It was the Christmas season, December 1999. I wanted to celebrate the season of the Savior’s birth by reflecting with gratitude on our blessings as a tool for looking forward with hope to a new century. I decided to present my five sons and my wife, on each of the twelve days prior to Christmas, with a gift of the restored gospel, a gift that is unique to and sometimes even exclusive to the theology of the Latter Day Saints Movement.

In no other theology can you find the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine & Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price or ‘scriptures’ that can result from inspired speech. Nowhere else can you find three separate and distinct personages in the Godhead and a Father and Son that have resurrected bodies of flesh and bones. In the restored gospel you can find baptisms for the dead, an answer to who the ‘other sheep’ were spoken of by the Savior in John 10:16, and an Apostasy that has been resolved by a latter-day Restoration. In no other faith do we learn that everyone that comes to this earth made a critical decision to follow the Savior as He fulfilled His Father’s plan, a decision that makes it so every human being will receive a kingdom of glory when they are resurrected after this life.

When I first sat down to create the list, I listed 37 of these restored gifts. I memorized the list and then had the sacred honor of presenting them in a family home evening prior to Christmas. The next evening, I was in a grocery store when two young missionaries from another faith approached me and requested a conversation. After I agreed, they asked an excellent question, “What gives you confidence in your faith?” I explained to them I was probably not the right person for their proselytizing efforts because I had just presented my family with 37 Christmas ‘gospel gifts’ that year and told them that each of the gifts provided me with near absolute confidence in my faith. I explained how each of the gifts was a reflection of our Heavenly Father’s love for us and were integral to the plan of happiness He created. They asked me to share some of the gifts with them. After I reached the twentieth gift, one of them smiled and said, “You were correct. You are not the right person for our efforts”. We all smiled. I told them how I admired their commitment to Christian fellowship. We each shared our personal witness of the Savior, and we parted as friends.

Over the years, I would update the list and share my discoveries with my family. The list was formally printed when it became 54 gifts, and it was that list that my wife and I took with us in July 2017 when we were called to preside over the Georgia Atlanta North Mission. I would print new lists when it became 75, then 94, then 124 and then 154. When we returned from our mission in July 2020, the list had grown to 182. The list is now 265 and should still grow; grow because I and many others constantly find new additions and because the gospel is still being restored. This publication is my collection of gifts and includes well-researched commentary on each one.

The ongoing creation of the list has provided an increasingly encouraging witness of the empowering brilliance of the gospel. As the list grew longer, I had to divide them into categories of gifts. While serving as a Mission President, I prepared a list of the 19 Miraculous Gifts of Unlimited Personal Potential and explained to the missionaries that increased access to these gifts could begin with individual obedience to gospel principles and missionary guidelines. I highlighted 15 Touchstones of Spiritual Verification and described how our Heavenly Father had provided tools for sifting through impressions, feelings and explanations to discover personal revelation that reflects His wishes on our behalf. I showed the missionaries 18 gifts we learned about the Godhead through Joseph Smith’s First Vision and later revelations. We learned together about 53 gifts that we are provided through the plan of salvation and happiness, 33 gifts related to priesthood and the organization of the church, 8 gifts that help us gratefully appreciate modern revelation and prophets on the earth, 11 gifts we receive from temple and family history, 12 gifts we learn of the optimism that helps us look forward to the days prior to the Savior’s second coming and 12 gifts that come from latter-day church history. Additionally, there are 26 gifts that have simply been labeled in our summary as “Other Laws, Principles, Doctrines, Prophecies.” Each of these categories have been retained in this publication for clarity.

In the spring of 1820, a 14-year-old boy, Joseph Smith, was inspired by a biblical challenge to seek answers. In James 1:5 he read, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” Joseph went to a grove of trees near his home, knelt in prayer, asked of God, and liberally learned. Joseph never quit asking questions and the gifts of eternal truths he received provided the framework of his Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness for His children.

Much unlike the religions of Joseph Smith’s day, God’s plan of happiness provided for a restored mandate and blessing of a living prophet, it provided for an ordained priesthood line of authority traced directly to the Savior, it provided for an individual receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and it provided for a godhead of three distinct personages with a Father and Son who possessed perfected bodies of flesh and bones. These profound eternal truths triggered an endless stream of curiosities and questions for the prophet Joseph Smith. What began in the grove of trees in the spring of 1820 should become an experience every honest seeker of truth experiences in their life. Consider for yourself what James 1:5 promises to you personally. If you lack wisdom, ask God who gives to all men liberally and it shall be given! Could God, our Heavenly Father, possibly have been more inviting and committed to sharing divine knowledge? The restored gospel of Jesus Christ provides each and every individual with the same access to sacred, eternal, and transcendent inspiration and revelation.

