Saturday, May 9, 2009

Campout Celebrates Priesthood Restoration

The overnight campout, held Friday, May 8 and Saturday, May 9 drew approximately 30 men and boys to the Virgin River Rockville campground where fathers and sons of every age enjoyed play in the river, good food, S’mores, and one-on-one socializing into the night. Following dinner, participants gathered around an impressive campfire where Bishop John Goldhardt spoke of the events of May 15, 1829.

On that day, the heavenly messenger John the Baptist appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and restored the Aaronic Priesthood. This visitation ended 1400 years of priesthood privation and absence of divine authority among the children of men with a promise it would "never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness." Sometime thereafter along the banks of the Susquehanna River, the Lord’s apostles Peter, James and John also appeared and ordained the church’s first and second elders to the Melchizedek Priesthood, conferring the keys - or full powers - of the priesthood in the last dispensation of the fullness of times. This gathering of men and boys at the Bloomington 7th Ward’s 2009 father and son campout celebrated the modern miracle of the return of heavenly messengers in this dispensation and the restoration of those same powers they held for the blessing of all mankind.

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