Visit to the Crandall Museum

My visit to the Crandall Museum gave me a deeper insight and appreciation for the Book of Mormon, as well as for the people who played a major role in bringing forth its word unto all nations. My testimony has grown to a degree of understanding better the Lord’s hand in the lives of his children and letting his will, word, and spirit know through his servants here on earth. As we were given a brief history of Guttenberg and his invention of the printing press, I came to appreciate his work and dedication in doing so. It required many multiple steps from finding the right metal to makes letters to designing the right ink so write with. We were what Guttenberg’s printing press looked liked and shown the process of printing. First, many letters were place in the body of printing press. People, known as beaters would then, use balls of goose skin to damp the ink in, spread well, and beat onto the character letters. A sheet of paper would be laid on the top of the printing press, and positioned with hinges to be placed over the inked letters. The body of the printing press was slid into a wooden presser, which then someone would use a handle bar to press the wood hard over the body and allow the body of letter to be printed well on the paper. Afterwards, the sheets of paper would be laid to dry. This was the early method of printing bibles; the thought all this to thousands of pages on the bible required much effort and dedication. After learning about Guttenberg’s press, the class was then introduced to the life of Benjamin Franklin. I learned many things about him that I never knew before. As early as sixteen, he was in charge of a printing newsletter. The story that had the greatest impact on me about his life was when he told his wife he would be leaving home for fours years to relief the colonists from the stamp acts of the British. Fours years turned into eleven years because of the many other cruel acts the British imposed on the colonists. For eleven years, his wife and him wrote without stopping and were faithful to each other. In December of the eleventh year, he stopped receiving letters from his wife and soon discovered that she had passed away due to sickness, just three months before his arrival back home. The fact that this couple was able to do this sets a great example love and charity. As we then shifted towards the publication of the Book of Mormon, many things I had yet to learn. By then, many years have passed since the invention of the printing press. The Book of Mormon was published on a metal printing press. Fourteen-year old boys were hired to wash each letter and press on paper. A great lesson learned here was that these boys were printing on average one page per minute, a task Brother Crandall stated was nearly impossible, since he himself was printing presser back then. It was estimated that 5000 copies of the Book of Mormon would take two years to bind but in reality was done in a short amount of time. This is a testimony to me that God lives, grants us strength, and gives each of his children callings to carry out his work. It is my testimony that he lives and loves each and one of us in the world.