Mormon Studies Commons^™

“How Beautiful Are The Feet” The Use Of Footnotes In General Conference Reports, Scott L. Howell, Jesse Vincent, Lauryn Wilde

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

The usage of footnotes[1] in general conference addresses has surged since 1990, and this trend appears to have started with Elder Russell M. Nelson, then a newly called Apostle. At the time of this writing, he has amassed 1,966 footnotes over ninety-one conference addresses, more than double the footnotes of any other speaker. In recent conferences, all the Apostles (and nearly all other speakers) have used footnotes. We submit that footnotes (particularly the footnotes given by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve) merit increasing attention by religious educators and all who read these reports. Consider an excerpt from …

Commonalities In The Savior's Postmortal Visits To The Spirit World, The Holy Land, And The New World, Garrett Mcguire

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Repetition is a vehicle through which the Holy Ghost can enlighten our minds, influence our hearts, and enlarge our understanding." - Elder David A. Bednar. Christ in the Land Bountiful, Simon Dewey. Courtesy of Intellectual Reserve, Inc.“Repetition is a vehicle through which the Holy Ghost can enlighten our minds, influence our hearts, and enlarge our understanding,” explained Elder David A. Bednar.[1] Jesus Christ demonstrated significant repetitions in his teaching and other actions throughout his ministry in the Holy Land. Consider the repetitious themes in his parables of the lost sheep, lost coin, and prodigal son (Luke 15); the similar actions …

Review: Virginia Kerns. Sally In Three Worlds: An Indian Captive In The House Of Brigham Young. Salt Lake City: University Of Utah Press, 2021., Erika M. Bsumek

Mormon Studies Review

In Sally in Three Worlds, anthropologist Virginia Kerns has written a detailed and engaging account of the life of a young Pahvant Ute woman who was kidnapped by Indigenous captors (possibly the Ute leader Wakara and his brother) and sold to Latter-day Saint settlers when she was in her late teens. Sally, as the Latter-day Saint community came to call the captive, then lived most of her life as a domestic laborer, working for members of Brigham Young’s extended family. She eventually became the cook at the Lion House for Young and his large plural family. In total, she …

End Matter

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

No Poor Among Them: Poverty And Mormonism’S Trek Toward Secularism, Cristina Rosetti

Mormon Studies Review

Shortly after Warren Jeffs’s arrest and subsequent prosecution, American media bombarded audiences with countless stories of Fundamentalist crime. Screens and papers carried stories about trafficking, violence, and, of course, polygamy. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) became a spectacle of impropriety and abuse. As this happened, people became familiar with accounts of nonviolent crime within the community. Food stamp fraud emerged as a concerning offense associated with the religion, and the mugshot of Lyle Jeffs, brother to prophet Warren, appeared alongside headlines that carefully outlined his involvement in criminal deception. Of the fraud and subsequent arrest, …

After Anger, Daniel Teichert

BYU Studies

Where are the angels? In the kitchen’s brittle light hard words are fallen and the angels have retreated, but not far.

The Dance, Michelle Forstrom

BYU Studies

Growing up, I was the singer and my sister was the dancer. I would practice my art songs, arias, and Broadway ballads, and Danielle would drill away at her ballroom dance routines with her partner. While I would memorize lyrics, get into character, and be cast in local musicals, Danielle would compete in Dancesport at the Brigham Young University Marriott Center. She would cheer me on at my plays, and I would be at all her dance competitions with water bottles and a towel. I would spray on her tans, sew on her rhinestones, and glue on her fake eyelashes. …

Let’S Talk About Series, Matthew B. Christensen

BYU Studies

A couple of years ago, Deseret Book began publishing the Let’s Talk About series, books designed to help readers learn about interesting—and potentially difficult—topics. The books are relatively short, ranging from 130 to 168 pages. Each book measures 4¼ × 7 inches, making them the perfect size to fit into a pocket or purse. The tone of each book is conversational and engaging. The authors are as varied as the subjects, recognized authorities in their respective fields and believing Latter-day Saints. The series began in 2021, and nine volumes have been published as of summer 2023.

Recorded In Heaven, Scott Hales

BYU Studies

Len and Mary Hope were African American Latter-day Saints who joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Alabama (Len in 1919, Mary in 1925) and later raised their children in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Hopes’ story was recently featured in Saints, Volume 3: Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, introducing the couple’s experiences as Black Latter-day Saints in the early twentieth century to Church members around the world.

Salad Days, Alixa Brobbey

BYU Studies

There used to be smoke standing on every corner and hovering just behind each shoulder, sitting politely at round tables ordering food from teenaged waiters.

