As I have been preparing the first Come Follow Me Gospel Doctrine lesson for 2026, “Introduction to the Old Testament,” I have been struck by the things Joseph Smith may have learned from Moroni and from the Prophet's translation of the Book of Mormon about the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which included the endowment and sealing ordinances, as it was taught and administered in its purity by Moses and his prophetic successors to the Israelites. The Book of Mormon’s

In Part 1 of this blog, I suggested several questions: Who assembled at the Bountiful Temple and how were they “chosen” to be there (did they simply “self-select” or randomly show up or were they invited)? Why were they at the temple (as opposed to some other place)? Did Mormon use an ancient Israelite temple rite to structure his composition of Third Nephi? If so, why? Did the Lord reveal to and authorize His servants to administer, as part of the Law of Moses-prescribed New

Today is Christmas Day, December 25, 2025, as I send out the next installments in my on-going study of Joseph Smith’s restoration of temple ordinances and doctrine (to be delivered in three parts). It is fitting that the signs given on the American continent of our Savior’s birth in Bethlehem have increasingly been the subject of apostolic Christmas testimonies in recent years. [1]   Each of these blogs explores and asks what the Prophet Joseph Smith might have learned—as he

As we conclude our review of the priesthood and temple themes Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery learned about in their translation and transcription of Alma 12-13, it is worth contemplating what this revelatory process might have looked like. For starters, it must have been intellectually and physically exhausting. Brother Welch calculates that between April 7 and the end of May 1829, “Joseph translated and Oliver wrote” “about 75 percent” of the roughly 390-page Book of Mormon