Description

Patience’s Angel

On October 29, 1856, the members of the Martin Handcart Company were in a terrible state, starved, freezing, and exhausted, with barely one-third able to walk. Yet, moved by the hope that somewhere on the road ahead wagons loaded with food and supplies were waiting for them, they got up and began to move, leaving behind 56 of their number who had died over the previous ten days. They were in such dire straits that it seemed impossible to move, but somehow, notwithstanding the deep snow, they did. The Loader family suffered along with the rest, having buried James Loader back along the trail. On the day they left Red Buttes Camp, near present-day Casper, Wyoming, Patience recorded the following:

“I will say we traveled on all day in the snow, but the weather was fine and in the middle of the day the sun was quite warm. Sometime in the afternoon, a strange man appeared to me as we were resting. As we got up the hill he came and looked in my face. He said, ‘Are you Patience?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said again, ‘I thought it was you. Travel on, there is help for you. You will come to a good place and there is plenty.’ With this, he was gone. He disappeared. I looked, but never saw where he went. This seemed very strange to me. I took this as someone sent to encourage us and give us strength.”

That next day, Patience and the Martin Company met the relief wagons near Greasewood Creek, not far from Devil’s Gate, Wyoming. The rescuers had a dozen large fires burning, food, clothing, and supplies to give a measure of relief and comfort.

The Martin Company in the depth of their ordeal may have wondered, as have many in the decades since, if God had forsaken them on the high plains of Wyoming, but it is my witness that heaven was watching—closely—and the plan and purposes of the Almighty were fulfilled to His glory and theirs. “Wherefore, by the ministering of angels…men begin to exercise faith in Christ” (Moroni 7:25).

Source:

Glenn Rawson, Journal of the Handcart Pioneers, History of the Saints, p. 130