Posted by:
Mother Who Knows
(
)
Date: November 29, 2018 03:59AM
Yes, I always wondered the same thing that mikemitchell did. I kept asking the same questions, over and over, for many years, and I grew up in that same California ward.
We would get a new Sunday school teacher (often a university student) every year, and the first day, one of my friends (now married to a stake president) and I would frantically raise our hands. The teacher would call on one of us, and the question would be asked, "Why can't women have the priesthood?"
Whenever any teacher asked, for anything at all, "Are there any questions?" My friend and I would raise our hands, and ask it. A few times, the lesson would be on the subject of the priesthood, and the teacher would give the lame answers from the lesson manual. I remember our favorite teacher ended that lesson, with a great deal of self-staisfaction, that he had answered our question. But, sure enough, even after an hour of explanations, he asked who would like to give the closing prayer. I raised my hand, and he called on me: "But...WHY can't women have the priesthood?"
Truly, the first question I ever asked was the same question that the OP asked, about the golden plates being "taken up into heaven." I hadn't been baptized yet. I had been raised on the Bible, and my parents had read all the Bible stories to me, plus I had read these on my own. Never had I heard of anything being "taken up into heaven." I wondered "How"? Did anyone see an angel or something come and take them away? Or were angels like Santa Claus--if you tried to spy on them, they would hide or disappear. Did they leave the plates overnight somewhere, and find them "gone" in the morning? How did they know someone didn't just steal them? Did the angel leave a receipt, to reassure JS that the plates were in the right hands? I always got the same "ya gotta develop faith" answer, and the "too sacred for human eyes" answer. There was also broader Mormon "All will be revealed in the next life" answer.
I didn't get a real "inkling", until I was at BYU, and 18-year-old adult, and I was still asking these same old questions....