Martin’s Cove Wyoming: the rugged west, cowboys, horses, plentiful wildlife and a lot of Mormon pioneer history. There are many things to do and learn in the great outdoors in America’s 44th state.

At the beginning of Lehi in the Desert, the late, legendary Hugh Nibley reviews the distinguished American archaeologist William F. Albright’s criteria for determining the historical plausibility of the Middle Egyptian tale of Sinuhe, which Albright considers to be “‘a substantially true account of life in its milieu’ on the grounds (1) that its ‘local color [is] extremely plausible,’ (2) it describes a ‘state of social organization’ which ‘agrees exactly with our present archaeological and documentary evidence,’ (3) ‘the Amorite personal names contained in the story are satisfactory for that period and region,’ and (4) ‘finally, there is nothing unreasonable in the story itself.’”[i] Nibley then asks about the story of Lehi: “Does it correctly reflect ‘the cultural horizon and religious and social ideas and practices of the time’? Does it have authentic historical and geographical background?

The Book of Mormon is a collection of inspired writings by prophets who lived on the American continent anciently. The main writer was the prophet Mormon, who abridged other records to compile the volume named for him. He engraved his record on plates of gold, and, many years later, these plates were revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith by an angel in upstate New York.

The BGEA legitimized a group that has been excoriated for decades as anathema to good ol’ American values. In a simple—and, perhaps precipitous—move, the BGEA has made Mormons like me normal. I confess that I’m going to miss the cult lifestyle. Staying up all night. Carousing with ne’er-do-wells. Terrorizing farm animals. Plotting to destroy the constitution. I remember, like it was yesterday, worshiping Stephen R. Covey for my 16th sixteenth birthday. Sigh. Once they’re gone, those days don’t come back.

Other than her conservatism, there is little about Mia Love that doesn’t stand out in Utah. She is a black Republican, a 36-year-old mother of three, a fitness instructor and mayor of a growing town. Now, her congressional race against a popular incumbent whom Republicans have struggled to defeat has made Love a minor celebrity among GOP stalwarts.

Kudos to Bret Stephens for his defense of Latter-day Saints. Kudos to Simon Critchley for a similarly generous article. And kudos to the always terrific Laurie Goodstein at the New York Times for her article about a fragment of a document suggesting Jesus may have had a wife. In a way she didn't likely intend, Goodstein enhanced my faith in Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. More on the Goodstein piece in a moment.

Packed into several communities in and around Palmyra, a quiet village of nearly 3,500 people in upstate New York, are well-defined religious historic sites, which are also a part of American history. To members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the area surrounding Palmyra has significance few other areas have. It is where a 14-year-old boy named Joseph Smith, serious about following God’s teachings, found a quiet spot in a grove of trees near his home and prayed for answers to many of the perplexing spiritual questions of 1820. It was there Latter-day Saints believe God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to the young Joseph. That experience was the humble beginning of a worldwide religion that dots the globe with more than 14 million members.

Have you ever wondered why LDS church lessons seem to be recycled every few years? Or why the lesson manuals can be used in high priests group, elder’s quorum, Relief Society classes? Or why there isn’t much distinction between what is taught to the high priests or the MIA maids? It’s called correlation, and despite the opening of this blog, there’s actually as many positives to it than there are negatives. As author Matthew Bowman explains in his superb book, “The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith,” by the mid-1950s, the LDS Church was in real danger of becoming a global bureaucratic nightmare, and an expensive one.

In the happiest town in the whole USA, candy shops outnumber bars. Downtown parking is free. Nobody smokes.

To understand why Mitt Romney persists in the face of rejection, opposition and indifference from his own party, look no further than the two and a half years he spent in France, getting up at 6:30 a.m. every day to venture forth and have doors slammed in his face for 10 hours. The fresh-faced Latter-Day Saints who came to France in the late 1960s to preach the message of Jesus Christ — of whom Republican presidential candidate Romney is the best known — discovered a secular and skeptical populace, and few willing converts.