 The standard of truth has been erected. No man can stop my work. I want to prove that I'm innocent. I will accept it. I don't know why this world is in such a dangerous way. I only trust in you. You have no rights to mine. I don't love you. I love you so much. I'm a pure man. — My name is Spencer — and I'm Maylie. Welcome to our Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults. We are so grateful for that beautiful musical number that we just heard of the hymn, The Morning Breaks. It was sung by Jake Potter and Chase L. Wood. They were accompanied by Angela Sander, Summer Bradshaw, and Alyssa Bradshaw. Our devotional tonight will be a face-to-face event focusing on the restoration of the gospel. And of course, we are especially grateful to have with us Elder Quintenelle Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who presides at our broadcast. Also joining him, we have two of our great church historians, Sister Kate Holbrook and Brother Matt Grohl. Elder Cook, Kate, and Matt. It's wonderful that you can be with us here tonight. Thank you for coming. Thank you. We're pleased to be here. Thank you. We also want to recognize their spouses here here with us tonight. Thank you for coming as well. Tonight, we are broadcasting from the beautiful city of Nauvoo, Illinois. Right behind us is the beautiful Nauvoo Temple. And just west of here is the Mississippi River where the saints crossed to begin their pioneer journey west. We're going to begin with an opening prayer, which will be offered by Brandt Hansen from Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Our dear Heavenly Father, we are so very grateful for this opportunity that we have to come and to learn. We ask you that thy spirit may be present wherever we are throughout the world, that we may be able to feel of thy spirit testify of the truth taught. We ask thee that we might be able to receive the inspiration and revelation for each one of us. We pray for these things in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen. We have two remote sites here with us tonight in Kirtland and in Harmony. But we have lost a connection with both of them. So we are working to get that back up, but we will continue on while we are trying to do that. Our devotional tonight will cover a lot of questions that will mainly be from the time period from the Joseph Smith's first vision in 1820 to the time the saints finished building the Nauvoo Temple in 1846. We've received thousands of questions in preparation for this event and we're going to get to as many of them as we can this evening. We also are hopeful to answer a few live questions. So please send those in to ysaface2face.lds.org. Well, to get started, Elder Cook, if it's all right, we would love to hear some opening remarks from you. I'd be very pleased to do that. Thank you. Thank you, Miley and Spencer. I loved the video and the beautiful rendition of the morning breaks. What a privilege it is to be here in Nauvoo, adjacent to this beautiful temple. I bring you greetings from the first presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and all the other church leaders. Today is President Russell M. Nelson's 94th birthday. So on behalf of all of you, I extend a happy birthday to President Nelson. I appreciate the opportunity to welcome you to this face-to-face event for young adult members and friends of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints across the world. You young adults are between the ages of 18 and 30. I cannot begin to convey how impressed I am with your generation. One fact in particular indicates how exceptional you are. Over 600,000 have served missions from your generation. That is over 40% of all of the missionaries that have ever served in this dispensation. That is remarkable. When the early Latter-day Saints settled here in Nauvoo, they had been driven by mobs from the nearby state of Missouri. At first, it was a mosquito-infested swamp, but through their industry and faith, the Saints transformed it into a beautiful city. Joseph Smith renamed the location Nauvoo from a Hebrew word meaning beautiful. We're meeting tonight under favorable circumstances at the foot of the Nauvoo Temple. The original temple was built through great tribulation and out of the poverty of the Saints. It required significant struggle and sacrifice. Just over this hill is the final resting place of Joseph Smith, his wife, Emma, and his brother, Hiram. As I join you outside the Nauvoo temple, I am touched by the fact that our faithful early members had to abandon both the beautiful city and their temple. We chose this location for today's event because Nauvoo and this temple were so pivotal to the history of the church. The temple meant everything to early Saints and the ordinances they received there empowered them to do remarkable things in building the kingdom of God. Earlier this week, the church released in 14 languages, a new history book called Saints, the story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the latter days. This narrative history tells the story of ordinary people who became Saints through the atonement of Jesus Christ. Though it reads like a novel, the story is not fiction. It is a true story based on the records left behind by the early Saints. Volume one of Saints begins with the boy Joseph Smith and his family moving to Palmyra, New York and it ends with the dedication of the Nauvoo temple where thousands of Saints received their endowments and ceilings before crossing the plains to Utah. Three more books in the Saints series will be published in the coming years, telling the story of the church until the present. Church history can be a significant source of faith but for some it's been misunderstood or overlooked and some have been obscured and crowded out by larger concerns of the world. Some people have even purposely myths represented stories of the past to sow doubt. In learning more, we will bind our hearts together with Saints of yesterday and today. We will find examples of imperfect people who went forward with faith and allowed God to work through them to accomplish his work. In doing so, we will see better how he can work through imperfect people like you and me. I promise you that studying the history of the church can deepen your faith and desire to live the gospel more fully. This face to face broadcast is to inform and answer questions with an emphasis on church history. We thank you for the thousands of questions we've received over the past months. We will answer as many as we can to give our perspective on the history of the church. Time will permit us to answer only a few of your questions but we invite you to find answers in the new Saints book and in other credible sources. One of the places you can find answers is Institute where you will find dedicated teachers who care about you and want to help you deepen your faith in Jesus Christ. My dear friends, the story of the restoration is a story of sacrifice, determination and faith and we are all a part of this restoration, a part of church history. Each of us has a mission to accomplish in this life that will help the gospel to fill the earth. As we learn more about the Saints of the past, we'll be strengthened in fulfilling our own mission as a daughter or son of God. Now, before