Preserving Sacred Text with The Book of Mormon Census: Robert Messick's Story - Latter-Day Lights - LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories

Episode Transcript
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Scott Brandley (00:00):
Hey everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Alisha Coakley (00:02):
And I'm Alisha Coakley.
Every member of the church hasa story to share, one that can
instill faith, invite growth andinspire others.

On today's episode we're going to hear how
one avid collector of the Bookof Mormon has witnessed that the
words written in each copy candraw a reader closer to the Lord
.
Welcome to Latter-day Lights.
Hey everyone, welcome back toanother episode of Latter-day

(00:38):
Lights.
We're so glad you're here withus today.
We have a really special treatfor you our special guest,
robert Messick.
Robert, welcome to the show.

Robert Messick (00:44):
Thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to be with youguys.
Thank you.

We're excited too.
Scott and I's inner nerds arelike I love it.
We love church, we love thegospel, we love history, we love
talking.
It's just like a perfectcombination of everything today.
So this is going to be a littlebit different of an interview.
We love talking.
It's just like a perfectcombination of everything today.

So, uh, so this is gonna be a little bit.

A little bit different of an interview.
We're gonna be a little moreinterview style, asking some
questions and stuff like that.
But I'm sure you've got somegood bits and pieces of stories
to to share with us.
So we're we're excited yeah,yeah.

So, um, why don't you tell us a little bit
about yourself, robert?

Well, my name is Robert Messick and I hail from
Arizona.
I'm actually a normal familyman and I'm pretty normal in
terms of like taking kids toschool and working a normal job
and things like that.
But I guess the claim to fameis I am an avid collector of
various copies of the Book ofMormon and so I love the

(01:47):
physical copy of the Book ofMormon and kind of seeing some
historical details of it and I'mexcited to talk about that.
But, like other than that, I'ma pretty normal average guy and
it's been fun this journey goingthrough being a collector and

(02:08):
trying to juggleresponsibilities of being dad
and home creator and everythingelse Awesome.

And we're going to get to see some of these
copies right today.

Yeah, I'm excited that I've got some show
and tell for you as well.

Awesome.
Tell us a little bit about yourfamily.

Family of four, my daughter and I.
Actually interesting, mydaughter and I.
She graduated last year fromhigh school and we actually
participated in the Mesa Easterpageant a year ago and so if you
have folks forever in Arizonaor ever traveled to Arizona
around Easter time the MesaEaster pageant I'll give a huge

(02:43):
plug for it, a great testimonybuilder.
It really impacted my daughter.
She said, yeah, dad, I want toget my patriarchal blessing and
and all these things, and it waslike a great light that flicked
on for her.
Yeah, and I've got three otherboys, three younger boys as well
.

So what are?
What's the age?

ranges Eight years old to 14.
And then my daughter's 18.
Gotcha, so you're in it, yeah,and so it's been kind of
interesting trying to juggle,you know, my projects and my
various activities that I wantto do, and then the things that
I have to do is with my family,and I want to do my family as

(03:29):
much, and so it's been kind ofjust a fun time trying to juggle
the thick of being a family man.

Yeah Well, awesome man, robert, we are
super excited.
I don't collect Book of Mormons, but I've got some really cool
artifacts that I've collectedover the years too, on this back
shelf over here.
But maybe I'll bring it up inyour show, depending on if it
makes sense.
But yeah, we're super excitedto hear about your stories about
collecting Book of Mormons, sowhy don't you tell us where your

(03:59):
story begins?

Some of it began with COVID begins, some of it
began with COVID.
We were all kind of twirlingour thumbs in COVID and I was
looking for a specific book ofMormon, a 1920 Book of Mormon,
and I didn't know what I wasexactly looking for as a
collector, and so I went toYouTube to try to figure out is
there a profile of this?
And I realized that no one hadactually ever done a YouTube

(04:25):
series on various copies of theBook of Mormon, and so I looked
at my bookshelf and I said, oh,my goodness, I've got them.
I would love to make a kind ofa video encyclopedia of this one
versus that one and things likethat.
And so during COVID I started aYouTube channel called Book of
Mormon Editions, and you folkscan see on YouTube that the Book

(04:46):
of Mormon Editions serieshighlights various copies of the
Book of Mormon and goes throughthe various publication, why
they were printed, what'sdifferent compared to you know
which covers which.
And it kind of morphed intounderstanding that Salt Lake has
a large lion's share ofprinting of the Book of Mormon.

(05:06):
But there are otherdenominations from the secession
of when the church historycontinued onward, that quite a
few denominations actually printthe Book of Mormon and are
great advocates of reading theBook of Mormon as well,
advocates of reading the Book ofMormon as well.
So, yeah, and so it was a hugeeye-opener that knowing that,

(05:28):
yeah, community of Christ or,you know, the former reorganized
Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-day Saints, you know,
obviously, we know that, butthere's a handful of other
denominations that actuallyprint their own copies of the
Book of Mormon.
And also Salt Lake has beenreally interesting in terms of
seeing how Salt Lake, over time,has updated their text or

(05:48):
updated their covers and variousthings like that.
So it kind of just morphed intoa YouTube series regarding all
things of the printing of theBook of Mormon.
So I'll make a pitch to say,look at Book of Mormon editions
on YouTube to kind of see thevarious ones.
Say, look at Book of Mormoneditions on YouTube to kind of
see the various ones.
But I'm going to give you alittle teaser, if you will.
For example, like this one isthe current Salt Lake edition of

(06:12):
the Book of Mormon, and what'sinteresting is this copy has
been in print since 2013.
In 2013, they did a copyrightchange or a copyright renewal,
and what happened is this wasthe previous one, and I'm not
sure if you can see it on thecover, but if you look, there's
two titles and the subtitle hasanother testament of Jesus

(06:34):
Christ.
What happened is this onechanged the word of to the top
and you have just Jesus Christon the bottom.
So this is the 2013 copy and theone previously had another
testament of Jesus Christ.

It's so interesting it's like a little
thing, but as an editor becauseI do some book editing and stuff
on the side that would havedriven me nuts to have of in
front of Jesus Christ Like Iwould have done the same change
that they did.
But I didn't notice it just nowwhen you flashed it too, until
you said it I was like oh, and Ithink it was deliberate.

