A hundred and sixty seven years ago today the Prophet Joseph Smith had a dream. The dream happened four days before he and Hyrum were murdered by the mob, and it was his last prophetic dream.

Joseph shared his dream with W. W. Phelps a couple days before he was martyred. It took Brother Phelps until 1862, eighteen years after Joseph’s murder, to publish the account. He titled the Prophet’s dream as, “Joseph Smith’s Last Dream.”

Few members are familiar with this story. Thankfully, Seth Adam Smith, a talented video artist, spent the last eight months working on a video that adequately shows this dream. Below you can watch his work of art.

Okay, as I promised yesterday, below is the interview with Dan Smith a.k.a. the Smiling Guy at General Conference. I want to thank Dan for being such a great sport with all of this. You will see from the interview that he didn’t expect the attention, and frankly I had to beg him to let me interview him. He felt it wasn’t that big of deal, which he is probably right. However, there were too many curious people wanting to know more about him to just leave everything alone.

Now, I have to warn you before watching our interview, I am not a professional. In fact, this is my first video interview. This will become painfully obvious as you watch me question Dan. I’m bracing myself for the comments that will face me shortly on YouTube. I am just glad that Dan is the star of the show, his laid back demeanor and fashionable accent really brings balance to the interview.

In case you miss the glaring banner at the top of our video, we provide a link that redirects to Dan’s Facebook fan page (yes, it does say ldsfriends.com but I promise it will take you to Facebook). If you have more questions please feel free to post them there or on this post. ~Paul W.

P.S. Some people have reported having issues with the video below. You can watch it on YouTube if this is the case.

True to our promise made below we interviewed Dan Smith, a.k.a. the guy smiling into the camera at General Conference. Dan offers more insight into the whole event. To watch the video interview please visit our April 15th post.

It has been quite a trip with the whole General Conference smiling kid. It was amazing to see all the interaction the Saints had over this relatively brief incident. However, we found ourselves wondering a lot of questions: “Was this prank or dare?” “Is the guy aware of his Internet fame?” But our biggest was question, “Who was this kid, anyway?”

As luck would have it, we were able to track him down and he agreed to let us interview him. We plan to post the video on our interview tomorrow on our blog. So, if you want to have those burning questions answered, just leave a comment on the post displaying our General Conference Posters. Be sure to select the check box at the bottom of the comments that says, “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail.” Anyone who has selected this option will be the first to know when we post the video. ~Paul W.

Screen Shot of the Interview

Recently we had the opportunity to interview Dan Smith, a.k.a. the guy smiling into the camera at General Conference in the below video. Dan offers more insight into the whole event. To watch the video interview please visit our April 15th post.

You may have picked up from our previous post about the smiling guy at General Conference. Well, in case you missed it or cannot find it online (the Church did edit it out of their footage about 15 minutes after it happened) we have the four second clip for your viewing below. It doesn’t seem that big of deal when you see it, but if you weren’t prepared for it, than you can image the entertainment it brought. Not to mention that this little stunt was done in front of millions of people. ~Paul W.

The Church has made it really easy to watch conference anywhere and everywhere! Below is an embedded feed for this weekend’s Conference. Obviously, you can also watch it on the Church’s site or on their facebook page. The important part is that you watch. Happy General Conference!

A motion picture about the life and legacy of Joseph Smith, the founding prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is now available online at MormonChannel.org/Joseph.

This is the first full-length motion picture the Church has released on the Internet. It is a revised version of the film that has been shown since 2005 in the Joseph Smith Building in Salt Lake City and in 19 visitors’ centers around the world. The revisions are to make it more easily understood by a wider audience, now that it is available to everyone online.

Ron Munns, who produced the original film, said, “The first Joseph Smith film was excellent and was well received by many. However, some parts were not easily understood if you did not already know the story. Everyone comes to the film with different backgrounds and knowledge and we wanted to make sure that every person who sees the film walks away with a better understanding of the Prophet Joseph and what he did.”

In the new version, “there is less focus on Joseph the man and more focus on Joseph the prophet. It’s the same story, just with a different emphasis,” said John Garbett, who produced the new movie. For example, a scene showing a leg operation Joseph had as a young boy was removed because it was less essential to the purpose of the film. Those who have seen the film before will notice that the revised version has a new narrator: an actress representing Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph’s mother.

“We chose this device to tell the story because Lucy Mack Smith was an eyewitness to everything that happened,” Garbett said. “This is a mother talking about her son in her own words.” The revised version is five minutes shorter than the original and about 40 percent of the movie is new. Footage from the first version was re-edited to fit the revised storyline and Garbett and his team also shot some new scenes.

“Even if you have seen the previous version, don’t miss the opportunity to see the new one. It will help enhance your understanding of the life and mission of Joseph Smith,” said David Nielson, managing director of the Church’s Media Services Department.

Currently, the film is only in English but may expand to additional languages in the future. Please think of a friend you can personally share this movie with. And also pass this information along to others with the challenge that they share it as well.

“Hello Ladies…” A friend sent this recent viral video for the BYU Howard B Lee Library over and I was amazed at how good it was. The video was based on the current Old Spice commercials, “Man Your Man Could Smell Like”. Amazingly, the BYU spoof video garnered over 1.2 million views in four days. If you haven’t seen it, you are in for a treat!

Today a friend sent me the below video. It is a LDS dating spoof off of the movie Twilight. It is particularly funny to me since my wife and I are 11 years apart. I was 30 and she was in 19 when we got married. In my defense I had no idea she was that young until our second date. Yet, now two years later with an eight month little girl I realize the Lord has a path for each of us, and sometimes it isn’t exactly what we planned—but it is always better!

On October 13th, 2009, Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, gave an incredible sermon on Religious Freedom in America at BYU-Idaho. What follows are but a few excerpts from that talk.

“Noted author and legal commentator Hugh Hewitt described the current circumstance this way:

‘There is a growing anti-religious bigotry in the United States. . . .

‘For three decades people of faith have watched a systematic and very effective effort waged in the courts and the media to drive them from the public square and to delegitimize their participation in politics as somehow threatening.’

For example, a prominent gay-rights spokesman gave this explanation for his objection to our Churchs position on Californias Proposition 8:

‘Im not intending it to harm the religion. I think they do wonderful things. Nicest people. . . . My single goal is to get them out of the same-sex marriage business and back to helping hurricane victims.’

Aside from the obvious fact that this objection would deny free speech as well as religious freedom to members of our Church and its coalition partners, there are other reasons why the public square must be open to religious ideas and religious persons.”

-Elder Dallin H. Oaks

You can read this talk in full at the LDS New Room.

Video collage and above content was created by Seth Adam Smith.