[Joseph Smith:]
So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally

After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and bеgan to offer up the desirеs of my heart to God
I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me. 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...

I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me

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 Mv Beloved Son. Hear Him!5
I soon found that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among the professors of religion.... However, it was nevertheless a fact that I had beheld a vision. I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true...

[Narrator:]
Three years later, on the evening of the 21st of September 1823, young Joseph was feeling condemned for his weaknesses and imperfections. As he called upon God for forgiveness, a light appeared in his room and an angel stood at his bedside

[Joseph Smith:]
The angel called me by name, and said unto me that God had a work for me to do. He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent.... He also said that the fullness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it...