I wrote, some time ago, a letter to a disbeliever. Much of what was said in that letter has been on my mind lately and I wish to share the substance of those thoughts. With that explanation you will better understand the point of view assumed and the style in which it is given. Writing to this young man, who was battling with his thoughts, I said:

One day I was riding along with President Widsoe in charge of the European missions, I thought this was my chance to ask Brother Widsoe all those questions that had been on my mind since a little boy. So I asked him, "Why did Jesus have to suffer on the cross?"

He said, "Who told you to ask me that question?"

Now the project of faking up the Book of Mormon is what I'm going to talk about here, because it's very much like what we science fiction writers do. Writing something that purports to be an artifact of another culture is the most complicated, difficult kind of science fiction, because not only is it about strange things, it must also in itself be a strange thing.

A man awoke one morning hearing the words of a dream, and when he wrote them down he discovered that they were the words that the chronicler of the Book of Mormon might have written, had he lived in our time, setting down a record of our dealings with each other and with the Lord.

I am wondering if I may tell you a story that I have told quite often in the Church. It is a story that is older than you are. It’s a piece out of my own life, and I’ve told it in many stakes and missions. It has to do with an incident in my life when God showed me that he knew best.

Three times I met this Jesus of Nazareth. And each time I felt strange and confused in his presence. Each time he gently spoke three simple words: "Come Unto Me."

Daddy's happy laugh rolled around the small room of the little white house and mingled with excited giggles of the three small girls. Not much of a Christmas this year, 1926, but love and laughter made the candles in the windows flicker more brightly.

Now the most important thing of all in your life—that which will have the greatest bearing on what you are going to be tomorrow, on your activities, your attitudes, your eventual destiny, is your one decision you make that moonlit night when you ask that individual to be your companion for life.

There was once a very old man who had worked very hard throughout his life for everything he owned—the comforts his family enjoyed. He knew his days were short, so he wanted his company—a business he nurtured his entire life—to be passed on.