Archive for September, 2010

• October 3, 1805 - Oliver Cowdery, born in 3 October, 1805, in Wells, Rutland Co., Vermont

• October 1830 - Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, jun., and Ziba Peterson started westward as the first missionaries to the Lamanites. On their journey they established a large branch of the Church at Kirtland, Geauga Co., O. Among those baptized by Parley P. Pratt was Sidney Rigdon.

• October 4, 1838 (Thursday) - The Kirtland Camp arrived at its destination, Adam-ondi-Ahman.

• October 2, 1841 (Saturday) - An important general conference was commenced in the Grove at Nauvoo. It was continued till the 4th. Joseph Smith declared, as the will of the Lord, that the Church should not hold another general conference until the Saints could meet in the Temple.

• October 7, 1842 (Friday) - Joseph Smith again left home to elude the pursuit of his enemies, leaving his wife Emma sick. He returned on the 20th.

• October 3, 1843 (Tuesday) - Joseph Smith gave a dinner party in the Nauvoo Mansion to about two hundred Saints.

• October 6, 1845 (Monday) - The first general conference of the Saints for three years was commenced in the Nauvoo Temple, the Prophet Joseph having ordered that they should not hold another general conference until they could meet in that house. The conference continued for three days.

MEGIDDO Tel el-Mutesellim means (“hill of the governor”)

This was a royal city of the Canaanites, 22 miles, north of Shechem on the southwest edge of the plains of Jezreel, the most famous battlefield in the history of the world.  Thutmose III battled with Megiddo in 1468 B.C.; the walls of his temple at Thebes tell of his war plans.  His famous comment was, “Taking Megiddo is like taking a thousand cities.”  The mound, which was extensively excavated between 1925 and 1939 by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, covers 13 acres and reveals 20 cities – each built on the ruins of the preceding one – dating from earliest times to 400 B.C.  Its water system dates back 2,800 years.  A shaft 120 feet deep connects with a spring outside the city walls by a tunnel 215 feet long, which protected the city’s water supply.  Sunken grain silos from the time of Jeroboam II protected the grain.  Exquisite ivories, a fragment of an Egyptian Stelle bearing the name of Shishak, an elaborate City Gate, and the Seal of Sheva, are among the important discoveries at Megiddo.  The Hebrew Seal of Sheva has the following words inscribed on it: Eved Yravam, which means “servant of Jeroboam.”  Although this seal is in a museum in Istanbul, most of the finds at Megiddo have been placed in the Rockefeller Museum and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

For more Israel Sites - See our Israel Tour Page

• September 24, 1844 (Tuesday) - Seventy presidents to preside over the Seventies and fifty High Priests to preside in different sections of the country were ordained.

• September 24, 1845 (Wednesday) - As the persecutions in Hancock County continued to rage, the Saints commenced to leave their possessions in the smaller settlements and flee to Nauvoo for protection. The authorities of the Church made a proposition to the mob to have the Saints leave the State of Illinois the following spring.

• September 26, 1856 (Friday) - The first two companies of immigrating Saints, which crossed the plains with handcarts, arrived at G.S.L. City, in charge of Capt. Edmund Ellsworth and Daniel D. McArthur.  They were met and welcomed by the First Presidency of the Church, a brass band, a company of lancers, and a large concourse of citizens.  Capt. Ellsworth’s company had left Iowa City June 9th, and McArthur’s June 11th.  When they started, both contained 497 souls, with 100 handcarts, 5 wagons, 24 oxen, 4 mules and 25 tents.

• September 27, 1846 (Sunday) - The first public meeting at Winter Quarters was held.  By this time most of the Saints had removed from Cutler’s Park to Winter Quarters.

• September 30, 1978 - Revelation granting the priesthood to every worthy male member without regard to race or color sustained by Church.

VIA DOLOROSA means (“WAY OF THE CROSS” or “WAY OF SORROWs)”

Via Dolorosa refers to a pilgrim route that begins near the Lion’s Gate where some believe that Jesus appeared before Pontius Pilate and was tortured by the Romans.  It ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Catholic supposed site of crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus).  On Fridays, especially on Good Friday, Christian pilgrims process through the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, carrying a cross, stopping to pray at the fourteen “stations of the cross” where it is thought that significant events associated with the passion of Jesus occurred.  Some of the logic for such piety can be traced back to the 14th century A.D.  But the origin of the current route and its fourteen stations only goes back to the 19th century!  Although the piety and devotion of the pilgrims are evident, there is unfortunately no historical evidence that Jesus followed this route.  Indeed, a Roman Catholic scholar used to lead “a protest procession” on Good Friday from the site of Herod’s Palace near Jaffa Gate — where he thought (probably correctly) that Jesus had appeared before Pilate—to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

• September 17, 1877 (Monday) - The corner stones of the Logan Temple were laid.

