Mind and Heart by Jay Platt

Great music touches me, so too do places of momentous events—Nauvoo, Gettysburg, Westminster, James Madison’s gravesite and home at Montpelier.  I’m not, however, what one would describe as “touchy, feely.”

We often talk of “feeling” when discussing gospel verities and forget the mind.  Study for missionaries was not emphasized when I served as it is today.  I read Jesus the Christ and the Book of Mormon.  Better said, I read words on pages of the Book of Mormon but did not read it seriously.

At BYU I took a class from Keith Perkins, later Dean of Religious Education.  Upon transferring to ASU, it was a pleasure to see that Brother Perkins had been moved to ASU’s Institute.  Taking an Old Testament class from him, my dormant interest in scriptures was awakened.

Moving on to law school was the beginning of serious reading:  Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon—this time carefully and prayerfully—and the Pearl of Great Price.  Over the next three and a half decades , all were carefully read again and again, adding to them the Doctrine and Covenants together with a corresponding reading of Church History including B.H. Roberts’ Comprehensive History, primary and secondary First Vision accounts, materials on the Apostolic mission to England; the Kirtland and Nauvoo periods; the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and corresponding materials on the three and eight witnesses.

Through it all, I never experienced what one might characterize as a “feeling” moment.  My experience might best be characterized by D&C 8:2, “…I will tell you in your mind and in your heart…[noting the word order];”  D&C 6:14,15, “…thou has inquired of me…and I did enlighten thy mind…thou has been enlightened by the Spirit of truth…;” Alma 32:28, “the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me” and verse 34, “the word hath swelled your souls…that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened and your mind doth begin to expand.”

My reading also took me to the world of apologetics where I read a host of critics’ claims, criticisms and theories, together with rebuttals thereof by very fine LDS apologists including Nibley, Dan Peterson, Terryl Givens, John Hall, Steve Harper, John Welch, FARMS, the Maxwell Institute, The Interpreter, and BYU’s Religious Studies Center.

Blessed with a believing heart, the claims of critics—and I’ve been exposed to virtually all of them—have never fazed me.  While apologetics is an interesting exercise, it too often diverts attention from and obscures the real issues:  did Joseph Smith see the Father and the Son; is the Book of Mormon true and was it translated by the gift and power of God; were priesthood keys, power and authority restored to the earth by means of Joseph Smith; and has Christ’s Church been returned to the earth with living Apostles and Prophets?

For me, the answers to the foregoing are a resounding yes!  My mind has been enlightened and expanded as to the verities of the restoration, a consequence of careful readings and re-readings of all the standard works and the historical events associated with the restoration.