"Are
you afraid to die?"
Captain
Dan Jones, lying beside Joseph Smith on the floor of Carthage Jail, heard the
Prophet whisper those words. The warm air of that June night in 1844 was
charged with a tense foreboding. The little Welsh river boast master asked:
"Has that time come think you? Engaged in such a cause I do not think that
death would have many terrors."
"You
will yet see Wales, and fulfill the mission appointed you before you die,"
Joseph reassured his companion.
Dan
Jones left the jail a few hours before the fatal hour of martyrdom. A year later
he was standing on is native soil preaching the Gospel.
Others
had preceded him. Missionaries had been laboring in Wales since 1840, James
Burnham and Henry Royle being among the first. The enthusiasm and power of
Elder Jones added momentum to the work already begun. In a year he baptized 700
converts and organized 28 branches. After three years' activity, 3,603 members
had been baptized in Wales and 55 branches organized. Dan Jones had brought
about 1,000 people per year into the Church.
In
February 1849, Elder Jones reduced the Church membership in Wales by 249. The
number his leadership sailed from Liverpool bound for America and the Valley of
the Great Salt Lake. ("Called
By Prophecy: Welsh Sea Captain Preaches Gospel In Native Land," Church
News [August 16, 1958]: 12)
Further Reading: