The short answer is that my great-grandfather, Joseph Davis Mathews, heard the
gospel preached in Wales in the spring of 1844. His two cousins, Hopkin and
David Mathews, came into the village preaching the Mormon doctrine. They heard
how in 1820 a young man by the name of Joseph Smith, who after reading James
1:5 in the Bible went into a grove in Palmyra, N.Y., to pray about which church
was true. There he saw God the Father
and His son, Jesus Christ whose glory and light were beyond description. He was told that he should join none of the
churches, but that through him the church of Jesus Christ would be restored to
the earth. It would be restored by a
process of revelation and by translating the Book of Mormon. My grandfather and his wife were convinced
this was true. I am convinced that it is true because by the power of the Holy
Ghost the spirit has born witness to me. I have walked through that sacred
grove and know without a shadow of a doubt that God the Father and that His
son, even Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith. I bear testimony that the Book of Mormon is
the word of God and is another testament of Jesus Christ and dealings with an
ancient people on the American Continent.
