Imagine trying to explain this in a very short space to a non-latter-day-saint person. I felt super awkward about it, and in part that was because I don't know that much about it and all my experiences and feelings having to do with this place cannot be explained in any kind of logical, sensible way. It also seems like it's pretty much that way for most other members of my church. I don't have a problem walking by faith and not knowing what's to come. I do have a problem seeming superstitious and basing my faith off of something mystical and unknowable.
The promise of the Book of Mormon is always the same: you can know for yourself whether or not it's true. God will tell you if you ask.
There's no such promise about understanding the events and timeline of the end of the world. I suppose a scripture scholar would be able to predict and see what's going on in modern times that fulfills ancient prophesies. But like, "the hour and the day no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor shall they know until he comes." (D&C 49:7) That's a very different looking/feeling promise than, "when you shall receive these things...if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost." (Moroni 10:4)
There is an Old Testament prophet named Daniel who saw all kinds of weird dreams and visions. In Daniel 7 there is a reference to the "Ancient of days" sitting down with a whole bunch of people, and then "one like the Son of man" coming down, and receiving the government. The promise is that all people, nations, and languages will serve him, and that his kingdom will be everlasting, and will never pass away or be destroyed.
According to latter-day saint doctrine, Adam is the Ancient of Days. He's going to hold a big, fat meeting at this place called Adam-ondi-Ahman, which is a big field in Missouri. Jesus Christ will come again and will rule and reign on the earth.
And that's when the temple work for mankind will really begin. Right now, we're doing like, less than 1% of what remains to be done for all of humanity.
Elder Bruce R. McKonchie says in this 1982 talk:
If we are to understand what shall transpire at Adam-ondi-Ahman in the near future, we must first envision the relationship between the Lord Jehovah, who is Christ our Savior, and the man Adam. Christ is the Firstborn of the Father, the Only Begotten in the flesh, and the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He is the Redeemer of the world and the Savior of men. He is the Son of God and is one with the Father in power, might, and dominion. Adam is the foremost spirit next to the Lord Jehovah. He is the archangel, the captain of the Lord's hosts who led the armies of heaven when Lucifer rebelled; he is Michael, the mightiest of all the spirit host save only the Lord Jesus; and he came to earth as Adam, the first man. His relationship with the God of Israel is set forth in the revelation which says that "the Lord God, the Holy One of Zion, . . . hath established the foundations of Adam-ondi-Ahman," and hath appointed Michael your prince, and established his feet, and set him upon high, and given unto him the keys of salvation under the counsel and direction of the Holy One, who is without beginning of days or end of life." (D&C 78:15-16.) Thus Adam stands next to the Holy Messiah, receives counsel and direction and power from him, and (under Christ) administers salvation to all men.So, yeah. Adam is a really important, righteous man. As a side note, Eve is very, very highly revered in our doctrine, as well. It was through her decision to partake of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil that we even came to exist. She is the mother of all living, the pinnacle of God's creation. She's not mentioned here, but don't read anything into it.
Adam-ondi-Ahman is a holy place both for what will someday happen there, and also for what already happened there.
"Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah, who were all high priests, with the residue of his posterity who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and there bestowed upon them his last blessing." Nearly a thousand years had then passed since the first man and the first woman had stepped from Eden's garden into the lone and dreary world, there to begin the procreative processes that peopled a planet. We do not know how many million mortals made this earth their home in that day, or how many of them were true and faithful to that Lord whom Adam served. Disease and plagues were not then as common and horrendous as they are now. The physical bodies of earth's inhabitants had not yet degenerated to the disease-ridden, germ-governed shells of their former glory that is now the norm. We can suppose the population of the earth far exceeded that of later ages when the ills of the flesh and a rising infant mortality set a sin-inflicted limit on the numbers of men. And it is not unreasonable to suppose that many righteous spirits were born in that blessed day and that the numbers of the righteous were exceedingly great. We may not be amiss in supposing that many millions responded to the call to come to a general conference in Adam-ondi-Ahman.
