Father was murdered

Joseph’s earliest years were challenged by the deep persecutions the Mormons faced due to their faith and their rejection of slavery. When he was five, his father was murdered by mobs. When he was only nine, he drove an ox team from Missouri to Utah as the Mormons worked to escape persecution. While they stopped at Winter Quarters, he took work as a herd boy to help the little family survive.

He learned to read as they traveled across the plains by reading the Bible with his mother. His opportunities for education were limited as he had to work to help his mother earn enough to survive. In Utah, he worked as a herder, worked at threshing and other farm chores for men needing an extra hand, and cut and hauled wood. He was also responsible for the family’s flock, never losing a single animal through his own misdeeds.

Joseph F. Smith was orphaned

Joseph’s mother died when he was only fourteen years old. Just after his fifteenth birthday, he was called to serve a mission in Hawaii for three years. (Today, missionaries do not serve until they are at least eighteen years old.) He was promised in a spiritual blessing that he would learn the language well.

He first stopped in California, where he worked cutting shingles to earn enough money for his passage. The journey was difficult and soon after arriving he became very ill. The people there took care of him and while he recovered, he studied the Hawaiian language and was fluent within just one hundred days. Many years later, he would return to Hawaii and be reunited with the woman, then ninety years old and blind, who took care of him during this illness, referring to her as his Hawaiian mama.

Joseph F. Smith Missionary

During the journey home from Hawaii, he and his traveling companions encountered men who held them at gunpoint, threatening to kill anyone who was Mormon. One asked Joseph if he was a Mormon. He answered, ““Yes, siree; dyed in the wool; true blue, through and through.” The man with the gun, who was the group’s leader, was so surprised by the answer Joseph gave, particularly when a gun was pointed at him, that he shook Joseph’s hand and the group left without harming anyone. Three years later, Joseph was again faced with the opportunity to save his life by denying his faith. The group he was with had tried to be discreet about their faith as they approached a mob-filled Nauvoo, Illinois, but a Catholic priest asked him specifically if he was Mormon. He was tempted for a moment to say he was not, in hopes of remaining safe, but decided not to deny his faith. He said that he was and the priest simply accepted his answer.

Joseph returned home early in 1858, having been released, as were all foreign missionaries in 1857, to help defend Utah from threats of the American military, which was heading for Utah. He joined the militia and was on guard when they received President Buchanan’s pardon and proclamation of peace.

Joseph served several other missions, even after he was married. Today missionaries only serve full-time missions away from home after marriage if they serve with their spouses, but in the earlier days of the church, Mormon men often traveled alone on missions. He went to Great Britain and to Hawaii and also helped to settle a problem in which a man had decided, of his own accord, to be the leader of the Church in Hawaii. Since they could not convince him he did not have the authority to make that decision, the man was excommunicated.

Joseph F. Smith Apostle

In 1866, Joseph was serving as a secretary to the apostles when Brigham Young received an impression that Joseph F. Smith should be called to be one of his counselors. However, it was a year after he was set apart to the calling that he actually became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and then a counselor in 1867, when Brigham Young needed a third counselor. (The usual number is two, but more can be called if needed.)

Brigham Young died the following year. Joseph was, at that time, serving a mission in Great Britain with Parley P. Pratt. Both men were instructed to return home when Young died. In October 1880, he became second counselor to Prophet John Taylor.

He practiced polygamy and had five wives over the years.

When Wilford Woodruff became prophet at age 82, Joseph F. Smith was chosen to be his second counselor, and when Wilford Woodruff died and was replaced by Lorenzo Snow, Joseph again served as second counselor.

Joseph F. Smith Prophet

Joseph F. Smith became the senior apostle, a role determined by date of calling to the role of apostle, and thus automatically became the next prophet. He became president and prophet of the Church at age 63 in 1901. Several previous leaders, beginning some 37 years before, had prophesied he would one day hold that role.

One challenge Joseph faced as prophet was a request for an endorsement by the church of Thomas Kearns for Senate. President Smith explained that the church did not endorse candidates, which sent Kearns on a campaign against the Mormons, even creating the American party to stir up persecution. The campaign against them was so fierce, however, that even some party members found it offensive. President Smith merely advised church members to forgive Kearns.

