On Friday I had the opportunity to spend about 30 minutes in Harmony, PA. This is where Joseph Smith and his wife Emma lived on her parent's property when they were first married. It is where the translation of the Book of Mormon commenced. And it is where the priesthood was restored. I made a very short movie of the area:
For those with an interest -- here's how the movie was made:
1. Moview recorded with Flip camcorder (www.theflip.com)
2. Movie downloaded to iMovie on my Mac laptop
3. Edited movie in iMovie and uploaded to my YouTube account
4. Movie file copied from YouTube into my blog using YouTube's embedded code feature
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Roadtrip
I'm heading north early tomorrow morning to meet the 22 missionaries who serve in the Scranton PA Zone. They are now "our" missionaries. I want to get to know each missionary, so I'll be having personal interviews with each of them in their apartments.
I'll be traveling to Easton, Nazareth, Stroudsburg, Wilkes-Barre, West Pittson, Scranton, Tunkhannock, Montrose, Susquehanna and Honesdale. I'll have the opportunity of spending about 30 minutes at the Church Historical Site at Harmony, PA. I have included some important historical information about Harmony below the map.
View Larger Map
The priesthood of God was restored to the earth near Harmony (now Oakland), Pennsylvania, in 1829. Joseph and Emma Smith had moved here in December 1827 to escape persecution. Here Joseph began translating the plates that had been delivered to him by the angel Moroni. Martin Harris came from New York and served as a scribe to the Prophet for the first 116 pages of the translation from April to June 1828. Those pages were lost due to disobedience and were never retranslated.
In early April 1829, Oliver Cowdery came to meet the Prophet and soon became his new scribe. During the translation, Joseph and Oliver went into the woods and prayed for guidance on the subject of baptism. In reply, the resurrected John the Baptist visited them on May 15, 1829, and ordained them to the Aaronic Priesthood. He then commanded Joseph and Oliver to baptize each other in the nearby Susquehanna River.
Most of the Book of Mormon was translated at Harmony. Here, the Lord also gave the Prophet 15 revelations later published in the Doctrine and Covenants.
Joseph and Emma moved from Harmony in August 1830. The home they lived in burned down in 1919. From 1947 to 1959, the Church acquired the land where Joseph and Emma lived and about 6 acres of riverfront property where the Aaronic Priesthood was restored.
I'll be traveling to Easton, Nazareth, Stroudsburg, Wilkes-Barre, West Pittson, Scranton, Tunkhannock, Montrose, Susquehanna and Honesdale. I'll have the opportunity of spending about 30 minutes at the Church Historical Site at Harmony, PA. I have included some important historical information about Harmony below the map.
View Larger Map
The priesthood of God was restored to the earth near Harmony (now Oakland), Pennsylvania, in 1829. Joseph and Emma Smith had moved here in December 1827 to escape persecution. Here Joseph began translating the plates that had been delivered to him by the angel Moroni. Martin Harris came from New York and served as a scribe to the Prophet for the first 116 pages of the translation from April to June 1828. Those pages were lost due to disobedience and were never retranslated.
In early April 1829, Oliver Cowdery came to meet the Prophet and soon became his new scribe. During the translation, Joseph and Oliver went into the woods and prayed for guidance on the subject of baptism. In reply, the resurrected John the Baptist visited them on May 15, 1829, and ordained them to the Aaronic Priesthood. He then commanded Joseph and Oliver to baptize each other in the nearby Susquehanna River.
Most of the Book of Mormon was translated at Harmony. Here, the Lord also gave the Prophet 15 revelations later published in the Doctrine and Covenants.
Joseph and Emma moved from Harmony in August 1830. The home they lived in burned down in 1919. From 1947 to 1959, the Church acquired the land where Joseph and Emma lived and about 6 acres of riverfront property where the Aaronic Priesthood was restored.
