LDS leader hails Joseph Smith

Nearly 175 years after the organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Gordon B. Hinckley celebrated the life of the faith's founding prophet, Joseph Smith, on the concluding day of the church's 175th Annual General Conference Sunday.

The focus was fitting as members of the church plan and carry out events large and small in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith's birth, as well as the observation of the April 6, 1830, organization of the church. Smith, who was born Dec. 23, 1805, in Vermont, was killed in Illinois in 1844.

"During the brief 39 years of (Joseph Smith's) life there came through him an incomparable outpouring of knowledge, gifts and doctrine," President Hinckley said. "Looked at objectively, there is nothing to compare with it. Subjectively, it is the substance of the personal testimony of millions of Latter-day Saints across the Earth."

Chief in that knowledge, President Hinckley said, are eight tenets revealed to Smith that are now the doctrinal foundation of the church: the nature of the Godhead, the Book of Mormon, priesthood authority, the importance of families, the innocence of children, temple work for the dead, eternal life and modern revelation.

Knowledge of the nature of the Godhead was perhaps Smith's greatest gift, President Hinckley added, countering long-held beliefs of Christians since the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Latter-day Saints believe Smith saw God and Jesus Christ in a vision in 1820 as two distinct beings in the form of men.

"I submit that in the short time of that remarkable vision, Joseph learned more concerning deity than all of the scholars and clerics of the past," he said.

President Hinckley also emphasized the Book of Mormon as a second witness of Christ to accompany the Bible. In the last 10 years, 51 million copies of the Book of Mormon have been distributed in 106 languages worldwide.

"It is a tangible thing that can be handled, that can be read, that can be tested," he said. "It carries within its covers a promise of its divine origin. Millions now have put it to the test and found it to be a true and sacred record."

Members also received an emphatic warning Sunday afternoon from Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve to avoid pornography.

The "avalanche of evil" is not only sweeping the country but afflicting many active Latter-day Saints, Elder Oaks said, depriving church members of the companionship of the Holy Ghost. Besides its addictive nature, pornography can also impair normal romantic and spiritual relationships with spouses, he said.