Gospel Story Finder

As I was preparing this talk, I received an unexpected email from someone in the process of repenting and desiring to return to the Church. His former wife was still suffering from the loss “of [their] eternal marriage, [difficulties with the children], the loss of financial security, … not [being] quite able to keep up with expenses, [and] the deeply suffocating feelings of being betrayed.”

He shared with me how his priesthood leader “felt impressed to [ask him] to prayerfully consider what [more he could do for his former wife and children].” With permission, I share a part of his email:
“I [first] thought the [money] I gave up in the divorce decree was more than generous, but my branch president encouraged me to fast and pray about it. …
“Initially, I struggled with the idea of further restitution. Since my sins weren’t financial, I wondered what a ‘generous restitution’ truly meant … [but] I soon realized it wasn’t just about money.
“My priesthood leaders met with [my former wife] and my children and realized they were still struggling and hadn’t healed. …
“My new goal was to move forward with faith. … I simply expressed my desire to help with no strings attached. … I decided to [send my former wife a specific amount] per paycheck, which was a significant portion of my net pay. Just before making the first payment, the Lord [impressed upon my mind that I needed] to pay [twice that amount].
“I’ve learned that restitution isn’t just about money. It’s about humbly dedicating my life to the Lord. … The money is to help replace what I took from my family due to my poor choices. It’s about making and keeping promises without expecting anything in return and helping her not worry about bills so she can seek the Spirit.”

“Urgggg … this can’t be happening!” Ryan said to himself in the mirror. He looked at the floppy ends of his tie. He had half an hour to figure this out. How hard could it be?
Mom knocked on the bathroom door. “Ryan?” she said softly.
“Come in,” he moaned.
Mom smiled at him as she opened the door. “How’s it coming?”
“Not so good,” he said. “I wish I could get it to look like Dad’s.”
A small frown passed quickly over Mom’s face and disappeared. Ryan wished he hadn’t said anything about Dad, but he couldn’t help it.
Mom flipped the ends of the tie around. “Do you think we could figure it out from the Scouting handbook?” She went to find it.
It seemed ridiculous to Ryan that he had lived to be 12 without learning how to tie a tie. Dad used to tie it for him. But now Mom and Dad were divorced, and Dad lived across town.
Mom reappeared with the book opened to a page. “Can I try?” she asked.
“Sure,” Ryan said, trying to be nice. Mom was smart, but she wasn’t exactly known for her knot-tying expertise.
Mom tied something that looked like an origami project and then undid the silky fabric and started over. After another failed attempt, she sighed heavily.
Suddenly, Ryan’s older sister Katie rushed into the bathroom. “Ryan! What’s wrong with your tie?” she asked, as if his tie were a mutant life-form.
“Nothing!” Mom said, pushing the fabric into shape. “Everything.”
“I’m going to be late,” Ryan said, trying not to sound upset. But he was upset. This was his first day to pass the sacrament since he had been ordained a deacon, and his tie looked awful.
“Well, you can’t pass the sacrament looking like that,” Katie said.
Mom gently pushed Katie out of the bathroom and then came back in. “I have an idea,” she said.
Ryan looked at her doubtfully.
“What if you run over to the church early and ask the bishop to do it?”
The bishop? How embarrassing! Ryan thought he would rather stay home than walk into the chapel with his tie in his hand and walk up to the bishop in front of everybody.
“I bet he helps Peter do his tie all the time,” Mom said.
Peter was the bishop’s son. “I doubt it,” Ryan said. He frowned into the mirror and pulled at the tie.
When Ryan got to the doors of the chapel, he felt a red-hot humiliation fill his face. What would the other boys think if they saw him ask the bishop? Why couldn’t his mom do it for him? He thought about turning around. Then something quiet but strong told him to go into the chapel and it would be OK.
He took a deep breath and walked through the doors. He was early, so the chapel was nearly empty except for the organist and a few people sitting at the front. And there was Bishop Anderson with his head down, quietly reading his scriptures. Just then the bishop looked up at Ryan. He put his scriptures down and walked down the aisle. He held out his hand.
“Welcome, Ryan. Are you excited to pass the sacrament today?” he asked.
“Well, I have a little problem,” Ryan said.
“Don’t worry. Everyone’s nervous the first time. I stepped on a lady’s foot when I was your age. It all turned out all right.”
“No,” Ryan said, holding out his tie.
“Oh. Come with me,” the bishop said.
The two of them stepped into the foyer. The bishop showed Ryan how to loop the fabric, and before Ryan had time to think about it, he had a normal-looking tie. Bishop Anderson didn’t make fun of him or act like he should know how to do this already. He didn’t act like he felt sorry for Ryan either.
“I appreciate your asking me to help you with that,” Bishop Anderson said as they walked back into the chapel.
Ryan nodded. He was still embarrassed but not nearly as much now that his tie was on.
The bishop put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “This ward is like a big family, and I always feel better when the people in my family are taken care of.” Then he walked up to the front of the chapel.
As Ryan passed the sacrament, he saw familiar, smiling faces. He thought about what the bishop had said. This ward was like a big family, and it was a family he liked being a part of.

