Reborn LDS Church Conference

by John P. Pratt
28 Nov 2020, Firstfruits (Priest)

©2020 by John P. Pratt. All rights Reserved.

Index, Home

Contents

1. The "Reborn LDS Church" 2. Conference Summary 3. United Order Enterprises 4. Conclusion Notes

The Third General Conference in Brazil of the Reborn LDS Church was held last weekend.

There is a new church in the United States which is centered in Brazil and claims to be the "reborn" version of the LDS Church.[1] They held their third world conference this last weekend in southern Brazil, which I attended as a member. This article summarizes some of the events of that conference as well as what was learned about the United Order which has been founded there and is well underway!

Angel Moroni statue.

The Church of Christ was founded by the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1830, being the true restored version of the Church of Christ of the First Century. It began by being headed by two elders, Joseph Smith (First Elder) and Oliver Cowdery (Second Elder), who were also called apostles (D&C 20:38). When it was more fully organized in 1832, it was led by a First Presidency consisting of three high priests who had been ordained after the order of Melchizedek, which higher level of priesthood had been restored on Sat 4 June 1831.[2] Joseph Smith was the president and he had two counselors. In 1838 the Lord changed the name to the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" (D&C 115:4, with no hyphen in "Latter Day").

After the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph, the Church split into many factions, each led by a man with a reasonable claim to head the Church. Sidney Rigdon started the Rigdonites because he held all of the keys of presidency, having been the first counselor in the First Presidency. The apostle Brigham Young, although he had never even been ordained to be a high priest, soon led the Brighamites, which eventually moved to Utah and became known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon, with "The" capitalized and a hyphen in "Latter-day"). James Strang started the Strangites, which still has the same name as given in 1838 (no hyphen in Latter Day). It has about 100 active members in Wisconsin. Later the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) was also formed which has now split into various factions. All of these churches claim to be the true continuation of the church founded by Joseph Smith.

Sacrament service.

As time went on each of these churches rejected part of what had been part of the original restored church. The Temple Lot Church, and others who followed David Whitmer, rejected high priests, even though they are clearly discussed in Alma 13 in the Book of Mormon. The RLDS Church officially rejected the Book of Mormon in 1984, which caused it to split into factions which still accept that sacred book of scripture. Brigham Young systematically purged all of the high priests and began the doctrine that the highest office in the Church is an apostle, apparently because that was the highest level of priesthood to which he had attained. I was a member of LDS Church most of my life until last June and recently wrote an article about some of the many changes which have occurred in the LDS Church.[3]

In 1998 the Angel Raphael appeared to a man named Mauricio Berger in Santa Maria, Brazil, and later on 6 Apr 2007 the Angel Moroni appeared to him. Eventually, after a decade of similar encounters, Angel Moroni gave the Plates of Mormon to him, along with the interpreter stones, to translate the first 42 plates of their sealed portion. When the first 19 plates were completed, which he translated into both Portuguese and English (which he does not speak), they were published as The Sealed Book on 26 Mar 2019. Due to litigation from the corporate LDS Church, the hard copy is not currently available, but the PDF version can be downloaded from the home page of this website.

Mauricio was instructed by the Angel Moroni not to found a new Church, but rather that he would head up the true continuation of the Church which Joseph Smith founded. Thus, the Church claims the founding date of Tue 6 Apr 1830. Moroni ordained Mauricio to be a high priest after the Order of Melchizedek, making him one of the only people on earth who held that sacred office.

I attended the First World Conference of this church last November 2019. There I was baptized and confirmed a member of this "reborn" version of the LDS Church. I also became one of the official witnesses of the Plates of Mormon,[4] possible because Mauricio was in the process of translating the next 23 plates at that time, so he had them still in his possession.

Until now, the Church in Brazil has only been partially organized. Mauricio Berger has been the President, and they also have a Patriarch (John Vendemiatti) and Presiding Bishop (Joni Batista). A branch of the Church was opened in Utah on Sat 11 Apr 2020, which date was recognized to be the official "rebirth" date of the Church. This has led to a nickname for the Church to also be called the "Reborn LDS Church".

The conference was held in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, not far from the city of Florianopolis, on Sat 21 Nov - Sun 22 Nov 2020. Steve Woodby (John Steven Woodby) and I attended and stayed with Mauricio Berger, the seer who leads the Church. Before the conference he said that he felt both of us had an important work to do, but he did not yet know what it was. He declared that the Lord would reveal our roles in "real time" as he spoke during the conference. He admitted that made him somewhat nervous, because this would be the first time that he would receive a revelation in front of the entire conference. When he received a long revelation last spring, it came to him in Portuguese about a week before the conference, which gave him time to have it translated into English to be read at the conference in both languages.[5]

Melva Cackler to
lead the women.

The conference center was amazing to behold in its transformation from simply a large room. The United Order of the Church is leasing a large building, which also has several smaller rooms. The members had put in a sound system, built a statue of Angel Moroni on the stage (created by Mauricio himself), and had everything ready, including having bought seventy chairs for those attending the conference. There was also a large altar for the sacrament service. To me it seemed like a miracle to have been accomplished so much on the small budget they had. All of the local members worked very hard, with many of them doing jobs they had never before attempted.

