Restoration Scavenger Hunt

This year is the 200th anniversary of when Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith in what is known as the First Vision. It started the Restoration of Jesus Christ's church on the Earth again- that same church He established when He was alive and before He died and was resurrected. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is commemorating this bicentennial all year. There are many resources to learn about Joseph Smith's experiences on churchofjesuschrist.org and our April General Conference focused on the First Vision and the Restoration.
In preparation for this, our ward encouraged us to do something fun. Anyone who wanted to was invited to put something on their house (in windows or wherever) or in their yard that represented the Restoration. We let the ward leaders know what we were going to contribute. They put the list together with a map of the ward boundaries then emailed that out to everyone. We were then encouraged to go on a walk between sessions of General Conference to find what people had put up (the map told us what to find at each home that participated), maintaining appropriate social distance of course.

It was a nice activity and good to go for a walk as a family. What was weird was when normally it is considered rude to cross the street when you see someone coming along the same sidewalk as you, currently it is considered safe. So there were greetings from opposite sidewalks and we got some nice sunshine as a family. It was also great to see what others put up from pictures in windows to missionary ties in trees.

Our family contributed two missionary balloon sculptures. By the end of Conference Weekend, they were a little worn out. Poor missionaries.

We also celebrated the holidays for April 4- Walk Around Things Day, Love Our Children Day, and Vitamin C Day. That last one was celebrated as we had our traditional General Conference nachos. Mmmmm, bell peppers.
General Conference was wonderful. I was even able to take some notes.

Again, things are different right now. All the music at Conference was taken from previous recordings- no live choir. The First Presidency and speakers were not in the Conference Center but in an auditorium with a small amount of people. There is so much for us to look back on when this is all over. My children will be able to tell others, "I remember when..." just like I tell them, "I remember when I had to get dressed up and go to the church building to watch General Conference. I couldn't just watch it in my living room until I was a teenager."
We all did get dressed up for the Sunday morning session, where there was a solemn assembly and our prophet, President Nelson, presented a new proclamation to the world about Joseph Smith's First Vision. The proclamation can be read on churchofjesuschrist.org and there is also a video of President Nelson reading it from the Sacred Grove, where the First Vision took place. This is another thing our children will be able to say. "I remember when President Nelson presented the Bicentennial Proclamation on the First Vision."