The Search for the Garden of Eden

I tell him that I'm looking for the actual spot where Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge. I ask him flat-out: "Did Joseph Smith mark a specific site as the Garden of Eden?"

"No," Elder Poll says. "He just indicated that this was the center spot and that the Garden of Eden was in Independence, Jackson County area."

I sink in my seat.

He goes on.

"I don't know that there was a special spot, see," Elder Poll says. "Not to my knowledge. Not that I've ever read. I'll find out for you."

I perk up.

"As soon as Joseph Smith comes back to us, I'll ask him, and he'll tell us," Elder Poll says. Despite his hearty laugh, he's serious. "Or, better off, even Adam. Adam will tell us. Adam directed a lot of this, Justin. We believe that Joseph Smith and all prophets could communicate with all the prophets of old. Adam was our forefather, so he'll tell us exactly, 'Oh, it was right here. This is where the Tree of Life was' and such."

I feel dejected. I have a deadline that won't wait for Joseph Smith or Adam to return. But if Adam is on his way back, I knew where to find him — Adam-ondi-Ahman. I'll have to go there.

"I'll just maintain this, Justin, that you'll feel something here and at Adam-ondi-Ahman that you won't with many of the other sites," Elder Poll says. "You'll have goose bumps go up and down your arms, and you'll have a warm feeling and you'll have a peaceful feeling. You'll have a calm feeling. That's the spirit saying —" he slaps me on the knee again — "Justin, keep up the good work. I love you as your father. Those things that you're being taught and feel are from me. They're right and they're true.'"

He continues, "Thank you so much for letting us give you a little background and to build upon why we believe these, some people think, crazy things. But they're not so crazy. They're pretty simple.... That's quite a claim, that this is the Garden of Eden, quite a claim that this is where the Son of God is going to have his home. But all of us in this room know without a shadow of a doubt that it's true, and you felt it, too."

The room goes quiet for an uncomfortably long time before Elder Poll breaks the tension with a wink.

"Lord bless you," he says. Rain-soaked Missouri Highway 13 twists past farmhouses with American flags waving proudly out front, corn stalks standing at attention and burned-out buses and cars. If I can't find the Garden of Eden, maybe the Holy Ghost will testify to my spirit and I'll feel the peace and goose bumps at Adam-ondi-Ahman that Elder Poll promised.

In May 1838, Joseph Smith received a revelation near Spring Hill, Missouri, that he was at the site of Adam and Eve's exile from the Garden of Eden. Smith called the valley Adam-ondi-Ahman, which Mormon scholars have translated as "Valley of God, where Adam dwelt." Smith said Adam would return to Adam-ondi-Ahman just before the Second Coming.

Today, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns about 3,500 acres in this rural valley, most of which it rents to farmers. Farmhouses sit off long gravel driveways along the country road. Barbed wire connects the fence posts, which are painted white for purity along the roadside. Cattle graze in the barren fields. Trees blossom.

The elders at Adam-ondi-Ahman are skittish and tight-lipped. One, who asked to remain anonymous, tells me the church stresses that the job at hand is to beautify and maintain Adam-ondi-Ahman, not to publicize or talk to the press. Not that publicity is necessary; as I arrive, a tour bus idles near the entrance and tourists snap photos of the giant sign pointing toward the Mormon holy ground.

I'm here to meet an elder for a guided tour. But when I ring the bell at his home, he hasn't returned from his dental appointment. Instead, his wife gives me a couple of printouts about Adam-ondi-Ahman's history. I take the information and begin my search for Adam and his lost stone altar, upon which, Joseph Smith claimed, Adam had offered sacrifices to God.

The gravel road horseshoes around Adam-ondi-Ahman. I begin my search at Tower Hill Valley Overlook. I start walking on a trail toward the overlook when a pickup truck parks next to my car. It's the elder, who starts grumbling about "chiggers and ticks." They're bad this season, he says. The elder and his wife are one of 11 retired missionary couples who have agreed to care for Adam-ondi-Ahman over the summer.

About seven weeks ago, the valley was flooded with 10 feet of water, he says. The water has since receded, leaving an opulent green pasture. It looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting.

The elder leads me down a rocky path toward a jagged horizontal boulder. This is "The Preacher's Rock," so named because Mormons used to stand on the rock to proselytize to those in the lower valley. "There's a special significance and a special spirit here that's enjoyable," the elder says.