Ezra Taft Benson: The Book of Mormon Awakening in Sheffield and a Lifetime of Testimony (1921-1994)

Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994), the thirteenth President of the Church and a grandson and namesake of the Apostle Ezra T. Benson, served a mission in Britain from 1921 to 1923. It was while serving as a missionary, particularly through an experience in Sheffield, that he came to realize how central the Book of Mormon was to the message of the Church and to the conversion of souls—a conviction that would define his entire ministry. In 1946, as a newly called Apostle, he spent eleven months in postwar Europe, traveling 61,000 miles and supervising the distribution of two thousand tons of relief supplies to the ravaged Saints of Germany and Poland. He later testified: 'I testify that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Most High,' and of the Book of Mormon he promised that sincere study would strengthen testimony, increase spiritual power, and help protect the Saints from deception. His autobiography, several biographies, and the records of his family preserve a life wholly consecrated to the testimony of the Restoration. His life is a faith-promoting witness that the Lord grants to His prophets a burning conviction of the Book of Mormon, and that such a conviction, once kindled in a missionary in Sheffield, can shape a whole dispensation of teaching.