The Church couldn’t get past all the government red tape—until a well-connected local woman had a remarkably specific dream.

For believers the most important aspect of the translation of the gold plates is the published Book of Mormon, which stands as not only another witness of the resurrected Jesus Christ but also as evidence of Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling.

Latter-day Saints do not necessarily need to adopt the practices of the Christian liturgical calendar, but we can be enriched as we learn from our Christian brothers and sisters.

INTRODUCTION: Paul was a witness of God in every situation in which he found himself. He had been given this direction at the time of his conversion. Ananias said to him on the day he was healed and baptized,

A number of animals—red heifers, lambs, goats, turtledoves, bulls, pigeons, and a bronze serpent—serve as symbols of Jesus Christ’s atonement or sacrifice.

In 1980 I walked through Hezekiah’s tunnel. It was an astonishing stroll. We made our way through the darkness with the uncertain aid of flashlights and sang hymns about light: “Lead Kindly Light,” “The Lord Is my Light,” “There Is Sunshine in my Soul Today,” and so on. The tunnel is not straight. It bends and angles many times through nearly 1,800 feet. The Jews built the tunnel to bring water into the city as a hedge against an Assyrian siege.

INTRODUCTION: My mother was mostly blind during the final years of her life. A passionate reader, a woman who loved to sew and mend and cook and clean, her infirmity made the favored activities of her life nearly impossible. She did learn to crochet by touch, and made over one hundred Afghans for her grand- and great-grandchildren in those final years, but they were years lived in temporal darkness. But through it all she glowed! There was a source of light in her, a shining certainty, that enabled her to see more clearly than any of those whose love and compassion brought them to her side to read to her and to visit with her and to reminisce with her. The real light of the world, rather than being dimmed by her handicap, increased its brightness and radiance as the weeks and months passed by, until it seemed there was no darkness in her at all. More than any person I have ever known, she knew what Jesus meant when he said, “I am the light of the world.”

INTRODUCTION: If you could fashion a community according to your own desires—one that would conform to your specifications to help you, your family, and your neighbors in the accomplishment of temporal and eternal goals, what sort of society would you create? What would you do about class distinction? About poverty? How would you prevent racial prejudice? How would you avoid criminal activity? Such a society was what the Prophet Joseph meant to establish—a society where men could live in love and peace and plenty and enjoy without restraint the bounteous goodness of God.