Get out the scrapbooks with the clippings and photographs of Holly’s skating career, and the picture of her after the first competition will tell you all you need to know about why she has been successful. There she is at six-and-a-half, standing in third place holding her little ribbon, with her eyes glued on the trophy in the first-place winner’s hands. The look in her eye is everything. It is a look of pure resolve, a look that says next time the trophy will be hers.
Holly’s mother, Marge, noticed the look also. “That’s when I realized her determination. The girl who placed above her had an axel in her routine. Holly didn’t do that yet. She came home and went right to work learning it. I realized then that she had something special. She would fall and fall but keep on trying.”

In 1837, when the Church was struggling in Kirtland, Ohio, the Prophet Joseph Smith called Heber C. Kimball to go to England to open the work there. Brother Kimball exclaimed in self-humiliation: “O, Lord, I am a man of stammering tongue, and altogether unfit for such a work; how can I go to preach in that land, which is so famed throughout Christendom for learning, knowledge and piety; … and to a people whose intelligence is proverbial!”
But then on reflection he added: “However, all these considerations did not deter me from the path of duty; the moment I understood the will of my Heavenly Father, I felt a determination to go at all hazards, believing that He would support me by His almighty power, and endow me with every qualification that I needed; and although my family was dear to me, and I should have to leave them almost destitute, I felt that the cause of truth, the Gospel of Christ, outweighed every other consideration” (quoted in Orson F. Whitney, The Life of Heber C. Kimball, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1967, page 104).
He traveled over the sea and commenced the work in Preston, Lancashire, with the very devils of hell opposing him and his companions. And thus began a work in that part of the world that has blessed for good countless lives.

I found that my previous methods of studying the scriptures had serious drawbacks. I had, for example, tried to study the scriptures through a prescribed time allotment—the fifteen-minute-a-day approach. Although that method works well for many people, I found that it tended to give me a disjointed picture of the word of the Lord.
For most of us, our experience with the scriptures has always been disjointed. We have heard over and over many beautiful parts until we have subconsciously come to think of them as disconnected thoughts. Frequently, when I found myself reading them in this manner, I would force myself to reread them as they were given—as a flow of ideas with logic and conclusion—and it always proved very fruitful.
The best example was my experience with the parable of the unjust steward. Though I had heard and read discourses on this parable, my questions regarding it had never been fully resolved. By forcing myself to go back several chapters and trying to understand the flow of logic behind the Savior’s teachings, and by putting the parable in perspective with all his teachings, the problems were finally resolved for me.
The Savior had given a series of examples of faithful stewardship. Then he told the story of the unjust steward who wasted all his goods so that the stewardship was taken from him, “… thou mayest be no longer steward.” (Luke 16:2.) It occurred to me that perhaps this, in complement with other interpretations, was one of the points of the story. The steward lost his stewardship, and regardless of the fact that, seeing his loss, he cleverly made a place for himself elsewhere, he lost his stewardship and it was never returned. Christ’s message, therefore, seemed to me to be a warning to the Jewish leaders of that day (to whom he was speaking) that their stewardship over the Lord’s kingdom had been taken from them, and that they were therefore left to make other provisions for themselves.
I find that the more I search the scriptures for their consistency of teaching, the more bastions of my own confusion fall before me.

