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Special Topics Articles
Emma Smith was the wife of the first Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith. Throughout the years, she has remained a complex topic for both Mormons and non-Mormons. Many people have focused almost entirely on the decisions she made in the last years of Joseph Smith’s life and after his death, and sometimes those events trouble Mormons and please non-Mormons. To understand her, we have to place her in her own setting and time, not in our own. We have to look at her entire life, not just one portion of it.
Emma Smith was born in 1804 in Pennsylvania and had unusual opportunities for a girl in her time. She was well-educated and taught school. She even owned cows and other items, possibly given as payment from students. Her family had a fair amount of money. Imagine, then, her family’s concern when she developed a fondness for Joseph Smith, who was from a poor farm family and had almost no formal education—just that which his father had given him at home with... Read the rest of this article »
Torleif S. Knaphus was born in Norway on December 14, 1881. At a very young age his parents noticed his extreme talent for art. They encouraged it, and he developed his skills. At age 15, Torleif became an art apprentice painting houses and decorative furniture. In 1901, he traveled to Oslo to pursue more formal art studies. While there, his roommate invited him to attend a Latter-day Saint concert. He enjoyed the concert and began attending meetings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which church is often misnamed the “Mormon Church”). He said, “It was easy for me to see and understand that this was the only true Church of God.”
Torleif was baptized at the age of 21 in a river that was frozen and had to be cut with a saw. His love of the gospel and strong testimony caused him to turn down an art scholarship to Rome in order to immigrate to Utah in 1905. That was the beginning of Torleif’s lifelong association with church art... Read the rest of this article »
Pieter Vlam was born on July 8, 1894, to Arien and Aaltje Klant Vlam in the Netherlands. When he was 16 years old, he and his mother and brothers joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which church is often misnamed the Mormon Church). A year after his baptism, Pieter joined the Royal Dutch Navy, where he spent his career. He married Hanna Melaine Gysler on August 24, 1929, in Zurich, Switzerland. Hanna was also a member of the “Mormon Church.”
In 1933, Hanna joined her husband for his tour of duty in Indonesia with their three-year-old daughter, Grace, and their new son, Heber. They stayed in Indonesia until his tour ended in 1938. While the children had been very happy in Indonesia, Pieter was severely persecuted in his career for his religious beliefs, and his superior officer made it impossible for Pieter to extend his stay in Indonesia, so they returned to the Netherlands.
Pieter and Hanna’s plan was always to move to the United... Read the rest of this article »
Mormon history is rich with faith-filled stories of overcoming persecution, migrating in the vilest of circumstances, and trusting God with everything they had. But there is more to the history of Mormons (members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sometimes mistakenly called the “Mormon Church”) than the spiritual side of things—there is of course, logistics. After all, you can’t expect to be fed manna every day just because you’re a believer—you have to plan, build, and grow.
When Mormons arrived at the Salt Lake valley, in Utah, there was nothing there. In fact, it wasn’t even part of the United States yet. Mormons had been driven from so many places because of their unique belief in God—and this valley was pronounced as “the place” where they would finally be able to settle.
After Brigham Young (the second prophet in Mormon history, after Joseph Smith) showed where the temple would be, the people were heavily... Read the rest of this article »
Gerhard and Harald Fricke, brothers and Latter-day Saints (“Mormons”) in Germany during World War II, each had trying experiences but remained faithful. On July 27, 1943, Operation Gomorrah annihilated Hamburg, Germany, where the Frickes lived with their family. It is likely that more than 40,000 people died that night. More than 700 aircraft from the Allies dropped bombs creating a firestorm with winds up to 150 miles per hour and reaching temperatures of 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. The intense heat lit the asphalt on fire, killing many. Even though in air raid shelters were not immune; many cooked to death.
