The After Life, or this World? It’s Your Choice

Phoebe Carter Woodruff

Returning from a mission to Maine, Wilford Woodruff was leading a contingent of Saints to Nauvoo along with his wife (Phoebe) and child. It was during this journey that Phoebe became sick and died. She was given a choice by two messengers who spoke to her shortly after her spirit left her body. The choice was to go to the afterlife and rest, or to return to her husband and child, but that if she chose the latter that there was a condition attached. What was that condition?

 a.      To pass  through and support her husband in the trials he would be called on to face

b.      To serve a mission

c.       To donate her child to the Lord

d.      To become Nauvoo’s first Relief Society President

Yesterday’s answer:

 (C)   Wilford Woodruff

 In November 1834, Wilford Woodruff was ordained a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood and given his first assignment as a full-time missionary. He was then living in Clay County, Missouri, having stayed there after serving in Zion’s Camp. Before he began his mission, he spoke with this bishop, who had given him the assignment. He asked about the route he should take to his field of labor. He also asked if he and his companion were to travel without purse or scrip, as the Lord had commanded missionaries at the time. To travel without purse of scrip means to go without money, relying on the goodness of Church members and others to provide food and shelter. President Woodruff later recalled his conversation with his bishop:

   “It was then dangerous for any of our brethren to go through Jackson County [Missouri]. He wanted me to go to Arkansas, and the road led square through Jackson County. I asked him if we should go through there (I had a companion with me—an elder).

   “Said he, ‘If you have got faith to do it, you may; I haven’t.’

   “I thought that was a curious remark from a bishop.

   “ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘the Lord says we must ravel without purse or scrip; shall we do it?’

   “Said he, ‘That is the law of God; if you have faith to do it, you can do it.

   Soon after that discussion, Wilford Woodruff and his companion set out on their mission, traveling through Jackson County without purse or scrip. President Woodruff later said: “We put some Books of Mormon and some clothing into our valises, strapped them on our backs, and started on foot. We crossed the ferry into Jackson County, and went through it. In some instances the Lord preserved us as by miracle, from the mob.”

   In addition to protecting the two missionaries from the Jackson County mob, the Lord protected them from other perils along the way. President Woodruff recounted one such experience. As he and his companion approached a grove of trees, a large black bear came out toward them. “We were not afraid of him,” he said, “for we were on the Lords business, and had not mocked God’s prophet as did the forty-two wicked children who said to Elisha ‘Go up thou bald head,’ for which they were torn by bears. . . . When the bear got within eight rods of us [a distance of about 44 yards or 40 meters] he sat on his haunches and looked at us a moment and then ran away; and we went on our way rejoicing.”

   President Woodruff often spoke of this first mission, remembering the blessings he received as he served the Lord with faith: “Never in my life, as an apostle, as a seventy, or as an elder, have I ever had more of the protection of the Lord than while holding the office [of] a priest. The Lord revealed to me by visions, by revelations, and by the Holy Spirit, man things that lay before me.”

 Teachings of Presidents of the Church-Wilford Woodruff, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Intellectual Reserve Inc., 2004) 151-153.