You know, to isolate the words Jesus Christ
makes it more important, andrightfully so.
If you really focus on JesusChrist as a savior and the true
factor for the Book of Mormon,it makes sense to isolate those
words regarding and thathappened in 2013.
So if you look on yourbookshelves, if you have one or
the other, you can see whichones there is.
So this small one was in 1999.

And prior to that was a thicker volume.

You guys remember this one and it's look
basically the same kind ofalmost similar titling.
The font is a little smaller onthis one, but this was from
1982 through 1999.
What was interesting is theyjust changed the paper and the
paper made all of the differencein terms of the thickness of
the volume, and it is the sametext of the Book of Mormon, same

(08:01):
page layout, same verses perpage, same footnotes, from 1982
through 1999.
And then in 1999, the smallervolume, and so, as a missionary,
I carry this larger volume.
And then I'm kind of jealousbecause the smaller missionaries
now carry the smaller volumesof the Book of Mormon Wow.

(08:22):
Now carry the smaller volumesof the Book of Mormon Wow.
But what's also interesting isnot many people realize this,
but there's actually two copiesof these thicker volumes.
The two copies of the thickervolumes actually have something
different.
Oh yeah, and in 1991, this book,excuse me, 1981, this book came

(08:42):
out and it was a new format forthe Book of Mormon New verses
per page, new chapter layout,I'm sure, a new page layout.
And then, one year later, theQuorum of the Twelfth Apostle
says, hey, we need a subtitle,and they put the Another
Testament of Jesus Christ in1982 and onward, jesus Christ in

(09:05):
1982 and onward.
So, as a book collector, thesesingle volume or these volumes
with the single title of 1981,is kind of a collector's item
because it was only one yearprinted for these.
So within what 50 years?
well, good God, 1981 through2025 is 40 plus years 44 years,

(09:32):
um, you've had four kind ofmajor more four major covers of
the Book of Mormon.
Um, or kind of size changesbecause of the paper change,
things like that, and everyonesays, oh yeah, that that's been
there forever, but no slightvariances, slight changes have
have been made for been made forthe covers, even in Salt Lake
time.

Nice, okay.
So I have to ask you where didthis start?
Where did this love forcollecting unique Book Mormons
start?

When I was out of college I was by myself and I
had a brand new apartment and Igot a bookshelf and the
bookshelf one bookshelf was bareand I decided to put a couple
of copies of the Book of Mormonon it and I was like, oh, I need
to fill this up.
So I went to Desert Industriesand we found that there's other

(10:21):
volumes and I kind of startedcollecting it.
And then when I got married in2004, President Hinckley
announced that the church wasgoing to give the text of the
Book of Mormon to an outsideprinter called Doubleday
Printing and they did kind of agold and white book and it was

(10:43):
called the Doubleday Edition ofa gold, golden, white book and
it was called the DoubledayEdition.
And that was kind of the firsttime that it was a new cover of
the Book of Mormon that theywere going to give to print for
like Barnes and Noble andbookstores, so that it would be
less intrusive for people to geta copy of the Book of Mormon
without a missionary copy of theBook of Mormon.
And so that one actually kind ofjust woke me up and opened my

(11:04):
eyes saying, oh, interesting, anew cover of the Book of Mormon.
And so that one actually kindof just woke me up and opened my
eyes saying, oh interesting, anew cover of the Book of Mormon
or a new edition or a newprinting, what's unique about
that?
And so it kind of morphed intocollecting various copies of the
Book of Mormon.
And then, as soon as I told myfriends and family, oh yeah, I'm
collecting or I love variouscopies of the Book of Mormon,

(11:26):
you get gifted or you findvarious copies.

I should start telling my family that I'm
collecting $100 bills, me.

version of $100 bills, but one of the ones that
was hugely significant is.
We all kind of know this cover.
In 1961, they printed One ofthe ones that was hugely
significant is we all kind ofknow this cover yeah.
In 1961, they printed this copyof the Book of Mormon and this
copy, from 1961 through 1980,was the missionary copy for the

(11:56):
Book of Mormon.
And what's interesting is,whenever I talk about this,
everyone's eyes light up.
It says, oh yeah, my parents ormy grandma has this copy on my
bookshelf and I think you cansee right here is a whole bunch
of them.
And what's really been fun ishearing testimony stories about

(12:17):
this copy in various hands andpeople just light up saying I
gained my testimony on this bluecover with Angel Moroni and so,
Alisha Scott, have you seenthis in your parents' libraries
or in your bookshelves ever?

I recall seeing it somewhere, but it wasn't in
my home.
But I grew up.
My parents weren't reallyactive in church for the
majority of my well, for all mychildhood, but it does look
familiar.
Does that version have?

footnotes in it.

Yeah, so interesting thing about this
1961, the church was preparingfor the World's Fair and the
World's Fair was coming into NewYork City for about two, three
years and they did a New Yorkpavilion inside the World's Fair
and the church did a staffed.
As long as the World's Fair wasthere they did a staffed

(13:15):
pavilion and it was a reallyamazing building and it had
actually the face cover of theSalt Lake Temple was their face
of the pavilion and everyone hada chance to.
The World's Fair was kind ofthe who's who of business and
society.
So like new computers werethere, new cars were showcasing

(13:37):
their new cars and things likethat, and so the church decided
to have a pavilion and hundredsof thousands or millions,
hundreds of thousands of peoplewent to this World's Fair and so
they did a commemorative bookand it was so successful that
they actually continued itonward for printing in the 1970s
, which is also the first timethat you have illustrations, and

(14:00):
these are the Arnold Freibergillustrations and the Arnold
Freiberg illustrations.
There were eight picturesillustrations and these are the
arnold freiburg illustrationsand the arnold freiburg
illustrations.
There were eight pictures andarnold freiburg actually did 12,
but only eight of them cameinto the this, this book, and it
was the first time that you hadillustrations of what book
mormon stories might look like.
And these arnold freiburgpictures are so amazing or so

(14:24):
significant that I had onefriend, he went to BYU art
school and he said, yeah, theseArnold Freiburg permit pictures
are so significant that ifyou're doing Book of Mormon
iconography or like cartoons orimagery, you have to have nephi
with headband and a side sashand a bulk, bulk up guy um lehi

(14:49):
has to be an old man with abeard and you know kind of
various uh pegs and tags of oficons, um, even like living
scriptures with the livingscripture book of mormon, you
know, patterned after the arFreiberg pictures.
And so how interesting theghost of Arnold Freiberg is
still living through imagery ofNephi having to have a headband,

(15:13):
things like that.

