Guys. Saints chapter 4 is out and we're
going to talk about it. 3 Mormons
book club! Quatro.
We're still in Joseph Smith's younger
years. This period of time in Saints
chapter four is also like covered
briefly in Joseph Smith history but it gets
interesting because we're going to be
talking about Joseph Smith's treasure
hunting days. All you anti-Mormon people love
to hate on which really, it's not even
that big of a deal so I don't know what
you guys are all like freaking out about.
And then you've got the seer stones and
Joseph Smith actually, he had a seer
stone, you know, he found one. And
that's where a lot of the controversy
comes in because, a lot of problem with
that because it seems very mystical. It
wasn't that uncommon back in the day but
anyways what happens is this guy named
Josiah Stowell he hears Joe Smith has
the seer stone and that he is pretty
good at finding stuff through it and so
he's like "Joseph, come help me find this
lost Spanish treasure" or whatever that
he's got, you know, he's heard of.
I just loved how he was so convinced
that he had the treasure he was willing
to pay Joseph and his father to live
with him. I mean that's actually how he met his
wife because Emma Smith, Joseph's future wife-- I love that love story--
her dad was invested in this treasure
hunting endeavor, right, and they're
staying at his house, they're staying at
the Hales. Isaac Hales. Yeah, exactly.
You might say the real treasure he found is Emma.
Can we keep that in? That's so cute!
Mimi is deceased.
So, they're paying so much
money for them to come find this
treasure which turned out to be-- Yeah, they didn't really find it and Joseph
was like, "Yeah, you should probably stop
looking cuz we're not having much
success." He could have milked it, he could have been like, "No we'll find it tomorrow," you know and got money
but he was an honest man. Right. Anyways,
it touches on that in Joseph Smith- History,
touches on it a lot more in Saints
chapter 4 but what happens is Josiah's
nephew files a complaint against Joseph
that he's conning Josiah, his uncle.
And they called them all to court and
Josiah testifies on behalf of Joseph
Smith which is just hilarious. That doesn't make any sense that anyone would even charge
Joseph Smith in the first place. Right, but
the fact that you'll often hear that
Joseph Smith was a con man, like it
all goes back to this court case when he
was charged with being a con man and
the person he was charged of conning
defended him so I'm kind of surprised that many misconceptions lasted.
It's so funny people use that against us. But it's like,
do you know the whole thing? Because it
doesn't make sense what you're trying to
prove, you know what I mean? He was never convicted. End of story.
I wish I could treasure
hunt that's like every kid's dream is
to go find treasure. I'd be scared. Everyone wants to be a pirate. Because of his endeavors in working with Josiah
and searching for treasure he met a
beautiful young lady named Emma. And if
we put her picture up here, I don't think
that it's... where are you going with this?
I think she looked kinda scary, that's just me. I'm
entitled to that opinion but I'm sure
that for 1826, she was, you know,
the cream of the crop. Okay, I have some Insta pics that
aren't that flattering either. That's also true. Maybe you're intimidated by powerful women. That's also true.
So Joseph met Emma and they started spending
lots of time together and and she was
saying that he was just one of the best
men that she had ever met and so
even after the treasure hunting
ended, Joseph continued to work on
Josiah's farm so he could spend time
with Emma but Emma's parents, due to the
court case and like a lot of, you know,
rumors about Joseph, they just didn't
approve of the marriage marriage. They
were just dating, they were 'courting,'
"Go and court, go and court!" If you can name these movies. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Bless your
beautiful hide. So regardless of
the parents opinion, Joseph still asks
for Emma's hand and Emma loves Joseph so
much that she's willing to marry him
even though
her parents don't agree. Also Emma
believes that Joseph Smith is called of
God and the work he's doing and she'll
play a huge part in the growth of the
church and in helping Joseph. He's only
21 at this time, or just barely turning
21. Yeah, about there. So like she's a huge
part of him becoming the man of God that
he needs to be and so then they get
married. And I love how that shows Emma's
faith. It shows that she was just the
perfect person to be with Joseph at that
time and through the whole bringing
about of the church because you can see
that she has so much faith she has so much
courage and strength even though she had
to go, you know, against her- what her
family wanted she knew what was right
and, you know, I believe that she also had
a really strong relationship with God
and because of her, that helped Joseph a
lot and gave him a lot of strength too
and I love how you can see that from
early in chapter 4 and you guys, It
is just so cute. And she went with Joseph
when he went to recover the golden
plates from the Hill Cumorah, she goes
with him in like a stagecoach I think
and he gets out, she stays in the stage coach
and they're going like in the dead of
night because bad guys
are plotting to get the plates from him.
