical attractiveness, was an excellent opportunity to get to know one another’s minds and spirits. If their relationship couldn’t survive even a relatively short period of physical separation, they probably needed either to move on or to deepen it.

In the evening, we attended a performance of the musical comedy “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” in the Jones. Very funny and very well acted. And very loud. Not the actors on stage, but the audience. Since Thursday, and continuing through today, the Festival has been hosting high school theater clubs, and they were all around us in the theater last night. To say that they were enthusiastic would be like saying that the Pacific Ocean is a pretty big pond.

If you go in, please feel free to mention my name. (The people working there at any given moment may or may not recognize it.) And please let me know if you do go there.

Driving home this morning, we were able to listen to the morning session of general conference. There were some excellent talks. Between conference sessions, we stopped off in Nephi, as is our habit whenever we’re able, at Fresh’s Homemade Eatery. I have a cousin who lives in Nephi, and her son owns the “Eatery” and works in it. It’s a simple place, and the menu is limited. But it’s really good. (I know, I know. I’m biased. But it is.) My wife and I shared some chili and cornbread and a chicken pot pie. And we bought fresh bread and jam and preserves and chili and cornbread and fresh and frozen pot pies to bring home. The food really does taste like homemade, because, effectively, it is. My cousin sometimes makes the preserves, and the salsa is made by a local Nephi man.

If you’re ever in Nephi, drop by the place. It’s small and easy to miss (on the west side of the Main Street), but I like the food and I commend it to you. (If you don’t like it, just keep that embarrassing fact to yourself . . . and examine your soul.)

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A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

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