Hello, dear listeners, this is my Book of Mormon podcast, and I'm Marie Kent. I know what you're all

absolutely, without a doubt, 100% hoping for, a thrilling conclusion to last week's letter from

my historical boyfriend, Oliver Cowdery. He's been careening right toward a description of Joseph

Smith's first vision, you know, that glorious moment when God, and possibly Jesus,

came down from heaven in the sacred grove and answered the question,

Oh, Lord, what church shall I join?

Well, today I'm here to take that expectation, put it in a box, and crush it,

because my boy Oliver skips right over that. We are about to read

letter four, which is a charming description of Joseph Smith praying to God, full of religious turmoil.

And of course, we need some context. There are a few issues with what I'm about to read to you,

which heavily influence why these letters may have been relegated to historical context rather than religious canon.

First up, it's the timing.

Letter 4 is written in February 1835 and places these events that I'm about to read in 1823.

Prophet of God, Joseph Smith, writes his own history in 1838, and he puts the events

in 1820. Letter four has prayers occurring in a bedroom. Joseph Smith's history has prayers happening

in the woods. Joseph Smith published letter four as part of the church's early recruitment pamphlets.

So was it published without his consent?

Did God tell Joseph to let this incorrect information just get out there to, I don't know,

test believers' faith? Was Joseph making all this up on the fly and completely biffed it?

I mean, I don't know. So let's read this, shall we? And then you can decide. So here we go. Go to the show notes if you'd like to read along with me for letter four, February 1835. Dear brother, in my last, I apologized for the very brief manner in which I should be obliged to give in many instances the history of this church.

Since then, yours of Christmas has been received.

It was not my wish to be understood that I could not give the leading items of every important occurrence, at least so far as would affect my duty to my fellow men, and such as contained

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