Gerhard Fricke was 20 years old at the time, but had not yet been drafted into service, because of his speech impediment. Harald was 17 at the time. Gerhard saved his mother, aunt, and sisters’ lives that night by forcing them into a deep underground bunker. Harald and their grandfather had been assigned to watch over the church’s meetinghouse,... Read the rest of this article »
By Doris
Captain Jens Martin Christensen was a faithful convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which church is frequently misnamed the Mormon Church). Jens was born on April 29, 1843, in Hammerholt, Denmark, the seventh of eight children, to Christen Oveson and Kirsten Marie Andersen. When Jens grew up, he proudly wore his red military uniform jacket, black trousers, and large black fur hat as a member of the Danish queen’s guards. Jens was known for keeping his boots polished and looking smart.
When Jens heard the gospel preached in Denmark in 1866, he gained a personal testimony of its truthfulness and was baptized on February 4 of that year by Elder S. Petersen. Not long thereafter, Jens boarded a three-mast ship called the Kenilworth and sailed to New York from Germany. He brought his fiancée, Maren Johanne Rasmussen with him, having snuck her out of her home against the wishes of her parents. Her mother had locked her in her... Read the rest of this article »
By Doris
In 1910, the Mexican Revolution began as an uprising led by Francisco Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. This struggle evolved into a multi-sided civil war which lasted until about 1920, though sporadic fighting still broke out after that. In 1912, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which church is often misnamed the “Mormon Church”) fled Mexico for their safety because they had no desire to be part of the civil war.
In what has become known as the Mormon Exodus from Mexico, about 4,500 Latter-day Saints (“Mormons”) fled their homes in several colonies in northern Chihuahua and Sonora. These refugees fled to El Paso, Texas. Some of them stayed in El Paso, some moved to other parts of the United States, and some moved back to Mexico after the war ended.
This group of Latter-day Saints had originally fled intense religious persecution in the United States in the mid 1880s. In the early days of... Read the rest of this article »
By Doris
George Goddard, an early convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often misnamed the “Mormon Church”) was rejected by his relatives in England after he was baptized. George and his wife and seven children journeyed to the western Zion by land and sea. Four of the children died along the way.
Establishing themselves in the Salt Lake Valley, George became a prominent business and Church leader, serving with the presiding bishopric, serving in the presidency of the Sunday Schools of the Church (with President George Q. Cannon and the other counselor, Karl G. Maeser), singing in the Tabernacle Choir for fifteen years, and being called by Brigham Young to serve as secretary to the school of the prophets in Salt Lake City.
During the early 1860s the pioneering Saints needed more paper to advance the causes of education and publishing. Paper was made from rags for several years, but even rags were difficult to come by because... Read the rest of this article »
By Ashley
Helen Schlie, an 88-year-old woman, and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the “Mormon Church” by friends of other faiths), had a rare book, worth $100,000, stolen from her bookshop in Mesa, Arizona, this last month. What was the book? And why was it so valuable?
Ancient prophets inscribed inspired words onto gold alloy plates, and the Prophet Joseph Smith translated the record hundreds of years later through the power of God into what is now known as the Book of Mormon—and this is just the book that Schlie had in her little shop. Schlie’s copy however, was no ordinary Book of Mormon that you can find at the local LDS Distribution Center; her book was an 1830 first-edition.
In Mormon history there was a lot of persecution of the Latter-day Saints concerning this record, and there were many who tried to stop the work of printing the book entirely. Did they succeed in their quest? Of course not. This... Read the rest of this article »
Though Mitt Romney has been getting a great deal of coverage due to his presidential campaign, a lot of the media’s focus has been on his religion rather than his politics. Not much has been said, though, about the Romney family history in Arizona, which goes back a long way.
In the 1880s, Arizona became a pivotal center of religious persecution for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which church is frequently misnamed the Mormon Church). The LDS Church had made efforts to colonize Arizona, sending many of its members from Utah to establish colonies along several rivers in Arizona from 1876–1881.
Things began to spiral downward for the Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in 1882, when the federal Edmunds Act was passed. This made the practice of polygamy a felony and made polygamists ineligible for public office. One local election judge refused the right to vote to at least one Mormon bishop.
Mormon polygamy is a practice which... Read the rest of this article »
