A guest on the Mormon Expression podcast indicated that the Founding Fathers incident with Wilford Woodruff in the St. George Temple is not all that it is cracked up to be. He indicated that at the time of the supposed visitation, the work for these individuals had already been performed. I did some searches on the net, and quickly determined that I have no idea where to go to check on the church records to determine when the work for these individuals had first been done. Anyone have any insight on this?

You would have to have a membership number and access to the full familysearch data to get to the ordinance information. Or go to an LDS geneological library.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/unif/unif213.html

"U.S. presidents endorse Sun Myung Moon from 'spirit world'"

"The church [Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church] recently ran a two-page ad in the Moon-owned Washington Times, asserting that 36 U.S. presidents - from George Washington to Richard Nixon - endorsed Moon during a series of "spirit world" conferences"

It would appear that Mormonism was only to stepping stone for these previous US Presidents and Founding Fathers before discovering that a Moonie is the thing to be.

Since the COB is so slow processing my resignation I was able to register on familysearch. Just let me know what you need to have looked up and I can do it.

Public Address on September 16, 1877--approximately one month after the "visitation" (Journal of Discourses):

"I will here say, before closing, that two weeks before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they, 'You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God.' These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they waited on me for two days and two nights. I thought it very singular, that notwithstanding so much work had been done, and yet nothing had been done for them. The thought never entered my heart, from the fact, I suppose, that heretofore our minds were reaching after our more immediate friends and relatives. I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon brother McCallister to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and fifty other eminent men, making one hundred in all, including John Wesley, Columbus, and others; I then baptized him for every President of the United States, except three; and when their cause is just, somebody will do the work for them."

http://books.google.com/books?id=nGUoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA229&dq=%E2%80%9CI+will+here+say+before+closing%E2%80%9D&hl=en&ei=yeXqTIqhO5CWsgOvo8yxCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CI%20will%20here%20say%20before%20closing%E2%80%9D&f=false


COMPARE ABOVE PUBLIC NARRATION OF THE ALLEGED EVENTS TO THE PRIVATE RECORD MADE BY WOODRUFF COVERING THE RELEVANT TIME FRAME INVOLVED.

Excerpts from Wilford Woodruff's journal:

"In his journal entry of Sunday, 19 August 1877, Elder Woodruff, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and president of the St. George Temple, wrote: 'I spent the evening in preparing a list of the noted men of the 17 century and 18th, including the signers of the Declaration of Independence and presidents of the United States, for baptism on Tuesday the 21 Aug 1877.'

"His journal entry for August 21 reads, 'I, Wilford Woodruff, went to the temple of the Lord this morning and was baptized for 100 persons who were dead, including the signers of the Declaration of Independence. … I was baptized for the following names.' He then listed the names of one hundred men (one of whom was shown twice, so actually there were ninety-nine), including forty-five 'eminent men' of several nationalities. The baptisms were performed by J. D. T. McAllister, a counselor in the temple presidency.

"Elder Woodruff continued his journal entry: 'When Br. McAllister had baptized me for the 100 names, I baptized him for 21, including Gen. Washington and his forefathers and all the presidents of the United States that were not on my list except Buchanan, Van Buren, and Grant.' (The work for these presidents has since been done.)

"'It was a very interesting day,' Elder Woodruff continued. 'I felt thankful that we had the privilege and the power to administer for the worthy dead, especially for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, that inasmuch as they had laid the foundation of our Government, that we could do as much for them as they had done for us.

"'Sister Lucy Bigelow Young went forth into the font and was baptized for Martha Washington and her family, and seventy of the eminent women of the world. I called upon the brethren and sisters who were present to assist in getting endowments for those that we had been baptized for today.' (Wilford Woodruff’s journal, typescript, vol. 7, Church History Library; spelling and punctuation modernized.)"

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=03d6b850e318b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1


WHERE DID THE "SPIRITS OF THE DEAD" GO?!?!?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2010 05:37PM by Fetal Deity.

http://www.arindamchaudhuri.com/

He has been conferred upon with ‘Management Guru 2000’ award, ‘Personality of the Decade’ award, ‘Example to Youth’ award & many more... He also happens to be a film maker. Read more about this new age Renaissance man..

So who made these presidents god? It seems to me that all would be equal in god's sight and any spirit should be able to make such a request if their work hadn't been done yet. But no only these guys. This story should sound fishy to anyone.

Shouldn't WW have told them to "take a number?" After all, there are billions and billions of others who were born before the Founders who had been waiting for thousands and thousands of years to have their "work" done for them. It all smacks of favoritism.

Also, many of the Founders were deists and despised organized religion, including any form of Christianity--it's doubtful that a lot of them would ever have accepted Mormonism ... whether is it "true" or not.

