Susquehanna River

On Monday, April 14th, we were privileged to drive into Pennsylvania to see the site where the Aaronic Priesthood was restored.  Every month our CES Director plans a "Cultural Day" for us.  Those of us working for CES get to decide where to go for these excursions.  Brother Bean, our CES Director, made arrangements with three other directors and they met up with us at the Aaronic Priesthood Restoration Site.

Brother Craig Done, CES Director for Penn State (and formerly from Tucson) is an authority on the early happenings of this area and he led the tour.  He and his family have lived in Pennsylvania now for 13 years and he has devoted much time in studying this era in Church history.

Bro. Done is a former Seminary teacher of our daughter, Laura and a ward member with our son, John and Cherece.

The missionaries serving in the Manhattan Temple were invited to join with us for this experience, so, we ended up having quite a group.

This area used to be called Harmony, Pennsylvania.  It is now called Oakland, Pennsylvania.  When the Hales lived in Harmony, they and the McKune's were both well known families.  Adjacent to the Restoration Site is the McKune Cemetery.  We found the headstones for Issac and Elizabeth Hales as well as the headstone for Alvin Smith, the first born son of Joseph and Emma who only lived a few hours after his birth.

View from the cemetery and on down the road

The Smith's small three room home, where most of the Book of Mormon translation was done, is also at this site.  The Church has given permission to rebuild the home and have a visitor's center and new church building built here in the future.

Standing on location of Smith Home

The Susquehanna River lies just a 100 or so yards south of the Smith home.  It is believed that between the home and the river is where John the Baptist appeared and conferred the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.

As we were instructed by Brother Done down near the Susquehanna River, I enjoyed the serenity of this place.

Standing in front of the place believed where Joseph and Oliver were baptized

Matt Baker is the CES Director from Syracuse, New York.  We met him last summer when we went to Palmyra with my sister, Janell and her husband, Stan.  Matt is a cousin to Stan.

Matt Baker and Reed

This last week we started teaching our Institute classes.  We are setting up Institute for those who speak Spanish and they haven't had Institute classes for them for the past year.  Numbers are few right now, but we are enjoying getting to know those we've met.  We expect our classes to grow as leaders remember to make our announcement in their meetings and the word gets out.  The young missionaries are helping to find students for us too.

We are also enjoying getting to know wonderful young missionaries serving here.  We are amazed at the numbers of missionaries here, but, they are all needed!  In our stake (13 units) alone there are 64 young missionaries plus us four CES missionaries.  Some units have eight missionaries assigned there.  The wards and branches have large boundaries and there are lots of people in New Jersey!