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Lucy Mack Smith recalls the experience of the Eight Witnesses

Lucy Mack Smith recalls the experience of the Eight Witnesses

Last updated on: January 8, 2019 at 10:26 pm by Dan Peterson

Lucy Mack Smith recalls the experience of the Eight Witnesses 2019-01-08T22:26:09-07:00 Dan Peterson

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The Tucson Arizona Temple (LDS Media Library)

New videos from the 10 November 2018 “Temple on Mount Zion” conference have been posted on the Interpreter Foundation website:

“2018 Temple on Mount Zion Conference: Videos of Presentations”

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I was disappointed, this year, that our schedule (coupled with our residence in Utah Valley) didn’t permit us to use the #LightTheWorld “giving machines” in Salt Lake City. (I’m told that the lines were often quite long, which is great bad news.) Perhaps there will be more of them available next year. I hope so. In any case, this year’s machines were very successful:

“See the Final Tally for the #LightTheWorld Giving Machines”

Feel free to add this to your bulging “Christopher Hitchens Memorial ‘Religion Poisons Everything'” file.

***

Does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints drive people to suicide? The invaluable Jeff Lindsay offers an important perspective on an accusation leveled by some critics against the claims of the Restoration:

“The Height of Absurdity? Revisiting the Impact of Altitude, Oxygen, and Serotonin on Suicide Rates”

***

Some of you — perhaps, especially, half of you — might find this of interest:

“This Book of Mormon scripture changed the way I view veils, women, and the temple”

***

Some helpful materials on this year’s Sunday School curriculum:

“Reflections on Come Follow Me 1: We Are Responsible for Our Own Learning”

“Reflections on Come Follow Me 2: “Be It unto Me according to Thy Word” (Matthew 1; Luke 1)”

***

From one of my manuscripts:

According to David Whitmer, the quite distinct experience of the Eight Witnesses to the Book of Mormon occurred one or two days after the experience of the Three.[1] Again, Lucy Mack Smith remembered the circumstances more than two decades later:

All the male part of the company, with my husband, Samuel, and Hyrum, retired to a place where the family were in the habit of offering up their secret devotions to God. They went to this place, because it had been revealed to Joseph that the plates would be carried thither by one of the ancient Nephites. Here it was, that those eight witnesses, whose names are recorded in the Book of Mormon, looked upon them and handled them. . . . The ensuing evening, we held a meeting, in which all the witnesses bore testimony to the facts, as stated above.[2]

Soon thereafter, all of the Eight—Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer Jr., John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smith Sr., Hyrum Smith, and Samuel H. Smith—signed their names to a statement that has accompanied the testimony of the Three in every printed version of the Book of Mormon.

[1] See the Pratt and Smith interview.

[2] Lucy’s Book, 455-456, 457.

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