This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The LDS Church recently released information about — and pictures of — the seer stone said to have been used by Joseph Smith to translate the Book of Mormon.
Reactions to this previously mysterious part of LDS history have been mixed. They range from "Stupid Mormons!" to "Goodness, me!" and eventually all the way over to "Who cares?"
Although I lean more toward the latter camp, I wish that I had a seer stone. How cool would that be? I'd use it to predict election outcomes, lottery winnings, treasure finds and reality TV show winners. More likely, I'd use it to read my wife's mind.
Note: Some of you may find the above statement offensive or sacrilegious. If so, you should wish I had a seer stone too, because if I did, you'd never hear from my @%$ again.
Whatever else it might be, Joseph Smith's seer stone can represent a more human side of spiritual matters. Most of us have them. They come in the form of talismans, charms, amulets, icons, phylacteries, doodads and whatnots.
I carried a personal talisman during most of my LDS mission. It wasn't magical. It was just something tangible I could focus my attention on during moments of serious emotional unrest/hostility.
I would take it out during zone conferences, long bus rides, testimony meetings gone horribly awry and annoying lectures by district leaders. It worked. Most of the time.
Actually, I had two such amulets. The first was a .30-caliber carbine casing I picked up in the street after the army shot a bunch of communists during a two-day bloodbath that kept us trapped indoors.
I carried the casing with me as a reminder that things could be a lot worse. I could be dead instead of listening to my companion plead for two hours with an investigator who didn't really want to get baptized.
After the army searched us one evening, I decided to get rid of the bullet casing. It was something that could easily be misunderstood by the wrong person. Say, oh, a teenage soldier with a machine gun and a massive inferiority complex.
The other good luck piece was a 10 peso coin flattened by a passing train. I put it on the tracks one blistering afternoon after concluding the Lord was not going to answer my prayers for a transfer or a major illness.
The locomotive mashed the coin into an oblong disk of brass alloy, an exact representation of how I felt about my mission. Or it was, before the Lord transferred Elder Lekker to the other side of the mission a few days later. Then it was proof that prayer worked.
I carried the flat coin the rest of my mission. I tossed it into the Amazon River on my way home, figuring I didn't need such ridiculous things anymore. Boy, was I wrong.
Several months after I got home, I began to founder. The world seemed to close in on me and I started to drift into darkness again. I needed something else to focus my attention on.
That's when I found the best amulet ever. Sneer if you want, but I swear it's magic. It's saved me an enormous amount of trouble and brought an incredible amount of joy. It tells me when I'm being a jerk, and when I'm doing good. It's driven me close to crazy at times, but always brought me back.
I've worn it for 40 years now, ever since my wife gave it to me the day we got married.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.