Echoes of Revelation: A Personal Journey Mirroring Joseph Smith’s Encounter with Moroni and the Book of Mormon

Joseph Smith’s Encounter with Moroni

The angel Moroni visited Joseph Smith in his bedroom on September 21, 1823, and told him about the Book of Mormon and the great work he had to do. There were a couple things Joseph said he was praying for that night:

1. for a manifestation, that he might know of his standing before God, and
2. forgiveness of his sins

In response, Moroni appeared to him, and after explaining that Joseph had a great work to do:

“He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the everlasting gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants.”

My Encounter with Moroni

When I was young, my family were very active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. When I was six or seven years old, I began a short 15 year hiatus from church activity. During this time, we had the Book of Mormon at our house, hanging out on the bookshelf collecting dust.

When I moved around for college, I took it with me, which was weird because I never read it. But it had some sort of positive feeling associated with it, and it felt wrong to think about throwing it in the trash or something like that.

Also during college, specifically during the pandemic, I had a lot of time to think, as many did. There came a time when I found that I stopped believing that this could have all come about by random chance. I began to read about many different faiths. One of the things that I started to read during that time was the Book of Mormon.

Just as Moroni visited Joseph Smith as he prayed in his room, in a sense Moroni visited me through what he wrote in Moroni 10:4:

“4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.”

The night that I read that verse I kneeled down beside my bed, and asked God if that book was true. After closing the prayer, I put my hand on the book, and when I did that, it felt like a fire had been lit in my chest… I had my “burning in the bosom” moment! I pulled my hand back, and just stayed there on my knees for a little while staring into space, wondering what in the world just happened. I related to Joseph Smith’s experience with Moroni when he wrote:

“I lay musing on the singularity of the scene, and marveling greatly at what had been told to me by this extraordinary messenger.”

Or, after the 3rd time Moroni appeared to him that night:

“I was again left to ponder on the strangeness of what I had just experienced.”

Miracles & Skepticism

Unlike Joseph, I was not commanded to tell anybody of my experience. The next couple of weeks I didn’t know who to reach out to or what steps to take next. On top of that, I had cold feet because I knew that, excuse my language, the “Mormons” were going to try to take away all my fun. Then I got a text one day that said something like:

“Hey Chase, this is the sister missionaries in Missoula. We would love to sit down with you and get to know you.”

I still don’t know exactly how that happened. I remember meeting with them when I was twelve-ish for a weeks. It’s possible they got my number from that time somehow, but it remains unknown. I talked to them later on about that and told them I couldn’t believe how perfect the timing of everything was. They said:

“We can, because we know who was behind it.”

I met with those missionaries for a while, then I told them that they didn’t have the proof I wanted, and I didn’t want to do lessons anymore. During our last meeting, I laid out my case on how they could never know with certainty the things they were proclaiming. I chalked up my experience with the Book of Mormon to coincidence, and went back to my prior lifestyle.

Six months went by, and during that time the Book of Mormon continued to be what I can only describe as a warm light with a subtle pulling effect. That effect eventually pulled me back in, and I went on to have another very sacred prayer experience.

The second reason Joseph was praying that night, remember, was for:

“…forgiveness of all my sins and follies.”

The more I read scripture, the more I realized my own sins and follies. That led me, one night, to cry out to Jesus for forgiveness. Almost immediately, I was filled with an incredible peace.

Conversion

Some time after Joseph’s encounter with Moroni, he would eventually go on to translate the Book of Mormon. While translating, he would learn from the book as it clarified doctrine disputed in the Christian world.

I also learned much needed information from that book. It’s as if Alma, a prophet in the Book of Mormon, listened to my last meeting with those missionaries and was speaking directly to me in Alma 32:

“27 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.”

28 Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves — It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.

29 Now behold, would not this increase your faith? I say unto you, Yea; nevertheless it hath not grown up to a perfect knowledge.”

He goes on with this analogy and this pattern throughout the rest of the chapter, where he compares the word of God to a seed that you plant in your heart. And as you exercise faith, and act on it, you will see that it’s good. If you do this enough, eventually your faith will become dormant, and you will have perfect knowledge.

This is the attitude I implemented in my learning going forward, and I was baptized a short time later. I came to trust my experience with the Book of Mormon was the Holy Ghost bearing witness to me of the truth of it, even though I didn’t have a perfect knowledge of that.

In Alma’s terms, that seed of faith was planted in my heart, and it has enlarged my soul, it has enlightened my understanding, and it is delicious to me.

Final Thoughts

Bouncing back to Joseph’s timeline, he would go on to produce with the help of his scribes the most important book ever produced. Through the gift and power of God, he would translate over 500 pages over a period of about 60 days. Joseph said about the Book of Mormon:

“…the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on Earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding its precepts than by any other book.”

I bear testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, that Joseph Smith was a prophet visited by an angel, and given that great work of translating it, so that we today may be nearer to God.