As a reader, I get to decide what I’m going to do with Joseph Smith’s journals. I can curl up in my easy chair with a copy of the journals and just read through the journal and gain quite a lot.
I can look down at footnotes to help me as a reader with things I might not understand.
And then there's something that's less intrusive called the reference material.
I get to be kind of an armchair explorer with the reference material. I can figure out what's going on with obscure things, with important things.
I can figure out what happened with
a little place where Joseph Smith stayed at a tavern.
I can see the very impressive decision of Judge Daniel Pope,
and I can find out the the workings of the Nauvoo organizations, the Church organization,
the city organization, the Nauvoo Legion.
I can putter around figuring out what made things tick.
I enjoyed this.