The Account of Frederick William Hurst
This account can be found at lds.org > Manuals > Doctrine and Covenants and Church History: Gospel Doctrine Teacher’s Manual:
Frederick
William Hurst was working as a gold miner in Australia when he first
heard Latter-day Saint missionaries preach the restored gospel. He and
his brother Charles were baptized in January 1854. He tried to help his
other family members become converted, but they rejected him and the
truths he taught.Fred
settled in Salt Lake City four years after joining the Church, and he
served faithfully as a missionary in several different countries. He
also worked as a painter in the Salt Lake Temple. In one of his final
journal entries, he wrote:“Along
about the 1st of March, 1893, I found myself alone in the dining room,
all had gone to bed. I was sitting at the table when to my great
surprize my elder brother Alfred walked in and sat down opposite me at
the table and smiled. I said to him (he looked so natural): ‘When did
you arrive in Utah?’“He
said: ‘I have just come from the Spirit World, this is not my body that
you see, it is lying in the tomb. I want to tell you that when you were
on your mission you told me many things about the Gospel, and the
hereafter, and about the Spirit World being as real and tangible as the
earth. I could not believe you, but when I died and went there and saw
for myself I realized that you had told the truth. I attended the
Mormon meetings.’ He raised his hand and said with much warmth: ‘I
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart. I believe in faith,
and repentance and baptism for the remission of sins, but that is as
far as I can go. I look to you to do the work for me in the temple. …
You are watched closely. … We are all looking to you as our head in
this great work. I want to tell you that there are a great many spirits
who weep and mourn because they have relatives in the Church here who
are careless and are doing nothing for them” (Diary of Frederick
William Hurst, comp. Samuel H. and Ida Hurst [1961], 204).
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Last updated 6 Apr 2014
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