Just a few months after ETB refused to share with me in any detail what it was like to be told behind temple walls that Black men could now wield power and authority in God’s name (telling me it was too "sacred" to talk about), my grandfather was freely talking about famous disembodied spirits appearing in the House of the Lord:

“When I became President of the Twelve and Spencer W. Kimball became President of the Church, we met, just the two of us, every week in our Thursday meetings in the temple, just to be sure that things were properly coordinated between the Twelve and the First Presidency.

“After one of those first meetings, we talked about the man sacred documents in some of the older temples. St. George was mentioned in particular . . . and it was agreed that I would go into the archives--the walk-in vault--of that great temple and review the sacred documents that were there. . . .

“And there in the St. George Temple I saw what I had always hoped and prayed that someday I would see. Ever since I returned as a humble missionary and first learned that the Founding Fathers had appeared in that temple, I wanted to see the record. And I saw the record. They did appear to Wilford Woodruff twice and asked why the work hadn’t been done for them. They had founded this country and the Constitution of this land, and they had been true to those principles. Later the work was done for them.”

(Ezra Taft Benson, address delivered in Sandy, Utah, 30 December 1978, reprinted in Benson, "The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1988], p. 603)


But that wasn't the whole of it. In earlier remarks at the re-dedication of the St. George Temple entitled “Our Founding Fathers Stood in This Holy Place,” my grandfather again spoke openly of these “sacred” experiences in the temple vault.

(Ezra Taft Benson, “Our Founding Fathers Stood in This Holy Place,” St. George Temple Re-dedication, 12 September 1975, LDS Church Archives; see also, Benson, “The Faith of Our Founding Fathers,” in "Faith" [Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1983], pp. 21-22).
_____


Go figure. Both were imaginary experiences. Like McConkie said of the priesthood announcement to the Twelve by Kimball in the Salt Lake temple, there was nothing “miraculous” about Kimball’s announcement to the assembled Quorum members:

“The Lord could have sent messengers from the other side to deliver it, but he did not. He gave the revelation by the power of the Holy Ghost.

“Latter-day Saints have a complex: many of them desire to magnify and build upon what has occurred, and they delight to think of miraculous things. And maybe some of them would like to believe that the Lord himself was there, or that the Prophet Joseph Smith came to deliver the revelation, which was one of the possibilities.

“Well, these things did not happen. The stories that go around to the contrary are not factual or realistic or true, and you as teachers in the Church Educational System will be in a position to explain and to tell your students that this thing came by the power of the Holy Ghost, and that all the Brethren involved, the thirteen who were present, are independent personal witnesses of the truth and divinity of what occurred. . . .”

McConkie then did some more confessing. This glorious in-temple event was increasingly becoming comparable to experiencing that inexplicably happy feeling during a typical fast and testimony meeting when believing Mormons “know” that the Church is true. McConkie explained:

“To carnal people who do not understand the operating of the Holy Spirit of God upon the souls of man, this may sound like gibberish or jargon or uncertainty or ambiguity; but to those who are enlightened by the power of the Spirit and who have themselves felt its power, it will have a ring of veracity and truth, and they will know of its verity. I cannot describe in words what happened; I can only say that it happened and that it can be known and understood only by the feeling that can come into the heart of man. You cannot describe a testimony to someone. No one can really know what a testimony is--the feeling and the joy and the rejoicing and the happiness that comes into the heart of man when he gets one--except another person who has received a testimony. Some things can be known only by revelation, ‘The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.’ (1 Corinthians 2:11)”

(Bruce R. McConkie, "All Are Alike unto God," general assembly address to Book of Mormon Symposium for Seminary and Institute teachers, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, 18 August 1978, manuscript copy in my possession)
_____


No "miraculous" appearance of Joseph or Jesus the day the priesthood ban was lifted in the Salt Lake temple, but all my grandfather needed to see in the St. George temple were the "sacred documents" claiming that the Founders had appeared to Woodruff about being baptized for the dead and he was ready to talk, write and testify.

Never could figure that out.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2010 12:09AM by steve benson.

I wonder why the Founding Fathers never asked "Why the hell did you build a damn temple in the middle of the frackin' desert!?"

We know all this stuff is inspired because Seagulls are in Utah to eat up the Mormons who are not faithful - or something like that.

Woodruff and baptizing for these Presidents - when it comes out that a number of them had Already Been Done!

Why did he do them again?

When did the 3 he ignored finally get their work done?

Perhaps another way of looking at this (since it already seems established that they had their "work done for them already") is that they weren't converting to momoism but rather wanted to be commemorated by the living in some way.

It's a supernatural thing but often times spirits are drawn to these spooky situations.

poopstone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
........ wanted to be
> commemorated by the living in some way.
>


in other words, they wanted to be glorified/worshipped by the living. Hence we can safely asume that if it was not an hallucination, it must have been devils posing as the dead, asking for worship.

The spiritually blind leading the spiritually deaf, dumb and blind.