Well, and they still have those pictures in the
current versions, don't they?

So yeah, they have changed it a little bit.
The current Salt Lake editionhas pictures in the front and
they've got about three or fouror five pictures in the very
front of it and then no pictureslaced in, if you will.

Right.

So we've got a couple of pictures in the front
and it's only in the front ofthe copy.

But is there still some Freiburg pictures in
there?
Yeah, yeah.

So they added this is interesting, the picture
of Moroni praying on the goldenplates with the forest in the
background.
That actually wasn't anhonorable Freiburg picture, it
was a Tom Lovell Tom Lovellpicture.

(16:08):
It was a tom level tom level um.
And interesting that there'sthere's other pictures than
freiburg um in the in the newvolume as well.
Right um picture of jesus inthe americas is a non-freiburg
picture as well.
So that's all, yeah, so um withthat.
It's kind of interestingbecause, going backwards when we
mentioned this one, this onewas a softcover printing, and

(16:31):
what was interesting is I neverknew this but soft hard cover
and you had hard stitching andand binding of a hard cover of a
Book of Mormon, and prior tothat or after that, then you had

(16:54):
soft cover printing.
And what would soft cover do isyou'd actually cut the pages
prior and glue the cover on, andso your soft cover would be
actually a glue strip on thespine and then, um, then cut
around so that you'd create yourbook of mormon and you'd have a
softer cover, and so no morestitching on the spine or no

(17:14):
more stitching on the collating,um with that.

so is that like?
I mean, I'm assuming it wasprobably just more cost
efficient, right like they couldproduce more for less.
Yeah, it was new technology, umcost efficient, right Like they
could produce more for less.

Yeah, it was new technology.
They didn't have to take timeto stitch.
What you'd do is you'd havelarge pieces of paper and you'd
fold it and fold it, and fold itand you'd have like a pamphlet,
and you'd have multiplepamphlets.
Then you'd stick together andstitch them together and then
put the cover around it and youdidn't have to do that anymore
other and then put the coveraround it and you didn't have to

(17:47):
do that anymore.
And so really, after the 1950sand onward, you had a mass
explosion of printing of theBook of Mormon.
And so by the 1970s, this blueone was printed in the millions
because new technology wasfaster and Salt Lake did a
wonderful job in terms offlooding the earth with the Book
of Mormon of that time.
And Salt Lake did a wonderfuljob in terms of flooding the

(18:17):
earth with the Book of Mormon ofthat time.
So prior to that, what'sinteresting is this volume of
the Book of Mormon was actuallyformatted in 1920.
And so from 1920 and onward,what's interesting is, prior to
1920, the verses were in singlecolumns and 1920 was the first

(18:38):
time it was actually in doublecolumns.
So we've only had double columnverses since 1920.
And interesting churchhistory-wise is that 1878 to
1879, orson Pratt in Utahchanged the versification of the
Book of Mormon.
The original Book of Mormonreally was in large chapters and

(19:02):
large paragraphs and theparagraphs would be numbered in
the 1850s and Orson Pratt knewthat if you wanted to have
reference ability or as wellability to quote things, you
needed smaller phrases.
And so in 1879, theversification was changed into

(19:23):
what we have now.
So Salt Lake text has beensince 1879.
What's also interesting is ifyou pull up a reorganized, an
RLDS version of the Book ofMormon, they didn't copy the
Salt Lake versing and so theyactually versified based upon
every sentence and so yourchapter and versing is different

(19:43):
on a Salt Lake book versus aCommunity of Christ Book of
Mormon.

Yeah, Wow, I never thought about that before.
I guess I just always imaginedthe way that it was written was
the way that we read it.
But that wouldn't be normal.
I mean, that's not normal,right, like that's.
Obviously people had to put itinto smaller chunks.

Have you collected some of these books,
bookmarks from other churches?

of these books book mormons from other churches
.
Yeah, I don't have it actuallyat my fingertips right now, but
you can see on my back and um onthe youtube channel.
We actually do, um do reviewsof various printings of the book
of mormon.
Um, significantly, the rlds, orcommunity of christ, they've
updated their printings or theirformats a couple of times night
.
Oh, church history wise, it wasinteresting.

(20:36):
Um, the original book of mormonwas um handwritten onto what was
called the original manuscriptand then the original manuscript
was then handwritten again to aprinter's manuscript, was given
and was given to the printer.
The printer's manuscript wasgiven to the printer.
The printer's manuscript wasgiven and kept with Oliver
Cowdery when he left the church,and the printer's manuscript

(20:59):
was with the Whitmer family fora long time and it was not in
Salt Lake, and the RLDS Churchobtained it in 1903.
And so, from 1903, the RLDSChurch had the printer's
manuscript and used that as abase for their printing of the
Book of Mormon from about 1908and onward.
And then recently, in 2017,there was news that the Salt

(21:24):
Lake Church had acquired theprinter's manuscript from the
Community of Christ I think $35million for the manuscript.
And so so real, interestingstory that it's been preserved
and um that the community ofchrist had the printer's
manuscript for that long um theother talking point is um, with

(21:48):
church history we talk aboutwhen joseph smith was was
martyred, a lot of people cameup and said, hey, we'd like to
you know who's going to lead thechurch.
And a great movie that came outa couple of months ago was Six
Days in August, which was thestory of Brigham Young coming
back when Joseph Smith passedaway and the meeting of the

(22:12):
saints with Brigham Young versusSidney Rigdon, and it kind of
put it to light in terms ofthere was a conundrum on who was
going to lead the church andBrigham's claim said that the
Quorum of the Twelve now holdsall of the keys as compared to
just one person, and SidneyRigdon was not happy about that

(22:34):
one person.
And Sidney Rigdon was not happyabout that and he claimed that
he wanted to be the protector ofthe church and create the
legacy for the church goingforward, and they had a falling
out.
Several of the congregationsactually did follow Sidney
Rigdon and there's quite a fewcongregations in Pennsylvania
that continued onward withSidney Rigdon's leadership and

(22:55):
they've morphed now into what'scalled the Church of Jesus
Christ and they're active andthey're fully active in their
faith and a lot of the timesyou'll see that the Church of
Jesus Christ is very influentialin the restoration, and they
have a copy of their book ofMormon as well.