we begin with the questions, let me introduce my associates who are both distinguished historians, Sister Kate Holbrook and Brother Matt Grow. We have decided that I will refer to them as Kate and Matt. I suggested that they call me Quentin or Q, as my grandchildren do. They have respectfully replied, we will call you Elder Cook. Now, it would be correct in a non-church setting to call each of them doctor. Kate has a master's degree from Harvard University and a PhD from Boston University. Matt has both a master's degree and doctorate degree from Notre Dame University. They are great historians, faithful Latter-day Saints and truly delightful people. Thank you for being with me on this. With that, let's begin some questions. Awesome, thank you so much for those remarks. To get started, Elder Cook, would it be all right if we started with a bit of a tough question? Please, go ahead. Thank you. So some young adults feel that the church has been hiding information regarding historical events. And so this question coming from Idaho sums them up. Why isn't the church more open about some of the controversial things that happened at the start of the church? I have learned a lot of new things I did not know before and I've been a member of the church my whole life. Some of the things I've learned have caused me to struggle with doubts and have no clear idea on where to get real answers. Thank you for that question. Both Kate and Matt, you have thought pretty deeply about this in your role as historians. Kate, would you like to start off? Thank you. That's an important question. And it might help if I start by talking about my own experience, learning about issues in church history that some people find surprising. I was raised an only child by my mother and my grandmother. And when I was four years old, they worked at the Beehive House, Brigham Young's old house, and they taught me all about Brigham Young and they taught me that he had many wives. About 10 years later, my grandma read a book about Joseph and Emma Smith. And I learned while she was reading that book and talking about it, that Joseph Smith had many wives. I didn't learn about seer stones, which Joseph Smith used to help translate the book of Mormon until I was an adult. And I was interested in church history and talking with people about it and reading with people about it. And what I'm trying to get across is the church did not hide information from me, but the historical information was not emphasized to me. When I was two years old, in 1974, there was a friend article about seer stones, but I was two years old. I didn't read that article. What I did learn in my Sunday meetings and my seminary classes was what the main work of the church is. I learned to repent. I learned to bring my life into harmony with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I learned how to unestablish a relationship with my father in heaven. And these are the things in my life that I hold most dear. I also know that for some people, like the person who asked that question, it can be really painful to learn about something that you thought you should have known and that you didn't know. That's why Matt and I do the work we do. I hope that that experience for people will now become a part of the past because we have the book, Saints, that portrays a full history for people. And we also have gospel topics essays and other information online. Thank you. Matt, would you like to comment? Sure, I mean, I think Kate's story really effectively demonstrates this dynamic where information has been available, especially to those with an interest and sometimes in church publications, but some of the more challenging information hasn't been emphasized, hasn't been taught or discussed much. Sometimes because it feels uncomfortable and sometimes because the main purpose of church meetings is to preach the gospel of salvation. Another thing to keep in mind is that on many of these topics, we know a lot more now than did people 30 or 40, 50 years ago. So sometimes what seems that the church has hidden information is simply a result of the fact that we know more now. But we do live in a new reality of the information age when challenging information on church history can appear in social media feeds of members all around the world. And so we have a heightened responsibility now to help members find good answers to their questions within the household of faith. By that I mean within church settings, within seminars and institutes, within our families. And Kate mentioned that the church is trying to do a lot of that in saints. I would also mention the Joseph Smith papers, which is this massive historical project that published all of Joseph's journals and letters and other documents. It's all available online. Joseph Smith Papers.org and it already fills 17 thick books. In addition, the gospel topics essays, which Kate mentioned, confront directly many of these challenging doctrinal and historical questions. The message to me of this openness is that the history of the church can withstand scrutiny. We don't need to be afraid of it. It's inspiring. Sometimes we'll have questions, but there are good answers. I've worked for the church for the last eight years writing history. I've seen the attitude of our general authorities with relationship to the history. The conversations are not about how do we hide history? How do we censor history? But the conversations are about how do we make history accessible, available and understandable. Thank you, Matt. I think that's a great answer. I think looking back, it's always been hard to achieve a balance between teaching those things that are essential, gospel doctrine, those things that will lead people back to exaltation. And so we need to get a balance between that and making sure that there are answers to questions that are of concern to some people. It's been mentioned that we have these wonderful new resources coming forth. I wanna assure you in the over 22 years that I've been a general authority that the desire of the brethren has been to be as transparent as possible, both in terms of church history and in doctrine. And we feel like that the effort to put forth these new resources, particularly the Joseph Smith papers, the gospel topic essays and now saints are a wonderful way of having people get into things that are true and are in context and will help you understand the gospel of Jesus Christ in a credible way. So thank you very much. Wonderful. Thank you. That answers kind of segue perfectly into our next question. So as young adults, we are excited about the new history of the church. We have a question from California. Anthony asks, as the church becomes more global, how will the new history of the church include members from around the world and what kinds of stories do we have to look forward to in the upcoming volumes of the new church history? That's a wonderful question as well. And you're gonna find that in church history, even in this early history, that there are stories of people from other places just in North America. But just think that Joseph Smith in 1834 in Kirtland, in a school room that was 14 by 14, he had all the priesthood holders that were in Kirtland and they fit in that room. And he said to them that they really didn't