Feb 8, 2022
by Kerry Muhlestein
As we begin our study of the Old Testament, including the great Patriarch Abraham, and read from the Book of Abraham, it is worth pausing to consider how blessed we are to have the writings of this fabled man of God. Our gratitude for his writings, and for the prophet Joseph Smith who translated them for us, can be increased as we look at the reaction of those who first received these writings. The example of Wilford Woodruff is particularly inspiring for me.
Feb 1, 2022
by Jane Clayton Johnson
By Jane Clayton Johnson, Board Member During the final days of December 1833, twenty-six-year-old Wilford Woodruff began his first journal as a new convert. He titled his first entry, “The First Book of Wilford.” Wilford had a divine calling to keep a record. In the preamble of his first journal he writes, “It is at once beneficial and instructive to the reflecting mind to review the past with candor and rightly consider the present and be in perfect readiness for that which ...
Jan 31, 2022
by Jennifer Ann Mackley
Wilford Woodruff begins his autobiography, Leaves from My Journal, by explaining that he spent his childhood “under the influence of what history has called the ‘Blue Laws’ of Connecticut.” He said he suffered the most from the rules that forbade running and playing from sunset on Saturday through Sunday night. The length of this restriction was based on Old Testament scripture, “The evening and the morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:5), and Wilford felt his parents were very strict in enforcing it: “all day Sunday we had to sit very still and say over the Presbyterian catechism and some passages in the Bible.”
Jan 11, 2022
by Steven C. Harper
In all of recorded history, two lessons on "the beginning" (Genesis 1:1) stand out among all others. The first, recorded in the Pearl of Great Price, was sort of like “Take Your Child to Work Day” when a child spends one day at work with a parent to learn what they do. Moses was the child. Heavenly Father was the parent. Moses was “transfigured before him” and the lesson was delivered with stunning effects.
Dec 8, 2021
by Howard Collett
The Lord has informed us that marriage is ordained of God unto man. The institution of marriage, in some communities of which we read, is falling almost into disrepute. It is alleged that there is a growing tendency in this direction among us. The cause is doubtless, traceable to the increase of wealth and the disinclination of young men to take upon them the burdens of a wife and family. As we depart from the simplicity of early days, we may naturally expect that this tendency will incre ...
GORDON AND VICKIE GIBB Gordon Gibb is a volunteer for the Crowdsource Collection on FromThePage of the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation. “It has been wonderful working with Gordon,” said Jason Godfrey, Lead Editorial Assistant. “The Foundation has added hundreds of pages of missionary letters that Wilford Woodruff received, and Gordon was always one of the first people to make sure these letters were transcribed. He was both efficient and careful in his process of transcri ...
Dec 5, 2021
Plural marriage was an Abrahamic test. The Church’s essay on the topic begins, “Latter-day Saints believe that the marriage of one man and one woman is the Lord’s standing law of marriage. . . . By revelation, the Lord commanded Joseph Smith to institute the practice of plural marriage among Church members in the early 1840s. For more than half a century, plural marriage was practiced by some Latter-day Saints under the direction of the Church President.” The next line acknowledges, “Latter-day Saints do not understand all of God’s purposes in instituting, through His prophets, the practice of plural marriage.”
Nov 23, 2021
On January 21, 1847, Wilford Woodruff recorded the only revelation received by Brigham Young that was later canonized. It is now included in the Doctrine and Covenants as section 136. Because it includes instruction “concerning the camp of Israel in their journeyings west,” this section is sometimes overlooked or considered inapplicable to current Church members. However, the “Word and Will of the Lord” revealed in 1847 is a reminder to us of the significance of the covenants we have made and the fact that our salvation and our work within the Lord’s Church depends entirely on seeking and following His counsel.
Nov 16, 2021
Phebe and Wilford worked for a few weeks after their wedding but then Wilford, a new member of the First Quorum of Seventy, set out for New England to preach the gospel to his relatives and others in the Farmington River Valley of Connecticut, not far from the Atlantic Coast. Planning to meet Wilford at the home of his father and stepmother, Phebe followed him, hoping to bring her parents and siblings, who lived in Maine, into the new covenant too, as she served alongside her husband, and they started their own family.
by Wilford Woodruff
It should be the aim of all the members of the Church to carry out practically the principles of the Gospel. In no way can we better convince the world of their truth than in showing in our acts and dealings with one another and with mankind the elevating effect they have upon us. … If our religion does not lead us to love our God and our fellow man and to deal justly and uprightly with all men, then our profession of it is vain. The Apostle says: "If a man say, I love God, and hateth hi ...
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