The Saturday session began at 10 am and Mauricio was the first speaker. Only seventy people were allowed to attend because of COVID-19 disease restrictions. I had been asked to translate the talks into English, but just before the meeting he told me not to translate his discourse because he did not want to expect the Lord to wait for me. There were only about ten English speakers in attendance.

The First Presidency: John Pratt, Steve Woodby, Mauricio Berger.

His talk did indeed include a revelation from the Lord. It will be translated soon and presented on the official website at thesealedbookofficial.org. One item which made my ears perk up was that the date of the First Vision of Joseph Smith was given as having been on 26 March 1820! To my knowledge, that is the first time that the date has been officially revealed, which brightened day because it agreed with my discovery of the date, based on the Book of Enoch, which was confirmed by the research into weather records and knowledge of maple sugar production by John Lefgren.[6]

The most important part of the discourse was that it ended with the anticipated revelation from the Lord. It implied that the Presidency of the Church would now be organized, even as it was in the time of Joseph Smith with Sidney Rigdon as First Counselor and Jesse Gause as Second Counselor (D&C 81 Introduction).[7] At that point, the revelation switched over to be in English, during which Mauricio simply repeated the words which he heard but did not understand, as he later told me. The Lord named John Pratt (me) to be the First Counselor and Steve Woodby to be the Second Counselor in the new Church Presidency. It also spoke of the fulfillment of the prophecy given last March that Mauricio would anoint one whom He would raise up to be a Davidic servant, who accepts Mauricio's authority and The Sealed Book, and another to be one who is mighty and strong (verse 31).[8]

Ordinance of Washing of Feet.

The rest of the Saturday talks included the testimony of Mauricio's mother Adelisa and also of Valdeci Machado, one of the Three Witnesses of the Plates of Mormon, the interpreters, and the sword of Laban in the presence of the Angel Moroni. There were also talks by Melva Cackler from Australia who has been called to be the General President of the Fountain of Living Waters (new name for the women's organization, similar to the Relief Society) and also by Bento de Almeida from Portugal who has been called to be a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. He is one of the very few members in Europe.

On Sunday morning, the last session, confirmations and ordinations were done. The ordination of Bento de Almeida to be a high priest was preceded by the ordinance of the Washing of Feet in front of the congregation. It also included being anointed with consecrated oil, as well as the laying on of hands, by Mauricio. Then at the end of the conference, a sustaining vote was taken to ordain both John Pratt and Steve Woodby to be high priests and set them apart as the two counselors in the new First Presidency. After the meeting, both were ordained high priests, and anointed for special callings as stated in the revelation, and set apart as counselors in the new First Presidency.

Notes

1. Pratt, John P., "Notice of LDS Church Rebirth" (17 Apr 2020).
2. A high priest requires a higher level of priesthood than the original apostles, who were only elders (D&C 20:38). The date of the ordination of the first LDS high priests has been uncertain until this conference when it was revealed to Mauricio the Seer that it occurred on Sat 4 Jun 1831, which he stated in his discourse. That confirms the date proposed in my "Uniform Hebrew Calendar Witnesses Sacred Events" (2 Dec 2014) Section 2.4 High Priests.
3. Pratt, John P., "Changes to the LDS Church" (19 Sep 2020).
4. Pratt, John P., "Examining the Gold Plates" (11 Jan 2020).
5. Pratt, John P., "New Revelation Confirms Sealed Book" (4 Apr 2020).
6. See First Vision Video.
7. Jesse Gause was called in March 1832 and apparently was excommunicated the following December. In the text of D&C 81, Jesse's name was simply replaced with that of Frederick G. Williams, who was called to replace Jesse one year later in March 1833.
8. Pratt, John P., "New Revelation Confirms Sealed Book" (4 Apr 2020), verse 31. Addendum from 30 Nov 2020: the revelation portion of the revelation given by Mauricio at this November conference stated, "Blessed are ye, O remnant people of my Church, and ye who lead it as you have for such a noble cause, for, behold, my Day is at the doors and is rapidly approaching, who then may abide the Day of my coming? When I, Jesus Christ, draw my sword over all the inhabitants of the earth, having justice like battle armor upon my loins, and vengeance dripping from my eyes, like acts of judgments to be poured out on all nations, because the foundations of the earth will be shaken, and there will be no safe place to flee, except in Zion and its abodes, which is why I have encouraged you to build the United Order, like Noah's ark, to save you in the last days. Now I will make known the names of those that I revealed to you previously as being a Davidic Servant and One Mighty and Strong to sustain the arms of my servant Mauricio in the presidency of my Church in these last days, just as it was in the beginning of the restoration, when I the Lord appointed and called Sidney Rigdon and Jesse Gause as counselors to my servant Joseph, to establish the law of consecration among my people. [The rest was given in English.] Behold, I the Lord, will raise up a leader for my people in Utah, whose name is John Pratt, whom I have prepared since before the foundation of the world, to replace the one that behaves as Saul, in rejecting my prophet. John is like David in many ways, small in front of the giant, but I the Lord chose him for greatness of his heart. And, among them, I will raise up one man, which will be a Mighty and Strong in my work, whose name is Steve Woodby. Amen."