Joseph Smith was an amazing man

Today I was supposed to teach the 13 year olds about Joseph Smith.  Since this week was super busy, I decided to just show the video "The Restoration".  However, I couldn't get my  laptop to connect to the Wifi at the church, so I gave up and we ended up reading Joseph Smith History in the Pearl of Great Price.  It's amazing how much more I get out of a scripture when it is read out loud instead of me reading it in my head.  For example,  I still am in shock when I read about the types of questions Joseph had as a young boy.  Heck, when I was 14, I was not that deep of a thinker...  In fact, I'm still not.  Being raised Mormon, it was not something I really did.  (try to find out if our church was true.  especially at 14).  I knew what the gospel taught and it made me happy.

We read the verse that talks about Joseph praying in the woods, and was suddenly "seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak.  Thisk darkness garhered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction."

Now, if this happened to me, I don't think I would have had the courage to keep praying.  There are times in my life and I'm sure in everyone's life where they feel like Satan is tackling you down into a state of depression and anxiety.  I know I have felt it, and I'm sure I'll feel it again.  But then, for Joseph to then say this: "But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction... I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.  It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound.  When the light rested upon me I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air.  One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other - This is my beloved Son.  Hear Him!"

What courage young Joseph had to ask the tough questions and set his life up to be a servant of God and restoring the true gospel unto the world.  He knew he was going to be persecuted for the rest of his life because of what he believed, and yet he still carried on, teaching the gospel, getting tar and feathered, beat up, and eventually murdered because people didn't like what he had to say.

I wonder how I would act if something happened like that today?  Would I think that person was weird and high on drugs?  maybe.  But it's an interesting question to me.  I hope that I would do the right thing in that situation.  I mean, granted, I don't ever see myself tar and feathering another human being (although I did feel like decking the guy we played soccer against yesterday...).

Sorry for the random blog post today.

If you are still reading, thank you.  I'm going to attach one cool thing I read in preparing my lesson today.

Could Joseph Smith Really Translate the Book of Mormon without Revelation from God?

Is the Book of Mormon really a record of ancient America?  And did Joseph Smith, a 14-year-old boy, really receive divine revelation in order to translate it?  Some people find it hard to believe, thinking that the book was fabricated by man.  But the Book of Mormon offers a "challenge of duplication" to the world:  can one person produce a comparable record within the same constraints experienced by Joseph Smith?  Try it yourself.

1. Write the history of ancient Tibet. (Not too fair a comparison, since you probably know more about ancient Tibet than Joseph Smith did about ancient America.)

2. If you have more than three years of formal education, you are disqualified.  Oh, and you must have spent your entire life in backwoods farming communities.

3. This history must be handwritten and only on the basis of what you know right now.  You can't use any libraries, encyclopedias or computers, because there weren't any then.

4. This book must be at least 500 pages long.  More than 300,000 words.  (And, yes, handwritten.)

5. You must write the entire book in 75 working days.  You may use friends as scribes, but you may make no changes other than grammatical corrections after your first draft.  What you write must stand forever.

6. This record is to contain the history, particularly the religious history, of two different and separate nations.  You must deal with every phase of their society, describing their religious, economic, social, and political cultures and institutions.

7. Be sure to change your style of writing several times to indicate that many authors contributed to the work, each with his own writing style.

8. Include 54 chapters on wars, 21 chapters on history, 55 on visions and prophecies that correspond exactly with the Bible.  Write 71 chapters of doctrine and exhortation (these should also match the Bible), and write 21 chapters on the ministry of Christ which are consistent with the New Testament.

9. Many of your facts and statements written as absolutely true must be inconsistent with the prevailing beliefs of the world.

10. Your narration must include authentic descriptions of clothing, crops, customs, travel, and governments.

11. Invent 280 new names that will stand up under scrutiny through the years as to their proper derivation.

12. Scientific and historical evidence, plus archeological discoveries of the next 150 years, must verify your writings.

13. Publish this book for every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, and declare it to be the word of God and another witness of Christ.

14. Call down an angel from heaven in broad daylight and have him and the voice of God bear testimony to four honest citizens of your community that the record is the work of God.  These witnesses must bear that testimony to the world, not for profit or gain, but under sacrifice and ridicule even to their deathbeds.

15. Over a period of 150 years, more than 500,000 salespeople must gladly give up two years of their lives, pay their own way to bear testimony of its truth, and distribute the book door-to-door throughout the world.

16. You must end your book with the promise: "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost."

17. Millions must bear record to the world for the next 150 years that they know your record is true, because they have put the above promise to the test.  Among them must be great men and women from all walks of life who are willing to totally change their lives and possibly lay down their lives rather than deny their testimonies.

18. You must be willing to take great abuse and persecution, suffer financial hardship, and finally give up your life to assassins' bullets rather than deny your testimony of the book.


I'll tell you what.  I couldn't do it.  Not without God.