So I had no idea .

Yeah, there's also a lot of splinter
organizations or kind of, let'ssay, break off, because everyone
claims their own authority ortheir own kind of lineage in
terms of how they claim autonomycompared to salt lake, and so I
I'm not a I'm not a critic ofwho's who.

(23:39):
Obviously I'm a salt lakemember, but I certainly respect
and acknowledge and so, um, theother another group is, um,
there's a group that owned theproperty in independence
missouri that the temple wasdedicated on and it's called the
Temple Lot and it's just thesize of a football field and
they have a congregation thereand they call themselves the

(24:01):
Church of Christ Temple Lot andthey have a printing of the Book
of Mormon.
So it's kind of interesting.
One of the takeaways that I haveon this is that, even if I'm a
Salt Lake member of the church,I can still admire those people
who read the Book of Mormon thatare not part of Salt Lake.
Yeah, or denominations orthought processes where you had

(24:33):
a book that created a church, ascompared to a church by a
leader who writes his stuff andthen it's recorded and the book
comes later, and so the bookactually is just as important as
the church itself.
And so hearing and seeing thatpeople love reading the Book of
Mormon that are outside of SaltLake is actually very welcoming.

(24:55):
That says that the book standsstrong even if you're not part
of Salt Lake.
But there's value and there'sspirit to reading the Book of
Mormon, no matter where you'refrom as well.

Yeah, I think oftentimes I mean and even
remember as a kid thinking, well, if anybody knows the book of
mormon's true, then they have toknow the whole church is true
too.
Like it just made sense to methen.
But as an adult I'm seeing,like, no, like our testimonies
are, it's like lego blocks,right, like we, we each have a
little block of a different partof our testimony and they can
build together.
But sometimes we don't make theconnection.

(25:31):
And that's okay, you know.
Know, like if you have atestimony of the book of Mormon
but you don't have a testimonyof temple work or something like
great, hang on to yourtestimony of the book of Mormon,
keep reading that, keep drawingcloser to Christ through that.
Let that be something that youcontinually keep in your life
for good.
And don't worry, heavenlyfathers, got you Like he'll,
he'll, he'll put things in yourpath, he'll.

(25:53):
And don't worry, heavenlyfathers, got you like he'll,
he'll, he'll put things in yourpath.
He'll bring you around when youneed to be around and whatever
else.
But that's I just.
I never.
I mean, I assumed the the rldswould have it.
You know, I assumed that.
But just hearing that there's,there's even more um, you know.
Readers and lovers of the bookof mormon who are not associated
with mainstream church isreally happy.

(26:13):
It warms my heart.

Along those lines.
I saw a Baptist minister speakat a conference and he was a
huge advocate of the Book ofMormon.
Yeah, yeah, you just never know.

Yeah, a gentleman by the name of Thomas
and I forget his last name I'mso embarrassed that I forgot his
last name.
But good friend of mine, um,and I think his book called is a
Baptist preacher, reads thebook of Mormon and uh, his
presentation is amazing.
And yeah, he's like, yeah, I'm,I'm outside of the church but
uh, the, the, the book of Mormon, the teaching of the book of
Mormon still still applies.

(26:50):
So I'll give you another one.
What was also interesting, andwe're talking about Come Follow
Me and we're doing kind ofchurch history, doctrine,
covenants, details, and we'retalking a lot about the
witnesses of the Book of Mormon.
We talked about Oliver Cowdery,but the other one that was
significant was David Whitmer.
And David Whitmer was awonderful gentleman of the

(27:14):
community and very well-likedand, as I mentioned, they had a
falling out and stayed inMissouri while the saints moved
around and moved to Nauvoo andwestward.
But David Whitmer always kepthis testimony of the Book of
Mormon.
So much so that, as mentioned,the Whitmer family had the of

(27:34):
the Book of Mormon.
So much so that, as mentioned,the Whitmer family had the
printer's manuscript of the Bookof Mormon and they had an
organization called the Churchof Christ and they called
themselves the Whitmerites, andthe Whitmerites was a
congregation of family membersof the Whitmers for the late
1800s.
And in 1899, they printed onecalled.
It's called the nephite recordsoh my gosh, and so this printing

(27:56):
actually is 1899, so this bookis 1899 and they call themselves
the nephite records.
And what's interesting isthey're in richmond missouri,
which is outside of independencemissouri and in central
missouri area, so 1899.
They print this and instead ofcalling it the Book of Mormon
they call it the Nephite records.

(28:16):
But, as mentioned, we talkedthat Orson Pratt did the new
versification and thisversification was Salt Lake
versing and so they said well,if you can't beat them, join
them.
But the Whitmer family washugely supportive and a big
advocate for the Book of Mormon.
Their family, most of them inthe 1900s, moved to the Temple

(28:40):
Lot Church and the ReorganizedChurch as well.
And so interesting, like youhave a book called the Nephite
Records.
Not too many people know aboutthat, but it's really
interesting in terms of churchhistory that the Whitmers were
very supportive of the Book ofMormon to even print their own
copy of the book.

I have to say I'm like watching you hold this
book that's 126 years old inyour hand and I'm just thinking,
oh my goodness, I would be soscared to touch it.
I'm just thinking, oh mygoodness, like I would be so
scared to touch it.
So kind of off of that.
Do some of these copies thatyou have, some of these older
copies, do they have to be caredfor in a particular way, stored

(29:27):
a certain way?
How do you make sure that theydon't fall apart?

