This past week, in addition to celebrating and thinking about Thanksgiving, I’ve been celebrating inwardly and thinking about Joseph Smith. That’s because the topic for the Come Follow Christ study was the testimony and martydrom of Joseph Smith. Because of his outspoken testimony, he was killed. He sealed his testimony with his blood. The video below shows the Carthage Jail, where the murder took place. It also features one of my favorite Come Follow Christ YouTubers, Barbara Morgan Gardiner. She visits with Sydney Smith Reynolds, a descendant of Hyrum Smith, who was with his brother Joseph at Carthage Jail, and was murdered at the same time that Joseph was.

I’m so grateful for Joseph Smith! I remember hearing my dear Aunt Chris (whose funeral I blogged about here) bear testimony of him at a Sunday church service after her son came home from a mission. He had spent two years bearing testimony of Jesus Christ and his restorational prophet, Joseph Smith. I felt the Holy Spirit then and I feel it now bear witness to me that Joseph Smith was chosen by God to restore the ancient gospel and church of Jesus Christ in the latter-days.

I’ve prayed about the witness that Joseph Smith gave in his Joseph Smith History, that he saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. The account is over here. I have felt the Holy Ghost witness to me that his account is true. I’m so grateful that he willingly shared this testimony of that appearance. I’m also grateful for all he testified after the First Vision, and all he did, including following God’s call to translate the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ and establish the true church of Jesus Christ in the latter-days.

What happened because he followed those calls involved a heavenly education. In addition to being tutored by God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, Joseph was visited and tutored by other heavenly beings: Moses, Elijah, Moroni, John the Baptist, and Peter, James, and John. Maybe more, but those are the ones I remember from my study. His revelations from these messengers as well as from the Holy Ghost endow us with knowledge that can enlarge all of our minds. The image at the very top of this post shows some of the topics that God expanded Joseph’s mind about so that Joseph could think like God. Because of Joseph writing down his revelations, we can each have our mind expanded as well.

The video above is the one from which I got that screenshot, done by my husband’s cousin Lynne Hilton Wilson. I invite you to watch it as well as these amazing videos below featuring Truman Madsen, scholar and philosopher, telling us all about the amazing truths that Joseph revealed because they were revealed to him.

As Brigham Young once said, “I feel like shouting Hallelujah, all the time, when I think that I ever knew Joseph Smith, the Prophet whom the Lord raised up and ordained, and to whom he gave keys and power to build up the Kingdom of God on earth and sustain it” (Discourses of Brigham Young, 456).

Not that I personally knew Joseph, but I feel like I did know him because of what I’m able to learn about him. I also feel like I know him because of all the gifts he gave us. These gifts include treasures of knowledge of eternal truths, as well as priesthood ordinances to allow living with God again. These gifts are here to bless the whole human race. You can tell much about the giver by the kind of gifts he or she gives right? Joseph feels like the most ideal big brother anyone could ever ask for.

These ordinances he restored allow me to be with generations of my family for eternity. Despite all the drama in my family, I love them! I do want to be with them forever. I do want to be with my friends too. As Joseph revealed, “the same sociality [social relationships] which exists among us here [as mortals on earth] will exist among us there,” or when we are in the Lord’s presence, but “it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy” (D&C 130:2).

As Brother Truman says in Lecture 2, “There is a feeling that constantly recurs as one studies Joseph Smith. You never quite get to the bottom. There is always more. You can be so impressed and overcome with glimpses that you could say, ‘There is nothing good that I could learn of him that would surprise me’ and then you become surprised. There is always more. It takes deep to comprehend deep and I wonder if any of us have the depth to fully comprehend the man.”

Then there’s the movie, down below, that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints produced to tell his story. My favorite part is when Joseph silences the evil speakers making fun of the mob violence against the Saints in Missouri.

This is what he said:

“SILENCE, ye fiends of the infernal pit. In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you, and command you to be still; I will not live another minute and hear such language. Cease such talk, or you or I die THIS INSTANT!’

After this command, Parley P. Pratt said about Joseph: “He ceased to speak. He stood erect in terrible majesty. Chained, and without a weapon; calm, unruffled and dignified as an angel, he looked upon the quailing guards, whose weapons were lowered or dropped to the ground; whose knees smote together, and who, shrinking into a corner, or crouching at his feet, begged his pardon, and remained quiet till a change of guards.” (Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, ed. Parley P. Pratt Jr. (1938), 210–11.)

Truly he was a man who spoke for and communed with Jehovah. I’m forever grateful for his valiant testimony and actions that bore witness of Jesus Christ.