have a sense of the destiny of the church. He says, you have no more sense of that than a babe and a mother's lap. And then he went on to say, the destiny of this church is to fill North America and South America and the entire world. And we're seeing that, and I think my reference to 600,000 of you going on missions, many in North and South America and across the world is evidence of that. Missionaries went out almost immediately. They not only went to Canada and Great Britain, but they went to Germany. They went to the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. They went to the Pacific Islands. One of my favorite accounts in here is the story of Addison Pratt going to the South Pacific. He was sent down to the South Pacific. They called it the Society Islands. It's French Polynesia now. And he was down there in the Austral Islands. He was successful. He had about 60 baptisms and towards the end of his mission when everybody was leaving Nauvoo, his life, Louise, instead of going to Utah, she joined him down in French Polynesia with their four daughters. My wife, Mary, and I, in a period when I was president of the Pacific Islands, had a chance to visit those Austral Islands where Addison Pratt had taught. And one of the most remarkable experiences I've ever had was to have a woman that was about 18 or 19 give a talk. And she said, I am a seventh generation member of the church. Addison Pratt had baptized her distant ancestor before the Nauvoo temple was complete, before the saints went to Utah. So we want you to know wherever you are in this world, whatever lineage you come from, you're important. You're part of the church history. We very much need you and want you, and you will bless people's lives. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. So our next question, Brother Gro, you mentioned that we live in an information age. And so this next question pertains to that, because sometimes, because we're in an information age and we have so much at our fingertips, it's hard to know what to believe and what to trust. So Tinnika from Utah asked, we live in such a world where Google has answers to every question. But is there a way to search church history to find reliable answers and stories? And Andrew from Paraguay added, where are some good online resources to search for doctrinally correct answers beyond the search bar on lds.org? Matt, this is right down your alley. Thanks. I do think that those are terrific questions, because we all know that the challenge in the information age is not to find answers, we're surrounded by answers, but it's to discern between good answers and bad answers, good information and bad information. And that's really one of the central tasks of a historian. So let me tell you a little bit about what I do in my work. There are so many historical discussions online about our history. And most of these discussions produce a lot more heat than light. So if your source of information includes a lot of emojis and exclamation points, maybe let's start somewhere else. Be careful about sources of information that just seek to tear people down. Look instead for sources of information that are based on the records left by the people themselves, and that seek to be fair to them. It is really easy to play gotcha with the past, to pull a quotation or an incident out of its context and make it look alarming. As a historian, I tried to follow the advice of a British novelist, and I love this. He said, the past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. And to me, that means that when we visit the past, we don't want to be an ugly tourist. We want to try to understand the people within their own context, in their own culture. We want to be patient with what we perceive as their faults. We want to be humble about the limits of our own knowledge. And we want to have a spirit of charity about the past. Those of us like Kate and myself who write history for the church, we feel a great responsibility to write history that is honest, that is accurate, that helps us understand the past. So there's a lot of great information out there about Latter-day Saint history. Look for the credible sources. And I'm going to take just a minute to tell you about a few other things that the church has done that you might be interested in. So along with the Saint's volume that was published this week was published online, about 100 new online essays called Church History Topics. They tell you more about the events and themes and people and places in Saints. And they even point you to further reading things not published by the church that can help you increase your understanding. Another area of interest that the church has published a lot on recently is women's history. So the church has published a documentary history of the Relief Society in a book called At the Pulpit, which is a book of women's sermons throughout church history. Latter-day Saint women's history is not just for women. It's for all Latter-day Saints. We are stronger as a people, stronger as a culture. When we hear the voices and learn from the experiences of women in the past. Another thing that we've tried to do more of that Elder Cook mentioned is tell the stories of the global church. I love the stories about how the gospel has gone to the ends of the earth. You can find a lot of these stories on history.eldiest.org. You can watch videos and read stories about the saints in Ghana and in South Africa and in Brazil and in the Netherlands and Germany and so on and so forth. And a great deal of this information might be sitting in your pocket. Hopefully they're in your pockets. Go to the church history section of the gospel library app maybe sometime this week. Maybe download saints and look at the other resources. I think that you will enjoy them, be inspired, and learn more about the history of this church. Thank you very much, Matt. Let me just add a few words to that. We know that your generation is very, very good at using the internet. And in many areas, maybe even most areas, there really are good and wonderful answers that you can obtain. But in a couple of areas, that isn't always the case. Politics and religion would be true to where it wouldn't be true, where often there is misinformation and where there is an effort to distort things. And so you need to go to credible sources. And that was one of the great purposes for having the saints be issued is to accomplish that. Now the saints is written as a narrative history. It reads like a novel. But don't be fooled by that. Everything in it is backed up by facts. If it says it was raining, it was raining. If it says that Parley Pratt was angry with the prophet Joseph, he was. If it says Parley Pratt asked for forgiveness and became a great leader, he did. And so this book is true accounts. And in the back of it, there are at least 71 pages of end notes that you can go to that will take you to other sources that will take you into the Joseph Smith papers or other sources, some of which are in the Church archives. So this is a book that you can use to answer questions. But if you read it and you go through it, you're going to find that it builds your faith and helps you understand our ancestors and what they accomplished. Thank you. Thank you so much for that explanation. As you