caption: Mormon church President <PERSON> poses in the doorway of a replica of the log house Friday, March 27, 1998 in Palmyra, N.Y., where church founder <PERSON> lived when he encountered his first vision that led to the formation of the <PERSON> was 17 years old in 1823 when he was visited by the angel <PERSON> in his bedroom, according to the church's history. Three years earlier, <PERSON> said he saw <PERSON> and <PERSON> while praying in a nearby maple grove. <PERSON> claimed the angel led him to a buried cache of gold plates on nearby Cumorah Hill that he translated into the Book of Mormon, one of four books in the church's scriptural canon, which includes the Bible. The first six believers formally organized the church in 1830 in Fayette.
exif: {}