In 1906, Joseph became the first modern prophet to travel to Europe in that capacity. The following year, he gave an address in support of polygamy and also emphasized the Church’s official support of separation of church and state. He was forced to stay away from his family during persecution based on opposition to Mormon polygamy, often spending that time doing missionary work.

In 1915, Joseph introduced a program known as Family Home Evening, in which Mormon families would gather just as a family one day a week to teach the gospel to each other and to strengthen their family bonds. The program is still in practice today and is a decisive factor in the success of Mormon families.

Joseph was often known as the Fighting Apostle, not for physical fighting, but for relentlessly defending Mormonism against the persecutions that led to his father’s murder, his family’s constant need to uproot and start over, and the suffering of his own wives and children. Although he fought hard to defend the church, he never wrote a single letter defending himself against persecution.

In 1918, Joseph F. Smith received a revelation that clarified and enhanced Mormon understanding on the afterlife. It was approved as official doctrine by the apostles, but not published until after his death in 1918.

Terrie Lynn Bittner

The late Terrie Lynn Bittner—beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and friend—was the author of two homeschooling books and numerous articles, including several that appeared in Latter-day Saint magazines. She became a member of the Church at the age of 17 and began sharing her faith online in 1992.

Folk medicine was popular and oft-relied-upon in the northeastern United States, where the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ took root.   When Joseph Smith was translating the Book of Mormon, then, it must have piqued his interest when he came to the following verse:

And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year were very frequent in the land – but not so much with fevers, because of the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared to remove the cause of diseases, to which men were subject by the nature of the climate.“ (Alma 46:40)

Years after its publication in 1822, Joseph Smith became aware of the “New Guide to Health; or Botanic Family Physician,” by Samuel Thompson.  Joseph “became a great advocate for the Thompson Botanical Cure, later saying that he was “as much inspired to bring forth his principle of practice according to the dignity and importance of it as I was to introduce the Gospel” (“Journal of Priddy Meeks,” Utah Historical Quarterly 10:199). [1]

The Prophet received by revelation Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants, a health law for the “weakest of the weak.”  It proscribed the use of alcohol, coffee, tea, and tobacco and recommended good dietary habits.  It also mentioned herbs for healing in addition to the healing power of prayer and priesthood blessings:

“And whosoever among you are sick, and have not faith to be healed, but believe, shall be nourished with all tenderness, with herbs and mild food, and that not by the hand of an enemy”  (D&C 42:43).

Faith and Science

In 1843 in Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph was taken ill and was tended to by Dr. Levi Richards, the brother of Willard Richards, Nauvoo’s primary botanical physician and a convert from Massachusetts. [2]  “Willard had been trained in the Thomsonian Botanical Method from Samuel Thomson himself.  They and their third brother Phineas, another botanical physician, treated their patients with ‘warm medicines’ of which cayenne and lobelia were two principal ingredients…. Willard became the primary botanical physician in Nauvoo, while Levi served as the surgeon general of the Nauvoo Legion, and was the personal physician to the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum.”  [2]

Joseph Smith established a board of health in Nauvoo.  He wanted only those truly educated in the use of herbs and medicinal treatments of the time to be allowed to use them.  Having established the “Relief Society,” the womanhood organization founded by the principles of the Priesthood, Joseph wanted the sisters to be accomplished enough to administer to the sick.  Joseph personally set apart in a spiritual ordination, women to serve as midwives and nurses.

Patty Sessions was one of these.  She became one of Utah’s foremost early midwives. “Her medical reports were very objective, but her personal journals revealed her deep testimony of the restored gospel, and the inseparable nature of practicing medicine while serving God under the mantle of the Priesthood.” [2]

Although healing by faith and the power of the priesthood was of high importance among the Latter-day Saints, and some people felt that all illness came from the Adversary, Joseph said the following:

“It is not lawful to teach the Church that all disease is of the Devil. But if there is any that has this faith, let him have it to himself. If there are any that believe that roots and herbs administered to the sick and all wholesome vegetables which God has ordained for the use of man, and if any say that such things applied to the sick in order that they may receive health, and this applied by any member of the Church … if there are any among you that teach that these things are of Satan, such teaching is not of God.” (L.D.S. Church Historian’s Office, entry for August 31, 1834). [2]

Miraculous healings were common among the early Latter-day Saints, and they continue to be, but Mormons also believe in science, and as science progresses, it draws closer to the eternal truths already possible to access through spiritual means.

