The Mexican Saints

 In 1912, when 1,000 Saints were forced to flee the Mexican rebels, the City of El Paso, Texas provided them with a safe haven. The Federal Government came forward to do what?

a.      Martin Van Buren like, reminded the Saints that “their cause is just, but that they (U.S. Government) can do nothing for them.”

b.      Offer to move the Saints anywhere they wanted to go

c.       Force them back into Mexico

d.      Move them to Salt Lake City

Yesterday’s answer:

c.   Crossing the St. Mary’s River

Jubilant though they were in crossing the border, the newly arrived settlers faced a daunting obstacle. Officers of the North-West Mounted Police told them the St. Mary’s River, swollen from spring runoff, was impassable. Indeed, an Indian family had perished in the river a few days before.

That set the stage for a miracle that Brother Innes regards as impressive as the incident of the crickets and seagulls in the Salt Lake Valley.

It was a Thursday—back then, the regular fast day in the Church—and President Card asked the immigrants to fast and pray that they would be able to pass the river. He awoke at 4 the next morning and noticed that water in a bucket had frozen. That was cause for hope.

Sure enough, freezing had inhibited the river’s flow so that it had dropped 40 inches in depth during the night. It was still a perilous passage, but with the help of a Sgt. Brimner, one of the Mounties, they crossed the river by 1 p.m. and eventually settled near Lee’s Creek, the current location of Cardston.

“Canada’s Mormon town,” R. Scott Lloyd, The Church News August 12, 2012, 10.