My ward is having a Teacher Development course every other Sunday during Sunday School. Yesterday we talked about teaching pure doctrine and staying away from speculating on things we don't really know about.
Jenn brought up an experience we had in Beloit. There was a family who was inactive, and had been through numerous sets of missionaries. When we got there, this family said they had a question that no missionaries had ever been able to answer to their satisfaction. They wanted to know what had happened to the gold plates after Joseph Smith was finished translating them. Apparently, the previous Elders had told them they weren't sure, but they thought that the current prophet had possession of them. So this family wanted to know why the prophet didn't just show everyone that he had the gold plates - it would make it easy to prove that the Book of Mormon was true.
I opened up the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith's testimony - at the very end he says that when he was finished translating the plates, the messenger (Moroni) took them back, and still has them. Then we talked about why God would want it done that way - so that we have to rely on faith instead of sight.
I wish that people would take Alma's example to heart - his son Corianton had a question about death and the resurrection - and Alma didn't know the answer - so he told him that, then he told him what he did know. That's how we should be - don't lie and make things up when you don't know the answer - say you don't know and then try to find out what the answer is! The best way to do that is to go to the source - the scriptures.
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