can imagine, we've received quite a few questions regarding polygamy. For example, a young adult from Utah asked, I've struggled for years to come to peace about polygamy in the early church. Why was it necessary for Joseph Smith and many other leaders to practice it? And Morgan from Florida added, what do I tell my family when they ask about polygamy in the early days of the church? They aren't generally satisfied with the, well, we don't practice it anymore, answer. Is it fair to ask you to answer this one, Kate? That's a big question. But I have studied polygamy, actually descend from people who chose to practice plural marriage. I have great, great grandmas and great, great, great grandmas who did so. Two of them were named Sarah. It wasn't an easy path for them. One of them was the seventh wife. And she just didn't receive the resources and support that she needed to support herself and her children, especially after her husband died. One of them was a first wife. But all of the descendants say that it was the second wife that was the favorite wife. The second wife got to travel with the husband while the first wife took care of all the kids and did their laundry, made their meals. But what I feel honored to descend from those two Sarahs and from their husbands, their example has taught me to center my life on faith. And their example has taught me to keep putting one foot in front of the other and to do so prayerfully. To put their lives in a little bit of doctrinal and historical context, the instruction we have in the Book of Mormon about plural marriage, it's Jacob chapter two, verse 30. And Jacob says, monogamy is the Lord's wish for his people. And there are rare exceptions where the Lord commands us to practice plural marriage in order to raise up a righteous people. This is the rare exception that Joseph Smith was commanded to instigate in our church history. And Joseph Smith didn't want to. And he dragged his heels and he was reluctant for years to do this. But eventually he did implement plural marriage because he wanted to be obedient to God's commandment to him. He tried a little to practice plural marriage in the middle 1830s, but it was really in 1841 that he more officially slowly began to introduce the practice of plural marriage to his trusted associates. They, when they heard, they were shocked. They pled in prayer with their father in heaven for understanding of this principle. And they received spiritual witnesses to them personally that this was right for them at that time. Now, as plural marriage was practiced officially for about 50 years, it was always something that people could choose. We don't have exact numbers in part because our information is incomplete and in part because it's complicated. So scholars are still trying to get us those numbers about how many adult Latter-day Saints actually were in plural marriages. But we know that it was a minority of people that were in plural marriages. And we know that many of them were the most devout, the most stalwart members of our church. So in 1890, Wilford Woodruff issued a manifesto that was to end the practice of plural marriage. And when some people heard this manifesto, they were relieved. Plural marriage had been hard for them and they rejoiced. And when some people heard this manifesto, they were devastated and they cried. They had sacrificed so much and they had testimonies of this principle. Now, some of you, I know from your questions, wonder what does our past practice of plural marriage mean for the afterlife, for what will greet us after this life? Our church leaders have taught us that monogamy is the rule and plural marriage is the exception. And our church leaders have taught us that plural marriage is not necessary for exaltation or for eternal glory. Now, I as a historian and as a church member have felt it really important that although I'm grateful personally that monogamy is the rule in plural marriage is the exception, that I not discount those testimonies and that honorable obedience of our spiritual ancestors who practiced this principle because they were being obedient and they had a testimony that it was right. Thank you very much, Kate. Matt, what would you like to add here? Well, Kate gave us a lot to think about there. I'll just add a few thoughts. As I think about plural marriage, it's important to remember that the vast majority of Latter-day Saints throughout time have lived in monogamous marriages and monogamous families. And to me that reiterates what Kate was saying about church leaders or scriptures teaching us that plural marriage is an exception and monogamy is the standard. And to put it differently, church leaders have taught us that a monogamous couple, sealed in the temple and faithful to their covenants, will receive all of the blessings of exaltation and eternity. From reading your questions about plural marriage, I know many of you have questions about Joseph Smith's practice of plural marriage. We don't have time to get into lots of those questions tonight. So I'd point you towards Saints and the gospel topics essays. In Saints, the history is told not just through the experience of Joseph Smith or other men but through the experience of women such as Emma Smith and Emily Partridge and Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner. A couple of things I would say to keep in mind about Joseph Smith's practice of plural marriage. The first is that we know that at that time there was a distinction between ceilings for time and eternity that involve commitments in this life and ceilings for eternity alone that only involve commitments in the life to come. We know that some of Joseph Smith's ceilings that appear unusual to us and are difficult to understand fallen into that category of ceilings for eternity alone and seem to have been about creating links between families in the next life. The other thing I would say is that the revelation to practice plural marriage did not come with an instruction manual. And that any change on this scale, any change in doctor and society and culture around this scale of beginning plural marriage is going to be difficult and there's gonna be some unanswered questions. But historical documents do tell us about some of what plural marriage did for the Latter-day Saints. It helped bind the people together because it creates these large family networks. And Kate mentioned that one of the purposes in Jacob chapter two is to raise up seed or righteous posterity. The family history records of the church which are really extensive tell us that about 20% of living church members descend from those who practice plural marriage. And we know that throughout time those families have been a strength to the church. Thank you both. I just wanna make three points coming to the fruits of this. It's clear that there was a lot of sacrifice in those marriages. There was a lot of love and unity but there was also sacrifice. And they taught their children to sacrifice. And those children of those plural marriages in the early years of missionaries going out to the world many, many of them were taking the gospel of Jesus Christ across the world and blessing everybody with that gospel. The second one is, and I've always been touched by this is that there were some, I'm thinking of