Urim and Thummim

[tragula]

The best research on the subject seems to indicate that after Martin Harris lost the 116 page manuscript, Joseph had to turn over the gold plates and the Urim and Thummim to the angel Moroni and that he never got the Urim and Thummim back.  It appears that all references to the Urim and Thummim after that date are actually references to the seer stone, which functioned similarly to the Urim and Thummim.  It seems likely that Joseph thereafter used the seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon.  Personally, I suspect that the President of the Church has the seer stone in his possession.  A friend once told me that President Spencer W. Kimball once pointed to a particular drawer of his desk and said, "In there I keep those things that pertain to the President of the Church."  I don't know what that would have been if not the seer stone.