Mormon Musings

With some there is a fearfulness, a want of faith in God...As I have often done, I again invite those who are distrustful, and fearful that God is going to forsake this people, to leave, if they do not wish to be Saints and repose confidence in the God of the Saints.  I wish such characters would leave...All I ask of you is to apply your hearts to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and be Saints.  I will not ask anything else on this earth of you only to live so as to know the mind and will of God when you receive it, and then abide in it.  If you will do that, you will be prepared to do a great many things, and you will find there is much good to be done.  We have no time to spend foolishly... Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Volume 3, p. 375

A few years after the pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, a young man took an ox team up Millcreek Canyon on a cold winter day to get logs to build a house. It was extremely cold, and the snow was deep. His sled held five large logs. After he loaded the first one, he turned around to load another. In that instant, the log already on the sled—22 feet long and about 10 inches in diameter—slipped off the sled and rolled down on him, striking him in the hollow of his legs. He was thrown face-forward across the four logs still on the ground and pinned there, alone, with no way to extract himself. He knew he would freeze to death and die alone in the mountains. "The next thing this young pioneer remembered was waking up, sitting on a load of five logs nicely bound on his sled with his oxen pulling the load down the canyon. In his personal history he wrote, 'Who it was that extricated me from under the log, loaded my sled, hitched my oxen to it, and placed me on it, I cannot s...