How I Feel About Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon

This is the short version of what Mormons (or Latter-Day Saints, LDS for short) call a testimony and other religions call witnessing for Christ.

I've been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints since birth. I loved my family and my religion and was an active member, married to a return missionary/Eagle Scout in the Salt Lake Temple.

Then he left. I was six months pregnant with our sixth child. I began to question everything. I took my questions to God, my mother and a Buddhist therapist. One General Conference the Prophet at the time, Ezra Taft Benson, promised us that we would be blessed if we read the Book of Mormon.

I was thinking, "Yeah, right. What can Nephi's account and Lehi's vision possibly have to do with me and the troubles I'm facing?" But read I did. I sat at the top of the landing in front of the kids' bedrooms (they were always trying to get out of bed, wouldn't go to sleep at night) and read out loud until they were asleep.

That time through the Book of Mormon, I really didn't see anything for me in the first two books of Nephi, but I did feel, the minute I started reading, a feeling of Love and warmth surround me and flow through me. It was like a wave.

I kept reading. I noticed how the government in the land changed from one of kings to one of self-government. I made similar changes in my family. We began to hold "house meetings," and to decide things together.

Not only did I feel God's love when I read it, it changed my life.

Because of that experience, I believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. If the Book of Mormon is the word of God, then Joseph Smith must have done what he said, seen what he said he saw (that is, translated the Book of Mormon from golden plates hidden in a hill in upstate New York, and seen a vision of God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ).

I don't worship Joseph Smith. I haven't even really said a fervent prayer to get a witness from the Holy Spirit that he is a prophet. But I have read the Book of Mormon. I love that book. I'm a better, happier person every time I read it through.

The last time I read it, Lehi's vision, which I had scorned earlier, really stood out and I saw what a witness that was for the birth and mission of our Savior, Jesus Christ. If I were as tech-savvy as some of my teenager/young adults, I'd add some music and a voiceover to the Powerpoint I did of that section on the Tree of Life. Oh well.

Bout the time I get that figured out, my computer will be obsolete again--and I still have to figure out how to transfer and burn a CD of pictures from two different weddings that are still on my digital camera that I barely know how to use.

Feeling my age, I am!