That's a super good question, and most of the
books in the 1800s are leatherbound, and so leather actually
does deteriorate, and so you dohave to worry and be careful
that books are taken care of.
What's interesting is that somepeople say, well, white gloves,
you got to do white gloves, andthe other people say, no, you

(29:50):
don't do white gloves for acouple of reasons.
One, the oils in your handactually is good for leather
because it actually absorbs somemoisture back into the leather
as well.
As some people have said, I'veseen more accidents with white
gloves because they'recumbersome and like page turning
and ripping pages and thingslike that.
And so we usually say, ifyou're keeping a book, just hold

(30:12):
it, open it to just the V, likethis, and that's just about as
long.
That's about as open as youwant.
You never put it flat on thetable or, you know, drop it on
the table flat.
You kind of just cradle it andjust you know, little by little,
open it just in a V shape, andas long as you do that, it'll
last for a long, long time.
Just in a V shape, and as longas you do that, it'll last for a

(30:34):
long, long time.
There are when we talk aboutreally old books and we'll talk
about the 1830 as well there issome train of thought that says
we want to keep the book as is.
And then there's some peoplethat says, well, the book is
deteriorating, we want to stopit from deteriorating and we
want to preserve it so thatactually lasts another hundred,

(30:54):
you know, 200 years or 100 yearsor so, and so it depends on
which camp you do.
I kind of think of it like ifyou go to your grandpa's farm
and you find an old corvette inhis barn.
Do you keep the corvette as isor do you kind of, you know, put
polish on the leather and tryto put oil change and clean up
the car?
And it just depends on what youwant to do.

(31:15):
But in general, I think I'mleaning towards cleaning as well
as restoring a book as best asyou can so that it actually does
get preserved.
But you're right, don't drop abook and be careful with it when
you do.

Yeah, I'm in that camp too.
I'm all about restoration,preservation, like in the, in
the best way possible, whereyou're still keeping the spirit
of it alive, right like the, thefeel of it or the look or
whatever else.
So what about you, scott?
Are you would you leave italone or would you want to
restore?

no, I think.
I think I would try to restoreit, yeah, or would you?

want to restore it.

No, I think I would try to restore it, yeah,
or preserve it as much as Icould, I agree, still want to be
able to enjoy it.

Yeah, exactly.

Right, one other one.
So we're talking about old ones, and if you see this, 2007,
there was a series of bookprinters that says what would it
take to make the 1830 Book ofMormon by hand?
And so, if you look at thehistorical details, they had a
press that was a large, kind ofput the paper down, press it one

(32:23):
at a time, flip it over, pressit and then let it dry, create
all of that, create 5,000 ofthese.
Now think of it this way in the1830s, um, 5,000 copies was
completely huge, uh, undertakingfor a small town book printer.

(32:43):
And so, for 5,000 copies, it'sa lot of storage to to store all
of this.
And here's the deal you have toprint all of the pages and then
you have to collate them,because you can't make a book
until all of the pages areprinted.
And so you print them.
And so in 2007, they asked whatwould it take to take the
leather hand, stitch it, makethe paper, hand, make the paper

(33:07):
and hand press it to make copies.
And so this is actually what'scalled the letter press edition,
and the letter press is asclose to an 1830 book of mormon.
Knew that you could get, andyou can see, the 1830 book of
mormon had just marbling.
It was just beautiful in termsof marbling.
Um, it was a lower um qualityleather and they did it quickly

(33:29):
to make sure that it was done um.
And so they don't.
The 1830s has challengessurviving, but this 18, this
2007 copy, you can kind of seewhat an 1830 Book of Mormon
would look like, kind of brandnew yeah.

I was going to say it looks in great condition,
I mean even for being 2007,.
That's, I don't think I haveanything that's 20 years old
that looks that good.

And so, yeah, this thing, you take care of it
real nicely, things like that.
You can see, one paper isdifferent.
What was interesting is tospice up the selling of these
particular copies.
There's a couple of people thathad various loose pages of an

(34:16):
1830 Book of Mormon and theysaid, well, let's put it in
where it would be, or theappropriate page, and they
inserted an 1830 page of a Bookof Mormon.

So if you can, see the color discoloration.

That's the discoloration of 1836.

That is so awesome you got to think, like
how many people read that onepage?
You know what I mean.
Like how connected would youfeel to just ancestors and other
people?
That's amazing.
I love that idea.
That's so smart.
Where did you find that?

(34:59):
What's this like?
How did you acquire that one?
Were you looking?

for it specifically.
Or, yeah, the book printer didit in 2007 and they only
actually printed 750 of them, sothat actually is numbered and
they're in private hands.
There was a an individual thatbought quite a few of them and
then gave them to his family andthen it kind of passed on and
trickled out.
But in general, sometimesthey're on eBay, sometimes

(35:22):
they're in rare book.
Rare book dealers in Utah willknow about the letterpress
edition that you can get one.
But change of subject, onethat's really interesting and
kind of, when we go back tofaith promoting, it's kind of
interesting that, like I hadmentioned, church history
impacts the printing of the Bookof Mormon and we kind of talked

(35:43):
about this by.
You know, when Joseph Smithpassed away, there was the
succession crisis in terms ofwho's going to succeed
afterwards.
That then creates variousdenominations to print the Book
of Mormon.
The other factor is that theBook of Mormon actually affects
church history.
Obviously we can see that, aswe mentioned, that the Book of
Mormon was made first and thenthe church was organized.

(36:03):
But even more to that, that theBook of Mormon actually impacts
how people live and it wasreally apparent in the 1800s in
Utah and not many people knowabout this, but what was
interesting the history behindor the background is that the
church leadership was having ahuge challenge regarding

(36:24):
immigrants coming into the wildwest Utah in the 1800s, and most
of them were Scandinavian,european of some sort, and so
they actually had to learnEnglish and move and find a
place to live and survive inWild West Utah.
And so from that point alone, Iactually have a lot of grace to

(36:49):
early church leadership.
I would never want to live inWild West Utah because of all of
those struggles.
It wasn't just religiouschallenges, it was also just
life challenges If you can't getyour crops in, you don't live
next winter and things like that.
And so the church or I guesschurch leaders were just as

(37:16):
focused around survivability asthey were on spiritual
survivability in the wild westof Utah.
So one of the church leadersproposed to say, hey, let's help
people learn English better,and so they created a shorthand
system of verbally learningenglish called the desert
alphabet.

