Pioneer Day Tomorrow

My son and daughter went on TREK this week. It's where teenagers dress as pioneers and push handcarts almost twenty miles in the heat of summer to give them an idea of the sacrifice of their ancestors. Well, in our stake they asked our children to find one of their ancestors and walk for them.

I hurried into the garage and dusted off the huge tupperware bucket that holds all my disorganized geneological records. I found a story I'd never read before about Thomas Condie. He was a store owner near the mines in Scotland. When his wife joined the church, he was furious and planned on kicking her out of the house. That night, an angel came to him and read a verse that said "no weapon formed against the church would prosper." Thomas really wanted to prosper, so he not only supported his wife but let the elders meet upstairs in his store.

Unfortunately, he didn't get which kind of prosper the angel was talking about because once people found out the Mormons were meeting upstairs, they wouldn't come to the store and it failed. He was so mad, he looked into the church, joined and headed to Utah.

I do think it is interesting that sometimes our interpretation of inspiration is entirely different than what we expected. In the end Thomas Condie did prosper in a way (although not financially) by going to Manti and working on the temple and having a righteous posterity. And so I wonder, am I prospering?

Depends on the day.