Revelation

Joseph Smith received visions in Palmyra, near Manchester, New York state, in the 1820s. In what became known as the First Vision, Smith saw two figures which he identified as God the Father and Jesus, whom he asked which church he should join, and who replied that all current churches were corrupt, that the Second Coming was imminent, and he should found a new church to restore the Gospel. In 1823, he first saw the angel Moroni. Moroni returned once a year from 1823-1827 giving Smith the location of buried tablets, on a hillside in New York State near his family’s farm, from which he translated the Book of Mormon. These ‘golden plates’ were written in an ancient language, ‘reformed Egyptian’, which Smith deciphered through revelation with the aid of a device called Urim and Thummin provided by the angel Moroni. It was an ancient record of the early history of some early inhabitants of North America. In 1827, Smith began his efforts to restore the Gospel of Jesus Christ based on these visions and the translation he produced. Upon completion of the translation, Smith returned the plates to Moroni, although not before showing them to eight witnesses on his own and to three others directly via the angel.