Thought that was a good title for this post. If you read my last post you know that I have been reading my family history on familysearch.org. It has been so interesting, exciting, and overall just awesome! I love learning about my family members and being able to feel like I can get to know them and who they were. I love when I can pick out traits that I or someone in my family has that an ancestor also had.
Well, tonight I have been reading about Vilate Murray Kimball. Just a little background: She is my great-great-great grandmother, wife of Heber C. Kimball (the first). Heber C. Kimball being one of the first to join the church and be in the presidency and lead the pioneers across the plains. Vilate was his first (of many) wives who he loved dearly. Their son, David Patten Kimball begat Heber C. Kimball who begat Milton Chase Kimball who begat Brady Kimball who begat...ME! (Feel like you're reading the Old Testament yet?)
Anyway, Vilate wrote her autobiography and they put parts of it on the website. There is part that I want to share because it really stood out to me.
I consider my testimony of the Book of Mormon to be one of the biggest parts of my entire testimony. Especially, the more I read my family history. Learning that my ancestors were there when it was translated and they were the first to teach others about it definitely helps. So tonight I read something I had never heard of before in family history or church history. It was quite the testimony builder and I can't even imagine what Heber and Vilate must have been feeling and thinking at the time. How lucky they are to have experienced the things they did, even if their trials were hard.
Here is the part I'm talking about:
Here I will relate a marvelous incident, of date previous to our entering the Church.
(They hadn't joined the church yet!)
On the night of the 22nd of September, 1827, while living in the town of Mendon, after we retired to bed, John P. Green, who was then a traveling Reformed Methodist preacher, living within one hundred steps of our house, came and called my husband to come out and see the sight in the heavens.
Heber awoke me, and Sister Fanny Young (sister of Brigham), who was living with us, and we all went out-of- doors.
It was one of the most beautiful starlight nights so clear we could see to pick up a pin.
We looked to the eastern horizon, and beheld a white smoke arise towards the heavens. As it ascended, it formed into a belt, and made a noise like the rushing wind, and continued southwest, forming a regular bow, dipping in the western horizon.
After the bow had formed, it began to widen out, growing transparent, of a bluish cast.
It grew wide enough to contain twelve men abreast. In this bow an army moved, commencing from the east and marching to the west. They continued moving until they reached the western horizon. They moved in platoons, and walked so close the rear ranks trod in the steps of their file leaders, until the whole bow was literally crowded with soldiers.
We could distinctly see the muskets, bayonets and knapsacks of the men, who wore caps and feathers like those used by the American soldiers in the last war with Great Britain. We also saw their officers with their swords and equipage, and heard the clashing and jingling of their instruments of war, and could discern the form and features of the men. The most profound order existed throughout the entire army.
When the foremost man stepped, every man stepped at the same time. We could hear their steps.
When the front rank reached the western horizon, a battle ensued, as we could hear the report of the arms, and the rush.
None can judge of our feelings as we beheld this army of spirits as plainly as ever armies of men were seen in the flesh. Every hair of our heads seemed alive.
We gazed upon this scenery for hours, until it began to disappear.
After we became acquainted with Mormonism, we learned that this took place the same evening that Joseph Smith received the records of the Book of Mormon from the angel Moroni, who had held those records in his possession.
(Say wha...??!!! That is amazing!)
Father Young, and John P. Green's wife (Brigham's sister Rhoda), were also witnesses of this marvelous scene. Frightened at what we saw, I said, Father Young, what does all this mean? He answered, "Why it is one of the signs of the coming of the Son of Man."
Now, if that isn't testimony building, I don't know what is.
I love my family history. I am proud of my ancestors and all they did, not only for my immediate family but for others around them and their families down the line. Not to mention all the work they did for the church. And to think about the church now and what it has become. To hear (in other parts of Vilate's autobiography) about the building of the Kirkland Temple and how challenging that was versus today when we now have hundreds of Temples, being build a few a year with no thought of not being able to have the means necessary or fear of persecution.
I am so thankful for the times I live in, the technology I have access to, and everything my ancestors did for me, not even knowing or thinking about it. I am so lucky and so glad to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints.
