Using the Snow

Called by Brigham Young to Parowan, David and Lydia Adams used the snow to do what when traveling to their assigned mission?

a.                   Keep their food cold

b.                  Keep the baby warm

c.                   Have a snowball fight

d.                  Wash the clothes

Yesterday’s answer:

A.                  They wanted to cook him at the stake

One of the Mormon missionaries laboring alongside Addison Pratt, Simeon Dunn, and others at this time was James S. Brown. Brown recorded that he met with Mr. Chisholm during this same month (March 1851) at Papara and noted the aftermath of Dunn’s teachings referred to above:

“While at Papara, many people came to see us . .  but showed great reluctance in shaking hands with me. I learned that the cause of the indifference was that they were afraid of the Protestant [LMS] ministers. For a while they kept very shy of me. I called on their minister, Mr. Chisholm, and presented him with a Voice of Warning, which I asked him to read; but when I held it out to him he said no, he would not read it or anything that the Mormons had; ‘but,’ said he, ‘I want to exhort you and show you that you are deluded.’ I asked what he knew about our Church to cause him to be so excited. He said that he had had a letter from Simeon A. Dunn, one of the Elders, and that public opinion was enough to satisfy him that we were false teachers and deceivers of the people.”

Brown further notes that two days later (March 16, 1851) he converted a young, sickly, native woman who proclaimed at the time of her baptism that she had been healed. This caused quite a stir. Brown then explained that he was taken to the Protestant mission station by a French police officer and there interrogated:

“I was ushered into the presence of Messrs. Chisholm, Howe and Davis. All of them were what were called English or Protestant missionaries. Mr. Howe acted as chief spokesman or prosecutor, while Chisholm filled the role of justice, Mr. Davis appearing to be his assistant. Thus arrayed, they told me that I had been arrested and brought before them because I had raised a very unusual excitement among the people, and I could not produce a permit from the government as a resident of the island . . . and the decision they had come to was that if I would not agree to leave the place by 8 a.m. next day I would be locked up in a dungeon until I agreed to leave. Of course I consented to depart, thinking I could get my permit and return in a few days.”

Brown had another close call the following year at the village of Tatake when he was nearly roasted at a native barbeque on July 4, 1852. He explained how the event was ignited: “Two young Protestant ministers came and made three or four inflammatory speeches, telling the people that they had admitted a wolf into the fold, and if they did not get rid of him [Brown], the [LMS] ministers would not call again. . . . Thus the wild and heathenish passion was fanned into a lively flame of renewed persecution.” Brown further noted that at the very time he was taken to the “Log heap, which was then at the zenith of its burning,” he boldly challenged the natives and said, “I defy then you your best men, yea the host of you, for I serve that God who delivered Daniel from the den of lions, and the three Hebrew children from the fiery furnace!”

The natives then began to fight among themselves; according to Brown, his deliverance was later explained by one native who told him, “At the moment that you defied us there was a brilliant light, or pillar of fire, bore down close over your head. . .  We thought that you had prayed to your God of power, and that He had sent that fire to burn us and our people if we harmed you.”

The Closedown of LDS Iowa Settlements in 1852 That Completed the Nauvoo Exodus and Jampacked the Mormon Trail, William G. Hartley, BYU Studies, Vol. 52, No. 3, 2013, 120-122.