• September 18, 1850 (Thursday) - Apostle Lorenzo Snow and Elders Joseph Toronto, Thos. B.H. Stenhouse and Jabez Woodard ascended a high mountain, which they named Mount Brigham, near La Tour, Valley of Luzerne, Piedmont, Italy, and organized themselves into the first branch of the Church in that country.

• September 18-21, 1839 (Wednesday) - Apostles Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, Geo A. Smith and Elders Reuben Hedlock and Theodore Turley left Commerce and started on a mission to England, leaving their families sick and poverty-stricken.

• September 21-22, 1823 (Sunday – Monday, Palmyra) - Joseph Smith visited by angel Moroni and told of the Book of Mormon record. J oseph viewed the gold plates buried in a nearby hill (see JS-H 1: 27-54).

• September 22, 1827 (Saturday) - Joseph Smith obtained the gold plates from Moroni at the Hill Cumorah (see JS-H 1: 59).

• 1995, September 23 – “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” from the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles was published.

Early in his ministry, Jesus and his disciples traveled to Nain, a small town south of Nazareth and very near to Shunem.  When they arrived, they saw a funeral procession for a young man who was the only son of a widow. “And he came and touched the bier and they that bare him stood still.  And he said, Young Man, I say unto thee, Arise.  And he that was dead sat up and began to speak.  And he delivered him to his mother!” Luke 7:14-15.  Elisha was very highly revered in Nain because he had raised an only son from death centuries before and delivered him to his grieving mother.  This was in Shuneum, less than two miles away.

See our Israel Tour page for other sites.

• September 9, 1838 (Sunday) - Captain William Allred, of Far West, frustrated the plans of the mob by arresting three men who were bringing guns and ammunition from Richmond, Ray Co., Mo., to the mobbers in Daviess County.

• September 15, 1843 (Friday) - Joseph Smith opened the Nauvoo Mansion as a hotel.

• September 9, 1850 (Monday) - The act of Congress providing for the organization of the Territory of Utah was approved.

• September 15, 1850 (Sunday) - The first branch of the Church in Scandinavia was organized in Copenhagen, Denmark, with fifty members.

• September 13, 1912 (Friday) - Col. Theodore Roosevelt, ex-President of the United States, addressed a vast throng at Ogden as he passed through on his way to California.

JOPPA – means (“height,” “beauty”)

Joppa is immediately south of Tel Aviv and is a part of “greater” Tel Aviv.  It is 30 miles south of Caesarea and 40 miles northwest of Jerusalem.  It has a recorded history of 3,500 years.  Under Solomon, Jaffa became Jerusalem’s seaport (too shallow to be a great port as passengers & cargo had to be loaded to smaller boats off shore).  During the Jewish rebellion of 66 A.D., 8,000 Jews were killed here.  Crusader Richard the Lion-Hearted built an immense citadel here, but an army under Saladin managed to take it and slaughtered 20,000 Christians in the process.  It was razed by Napoleon in 1799 and later rebuilt by the Turks.  Janne Sjodahl, a Mormon missionary in the 1880s, baptized two Arab men into the Church, near the place where Peter had his vision extending the Gospel to non-Jews.  The first Zionist pioneers of the 19th century entered the Promised Land through Jaffa harbor, but the harbor is scarcely used today.  On the top of a hill near the seashore is the Monastery of Saint Peter, marking the traditional site of Peter’s vision of the great sheet; and nearby is a small mosque in the little alley close to the lighthouse, built on the traditional site of the House of Simon the Tanner.

See our Israel Tour page for other sites.

• September 3, 1842 (Saturday, Nauvoo) - Another effort was made to arrest Joseph Smith without legal process.  His house was searched, but he eluded pursuit, and afterward kept himself hid for some time in the house of Edward Hunter.

• September 3, 1847 (Friday) – Mormon Battalion solders returning home were met on the Truckee River with word from Pres Brigham Young for those who had no means of subsistence to remain in California to work during the winter and come to the Valley in the spring.  About half of the company then returned to California.

• September 1, 1850 (Sunday) - A small branch of the Church was organized in Dublin, Ireland, by Elder Edward Sutherland.

• September 2, 1855 (Sunday) - The Ute and Shoshone Indians met in front of the Deseret News office, Salt Lake City, and entered into a treaty of peace.

• September 7, 1863 (Monday) - Pres. Brigham Young’s woolen factory, on Canyon creek, commenced running.

• September 2, 1877 (Sunday) - The funeral of Pres Brigham Young took place in the large Tabernacle, Salt Lake City.