A Colorado River crossing miracle

Daniel H. Wells was sent to the Arizona settlements on the Little Colorado to strengthen the Saints. While crossing the Colorado River a miracle occurred. What was the miracle?

a.      Moses like, the river parted

b.      Nauvoo like, the river froze

c.       Christ like, he capsized in the river and came out dry

d.      Montrose, Iowa like, quails were sent to aleve hunger

Yesterday’s answer:

b.   Adoptive families assigned to different sections of Winter Quarters

Another family-related religious experiment was the practice of the so-called “law of adoption.” Rooted in the very earliest understandings of Mormon temple work and various other theological interpretations, the practice entailed newly converted families being sealed or “spiritually adopted” into the families of leading Church authorities in return for assured spiritual blessings in the present and hereafter. In gratitude for these eternal blessing, those so grafted in would commit all of their physical and natural energies to the welfare of the expanded family.

This family “tribal” order was more clearly evident in Winter Quarters than at any other time or place in Latter-day Saint history. The city was laid out, apportioned, and settled by this system of family connections. The scores of families adopted into Brigham Young’s family, for instance, occupied the center of the city; those belonging to Heber C. Kimball, including the Whitneys, settled the southern blocks; Willard Richards’s families were on the east side; and so on. Summer farms, including the so-called Summer Quarters located several miles north of Winter Quarters, consisted of some of Brigham Young’s expanded family.

Meant in part to break down social, cultural, and ethnic differences among peoples, the system unfortunately bred more jealousies and divisions than it solved as various families stumbled over each other for social rank and priority within the new larger family order. By the time the Latter-day Saints reached the Great Basin, Brigham Young put the whole matter on the back burner. Eventually the practice was discarded in favor of establishing family lineal descent and the performance of temple ordinances in behalf of kindred dead, the genesis of modern Mormonism’s incredible emphasis on genealogical research.

History of the Saints, Harley, William G., ed. (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 2012), 64.