FOR DECADES, I BELIEVED THE BOOK OF MORMON TOOK PLACE in Central America (specifically, Mesoamerica). I read books and articles written by LDS scholars, visited sites in Mesoamerica, attended lectures, engaged online and in person-let's say I studied the issue in depth. I know the evidence and can recite the arguments backwards and forwards.

But now I'm convinced everything happened in North America.

The settings for major Book of Mormon events are not in Mexico and Guatemala but in Florida and Tennessee, Missouri and Iowa, Illinois and Ohio, and, ultimately, in New York.

If you're surprised to read this, join the club. Many Church members are surprised, as I was myself. We've been conditioned to associate the Book of Mormon with Central America. I know from my own experience that the change in paradigm can be startling and even difficult.

But I also know what a difference it makes to finally realize that everything Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery said about the Book of Mormon and North America is true.

. . .

There is abundant evidence of a sophisticated ancient civilization in North America that matches the descriptions in the Book of Mormon. The evidence includes extensive earthworks that involved mathematics and sophisticated celestial alignments over large distances. The population was extensive; one expert says there were over one million mounds in North America, although fewer than 100,000 still exist because of farming, construction, and other destructive activities. Many of these date to Jaredite and Nephite timeframes, in the locations we would expect from the scriptures and the statements ofJoseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.

The most astonishing thing for me as I've studied these issues is how well the Book of Mormon describes the United States as it existed in 1842. The geography in the text is not only internally consistent, but every verse fits in the real world. There is no need to look anywhere other than where Joseph and Oliver said we should look, starting with Cumorah in New York.