The Idea for the Sandwich Island Mission

What situation prompted the idea to send missionaries to the Sandwich [Hawaiian] Islands?

a.                  In Nauvoo at the dedication of the Nauvoo Temple

b.                  In Salt Lake City at the time of the polygamy raids

c.                   In California at the time of the Gold Rush mission

d.                  In Far West at the time of the seizure of the Mormon's guns

Yesterday’s answer:

C   At the time of the murder attempt of Governor Boggs

As noted above, Bennett wrote a series of published letters attaching the Mormon leadership especially Joseph Smith. These letters were published initially in the Springfield newspaper Sangamo Journal. Bennett claimed that when Rockwell left Nauvoo for Independence with his wife, he asked Joseph Smith where he was going, to which Smith replied, “to fulfill prophesy.” Such claims were communicated to Governor Reynolds by L. B. Fleak, the postmaster in Keokuk, Iowa. In a letter dated July 12, 1842, to Governor Reynolds, he wrote, “Genl Bennet, late a Mormon leader, now a dissenter goes to you as he tells me for the purpose of giving information touching the attempted assassination of Ex Gov Boggs. It is not doubted here in the least but that the information which he intends to convey to you is literally correct, i.e. that he knows who the person is that shot Boggs and that he /Bennet/ can prove Smiths agency in the matter sufficiently clear to satisfy any person of his participation in the matter.” In one of his letters Bennett penned: “Smith said to me, speaking of Governor Boggs, “The Destroying Angel had done the work, as predicted, but Rockwell was not the man who shot; the Angel did it. “This reference was the origin of Rockwell’s nickname, “The Destroying Angel.”

Habeas Corpus in Early Nineteenth-Century Mormonism, Jeffrey N. Walker, BYU Studies Vol. 52, No. 1, 2013, 46.