Posted by admin on Oct 30, 2011 in Site of the Week - LDS Church History Tour |

Today October 30, in the afternoon of 1838, a mob consisting of more than 200 men descended upon Haun’s Mill settlement.  Haun’s Mill was named after Jacob Haun, a member of the Church, who built a mill on Shoal Creek between 1835 and 1836.  Mills of the period were typically three stories in height, to permit grain storage in the upper level, grinding on the main floor, and machinery below.  At that time there were an estimated 75 families living there, although there were only perhaps a dozen or so houses along with a blacksmith shop and a mill. This site is mainly thought of because of its tragic incident.  However, the focus for this site of the week is on the miracles the Lord performed for those who suffered innocently from the unfortunate choices of others’ freedom to choose. Below is an account of the Healing of Alma Smith.  Afterwards, a short summary of Haun’s Mill incidences can be found.  If interested, a  detailed account by Joseph Young can be found in History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, volume 3: 183-186. “Flesh, hip bone, joint and all had been ploughed out… We laid little Alma on a bed in our tent and I examined the wound. It was a ghastly sight. I knew not what to do…yet was I there, all that long, dreadful night, with my dead and my wounded, and none but God as our physician and help. ‘Oh my Heavenly Father,’ I cried, ‘what shall I do? Thou seest my poor wounded boy and knowest my inexperience.  Oh, Heavenly Father, direct me what to do!’ And then I was directed as by a voice speaking to me. …Our fire was still smouldering…I was directed to take…ashes and make a lye and put a cloth saturated with it right into the wound…again and again I saturated the cloth and put it into the hole… , and each time mashed flesh and splinters of bone came away with the cloth; and the wound became as white as chicken’s flesh.  Having done as directed I again prayed to the Lord and was again instructed as distinctly as though a physician had been standing by speaking to me.  Near by was a slippery-elm tree.  From this I was told to make a … poultice and fill the wound with it…the poultice was made, and the wound, which took fully a quarter of a yard of linen to cover…was properly dressed…I removed the wounded boy to a house…and dressed his hip; the Lord directing me as before.  I was reminded that in my husband’s trunk there was a bottle of balsam. This I poured into the wound, greatly soothing Alma’s pain. ‘Alma my child,’ I said, ‘you believe that the Lord made your hip?’ ‘Yes, mother.’ ‘Well, the Lord can make something there in the place...

Posted by admin on Oct 22, 2011 in Site of the Week - LDS Church History Tour |

164 years ago this week, thirty-two of the Mormon Battalion boys were anxious to meet their families at Winter Quarters.  They left Great Salt Lake City for Winter Quarters, Nebraska, our site for this week, where they arrived Dec. 18th, after a hard journey. Winter Quarters (Florence) is on the eastern end of Nebraska, near the Missouri River and just a couple of miles from Omaha.  It is where the first Nauvoo exodus company under Brigham Young spent the hardship winter of 1846-1847.  The poor quality of the shelters and lack of nourishing food resulted in much sickness and many deaths that first winter.  The Winter Quarters cemetery has more than 600 unmarked graves as a result.  The unhealthy climate caused most of this settlement to move back across the Missouri to Kanesville. The Winter Quarters experience shows the great leadership of Brigham Young.  There were 4000 living in hovels there, 5000 camping a hundred miles up and down the Missouri River on the Iowa side in what was called The Grand Encampment, 2000 more in various camps all across Iowa, and at least another 1000 destitute people in poor camps on the west side of the Mississippi who had not the means to travel.  By spring, one in every nine would have died as a result of these circumstances.  And in the middle of all of this wrenching hardship, dozens of fathers were called to leave their families and go to England on missions.  Franklin D. Richards, for example.  This is also the place were 500 men were recruited by the US Army to leave their families (32 of them our boys mentioned above) and assist in the campaign against Mexico. It was from Winter Quarters that the first Mormon pioneer wagon train under Brigham Young departed for Salt Lake City April 15, 1847, arriving 111 days later on July 22.  Winter Quarters is a tremendously compelling site protraying the dedication of the early Saints regardless of the...