Pretty cool story...

As a boy living in Nevada, Michael Kennedy had never heard of Joseph Smith. But after a high school history teacher assigned him to write about an ancestor who had an impact on American history, he asked his father for a suggestion.

Told he had an ancestor "who founded the state of Utah," Kennedy said his father pulled out a box of old photos and documents the teenager had never seen. As he laid them out, the doorbell rang. "Two young men were standing there with name tags and the first name 'Elder,'" he recalled.

When they were invited inside, "The first thing they saw was a picture of Lucy (Mack Smith) and Emma (Smith). They asked me what I was doing," and when he told them, "they just went nuts," he said, grinning.

. . .

Shortly after high school graduation in 1973, Kennedy was baptized . . .

Unbeknownst to him, information about Kennedy's family tree made its way to Salt Lake City. He was summoned by then-LDS Church President Harold B. Lee. "I was pretty scared. I'd only been baptized for 30 days, and the president of the church wanted to see me," he said. Asked what he knew about Joseph Smith, he replied he only knew what was in his history report.

"I told him how Joseph Smith discovered the state of Utah. He excused himself and came back a few minutes later with a new apostle named Bruce R. McConkie," who tutored Kennedy in LDS history. Soon Elder McConkie gave permission for Kennedy to be ordained an elder in the church — something that usually takes at least a year following baptism. During his ordination, "I was told I was the first in Joseph Smith's line to receive the Melchizedek priesthood in fulfillment of prophecy."

The story continues, and can be read in its entirety in the Deseret Morning News
here.