Sunday, December 25, 2022

Wilford Woodruff (1896) Recounting His Post-1844 Visitations of Joseph Smith

  

One morning, while we were at Winter Quarters, Brother Brigham Young said to me and the brethren that he had a visitation the night previous from Joseph Smith. I asked him what he said to him. He replied that Joseph had told him to tell the people to labor to obtain the Spirit of God they that needed that to sustain them and to give them power to go through their work on the earth.

 

Now I will give you a little of my experience in this line. Joseph Smith visited me a great deal after his death, and taught me many important principles. The first time he visited me was while I was in a storm at sea. I was going on my last mission to preside in England. My companions were Brother Leonard W. Hardy, Brother Milton Holmes, Brother Dan Jones, and another brother, and my wife, and two other women .We had been traveling three days and nights in a heavy gale and were being driven backwards. Finally I asked my companions to come into the cabin with me, and I told them to pray that the Lord would change the wind. I had no fears of being lost; but I did not like the idea of being driven back to New York, as I wanted to go on my journey. We all offered the same prayer, both men and women; and when we got through we stepped on to the deck and in less than a minute it was as though a man had taken a sword and cut the gale through, and you might have thrown a muslin handkerchief out and it would not have moved it. The night following this, Joseph and Hyrum moved it. The night following this, Joseph and Hyrum visited me, and the Prophet laid before me a great many things. Among other things he told me to get the Spirit of God; that all of us needed it. He also told me what the Twelve Apostles would be called to go through on the earth before the coming of the Son of Man, and what the reward of their labors would be; but all that was taken from me for some reason. Nevertheless I know it was most glorious although much would be required at our hands.

 

Joseph Smith continued visited myself and others up to a certain time, and then it stopped. The last time I saw him was in heaven. In the night vision I saw him at the door of the temple in heaven. He came and spoke to me. He said he would not stop to talk with me. He said he could not stop to talk with me because he was in a hurry. The next man I met was Father Smith; he could not talk with me because he was in a hurry. I met a half a dozen brethren who held high positions on earth and none of them would stop to talk with me because they were in a hurry. I was much astonished. By and by I saw the Prophet again, and I got the privilege to ask him a question. “Now,” said I, “I want to know why you are in a hurry. I have been in a hurry all through my life but I expected my hurry would be over when I got into the kingdom of heaven, if I ever did.” Joseph said, “I will tell you, Brother Woodruff, every dispensation that has had the Priesthood on the earth and has gone into the celestial kingdom, has had a certain amount of work to do to prepare to go to the earth with the Savior when He goes to reign on the earth. Each dispensation has had ample time to do this work. We have not. We are the last dispensation, and so much work has to be done and we need to be in a hurry in order to accomplish it.” Of course, that was satisfactory with me, but it was new doctrine to me. (Wilford Woodruff, The Deseret Weekly 53, no. 1 [November 7, 1896]: 642-43, as cited in Ronald Vern Jackson, The Seer Joseph Smith [3d ed.; Salt Lake City: Hawkes Publishing Inc., 1977], 213-15)