Sunday, August 3, 2008

I believe that I found a bit of Bosworth family history in my YW's manual today.

Sarah Pea Rich was converted to the Church in 1835 when she was seventeen years old. She and her family were living in the state of Illinois, and two Mormon elders had come to preach in her area. They told her family and her neighbors about the Prophet Joseph Smith and about the translation of the Book of Mormon from gold plates.

Sarah was anxious to see the Book of Mormon and asked one of the elders if she could see the book. She said: “I retired to my room and spent the rest of that evening and most of the night reading it. I was truly astonished at its contents. The book left an impression on my mind never to be forgotten. It appeared to be open before my eyes for weeks afterwards.”

The next morning the men left for Kirtland, Ohio, leaving a deep impression on the minds of the Pea family. The family thought they would never see the elders again. Sarah wrote: “After they had been gone six weeks, I had a dream concerning them. I dreamed on Friday night that they would come to our house the next evening, just as the sun was going down, and that they would first come in sight at the end of a long lane in front of the house.”

The next morning, her father and mother planned to go to town. Sarah asked them to return early because she was so sure the missionaries would come. Her father laughed and told her she must be crazy, for the elders were hundreds of miles away. He and Sarah’s mother soon left for town. Sarah, however, began preparing for the arrival of the missionaries.

Sarah recorded: “As the day passed, I began to look, once in a while, down the lane for those men. Sure enough, just as the sun was setting, they made their appearance, just where I dreamed I first saw them. I met them on the porch, and bade them the time of day. ‘I have been looking for you to come,’ I said. ‘Why,’ one of them answered, ‘had you heard we were coming?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I dreamed last night that you would come, and I felt sure you would be here.’ ‘Well,’ said one of the elders, ‘we had a dream that we were to return here and baptize you and build up a church in this region.’ ”

Sarah’s parents returned from town and were astonished to find the missionaries at their home. The missionaries taught the family and many neighbors. They stayed until they had built up a church of seventy members, including Sarah, her father, mother, and sister. (Quoted in John Henry Evans, Charles Coulson Rich: Pioneer Builder of the West [New York: Macmillan Co., 1936], pp. 38–40.)

I'm not sure if you were familiar with this story, but I thought it was neat to come across it.
Crystal

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I admit that it is fun to have such a connection to church history, even if it is only by marriage. We have a copy of her journal, which includes that story, and it is really incredible.

I got a bit of the family history bug a few sundays back and was looking at Grandpa Allen's mother's side and found that there were a couple of people who had received their endowments & sealings in Nauvoo. Sarah Pea & Charles C. Rich were some of the workers in the temple. We often hear the story about Brigham Young working throughout the night that many might receive their endowments, but before I had read her journal, I didn't think about the women temple workers that would have been needed too.

Unknown said...

So, which Y.W.'s class are you teaching? I hadn't realized that you were teaching Y.W.

Jake and Crystal said...

A month or so ago they called me to Beehive advisor. It was sudden, they called me Sunday morning, sustained me and set me apart that day and a week and a half later I was up at girls camp. They created a YSA ward in our stake and so my calling was to fill one of the vacancies when the YSA's left our ward.