Did You Know This On Your Mission?

[_zeezrom]

Mission: Tacoma Washington, 1994

Didn't know. I read the different versions for the first time in 2010.

[_Fence Sitter]

South America 1975

Other then the vile accusations of Joseph Smith being a gold digger, I had not heard of any of those things.

[_Morley]

I didn't serve a mission. When I entered the army two weeks after high school, I'd never heard of the Kinderhook Plates and barely knew that Joseph Smith had been a polygamist (let alone that there had been multiple versions of the first vision). Of course I also believed that evolution was a hoax and that my girl friend was a virgin. But then, let's face it, I believed in Santa Claus until I was ten.

[_Dr. Shades]

When I was a missionary I didn't know any of that stuff.

When I read the material that Aristotle Smith quoted, I thought the reviewer was being sarcastic. I'm still not sure either way.

[_moksha]

There was a missionary in Richard Dutcher's movie that read about LDS history outside of officially sanctioned materials. The message in the movie was that you should not learn of these things and if you did somehow learn them, then you should not let these bits and flecks of history dissuade you in your missionary calling.

Perhaps you former missionaries learned of these things but willfully forgot in order to stay pure.

[_Fence Sitter]

There was a missionary in Richard Dutcher's movie that read about LDS history outside of officially sanctioned materials. The message in the movie was that you should not learn of these things and if you did somehow learn them, then you should not let these bits and flecks of history dissuade you in your missionary calling.

Perhaps you former missionaries learned of these things but willfully forgot in order to stay pure.

I served in the mission home for a few months. While I was there I noticed a book in the mission president's office whose title I only vaguely remember having something to do with Mormonism and Masonry. I asked the mission president if I could read it. I do not remember his answer but I do remember the book disappearing from his office.

[_xolotl]

Houston Texas, 2005-2007

I didn't know any of that stuff before my mission. I knew about polygamy, that Joseph had a seerstone, and a few other things, but my knowledge was very limited on those few things I was aware of. For example, I knew Joseph Smith had married other women besides Emma. I did not know how young some of them were, the manipulative circumstances regarding taking some of those wives, that Joseph had sex with them, nor was I aware of Joseph's lies and sneaking behind Emma's back and polyandry. Same concept with the seerstone... I only knew a small fraction of the truth and even that was incredibly biased and fictional.

After a month or two on my mission I quickly took the chance at any free time to study stuff outside the "approved" missionary library. I ate up all the farms stuff and settled on that for around 6 months as satisfactory. Then I moved on to dialogue and sunstone stuff and later source material the last 8 months of my mission. Very few missionaries knew any of those things the amazon review mentioned. I could count with two hands the number of missionaries that were even remotely familiar with all of those things. My mission was pretty big.. 180+ and in the Bible belt. So that review on those claims are laughable. Anyway of the small handful of missionaries that actually were versed even in the slightest with a few or all of the items on the list were still lacking quite a bit of information.

Sadly I can say with confidence that it was likely 60-80 percent of the mission did not even know that Joseph had multiple wives... that's right. I cannot count the number of times missionaries didn't know about Joseph practicing polygamy or thought Joseph practicing polygamy was either anti-mormon lies or a misinformed person referring to Brigham Young.

[_sunstoned]

Illinois 1976, land of Joseph, pre-internet.

I was a full on Bible bashing, defender of the faith. I could twist Bible scripture to say what I wanted as good as most Baptist, or Church of Christ ministers. I looked for debates. I thought I was really something. I studied four hours a day, and tracked eight. I cleaned up at al the zone scripture chases. I obeyed all the rules, and still the screw-offs baptized more than I did.

I knew nothing of church history outside of what I was taught in Sunday school and the four years of Seminary I went to. I was told nothing of multiple first visions, polyandry, or Book of Abraham papyrus. I thought evolution was a Satanic lie, meant to deceive the elect.

In hindsight, I didn’t know anything.

[Guest]

First of all, just about anyone who has served a full-time missionary for the the LDS church, like myself, knows that Joseph Smith wrote more than one account of the First Vision. I absolutely had no idea, and if you told me otherwise I would've thought Ed Decker himself got ahold of you.

We also know what those accounts actually say and in what context they were given. There's a certain amount of truth to this, but it doesn't bode well for the Church's truth claims. But again I didn't know anything about this or its "context" prior to my mission.

We also know the whole story about the Kinderhook Plates; I had a rough idea Joseph Smith translated something else, but it was never taught nor discussed in much detail in or out of church.

the so-called "spiritual eyes" theory regaring the witnesses of the gold plates; I never heard of this "theory" prior to my mission.

the Book of Mormon-DNA debate, Prior to my mission I heard BYU was rigorously conducting thousands upon thousands of DNA tests to gather proof of the Lamanite-Jewish nexus.

and the whole episode regarding Joseph Smith as a "gold digger." The most I heard about this was a vague mention Joseph Smith was taken to court for something, and was pretty much railroaded by mean people.

We also know the sources that debunk, or better explain, each of these. Prior to my mission I never heard of any source other than idle speculation that would've 1) brought these topics up, or 2) address these topics.

In his book, Plamer seems to suggest that these items are being hidden from the "rank and file" members of the LDS Church. Well, you think "Sunday School" and "Seminary" would be good times to study the Church honestly, but it's just Orwellian indoctrination.

Sorry Mr. Palmer, but we're not as brainless as you and your followers think we are. I beg to differ.

-VRDRC

[_Blixa]

When I was first in grad school, circa the late-70's at the University of Utah, I had not been in church for years and wasn't giving it much thought at all. My desk mate in the vast teaching assistant cavern was a woman about my own age, who had grown up in Orange County CA as a TBM. Her faith was slowly starting to erode (in a few years she would be ex'd for writing a letter to the editor about the priesthood ban). She mentioned that she'd picked up the Tanner's Mormonism, Shadow or Reality and proceeded to tell me that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon with his head in a hat.

My reaction? "I guess what they say about the Tanners is true, after all. Only some whacked out liars would try to pass on bizarre crap like that!" Of course I didn't say that out loud because I felt a little sorry for my friend having been duped by such nonsense.