Sisters and Brethren,
The shock of Mitt Romney losing the election put us all into a coma. All three of us. In our synchronized comatose state we were actually jointly lucid in each others' dreams. President Eyring has actually started writing a screenplay about it. It's called Deception.
Speaking of which, we have decided it is time to come clean on some issues of our Church History. It is time. Apocalypse Now. Let's let the dogs out. We will therefore issue a series of 10 well-written essays over the next several months addressing so-called controversial topics starting with the so-called conflicting versions of the so-called First Vision.
What we'd really like to say is this: "Yeah, this is hard stuff." Like you, the three of us were pretty set back when we first came across all the historical...discrepancies. So we don't know how to interpret all this. We feel joyful in our faith, so there's that. And we feel as if this Church is a system that works. But...well...we honestly can't really process all the facts. So we are putting them on a metaphorical shelf for now.
But we can't say that.
The best approach here, for us at least, is to treat each topic with a mildly academic tone. We will encase the facts in special faith language as a distraction. If the Spirit has told you that Joseph Smith is a prophet, then the facts will have little bearing on you. Does it really matter if the vision literally happened? If you already know Joseph Smith was a prophet, then nothing about the First Vision accounts should bother you. After all, faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things. Also, wickedness never was happiness (threw that in for good measure).
We need to run. Elder Packer keeps emailing us about some cowboy sculpture he's calling breakneck mountain or something. Always sculpting, that guy!
Sincerely,
FFP
