As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes erroneously called the Mormon Church), I know that the Prophet Joseph Smith Junior saw God and Jesus Christ. I know that he wouldn’t lie. His own father believed him after he told him he had seen God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ when he humbly prayed for an answer as to which church of his day to join. I know that he learned from the mouth of God that he should join none of the churches in his day.
I know that through him the Book of Mormon was translated from the gold plates that he received from the angel Moroni. I know the Book of Mormon to be an accurate record of some ancient people who lived on this land and that it is another testament of Jesus Christ and that it was translated correctly through the power of God.
How do I know that Joseph Smith saw God and translated the Book of Mormon? I know, because I have prayed and asked God for myself. I just didn’t casually ask if he had seen and done what he said he had, but I made it a matter of humble and sincere pondering, of reading about Joseph, of praying about it, and being willing to accept any answer from God that I received.
I tell you that as surely as the sun will rise and set that he is a true Prophet of God and that he was raised up by God to do a great work in the latter-days, that of restoring the primitive Church of Jesus Christ.
I think of what he accomplished in his short lifetime, and I know that he couldn’t have done it all by himself. He had the help of heavenly angels, as recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants. I am truly amazed that God would have chosen a young 14-year-old boy to open up the day that I live in, the Last Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. But he did and I would stand anywhere and testify that Joseph Smith was what he claimed to be, a latter-day prophet of God.
Many Blessings, Mike
Following is a short testament by another great prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley
[Joseph Smith] was a young man, then a poor farm boy with very little education. He had nothing. His parents had nothing. He lived in a rural community, scarcely recognized outside its borders. And yet the angel [Moroni] said to him that ‘he was a messenger sent from the presence of God . . . ; that God had a work for [Joseph] to do; and that [his] name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people’ (Joseph Smith–History 1:33). How could such a thing be? Joseph must have wondered. He must have been absolutely stunned. “And yet it has all come to pass. And far greater will yet come to pass” —Gordon B. Hinckley, “Benediction,” Ensign, Nov. 2005, 103).