Joseph Smith – Jeff Milner

The other day the news leaked that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had purchased the Kirtland Temple.

Kirtland, not Kirkland, and not a “miracle”, after all, it turns out it’s true you can buy anything in this world for money, but still it’s a historic sale.

From The Church News:

Today, Tuesday, March 5, 2024, the responsibility and ownership for the Kirtland Temple, several historic buildings in Nauvoo, and various manuscripts and artifacts officially transferred from Community of Christ to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for an agreed-upon amount. Together, we share an interest in and reverence for these historic sites and items and are committed to preserving them for future generations.

Rumour has it the agreed upon amount is a whooping $192.5 million USD. Included in the sale:

The Bible used in the Joseph Smith Translation
Manuscripts of the Joseph Smith Translation
Seven letters from Smith to his wife Emma
A history of the church written by John Whitmer
The original David Rogers portraits of Joseph and Emma Smith
The cornerstone of the Nauvoo House, used to store the original Book of Mormon manuscript
The original door of Missouri’s Liberty Jail, where Joseph, Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon, Lyman Wight, Alexander McRae, and Caleb Baldwin were famously held captive.
A document with the title of ‘Caractors,’ which are alleged to contain a sample of inscriptions from the gold plates. (In 2017, the church bought the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon from the Community of Christ for $35 million — an amount one historian called a bargain.)
Joseph Smith’s writing desk from the Kirtland Temple.
Emma Smith’s walking stick.
The home of Sidney Rigdon and wife Phebe.
The Smith Homestead
The Mansion house
The Nauvoo house
The Red Brick Store
Other homes and significant documents that belonged to early members.

This video about the news leaking explains how it went down:

All About Mormons

South Park ran a hilarious episode in November titled “All About Mormons”.

From the South Park Studios Website:

“A Mormon kid moves to South Park and Stan has to kick his ass. But when Stan and his dad meet their new Mormon neighbors, they become fascinated with how genuinely nice they are. Meanwhile the other boys mock Stan relentlessly for wimping out.”

If you’re in the United States (or have an IP address in the United States) you can watch the episode here:

Or if you want, you can check out the “audio only” version in 4 parts:

I think pretty much the greatest thing about this episode is that is gives people who don’t know anything about the church a background into how the church started. As someone that knows from personal experience, they tell the Joseph Smith story pretty much just like they do if you were to have the Mormon Missionaries come into your house and tell you the story, except for the part where they call Martin Harris dumb. Mormon Missionaries would never call him dumb — unless they were calling him dumb because he gave his wife the unpublished transcript, then they might but other than that — no way. This episode also portrays what nice people Mormons are — based on some of the Mormon families I know it’s so accurate it’s scary.