DESERET NEWS ARTICLE ON THE SMITH REUNION

Dear Family,

The Church News section of the Deseret News had a good article on the Joseph Smith Sr, reunion.  Click on the link above.

Since sone of you may not have time, I will quote the paragraph on my presentation (it is not every day that one makes the Church News!)

"Roughly 1,100 descendants from Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith Jr. and Samuel Smith met Aug. 1-4 for a family reunion at This Is The Place Heritage Park at the mouth of Salt Lake City's Emigration Canyon."..

."reunion included "Joseph's Miracle Run," a 5K race on Aug. 3 that celebrated the 1813 experimental surgery that saved young Joseph's leg. Elder Ballard distributed medals to finishers".

"Later that day, Roy Wirthlin, a retired vascular surgeon, presented newly discovered research on the surgery. He spoke of the medical skill of the famous doctor Nathan Smith, who performed this surgery 100 years before it would become standard practice. He also showed as-yet unpublished writings about the courage of the family, especially Lucy Mack Smith, in accepting the experimental surgery."  (not sure what was new)

A descendant of Nathan Smith and seventh-generation doctor, David Longcope, was invited to the reunion. He and his family ran in the 5K race, and Frances Orton of the Smith family presented him with the family history records of Nathan Smith, who is not related to the Joseph Smith Sr. family."

The next day, couple of  fellows from the Church audio-visual department came over to photograph and video the civil war surgical kit that I have that they will use as background material when they redo some of the JS Papers interviews.

Exciting times!  Next week we go back to Michigan to see Eva and Kids, Al and her family, Mary and her kids and Bryan and his family.  Maryanna is getting baptized and that is the purpose of the trip. When asked what she wanted concerning her baptism was that "Oma and Opa to come to my baptism"  Can't turn that down.  We will stay at the farm and I will check out the corn that Bry and I planted earlier this summer.

Our grandchildren missionaries are doing very well and we are proud of them.

Love, Dad