“What happened in Cumorah was an important part of the Resoration as Joseph Smith received the plates which contained the Book of Mormon,” Elder Jairo Mazzagardi of the Seventy said during the Saturday afternoon session of general conference. Elder Mazzagardi spoke about when his prayers were answered about the location of the Restoration and the truths that were restored by the Book of Mormon.
After moving from Brazil and taking up legal residence in the United States for several years and becoming acquainted with some of the smaller eastern cities, Elder Mazzagardi asked himself, “Why did the Restoration have to be here, and why such a spiritual uproar? Where did all the people mentioned in Joseph’s account come from?”
Elder Mazzagardi prayed for an answer as he traveled to Palmyra, New York. On the nearby Peter Whitmer Farm he met a man who told of the crowds that had come to build the Erie Canal that stretches over 300 miles from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. The men who came to work brought their families, along with “their customs and beliefs,” said Elder Mazzagardi.
Elder Mazzagardi said that after learning of some of the history he then “understood how the hand of God, our Father, in His immense wisdom had prepared in His plan a place to bring young Joseph Smith, putting him in the midst of that religious confusion, because there, in Cumorah, the precious plates of the Book of Mormon were hidden.”
“The Church of Jesus Christ,” continued Elder Mazzagardi, “could not be restored without the Eternal Gospel revealed in the Book of Mormon as another testament of Jesus Christ, even the Son of God, the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.”
Because of the truths restored in the Book of Mormon, “Divine [powers are] conferred upon man once again on earth, so that families [can] be united, not until death do us part, but together for all eternity,” said Elder Mazzagardi. Without the Book of Mormon, temples would not have been built and eternal families could not have been sealed together.
Elder Mazzargardi closed with his testimony, saying, “I bear witness that the Lord raised up prophets, seers, and revelators to guide His kingdom in these latter days and in His eternal plan families are meant to be together forever.”
