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Mormons are perfectly happy to give you a copy of the Book of Mormon when they come to your house. Just try to get a copy of Doctrines and Covenants out of them. I had to get THAT on eBay.

BTW, I’m off the visiting list - last time they came, I kept seizing the conversation back and explaining that the Catholic Church teaches something very different, and here’s the scriptural evidence. It’s been about five years since their last stop at our house.

They don't want a "conversation" when they are trying to convert...they want an audience. ;)

The D&C has too many things in it that are considered "meat"...and new contacts are only served the "milk".

Doctrine and Covenants Section 132

Got my copy of the Doctrines and Covenants right there at the visitors' center in Temple Square in SLC.

I'd been doing research into the Church of the First Born at the time and about fell through my airplane seat while reading it on the way back because that's what Smith called his Mormon movement ~ at least up until 1836 when there were mutual recriminations, mutual excommunication, and a serious parting of the ways.

After that the COTFB terminology kind of falls away from public documents generated in Mormon circles, but occasionally it's used by groups like the Morrisites or assorted criminals. Even David Koresh' grandmother was a member of the COTFB (see: Waco).

All of which is neither here nor there, and may have nothing whatsoever to do with modern Mormonism, but I'd tracked some COTFB ancestors from Rhode Island to the Western settlements in New York in the post Revolution/War of 1812 period, and knew they'd formed their church sometime in the early 1700s, so what was Joseph Smith doing using their name.

Amazingly there's really little to be known. This was an overwhelmingly illiterate community of poor people living in a rugged frontier, so widespread ignorance was not surprising at all.

As a source document on the COTFB the Doctrines and Covenants is pretty good. Haven't found any of the references in error with respect to the timelines of the people involved in the early movement although the religious points made are a tad obscure unless you accept there was a For Real COTFB congregation outside the Mormon movement that existed somewhere in Smith's social environment.

The COTFB has an entertaining record regarding divorce ~ a couple marries, has a kid, then divorces. A large group of them in Brown County Indiana composed of 50 core families had 250 divorces in a 50 year period. Most of the members of that congregation relocated to the Kenai Peninsula, North Pole, or Tanana Valley back in the 1920s and 1930s. Any Mormons reading this should beware of confounding the COTFB they might encounter in Nevada or Alaska with later orders within the LDS (and about which I know next to nothing). They are NOT the same!

It’s been about five years since their last stop at our house.

THE

DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS

OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

SECTION 123

Duty of the saints in relation to their persecutors, as set forth by Joseph Smith the Prophet, while a prisoner in the jail at Liberty, Missouri, March 1839. HC 3: 302–303.

1–6, The saints should collect and publish an account of their sufferings and persecutions; 7–10, The same spirit that established the false creeds also leads to persecution of the saints; 11–17, Many among all sects will yet receive the truth.

1 And again, we would suggest for your consideration the propriety of all the saints gathering up a knowledge of all the facts, and sufferings and abuses put upon them by the people of this State;

2 And also of all the property and amount of damages which they have sustained, both of character and personal injuries, as well as real property;

3 And also the names of all persons that have had a hand in their oppressions, as far as they can get hold of them and find them out.

4 And perhaps a committee can be appointed to find out these things, and to take statements and affidavits; and also to gather up the libelous publications that are afloat;

5 And all that are in the magazines, and in the encyclopedias, and all the libelous histories that are published, and are writing, and by whom, and present the whole concatenation of diabolical rascality and

nefarious and murderous impositions that have been practised upon this people—

6 That we may not only publish to all the world, but present them to the heads of government in all their dark and hellish hue, as the last effort which is enjoined on us by our Heavenly Father, before we can fully and completely claim that promise which shall call him forth from his hiding place; and also that the whole nation may be left without excuse before he can send forth the power of his mighty arm.

7 It is an imperative duty that we owe to God, to angels, with whom we shall be brought to stand, and also to ourselves, to our wives and children, who have been made to bow down with grief, sorrow, and care, under the most damning hand of murder, tyranny, and oppression, supported and urged on and upheld by the influence of that spirit which hath so strongly riveted the creeds of the fathers, who have inherited lies, upon the hearts of the children, and filled the world with confusion, and has been growing stronger and stronger, and is now the very mainspring of all corruption, and the whole dearth groans under the weight of its iniquity.

8 It is an iron yoke, it is a strong band; they are the very handcuffs, and chains, and shackles, and fetters of hell.

9 Therefore it is an imperative duty that we owe, not only to our own wives and children, but to the widows and fatherless, whose husbands and fathers have been murdered under its iron hand;

10 Which dark and blackening deeds are enough to make hell itself shudder, and to stand aghast and pale, and the hands of the very devil to tremble and palsy.

11 And also it is an imperative duty that we owe to all the rising generation, and to all the pure in heart—

12 For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it—

13 Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven—

14 These should then be attended to with great earnestness.

15 Let no man count them as small things; for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things.

16 You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves.

17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.