It was my turn to stop someone and talk about the Church. I had been in Germany only two days, and I was terrified of the people and of my calling as a missionary.
I anxiously searched the street for someone I thought might react positively. I wondered how I was ever going to do this for the next eighteen months.
I didn’t want my companion to know how scared I was, so I held my breath and walked up to a woman in her early forties. But instead of asking her the questions I had intended to, I turned from her and ran. The fear of rejection was more than I could handle—I had to escape.
When I was finally able to collect my thoughts, embarrassment swelled inside of me. I desperately wanted to hide. My fear had been exposed, and it was preventing me from being a good missionary.
Unfortunately, as the days went by, my weakness did not subside, and I began to worry that I would never be a happy, brave, and successful missionary. My weakness became the main topic of all my private prayers.
Nothing seemed to help until I had been in the mission field for about two weeks. It was a chilly spring morning, and my companion was making breakfast. I was sitting on the floor, looking up scriptures on missionary work and reading them out loud.
“Doctrine and Covenants 84:88,” I said. [D&C 84:88] “And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also.” My voice broke. My mind raced as I realized that, as a missionary, I had divine support.
I started again, “And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”
I had no reason to be afraid of teaching people the gospel. Heavenly Father was on my right hand and on my left, and his angels were around me to make me strong. From that morning on, whenever a wave of fear came over me, I just imagined those angels all around my investigator, my companion, and me. There was no way I could lose with that kind of support.

Back home, he attended George Washington University, studying mechanical engineering and playing clarinet and saxophone in a jazz band. As he neared university graduation, all of his career plans seemed to be on schedule. But then “the Lord placed a bombshell in my little world: Jeanene Watkins.” A vivacious young woman, Jeanene was the daughter of Utah’s Senator Arthur V. Watkins.
Their developing relationship presented a problem for Richard’s carefully laid career plans. One night Jeanene said to him, “When I marry, it will be in the temple to a returned missionary.” He had not thought much about a mission, but with that motivation, he prayed harder than ever before and ended up talking to the bishop about it. Soon after graduation, he left for a mission to Uruguay. Jeanene graduated the following June in sociology and left the next day for a mission to the northwestern states. Soon after they returned home, they were married in the Manti Temple.

Peter and my other throwers aren’t alone in overestimating their own progress. I’ve had the same problem myself. As a chubby adult, I’ve learned that jogging every morning helps fight middle-age blubber. I jog far enough and long enough to burn at least half as many calories as the previous night’s milk shake.
After my last month-long layoff, I started running my old course again. I chugged through the streets around my home, huffed and puffed and sweated, and wound up back in front of my house in what seemed like record time. Gosh, I thought, I must really be in good shape (old people like to believe things like that). It had been a month since I ran last, and I hadn’t lost a step. At least it seemed like I hadn’t lost a step.
The next morning, I ran my course again, this time with my stopwatch—I wanted to see just how fast I really was. I gave it my best effort, finished with a sprint over the last 400 meters, and punched my stopwatch just as I entered my driveway.
My watch read 26:30. I definitely hadn’t lost a step, more like both legs! My time was five and a half minutes over my previous best time. Like Peter, I was unable to accurately judge my own progress (or, in this case, regression), until I used something other than my own judgment to measure my performance.
Regular assessment of your progress helps motivate you to keep working. Peter’s goal to throw the discus 150 feet and my goal to run three miles in 21 minutes were helped with each measurement. When Peter threw 148 feet, he was even more determined to make 150, and when my stopwatch continually reads 21 minutes at the end of my run, I feel good about my efforts.
There will be times, of course, when the tale of the tape (or whatever you’re using to measure your progress) is discouraging. I ran my three-mile course five mornings a week for a year before I saw anything even close to 21 minutes. And Peter didn’t crack 150 feet until the third meet of his senior season.

Each September a large international corporation, at its own expense, flew me and some other people to its headquarters in Chicago for a meeting that lasted several days. One year when I was there, a top executive of this corporation asked, “Thomas, would you like to go to dinner with me tonight? I’m inviting some others, and I’d love to have you join us.”
Liquor was available at the dinner, and a waiter asked for our drink order. I said, “I wouldn’t care for anything.”
My host, who was seated next to me, said, “Come on, Tom, have a drink. Relax.”
“No, I really wouldn’t care for anything.”
“Well, you have to have something.”
So I ordered ginger ale. It surprised me just a little that he would insist as he had, because he’d known me over the years, and whenever I went to his organization’s “social hours,” I was automatically given a glass of orange juice. But that night he really put the pressure on me. Then the waiter asked the others for their orders, and everyone ordered an alcoholic drink except the host—he ordered ginger ale!
A couple of weeks later, after I had returned to Salt Lake City, I received a long-distance telephone call from this man. He said, “I’d like to come out and visit with you. Will you be in town on such-and-such dates?”
I said that I would, and he came out with his wife and spent two or three days with us. At the end of their visit, he said, “Now I’m going to tell you why I’m really here. I’m here to ask you to be my assistant. I’d very much appreciate it if you would consider moving to Chicago. You could live in Evanston, Illinois; there are no alcoholic beverages served there, so you’d live in that kind of atmosphere. We want you to be part of our corporation. Take a week or ten days to think about it, then call me.”
“Something interests me,” I said. “When we were back in Chicago and you invited me to dinner that night, you really put the pressure on me to take a drink. Why?”
He smiled and said, “That’s right; I did. You see, we want to have men with very high ideals to head this corporation. We’d like to have men who think that the most enjoyable way to spend a Saturday night is to be home reading a family magazine and drinking ginger ale.”
It was a great honor to be offered such a key position in such a prestigious company, but after much deliberation, I called to tell him that I was going to stay with ZCMI. He said, “That’s fine. We still appreciate you, and if you ever change your mind, let me know.”
In life we find challenges of various kinds. Some of them are obvious, and some of them are not quite so obvious. In this case the challenge was not quite so obvious. But because I had met the challenge and had not had an alcoholic drink that night at the restaurant, I was thrice-blessed for sticking by my principles. First, I was offered a key position in an international organization. Second, even after I had turned them down, they let me know that their doors would always be open to me. Third, I was called by the Lord to spend my life in the best possible way—working full-time for Him.

