Restoration of the Priesthood

On April 5, 1829, Oliver Cowdery finished a 150-mile journey across the state of New York. As the sun set, he arrived at his destination in Harmony Township, Pennsylvania, and met Joseph Smith for the first time.

Oliver had been walking with Joseph’s brother Samuel for days through spring rain and mud to reach the little house near the river where Joseph and his wife, Emma, lived. Samuel planned to help on the farm. Oliver had heard stories about an angel and an ancient record written on golden plates and felt God’s Spirit prompt him to go and help Joseph bring the book’s message to light.

Joseph was grateful that Oliver was there. Since Joseph received the plates in September 1827, his work on the translation had been interrupted by the need to work to support himself and his young wife, the move from Palmyra to Harmony, and the loss of the original manuscript.

Just two days after Oliver arrived in Pennsylvania, Joseph and Oliver began to translate and transcribe the golden plates into the Book of Mormon. On May 15, 1829, just over a month after they started working together on the translation, Joseph and Oliver arrived at the account of Christ’s visit to the Nephites in 3 Nephi.

Reading this account, they were struck by the focus on the need to be baptized by authorized servants of God. “On reflecting further,” Oliver wrote later, “it was as easily to be seen, that . . . none had authority from God to administer the ordinances of the gospel.”¹ Knowing that they needed to be baptized and that that ordinance required authority from God, Joseph and Oliver found a secluded place in the nearby woods to pray for guidance from heaven.

As Joseph and Oliver prayed, they heard to voice of Jesus Christ speaking peace to them as an angel descended from heaven is a “blaze” of light “above the glitter of the May sun.” The angel introduced himself as John the Baptist and placed his hands upon each of their heads saying:

“Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins” (Doctrine and Covenants 13).

John the Baptist explained that the Aaronic Priesthood gave Joseph and Oliver the power to act in God’s name to baptize one another. He also explained that there was additional Priesthood powers that would be later bestowed to give the gift of the Holy Ghost and perform additional ordinances. John then directed Joseph and Oliver to go to the nearby Susquehanna River and baptize one another.

After John the Baptist departed, Joseph and Oliver followed his instructions and walked down to the Susquehanna River where they took turns baptizing each other. Oliver and then Joseph were baptized, and when they rose from the waters they were filled with the spirit of God and began to prophesy about the church and things to come. When they were finished with their baptisms, they departed the river and headed back into the woods where they ordained each other to the Aaronic Priesthood.

Later, Christ’s New Testament apostles Peter, James, and John appeared to Joseph and Oliver conferring upon them the Melchizedek Priesthood and ordaining them as apostles. This newly conferred higher priesthood gave Joseph and Oliver the ability to confer the gift of the Holy Ghost upon others after they had been baptized, just as John the Baptist had promised.