Waiting for . . .

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Sarah Brown knew the Church was true when it was first preached to her in England, but held off her baptism until 1852. Why did she wait to be baptized?

a.                  For her husband to get his testimony

b.                  Until she arrived in the Salt Lake Valley

c.                   Until she could be baptized in the Nauvoo temple

d.                  Until Brigham Young could baptize her

Yesterday’s answer:

A.                  George A. Smith

From the life of George A. Smith:   The youngest apostle in England was George A. Smith, age twenty-two. Growing up on a farm in New York left him well acquainted with long hours and hard work. As a youth he grew rapidly, attaining his full growth several years earlier than most young men. That gave him the awkwardness of an overgrown boy, and he also seemed weak—partly, perhaps, because he was growing too fast. Other boys at school often made fun of him and bullied him, but that only gave him the resolve to whip every boy his age, which he eventually did, and the taunting stopped. In the letters he wrote in England, his scrawled handwriting (partly the result of poor eyesight), his deep humility, and his confidence in the ultimate success of the mission all suggest a type that has since become almost legendary in Mormon missionary stories: the overgrown, awkward farm boy, innocent in the ways of the world and not versed in fine language but possessing a spirit that could bring the more sophisticated to their knees. As a youth George A. was a seeker for religious truth, but he was skeptical of the claims of his cousin, Joseph Smith, and of the Book of Mormon, and he hoped to find his answers within the Congregational church to which he belonged. He found the Latter-day Saint message irresistible, however, and in the fall of 1832 he was baptized. It was not long before he was on his way to Kirtland, Ohio, with his family to gather with the Saints and, for the first time, to meet his relative, the Prophet Joseph. He soon proved himself an avid defender of the faith, and during the march of Zion’s Camp he became Joseph Smith’s armor bearer and bodyguard. He helped quarry and haul the stone for the Kirtland Temple, and he became an enthusiastic and effective missionary. In April 1839 he was ordained to the apostleship at the impressive meeting at Far West, the youngest person in the history of the Church to have become a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

 Men With a Mission 1837-1841, James B. Allen et. al, (Deseret Book, Salt Lake City, Utah: 1992), 8-9.