(37:36):
And, Alisha and scott, have youever heard of desert alphabet
or has anybody talked to youabout?

we had a guest that talked about, oh, I think,
his, his great, great, somethinggrandfather like created.
Remember that, scott, who wasthat?

vaguely yeah, I'm.
I mean, I've heard of it?

I don't know about it so, yeah, a great
experience in terms of like.
How do you deal with europeansthat are either speaking italian
or german or scandinavian andthen get assigned to various
parts of utah, and then you haveto have them all interact, you
know, on a state or a territorylevel.
And so they issued an alphabetcalled the Desert Alphabet, and

(38:23):
it was basically a set ofcharacters that had various
vowels and consonants that youcould then read and verbally
speak English, but it wasdifferent lettering system, if
you will.
So the Desert Alphabet wascreated in about 1860, and it
was different lettering a system, if you will.
And so the desert alphabet wascreated in about 1860 and it was
continued onward.
But what happened is thetranscontinental railroad came
in the 1870s and it created alot of competition of printed

(38:45):
material for newspapers andmagazines and books from the
East coast being shipped, youknow, across the States into
California, things like that,and so there was a huge influx
of English text material thatthe Desert Alphabet had some
challenges.
Also, it was hard to gettypeset in that area, but there

(39:08):
are volumes of the Book ofMormon, there are volumes that
were created in Desert Alphabet,so this desert is called the
Book of Mormon.
There are volumes that werecreated in desert alphabet, so
this desert is called the Bookof Mormon.

Wow, that is so cool.

Wow, okay, so now in 69, so this was this was
done in 1869.
Wow, and over here there is akey that says what consonants
what vowels are.
Well, it was.
The fun part about it is theyprinted a Book of Mormon but
half of them were damaged.

(39:43):
They warehoused these copies ofthe Book of Mormon and either a
flood or water damage drew inabout half of them and so
actually this is a water damagedbook and you can see that mine
was hugely damaged and rebound,but I've got a Deseret Alphabet
Book of Mormon.
The fun part about it is theyonly printed 500 books, so this

(40:07):
is one or 500 copies of the Bookof Mormon.
They did a reader edition about10,000 copies of First Nephi
through Words of Mormon as aprecursor, but the full volume
of the Book of Mormon.
They only printed 500 of them.
So a little inspiring.
That says they tried to make agood thing.

(40:27):
They had good intentions, butit just petered out pretty fast
after the TranscontinentalRailroad.

That's fascinating.

Oh my gosh, I love that.

Have you ever tried to read it?

Yeah, if I take the time I can kind of then
cross-reference and it starts toget into it.
But I'm so busy I don't want toread Deseret and Alpha Men.
I can read my normal Englishbook, just as fine, but it's
kind of a claim to fame saying,yeah, you know, if you spend
about 15, 20 minutes you cankind of get into it, but then

(40:59):
you lose it really fast and Idon't want to pick it up again.
Yeah, that's so neat.
So with what we talked about,like one of 500 printings, one
of 500 printings and if youlooked at the text it almost
looked kind of Greek, if youwill, that not too many people

(41:22):
knew this and so if they sawthis they'd say, oh well, that's
a foreign language book, and alot of them got tossed.
And so when we talk about earlybooks like this, or like the
1830s or volumes of the Book ofMormon, a lot of times I've been
asked, well, how many of thedesert alphabet actually still
survive?
And specifically when I did areview of the 1830, that was my
number one question thateveryone asked me, like how many

(41:44):
copies still survive?
And what's interesting isspecifically the 1830.
So, 1830 Book of Mormon, 5,000copies were printed, but we know
that saints were moved from oneplace to another and sometimes
their belongings were burned orransacked, which really so with
the 1830 Book of Mormon, peoplehave asked, well, how many

(42:15):
survive?
And the answer is we don't know, and that's such an interesting
question around like how manyare there?
And the idea behind it is thereis a good part of them are in
university libraries that overthe time they've been gifted the
special collections.
Libraries have them behind.
You know them behind theirvault that you can look at them,

(42:35):
and university libraries havebeen great stewards of these
first edition books.
Another part is Church HistoryLibrary.
If you go into Salt Lake andkind of go to the church museum
you can see these 1830 books indisplay cases.
The Phineas Young one is therein in display cases.
Um, the Phineas Young one isthere.
Um, what really got to me wasan 1841, um Hiram Smith's 1841

(42:58):
copy that was with them inCarthage jail.
Um, there, that one is is thereand, um, I go, a good number of
them were with church archivesand then a good number of them
are in private hands and so noone has actually ever done a
thought around getting details.
The case study that we saw wasthe other key study was

(43:22):
Gutenberg.
The Gutenberg Bible was in the1400s and they printed 180 of
them and in the 1950s they triedto do a census it's called a
book census, where they kind ofgather information saying where
are the Gutenberg Bibles, whatcondition are they in, are they
full, are they partial, thingslike that.
And they came up with 49Gutenberg Bibles and in 2012,

(43:46):
they updated with four more and45, and then there's now 49.
And so, real recently we'vestarted a project called the
Book of Mormon Census Projectwhere we are actively looking
for various early copies of theBook of Mormon, to get details
and get information regardingthe condition details so that in

(44:09):
a couple of years, for the200th anniversary, we have a
confidence level of how manycopies actually survive.
So that's a multi-year projectcalled the Book of Mormon Census
Project.
The website's calledbookofmormonsensuscom and we are
actively looking for thesecopies.
The university libraries havebeen wonderful because the

(44:29):
librarians know the value of acensus.
Their leadership has been kindof interested in it in time and
my promise to private collectorshave been that if you give us
information, we will keepownership anonymous and we'll
keep details confidential.
But we just want to know thecondition where it's at, as well

