One of the qualifications for a place to become a historic site is that the site communicate key gospel messages, which Brother Olsen explained are "the simple messages of the Restoration that anchor our identity … as Latter-day Saints—the reality of the First Vision, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and the organization of the Church, for example."
Today in upstate New York, families walk along paths through the Sacred Grove, imagining Joseph Smith kneeling among the low-lying ferns and sun-splashed leaves. In Missouri, Saints can tour a replica of Liberty Jail, where some of the most beloved parts of the Doctrine and Covenants, sections 121 to 123, originated as the Prophet Joseph Smith and others were subjected to many hardships.
"Places give people a really strong connection to the events of the Restoration of the gospel," Sister Lund said. "There's no substitute for being … in the very place and being able to imagine what happened there."
Part of the power of those experiences comes from the veracity of the structures and settings found at the Church's historic sites.
"We want to make it all as true to the experience as the message is," Brother Olsen said. "A setting [often] can evoke a dimension of understanding about the First Vision or the Book of Mormon that can't be achieved just by reading about it."
Each log home, frame house, brick building, landscape, stone structure, and furnishing—including flooring, appliances, curtains, and other knickknacks—is exhaustively researched and re-created to be as true to the original as possible.
Artisans strive to match time period, region, economic status, and cultural forces present at that place and time, right down to the methods used historically to create each setting and object.
Brother Olsen said that he hopes that as people catch a glimpse of modern-day history, their knowledge of Church history will grow and their testimonies of the gospel will be strengthened.