Mormon Message on The Restoration from Elder L. Tom Perry

I am so grateful for Joseph Smith and his courage and faith. He was mocked and scorned because of his report to the world about this glorious truth that has been restored. After his First Vision he was ridiculed and persecuted.

From Joseph Smith's own account he related:

“I soon found, however, that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase; and though I was an obscure boy, only between fourteen and fifteen years of age, and my circumstances in life such as to make a boy of no consequence in the world, yet men of high standing would take notice sufficient to excite the public mind against me, and create a bitter persecution; and this was common among all the sects—all united to persecute me.

It caused me serious reflection then, and often has since, how very strange it was that an obscure boy, of a little over fourteen years of age, and one, too, who was doomed to the necessity of obtaining a scanty maintenance by his daily labor, should be thought a character of sufficient importance to attract the attention of the great ones of the most popular sects of the day, and in a manner to create in them a spirit of the most bitter persecution and reviling. But strange or not, so it was, and it was often the cause of great sorrow to myself.”

The Restoration was made possible through the sacrifice and dedication of this great prophet of God.

Praise to the Man! Millions will know Brother Joseph again!