A Good Week @ FHC

Saturday, I helped my first real patron at the FHC. Elder Cornwall, our supervisor, had told me that morning that if anyone came in that needed help he wanted me to help them. He said, “You know as much as anyone else here and will do fine.” I told him that it wasn’t very comforting to me if no one knew more than I did. He reiterated what he said before then added, “We work by the Spirit here and the Lord will bless you.” From 1:00 to 3:00 I was supposed to be at the desk, greeting patrons as they come in, answering the phone, taking papers out of the printer, etc. About 1:10 a man came in and as he signed in I asked him if he needed any help. He said not right away but he may later. Elder Cornwall was right there and heard him say that. He told me that if he came and requested help, that he would take over the desk so I could help him. A few minutes later the man came back and said that he needed some help after all. I went over to where he had plugged his lap top computer in. He wanted to make ged.com files of five different families, place them on a temple submission disk so he could take them to the temple to have their work done. I told him how he to go into Temple Ready for Windows on his PAF. I told him how to collect each family individually. He was trying to transfer these to his thumb drive he had plugged into his lap top. We had collected all five families and he was checking the work and one time it took only three of a family of six and the next time took only one person who wasn’t even in that family altho’ she had the same last name. I went and got help. Since this was the first time that I had actually helped someone and altho’ I had done temple ready for window twice for my own ancestors, I wasn’t really sure if I had done everything right. The two missionaries that I consulted didn’t know what it wasn’t transferring right either and didn’t know what to do. I suggested transferring his PAF file on his thumb drive so we could plug it into one of our computers. He wasn’t sure if his thumb drive was big enough to hold all of it. So Sister Carl, went and got one of hers and he used that to transfer it. We collected the families he wanted, (I learned that you can select one family and then another and another without clicking OK each time.) I was able to help him with Sister Carl’s help and we also enlisted Elder Higgins to help us figure out what cities were in England and which were in Wales. Anyway, it was 3:15 by the time we finished with him. I felt really good about it all.
I gave the thought and prayer both June 2 and June 6. The entry about Arnold Stevens I gave on the June 2 and the one about Anson Call I gave on the 6th. I tho’t I would put them in my blog to keep a record of what I gave.
In one of the classes we learned how to Google people. I googled some of my ancestors and would like to tell you about one of them. I have excerpts from his autobiography. In places I will use the word “darn” because I don’t use the kind of language that was quoted here.
Anson Call is my great, great, grandfather. He was born 13 May1810 in Vermont. He moved to George County Ohio when he was seven years old. In his small autobiography he states, "I was sent to school in early life but after removing to Ohio there were but little opportunities for schools owing to the newness of country." (Call, Anson, "Autobiography of Anson Call", p. 1). The autobiography contains Anson's conversion story from his personal journal:
Their preaching created much excitement in our town but had little effect for nearly three years. I[t] (sp?) was a constant annoyance to my feelings. I became dissatisfied with all denominations and myself. In the Elders passing through our country they frequently stopped at my house, and in discussing with them upon the principles of the gospel they would cuff me about like an old pair of boots. I came to the conclusion that the reason of my being handled so easy was because I did not understand the Bible and the Book of Mormon. I resolved to prepare myself for the conflict by investigating the two books. I accordingly furnished myself with the Book of Mormon. I then commenced the Book of Mormon and the Bible. Compared the two and read my Bible from Genesis right through, praying and searching diligently for six months. When I finished the two books I became a firm believer in the Book of Mormon. I was then taught by the Spirit to obey the principles of the gospel. My feelings were not known by any but my wife (Who was Mary Flint. I was proud and haughty and to obey the gospel was worse than death. I labored under those feelings for three months, becoming at times almost insane. To be called a Mormon, I thought, was more than I could endure. I lamented that my lot was cast in this dispensation. My dreams and my meditations made me miserable. I at last covenanted before the Lord that if he would give me confidence to face the world in Mormonism I would be baptized for the remission of my sins; before I arose from my knees the horrors of my mind were cleared; I feared no man, no set of men. The next day I went to the Methodist meeting and declared unto them the truth of Mormonism. I told them I should obey it as soon as I could get to Kirtland. I accordingly went immediately there and was baptized by William Smith, Joseph's brother. My wife accompanied me. I was confirmed in the Kirtland Temple by David Whitmer . . . After moving to Kirtland I was ordained to the Quorum of Seventies in February, 1836 by Zera Pulsipher and Henry Herriman. (Call, pp. 2-3)
He recorded in his journal:
I have forgotten to say that shortly after I joined the Church I was administered to for my stammering of speech from which I was reviened (sp?) [relieved?] (Call, p. 5)


