[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.