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.


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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.