Monday, December 11, 2023

Reminiscences of the Mormon Reformation from Joseph Holbrook (1806-1885)

  

REFORMATION

 

In the month of October, 1856, Jedediah M. Grant held a two day meeting at our ward and required that every brother go home, wash themselves all over and for them to continue to do it at least once a week whenever circumstances would possibly allow it, and that each family have prayers at least twice a day, morning and evening, and that there be a throughout reformation throughout the Church and after truly repenting and confessing their sins, they should all be re-baptized for their remission and that every brother and sister be careful that they sin no more, for fear a more terrible scourge should wait them as they would not commit iniquity with the same degree of allowance as they would before they received their covenants in the waters of baptism. After we had all been baptized, we were catechized as to what we had been guilty of in our every act, so that we might now begin anew to possess eternal life. (Joseph Holbrook, Mormon Pioneer, a Journal, ed. Pamela Call Johnson, 2 vols. [rev ed.; 2019], 2:36)