Joseph Smtih And The Mormons By Noah Van Sciver, Scott Hales

BYU Studies

Readers have been anticipating Noah Van Sciver’s graphic novel Joseph Smith and the Mormons since 2011, when the cartoonist first published a story about Joseph Smith and Latter-day Saint origins in his indie comics anthology Blammo. In the story, Van Sciver offset a rather straightforward account of the First Vision and translation of the Book of Mormon with his signature visual style, an arresting combination of the primitive and the grotesque. The result was an artistically intriguing retelling of early Church history, and readers wanted more. When Van Sciver subsequently published graphic novels about Abraham Lincoln (The Hypo: …

Every Needful Thing: Essays On The Life Of The Mind And The Heart, Edited By Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye And Kate Holbrook, Susan Elizabeth Howe

BYU Studies

This important collection of essays is the result of the inspiration and insight of two generous and faithful scholars, Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye and Kate Holbrook. Melissa has an appointment as a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland and is a historian for the Church History Department. Kate, who passed away in 2022, was also a historian, who worked on such important books as The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History and At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women. Together, Melissa and Kate have sought out essays “on …

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

A Prophet’S Journey: The Journals Of Spencer W. Kimball, Jeffery L. Anderson, Brandon J. Metcalf

BYU Studies

The Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently released the journals of President Spencer W. Kimball online. President Kimball is well known for his advocacy of keeping personal journals and histories. He passionately preached about their worth and importance. “We renew our appeal for the keeping of individual histories and accounts of sacred experiences in our lives—answered prayers, inspiration from the Lord, administrations in our behalf, a record of the special times and events of our lives,” he taught. “Stories of inspiration from our own lives . . . are powerful teaching tools. I …

The Place—Or The Tribe—Called Nahom? Nhm As Both A Tribal And Geographic Name In Modern And Ancient Yemen, Neal Rappleye

BYU Studies

For decades, Latter-day Saint scholars have argued that “the place . . . called Nahom” in the Book of Mormon (1 Ne. 16:34) is the Nihm region in Yemen, located northeast of Sanaʿa, west of Maʾrib, and south of the Wadi Jawf. The location fits well both with the directions provided for getting to and from Nahom in the Book of Mormon (1 Ne. 16:13–14, 33; 17:1) and with inscriptions dated to Lehi’s time referring to a person called a nhmyn, translated as “Nihmite,” confirming that the name goes back to the right time period. Publications by Princeton, Oxford, …

“Show Them Unto No Man”: Part 2. The Book Of Moses And The Early Jewish Christian Esoteric Tradition, Barry R. Bickmore

BYU Studies

There can be no question but that the Restoration was in many ways strange for its time and place, and this can make life difficult for anyone attempting to track the history of Latter-day Saint religious beliefs. Its very strangeness makes it difficult for historians who do not believe Joseph Smith’s teachings were divinely inspired to pinpoint plausible, mundane sources of inspiration.

A Register Analysis Of Public Prayers, Lindsey Newton, Brett Hashimoto

BYU Studies

Prayer, as defined by scholars Corwin and Brown, is “a form of ritual language . . . [that] affords humans the possibility to communicate with non-human others.” As a linguistic register (that is, a variety of language defined by an area of use, such as academic research articles, text messages, sermons, or blog posts), it denotes communication with an unseen being, primarily in a religious context. However, “despite the importance of religion and ritual in anthropology, prayer, a key component of religious practices and institutions, has received very little empirical attention.” This is partially because the complexity of religion as …

“The Gospel Of Intelligence And Culture”: Literature And Literary Instruction In The Twentieth-Century Mia Curriculum, Michael Austin, Rachel Meibos Helps

BYU Studies

In his journal for April 29, 1888, Bishop Orson F. Whitney recorded a curious meeting that he had with an Apostle. “Had a long conversation in the morning with Apostle Moses Thatcher,” wrote Whitney. “He gave me a blessing and set me apart to deliver a lecture on Sunday, June 3rd next, at the Mutual Improvement Conference in the Tabernacle. My subject is Home Literature. I consented to deliver it, though very busy and overworked, at the request of the Authorities.” This remarkable assignment— he was called and set apart to give a speech in the way men at the …

The Baptismal Chair, Ellis William Leroy Jr.

BYU Studies

It was a cool cloudy day when I arrived at his home some years past. His hospice nurse was attempting to console his family. He was nearing the end of his life. He was frail and partially conscious but knew we were there. He had always been a stoic man and had worked until disability forced him to retire. He had been confined to a wheelchair for several years. There were no complaints that day, and he was comfortable. He had no desires other than to be with his wife, who had preceded him in death. Now he lay in …

Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre And Its Aftermath By Richard E. Turley Jr. And Barbara Jones Brown, Kent P. Jackson

BYU Studies

September 11, 1857.

