Without Disclosing My True Identity
the use of prayer.^25 They couldn’t have been further from the truth. The hubbub concerning
religion had the opposite effect on the young boy. Instead of inspiring him to become
religious, it left Joseph with a disdain for anything to do with religion.
The advanced beings in charge of his work knew exactly where to put the adolescent
true messenger in order to afford him the exact experiences he required to prepare him for his
calling.
NOTES
(^1) Lucy Smith, Progenitors, 75.
(^2) “You don’t know me; you never knew my heart. No man knows my history. I cannot tell it:
I shall never undertake it. I don’t blame anyone for not believing my history. If I had not experienced
what I have, I would not have believed it myself.” (Joseph Smith, Jr., DHC, 6:317.) (Also known as the
King Follett Discourse, 1844.)
(^3) JSH 1:20.
(^4) See TSP, “Appendix 3, The First Vision,” 635–40; see also JSH 1:7
The following journal entry, recorded in 1832, mentions Jesus Christ appearing but it never
even mentions God, the Father, and leaves doubt whether Joseph was 14, 15 or 16 on April 6, 1820:
“The Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and while in the attitude of calling upon the Lord
in the 16th year of my age a pillar of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down
from above and rested upon me. I was filled with the spirit of God and the Lord opened the heavens
upon me and I saw the Lord. He spake unto me saying, “Joseph my son thy sins are forgiven thee.
Go thy way, walk in my statutes and keep my commandments. Behold I am the Lord of Glory. I was
crucifyed [sic] for the world that all those who believe on my name may have Eternal life. Behold the
world lieth in sin at this time and none doeth good, no not one. They have turned asside [sic] from the
gospel and keep not my commandments. They draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are
far from me and mine anger is kindling against the inhabitants of the earth to visit them according to
their ungodliness and to bring to pass that which hath been spoken by the mouth of the prophets and
Apostles. Behold and lo, I come quickly as it [is] written of me in the cloud clothed in the glory of my
Father.” (See Scott H. Faulring, ed., An American Prophet’s Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph
Smith, 2nd ed., [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989] 5–8.)
(^5) Compare BOM, Alma 12:11.
(^6) BOM, Alma 12:11.
(^7) “The vicissitudes of life seem to have weighed heavily on Joseph, Sr. In a patriarchal
blessing given to Hyrum, Dec. 9, 1834, Joseph, Sr., commended Hyrum for the respect he paid his
father despite difficulties: ‘Though he has been out of the way through wine, thou has never forsaken
him nor laughed him to scorn.’ Hyrum Smith Papers, Church Archives,” as quoted in Bushman,
Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, 208, n. 55.
(^8) Lucy Smith, Progenitors, 67.
(^9) See DHC, 1:219–20, note (*), which references Far West Record, 10–15, in connection with a
conference held at the town of Orange, Ohio on 25–6 Oct. 1831. See also D&C, 104:1.
(^10) Acts 2:44–5.
(^11) BOM, Alma 12:9; 49:30.
(^12) Compare BOM, Alma 12:9–11; 2 Nephi 28:30.
(^13) D&C, 1:14–16; 104:54–63;