Where an answer to prayer began !

Joseph's Home in Palmire New York
taken 2007 last day of April

This some of my family: starting left; Lis,John, Abe and my sweetheart of thirty years Pamela. We are missing Sarah, Alma, Ben, and Adam in this picture.

So this is where it all began! Wow I could not believe I was here, the sacred grove where every prayer on the lips of many christian and non christian alive today was answered .They were pray to find out the purpose of life? This question has been asked in many way sizes and color but really it boils down to the essence of; the purpose, origin and nature of man. When Joseph went into the grove he went into find out which if any of the current sect of religions were true. But he came out with much more.

The First Vision Of the Restoration  Early spring of 1820 

     The personal appearance of Jesus Christ and God the Father to Joseph Smith in the early spring of 1820 marks the most glorious event since the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

“After I had retired into the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God.

 I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me and had such astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction. 

     But exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction, not to an imaginary ruin but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world who had such a marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being. Just at this moment of great alarm I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.

      It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound.  When the light rested upon me I saw two personages (whose brightness and glory defy all description) standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me calling me by name and said (pointing to the other) ‘This is my beloved Son, Hear him. 

I desired to paint  “ The First Vision of the Restoration “, in such a way that others might know Joseph’s experience in every detail as if they had been there. I shot the background  to be used for this painting in Manchester New York. April, 2007 on Joseph Smith’s Sr. Farm where it took place.

     When Joseph went into the woods  that early spring to find out what sect of faith he should join he not only received an answer to this question, but for me a revelation of even greater import was revealed. God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ were separate, distinct, Tangible beings whom he  communicated  in a personal way face to face. Joseph Smith Jr.’s experience in 1820 revealed God as in times past desires to guide his children as they humbly seek him for answers. 

Michael Bedard

Thank goodness his noble parents did not say You need to be WHAT WE ARE!  and do what we say, but instead they encouraged him to search and find out for himself. Free will!!! Something the Founding Fathers of this country new and cherished. We Hold These Truths to be "SELF EVIDENT THAT ALL MEN ARE EQUAL ...TO PURSUE HAPPINESS...".