This final ‘restitution of the fullness of the gospel’ was foretold in Acts 3:19-21. A ‘time of refreshing’ would take place after the heavens received the resurrected Jesus Christ ‘until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.’ Joseph Smith and our Heavenly Father began this great and final gospel dispensation. Each dispensation begins when God provides answers and gifts to the faithful questions of curious individuals who become prophets. Prophets such as Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus stood at the head of a dispensation. If the pattern for receiving answers to prayers and restoring the gospel was the same for each of these individuals as it was for Joseph Smith, there was a process of diligently and deliberately seeking answers to divinely inspired questions. It now can become our turn to be divinely tutored through the process of joyfully awakening our understanding of the gifts the Lord has provided and those He will yet provide. The need for a personal restoration began when a ‘veil’ was drawn across our minds at birth – we need to faithfully and gratefully establish a path of endless restoration of eternal gifts of truth.

The scriptures suggest that to learn about, appreciate and express gratitude for the gifts our Heavenly Father has given us creates a path for receiving other gifts. “For what doth it profit a man if a gift is bestowed upon him, and he receive not the gift? Behold, he rejoices not in that which is given unto him, neither rejoices in him who is the giver of the gift” (Doctrine & Covenants 88:33). In 3 Nephi 26:9 we are told, “And when they shall have received this, which expedient that they should have first, to try their faith, and if it shall so be that they shall believe these things then shall the greater things be made manifest unto them.” In order to avoid deception, we are told to ‘seek earnestly the best gifts, always remembering for what they are given. (Doctrine & Covenants 46:8)

Discovering, understanding, faithfully expressing gratitude and humbly sharing the great gifts of this ongoing restoration becomes a key to gaining access to the path for gifts that are yet to be revealed. The prophet Joseph Smith said, “When you climb up a ladder, you must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the gospel--you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation” (History of the Church 6:306-307). In the Doctrine & Covenants we are provided with similar assurance: “That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day” (Doctrine & Covenants 50:24).

President Russell M. Nelson has said, “We’re witnesses to a process of restoration. If you think the Church has been fully restored, you’re just seeing the beginning. There is much more to come. Wait till next year. And then the next year. Eat your vitamin pills. Get your rest. It’s going to be exciting.”¹

I hope that President Nelson would not mind me adding to his list—Eat your vitamin pills. Get your rest. Learn to receive divine personal revelation and enjoy your personalized ‘process of restoration’. It’s going to be exciting.

In President Nelson’s first general conference address after becoming the President of the Church he quoted Elder Neal A. Maxwell, “To those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, it is clear that the Father and the Son are giving away the secrets of the Universe!”²

It is obvious there are many more gifts of the restored gospel we are yet to receive!

We each can feel the gospel ‘restored’ as we experience, again and again, the power of conversion, of ‘seeing the light’, of being ‘enlightened by the Spirit’, of ‘seeking earnestly the best gifts’, of ‘experimenting on the word’ and of ‘seeking learning, even by study and also by faith.’

As you rediscover these great gifts of the gospel, periodically pause and imagine how each gift critically fits into the plan of happiness. Consider making one of the gifts the focus of daily study, prayer and action. Examine and contemplate what your life would be like without any of the gifts.

Some of our sister missionaries in Georgia used the list in family home evening with member missionaries. They asked everyone in the room to write 10 restored gospel gifts that are not found in any other theology. Once everyone had completed their own personal list, the full-time missionary sisters asked them to cross off one gift that was unnecessary or that they could imagine giving up in their own life. One of the members, Sister Smith, related how she was surprised to experience such negative feelings when asked to go without any one of the gifts she had written. Each gift, she said, became critical.

In all your discoveries, use the remarkable gift of the Holy Ghost. After the early saints had experienced deprivations and hardships, the Prophet Joseph Smith visited with the President of the United States, Martin Van Buren, seeking relief. After stating that he could do nothing for the saints, the Prophet Joseph said President Van Buren “interrogated us wherein we differed in our religion from the other religions of the day.”  I’ve asked many audiences what the Prophet Joseph would say at a time like this. Certainly, he knew of all the 265 gifts of the restored gospel we have outlined. He could have spoken about eternal marriage, about the Book of Mormon, about temples, about the calling of a prophet, about the plan of happiness or about the divine potential of man. In that pivotal moment, the prophet responded in part by saying we have the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands!

What greater gift could we have than the assurance of a Holy Ghost who provides a personalized and sanctified path or channel of communication with a loving Heavenly Father who promises to give answers to ‘all men liberally’!

Use the gift of the Holy Ghost to communicate with the Creator of the Universe. Conscientiously prepare an answer to this question for yourself, “What gives you confidence in your faith?”

The restored gospel of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness is brilliant, miraculous, and captivating. Compelling opportunities to endlessly rediscover the eternal joy of conversion await your effort.