Derek reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “That’s wonderful, Will. So tell us all about China. I can scarcely believe you’ve been halfway round the world and back.”
Will nodded slowly. “It took a long time, but it was a good experience.”
“Tell us,” Matthew prompted.
“In a minute. First I’d like to talk with you about something else if I could.”
“All right.”
He stood and went over to his bag. Opening it, he fumbled around for a moment, then came back to the table, holding down low whatever it was he had gotten from the bag, so they couldn’t see it. When he sat down he put it in his lap out of their sight. Settled again, he smiled, first at Derek, then at Matthew. “I need to tell you a couple of things first about me and Jenny.”
He started slowly, recounting it all, putting words to his feelings in many cases for the first time. He began right at the beginning with that first day on ship and finished with their last time together when she came to the house.
At that point he brought up his hands. In them was the Book of Mormon. He laid it on the table in front of him.
Matthew stared at it, then turned to Will in wonder. “She gave you a Book of Mormon?”
His head went up and down slowly, his expression grave.
“And you’ve been reading it?” Derek asked, equally amazed.
“Every night on the journey from Nauvoo to New York, then every moment I was off duty on the ship. I finished it midway across the Atlantic and have started again.”
There was a quick exchange of glances between the two missionaries, and then Derek spoke. “And?” he asked gently.
Now a forlorn look crossed Will’s face and his shoulders fell. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Matthew cried. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
Derek reached across and laid a hand on Matthew’s arm to steady him, but he kept looking at Will. “Tell me how you do feel.”
Picking up the book, Will turned it over, looking at it with some perplexity. “Well, it’s strange. When I read it, I feel good. In some ways it is a wonderful book, very much like the Bible. I’m almost sure that Joseph Smith could not have written it.”
Matthew pounced on that. “But that
is
a testimony of the book, Will. Those feelings are how you know it’s true.”
“Go on, Will,” Derek said, ignoring Matthew’s outburst.
“I really liked the part where the Savior visited the people. That’s probably the time when I felt most strongly it was true. But then, the next day I wasn’t sure again.”
“Did you see Moroni’s promise right near the end of the book?” Derek asked gently. “It talks about how to know if the book is true.”
Will opened the book to the very back, turned a page or two, then held it up. Someone had bracketed with a pen the very passage Derek was referring to. “Jenny marked it for me before she gave it to me.”
“And?” Derek asked again.
The shoulders lifted and fell. “I’ve prayed every night about it,” he said dejectedly. “Maybe it’s because I don’t know how to pray right. It’s been a long time since I prayed, you know.”
“If you prayed with a sincere heart,” Matthew said, his directness softening now, “then you prayed right.”
“Then why don’t I know?” Will cried. “I want to know.”
Derek sat back, watching him steadily. Matthew started to speak but, seeing Derek’s face, stopped and sat back to wait. “I don’t know,” Derek finally said. “I think the Spirit works with different people in different ways. Maybe it will just take a little longer with you.”
“But I want to know. I want to know for Mama’s sake, and for Jenny. And Pa doesn’t even know I’m doing this. I guess in a way I want to know for him too.”
“Maybe that’s part of it, then,” Matthew said.
“What?”
“Moroni says you must ask with a sincere heart and with real intent.”
“But I really want to know. Isn’t that real intent?”
Matthew spoke very gently now. “It’s real intent, all right, but maybe your intent is for Jenny, or Caroline.” He hesitated. “Or for Joshua. And maybe unless, and until, you want to know for yourself, you won’t know for sure. I don’t know. It’s just a thought.”
Will sat back. He wasn’t at all offended at Matthew’s directness. In fact, during the last days of the voyage, he came to realize that he was looking forward to being with Matthew and Derek partly because he was hoping he could ask them his questions and get an honest response.
Derek stood up and walked over to a small table near the door. He picked up a paper and then came back. “Let me show you something, Will. This is a copy of the report I gave to Brigham tonight. He’ll be giving this in the conference tomorrow. It’s a report on the Church membership here in Britain. We’ve organized the Church here into branches, and then groups of branches are called conferences. Tomorrow, Brigham will call on the leaders of each conference to report on their memberships. Here is what they are going to say.”
