President James E. Faust, now second counselor in the First Presidency, spoke in the October 1983 general conference of an experience he had as a young boy in the [Salt Lake] Cottonwood Ward.

"I was greatly impressed when I listened to James H. Moyle tell in sacrament meeting of his having heard both Martin Harris and David Whitmer, two of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, affirm their testimony concerning that book," said Elder Faust, then of the Quorum of the Twelve. "They, along with Oliver Cowdery, had testified in connection with the original publication of the Book of Mormon `that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we . . . bear record that these things are true.' " ("The Testimony of Three Witnesses," Book of Mormon.)Elder Faust continued: "When James H. Moyle visited David Whitmer, Whitmer was an old man; he was out of the Church and was living in a log cabin in Richmond, Mo. Of this visit to David Whitmer, James H. Moyle stated in this very building [the Tabernacle] on March 22, 1908:

" `I went to his humble home, . . . and I told him . . . as a young man starting out in life I wanted to know from him . . . what he knew about the Book of Mormon, and what about the testimony he had published to the world concerning it. He told me in all the solemnity of his advanced years, that the testimony he had given to the world, and which was published in the Book of Mormon, was true, every word of it, and that he had never deviated nor departed in any particular from that testimony, and that nothing in the world could separate him from the sacred message that was delivered to him. I still wondered if it was not possible that he could have been deceived, . . . so I induced him to relate to me, under such cross-examination as I was able to interpose, every detail of what took place. He described minutely the spot in the woods, the large log that separated him from the angel, and that he saw the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated, that he handled them, and that he did hear the voice of God declare that the plates were correctly translated. I asked him if there was any possibility for him to have been deceived, and that it was all a mistake, but he said, `No.' " (Quoted in James Henry Moyle by President Gordon B. Hinckley, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1951, p. 366-67.)