Dear Gramps,
Someone I know that is trying to understand the church but struggles with Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon was told to “submit yourself to the Lord.” Could you explain what this means? I’ve tried looking it up but not having any success.
Diane, from Salt Lake City Utah

Dear Diane,
If you have difficulty with what is meant by the phrase, “submit yourself to the Lord,” what would you think of the person to whom the phrase was directed? It could be a veiled way of saying, “obey the gospel.” But I doubt if that would have much of an impact on someone trying to understand the Book of Mormon. So let’s attempt to attack your friend’s problem from another point of view. I think that there is one way that your friend’s dilemma may indeed be solved. The Book of Mormon is the ONE BOOK among all books that the Lord will reveal to the reader by the Holy Spirit that the book is indeed true. If the Holy Ghost reveals to a person that the book is true that person then knows for a fact that it is so. If she receives that knowledge from the Holy Ghost she will naturally accept the fact the Joseph Smith is a prophet, because by revelation from God he translated the book from an unknown language into English.
So how can the person receive such a testimony from the Holy Spirit? Here is one suggestion– ask the person if she would be willing to try an experiment to test the Lord in revealing to her that the book is indeed the truth. Here is the procedure to follow: have the person read the Book of Mormon one time from cover to cover. At the beginning of each page, ask the person to say a prayer–i.e. to ask God if He will reveal to the person that the book is indeed true. I feel that we could promise the person, in the name of the Lord, that if she will do so, with a sincere intent to find the truth, that before coming to the last page of the book she will receive a revelation from God giving her to know without any doubt whatsoever that the book is indeed the word of God, and the most correct of any book on earth, and that a man will get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book.
Gramps