More than 800 Primary children from West Africa sang “I Am a Child of God” at the cultural celebration before the Accra Ghana Temple was dedicated.

One morning as I walked to the temple, I saw a group of young women who, early that morning, had participated in baptisms for those who had passed beyond. Their hair was wet. Their smiles were radiant. Their hearts were filled with joy. One girl turned back to face the temple and expressed her feelings. “This has been the happiest day of my life,” she said.

Today the Church honors a faithful and distinguished pioneer woman. Aurelia Spencer Rogers—a child of adversity, testing, determination, and love, who built her faith event by event, challenge by challenge. What of her beginnings?
Orson Spencer and his six motherless children ferried across the Missouri River and hurriedly moved into their unfinished log cabin in Winter Quarters. Their mother had died soon after the family left for Nauvoo. The family had to be settled before their father left for England—he had been called by President Brigham Young to publish a newspaper for the Church.
Orson Spencer had trained Ellen, just fourteen, and Aurelia, only twelve, to be father and mother to the four younger children. He bought eight cows so there would be plenty of milk to drink and enough to sell. There was also a horse to be sold if necessary to buy supplies.
That winter was long, cold, and lonely. Many people at Winter Quarters died. Aurelia wrote in her diary, “We got through the first part of the winter pretty well. … Our horse and all our cows but one had died, therefore we had no milk nor butter; our provisions had also … nearly given out. … We really suffered for something to eat; part of the time having nothing but corn-meal, which was stirred up with water and baked on a griddle. Many a night I have gone to bed without supper having to wait until I was hungry enough to eat our poor fare.” (Rogers, pp. 48, 50–51.)
One day President Brigham Young visited the Spencers’ one-room cabin and found it neat and the children clean. Their father had been gone a year. The Saints were beginning to make preparations to start their move west.
The children informed President Young that their father wrote often, making suggestions as to what they should wear, how to comb their hair, what to do if they became ill, and how to take care of each other. After President Young read their father’s last letter, he told them he had a very important matter for them to think about. He asked, “What would you say if your father stayed in England at least another year? We need him there.”
The children looked at each other and then waited for Ellen to speak since she was the oldest. “If it is thought best,” Ellen said quietly, “we would like it so, for we want to do [what’s] for the best.” (Rogers, p. 87.)
All the other children agreed. They remembered that Father had once written, “Though He slay us we should trust in Him, and all will be right.” (Rogers, p. 62.)
They had faith in their father, in his counsel, and in their Father in Heaven. In the spring of 1848, the Spencer children, with determination and grateful hearts, moved west with the Saints.
During the two-year absence of their father, the six children had experienced many trials—crossed the plains to Salt Lake Valley, lived in the old fort, then moved to a one-room adobe house. Relatives and friends watched over them, but the responsibility had rested on the two eldest girls, Ellen and Aurelia.
At last, Orson Spencer, the former New England Baptist minister, was welcomed home amid a chorus of shouts and hugs and kisses from his heroic family. He was appointed chancellor of the new University of Deseret. Daughter Aurelia was one of his students for only a time, for Aurelia had met and fallen in love with Thomas Rogers, a young teamster, while crossing the plains. They married and set up housekeeping in a log cabin in Farmington. Here in the foothills of the Wasatch, overlooking Great Salt Lake, Aurelia Spencer Rogers spent the rest of her life. Here, she bore twelve children, burying five of them in infancy. As her children grew, she became increasingly concerned about the lack of weekday wholesome activity—the genesis of Primary.

