A relative recently lost her husband.
In true mormon predatory manner, the mormons descended on her to try qnd convert her.

Since the stake president lives two doors down he often is the one visiting.

My never mormon granddaughter was visiting this relative when the stake president and his wife came over for a visit.

The conversation was about the angel Moroni giving Joseph the plates and eventually led to the 116 missing pages and the faith promoting story of how Joseph was told to not translate them again.

My granddaughter then asked, why didn't Moroni just go get them? He can walk through walls and he spent thousands of years protecting the plates, couldn't he just get them?

The Stake president told her that Moroni couldn't interact with earthly physical things.

So when in the next breath he said Moroni took back the plates she said, but you just said he couldn't hold physical things. I think you're just making things up and Moroni is just pretend like Santa Claus.

I'm proud of my smart girl.

+1

A wonderful reply. Her head's certainly screwed on the right way :-D

Kudos to her for cutting through the nonsense to the truth.

This is beautiful. Folks don't give kids enough credit. She already has a great handle on logic and a good BS-O-Meter. Having the confidence to stand up to an adult and tell the truth does great credit to her upbringing and the adults around her.

I would have LOVED to see the look on the old coot's face. I am sure he is not being questioned, let alone by a child :)

Trust the Mormons to prey on a vulnerable widow. Good for your granddaughter! What a wonderful, sensible response.

It’s amazing anyone buys such a “the dog ate my homework” story. The only reason Mormons try to justify this story is that, however lame it is, the alternatives are even worse.

The most obvious alternative is that JS didn’t have a backup copy, so there is zero chance he could reproduce the text without variations or omissions. It’s almost certainly the truth, and obvious enough for a child to figure out.

As the South Park character said, you mean Mormons know this story, and they still buy into the BoM?

Stan Marsh: “Wait. Mormons actually know this story, and they still believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet?!”

https://youtu.be/W4NemVO4JL0
Stan’s quote is at about 3:15.

Gracias.

Lucy Harris smart, smart, smart, Martin Harris dumb.

That was basically the story that started my exit from Mormonism as a child.

If children can see through these things, it's astounding that "educated" adults can't. I've seen people with advanced degrees; Masters, JD, PhD, and MD, who all believe that Joe was telling the truth.

The truth is that Joe knew he made the whole thing up. And he knew if he were to "translate" the 116 pages again, he couldn't get everything the same. If you watch police interrogations (I've participated in them and I've watched a lot of training videos) you notice that when people lie, and they're asked to tell the story again, they can't. When people tell the truth, they can tell the same story multiple times without their story changing.

I'd be very proud of this 8 year old.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to have a great memory. Everything you say can be recalled with no problem.

Very proud of your granddaughter!

It's too bad that lie detectors and hand writing analysis weren't available in JS's time.

Stake president definitely dumber than dirt. He ought to at least know his own doctrine that resurrected beings can absolutely make physical contact. Per the D&C, they can even shake hands!

Mormon vultures are despicable.

Dying to know - what was the reaction??

Your granddaughter is wonderful and I hope she never loses that confidence.

MormonISM is an oxymoron... a fabricated story and a sham!

If the '116 pages' (HA!) were recovered... my gosh, ordinary people might have compared them 'side by side'...

O the Horrors!

I need a thumbs up button right now.

They are used to saying whatever they want and not being challenged. Kids don't learn not to challenge until later.

The thing that I love about kids is their fresh take on things. They haven't yet been completely socialized to respond in certain ways.

Too bad by the time we mormons were 8, we had been indoctrinated already. I didn't have a clue what baptism meant, though. I just had to do it and I was not enjoying anything about it.

At the time my twins were 8, we were on our way out, but we couldn't let the family know what was going on, so we had them baptized (by their father of course). When the presidency of the primary came by to tell the kids we were bad parents and that they'd be taking them to primary every week, my son said he knew right then and there the religion couldn't possibly be real. He was more offended than anyone in the room that day. The "ex" and I were standing there in shock. The ex doesn't remember it happening. (The kids never went to church with anyone.)

Have you shared the Primary President story before? I remember a few different versions of that story happening to several others here, but I don't remember associating any of those stories with your family.

Unfortunately I was not present.

I found out when my granddaughter asked me about angels and why they couldn't touch some things but not others.

It took a while to piece together the whole story.

I was more concerned if the stake president and his wife had ridiculed her or made her feel uncomfortable asking questions.

It doesn't seem like they really had a come back or really tried to respond to her angels equals Santa comment.

The relative in question unfortunately, is not only talking with mormons but Jehovah witnesses and some Protestant denomination.

Seems birds of a feather flock together.

The relative is a life long holidays only catholic, but as we all know, anyone suffering the loss of a partner of almost 40 years is going to be vulnerable.

At least I know my granddaughter is challenging things that don't seem right and speaking her mind.

As far as my relationship with my not spoiled granddaughter, a shirt she gave me recently sums it up. It says.

"You can't tell me what to do, you're not my granddaughter!"

Neat story