On the 14th of July, 1843, with quite a number of his (Joseph Smith brethren, he (Joe) crossed the Mississippi River to the town of Montrose to be present at the installment of the Masonic lodge of the 'rising sun, A block school house had been prepared with shade in front, under which a barrel of ice water. Judge George Adams was the highest Masonic author in the state of Illinois and had been sent there to organize this lodge He (Joe), Hyrum Smith and J.C. Bennett, being high masons, went into the house to perform some ceremonies which the others were not entitled to witness. These, including Joseph Smith remained under the bowery. Jose] as he was tasting of the cold water, warned the brethren not to be fret with it. With the tumbler still in his hand he prophesied that the Saint would yet go to the Rocky Mountains; and, said he, 'this water tastes much like that of the crystal streams that are running from the snow capped mountains' we will 1st Mr. Call describe (sic) this prophetic scene: I had before seen him in a vision and now saw while he was talking his countenance changed to white: not the deadly white of a bloodless face, but a living brilliant white. He seemed absorbed in gazing at something at a great distance and said, 'I am gazing upon the valleys of those mountains'. This was followed by a vivid description of the scenery of these mountains as I have since become acquainted with it. Pointing to Shadrach Roundy and others, he said, 'There are some men here who shall do a great work in that land.' Pointing to me he said, 'There is Anson, he shall go and shall assist in building cities from one end of that country to the other, and you' rather extending the idea to all those he had spoken of, 'shall perform as great a work as has been done by man, so that the nation of the earth shall be astonished and many of them will be gathered in that land and assist in building cities and temples, and Israel shall be made to rejoiced'.
"It is impossible to represent in words this scene which is still vivid in my mind, of the grandeur of Joseph's appearance, his beautiful descriptions of this land and his wonderful prophetic utterances as they emanated from the glorious inspirations that over shadowed him. There was a force and power in his exclamations of which the following is but a faint echo. 'Oh the beauty of those snow capped mountains. The cool refreshing streams that are running down through those mountains gorges' Then gazing in another direction, as if there was a change and locality; 'oh the scenes that this people will pass through' The dead that will lay between here and there.' Then turning in another direction as if the scene had again changed: 'Oh the apostasy that will take place before my brethren reach that land'. But he continued, 'the Priesthood shall prevail over all it's enemies, triumph over the devil and be established upon the earth never more to be thrown down.' He then charged us with great force and power, to be faithful in these things that had been and ...??? Anson and his wife and children faced many hardships thro’ the trials of Ohio and Missouri and Illinois. His life was threatened many times and guns pointed in his face and the mobber threatening to shoot him where he stood but his life was preserved and he came to the Salt Lake Valley and as Joseph Smith prophesied helped to build and establish many cities throughout Utah, Wyoming and Arizona.

He married my great great grandmother Ann Maraih Bowen 15 Apr 1851 after he had already experienced many hardships and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. She was the second of six wives.

Arnold was the son of Jonathan Stevens and Lucy Adams; he was born 24 August 1802. He was the younges of their five sons. Arnold Stevens and his wife Lois Coon joined the LDS Church in 1835 in Leeds County, Ontario, Canada. In 1837 they joined the Saints in their moving and troubles. There were six daughters. As far as is known, Arnold was the only one of his father’s family to join the LDS Church. Lucy Adams, mother of Arnold joined with her son and his wife. Lucy Adams Stevens died 22 March 1845 in Montrose, Iowa across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo, Illinois.

Arnold Stevens’ name is given as one who pledged himself to assist the poor Saints to move to Missouri. He was a guard in Nauvoo the night the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum were killed.

Arnold Stevens had his endowments in the Nauvoo Temple 28 January 1846. His wife had her endowments 6 February 1846. They were not sealed to each other at that time. It was done later.

The family started across the plains with the Saints. At Council Bllufffs, Arnold enlisted in the Mormon Battalion as a 1st corporal in Company D, with Nelson Higgins, captain. He went to Pueblo with the sick. There he worked to help build houses to shelter them from the cold during the winter. On March 28 Arnold Stevens was handling a wild mule when he was dragged over some logs and hurt internally. He lingered from the 21st to the 26th of March, when a blood vessel burst and suffocated him. (I suspect he died of a ruptured spleen…that is what it sounds like it could be anyway.) He was dressed in his robes and neatly laid away in his coffin, made of what is called puncheons of cottonwood. (These are slabs split off like staves.)

His wife drove her own team to Winter Quarters, where with other soldier’s wives, she endured the hardships common to those times. Her only home was a wagon box. In the spring, she learned of her husband’s death. Being left with three children, without a home or means of support, she married Nathaniel Jordon some time in 1847. Before Arnold died, he and his wife had lost four children, Byron, Sabra Elizabeth, Arnold, and Erastus. Another daughter Rachel Matilda died 20 December 1849. His daughter, Lois Ann Stevens lived to marry Lycurgus Wilson and is my great, great grandmother.

I am so thankful for what my ancestors went thro’ that I could be born a member of the church in Utah and be raised in the Church.