This we do know, however: "The Lord appeared unto them" -- Jesus Christ their King stood in their midst -- "and they rose up and blessed Adam, and called him Michael, the prince, the archangel." How great and glorious is the eternal stature of the first man! "And the Lord administered comfort unto Adam, and said unto him: I have set thee to be at the head; a multitude of nations shall come of thee, and thou art a prince over them forever. And Adam stood up in the midst of the congregation; and, notwithstanding he was bowed down with age, being full of the Holy Ghost, predicted whatsoever should befall his posterity unto the latest generation." Such is an abbreviated account of what happened at Adam-ondi-Ahman in that pristine day. Our revelation that recites these words closes with the statement: These things were all written in the book of Enoch, and are to be testified of in due time." (D&C 107:53-57.)It's...food for thought and wonder. Mostly wonder. It is hard to know what to "do" with this knowledge. It doesn't really have much practical implication on my life. I do not expect to live to see the second coming! I want to be ready in case it does happen during my life, but, well, that's different.
As for myself, I've been to Adam-ondi-Ahman twice. Once as a very young child, my parents drove us out there at the end of a very long trip to Nauvoo (which is like latter-day saint Disneyworld, a kind of giant church-themed open air museum with missionaries walking around in 19th century garb). You kind of have to understand that my dad was raised Catholic and... a lot of his zealousness towards the church and church history, which rubbed off on me, was due to his very devout upbringing. He went to Catechism. He was taught in school by nuns. He was on the road to become a Catholic priest, when he took another path and became a musician instead (which is where he met my mom's brother and took the missionary discussions, and two weeks later was baptized). Of course my dad would want to see this place. Of course he would want to bring us there.
I remember being very young, maybe five years old. I remember the feeling I had there was one of total peace. I remember the sun was setting and we didn't stay for very long, though we had driven hours and hours. I remember that I could imagine what it would be like during the second coming.
As an aside, I've been to one other place with a similar feelings of "awe" having to do with prophesies about the future and the end of the world. I went to Megiddo, where the battle of Armageddon is supposed to take place. Where the armies of Gog and Magog are going to duke it out to the bitter end, I guess. I hadn't actually read that much about it beyond what was mentioned during early morning seminary. And I didn't really know where we were until after I had these feelings; I was on a tour of the middle east led by some latter-day saint tour guide who was pretty naive when it came to regional conflict and injustices to Palestinians (that's a tangent for another day). We were standing in this really hot, flat, place in the middle of nowhere in the middle east, and these feelings suddenly bombarded me. Feelings that cannot be explained by logic. Feelings like, "This is an important place where a giant battle is going to happen." Then the tour guide explains where we are. It gave me chills.
Adam-ondi-Ahman is like that, except that the feeling all has to do with a pervading, powerful sense of peace.
The skeptic in me just cocks my head and says, "Well, the early saints were really anxious to build Zion. Maybe they were seeing/believing in things that weren't real. Maybe they were blinded by their zealousness. I mean, from what we know about early man, they don't seem to have originated in the middle of Missouri. Even Adam was a descendant of early man, isn't it plausible that Noah's flood was only regional and not worldwide? How can any of these crazy bible stories be explainable? They do not really seem to fit together, especially with what we think we are uncovering with science."
But I can't deny my feelings, at least without lying to myself.
It's also very easy for me to understand why God would limit our agency by hiding or obscuring some things. It also makes sense to do that if the test we are taking is to walk by faith.
It doesn't really matter that we don't know the exact "itinerary" of the end of the world. There's a reason that we don't have the answer to most of the "why" questions, and it is so that we will turn to God instead of to our own knowledge.
It's kind of frustrating, but I suppose that's just a condition of mortality.
We will gather with our family in about a year to scatter her ashes on her birthday at this beautiful, peaceful place that's about 3 hours south of where we live in Iowa. It is a little bit weird, but, well...
...humanity is weird.
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