“Please, Mister,” the holdupper half-pleaded and half-threatened as he cocked the pistol pointed at the head of the tall American missionary, “I will be forced to shoot if you resist!”
The frightening episode was taking place on a street in San Andres Bukid (Manila) in broad daylight and in full view of terrified bystanders as two men, one armed with a .22 caliber pistol and the other with a fan knife, were forcing two missionaries to part with their attache cases, wallets and watches.
Sensing the futility of the situation, Elder William D. Larkin yielded. Elder Danilo M. Mabunga of Cubao, Quezon City, at whose neck the fan knife was pointed, did the same. Elder Mabunga, a five-foot-three Filipino then only two months old in the service of the Lord as fulltime missionary, was facing his first test on his missionary zeal.
After reporting the matter to the police, the two missionaries went home with an exciting story to tell their zone and district leaders. A week later, the two elders had another story to tell.

That summer, Louisa Pratt and her daughters camped at the Mount Pisgah way station on the Iowa trail. The place was beautiful, but the water was tepid and foul tasting. Sickness soon overran the settlement, and many Saints died. Louisa’s family escaped in early August in good health, but they felt awful about leaving so many sick friends behind.
Louisa’s company camped a short time later beside a mosquito-infested creek, and soon she and others were running fevers. The company stopped to rest and then pushed on to the Missouri River, where a long line of wagons waited to be ferried across. When it was finally Louisa’s turn, something frightened the cattle, causing great confusion on the ferry and aggravating Louisa’s illness.
On the other side of the river, Louisa’s fever soared, robbing her of sleep. Around midnight, her groans awoke the ferryman’s wife, who found her in terrible condition. The woman quickly directed Louisa’s daughters to make a separate bed for themselves so their mother could get some rest. She then gave Louisa warm coffee and some food to revive her.14
The next day, the company rolled into the Saints’ new settlement, Winter Quarters, the largest of several settlements of Saints along the Missouri River. About twenty-five hundred people lived in Winter Quarters on land shared by the Omahas and other local Indian tribes.15 Most of the Saints occupied cabins made from logs or sod, but some lived in tents, wagons, or cave-like dwellings called dugouts.16
The women of Winter Quarters immediately surrounded Louisa, anxious to help her. They gave her brandy and sugar as medicine, which at first made her feel better. But soon her fever worsened, and she began to shake violently. Afraid she was dying, she cried to the Lord for mercy.17
Some of the women who attended to Louisa anointed her with oil, laid their hands on her, and blessed her by the power of their faith. In Nauvoo, Joseph Smith had taught the Relief Society that healing was a gift of the Spirit, a sign that followed all believers in Christ.18 The blessing comforted Louisa, giving her strength to endure her sickness, and she soon hired a nurse to care for her until her fever broke.
She also paid a man five dollars to build her a cabin of sod and willow brush. The cabin had only a blanket for a door, but it was well lit and large enough for her to sit in a rocking chair beside her fireplace while she recovered her strength.19

At the special-needs college he attends, Lamar tries to help other people his age join the Lord’s army as he shares the gospel with them. “A lot of the time, I get ignored,” he says, “but some of the time, I get interest. Because of some of my needs at the moment, serving a full-time mission soon is not an option. But I see it like this: I don’t need a name tag to be a missionary.”

I would like to thank you for publishing the article “Winning My War” (Nov. 2000). I have been feeling like everything has been going wrong with school, church, friends, and family. I felt like I no longer went to church to satisfy myself, but rather my parents. But after reading that article, I realized I am the only one who can win my war, and I must do everything I can to achieve that. I have now started to read the Book of Mormon every day. Although no substantial changes have happened, I know they will. It just takes time, prayer, and faith. Thank you deeply for turning my life down the right path, a path in which I hope to find the answers I seek.
Name WithheldAustralia (via e-mail)

Many years ago, I was the bishop of a new ward in Potomac, Maryland. We had to meet in a school, so one of our first goals as a ward was to build a meetinghouse. Back then, each ward in the Church had to help pay for its meetinghouse, and we sent letters to all the adults in our ward, asking if they would make a donation. As a bishopric, we then decided that the entire ward should be involved, so we also sent letters to the children and teenagers.
The following Sunday, I sat on the stand in Junior Sunday School, which was the meeting children used to attend while their parents were in regular Sunday School. As the music played and the children walked in, one little boy, Jimmy Theurer, came up to me on the stand and placed a nickel in my hand. Our meetinghouse got its start with the contribution of that one little boy.
This experience helped me realize that it’s important for children to be a part of what we do in the Church. They can do many good things for the Church, and they can help and encourage their parents to do good things as well.

