[MUSIC PLAYING] Even as a child,
Joseph Fielding Smith loved learning the
gospel of Jesus Christ. By the time he was 10 years old,
he had read the Book of Mormon twice. When the boys of the
baseball team missed him, they knew they could generally
find him in the hayloft, reading or memorizing
scriptures, or other Church publications. Later known as one
of the great gospel scholars of our dispensation,
Joseph's childhood appetite for spiritual knowledge
laid the foundation for learning that would
continue throughout his life. From my earliest recollection,
from the time I first could read, I
received more pleasure and greater satisfaction out
of the study of the scripture, and reading of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and the work
that has been accomplished for the salvation of men than
from anything else in all the world.