A Guided Journey to Coming to Know the Prophet

Do you know the Prophet Joseph Smith? It seems a bit absurd, doesn’t it, to say you know a man who lived 200 years ago. But maybe it’s not as impossible as it sounds. Joseph, a Deseret Bookshelf Plus original podcast, illustrates how despite time, distance, and historical context, millions have come to know the Prophet.

But first we need to be clear: this isn’t a podcast featuring only historical commentaries and timelines. Instead, host Heidi Swinton and her friends discuss how they came to know Joseph as a friend.

So if you feel like you know Joseph already, this podcast is for you. If you feel hesitant to know Joseph, then this podcast is definitely for you. Because Joseph will show that while everyone comes to know Joseph Smith in different ways, the most important thing is how they’ve come closer to Christ through the Prophet of the Restoration."

Topics surrounding Joseph Smith’s life can sometimes be controversial, and they’re not exactly things we can side-step on a journey to get to know him. So how do we tackle this complexity hundreds of years after his death? How do we make sense of the moments in Joseph’s life that were sometimes controversial? And how do we become stronger for it? We talked to Heidi’s friends, some of whom are renowned historians, who had these very same questions and learned from their experiences how we might find the answers for ourselves.