Growing up I frequently heard about how important it is to be honest. I was reminded that God sends liars to hell. I was told that Honesty was the best policy. Being honest became a key component of my identity. That's not to say I never lied, but every time I lied it hurt me on a spiritual level. I felt guilt and shame and knew I had let myself and God down every time I lied or stretched the truth. As an adult I still feel strongly about honesty, I still strive to be honest and feel guilt in my core when I'm not.
Previously I've talked about lying in this post. I listed multiple sources explaining how God feels about lying, and discussed examples of Prophets and Apostles caught in lies.
In this post I want to explore a few miracle stories that we know are either lies or exaggerations with no mention of what was exaggerated.
Brigham Young pulled up the sandstone foundation of the Salt Lake temple after Johnston's Army came to town.
In 1993 the church released a video called Mountain of the Lord. The church news discussed the video here. In the article about the video it says that President Hinckley (first counselor at the time) said that everyone who's seen it was pleased with it. The article continues and explains multiple top leaders of the church were involved with the creation of the video. In the video around the 30 minute mark, it shows how the church buried the Salt Lake Temple foundation before Johnston's army came to town. After resolving things with the army the saints uncovered the buried sandstone foundation and found it had cracked. At the 37:30 minute mark we see Brigham Young declare that he wants the temple to stand through the millennium, so he's decided they will remove the entire foundation and start over. This is very faith inspiring. The leader of the church is willing to throw away a few years of work on the foundation of the temple to make sure it's built right. Nothing is too hard or not worth doing when doing it for God.
The problem, however, is that the foundation was never removed or at least not removed in the way the film depicts. This article, by the church no less, shows that the church did renovations in the 60's. They have pictures of the sandstone foundation under the granite. They knew in the 60's that the foundation hadn't been completely removed and replaced with Granite like the film suggests it was. The article by the church even links to an older article by a newspaper in 1891 that confirmed the sandstone foundation was never moved. It wasn't dug up and relayed, it wasn't replaced, it was never touched.
Gordon B. Hinckley was the acting prophet when this film was created. Benson wasn't doing much as the prophet in his last few years. Hinckley saw the film and approved of it. He was called as an apostle in 1961, before the 1963 renovations happened. He would have been around the temple when those renovations happened, he would have been aware of the church news story about the sandstone foundation still being there. He was born in 1910, only 17 years after the construction on the temple was completed. He was born in Salt Lake City. As someone who grew up in Utah, I'm aware of most, if not all of the Utah miracle stories that surround the church. I was aware of the 40 year construction. I was aware of the stories about sacrificing to build the temple. I can't believe that as someone born in Salt Lake, as a member of the church, Hinckely wouldn't have heard stories about the temple. I can't believe that as an apostle he wouldn't have known about the sandstone foundation in 1963. So, why would he approve a film that ignore historical facts that he must have known about, just to tell a slightly more miraculous version of the story where the foundation is cracked and removed?
Lorenzo Snow told the saints in southern Utah that if they paid tithing it would rain.
The film The Windows of Heaven was created in 1963 and shows the story of Lorenzo Snow, the prophet in 1899, going to Saint George to tell the saints, that if they paid their tithing, God would bless them with rain for their crops. The film shows how the saints at the time were struggling because of a drought and then shows that the saints got plenty of rain for their crops because they started paying tithing. At the 3 minute mark the Prophet gives the saints a promise that they will get rain if they pay tithing.
This film and story has been used for decades to teach the principal of tithing and the blessings that we get from following it. The book Teachings of Presidents: Lorenzo Snow, (I believe was released in 2013) tells the story and even has a foot note to this page which shows rain in St. George. The story in the church's book claims that the rain in August 1899 was a blessing for tithing, but if you look at the annual totals, St. George didn't see increased rainfall in 1899 or 1900. And really didn't see significantly different rain levels until 1905. Even this paper from 2025, on page 5, confirms that the promise of rain wasn't fulfilled. I'm not a farmer but I imagine that getting 2.9 inches of rain in a single month when all the ground around is dry, isn't really a blessing, depending on how fast it comes it could have just caused flooding. Also, having lived and farmed in Utah, you need the rain in May, June, July and August. If you only get rain in August, all your crops will already be dead. St. George could potentially grow crops year round, so getting rain in August isn't the end of the world, but again, looking at the rainfall data, you can see August was an anomaly, they didn't get much rain the rest of the year or the next year. So pointing to that one month as confirmation of the miracle, is deceptive at best.
Now, the church is teaching a different story. This article by the church doesn't mention the drought or the promise of rain. It links to The Saints vol. 3, which also contains the story but doesn't talk about the drought or the promise of rain.
The Transfiguration of Brigham Young after the death of Joseph Smith
Do I even need to type out anything here? The church has been playing this tune for almost 200 years now. Brigham was the correct successor to Joseph because of the transfiguration miracle. I don't think it's unfair to say every member older than 30 knows about this and how important it is. Now if you read Saints Vol. 2, page 565, it mentions one person recalling this, not another apostle, not the secretary who was taking notes, which can be seen here, just a random member.
Even the official church history written while Joseph was alive and concluded shortly after his death, shows that Brigham spoke about how the church no longer needed a prophet because it could and should be led by the 12 as a quorum. Pages 298 - 301, in all the notes from the meeting, no one who was actually there, who was speaking or taking notes, wrote that Brigham appeared like Joseph. The notes are clear that the church was to be led by the 12 and that not Brigham nor anyone else would be a prophet or guardian of the church.
Seagulls saved the saints from Crickets
This wikipedia page sums up everything about this story better than I can. It shows how the story was exaggerated and isn't really a miracle at all.
Here are a few examples of the church exaggerating this "miracle": search on lds.org, here, here
As a church that teaches the importance of honesty, by requiring it to get a temple recommend (question 9), by teaching it as a gospel principal, teaching it as a priesthood principal and by having multiple scriptures and conference talks about it, it is beyond hypocritical for the church to have ever backed these stories I discussed above.
If the church is willing to lie about these things, for decades or even centuries, why do we think we can trust the church to be honest about anything? What else are they lying about but we haven't discovered yet? Leaders don't have to be perfect, but if we can't trust them, that's a major problem. God can't put people in places of authority who aren't honest, if he does then his work and his glory will be destroyed because people will leave the church and won't make covenants because they won't know when they are being told the truth and when they are being lied to. How do we know covenants are important if we don't know we can trust the leaders? The fact we can find dishonesty in the top leaders of the church is proof the church is not God's church, if she even has one.