Dear Gramps,
I recently herd about there were three Nephites that helped out on the Peter Whitmer Farm in Fayette,NY.Is there some scriptual facts that prove thaT TO BE TRUE?
Harry
Dear Harry,
In late May, 1829, Joseph Smith continued to translate the Book of Mormon with Oliver Cowdrey in Harmony, Pennsylvania where the persecution continued to intensify. Oliver, who was friends with David Whitmer, had previously written him concerning the divinity of the work Joseph was involved in. He had sent him a few lines of translation and witnessed that he knew the plates contained a record of the people who had inhabited this continent. At this time Oliver wrote the Whitmers to see if it would be possible for them to stay with the Whitmers in Fayette and continue the translation there. David had volunteered to help as scribe. Peter Whitmer, Sr., David’s father, invited Joseph and Oliver to stay with them. Lucy Mack Smith in her “History of Joseph Smith” relates the following story. “Peter Whitmer, Sr. told his son David: ‘”I think you would better go down to Pennsylvania as soon as your plaster of paris is sown.’ (Plaster of paris was used to reduce the acidity of the soil. Normally this would have taken two days to complete.) The next day David went to the fields to sow the plaster, but to his surprise he found the work had been done. His sister, who lived near the field, said that her children had called her to watch three strangers the day before spread the plaster with remarkable skill. She assumed they were men David had hired.”
David was able to leave immediately for Harmony and was met on the edge of town by Joseph and Oliver. David had not communicated his coming, but Joseph had seen in vision the details of David’s trip. As they were traveling to Fayette, David described the following event: “A very pleasant, nice-looking old man suddenly appeared by the side of our wagon and saluted us with ‘good morning, it is very warm,’ at the same time wiping his face or forehead with his hand. We returned the salutation, and, by a sign from Joseph, I invited him to ride if he was going our way. But he said very pleasantly, ‘No, I am going to Cumorah.’ This name was something new to me. I did not know what Cumorah meant. We all gazed at him and at each other, and as I looked around enquiringly of Joseph, the old man disappeared… “‘…It was the messenger who had the plates, who had taken them from Joseph just prior to our starting from Harmony.” This comes from the “Report of Elders Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith,” Millennial Star, 9 Dec. 1878, p. 772.
Even though they went through persecutions and other trials, they were wondrous times filled with visions and visits from heavenly beings.
Gramps