(44:53):
as the copy count and add tothe records, and so over time
we're expecting to have somesuccess regarding the Book of
Armin census.
That's cool, that's really cool, yeah.
And so with that it's been realinteresting.
And for your viewers, I couldgeek out on printing techniques

(45:16):
and history and a lot of timessnore fast on a lot of people.
But what's been interesting islearning about where and how
these books survived has beenamazing.
Survived has been amazing.
And each record in the Book ofMormon census kind of goes
through provenance or historyaround where they were, who had

(45:37):
them, why they were kept, thingslike that.
For example, we found one ofEmma Smith's copies and really
interesting, in 1844, about amonth before the martyrdom, john
Adams' nephew and grandson dida tour of America and wanted to

(45:57):
see this Mormon prophet andspent an afternoon with Joseph
Smith and Emma Smith and theyhad a meal with Emma and Joseph
Smith and Emma gave her personalcopy of the Book of Mormon to
the Adams family, presidentAdams' family and it's actually
now in the Adams PresidentialLibrary on the East Coast and

(46:22):
what's interesting is there'slots of members that actually do
a pilgrimage to see EmmaSmith's personal copy of the
Book of Mormon that's in apresidential library.
And what I found fascinating isthink of it this way Emma and
Joseph were hosting dignitariescoming through the home and they
wanted to kind of see thisgreat Mormon experiment of Nabu

(46:47):
and for them to house and forthem to host these people.
Enough for Emma to gift hercopy of the Book of Mormon to
these two gentlemen wasinteresting, because she was
involved with missionary workand she was involved in the work
and obviously she had quite afew copies and this was Brigham

(47:08):
Young's gift to her because the1841 copy was made in Great
Britain.
Brigham came back and gave acopy, a few copies out, and I
think she gave this copy to theAdams sons.
But this copy was in thepresidential library and it's
just inspiring to say, wow, howamazing it is.
And when I contacted thepresidential library they said

(47:30):
yeah, we've got quite a fewyouth groups that come see this
copy and this has been the mostasked for book in the
presidential library.
They said, yeah, we've gotquite a few youth groups that
come see this copy and this hasbeen the most asked for book in
the presidential library.
That's amazing, that's good forthem.

Right.

We'll see.
What else was it?
Oh yeah, one that was inDeseret News and it's showcased
often is one that had HiramSmith's inscription saying this
was Hiram's book given toReynolds Cahoon.
And Reynolds Cahoon had quite afew family members and he gave
it to his son and the sonremained in Missouri and didn't

(48:07):
go to out west and he actuallywas a slave owner in Missouri
and when the emancipationproclamation came out he gave a
copy of the book of mormon to afamily of his freed slaves and
they moved to illinois area andthe the reynolds cajun.
Um, hiram smith copy isshowcased on the book mormon

(48:28):
census.
That was interesting.
Like these, uh, theseafrican-american family had that
copy of the book mormon, theycalled it the Mormon Bible for a
long, long time and rightaround the turn of the century
year, two thousands or so, they,they, uh, um passed it on to
other people.
But just interesting, likeseeing who had these original
copies and why has been reallyinteresting.

(48:50):
Um, on the flip side there'sbeen others.
For example, alexander Campbellwas a Protestant minister and
he wrote quite a few things, notsay against but in critique of
the Mormon movement, andAlexander Campbell's copy has
been there.
There's quite a few annotationsin the margins of it and seeing

(49:13):
Alexander Campbell's copy andit was interesting kind of
seeing how contemporaries ofeach other like Joseph Smith and
Campbell was in the same timeframe, how Alexander Campbell
would kind of research theMormons from a distance and kind
of create his own opinions.
But interesting that his copyof the Book of Mormon he had a
copy of the 1830 Book of Mormonthat would influence his

(49:36):
direction of where he wanted todo, you know, would influence
his opinions.

Yeah.
So, robert, what's the oldestversion that you currently?

have.
So, being a family man, I can'tafford the early, early ones.

Oh yeah, they're up there.

Yeah, five, six figures in terms of women.
I'm just oh geez.
And this has been.
The benefit for me is, when Istarted this, I recognized that
I would never probably be anowner of an early copy of the
Book of Mormon, and so the nextbest thing I can do is take a
bunch of pictures.
And so there's quite a fewpictures, and I feel like I'm in
the boat with a bunch ofpictures.
And so, um, there's quite a fewpictures and and I feel like
I'm I'm in the boat with a lotof just normal people that says

(50:17):
there's no way I will ever own abook of mormon of the of this
magnitude.
So because of it, it's nice tosee, um, where they're either on
display or or things like that.
So my early one is the 1869Desert Alphabet.
That's kind of my claim to famethat I have one of those.
I'm excited about it.

Well, that's pretty dang cool.

The other benefit is for the census
project is quite a fewuniversities are submitting
their copies and most, likeevery other university I've
connected with, have said yeah,we actually have youth groups
that will schedule some time togo in.
And I was really fascinatedthat even in today's society
you've got young men, youngwomen's programs that schedule

(51:00):
some time to go into universityand see an 1830 Book of Mormon
and I'll tell you, folks, whenyou actually are in a presence
of one and have an ability tohold it and I kind of like to
say, ooh, this is my replica.
And when you feel it, if youwill, there's some electricity
to it and we call it the spirit.

(51:22):
There really is a spirit thatsays there's something special
about this.
We call it sacred and for areason because it means so much
to us and so because of it, foryouth groups to come in and say,
hey, look at this, you know,take a look at this and flip
through the pages.
And librarians have been reallynice to say, you know, be
gentle with it, but look.

(51:43):
And for young people toexperience it and to have their
testimonies built because theyactually say this was real.
You know, somebody owned thisin 1830, and maybe Joseph Smith
or Hiram or Samuel Smith.
A great missionary work wouldpass through their hands and
have an ability to be touched bythese people.

(52:03):
And now I get to touch it aswell.
Yeah that's so cool.
We also have some honorablementions and it was kind of
interesting.
You mentioned that a lot ofpeople get copies of the Book of
Mormon and who's who had them.
In our honorable mention it wasinteresting that even Buzz
Aldrin Buzz Aldrin's personalcopy is listed.
We've got one that was listedby Winston Churchill.

