Kent Pickering – Martin Harris, Witness of a Marvelous Work
Kent (Harris) Linford Pickering Direct Descendant of Martin and Lucy Harris
Kent (Harris) Linford Pickering, Direct Descendant of Martin and Lucy Harris and Martin and Caroline Young Harris. (Harris is actually not in my legal name, but I added it to show my family connection) I am standing next to a display of Martin Harris’s cane in this photo.
Kent Pickering is a direct descendant of Martin and Lucy Harris and also a descendant of Martin and Caroline Young Harris through a family intermarriage. He descends from Martin through his birth mother. The first descendants of Lucy Harris to join the Church come through his great grandfather, Alma Martin Harris, the grandson of Martin and Lucy Harris, who married Ida May Harris, the youngest daughter of Martin Harris and Caroline Young Harris.
Though not a recognized scholar with the usual accompanying university degrees, he has studied the life of Martin Harris extensively. He uses an innovative approach, similar to that of his good friend historian Don Bradley, who authored the exciting new volume titled “The Lost 116 Pages, Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Missing Stories.” This research style is one of not merely being a chronologist, but one of trying to understand what interactions likely took place between and to members of Martin Harris’s family which led to known historical events. Like in his first presentation, as a member of Martin’s progeny, he gives his analysis and perceptions of some of the stories and accounts of Martin Harris’s family relationships with Lucy Harris Harris, Caroline Young Harris, and the Prophet Joseph Smith that have never been told in a public setting before.
He has attended several Firm Foundation Conferences in the past, and noticed that little information was given on Martin Harris’s life. He volunteered to try and fill that void after talking with Rod Meldrum and Rian Nelson. He gave his first presentation last April.
Kent is an avid Family Search indexer who learned the value of digitized records, and new information has recently been digitized and made available which gives new insight into the life of Martin Harris.
He will be presenting the second installment of a planned four part series.
His current presentation will be titled “Martin Harris, Witness of a Marvelous Work.” He will be explaining the true position of Martin Harris in this dispensation that has never been fully understood by Church members previously. In his quest to fully understand the calling and responsibility of Martin Harris in this dispensation, he encountered a revolutionary unique pattern that can help Latter Day Saints better understand how to live the gospel and serve God and our fellow man. It will be his personal contribution to the 200 year celebration of the First Vision. He will briefly describe it in his presentation.