What made
the 1853 Atlantic crossing of the International
the most notable of all the emigrant ship voyages in Church history?
a.
The first
emigrant ship with LDS on board
b.
The fastest
crossing of the Atlantic
c.
The only
voyage with no deaths
d.
The voyage
with the most baptisms
Yesterday’s answer:
a.
Sent men on missions
Lars
Christian Johnson was born in Denmark in 1843 and baptized into the Church in
1857, immigrated to Zion in 1862, and was married in 1865. In 1881, following
the death of his wife in 1880, he married Wilhelmina Elizabeth Christensen, and
in 1882 he married Matilda Madsen. Both women were widows with small children.
During the “Federal Raid” period, when many men and women were on the move to
avoid arrest by federal officers for contracting plural marriages, Church
leaders took advantage of the situation by sending many of the men on missions.
Lars was sent to his native land in March 1889. Apparently he shaved his beard
and went to the train depot in Richmond, passing the deputy marshals
undetected. Being called on a mission was generally a great sacrifice for any
family, but Lars had the additional burdens of a wife on the “underground” and
another wife who was deathly ill. Before he left, Lars, a tailor by trade, made
each of his children a set of clothes.
Holzapfel,
Richard Neitzel, Their Faces Toward Zion (Salt
Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996), 75.
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