Hank Smith:                      00:03                   Welcome to followHIM Favorites this is where John and I share a single story to go with each week’s lesson. John, the two sections of the Doctrine and Covenants we’re looking at this week are sections 135 and 136. They’re two and a half years apart. Section 135 is about the martyrdom of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith. Section 136 is about the trek west. I have what I think is the perfect story for these two sections. Have you ever heard the name Dan Jones?

John Bytheway:               00:31                   Yes. He was at Carthage in the jail at some point with Joseph.

Hank Smith:                      00:36                   Dan Jones was in Carthage Jail the night before Joseph Smith was killed. Now, Dan had immigrated from Wales in the UK. He was working on the Mississippi River as the captain of a steamboat when he joined the church, he was bringing a lot of Latter-day Saints to Nauvoo. Did you know that Dan Jones receives Joseph Smith’s last recorded prophecy? Here’s the story. The night before the prophet Joseph Smith was killed, he heard gunfire outside the window of Carthage Jail, so he chose to sleep on the floor. Near him was Dan Jones. The prophet asked Dan if he was afraid to die. Dan replies, has that time come think you? Engaged in such a cause I do not think that death would have many terrors, but then Joseph prophesied, you will yet see Wales and fulfill the mission appointed you before you die. The prophet’s promise was fulfilled in 1845 when Dan and his wife Jane were called to serve in Wales. Dan used his talent for speaking to teach the gospel with great conviction. He was fluent in Welsh and English, and witnesses recorded that he spoke so captivating that he could hold his audience’s attention in either language for hours.

John Bytheway:               01:50                   Wow.

Hank Smith:                      01:51                   The story doesn’t stop there John. Section 136 is about the trek west. Well, Dan Jones was also part of that group. He is crossing the plains in 1856 with some of these Welsh Saints that he had converted. He is part of the Willie and Martin Handcart companies, which most of us know were those two handcart companies that were stuck in the blizzards and had many people dying. They were starving. He says in his journal game soon became so scarce that we could kill nothing. We ate all the poor meat. One would get hungry eating it. Finally, that was all gone. Nothing now but the hides were left, the skin, we made trial of them. A lot was cooked and eaten without any seasoning, and it made the whole company sick. Many were so turned against this stuff that it made them sick just to think of it.

                                           02:49                   Things looked dark for nothing remained but these poor rawhides taken from the starved cattle. We asked the Lord to direct us what to do. The brethren did not murmur, but felt to trust in God. We cooked the hide. Then after soaking and scraping the hair off until it was soft and then ate it glue and all. This made it rather inclined to stay with us longer than we desired. Finally, I was impressed how to fix the stuff and gave the company advice, telling them how to cook it. For them to scorch and scrape the hair off. This had a tendency to kill and purify the bad taste that scalding gave it. After scraping, boil one hour in plenty of water, throwing the water away, which had extracted all the glue. Then wash and scrape the hide thoroughly washing in cold water, then boil to a jelly and let it get cold, and then eat it with a little sugar sprinkled on it. This was considerable trouble, but we had little else to do, and it was better than starving. And then he makes this statement, John, we asked the Lord to bless our stomachs and adapt them to this food.

John Bytheway:               03:57                   Wow. Instead of saying, send us something better.

Hank Smith:                      04:01                   It wasn’t change my circumstances, it was change me.

John Bytheway:               04:05                   Could we have some manna? Could you send anything else down?

Hank Smith:                      04:08                   Please send us something else.

John Bytheway:               04:10                   Wow.

Hank Smith:                      04:11                   How often do you and I, and I’m sure many of our listeners pray for our circumstances to change. When Dan Jones didn’t pray for that, he prayed that the Lord would change him to adapt to the circumstances. John, we focus a lot on Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, these more well-known names, but people like Dan Jones, you can learn a lot from that. They went through it. They were there for the martyrdom. They went on this trek west, and there’s thousands more just like him.

John Bytheway:               04:42                   Yeah, and that’s one of those, hmm I think I complain too much, type stories. Yeah, I need those.

Hank Smith:                      04:47                   I think I can make it. I think I can make it if the microwave breaks, I don’t think I need to break into tears next time.

John Bytheway:               04:53                   Right.

Hank Smith:                      04:53                   I think I can.

John Bytheway:               04:54                   Right.

Hank Smith:                      04:54                   I think I’ll survive.

John Bytheway:               04:56                   If the wifi is down. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      04:57                   Oh yeah. We hope you’ll join us on our full podcast. It’s called followHIM. You can get it wherever you get your podcast. We’re with a church historian this week. His name is Dr. Keith Erekson. He knows pretty much everything about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and he walks us through these two sections. We hope you’ll join us over there, then come back here next week. We’ll do another followHIM Favorites.