Monday, June 29, 2009
iPhone Captures the Week That Was
A few photos from last week:
Five Minute Family Reunion: Elder Steele (left) meets his cousin Elder Steele (right) at a Transfer Meeting.
Sunday School Class - Reading 3rd Ward
Zone Leaders and Assistants enjoy a well-deserved treat at Rita's after day-long training event.
Our newest missionary, Elder Barnett, eats his inaugural cheese steak with his trainer, Elder Thompson.
Five Minute Family Reunion: Elder Steele (left) meets his cousin Elder Steele (right) at a Transfer Meeting.
Sunday School Class - Reading 3rd Ward
Zone Leaders and Assistants enjoy a well-deserved treat at Rita's after day-long training event.
Our newest missionary, Elder Barnett, eats his inaugural cheese steak with his trainer, Elder Thompson.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Scranton Stake Joins PPM
Effective July 1, 2009 the Scranton Pennsylvania Stake will become part of the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission (PPM). There are 8 units (wards or branches) in this stake and there are 22 missionaries currently serving in these areas. Previously this stake was part of the Pennsylvania Harrisburg Mission. The Harrisburg mission is being absorbed into its two adjacent neighbors -- PPM on the east and Pittsburgh on the west.
PPM will now consist of five stakes: Scranton, Reading, Valley Forge, Philadelphia and Wilmington. A stake typically has 5-12 units and 3,000 - 5,000 members. We will have 142 missionaries assigned to our mission.
Our entire mission is shown -- in yellow -- in the map below. Use the scroll bars to move up and down. Our Mission Office is located in Broomall, just west of Philadelphia.
PPM Map - Pending
PPM will now consist of five stakes: Scranton, Reading, Valley Forge, Philadelphia and Wilmington. A stake typically has 5-12 units and 3,000 - 5,000 members. We will have 142 missionaries assigned to our mission.
Our entire mission is shown -- in yellow -- in the map below. Use the scroll bars to move up and down. Our Mission Office is located in Broomall, just west of Philadelphia.
PPM Map - Pending
Monday, June 15, 2009
Philadelphia Inquirer Focuses on Mission Presidents
The Philadelphia Inquirer published the following article in yesterday's paper. The article can be found online at: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/religion/20090614_Fast-growing_Mormon_Church_looks_to_laity_for_its_leaders.html
Fast-growing Mormon Church looks to laity for its leaders
By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer
At 54, Milan Kunz seemed destined for an auspicious future in Downingtown.
Happily married, the father of five, and a leader in his church, Kunz last year left the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., where he had been a senior vice president, to start a consulting business.
But a phone call has put an end for now to his business career.
In a few weeks, he will move his family to Omaha, Neb. For the next three years - and for no pay - he will supervise 142 Mormon missionaries in Nebraska and parts of Iowa and Kansas.
"It's a choice - but we would never say no," Kunz (pronounced "Koontz") said as he and his wife, Leslie, watched their two youngest sons play Ultimate Frisbee at Downingtown West High School.
Their formal calling came via a teleconference with one of the 12 apostles, or top leaders, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon Church is formally known. "We believe we were called by a prophet of God to serve this mission," Kunz said.
With about 14 million members worldwide, the Mormon Church is among the fastest-growing religions. Nationally, it counts about six million adherents, more than Presbyterians and Episcopalians combined.
Some of its most rapid expansion in the last decade has been in the Philadelphia area, where it has about 12,000 members. Last year, the church announced plans to build a temple in the 400 block of North Broad Street, the first in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware.
Despite its size, the church has no paid clergy. Instead, it taps Mormon men, often in the prime of their careers, to serve as church leaders anywhere in the world.
There are about 100 missions in the United States and Canada, said Kim Farah, a church spokeswoman in Salt Lake City.
"First and foremost, the church looks for men who are spiritually qualified," she said. "Issues such as health, timing, and finances are secondary considerations."