Thirteen years earlier, the Prophet Joseph Smith was murdered while in state custody. The Latter-day Saints had been driven from their homes in Missouri and Illinois, with no protection from those states or from the United States. The U.S. Army was on its way to the Utah Territory to put down a rebellion that didn’t exist, and Utahns thought they might be driven from their homes once again. Because of the anticipated military invasion, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had recently told settlers in Utah not to sell food, including grain, to …

Documents, 1 January–15 May 1844: Vol. 14 Of The Documents Series Of The Joseph Smith Papers, Richard E. Bennett

BYU Studies

Having grown up on a diet of Joseph Fielding Smith’s Essentials in Church History, B. H. Roberts’s Comprehensive History of the Church, and the six-volume History of the Church, which for me and so many others was once the gold standard for the study of Church history, I am convinced that the Joseph Smith Papers are a shaft of incredible new light, a welcomed revelation of sorts, a coming-out party to document Joseph Smith’s life and ministry.

I Have Dreamed With Her: The Fruitful Relationship Between Minerva Teichert And Alice Merrill Horne, Laura Paulson Howe

BYU Studies

Minerva Teichert was asked to give the eulogy at the funeral of her agent, mentor, and friend, Alice Merrill Horne, in 1948. “I think one of the greatest things [Horne] did,” Teichert mused in her speech, “was to insist that I get a washing machine. I had lived too long in Fort Hall Bottoms. I looked open-eyed, almost horror stricken, as I said—‘You don’t mean an electric washer, do you?’ ‘Of course I do,’ she answered, ‘why not? No one deserves one more than you. I’ll sell some thing and help you out. You’d have your washing done in an …

“Life And Death, Blessing And Cursing” New Context For “Skin Of Blackness”: In The Book Of Mormon, T. J. Uriona

BYU Studies

For many readers of the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 5 can prove rather challenging. Not only does this chapter contain the actualization of a curse and the apparent genesis of an outgroup, but it also states that “the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon” this group because of their iniquity (2 Ne. 5:21). Given the prevalence of racial thought in society today, this passage has been interpreted as a hurtful reference to a phenotypic change in skin color brought on by a divine curse, leading many researchers to propose alternatives to a purely racialized …

Thoughts, In Threes, Isaac James Richards

BYU Studies

Between husband and wife, a vow.

Between past and present, the now.

Boxwoods, Andrew Maxfield

BYU Studies

Your canvas drop cloth pressed like guest linens

even for yard work,

pungent green bits collecting at your knees

as you worked the hedge flanks

with the gray rechargeable clippers.

The King Follett Sermon: A Biography By William V. Smith, Matthew B. Christensen

BYU Studies

The King Follett Sermon: A Biography by William V. Smith is a carefully crafted book that delves into the life and significance of one of the most influential sermons in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Smith brings to light the story behind the creation and reception of the King Follett Sermon, delivered by Joseph Smith on April 7, 1844.

Learning Eternal Truths In Joseph And Emma Smith’S Restored Kirtland Home, Aaron L. West

BYU Studies

At the beginning of 2023, the historic sites of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints featured twenty-five toured historic homes.1 That’s a lot of old houses. And the number recently increased by one. On August 29, 2023, the restored home of Joseph and Emma Smith in Kirtland, Ohio, opened for guided tours (fig. 1).

So the Church now has another historic home, restored after more than a decade of meticulous work, including historical research, architectural studies, and archaeological excavations. What makes this home worth so much time and so many resources?

What’S In A Name?: The Growing Focus On Jesus Christ (By Name) Since 2000 In General Conference Talks, Grant Madsen, Joseph Corey

BYU Studies

In the last talk of the Sunday morning session of the October 2018 general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter “the Church”), President Russell M. Nelson felt “compelled to discuss . . . a matter of great importance.” He recognized that nicknames such as “Mormon Church” or “LDS Church” had a certain acceptance and utility, particularly in a world dominated by social media. Still, he called on members to rely on the full and proper name of the Church moving forward. “What’s in a name or, in this case, a nickname?” President Nelson asked. “When …

Blessings For Jean, Heather Sundahl

BYU Studies

I get the call on Monday. Grandma Jean is being transported from her nursing home to the ER. There is blood in her urine. Her body has still not healed from the pelvic fracture a month prior, and I wonder—all of us do—if this is it. At ninety-five, my husband’s fierce grandma is failing in body and fading in mind.

One Week Before Kindergarden, Ali Benson Moulton

BYU Studies

I see you from the window

As I do dishes

Again—

Sunshine soaking your hair

Mud soaking your dress

As you pet the cat and eat garden peas.

Crack

Peel

Chew

Pet

Again and again

For an hour or more.