19 Jan 2021, Tuesday

 19 Jan 2021, Tuesday

Prioritized Daily Task

Isabella McAlpin's 8th birthday 

8 AM  -  Legacy Center

10 AM  -  Pibcoa Clinic

In our scripture study of the Doctrine and Covenants, D&C, Section 3-5, Debbie, and I are learning so much with the supplements we have found in The Come Follow Me program.                                                                                        Martin and Lucy Harris Harris were first cousins:                        Lucy was born Lucy Harris in May 1792.  Martin was born in 1783.  They were married the 27 March 1808.  Lucy was 15 years old and Martin was 24 years old.  The couple had five children, three of whom lived to be adults, Henry Harris (1810-1850), Duty Harris (1812-1850), George B Harris (1814-1864), Lucy Harris (1816-1841), and Elizabeth L Harris (1821-).  Lucy started losing her hearing about 1827.  She died in 1836 at the age it 44.  Martin died in Utah in 1875 at the age of 91.

In 1829 at the age of 46, Martin Harris mortgages part of his 320 acres farm for $3,000 to pay the printer, Egbert Bratt Grandin, for printing 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon.  In 1830 Martin sold 151 acres of his farm for less than $20 an acre to pay the mortgage.  This was the year, 1830, that Lucy Harris separated from her husband, Martin Harris.

Emma Smith, Joseph's wife, and Marting Harris served as scribes for Joseph Smith when he first started translating the Gold Plates into what would become the Book of Mormon.                                                            In 1829 when they had completed 116 pages of translating Martin was given permission to take the 116 pages of translation and show them to only 5 people, his wife, Lucy, and other specific family members.              The pages were lost, and Joseph lost the power to translate for a while.  Oliver Cowdery starts as Joseph scribe where Joseph and Martin had left off translating.  This was before they knew the 116 pages that Martin Harris had taken were lost.  After Moroni returned the Gold Plates to Joseph and he had finished the last page of Moroni, he and Oliver went back to the beginning where Joseph had first started translating.  The Lord told him not to re-translate the first 116 pages from the large plates of Nephi but for that same period of time, translate the small plates, that Mormon had inserted in the records he gave to his son, Moroni.  The abridgment Nephi made of his father's record, Nephi, and Jacob's own words down to the words of Mormon.                                                                                                       The printer's handwritten manuscript was 232 pages (464 pages front and back) with a title page and preface by Joseph Smith, all handwritten. When printed and bound in a book there were 531 pages front and back with a title page and preface by Joseph Smith.                                                  0.8738% of a handwritten page is equal to 1 printed page.  Assuming the handwritten pages of Emma, Martin and Oliver were basically the same script then the 116 pages would have equaled 132 printed pages up to the Words of Mormon.                                                                                        In the current printed edition of 531 pages.  There are 143 pages up to the Words of Mormon.  Using our formula 0.8738% handwritten page equals one printed page, then 125 handwritten pages.                                          Either way, you look at the situation we today are ahead by the number of pages and depth and quality of spiritual information than we would have if the 116 pages were not lost.