And put away in your thoughts this other thing I tell you,
what I dreamed in radio speech and what
I record as actually happened.
I tell you my good intentions, but I failed for reasons
outside my control.
I obeyed the messenger but disobeyed my father
when I returned to the field.
The paradoxical position I've been placed in
was relieved when my father believed me.
I left the field.
Was I relieved to be relieved of the labor of the day?
And went to the place where the messenger told me.
The village, the county, the state, the land form,
and the compass direction are given.
Form the image in your mind, plates.
A stone box is discussed.
Its edges, where it was visible from the ground,
how it was buried, I take you there
and show you how I removed its contents using a primitive tool
and the laws of physics.
I make a guess about how the stones were formed.
After a very long time, I obtained the plates and all
the needed accoutrements.
I relate the significance of the date,
month, year, and its full numbers spelled out, 1,827.
On this year, I went, having gone as usual, and received
rules to follow, while they remained in my possession.
I am careful here to be ambiguous about how
others learned I had them.
But after this was done, I understood
why I was given strict rules to follow, every stratagem.
The summer of 2005, I lived in a trailer in the Sonoran Desert
with a dog part Husky, part German Shepherd.
The season was hot and rainy.
And occasionally, we amused ourselves
with digging shallow holes in the shapes of our bodies
to lie in and keep cool.
During the course of our digging,
we happened upon some fragments, which excited in me
a playful desire to translate.
Two other fragments were brought to me
by the mongrel, one of which is a tale far more
acceptable to the public than anything
I ever hoped to produce.
I have reconstructed the text that precedes
based on these fragments.
It is Joseph Smith's WoO, Werke ohne Opuszahl.
My title derived from a German catalog listing
used to denote musical compositions surviving only
as fragments.
Translated from the double helix of our relation, here
recovered from the dirt, as the voice of the people,
speaking in the gift of modern speech,
as attested by the grammar of affirmation
is Joseph Smith's original.
Let us attend.