Book of Mormon Study Blog

An Unexpected Gift LARRY ECHO HAWK A remarkable life story: For me life began to change at the age of 14, when two missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Lee Pearson and Boyd Camphuysen, came into my home and presented the missionary lessons. Up until that time I knew very little about Christian religion and had seldom attended any church. When the time came for the missionaries to challenge our family to be baptized, they first challenged my dad, then my mother, and then the children, starting from the oldest child and descending to the youngest. By the time they got to me, the second youngest in the family, everyone else had said yes. When they asked me, I remember looking at my dad. He had this stern look on his face, and I knew what my answer should be. I was baptized, but I did not have a testimony of the truthfulness of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I was, however, glad that my famil...

Story from Micronesia: Four missionaries, a senior couple, and two elders serving in Micronesia walked into the only attorney’s office on the tiny island on which they were serving. They had a problem: they needed an amendment to a birth certificate for a membership record of a girl in their branch. Previously the municipal office had had no sympathy for their request. They had said it would be too hard, and it didn’t matter anyway since “we all know her and know when she was born!” So the city had turned down the missionaries’ request. It was suggested that the missionaries go to the only attorney’s office on the island, where they met a highly educated and deeply respected man. The missionaries sat across from him at his desk and described their plight, to which he replied that within thirty days he would get an amended birth certificate. At this point he stood up and walked around his desk, closed the door to his office, walked back around his desk, opened his desk ...

Great story about Sidney Rigdon: First, Sidney Rigdon’s daughter, Nancy Rigdon Ellis, was eight years old when Parley P. Pratt and Oliver Cowdery presented her father with a copy of the Book of Mormon in their home. She said that she recalled the event because of the conflict that arose: I saw them hand  [my father]  the book,  and I am as positive as can be that he never saw it before.  He read it and examined it for about an hour and then threw it down and said he did not believe a word in it. Later, however, he did accept the Book of Mormon, joined the Church, and became one of its leaders. Second, Sidney Rigdon’s son John spoke to his father as he lay on his deathbed: “[Father], you owe it to me and to your family to tell [the truth about the Book of Mormon].” In other words, this is the day of reckoning; be totally honest before you go to the judgment bar. The son then recounted his father’s response: “My father looked at me a mo...