Walking home from school was usually not very exciting. Sometimes I thought about my math homework, sometimes I thought about what we did in gym class, and sometimes I walked without thinking about much at all.
But this day was different. My mind was racing. Ahead of me I could see two of the guys I sometimes played with—Josh and Marcus—making snowballs and pointing at me.
“Hey, David, come here!” Josh yelled, laughing. “We want to show you something.”
Marcus laughed too.
Josh and Marcus were both a year older than me, and they could throw hard. I knew it was only a matter of time before they would start hurling snowballs my way. Even though they were usually nice to me, I thought maybe they had even packed ice into the snowballs.
I started to think of ways I could stop their attack.
Run across the street to avoid them? No, they would make fun of me and call me names.
Run as fast as I could past them? No, they were faster than me and would catch up to me in no time.
Mount a snowball attack of my own? Not a good idea, considering there were two of them and only one of me. They also had the advantage of being at the top of the hill, and I had no place where I could take cover at the bottom.
I decided to do the only thing that made sense—walk calmly past them and wait for the snowballs to fly.
As I neared the hill, a thought came to my mind. I remembered Samuel the Lamanite, who preached the gospel while standing on a wall. When the people didn’t like what he was saying, they threw rocks and shot arrows at him.
I knew the Lord protected Samuel from the rocks and arrows. Perhaps He could make the snowballs miss me.
I said a prayer in my mind, asking Heavenly Father that the snowballs would not hit me. I knew I needed to be brave and not doubt—just like Samuel. As I reached the hill, I felt confident that I wouldn’t get hurt.
Just as I expected, the snowballs began to fly. A couple of snowballs whizzed past my head so close that I could feel the breeze as they zoomed by. Some of the snowballs flew past my arms, and a few landed right at my feet, but none of them hit me. Not one!
The boys kept throwing until I was out of range, but I knew I was safe. The rest of my walk home was not very exciting—and I couldn’t have been happier about it. I had been protected like Samuel the Lamanite. I knew that praying and exercising faith in the Lord had blessed me.