They receive no salary but are reimbursed for living expenses. "You don't volunteer for it. They ask you," said Brent Olson, who had been an attorney for Merck & Co. Inc. for 28 years. After serving nearly 10 years as unpaid president of the Philadelphia Stake - roughly equivalent to a diocese - he got a call last month asking him to become mission president for northern Utah in July.
"We were very much settled here," the 62-year-old Olson acknowledged. But with their seven children grown, he and his wife are "excited to be doing something new."
The senior Kunzes said they were "glad" to sacrifice.
The church "has to have leaders because [it is] growing so much," Leslie said. "But it's hard to uproot your family."
The Kunzes' two older sons have already left home; their 19-year-old daughter is a sophomore at Brigham Young University.
After their game, their younger sons joined them on a bench inside the high school to talk about the move.
"I really don't care," said Matt, 13. He said he would miss his friends but figured he had time to plant roots in Omaha.
He nodded toward his 17-year-old brother. "He's the one who's got to start his senior year with 'Hi, my name's Dan. What's yours?' "
Dan, whose black T-shirt bore the logo of the Christian death-metal band Impending Doom, gave a glum smile. "Nebraska," he murmured, and shook his head. "Yeah, I'd rather not go."
He and his classmates already had plans for their last year at Downingtown West. "We were working on some senior pranks," he said. Instead, he'll be "the new kid" in a city he has never seen. "Then it's off to college. So I'll just see what happens."
For their parents, however, service is a familiar part of being Mormon. Both were missionaries for two years starting at age 19 - he in Ireland, she in Texas - and they have been active ever since.
Until recently, Milan was first counselor to the president of the Valley Forge Stake. And starting at 6 a.m. every weekday for five years, Leslie has taught scripture and church history to Mormon teenagers in her home.
As head of the Omaha mission, President Kunz will counsel the missionaries in his charge - most in their early 20s - and "help them stay focused." Leslie, who will have the title Sister Kunz, will cook dinners for the missionaries as they arrive and depart, and oversee their health care.
"It's a very committed life," she said.
Mike Murray, the Philadelphia Stake's mission president since 2007, called his two years here "the most remarkable experience of my life."
A Stanford University graduate who converted to Mormonism as a young man, Murray, 54, helped develop Apple's first Macintosh computer in the early 1980s.
He then worked for Microsoft Corp., leaving early this decade to cofound UNITUS, an international antipoverty organization that makes microloans to small businesses in places such as Bangladesh.
His moorings in Seattle were "pretty deep" when the church called him to Philadelphia, Murray acknowledged, "and it took a while to get unmoored."
But he likened mission presidency "to going through rehab."
"You're forced to reevaluate yourself," he said. "What you believe, your values, how you spend your time, your relationship with your spouse and children - they're all placed before you. You ask yourself, 'What matters most?' and 'How am I going to spend the rest of my life?' "
He and his wife, Joyce, plan to return to Seattle next year but don't know what they'll do next.
"We're asking how we can best help people live better lives," he said. "We as humans have no real knowledge of how many layers there are to the onion each of us is."
An unplanned detour into mission presidency "can be a tremendous sacrifice," he said. "But it's an even greater gift."
Fast-growing Mormon Church looks to laity for its leaders
By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer
At 54, Milan Kunz seemed destined for an auspicious future in Downingtown.
Happily married, the father of five, and a leader in his church, Kunz last year left the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., where he had been a senior vice president, to start a consulting business.
But a phone call has put an end for now to his business career.
In a few weeks, he will move his family to Omaha, Neb. For the next three years - and for no pay - he will supervise 142 Mormon missionaries in Nebraska and parts of Iowa and Kansas.
"It's a choice - but we would never say no," Kunz (pronounced "Koontz") said as he and his wife, Leslie, watched their two youngest sons play Ultimate Frisbee at Downingtown West High School.
Their formal calling came via a teleconference with one of the 12 apostles, or top leaders, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon Church is formally known. "We believe we were called by a prophet of God to serve this mission," Kunz said.