(52:26):
Winston Churchill was givenmultiple ones.
I have yet to record it, butit's been said that Elvis
Presley was given quite a few.
Specifically the Osmond familywas influential in giving a copy
to Elvis and so justinteresting that you've got

(52:48):
these presentation copies thatwere presented to various people
now can be seen as saying ohyeah, that's so-and-so's copy of
the Book of Mormon.
So I send a message out thatI'm trying to get the message
out to private collectors thatsays I'm we're trying to get a
proper copy counts and it's onlygood if everyone is respectful

(53:11):
on it and knows that it's ingood faith to record these
private copies.
And so my plea to privateowners is that says that I'll
keep ownership confidential andwe'll keep this anonymous.
But I'm really excited to workin the next couple of years
recording various copies of theBook of Mormon and going forward
Wow.

It's really cool .

That's amazing.
So and I know you said you knowyour oldest one is the one with
the desert alphabet.
Is that also your favorite one,or do you have another one
that's kind of more yourfavorite?

Mine is the letterpress that I mentioned.
It's the replica.
And what's interesting is a lotof people look at a replica
1830 Book of Mormon and they say, well, it's novel form, there's
no versing, and a lot of timesyou can see that there was
typographical errors where thebits of letters were misplaced
or things like that.
And some people can be criticalof an 1830 Book of Mormon and I

(54:08):
actually am not and it's reallyinteresting that we're in the
2020s and 2025, and we have 2020vision, looking backwards and
seeing the history in our lens,if you will.
And let's say that it'sdangerous, but, as I've gone
through this, I'm more forgivingof church history.

(54:30):
I'm more forgiving of BrighamYoung's leadership, of whatever
controversial topic that youkind of want to talk about.
I'm glad that I'm living in mylife as compared to having to
deal with something previous,and so, because of it, I'm less
critical and I'm more likely tounderstand that I don't know all

(54:51):
of the picture and I don't knowall of the stories behind it.
We can see as best as we canand we kind of fill in the
blanks when we don't know thedetails, but it's really
humbling knowing that they hadchallenges we would never have
now, and we have experiencesthat they would never even dream

(55:11):
about previously.
Have experiences that theywould never even dream about
previously, and for us to becritical of history really does
disservice to us and history.
So the takeaway that I've hadwith this has been really
knowing that I'm less criticalas well as I'm grateful for the
path that the saints have hadand the rows they've plowed,

(55:33):
because I didn't have to, and soit's been really faith
promoting for me as well.

I love, I love what you said about that.
I'm really grateful for theroads that have been plowed so I
don't have to like what a greatperspective.
You know, really, really greatperspective, oh yeah, Well, this
has been awesome, Robert.

Thank you for having this desire to go and
collect these and learn thestories and the histories behind
them.
I mean, that's truly a gift toall of us for you to be able to
have that mission and then beable to share it, so as we kind
of wrap things up.
What are some final thoughts?

(56:15):
You'd able to share it so as we, as we kind of wrap things up
what are some final thoughtsyou'd like to share about your
journey?

Um, that, uh, I'm a normal guy that's been
kind of a Book of Mormonenthusiast.
Um, the YouTube channel is Bookof Mormon Editions.
Um, the website is um,bookofmormonsensuscom, but in
general the website isbookofmormonsensuscom, but in
general.
I'll reiterate it as well thata lot of times it's real easy to
be critical of either churchleadership now or, as well,

(56:44):
church leadership of history.
That something was, you know,they've wronged me or they
wronged my family or theywronged these group of people.
And my daughter was interesting.
She kind of mentioned that shehad some struggles about a year
ago with some friends and withher faith and she said you know,

(57:04):
now that I've gone through it,I'm better off because I'm
stronger and I know that God waswith me stronger and I know
that God was with me and in herteenage ways it's really great
to see just a budding, growingtestimony when hard times come
or when wrongs happen, that weactually can grow from it as

(57:27):
well.
As yeah, in 1830 Book of Mormon.
I love reading a replicaedition.
Because yeah, in 1830 Book ofMormon.
I love reading a replicaedition.
Because yeah, they're.
The typesets is the typesettingis every three pages have.
It has an air, and I loveseeing it because it actually
means that the printers werehuman and was human and wanted

(57:47):
to get this out as fast aspossible because he knew the
importance of it.

Awesome.
Well, thank you so much forcoming on here today.
And just for any listeners outthere, guys like, if you have
one of these rare copies of thebook of Mormon, let's definitely
reach out to Robert and we'llhave his information in the
description.
Connect with them and and letthem know.
I mean, I'm going to tell youtoo, Robert.
Instead of saying I'll neverown a copy of the 1830s, you

(58:16):
should just start picturingexactly how it would feel to
hold it in your hands, Becauseyou never know If, Heavenly
Father, wants you to have ityou'll have it.

Yeah, wow, awesome.
Well, thanks again, robert, forbeing on the show.
We really appreciate youAwesome.
Well, thanks again, robert, forbeing on the show.
We really appreciate you, andanybody that's inspired by
Robert, for having him havingcourage to be on the show.
We hope that you'll also get onlatterdaylightscom and tell us
about your story so we can haveyou as well.

Yeah, absolutely .
And don't forget guests orlisteners to do your five-second
missionary work.
Go ahead and comment on thisepisode.
Let us know what your favoritewas that you saw today, or if
you have another favorite thatmaybe Robert you know wasn't
able to show off yet or doesn'thave in his collection.
Let us know what your favoriteversion of the Book of Mormon is
.
And, uh, and do that littlefive second missionary work.
Hit that share button, getRobert's story out here.

(59:09):
We would, we would really loveto be able to reach you know far
and wide.
So well.

thank you for having me.
I am I'm so excited to be withyou.

Well, it's been a pleasure, for sure.
Yeah, definitely All right.
Well, everybody, take careuntil next week when we share
another story of Latter-dayLights.
See you later, bye-bye.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Preserving Sacred Text with The Book of Mormon Census: Robert Messick's Story - Latter-Day Lights