Welcome to Part 2 of this week's podcast.

Joseph Smith's an old man in October 1918 when he sees the series of visions that we have

described for us in section 138.

So in fact, he'll be, he'll pass away about six or seven weeks after this text is received,

this revelation is received.

Steve, can you give us a little bit, just give us a little history of Joseph F Smith.

Time to the Missouri period, a little bit.

Yeah, be okay.

Who's his father again and all that stuff?

Joseph F Smith was born in 1838 and what was at that point the worst year in the life of his father,

Hiram Smith. He was blessed by his father while his father was in jail at Liberty, Missouri.

As an infant, his mother Mary took him there, took him to the jail where his father blessed him.

His uncle Joseph the prophet was there and Joseph F Smith grows up maybe more wounded by death

than just about anybody that I know of in history.

Think about it this way. He's five years old when he sees the bullet hole in his father's face.

So he's laying there in a, in a pine box and I mean you can smell his decaying body by now.

And you know they've tried to shove cotton in his cheekbone, but you don't get over that sight.

That's such a traumatic experience that you don't get over it.

And it's not very many years later that his mother passes away.

They make it safely across the plains with Joseph's siblings, but his mother passes away when

is in his early teens. She gets lung infection and it takes her. So by his early teens, he's an orphan.

That's Mary Fielding, right Steve? Yes, Mary Fielding Smith, a heroic figure in the restoration.

...