I should like to be for a few minutes a witness in support of the proposition that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored in our day and that this is His Church, which was organized under His direction through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I should like to give some reasons for the faith I have and for my allegiance to the Church. Perhaps I can do this more quickly by referring to an interview I had in London, England, in 1939, just before the outbreak of [World War II]. I had met a very prominent English gentleman, a member of the House of Commons, formerly one of the justices of the Supreme Court of England. In my conversations with this gentleman on various subjects, “vexations of the soul” he called them, we talked about business and law, about politics, international relations and war, and we frequently discussed religion. He called me on the phone one day and asked if I would meet him at his office and explain some phases of the gospel. He said: “I think there is going to be a war. If there is, you will have to return to America, and we may not meet again.” His statement regarding the imminence of war and the possibility that we would not meet again proved to be prophetic. When I went to his office, he said he was intrigued by some things I had told him. He asked me to prepare a brief on Mormonism … and discuss it with him as I would discuss a legal problem.
He said: “You have told me that you believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. You have said to me that you believe that God the Father and Jesus of Nazareth appeared to Joseph Smith. I cannot understand how a barrister and solicitor from Canada, a man trained in logic and evidence, could accept such absurd statements. What you tell me about Joseph Smith seems fantastic, but I think you should take three days at least to prepare a brief and permit me to examine it and question you on it.”
I suggested that we proceed at once and have an examination for discovery, which is briefly a meeting of opposing sides in a lawsuit where the plaintiff and defendant, with their attorneys, meet to examine each other’s claims and see if they can find some area of agreement, thus saving the time of the court later on. I said perhaps we could see whether we had some common ground from which we could discuss my “fantastic” ideas. He agreed to that quite readily.
I can only give you, in the few minutes at my disposal, a condensed and abbreviated synopsis of the three-hour conversation which followed. In the interest of time I shall resort to the question-and-answer method rather than narration. I began by asking, “May I proceed, sir, on the assumption that you are a Christian?”
“I am.”
“I assume you believe in the Bible—the Old and New Testament?”
“I do!”
“Do you believe in prayer?”
“I do!”
“You say that my belief that God spoke to a man in this age is fantastic and absurd?”
“To me, it is.”
“Do you believe that God ever did speak to anyone?”
“Certainly. All through the Bible we have evidence of that.”
“Did He speak to Adam?”
“Yes.”
“To Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and on through the prophets?”
“I believe He spoke to each of them.”
“Do you believe that contact between God and man ceased when Jesus appeared on the earth?”
“No, such communication reached its climax, its apex at that time.”
“Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God?”
“He was.”
“Do you believe, sir, that after Jesus was resurrected a certain lawyer, who was also a tent maker by the name of Saul of Tarsus, when on his way to Damascus, talked with Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified, resurrected, and had ascended into heaven?”
“I do.”
“Whose voice did Saul hear?”
“It was the voice of Jesus Christ, for He so introduced Himself.”
“Then, … I am submitting to you in all seriousness that it was standard procedure in Bible times for God to talk to man.”
“I think I will admit that, but it stopped shortly after the first century of the Christian era.”
“Why do you think it stopped?”
“I can’t say.”
“You think that God hasn’t spoken since then?”
“I am sure He hasn’t.”
“There must be a reason; can you give me a reason?”
“I do not know.”
“May I suggest some possible reasons: perhaps God does not speak to man anymore because He cannot. He has lost the power.”
He said, “Of course that would be blasphemous.”
“Well, then, if you don’t accept that, perhaps He doesn’t speak to men because He doesn’t love us anymore. He is no longer interested in the affairs of men.”
“No,” he said, “God loves all men, and He is no respecter of persons.”
“Well, then, if He could speak and if He loves us, then the only other possible answer, as I see it, is that we don’t need Him. We have made such rapid strides in science, we are so well educated, that we don’t need God anymore.”
And then he said, and his voice trembled as he thought of impending war: “Mr. Brown, there never was a time in the history of the world when the voice of God was needed as it is needed now. Perhaps you can tell me why He doesn’t speak.”
My answer was: “He does speak. He has spoken, but men need faith to hear Him.”
Then we proceeded to prepare what I may call a “profile of a prophet.” … We agreed, between us, that the following characteristics should distinguish a man who claims to be a prophet.
A. He will boldly claim that God [has] spoken to him.
B. Any man so claiming would be a dignified man with a dignified message; no table-jumping, no whisperings from the dead, no clairvoyance, but an intelligent statement of truth.
C. Any man claiming to be a prophet of God would declare his message without any fear and without making any weak concessions to public opinion.
D. If he were speaking for God, he could not make concessions although what he taught would be new and contrary to the accepted teachings of the day. A prophet bears witness to what he has seen and heard and seldom tries to make a case by argument. His message and not himself is important.
E. Such a man would speak in the name of the Lord, saying, “Thus saith the Lord,” as did Moses, Joshua, and others.
F. Such a man would predict future events in the name of the Lord, and they would come to pass, as did Isaiah and Ezekiel.
G. He would have not only an important message for his time but often a message for all future time, such as Daniel, Jeremiah, and others had.
H. He would have courage and faith enough to endure persecution and to give his life, if need be, for the cause he espoused, such as Peter, Paul, and others did.
I. Such a man would denounce wickedness fearlessly. He would generally be rejected or persecuted by the people of his time, but later generations, the descendants of his persecutors, would build monuments in his honor.
J. He would be able to do superhuman things, things that no man could do without God’s help. The consequence or result of his message and work would be convincing evidence of his prophetic calling. “By their fruits ye shall know them” [Matt. 7:20].
K. His teachings would be in strict conformity with scripture, and his words and his writings would become scripture. “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet. 1:21).
Now, I have given but an outline which you can fill in and amplify and then measure and judge the Prophet Joseph Smith by the work and stature of other prophets.
