was the mission president that preceeded my mission president in my mission and I had a number of companions who absolutely LOVED the guy which is why I chose to take a class from him. One thing that really stood out is his knowledge of church history. He has written an number of books on church history and doctrine (including the Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants series). What was so interesting about his class is that he spent a good amount explaining the historical context of each revelation, when it was received, what was going on in the church at the time, who it was given to, why it was given to them, etc. It really helped to understand what was being discussed in the revelation with the proper context given.

Also, his tests dealt with knowing the content matter of each of the sections along with some of the historical context above. As such there was a decent amount of studying that I had to do to prepare for my class, but getting an A wasn't too difficult.


Compare that to the classes I took from Joseph Fielding McConkie. There was absolutely 0% outside work that needed to happen for that class outside of possibly reading the scriptures. Our grade was 50% on the midterm and 50% on the final. Both tests were multiple choice tests and were completely based on Brother McConkie's interpretations of the scriptures we were studying. It was an enjoyable class simply because his interpretations of the scriptures were rather fascinating (even if it was "the gospel according to Brother McConkie" at times). Given that he grew up with an apostle as a father and a prophet as a grandfather, though, his knowlege of the gospel was quite large.