Vellate Kimball who received their own personal revelation before they knew fully about what it was that this came from God. And the third one is that in the councils of the church and the senior councils of the church there's a feeling that Bligomea as it was practiced served its purpose and we should honor those saints but that purpose has been accomplished and that it isn't necessary. Now there are unanswered questions and we don't always receive revelation on everything. President Ballard and I were laughing about this the other day and saying when the millennium comes there's a thousand years and we're gonna need a thousand years to get the answers to all of the issues that surround everything. But I want you to know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who has a perfect plan that his plan is one of happiness, that we have a savior who did everything for us we can trust in them. Thank you. Awesome, thank you, that was so helpful. So for our next question we wanna talk a little bit about the first vision of the prophet Joseph Smith. So Brooke from Idaho asked why are the accounts of Joseph Smith's first vision a little different? Why do we use the version that we use? We're aware that there have been that there are some slight differences in that and Matt again this is one where I think you've spent quite a bit of time maybe you can take just a little while to answer this one. Sure, I'd be happy to. Obviously an important question since the first vision is so important to who we are as Latter-day Saints. Joseph Smith recorded or asked his scribes to record four different accounts of that vision. Some of these accounts critics have pointed out contain differences in emphases and details. The longest of the accounts is one he wrote in 1838 to explain the rise of the church to the public and that's why that one became part of the pearl of great price. That's why we use it. Now the accounts themselves tell a basically consistent story but as I mentioned there are these differences that shouldn't surprise us. If there was complete uniformity among the accounts that's when I as a historian would become suspicious because that's just not the way that memory works. We see the pattern in other accounts in history or in the scriptures such as Paul's vision on the road to Damascus. I've sometimes thought about it in this way. Imagine that you tell the story of how you met your spouse or your future spouse in four different settings over time. The first you record it on the day you meet, you go home and write it in your journal. The second at your wedding reception there's a video of you telling the story to your friends. The third you write a letter to your 12 year old daughter and the fourth you tell your grandchildren and others at your 50th wedding anniversary. So four different accounts given for four different purposes to four different audiences. Are there gonna be differences? Yeah, there are. Another important thing to keep in mind is how hard it is to capture a sacred experience in language. Joseph Smith himself called language a narrow little prison. You ever felt like that? And Matt, so think about your own most sacred experience is how easy is it to put them into words? As I've thought deeply about these accounts, rather than be troubled by them, I feel like we should celebrate that we have multiple accounts because they give us new insight, new perspective. And if you have questions on the accounts of the First Vision, there is a Gospel Topics essay on it and go read them. They're on Eldiest Outdoor. Take a few minutes this week. Go read the four accounts. It's been my experience that doing so will deepen your appreciation of what happened that day. Matt, thank you. You've covered that just beautifully. I just wanna testify as most of you have across your life that Joseph Smith did see God the Father and Jesus Christ. And he was the instrument for the restoration of the Gospel. I testify of that. Next question. Thank you. We have been trying really hard to get Kirtland back up and running and get their question. But we have Katelyn Bourne. She sent in our question to us and we're just gonna read that here for you. So Katelyn asks, we know that the early saints had to work hard to build the Kirtland Temple so that the Savior might have a place to manifest Himself and restore priesthood keys. With this in mind, would you teach us about the significance of those events and what the Lord would have us sacrifice as young adults so that we can benefit from those keys and feel a greater manifestation of the Savior in our lives? Well, thank you. I'm glad she sent that question in and I think it's really a very significant question. I wish that Kirtland were hearing this. They're sitting there at the Kirtland Temple and as you look at this early history, nothing could be more important than Kirtland along with Nauvoo, harmony equally important. We could go right down the list. But in Kirtland, one of the incredible things that happened was the Kirtland Temple and the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. And we have the account of that in the 109th section of the Doctrine and Covenants. It was the prayer, the dedicatory prayer that Joseph Smith offered. And he said that he received that by revelation. And in that prayer, he asked the Lord to accept of the sacrifice they had made and asked that he prayed that it would be acceptable to the Lord. And one week later after the dedication, the Joseph Smith and Oliver had another vision. This was on Easter and also Passover. And the Lord came in vision form and accepted the house as it had been prayed that he would accept it and told the saints there that they should rejoice because they had sacrificed to build that house. The description of the Savior is just absolutely incredible in that section. And then after that vision closed, then we had three ancient prophets that came. Moses who came and he restored the keys for the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth. We had Elias come and he committed the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham. Those keys, President Nelson has said, help prepare people for the kingdom of God. And then the third was Elijah who came and restored the keys that we think of as the sealing power, binding people together, children to parents, husbands to wives, all of those sealing powers. And the restoration of those keys was just absolutely essential to accomplish the Lord's purposes. We not only needed the scriptures, the Book of Mormon, but we needed those ordinances. We needed those keys. And so the Kirtland temple is absolutely remarkable and the accounts in both the 109th and 110th section are just incredible. And those keys with the feeling that prophets always have about temples have never been important, more important than they are now. So the question that she's asking about Kirtland and the purpose of Kirtland, it couldn't be more important and we're grateful that she asked that question. Thank you very much. Anything you wanna add at all to that one? Just amen. Okay. Okay. Great, thank you. So we're going to ask a few questions about the translation of the Book of Mormon. Okay. Derek from Canada asked, did Joseph translate the gold plates or was it strictly revelation? And Taley