LOGAN, Utah — The Book of Mormon is “the physical manifestation of the truthfulness of the restoration and of the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith,” taught Elder Neil L. Andersen on Sunday to a large audience at Utah State University for the 78th Joseph Smith Memorial devotional.
The Book of Mormon is the largest reason, with the power of the Holy Ghost, that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is moving across the world “into all cultures, all languages, all nations, all economic situations,” said Elder Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
The truth of the Book of Mormon stands next to the truth of the Bible “in assuring us that Jesus is the Christ,” he said. “Now, in my 74th year, I love it more than ever.”
After citing teachings from one of the earliest prophets in this ancient book, the apostle said, “These words and thousands of others have gone into my heart like fire. I know they are true. I know they were spoken by a real individual whose name was Nephi.”
Referencing the pinnacle event in the book when the Savior descends to visit the ancient Americans, he added, “I know he really did appear to them,” saying “Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the light and the life of the world.”
“Try to remember those feelings you had as you have read this book,” the apostle encouraged the audience.
Held in the Spectrum building and sponsored by the Logan Institute of Religion, the annual Joseph Smith Memorial devotional is a tradition that dates back to 1944.
Speaking in the same city in which he was born while his parents attended Utah State University, Elder Andersen reviewed the variety of witnesses to the prophetic call of Joseph Smith — from the impact of the sacred text he brought forth, to the affirmation of those who knew him best, to the personal assurance of the Holy Spirit.
‘Don’t let anyone take it away’
Elder Andersen was accompanied at the devotional by his wife, Sister Kathy Andersen, who also spoke.
Sister Andersen said that she can’t recall the specific moment she knew “Joseph Smith was the prophet of God. I don’t know if it was as a primary child when we sang ‘Oh how lovely was the morning,’ or when I was in seminary reading the Book of Mormon over and over again.”
“I have always believed that Joseph Smith was God’s prophet.”
Yet, in her mid 20s, while she and Elder Andersen were living in Florida as a young couple, she was called as a regional public communications director for the faith. She received in the mail a trove of newspaper articles about a new historical document widely considered legitimate at the time that was “very disparaging of the Prophet Joseph Smith.”
“I had never had any thought except the most beloved thoughts of the Prophet Joseph Smith,” she said, but remembers “exactly where I was sitting in our house” when she received these documents and began reading them as part of her calling.
While reading, she recalled, “I could tell something in my spirit” inconsistent with the earlier peace she had felt, “and so I decided in that moment, ‘I’m not going to read any more of this.’”
That historical document was later found to be fraudulent. But Sister Andersen went on to say that for her, “the important thing was that I knew what I believed and I was not going to let anything take it away from me.”
Speaking directly to attendees, she added, “You have the ability to not let anybody take your testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith away from you.”
‘If the work was true then, it is true today’
In our day, Elder Andersen continued, there are people who, at one time were “very converted to the cause of the restoration,” but who, for one reason or another, decide “to turn away from what they believe and to reject the authority of the Prophet Joseph.
The apostle recounted financial problems, intense persecutions and strong doctrine that contributed to estrangement among some early members. That included Parley Pratt, who publicly denounced the prophet, writing in an open letter, “I have at length become fully convinced that you and President Sidney Rigdon, by precept and example have been the principal means in leading his people astray.”
When Pratt spoke with John Taylor, who he had previously baptized, and asked him not to follow Joseph Smith, Taylor responded, “Before you left Canada, you bore a strong testimony to Joseph Smith being a prophet of God. And you said you knew these things by revelation and the gift of the Holy Ghost. I now have that same testimony that you then rejoiced in. If the work was true six months ago, it is true today. If Joseph Smith was then a prophet, he is now a prophet.”
John Taylor, who eventually became the third president of the church, later said, “I testified before God, angels and men, and Joseph was a good, honorable and virtuous man, and that his private and public character was unimpeachable, and that he lived and died as a man of God.”
Pratt later returned to the church and was martyred for his faith in Arkansas.
Elder Andersen also recounted the story of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum Smith, riding towards Carthage, where they anticipated possible violence at the hands of a mob. On the way, Hyrum read words from the Book of Mormon, “Thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father. And now I … bid farewell unto the Gentiles; yea, and also unto my brethren whom I love, until we shall meet before the judgment-seat of Christ.”
Elder Andersen reflected, “If the book were not true, if it was made up in their imagination, would they quote from it on their way to martyrdom? Absolutely not.”
‘The most important of all these witnesses’
“The most important” witness of the prophet Joseph Smith, Elder Andersen said, “is the witness of the Holy Ghost” — a personal experience “available to each of us as we approach our Heavenly Father in faith and in patience and obedience.”
Citing Jesus’ words in the New Testament, he quoted, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not neither knoweth him.”
The apostle said over his lifetime he has learned this is true. “It is not imaginary. It is powerful. It is life changing. I wish when I was your age, I could have felt it like I feel it today. But I have learned that this is a step-by-step process where we grow up in the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Elder Andersen closed by sharing his testimony of Joseph Smith.
“I do know that God, the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, came down from heaven and appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith. I know he was called to restore this gospel and to help prepare a people that one day will receive the Savior as he returns to earth.”
