Hello, it's Marie Kent, and welcome to my personal side project of the My Book of Mormon podcast,

brought to you by insomnia and the residual stress of life. So like most humans, when I can't sleep,

I immediately want to take a break from the current reality by immersing myself in another one.

Play a game, watch a moving picture, make some art, read a book.

Bryce and I both tend toward the last one, obviously, and we're also done reading all the books,

except I'm not quite done.

Mormon canon is done, let's be clear.

There's this thing, though.

I have a historical crush. Oliver Cowdery,

blessed by Heavenly Father, Jesus, his own self, did stand upon the breastwork of the pulpit

before him. He's one of the three witnesses, and have you seen his daguerreotype? You had me

a tailored vest. We have read many, many of his writings on this show, and mostly we've read his notes, so the

voice of God through Joseph Smith penned by Oliver Cowdery.

He did write on his own, though.

Specifically, he wrote eight letters to his buddy, his pal, William Wines-Felps. Open letters, and for a brief time in Mormon history,

they were pretty darn important. Let's go back to the beginning of the Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints, or more accurately, a year and a half before that. It's fall, 1828, upstate New York,

and a 22-year-old school teacher named Oliver Cowdery is boarding in the

house of an older couple, Joseph Smith Sr., and Lucy Mack Smith. Fairly quickly, he starts hearing

stories of the Smith's son, Joseph Jr., his encounters with angels and his discovery of some

golden plates. According to Lucy Mack Smith,

Cowdery prayed to God asking if Joseph Smith Jr. was a true prophet.

...