from Washington asked, what role did the Urim and Thummum play in the translation of the Book of Mormon? Good questions. Kate, we'll throw this hard one to you. Great, thank you. Could I have that Book of Mormon, Matt? This is a first edition Book of Mormon. We knew there were a lot of questions coming in about translation so we thought we would bring this to show you tonight and... Kate, do you know how valuable a first edition Book of Mormon is? I think that when they knew it was interested to Kate, they allowed it to come up. Matt, I don't think we would have qualified to do that. No, I'm more nervous. Joseph Smith tells us in this edition and in the editions you have access to today that he translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God. Some of us want a little more detail than that but that is what he told us. His translation experiences were sacred and very personal and he just didn't give us much detail. Fortunately, he had scribes and friends who let us know a little bit more about the translation process. We know that he started with a scholarly approach where he looked at the gold plates and he studied the characters and he wrote the characters onto a piece of paper and he studied those and he sent those characters to scholars who wouldn't help him and he decided this scholarly approach is not working and then he turned to a revelatory approach and with the revelatory approach, he used both the Urim and Thummim and a seer stone to help him with the translation process and the word translation is still relevant but also revelation is relevant and understanding what was going on here. Now the Urim and Thummim you might have read, mentioned in the Book of Mormon, it was buried with the plates so when Moroni gave Joseph Smith the golden plates, he also gave him the Urim and Thummim. The seer stone was not buried with the plates, it was something that Joseph had found on his own years earlier that helped him to feel in tune with spiritual revelation. So he used both, seems like he used the seer stone a little more often. Emma, who was one of his scribes, later remembered that whenever Joseph sat down to start translating again, he wouldn't ask, now where was I? Where did we leave off? He would just start right at the point where they had left off. We know, oh, this might be interesting for you. Orson Pratt actually walked in later after the Book of Mormon was finished and published and Joseph Smith was working on a new translation of the Bible and he wasn't using the seer stone and he wasn't using the Urim and Thummim and he said, why are you not using the seer stone? And Joseph Smith said, when I started this process, I needed them and I have developed sufficiently. I've built up my translation muscles enough now that I no longer need those physical objects in order to perform this translation process. Couple of more things to keep in mind quickly. One is that it took three months to translate the Book of Mormon. It took eight months to print it. It took six years to write Saints Volume One over here, although that involved a really long approvals process and the Book of Mormon didn't need the approvals process. Also, if you look at a page of Joseph Smith's personal journal that he wrote three years after translating the Book of Mormon, it's full of crossed out words, incomplete thoughts, broken sentences. When you look at a page of the dictated Book of Mormon, there's none of that. It's complete, beautiful prose, no nothing crossed out, complete sentences. Now, this is all very interesting to me, but what matters to me is the contents of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is the place where King Benjamin taught me to prioritize generosity over judgment. The Book of Mormon is the place where Alma Sr. taught me what it means when I become baptized, what I'm promising to do for my fellow Saints. And the Book of Mormon is the place where Moroni taught me about how important charity is and what to do to obtain it. The Book of Mormon has shaped who I am, how I see the world, and when I do something well, I thank the Book of Mormon. Oh, that's a beautiful testimony. Thank you very much, Kate. Matt, is there anything at all that you want to add? I'm debating a little bit with myself. I think that where you ended for most of us is most important, and that is to have a personal testimony of the Book of Mormon. When I was in my teenage years, my brother was five years older, and at that time it was thought that he wouldn't get to serve a mission because they'd only allow one young man to go on a mission that everybody else had to be available to the draft. And so the bishop and the stake president found that they maybe could send one more and they talked to my brother about it. And he came home and he told my parents, my father, wonderful man, just a great man, not active in the church. And his response was very negative, but for an unusual reason, he wasn't critical to church or of a mission, but he said, you've prepared yourself to go to medical school. Those days you couldn't even go until you were 20. You've taken the classes, you could go, and you can do more good if you go to medical school than you can if you go on a mission. That evening this faithful, wonderful brother of mine and sat with me and the two of us talked and he was doing more of the thinking than I was, but we concluded that there were really three issues that would determine his response to our father who we both loved very much. The first one was, was Jesus Christ divine? Was he the savior of the world? And the second one was, was the Book of Mormon, the Word of God? And the third one was, was Joseph Smith a prophet? And I realized as we had that discussion, I think he already had a testimony, but I realized that the answers to those three questions would impact almost every decision that I would make for the rest of my life. That evening, praying about those, I'd always left the savior, I'd read the Book of Mormon, realizing how significant those answers were. I received what I've come to understand is the way the Holy Ghost operates when I get a profound favorable answer to those questions. And so the Book of Mormon being the Word of God is really the most important aspect of this and Joseph Smith being the prophet. And I testify that both of those things are true. By the way, my father didn't end up too unhappy. My brother, when he got back, went to medical school and by the time it was, I was ready to go on a mission, he was okay with it. But next question. Wonderful, thank you. As young adults, we face a lot of opposition and hardships in our lives. Here's a question related to this. Matthias from Argentina asked, as we know, the pioneers suffered a lot and had a lot of persecution, but they remained strong. How can we take their examples to stand firm in our trials and afflictions of our earthly life? That's so touching with us being here to ask that question. And Kate, just any one thing about the persecution that's very touching to you. Thank you, I'm here, you can't see it, but I can look at the Mississippi River. And I remember when Emma was trying to escape the persecution in Missouri and the river was a little bit frozen, not enough that a wagon with people's possessions and people in it could travel on it. So