Study Guides
One short guide per chapter: a summary, two questions to talk about, and scriptures to read together.
1. A Famine of Hearing
From Tyndale's cell to a Passover table and a Vermont farmhouse: the long wait for heaven to speak again.
- Why did people like Tyndale risk their lives to put the Bible in plain language?
- Amos foretold “a famine … of hearing the words of the LORD.” What would it mean for heaven to be silent?
Read: Amos 8:11–12; Malachi 4:5–6
2. Seeds in Stony Ground
Solomon and Lydia Mack, Asael and Mary Smith: two plain New England families and the seeds they planted.
- What did Solomon and Lydia Mack and Asael and Mary Smith pass on to their children?
- What faith or habit would you like to pass on in your own family?
3. Lucy and Joseph
A wedding gift, a lost fortune, a covenant made on a sickbed, and a son born in Sharon, Vermont.
- How did Joseph Sr. and Lucy handle the loss of their money and the debts that followed?
- What did Lucy promise God during her illness, and how did she keep looking?
4. The Boy Who Would Not Be Bound
A boy who would not be bound, a year without a summer, and a mother who brought her children west.
- What does Joseph’s leg surgery show about him and about his parents?
- How did the family keep going through hard years and moves?
5. A Pillar of Light
A verse in James, a grove of trees, and a pillar of light in the spring of 1820.
- What question did Joseph take into the grove, and what led him to ask it?
- When have you asked God a sincere question?
Read: James 1:5; Joseph Smith—History 1:10–20
6. The Last Words of Malachi
An angel quotes Malachi, Alvin dies, Joseph marries Emma, and the plates are entrusted to him.
- Why do you think Moroni quoted Malachi’s promise about Elijah?
- How did Joseph grow during the four years before he received the plates?
Read: Malachi 4:5–6; Joseph Smith—History 1:36–39
7. By the Gift and Power of God
Lost pages, a schoolteacher scribe, priesthood by the river, witnesses, and five thousand copies.
- What did Joseph learn from the loss of the 116 pages?
- Why do the witnesses matter?
Read: Doctrine and Covenants 13; Testimony of Three Witnesses
8. Come and See
A church organized in a log house, a knapsack of books, and a gathering to Ohio.
- What happened on April 6, 1830, and why was it small and simple?
- Why did so many choose to gather to Ohio?
Read: Doctrine and Covenants 21
9. The Lord's House
The Kirtland Temple is built, dedicated, and visited by Elijah at Passover in 1836.
- What did the Saints give up to build the Kirtland Temple?
- Why is Elijah’s coming at Passover in 1836 meaningful to Jews and Latter-day Saints alike?
Read: Doctrine and Covenants 109–110
10. The Refiner's Fire
Kirtland's trials, the Missouri war, the ice of the Mississippi, and the jail at Liberty.
- What comfort did Joseph receive in Liberty Jail?
- How can hard experiences “give thee experience”?
Read: Doctrine and Covenants 121–122
11. A City Beautiful
Nauvoo rises from a swamp: healing, baptism for the dead, the Relief Society, and a prayer in Jerusalem.
- How did the Saints turn a swamp into a city?
- Why was the Relief Society important then, and now?
Read: Doctrine and Covenants 124
12. Carthage, and the Work Rolls On
Carthage, the martyrdom, and a work that rolled on.
- How did the Saints carry on after the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum?
- What part of this story will you remember most?
Read: Doctrine and Covenants 135