With about 14 million members worldwide, the Mormon Church is among the fastest-growing religions. Nationally, it counts about six million adherents, more than Presbyterians and Episcopalians combined.
Some of its most rapid expansion in the last decade has been in the Philadelphia area, where it has about 12,000 members. Last year, the church announced plans to build a temple in the 400 block of North Broad Street, the first in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware.
Despite its size, the church has no paid clergy. Instead, it taps Mormon men, often in the prime of their careers, to serve as church leaders anywhere in the world.
There are about 100 missions in the United States and Canada, said Kim Farah, a church spokeswoman in Salt Lake City.
"First and foremost, the church looks for men who are spiritually qualified," she said. "Issues such as health, timing, and finances are secondary considerations."
They receive no salary but are reimbursed for living expenses. "You don't volunteer for it. They ask you," said Brent Olson, who had been an attorney for Merck & Co. Inc. for 28 years. After serving nearly 10 years as unpaid president of the Philadelphia Stake - roughly equivalent to a diocese - he got a call last month asking him to become mission president for northern Utah in July.
"We were very much settled here," the 62-year-old Olson acknowledged. But with their seven children grown, he and his wife are "excited to be doing something new."
The senior Kunzes said they were "glad" to sacrifice.
The church "has to have leaders because [it is] growing so much," Leslie said. "But it's hard to uproot your family."
The Kunzes' two older sons have already left home; their 19-year-old daughter is a sophomore at Brigham Young University.
After their game, their younger sons joined them on a bench inside the high school to talk about the move.
"I really don't care," said Matt, 13. He said he would miss his friends but figured he had time to plant roots in Omaha.
He nodded toward his 17-year-old brother. "He's the one who's got to start his senior year with 'Hi, my name's Dan. What's yours?' "
Dan, whose black T-shirt bore the logo of the Christian death-metal band Impending Doom, gave a glum smile. "Nebraska," he murmured, and shook his head. "Yeah, I'd rather not go."
He and his classmates already had plans for their last year at Downingtown West. "We were working on some senior pranks," he said. Instead, he'll be "the new kid" in a city he has never seen. "Then it's off to college. So I'll just see what happens."
For their parents, however, service is a familiar part of being Mormon. Both were missionaries for two years starting at age 19 - he in Ireland, she in Texas - and they have been active ever since.
Until recently, Milan was first counselor to the president of the Valley Forge Stake. And starting at 6 a.m. every weekday for five years, Leslie has taught scripture and church history to Mormon teenagers in her home.
As head of the Omaha mission, President Kunz will counsel the missionaries in his charge - most in their early 20s - and "help them stay focused." Leslie, who will have the title Sister Kunz, will cook dinners for the missionaries as they arrive and depart, and oversee their health care.
"It's a very committed life," she said.
Mike Murray, the Philadelphia Stake's mission president since 2007, called his two years here "the most remarkable experience of my life."
A Stanford University graduate who converted to Mormonism as a young man, Murray, 54, helped develop Apple's first Macintosh computer in the early 1980s.
He then worked for Microsoft Corp., leaving early this decade to cofound UNITUS, an international antipoverty organization that makes microloans to small businesses in places such as Bangladesh.
His moorings in Seattle were "pretty deep" when the church called him to Philadelphia, Murray acknowledged, "and it took a while to get unmoored."
But he likened mission presidency "to going through rehab."
"You're forced to reevaluate yourself," he said. "What you believe, your values, how you spend your time, your relationship with your spouse and children - they're all placed before you. You ask yourself, 'What matters most?' and 'How am I going to spend the rest of my life?' "
He and his wife, Joyce, plan to return to Seattle next year but don't know what they'll do next.
"We're asking how we can best help people live better lives," he said. "We as humans have no real knowledge of how many layers there are to the onion each of us is."