As a student of the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith for more than 50 years, I say to you … , by these standards Joseph Smith qualifies as a prophet of God.
I believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God because he talked like a prophet. He was the first man since the Apostles of Jesus Christ were slain to make the claim which prophets have always made, [namely,] that God had spoken to him. He lived and died like a prophet. I believe he was a prophet of God because he gave to this world some of the greatest of all revelations. I believe that he was a prophet of God because he predicted many things which have come to pass, things which only God could bring to pass.
John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, declared, “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” [Rev. 19:10]. If Joseph Smith had the testimony of Jesus, he had the spirit of prophecy, and if he had the spirit of prophecy, he was a prophet. I submit to you, and I submitted to my friend, that as much as any man who ever lived he had a testimony of Jesus, for, like the Apostles of old, he saw Him and heard Him speak. He gave his life for that testimony. I challenge any man to name one who has given more evidence of the divine calling of Jesus Christ than did the Prophet Joseph Smith.
I believe the Prophet Joseph Smith was a prophet because he did many superhuman things. One was translating the Book of Mormon. Some people will not agree, but I submit to you that the Prophet Joseph Smith in translating the Book of Mormon did a superhuman work. I ask you … to undertake to write a story on the ancient inhabitants of America. Write as he did without any source of material. Include in your story 54 chapters dealing with wars, 21 historical chapters, 55 chapters on visions and prophecies, and, remember, when you begin to write on visions and prophecies you must have your record agree meticulously with the Bible. You write 71 chapters on doctrine and exhortation, and, here too, you must check every statement with the scriptures or you will be proven to be a fraud. You must write 21 chapters on the ministry of Christ, and everything you claim He said and did and every testimony you write in your book about Him must agree absolutely with the New Testament.
I ask you, would you like to undertake such a task? I would suggest to you too that you must employ figures of speech, similes, metaphors, narrations, exposition, description, oratory, epic, lyric, logic, and parables. Undertake that, will you? I ask you to remember that the man that translated the Book of Mormon was a young man who hadn’t had the opportunity of schooling that you have had, and yet he dictated that book in just over two months and made very few, if any, corrections. For over 100 years, some of the best students and scholars of the world have been trying to prove from the Bible that the Book of Mormon is false, but not one of them has been able to prove that anything he wrote was not in strict harmony with the scriptures. …
Joseph Smith undertook and accomplished other superhuman tasks; among them I list the following: He organized the Church. (I call attention to the fact that no constitution effected by human agency has survived 100 years without modification or amendment, even the Constitution of the United States. The basic law or constitution of the Church has never been altered.) He undertook to carry the gospel message to all nations, which is a superhuman task still in progress. He undertook, by divine command, to gather thousands of people to Zion. He instituted vicarious work for the dead and built temples for that purpose. He promised that certain signs should follow the believers, and there are thousands of witnesses who certify that this promise has been fulfilled.
I said to my friend, “… I cannot understand your saying to me that my claims are fantastic. Nor can I understand why Christians who claim to believe in Christ would persecute and put to death a man whose whole purpose was to prove the truth of the things they themselves were declaring, namely, that Jesus was the Christ. I could understand them for persecuting Joseph if he had said, ‘I am Christ,’ or if he had said, ‘There is no Christ,’ or if he had said someone else is Christ. Then Christians believing in Christ would be justified in opposing him. But what he said was, ‘He whom ye claim to serve, declare I unto you. … I testify that I saw Him and talked with Him. He is the Son of God. Why persecute me for that?’” …
Perhaps some of you are wondering how the judge reacted to our discussion. He sat and listened intently; he then asked some very pointed and searching questions, and at the end of the period he said: “Mr. Brown, I wonder if your people appreciate the import of your message. Do you?” He said, “If what you have told me is true, it is the greatest message that has come to this earth since the angels announced the birth of Christ.”
This was a judge speaking, a great statesman, an intelligent man. He threw out the challenge: “Do you appreciate the import of what you say?” He added: “I wish it were true. I hope it may be true. God knows it ought to be true. I would to God,” he said, and he wept as he said it, “that some man could appear on earth and authoritatively say, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’”
As I intimated, we did not meet again. I have brought to you very briefly some of the reasons why I believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. But undergirding and overarching all that, I say to you from the very center of my heart that by the revelations of the Holy Ghost I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. While these evidences and many others that could be cited may have the effect of giving one an intellectual conviction, only by the whisperings of the Holy Spirit can one come to know the things of God. By those whisperings I say I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. I thank God for that knowledge.

Parley P. Pratt provides us with a description of a real man in his account of his imprisonment in Richmond, Missouri, with Joseph Smith and others. On one of those awful nights in jail, Brother Pratt and his associates were exposed to the filthy language of their guards as they bragged of their deeds of rape, murder, robbery, and other crimes committed against the Mormons. When the Prophet Joseph Smith could bear it no more, he rose to his feet and spoke with a voice of thunder:
“SILENCE, ye fiends of the infernal pit. In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you, and command you to be still; I will not live another minute and hear such language. Cease such talk, or you or I die THIS INSTANT!” (Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1975], p. 211).
Said Elder Pratt: “I have seen the ministers of justice, clothed in magisterial robes … in the Courts of England; I have witnessed a Congress in solemn session … ; I have tried to conceive of kings … and of emperors assembled to decide the fate of kingdoms; but dignity and majesty have I seen but once, as it stood in chains, at midnight, in a dungeon in an obscure village of Missouri” (Autobiography, p. 211).
There was a man! Joseph Smith, the prophet of the Restoration.