Not sure what this had to do with the Book of Mormon, Will sat back.
“You have to remember, this total does not include about eight hundred Saints who have already emigrated to America. But”—he consulted his paper—“there are now 5,864 members of the Church in the British Isles. I don’t know how many total members there are in America, but with almost six thousand here, that means a big portion of the Church are now English.”
Will was suitably impressed. Almost six thousand members. Jenny had talked about the phenomenal success of the missionaries, but she had never talked numbers.
“Now, here’s what’s amazing. A year ago at this time—that was when Matthew and Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball were just arriving—there were 1,541 members. So counting those who have emigrated, there have been over five thousand people baptized in just one year’s time.”
That was impressive. But Will was still puzzled by it all. “That is really something,” he said, “but what does that have to do with me knowing whether or not the Book of Mormon is true?”
Now Derek made his point. “A good many of those five thousand people are going to be here tomorrow, Will. They’re coming to the conference. Orson Hyde, one of the Apostles of the Church, just arrived here from America about a month ago. He is on his way to Palestine. That means there are now nine members of the Quorum of the Twelve here in England.”
Now Matthew saw what Derek had in mind. “They’ll be speaking to us,” he said. “You’ll have a chance to listen to them and feel of their spirit.”
Derek was nodding. “Before the Savior ascended to heaven for the last time, he gathered the Apostles together. Do you know what he said to them at that time, Will?”
Will shook his head.
“He said that the Twelve should go forth into all the world, baptizing those who would believe on their words. And then he said something like this: ‘And these signs shall follow them that believe; they shall cast out devils, they shall heal the sick, they shall take up deadly serpents or drink deadly things and it shall not harm them, they shall speak with new tongues.’ ”
Now he sat back, watching Will with a great sense of calm. “Tomorrow you are going to meet people who have been healed of their sicknesses. There will be people here who have spoken in tongues. I’ve heard them. There will be a woman here who was possessed of an evil spirit. I was there, Will. I was there with Wilford Woodruff. This woman was raging terribly. She screamed and shouted, trying to rip her clothes off. Wilford laid his hands on her and commanded the evil spirit to leave her. In moments she was entirely calm, and then she went to bed and slept for the first time in days. The next day in church she stood and bore testimony of the power of the priesthood.”
“And you saw all that for yourself?”
Derek nodded. “Will, what I’m telling you is, tomorrow you’ll be meeting those people, people who heard the message of the gospel and believed, people who read the Book of Mormon and believed. Talk to them. Ask them how they knew.”
Yes,
Will thought, feeling a great sense of relief.
I don’t have to know right this moment.
He began to nod. “I like that idea, Derek.”
“Matthew’s right, you know. It is important that you know for your mother or for Jenny, or even for your father. But that’s only secondary. It’s most important that you know for yourself, Will.”
Matthew went up on the balls of his feet, searching the crowd of faces. Finally he spotted Will in one corner, surrounded by several young ladies. Laughing at that, Matthew made his way over. Will was holding court and the girls were hanging on his every word. When Will finally looked up and saw Matthew grinning at him, he got a little flustered and quickly excused himself.
“Well, well,” Matthew teased, “I can see the handsome young American sailor has made quite an impression on the belles of England.”
“Go on,” Will said, flushing a little. “They were just asking about what the crossing will be like. A couple of them and their families will be with us.”
“Maybe you’d better not ship on as crew. That would leave you time to”—he grinned at Will—“to answer all their questions.”
Will slugged him lightly on the shoulder. “You know better than that.”
Matthew sobered. “So,” he said, keeping his voice light, “what do you think?”
“About the conference? I thought it was great. Very interesting.”
Nodding slowly, Matthew thought about that. Will had sat with him and Derek during the two meetings. He had listened intently, especially when Brigham Young spoke and bore testimony, and he seemed to like what he was hearing. “Have you had a chance to talk to anyone about how they felt when they joined the Church?”
