The Miracle of the Book of Mormon

Dear Readers--

Last week I had the great privilege of touring the Crandall Printing Museum, a small little place tucked away on Center Street. This museum is one of Provo's most valuable, but most unknown, treasures. I had never even heard of it until I read the Honors 240 syllabus back in January, but even then, I knew the name and nothing else. I had very low expectations of the museum--I predicted it would be a bit like the BYU Museum of People's and cultures. I thought it would have a few nice artifacts, some interesting explanatory notes to read, and a few kind docents but remain generally underwhelming. This was confirmed when I first saw it and realized how small it was. Well, I'm happy to say that my expectations were magnificently exceeded.

The tour began with a short lecture and demonstration on Gutenberg's development of the movable type printing press. And when I say demonstration, I mean the docent explained and showed (to the best of his ability considering the time we had) every step of creating just one tiny piece of type (a capital "B"), including fixing the mold into the hand type-cast and pouring molten printers' metal into the type cast to create a brand new piece of type that all of us in the tour could hold in our hands and pass around. The demonstration concluded with us actually pressing two pages of the Gutenberg bible--an exact replica of the original (I pulled the handle on the press--it was fun). I will never see Gutenberg the same way. He was truly a genius and truly inspired of God. What he achieved considering the technology and education of the time was brilliant--so brilliant that no one could surpass his model of the press (at least in terms of fundamental innovation) for more than three hundred years. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father inspired talented and faithful men to invent and accomplish the things that paved the way for the restoration.

Next, we moved into a little recreation of Benjamin Franklin's printing shop, discussed his career as a printer, and learned about how influential printed literature was in fueling the revolution. There's a great quote that I can quite remember, but it went something like this: "It was the press, not the pistol that won the revolution."

Lastly, we enjoyed a presentation in a recreation of the print shop that produced the first edition of the Book of Mormon. We saw an a printing press of the exact make and model of the press that printed the Book of Mormon. We saw how the pages were configured on the press. We saw how the book was bound and finished. We heard some statistics that were completely mind-blowing--for seven months, the press was running eleven hours a day at two sheets a minute. A group of strapping young men from BYU could run the press at that pace for approximately fifteen minutes before they had to let up. Back in 1830, a team of fourteen year-old boys was running the press eleven hours a day. The pace of binding the five thousand copies of the first printing was even more impressive. The physical coming forth of the Book of Mormon was every bit as much of a miracle as the divinely inspired translation.

I don't quite know how to express my appreciation for this museum. I came out of it ecstatic and impressed and overwhelmed. I donated all the cash I had in my wallet (well, it was only five dollars, but the widow only had two mites, right?) and I encourage any of you who have the chance to visit the museum (and I hope all of you do, the next time you are in Provo) to donate. The Museum has received a sizable donation from the Church to expand, but requires more aid. President Monson hopes that, after the museum has finished it's expansion plans, every missionary in the Provo MTC will be able to go through the museum to gain such a tangible appreciation of the miracle of the Book of Mormon.

Let me know the next time you are in town, and I'll gladly go through again :-)

--Christian

P.S. I just recently got into "So You Think You Can Dance." I know it's not in season, and I don't even have a TV, but I discovered a couple clips on YouTube and was amazed. Here's one of my favorites that I've found so far:



Enjoy!