Botanical Medicine Continued Under Prophet Brigham Young

Brigham Young continued to rely on herbs and mild food in times of illness.  He sent letters to the Mormon Battalion recommending the same.  The U.S. Government had assigned a doctor to the Battalion who hated Mormons, a Doctor Sanderson.  Prophet Brigham Young assigned an “Assistant Surgeon” from Mormon ranks, William L. McIntyre, a botanical surgeon, who also valued herbal medicine.  The men of the Battalion loved and respected him.

A doctor from Illinois wrote to Brigham Young asking to bring a large group of neighbors to Utah as converts.  Prophet Young replied that there was very little need for doctors in Utah. (See “Medicine and the Mormons,” by Robert T. Divett, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, Vol. 31, No 1, Jan. 1936.)

In Salt Lake City, a “Council of Health” was established, headed by Willard Richards.  The council visited Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake to gather saline plants and roots for herbal medicine.  The council was active in discussing medical techniques using herbs in the region.

Said Brigham Young,

“It appears consistent to me to apply every remedy that comes within the range of my knowledge, and to ask my Father in Heaven, in the name of Jesus Christ, to sanctify that application to the healing of my body … it is my duty to do, when I have it in my power.  Many people are unwilling to do one thing for themselves in the case of sickness, but ask God to do it all.”

Brigham lived during a time of great forward leaps in medicine, including modern nursing, Pasteur’s discoveries of bacteria, and the use of ether as anesthesia.  In 1869 instead of commenting that the Mormons relied too much upon the Lord, he commented that the Saints relied too much upon modern medicine.  It must be acknowledged that the Relief Society, the women’s organization of the Church, had been very pro-active in training women as nurses and midwives and in establishing good medical care among the Saints.  The practice of plural marriage actually liberated women to go east for medical schooling because they had other women to care for their children at home.  Brigham Young called a number of men and women in the Church to go east for medical education.

In 1872, the year he sent a nephew off to medical school, he said,

Would you want doctors?  Yes, to set bones.  We would want a good surgeon for that, or to cut off a limb.  Do you want doctors?  For not much of anything else, let me tell you, only the traditions of the people lead them to think so, and here is a GROWING EVIL IN OUR MIDST.  … Now the cry is “Send for a doctor.’  If you have a pain in the head, ‘Send for a doctor, if you feel aches, “I want a doctor’ …

Herbalist John Heinerman observed:

“First of all, he believed in doctors, but only to the extent of fractures, sprains and such, with a surgeon necessary for amputation when they may occur … the real reason is because a good majority of the Mormon people wanted these services for themselves in the territory.”

And rather than suffer to see some corrupt Gentile practitioners come in and work their stuff upon the members of the Church, he felt that if they had to have doctors, they might as well have those of their own faith treat them.  The territory had already been “blessed” with a few of those kind of the world, and he did not want any more if he could help it.  (Joseph Smith and Herbal Medicine, page 93).

However, at his own death on August 29, 1877 he was attended by three prominent medical doctors, his nephew Doctor Seymour B. Young and and Doctors Joseph and Denton Benedict.  They were able to administer morphine to ease his terrible pain from inflammation of the bowels and what is believed to be his cause of death, peritonitis from a ruptured appendix. [1]

The first hospital in Salt Lake City was dedicated 25 years after Brigham Young’s death.  In 1905 the Deseret News reported the following:

“Remedies are provided by the Great Physician or by Nature as some prefer to view them and we should not close our eyes to their virtues, nor ignore the skill and learning of the trained doctor.  It gives evidences that “Mormon” enterprise is abreast of the times and that L.D.S. are ready to avail themselves of scientific knowledge and progress, and are not slow to move with the movement of modern thought and learning.”

Additional Resource:

Mormons and Science

Gale

Gale is a former fibro and CMP sufferer. She hopes this information will help other sufferers on their journey to good health.

A prophet of God speaks today. Listen to individuals share their experiences and witnesses of exercising their faith in the living prophet.

“Because Heavenly Father loves His children, He has not left them to walk through this mortal life without direction and guidance,” President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said. “That is why He pleads so earnestly with us through His prophets. Just as we want what is best for our loved ones, Heavenly Father wants what is best for us.”