Will shook his head. “I was about to ask some of those young belles, as you call them, when this other young American came up and started laughing at me.”
“Who, me?”
Will smiled at the feigned innocence. “It’s all right, Matthew. Actually, it’s a little awkward to walk up to total strangers and say, ‘Hello, my name is Will Steed. I’m confused and wondered if you could tell me the innermost feelings of your heart about the Church.’ ”
“All right! All right!” Matthew chuckled, surrendering. “There will be plenty of chances on the ship to talk with people.”
Now it was Will who grew serious. “If you want to know the truth, there is one thing.”
“What?”
The dark eyes were very thoughtful now, and touched with just the slightest hint of regret. “For a long time, I’ve had some very bitter feelings about the Church, even after I learned that it wasn’t Mormons who had ‘killed’ Pa. Those feelings softened quite a bit in Nauvoo. But even then, down deep, there was still this resentment, this . . . I don’t know . . . this revulsion about Mormonism. And I’m sure some of that came from Pa even before all the trouble in Missouri.”
“Probably so.”
“Nathan once told me hate is like being poisoned by a rattlesnake. And I guess I still had some of that poison in my system.”
“And now?”
Will’s shoulders pulled back as he tried to find the proper words. “Well, since I’ve been reading and praying it’s been slowly changing. And particularly today, as I listened to those men speak, I suddenly realized it was gone. All those feelings are gone. I . . .” He looked directly into Matthew’s eyes now. “If I should learn that the Church is true, I will be very happy to be a Mormon.”
“Good! Good!” Matthew said, genuinely pleased.
“And if I don’t . . .” He stopped. The corners of his mouth pulled down as he thought what Jenny would say if she were hearing these words.
“Yes?” Matthew prodded.
He pushed his thoughts away. “And if I don’t find out it’s true, I will always be a strong friend to the Church.”
For several moments, Matthew considered that. Will could tell he was a little disappointed that it wasn’t more, but he also could tell that Matthew understood just how much that was for Will. Suddenly, Matthew reached out and laid a hand on Will’s shoulder. “That’s great, Will. I think that’s just great.”
By half past eleven, most of Nauvoo and much of the surrounding area, including many places in Iowa Territory across the river, were nearly empty of their inhabitants. All morning long they had been converging on a spot on the bluffs east of the city proper. Now they were there by the thousands, and still coming.
The assembly site for this vast congregation was not accidental. For the last several weeks the word had been sent out among the branches and the settlements. April sixth marked the eleventh anniversary of the founding of the Church. It was time for another general conference.
But that was only partially what drew them. Up high on the bluffs, overlooking the great horseshoe bend in the Mississippi River, was the site for the latest temple of the Church. In the October conference, Joseph had announced that they would build another house of the Lord. Immediately thereafter, construction work began. Now six months later, the excavation—itself a massive undertaking—was done. The foundations were in place. And on this day, starting with the southeast corner, the point of greatest light, and beginning at noon, the time of greatest sunlight, the cornerstones for the Nauvoo Temple would be laid.
“I can’t believe how big it is going to be,” Melissa said, letting her eye run the length of the foundation walls. “It’s much bigger than the Kirtland Temple, isn’t it, Papa?”
Benjamin bobbed his head. “I should say.”
“How much bigger, Grandpa?” young Joshua asked.
“Well,” Benjamin said, pursing his lips as he tried to remember the exact figures the building committee had been given, “if my mind is correct, it’s about thirty feet wider and more than twice as long. It’s going to be one hundred twenty-eight feet long.”
Carl Rogers eyed the foundation walls that ran east and west. It was going to be huge. Carl had already been asked to furnish some of the brick that would be used to pave the basement floor and had done some calculations. But to actually see it like this, it was impressive.
“Where will the oxen be, Mama?” Rachel asked.
Jessica looked around. “I’m not sure, honey. In the basement here, but I’m not sure exactly where.”