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Saturday, February 12, 2022

We're a Blessed Generation




January 30, 2022

This week was busy with our duet practice, Exodus choir practice, Exodus planning meeting, Exodus Fireside rehearsal, and attending the temple, in addition to our regular work day and Tuesday night training. Do you kind of see a theme here? We are working hard and working to make this Exodus Reenactment a success, especially after only having a very small one last year. This coming Saturday is the Reenactment and we are excited and praying for not-freezing temperatures! Elder Burns and I will be the medical people, along with our mission doctor. I'm hoping to sneak in a lot of pictures!

Today, we sang our duet, To Those Who Came Before Me, during Sacrament Meeting. It went really well and we received a lot of compliments on it. People were surprised that I have a good singing voice - I guess that's one talent I've kept hidden - not purposefully though. I love choirs or larger groups, but duets and solos really stretch me. Doug has such a strong voice that I stood right in front of the microphone and he stood to the side and behind me and it worked great! I love this song! I had the thought today that the last time I sang this song was at Martin's Cove. Doug has a 3rd great-grandfather, Richard John Blakey, who died at Martin's Cove so it was also a tender time to sing it there. 
This is their story, copied from his wife's Family search page.

Caroline married Richard John Blakey/Blakely. They were taught the gospel by Wilford Woodruff (whom Caroline called her “Gospel Father”) and baptized in 1840. Caroline and Richard took their sons John Moroni Blakey (born February 4, 1849—age 6) and Richard Brigham Blakey (born September 27, 1855—age 2) and sailed from Liverpool on the packet ship “Horizon” on May 22, 1856 with a company of 856 Saints from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the Netherlands. They left their daughter Caroline with her grandparents and she would come later. After the 6 week voyage across the ocean they took a steamer and train to Iowa where the rest of the journey would be by handcart. On July 28, 1856 they left with the Martin Handcart Company.
Many of the Saints became ill from the extreme hardships and exposure. Caroline’s husband, Richard, was among them. Caroline put her little boys and her husband in the handcart and pushed it day by day, praying and trusting in God to take care of her family. One night Caroline made Richard comfortable in the cart and put their little boys in the arms of their father, one on each side. The next morning when she went to see how Richard was, she found that he had died in the night, the boys still asleep in his arms. Richard was buried in a shallow grave with seven others.
The story of the Martin Handcart Company is well known, so I will not go into depth about it. Caroline and her sons experienced the same hardships that others in the company did. One morning Caroline even awoke to find that her hair had frozen to the ground and it caused her hair to turn white. She was among those who were saved by the rescue parties and entered the Salt Lake Valley on November 30, 1856.





Our Exodus Fireside was tonight and I presented a small portion of the story of my 4th great-grandfather, Joel Hills Johnson. He was one of the poor saints that could not leave with the initial group that left in February, 1846. He wasn't able to leave until the spring of 1848. His faith never wavered, even as he was run out of his home and all of his possessions taken. He lived a hard life but rejoiced in the restored gospel. I've posted the story at the end of the letter if you'd like to read it.

I love our family history - it's so full of faithful, strong members of the church. They sacrificed so much - I am grateful for them. President Dalton spoke at the end of the fireside and talked about how our ancestors would be proud that we were sharing their stories and happy that they endured to the end in righteousness. He mentioned that our ancestors, now with an eternal perspective, are grateful that they endured for that small moment in time so that we, their posterity, can have the gospel in our lives. He also said that as much as we love them, they love us even more. I'm thankful that they stayed faithful. I love them.

                   Some views from work while cleaning the Hunter Home and walking up to the Hunter                              Home.
A beautiful day in Nauvoo. It was chilly but the sky was blue!!!

After the Fireside because, why not! Do we look like official pioneers?

Another view of me telling about Joel Hills Johnson

 

This is the story of my 4th great-grandpa that I told at the Fireside tonight. It is taken from his journal and greatly condensed.

I obtained the Book of Mormon, and read it some, but was too filled with prejudice on account of the evil reports in circulations, that I returned it before I had read it through. But soon there arrived two Mormon Elders who preached in a schoolhouse nearby.  After much study and prayer, I concluded that the work was of God, and embraced it with all my heart and soul.


I lived in Kirtland, then when we were driven out, I moved to Carthage, then settled in Ramus, Illinois.


After the death of Hyrum and Joseph, the mob supposed that the church would be broken up and scattered, and that would be an end of Mormonism, but in this they were mistaken, for they found that the church was more determined than ever to carry out the measures of their beloved and martyred Patriarch and Prophet. When they saw this, they were infuriated more than ever, and in September 1845, they commenced burning houses, and other buildings and destroying property and driving the saints from their homes, with a full determination to drive the whole society from the state, which they succeeded to accomplish sometime in the spring of 1846.

I was then running my saw mill on Crooked Creek, and sometime in March while myself and wife was absent to Nauvoo, an armed mob surrounded my house and told my little children that if their father and family did not leave the county immediately that their lives would be taken and property destroyed. 

But I had no means to get away with, for I could not sell my property for anything that would move me away, so I kept on running the mill and fulfilling a few small contracts that I had made in order to raise a little means to help myself away, until the first of may, when about 2 o’clock in the morning I was awakened by the tramping of horses and heard a voice calling me to the door. I arose and went to the door, and discovered that my house was surrounded by a mob of about one hundred men, armed with guns, swords, pistols and dirks, who asked me if I was preparing to leave. I told them that I was. They then said if I did not leave the county by the first day of June, that my life would be taken and my property destroyed, and after warning and threatening me very sharply, they left.

I made every exertion in my power to get away by the time specified by the mob and the last week in May I left the mill and left for Knox County.

I am poor, destitute, and distressed, having been robbed of all that I possessed and driven to this place and sickness compels me to winter in a cabin twelve feet by sixteen square without any floor, with a family of eight persons. 

I supposed that by the spring of 1847 I should be able to fit myself for a journey to join the saints in the west, but I found myself compelled to stay another year, (contrary to my will). In the spring of 1848 I made every necessary arrangement in my power for my removal to the west, and having obtained three wagons, five yoke of oxen and steers and a few cows and sheep with necessary provisions, etc. I loaded my wagons and started for the city of Great Salt Lake. 

We came to Nauvoo where we then crossed the river to Montrose and stopped with my brother Joseph for one week, sheared my sheep and sold the wool etc. We then started for Winter quarters and had a very bad crooked road and had to repair and build many bridges. We arrived at Winter Quarters the first week in June, here we tarried four weeks. We started from Winter Quarters in W. Richard’s company, for the place of our destination and after much fatigue, many hardships and difficulties, and the loss of one yoke of oxen, one heifer and twenty two sheep we arrived in the city of Great Salt Lake on the 19th day of October 1848. Having accomplished a journey of fifteen hundred miles from Knox County, Illinois to Great Salt Lake City.

My testimony is “That I know God Lives, for I have felt His hand and heard His voice and I know also that the dispensation or fullness of the Gospel brought forth through Joseph Smith is God’s handy work! For His voice has declared it unto me. This is my living or dying testimony to every human being upon the face of the whole earth, even so, Amen.” Joel H. Johnson

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