May 15 is a day of celebration in the Church, because of the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood, which occurred on May 15, 1829, and the Melchizedek Priesthood, 

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which was also restored a short time later.

In a talk in 1988, President Gordon B. Hinckley said:

Can you imagine what a wonderful experience this restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood must have been for Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery when John the Baptist spoke to  them? Here was a man who had lived upon the earth more than 1,800 years earlier. Now he was speaking in English to two young men while he held his hands upon their heads. His was a resurrected body. Theirs were mortal bodies. They felt his hands, the materiality of them, and understood the words that he spoke. This tells us that resurrected beings are tangible, that they can move and act, that they can speak and be understood.

He told them, among other things, that, while the authority he gave them authorized them to baptize, it did not include the authority to bestow the Holy Ghost. He indicated that another order of the priesthood was necessary for this, and that it would subsequently be given to them by Peter, James, and John.

Commemorate the restoration of the Priesthood this week for family home evening, courtesy of FHE Lessons. Click here for the lesson.

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