Prophets and apostles who speak today represent and carry out the Lord’s will as they lead His children in this dispensation. President Uchtdorf said, “Our fate and the fate of our world hinge on our hearing and heeding the revealed word of God to His children” (“Why Do We Need Prophets?” Ensign, March 2012). We are blessed to have a living prophet and living apostles today. They reveal God’s words to His children and bless our lives by being God’s mouthpieces today.

Keith L. Brown

Keith L. Brown is a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having been born and raised Baptist. He was studying to be a Baptist minister at the time of his conversion to the LDS faith. He was baptized on 10 March 1998 in Reykjavik, Iceland while serving on active duty in the United States Navy in Keflavic, Iceland. He currently serves as the First Assistant to the High Priest Group for the Annapolis, Maryland Ward. He is a 30-year honorably retired United States Navy Veteran.

of-common-sense.site123.me/

Elder Perry was born August 5, 1922, in Logan, Utah. From the moment of his birth, he was immersed into a family life that centered around the Church. His father was a bishop, similar to a pastor. However, the Mormon Church is a lay church, meaning all positions are held by volunteers. His father served as bishop while raising a family and managing his secular career. At the same time, his mother served as a counselor in the Relief Society. The Relief Society is the women’s auxiliary, and oversees many critical aspects of a congregation, including compassionate service and the needs of all the adult women. Both parents took their children with them as they went about their church work, and the children grew up serving the church as they helped their parents. They mowed the church lawn, cleaned the building, and did chores for older or ill people in their congregations who needed help. As a result, he grew up seeing a life of service as perfectly normal. As the oldest son, he also had many chores at home and a paper route. He grew up knowing how to work hard.

After a year of college, he served a two-year volunteer mission for the Mormon Church in the United States. Elder Perry’s sense of humor and love for a good story shows in a tale he loves to share about his first days as a missionary.

He explains that although he’d always had a testimony, it had not really been tested prior to his missionary service. When he went door to door, he encountered people who knew their scriptures far better than he did, and he found himself swayed by their arguments, since nearly anything can be proved by scripture if you know enough of it and show only your side of the argument. He decided he needed to get this under control, so he set out a plan to stay awake after his companion (missionaries serve in two-person companionships) had gone to bed and to write a speech on one aspect of the church. He went into the basement to practice his first speech and coaxed a mouse out of the wall with a cracker to be his audience. The mouse stayed only long enough to get the cracker and left, but each day, the mouse stayed a bit longer, and when he delivered his speech on baptism by immersion, the mouse stayed the entire time, apparently listening. Elder Perry was pleased by his growing ability to reach his “audience.” The next morning he found the mouse at the bottom of a dishpan of water, apparently having decided, due to the force of the speech on baptism, to baptize himself by immersion.

Six weeks after his mission ended, he was drafted, and selected the Marine Corp as his service. When the atomic bomb exploded in Japan, he was sent in there to work. On the island of Saipan, he found himself saddened by the devastation done to their people, and he gathered a group of Marines together, convincing them to help build them a small chapel. He again recruited Marines to help rebuild a Protestant chapel in Nagasaki a short time later. Using what he had learned as a Mormon missionary, he helped teach some of his fellow Marines about his faith, and actually converted twice as many people in the Marines as he had on his mission.

After the military, he returned to college and graduated from Utah State University with a degree in business. During that time, he married Virginia Lee and together they had three children.

He began his career in retail in Idaho. During that time, he was asked to serve as second counselor in the bishopric of his congregation. This was, of course, an unpaid position, and it meant he would serve as an advisor and assistant to the bishop (pastor.) Although he found it challenging to take on heavy volunteer service at the very beginning of his career, he discovered that this church job, as do most callings, improved his career skills as well. Management skills learned at church could also be applied at work.

His career required frequent moves, exposing him to many parts of the country and many different types of people, an important education for one who would later serve as a Mormon Apostle.

In 1974, his wife died, and in 1983, he also lost a daughter. Two grandchildren died as well, and Elder Perry learned how to cope with grief and move on to the next step in life. He remarried in 1976, to Barbara Dayton, who taught at Brigham Young University’s school of nursing.

Elder L. Tom Perry became a Mormon apostle in 1974. One line of his family had been members of the church since 1832, nearly from the beginnings of the religion. Another line joined the church in 1872, after emigrating from Denmark. His own father lived with an earlier church prophet, Joseph F. Smith, as an employee after he graduated from school. Elder Perry has continued the long, distinguished church devotion of his family.