Pea’s in a Pod

During the “Dirty Thirties,” how did the Relief Society shell the peas they were providing for the hungry?

A)                 Through the wringers of washing machines

B)                 They didn’t, they let the poor and hungry shell them

C)                 By the Young Men and Women shelling the peas by hand at pea shelling parties

D)                 Like the pioneers of old killing crickets in the field, wacking the peas with shovels

Yesterday’s answer:

(C)   All in the congregation on their knees in vocal prayer at the conclusion of Sacrament meeting

At another fast meeting I was in the temple with my sister Zina. The whole of the congregation were on their knees, praying vocally, for such was the custom at the close of these meetings when Father Smith presided; yet there was no confusion; the voices of the congregation mingled softly together. While the congregation was thus praying, we both heard, from one corner of the room above our heads, a choir of angels singing most beautifully. They were invisible to us, but myriads of angelic voices seemed to be united in singing some song of Zion, and their sweet harmony filled the temple of God.

Edward W. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom (New York, 1877) pp. 207-10, 213.

Additional interesting information about Sacrament meetings practices:

At another time a cousin of ours came to visit us at Kirtland. She wanted to go to one of the saints’ fast meetings, to hear someone sing or speak in tongues, but she said she expected to have a hearty laugh. Accordingly we went with our cousin to the meeting, during which a Brother McCarter rose and sang a song of Zion in tongues; I arose and sang simultaneously with him the same tune and words, beginning and ending each verse in perfect unison, without varying a word. It was just as though we had sung it together a thousand times. After we came out of meeting, our cousin observed, “Instead of laughing, I never felt so solemn in my life.”

Edward W. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom (New York, 1877) pp. 207-10, 213.

Following these climactic events [the dedication of the Kirtland Temple] the temple was put to thorough use. This included regular Sunday meetings, fast meetings on the first Thursday of each month at 10 A.M. and 4 P.M. with Patriarch Joseph Smith, Sr., presiding, school classes during the week, and separate meetings for the Melchizedek Priesthood quorums on weekday evenings.

James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992), 111.

Jean Rio Giffiths Baker gives us the following insight of a meeting held on the ship Sunday, January 26, 1851:

Meeting between decks. Sacrament administered, after which a couple were married by our President Elder Gibson.

Kenneth W. Godfrey, Audrey M. Godfrey, and Jill Mulvay Derr, Women’s Voices-An Untold History of The Latter-day Saints: 1830-1900 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1982), 205.

In 1923, in the Salt Lake area, in a survey taken for the committee, found that a total of [over] thirty “foreign” meetings were being held in twenty-one stakes, with two in Swedish, thirteen “Scandinavian,” two Danish, two Dutch, and nine German, in addition of four “Mexican” local organizations.

New Views of Mormon History, Edited by Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher (Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 1987), 280.