SAVIOURS ON MOUNT ZION

Despite the fact that the forces of evil raged against the saints during the construction of the Salt Lake Temple, marvellous spiritual manifestations continued to attend those who laboured there.  One such labourer at the House of God received such a manifestation:

In the fall and winter of 1892-1893 I worked at painting in the Salt Lake Temple.  Although sick, I felt strongly impressed to go and do my very best.

At noon the third day after beginning, President Woodruff called all of the workmen together.  He said he had been told that some of the workmen had stated that it would be impossible to have the temple completed by April 6th.  he said when he looked at this body of men he didn't believe a word of it.  "Some of you may be sick and weak", (I thought he was talking to me) he continued, "Some of you may give out at night, but you will be here in the morning if you are faithful.  You are not here by accident.  You were ordained in the Eternal World to perform this work.  Brethren, I will be here April 6th to dedicate this building.  I know what I am talking about for this was shown me in a vision 50 years ago in the city of Boston".

Along about March, 1893, I found myself alone in the dining room - all had gone to bed.  I was sitting at the table when to my great surprise my old brother Alfred walked in, sat down opposite me at the table and smiled.  I said to him (he looked so natural), "When did you arrive in Utah?" (He had lived in New Zealand and I had not heard from him in years).

He said, "I have just come from the Spirit World, this is not my body that you see, it is lying in the tomb.  I want to tell you that when you were on your mission you told me many things about the Gospel, and the hereafter, and about the Spirit World being as real and tangible as the earth.  I realized that you had told the truth.  I attended the Mormon meetings".  he raised his hand and said with much warmth, "I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart, I believe in faith and repentance and baptism for the remission of sins, but that is as far as I can go.  I look to you to do the work for me in the temple".  He continued, "You can go to any kind of sectarian meeting in the Spirit World.  All our kindred there knew you were trying to make up your mind to come and work on the temple.  You are watched closely, every move you make is known there; and we were glad you came.  We are all looking to you as our head in this great work.  I want to tell you that there are a great many spirits who weep and mourn because they have relatives in the Church here who are careless and are doing nothing for them".  He then disappeared.

As I sat pondering upon what I had seen and heard, with my hear filled with thanks and gratitude to God, the door opened again and my brother Alexander walked in and sat down in the chair that Alfred had just occupied.  He had died in 1852 in New Zealand.  I did the work for both he and Father in April 1885.  he had come from a different sphere, he looked more like an angel as his countenance was beautiful to look upon.  With a very pleasant smile he said, "Fred, I have come to thank you for doing my work for me; but you did not go quite far enough", and he paused.  Suddenly it was shown to me in large characters, "no man without the woman and no woman without the man in the Lord".

 

 

"Temple Manifestations", page 128

A FOOTPRINT OF YOUR LIFE

'T was just this time last year I died
 I know I heard the corn,
When I was carried by the farms -
 It had the tassels on.

I thought how yellow it would look
 When Richard went to mill;
And then I wanted to get out,
 But something held my will.

I thought just how red apples wedged
 The stubble's joints between:
And carts went stooping round the fields
 To take the pumpkins in.

I wondered which would miss me least,
 And when Thanksgiving come,
If father'd multiply the plates
To make an even sum.

And if my stocking hung too high,
 Would it blur the Christmas glee,
That not a Santa Claus could reach
 The altitude of me?

But this sort grieved myself, and so
 I thought how it would be
When just this time, some perfect year
Themselves should come to me.

- Emily Dickinson


When I was growing up in Croatia I lived with a Church and a graveyard at the end of my street.  This graveyard sat in the centre of our suburb which meant we had to use it as a thoroughfare to get from one side of the suburb to another.  I had to walk through it to get to my school. My school operated in two shifts.  The second shift was from 2 pm to 7 pm.  This meant walking through the cemetery at night but luckily we walked in groups. The graveyard and the church was the community central point so to speak.  I used to play in this graveyard with the neighbourhood children in one area of the cemetery where the grass was plentiful.  My favourite thing to do was to go from grave to grave reading the inscriptions the grieving families had inscribed on the head stones paying homage to their departed loved ones.  I was just a child but was always so deeply touched by the family ties of love from these inscriptions.  To me these graves were like footprints of the people who had once graced this earth.  They spoke to me as if they wanted me to know they had been here. To this day I have a special fondness for cemeteries and consider them sacred.  I used to have picnics with my children when they were little in our local cemetery.  They too liked to read what was on the gravestones and tried to remember people they had learnt about.  Some would say this is a morbid obsession.  To me it is just another way the concept of family tugs at my heartstrings.

My parents passed away recently in Croatia within 18 months of each other. I had not seen them for 22 years.  It affected me greatly that I was not there with them in their last days and that I did not attend their funerals.  It was a situation that was beyond my control but one which nevertheless makes me feel guilty and one which has not afforded me closure.  I have imagined what it would be like to return to Croatia now and stand at their graves.  I think it would be heart wrenching and I am pretty sure that one day this will be my reality.  I couldn't do much for them in their final days but I believe I have given them the greatest gift I could give them.  I have performed the savings ordinances in their behalf in the temple of God.

My children don't know my parents at all.  The last time they saw them my oldest daughter was 3 and my other daughter was 6 months.  All they know of them is what I have told them and what I have recorded about them in my family history records.  It's a terrible thing not to know your own grandparents. Now we have excellent technology to close the geographical gaps so that families can be in touch more effectively and so they are not forgotten to one another.  What of the generations to come though?  How do we ensure that our children's children and their children will know who we were and can feel of our influence?  Keeping journals is an amazing way to bridge generations.  Your journals might just be the only scriptures one of your posterity will ever read.  Through your journals, you will not only be remembered but you will continue to have an influence within your family for generations to come. 

"....As Arthur Clarke says, writing is the only means we have of bridging time.  Writing will bridge time and bring all things together.  No matter when a thing is written, we can tell not only what happened and who said what, but the subtlest nuances of feeling, the subtlest thoughts of people can be conveyed for untold thousands of years." (Hugh Nibley)

President Spencer W. Kimball taught:

"We hope you will begin as of this date.  If you have not already commenced this important duty in your lives, get a good notebook, a good book that will last through time and into eternity for the angels to look upon.  Begin today and write in it your goings and your comings, your deeper thoughts, your achievements, and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies.  We hope you will do this, our brothers and sisters, for this is what the Lord has commanded, and those who keep a personal journal are more likely to keep the Lord in remembrance in their daily lives." ("President Kimball Speaks Out On Personal Journals", Ensign, Dec. 1980, 61)

"Joseph Smith '...advised the elders all to keep daily journals'. 'For', said he, 'your journals will be sought after as history and scripture...That is the way the New Testament came, what we have of it, though much of the matter there was written by the apostles from their memory of what had been done, because they were not prompt in keeping daily journals". (Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus, comps., They Knew The Prophet, p.65)

As Emily Dickinson, the poet of my heart, has so beautifully captured a life lived through her poem quoted above, I hope that my journals have adequately captured my life and that through them someone will come to know God like I have come to know Him.  This is my greatest desire, that my posterity will know and serve the one true and living God and that we will one day together inherit eternal life.