An unplanned detour into mission presidency "can be a tremendous sacrifice," he said. "But it's an even greater gift."
Friday, June 5, 2009
Biggest Loser - Missionary Edition
The daily missionary schedule is quite rigorous:
6:30AM Arise, pray, exercise for 30 minutes and prepare for the day
7:30 Breakfast
8:00 Personal Study: Book of Mormon, other scriptures, Preach My Gospel
9:00 Companionship Study: Practice teaching, confirm plans for the day
10:00 Begin proselyting
2-4PM Daily Break: Come back to apartment to eat, rest, study, phone calls and plan
4:00 Resume proselyting, including teaching as many lessons as possible
9:00 Return home, spend 30 minutes planning for next day, write in journal, pray
10:30 Lights out, go to sleep
And like the movie Groundhog Day, the schedule repeats itself over and over again. But there are surprise blessings along the way.
Elders DeLand, Frisby and Pack all entered the mission field a bit overweight. By following the above schedule, they have lost a combined 215 pounds! They are the current Biggest Losers in the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission -- and they look and feel great!
(Weight loss: Elder DeLand-50 lbs; Elder Frisby-100 lbs; Elder Pack-65 lbs)
6:30AM Arise, pray, exercise for 30 minutes and prepare for the day7:30 Breakfast
8:00 Personal Study: Book of Mormon, other scriptures, Preach My Gospel
9:00 Companionship Study: Practice teaching, confirm plans for the day
10:00 Begin proselyting
2-4PM Daily Break: Come back to apartment to eat, rest, study, phone calls and plan
4:00 Resume proselyting, including teaching as many lessons as possible
9:00 Return home, spend 30 minutes planning for next day, write in journal, pray
10:30 Lights out, go to sleep
And like the movie Groundhog Day, the schedule repeats itself over and over again. But there are surprise blessings along the way.
Elders DeLand, Frisby and Pack all entered the mission field a bit overweight. By following the above schedule, they have lost a combined 215 pounds! They are the current Biggest Losers in the Pennsylvania Philadelphia Mission -- and they look and feel great!
(Weight loss: Elder DeLand-50 lbs; Elder Frisby-100 lbs; Elder Pack-65 lbs)
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Two Presidents Enjoy Five Guys
This story begins in 1990 when I contacted my friend and mentor Dick Jacobsen in Palo Alto. I had a very important question for him: "Dick, I need to go fly-fishing. Where should I go." His response: "Teton Valley Lodge in Driggs, Idaho."
View Larger Map
And I did. And I became friends with Randy Berry (see photo on right), the owner and a wonderful man.
And I've been going ever since.
And now I'm a mission president in Philadelphia. Our mission office is in Broomall, PA. Directly across the street from the mission office is a small shopping center. And one of the stores is a burger joint called Five Guys.
President Obama made the news a couple nights ago when he jetted out of the White House on a secret lunch time mission to a Five Guys in his neighborhood. It's good to know that Two Presidents enjoy Five Guys!
Inside each Five Guys is a chalk board that announces where today's French Fries grew up. On my last visit the board had an amazing bit of "ain't this a small world". The fries for the day grew up in Driggs, Idaho.
And now we've stitched together another fun story.
View Larger Map
And I did. And I became friends with Randy Berry (see photo on right), the owner and a wonderful man.
And I've been going ever since.
And now I'm a mission president in Philadelphia. Our mission office is in Broomall, PA. Directly across the street from the mission office is a small shopping center. And one of the stores is a burger joint called Five Guys.President Obama made the news a couple nights ago when he jetted out of the White House on a secret lunch time mission to a Five Guys in his neighborhood. It's good to know that Two Presidents enjoy Five Guys!
Inside each Five Guys is a chalk board that announces where today's French Fries grew up. On my last visit the board had an amazing bit of "ain't this a small world". The fries for the day grew up in Driggs, Idaho.And now we've stitched together another fun story.
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