For the past six or seven months, I’ve been reading the Doctrine and Covenants and I finished it during lunch today. I decided to read it because I had only read it once while I was in seminary during my sophomore year. I’m glad I read it again because there were a lot of things I’d forgotten were in the Doctrine and Covenants.

I enjoyed reading section 135 the most because it was an account, by President John Taylor, of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum. The account helped me gain a greater understanding of the divinity of his calling as the first prophet in the latter days.

My dad loves the Prophet Joseph Smith very much. Whenever someone talks about him, just like President Brigham Young, he feels like shouting, “Hallelujah!” As I read the Doctrine and Covenants and, more particularly, section 135, I had the same desire to shout, “Hallelujah!”

President John Taylor remarked the following in verse 3 of section 135:

Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it. In the short space of twenty years, he has brought forth the Book of Mormon, which he translated by the gift and power of God, and has been the means of publishing it on two continents; has sent the fulness of the everlasting gospel, which it contained, to the four quarters of the earth; has brought forth the revelations and commandments which compose this book of Doctrine and Covenants, and many other wise documents and instructions for the benefit of the children of men; gathered many thousands of the Latter-day Saints, founded a great city, and left a fame and name that cannot be slain. He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people; and like most of the Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his own blood; and so has his brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated!