My great-grandparents lived in New
England. When the message of the restored gospel was first taken to that
section by Orson Pratt and others, the houses of worship were not open to them.
They had a difficult time in finding a place in which to preach. They came to a
small village and thought surely they would readily find someone who would
offer to open a place for the preaching of the gospel, but they found none. At
length they inquired of a man on the street as to where they could secure a
place. He said, "Go find Winslow Farr. I think he can help you."
So they went to see Winslow Farr;
he was easily found; everyone knew him. They told him what they wanted—to find
a place in which to preach the gospel.
He asked, "What are you going
to preach about?" They answered, "Jesus Christ and the gospel."
He said, "I will help you."
They found a place and invited the
people to come. Orson Pratt told them God had spoken again from the heavens,
and that a young man named Joseph Smith had received heavenly manifestations.
The Lord had directed him to an ancient record which the Prophet translated—the
Book of Mormon. It was a divine record, the story of the ancestry of the
American Indians.
Orson Pratt's testimony was so
effective that Winslow Farr came up to him, took his hand, and said, "I
have enjoyed your meeting tonight. Where are you going to stay?" On
learning that they had no place to stay, he said, "You come home with
me."
The missionaries didn't know that
Winslow Farr's wife was dying of a dread disease—tubercular consumption. But
this servant of the Lord, Orson Pratt, seeing her condition and realizing how
kind her husband had been, looked at her and asked, "Have you faith to be
healed?" The doctor had said she could not be healed, could live but a few
days. When asked that question she said, "I don't know if I have that
faith or not, but I know God could heal me if he wanted to."
And then this servant of the Lord
said, calling her by her given name, "Olive, in the name of God, I command
you to be healed." She was healed and in a few days was going about
performing her household duties. (George Albert Smith, "Concerning
Gratitude," Improvement Era 49, no. 6 [June 1946]: 365;
according Amy Oaks Long, David J. Farr, and Susan Easton Black, Lorin Farr;
Mormon Statesman [Winslow Farr Sr. Family Organization, Inc., 2007], “Other
accounts are similar, but differ as to what Olive was dying of. Some say consumption;
others, liver failure” [16 n. 3])