ClarkGoble wrote:As to skin, there's a lot of debate as to what that means. I've always thought that it made most sense as ritualistic marking and not the skin itself. While there's not consensus on where the Book of Mormon transpired, if it was in the general mayan region then the painting of bodies black and red is a well attested tradition. This would easily explain how the skin would change. It wasn't the skin proper so much as a cultural marking. Much like you could distinguish the typical EFY kid from a certain subgroups of San Francisco kid by the amount of tattoos and piercings.
Mormon prophet Wilford Woodruff prayed for Indians to turn white when he dedicated the Salt Lake Temple in 1893,
"Restore them we pray Thee, to Thine ancient favor, fulfill in their completeness the promises given to their fathers, and make of them a white and delightsome race, a loved and holy people as in former days."
http://www.ldschurchnewsarchive.com/art ... house.html
And the Mormon prophet George Albert Smith also prayed for their skin color to change when he dedicated the Idaho Falls Temple in 1945.
"O Father, remember Thy promises made unto Thy holy prophets regarding the remnants of those whom Thou didst lead unto this western hemisphere, that they should not be utterly destroyed but that a remnant should be preserved which would turn from their wickedness, repent of their sins, and eventually become a white and delightsome people. May the day speedily come when those promises will be fulfilled."
http://www.ldschurchnewsarchive.com/art ... where.html
They weren't praying for Mayans to stop ritualistically marking their own skin with body paint.
In the October 1960 General Conference, LDS apostle (who later became the prophet) Spencer W. Kimball told the world that the prophecy of Lamanites (American Indians) turning white was being fulfilled.
"For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos, five were darker but equally delightsome. The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation."
"At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl–sixteen–sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents–on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather."
http://scriptures.BYU.edu/gettalk.php?ID=1091&era=yes
In 1981 the Mormon church changed "white" in 2 Nephi 30:6 to say "a pure and a delightsome people."
For 151 years Mormons believed that American Indians would turn white. Mormon prophets believed it, taught it, prophesied that it would happen, prayed in their temples for it to happen soon and finally announced that prophecy was being fulfilled.
But none of it was real.