Joseph's smart and he knows that they'll,
they think he's gonna go in the daytime.
Right, and everybody is asleep at 12:30
in the morning. Yeah, everybody. He goes
and gets the plates, but didn't have
anywhere to keep them. He didn't have
like a safe or anything so he sticks them
in a hollowed-out tree and then plans to
come back for them. One thing I
thought was really cool, so he did bring,
with the plates were the Urim and
Thummim which are seer stones mentioned
in The Book of Mormon and what I love is
that Joseph Smith keeps them, you know,  he keeps the plates hidden
but he takes the seer stones with him
and later like his dad's freaking out
and he's like, "These guys in town are
saying that they're gonna find the
plates no matter what so like Emma, go
tell Joseph" who's working, you know, on a
farm. And he's like, "Go tell him that he
needs to watch out for the plates
because they're hidden in this tree
somewhere." And so then Emma goes,
finds Joseph and she's like, "Joseph the
plates are in danger" and Joseph just
like takes out the Urim and Thummim, just
looks at him and he's like, "Nope, they're
good." Cause he can see anything. Like he can see, I
don't know, it just blew my mind when I
read that because like I know that
Joseph's using-- he uses the Urim
and Thummim, the seer stones to like
translate the Book of Mormon but he could also check on the plates, you know? So
when Joseph was on his way back with the
plates, he ran into some trouble and
basically there's these guys, they're
weirdly trying to fight him and like get
the plates which prove that people did
believe that he had the plates. Okay so
people weren't just thinking he was
crazy, they knew that he had plates and
they could probably sell them for a lot
of money and they're trying to fight him,
they had guns and Joseph was just
there with the plates and he ends up
fighting them off, these three guys with
guns and he's unarmed and he makes it
home safely so that just shows that, I
mean, it was very important that these
plates were safe. Joseph got them and was
able to translate them so we could have
the Book of Mormon today. That is why the
Book of Mormon was written is for our
time on this earth before Christ's
second coming and I just think it's so
cool, you know, learning about those
stories of how many times the plates
were at risk and how many times Joseph
Smith was that risk but everything
worked out okay because now we can have
the Book of Mormon today and I just
think that is so beautiful. Definitely.
One misconception that is popular, even
amongst members of the church, is that
the golden plates were actually solid
100% gold which probably isn't true. I
mean we don't really know because we
don't have them but there are several
issues with them being actual solid gold,
one being that it would probably be too
heavy to run with as long as Joseph did
and if they're solid gold, it's very soft
metal and it would probably have messed
up the engravings on there but we're
gonna link to an article about this that
talks about what they probably were
which is an interesting alloy popular
kind of towards the Central American
region called Tombaga. But it's
interesting because the people that
were chasing Joseph, trying to get the
plates probably thought that they were
solid gold. Joseph Smith probably thought
they were solid gold at first
because they looked like gold but they
probably weren't solid gold. It was more of
a descriptor than necessarily...
It was gold color, right? Right, is describes the color more than the actual material material is made for.
There's probably some gold in there but
not solid gold. Go read the chapter,
tell us what you think, leave it in the
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you can keep updated with our book club for the next chapter of Saints. We're so excited for next month!
Be sure to read this chapter and we'll see you guys next time.
See you next time on Zoboomafoo. Oh Zoboomafoo is such a good show with a
little money. It's a lemur. Zoboomafoo is a lemur.
