|
 Jonah
explained, "Okay. Our ancestors witnessed what kind of human
Joseph Smith Junior was. It was amazing. I mean, sometimes he was
an amazing human for humans, you know. Way back in 1832, something
happened that made our ancestors take notice that something really
special was happening. I think it was the very first step for our
family to decide to listen and then to be the guardians of this
place."
"What
happened?" asked Philip.
"Yeah,
tell the story again, Jonah!" yelled Lisa. Everybody wanted
to hear it again.
"Okay.
But I gotta start from the beginning, you know." Nods around,
and Jonah continued. "Joseph Smith moved his family from New
York to near here in Hiram sometime in September, 1831. He and his
wife, Emma, and his family lived with a human named John Johnson."
"Where's
Hiram?" asked Pip.
"I
think it was in Portage County about thirty miles that way from
here in Kirtland," Jonah replied, pointing to the southeast.
"Emma had twins here in Kirtland but they died at childbirth.
But right after, she took two really young babies – they were
twins whose mother died from their birth – from John Murdock
and cared for them so that John Murdock could travel around to Missouri
and places like that.
"They
adopted the babies!" said Lisa, a little too loudly.
"Yeah,
Lisa, they did. Anyway, Joseph Smith traveled around and came back
to stay with John Johnson so that he could be with his family and
continue to translate the scriptures."
"Why
on earth would he do that?" asked Philip.
Lisa
piped up. "Humans then were really really worried about truth!
Back then, everybody wanted to know the truth about stuff."
"Come
on, Jonah, tell the REAL story! You know, the story about –
" declared Allison.
"—
okay okay! March 25, 1882, the twins got sick of the measles and
Joseph was trying to take care of them, but he fell asleep."
Jonah sniffed and wiped some blood from his nose before he continued.
"All of a sudden a bunch of men burst into the house and took
Joseph and Sidney Rigdon outside. They tried to fight and Joseph
kicked one right in the nose."
"Bam!"
exclaimed Pip. "Right in the nose. He bled and everything!"
"Pip!
Be quiet now!" demanded Allison. "Joseph was defending
himself!"
Unable
to contain himself, Pip said, "Yeah, and the bad guys said
bad words and everything!" The other mice stared the poor kid
down until he hung his head and said, "Okay, Jonah, go on."
"Lots
of times they choked Joseph until he passed out and Joseph thought
that they were gonna kill him. But they went and talked to themselves
and decided that they weren't going to kill him – that night
anyway. They wanted Joseph to stop preaching and talking about God.
But they hurt him pretty bad, mostly burns from tar and cuts and
then left. So his friends spent the night scraping and removing
the tar from his skin and washed him pretty good."
"So
he got beat up. Big deal," said Philip.
"Nah,
that's not the amazing thing," said Jonah. "The next morning
after staying up all night getting all of the tar off, he went and
preached to people and baptized three people. He never went after
the bad men. No vengeance. It didn't stop him. They didn't stop
him. He trusted in God to take care of things. That's the amazing
part. That's what got our family interested. And that's the root
of building the Kirtland Temple. Home. Faith in God, no matter what.
Truth. No hate, just truth. No vengeance."
Silence.
Then Philip became a little defiant because his heart hurt pretty
badly. "Yeah, well, God doesn't take care of everybody, now
does he? He lets things happen! And that's the truth!" At that,
Philip ran away. The other mice children called after him, but he
couldn't hear because his heart hurt too much.
|