it was a little dangerous and it's a wide, wide river. And Emma had a six-year-old child holding onto this side of her skirt, an eight-year-old on this side, a two-year-old in this arm and an infant in this arm. And one of Joseph's scribes sisters-in-law had sewn her something that tied her under waist and then it went down by her legs so that under her skirt she was carrying the only copy of Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible, which he'd been working on for months. And she had to go out on that frozen river with the document and her children, and that's about it, and take one step after another across that frozen river hoping she wouldn't fall in. That to me is the kind, that to me is the consummate signal of courage and faith, that when you need to do something for what you believe, you just move forward with the people and documents that are dearest to you, one foot in front of the other. That's precious, thanks, Kate. Yesterday, in trying to be spiritually prepared for this, my wife and I decided that we would start in Kansas City and go to Liberty Jail and go to Far West and then take pretty much the route that the Saints took in trying to escape Missouri and come to Nauvoo and we went to Carthage where it was martyred. And it was just as touching as it can be. Just let's get the picture, we're here in Nauvoo but the extermination order was issued in Missouri. The number that had to escape, some historians have got it as high as 8,000, some as low as 5,600 that had to escape Missouri to get to Nauvoo. It was in the winter, that's why we had the ice that Emma was having to walk across. Where was Joseph? He was in Liberty Jail. And he was heartbroken that the Saints were experiencing this. It was just a terrible and he felt like he was abandoned and it was just a most difficult time and that Liberty Jail, seeing that yesterday just deeply touched my heart to realize him there with Hiram and the other prisoners. And in that precarious circumstance, feeling abandoned, he received some of the most beautiful scripture, the 121st and 122nd, 123rd sections of the Doctrine and Covenants that are almost, they're just so poignant, they're so beautiful, they're so significant. I hope you'll take a chance to read it. Saints has a much shorter account and I sat there yesterday and looked at Joseph in that prison and let me just read just a few paragraphs from you out of Saints of that period. Righteous Saints, still Joseph cried out in behalf of the innocent Saints, oh Lord, he pleaded, how long shall they suffer these wrongs and unlawful oppressions before thine heart shall be softened toward them? My son, peace be unto thy soul, the Lord responded. Thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment, and then if thou endure it, well, God shall exalt thee and high, and thou shall triumph over all thy foes. The Lord assured Joseph that he was not forgotten. If the very jaws of hell shall gap open the mouth wide after thee, the Lord told Joseph, know thou my son that all these things shall give thee experience and shall be for thy good. The Savior reminded Joseph that the Saints could not suffer more than he had. He loved them and could end their pain, but he chose instead to suffer affliction with them, carrying their grief and sorrows as part of his atoning sacrifice. Such suffering filled him with mercy, giving him power to succor and refine all who turned to him in their trials. He urged Joseph to hold on and promise never to forsake to him, thy days are known and thy years shall not be numbered lest the Lord assured him. Therefore fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever. That's pretty much the 131st and 122nd and 23rd. You, many of you have trials and tribulations. Many of you have difficulties, and some of that is because there's agency. Some of it's because there is an adversary, and you need to know that we have a loving father in heaven, and we have the action taken by the Savior that can bless us in ways that we perhaps don't fully understand. I love the fact that almost in the next paragraph, Heber C. Kimball comes and he has to yell down into the dungeon to Joseph, and he has to give him some very bad information. Joe Brigham, Heber had thought that the justices of the Missouri Supreme Court were gonna free Joseph, and then they made the decision they weren't. And he had to yell down to him and say, we lost, you're not gonna be freed. And Joseph was warm and congratulatory and friendly to him, and he said, be of good cheer, and then his instruction was, get all the saints out and away. Now there's a lesson for you in that. Be of good cheer, regardless of what you're being challenged with. But if you have things that are tempting you, get away from those. If you have things that you can get away that are opposition to you, that are appropriate, you're gonna have to make that decision and you'll rely on the Holy Ghost. You need to do that. But the example of Joseph in the Liberty Jail in particular, and the saints coming from Missouri to Nauvoo is a wonderful example of strength and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I can confirm that to you. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. Our elder cook, Kate, Matt, our evening's kind of flown by. But would it be all right if we asked one more question and heard your testimonies before closing? Sure. Wonderful. After our final question, we will hear the song The Spirit of God performed by young adults in nearby areas. Please feel free to join along and sing with them from wherever you are watching. And after that, Tia Michelec from Missouri will say our closing prayer. Awesome. So we feel like we've found a good topic for us to end on. Christian from Honduras asked, what has been the event of the restoration that has most strengthened your testimonies and how can we apply it to ourselves? And Isaii from Mexico asked, I want to know what the restoration means to you and how it has helped you and your families. Let's each one of us take a turn on this and close with testimony. Would that be all right? Who wants to start? Can I go first, Kate? Sure. Okay, thanks, Kate. Yeah. There's a lot to choose from. But the first thing that comes to my mind is the Holy Ghost, the gift of the Holy Ghost, the ability to have that more permanently with us. When Joseph and Oliver received the Aaronic Priesthood and were baptized, they didn't immediately receive the Holy Ghost like we do more frequently now. They had to wait months and think to ask for it and receive the Melchizedek Priesthood and then they could receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. I study women's history and some teachings that have really been meaningful to me are Sister Sherry Dew, when she was in the Relief Society General Presidency and Sister Julie Beck when she was the Relief Society General President. Both of those women taught that this skill of learning to understand the promptings of the Holy Ghost, Sherry Dew called it the language of revelation is one of the most important skills that we can develop during this life. And then President Nelson in his first General Conference Address as the prophet of the church encouraged us to learn that language of revelation and he reminded us that when to take our questions in