Restoration v. Reformation

Two weeks ago I attended a workshop at a homeschool conference entitled "Restoration v. Reformation." I was totally caught unawares by the actual content of the workshop. I was expecting some encouragement to help us look at educating our children in a new way rather than just try to mimic what is being done elsewhere, but with our own improvements. However, the message I took away from it was that we should be teaching (particularly history) from a Latter-day Saint perspective, meaning not just include God in our conversations, but actually talk about how these things fit into God's plan. In other words, there are good Christian texts out there, but they do not go far enough in explaining how events are a part of God's plan.

So I've determined to create "An Annotated Story of the World for Latter-day Saints," by searching out quotes from scriptures and the prophets concerning the events set forth in "The Story of the World." Perhaps someday I'll write my own complete book, but in the meantime since I rather like the book, I've decided this is the better path for me to go right now. I intend to publish this somewhere, probably here, chapter by chapter, as we come across each chapter in our studies.

I hope they will be of some use to someone. We've tried it once already in our studies, Story of the World, Vol. 3, Chapter 34 "Freedom for South America." It was a good place to start because I was immediately successful in finding quotes from prophets concerning the events that happened! It was an amazing testimony to me in two ways. 1) There were many things said about the men who fought to bring freedom to the people of South America and Mexico, which prepared the way for the Gospel to be spread; 2) it was a confirmation to me that what I was doing was the right thing.