prayer and then to listen, and this is something that I've tried to do to take my questions in prayer and then remember to listen and I even write things down when ideas come to me and they do come to me. They come to me when I'm preparing a gospel doctrine lesson, that's my calling right now and they come to me when it's a bigger question or a more long-term question that Holy Ghost, I even felt it, it's not a vending machine. So we spend our lives putting ourselves in holy places and inviting the spirit into our lives and then it will just come at sacred moments. And one of these, for me, just happened on Friday, we were in the airport in Des Moines waiting for our rental car and we were going to go to Carthage and so I read from Saints the account of Carthage and the martyrdom and standing there with my family, just quietly reading this account, I was filled with a sense of the holiness and sacredness of that sacrifice. Just came, so grateful for the Holy Ghost. Thank you. Thanks, Kate. It really has been a great evening. It's quite inspiring to look out at the young adults here in this congregation and then to imagine you across the world. I hope that you'll find in church history inspiration because the early church was really a church of young adults. That's who built the kingdom of God. That's who took the gospel to the world. It was young adults and I hope that you'll find in Saints that inspiration. So the question was about what do I find most inspiring and what does the restoration mean to me? A lot of it has to do with the temple. Yesterday I was able to take my three oldest children and go into the Navu temple and perform baptisms for the dead on names that their grandmother had researched of our ancestors in Germany and as we did those baptisms helping unlock the door of salvation for these people and binding our hearts to theirs it was really special. When Joseph Smith died, the walls on that temple were less than half of what they needed to be and some months later, it had already become apparent to the Burgum Young that the saints could not remain in Navu permanently. They would again be driven. So we took a question to the Lord. Should we stay and finish the temple? Knowing that we will have to abandon it almost as soon as it's done or should we go now? And the answer came clearly, stay. The ordinances of the endowment of receiving that spiritual knowledge and power and the ordinances of sealing were so important that they needed to stay. And so for the next year they poured all that they had into the temple, all their spiritual energy, all their resources. Donations came from church members around the world and towards the end, Latter-day Saint Homes were being burned in areas around Navu and they were building wagons to go west just as they were finishing the temple. And Burgum Young said, we will finish this temple. If I have to do it with a gun in one hand to protect myself and the saints and a trowel in the other hand to finish the work. And in December, 1845, enough of the temple was completed that they could partially dedicate it and begin to give the endowments to worthy saints and begin to seal husbands and wives together. And they worked around the clock over the next few months to prepare everyone spiritually for that great trek west. And to me, it's really profound and really sacred that I'm sealed with that same power to my wife, Alyssa, to our four children, to our parents, to generations that have gone before in generations yet unborn. To me, that is what the restoration has made possible. Those are both beautifully expressed and I think are at the heart of the question that was asked. I think there are perhaps three things that I would mention to you in terms of what the restoration has meant, there's meant to me. First of all, just think of having the Book of Mormon. Just think of having another witness of Jesus Christ and all that's contained in there. What an incredible blessing it is for those in our generation to have the Book of Mormon, the doctrine that's taught there, the principles that are taught there, but also the witness of the Savior that's taught throughout it. I would come back to the ordinances as well. I've had the opportunity as a general authority of serving under three prophets, three presidents of the church, President Hinckley, President Monson, and now President Nelson. And I've noticed that when somebody becomes the prophet, that their hearts turn towards the ordinances of the temple in a very dramatic way. They have a sense of how significant that is to those of us that are here on the earth. I was privileged to be here at the, during the dedication of the Nauvoo temple with President Hinckley. I can remember how deeply touched he was to have this temple built and, but how important it was to him and how much of an emphasis he placed on getting temples out to the people and having the people go to the temple. President Monson continued that feeling and I think had the same inspiration from heaven that President Hinckley did. And we have seen it in a dramatic fashion with President Nelson. I've been close enough to see what's happened with President Nelson, who's always been such an incredible leader and incredible apostle. And as he's had the mantle of the prophet come upon him, he has had a sense of the preciousness of ordinances. You'll remember in that very first talk that he gave from the Salt Lake temple, and it's interesting that he chose the Salt Lake temple. One of his principal messages was, go to the temple, get your ordinances, get on the covenant pathway. And right after that was, if you're not now on the covenant pathway, if for any reason you've fallen off, get back on that pathway. And so I would reiterate what President Nelson said in that incredible message. So, anything to do with the savior? And I want you to know that President Nelson is so focused on the savior and the first presidency and the 12. And as we're concluding this wonderful meeting, I want to, as an apostle, to bear witness to you of Jesus Christ. I'm a sure witness of his divinity. I want you to know that he guides and directs the gospel and the church in a way that will bless all of us. I testify to you that he lives. We're so grateful again for your generation. You're just so important. And the things that you have already accomplished and what you can accomplish, you're just so significant. And so we also invoke blessings upon you and your generation that you'll be able to accomplish the things that the Lord wants you to accomplish. Again, I testify of Jesus Christ and I do so in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Dear and only Father, please bless that we'll be able to have a safe drive home for those of us who are traveling home tonight and that we'll be able to take what we learned throughout our daily lives and that we'll be able to apply it to our lives and that we can take the spiritual knowledge that we've gained tonight and be able to use it and teach it to others. And we think that we could gather here in Nauvi tonight and those of us who couldn't come can't be able to watch it worldwide. And please bless that we'll be able to all travel throughout our lives and share the gospel with others and in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.