2 Times Brigham Young Commanded Sea Storms To Stop (And They Did)


I went whale watching once. The waves were huge and choppy and the smell of diesel wafted through the air. I got sea sick. I turned green and lunged for the side to toss all my cookies into the uneven sea. This, of course, caused the fish to all disgorge up into the boat which caused me to toss back into the sea. It really caused a very messy back and forth. In silhouette it would have looked exactly like one of those expensive Japanese jumping fountains.
If I had better reason than seeing blow holes in the distance, and if I thought of it at all, perhaps I would have tried to calm the sea that day. If I had and it worked, I likely would not currently begrudge as many fish.
Weather calming is straight up scriptural. Off the top of my head, I can think of it happening twice in the Bible. In Mark 4:37-40 Jesus calmed the sea. Jonah allowed himself to be thrown out of his water-taxi to spare his panicking sea-chauffers. (Jonah 1:4, 15)
Such stories have been recorded in modern times too. Brigham Young had storm-calming experiences twice that I know of. We mentioned it briefly a few weeks ago. Once is remarkable, two times is kind of mind blowing.
This first instance is from the History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint ..., Part 1, Volume 4:

1) “Tuesday, 26.—At one in the afternoon, Elder Brigham Young and company went on board the steamer Columbus, at Fairport, and went on towards Buffalo.
“Wednesday, 27.—About 1 o'clock this morning the wind arose, when Elder Brigham Young went on deck, prayed to the Father in the name of Jesus, when he felt to command the wind and the waves to cease, and permit them to proceed on their journey in safety. The winds abated, and he gave glory, honor, and praise to the God who rules all things. Arriving in Buffalo in the morning, they took the stage for Batavia.” (https://books.google.com/books?id=NnTZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=%22At+one+in+the+afternoon,+Elder+Brigham+Young+and+company%22&source=bl&ots=WHBhw44GQ5&sig=b-wB9aHrk7BrfFE-v6Bf2Zjj0eQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjn-OmOpZjaAhVN6GMKHee5AyEQ6AEILzAB#v=onepage&q=%22At%20one%20in%20the%20afternoon%2C%20Elder%20Brigham%20Young%20and%20company%22&f=false)  
This second time was captured in a 1977 Ensign article. The original is from Brigham Young’s own journal. Young is on a ship heading to England this time:
2) “On 26 November 1839, while en route to England to fulfill a mission, a violent storm buffeted the ship on which Brother Young traveled:
“I went upon deck and I felt impres in spirit to pray to the Father in the name of Jesus for a forgiveness of all my sins. And then I set to command the winds to sees [cease] and let ous [us] goe safe on our Jorney. The winds abated and Glory & ouner [honor] & prase be to that God that rules all things.” (https://www.lds.org/ensign/1977/08/brigham-young-man-of-the-spirit?lang=eng)

It’s important to note here that it wasn’t the power of Brigham Young that calmed those torrents. It was the power of God. It doesn’t seem to be too difficult of a heavenly trick, either, because here are two more instances of it.
Come for the Brigham Young, stay for the Jonathon Napela. Napela was an early Hawaiian convert. He worked closely with George Q. Cannon for a time. Here we have two of his stories that prove you don’t have to be in line for prophet to get heavenly favors:
1) “On one occasion, Elder Napela was called to accompany a party of elders to the island of Hawaii to settle some difficulties which had arisen there. After matters were taken care of, the missionaries, ready to return, were prevented by several weeks of torrential rain. One morning the brethren asked Elder Napela to pray that the rain would cease. This he did, and before the elders were off their knees, the skies had begun to clear. They began their journey that day.
2) “On another trip, several elders were traveling in a whale boat from Lanai to Lahaina, when adverse winds and turbulent water made headway impossible. All of the brethren were seasick. Elder George Q. Cannon asked Elder Napela to pray and quiet the sea. Elder Napela did so, and within fifteen minutes the sea was calm and the missionaries continued on their journey.” (https://ldsmag.com/article-1-11975/) 
There you have it. Sometimes, if it’s important enough, and if you are worthy and sincere, the Lord can alter weather patterns for you. That’s an interesting thought with ample instances.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts!

7 Super Great Legends of 3 Nephite Visits (One’s a First Hand Video!)

Image
I am going to make a bold statement. Ahem. Everyone has a 3 Nephite story. I’m going to take back that statement and replace it with this one – a whole bunch of multi-generation LDS families have a 3 Nephite story hanging from one of the branches in the family tree. My grandmother had a story. She thought one mysteriously stepped in to help when her husband was out of town and she was perusing orphanages with open enrollment for her six kids. All the orphanages were full, FYI. At least that’s what they claimed after the third day of the trial run. Really though, there are loads of 3 Nephite stories. Loads of them!  Just like seer stone stories , angel visitation stories or LDS raising the dead stories – there are 3 Nephite stories a-plenty! Below find just a few. For a ton of them you should check here . This list is comprised of pretty old stories – they happened a long time ago. The last one on the list is a first hand account.
Read more

Have The LDS Prophets Seen Jesus Christ? (12 Yes!)(2 No!)(3 Quite Possibly!)

Image
The absolute #1 question in the Church, according to polls I may or may not have actually conducted, is “Why do the 16 year old priests have to squish the bread so hard when they’re ripping up the sacrament?” It gives the whole thing a very distracting, mashed and rubber-like consistency. If I may, I’d like to suggest a solution. Give everyone in the congregation their own entire slice of bread. Two if it’s thin sliced and a fast Sunday. We would take it right out of the bag ourselves, of course. The only possible squishing then would be in the shopping cart under a bag of apples. Such damage would taste a lot less teenage-fingery. I feel like I could cope with that better. A close second most-asked question, of course, pertains to tithing discounts. I have it on good authority that we all get one of those on our baptism anniversary. (I don’t have that on any authority.) The third-most asked question, according to several internets, is do the modern prophets actually s
Read more

Accidental Reinforcement of Christ's BOM Visit to the Americas (This is Big!)

Image
I’ve been on a kick lately. A blog-relevant kick. I’ve been looking into legends of Christ visitations outside of the holy land. Last week I posted 3 such legends – each specifically mentioning Christ by name. Then I started looking into legends of a bearded god appearing to people. There are loads of legends like that. I was just looking for a nice, even list of 10 to chain together. The tenth one struck so hard crocodiles might get PTSD triggered from the dinosaur extinction.     That tenth find, in my opinion, is more important than #s 1-9 combined. It is an Indian legend of Christ, specifically Christ, visiting their ancestors at the exact time the Book of Mormon says he did. A little background in case you don’t know - a visit from the resurrected Jesus Christ to Indian forefathers in America is, without a doubt, the crowning jewel of the Book of Mormon. It starts like this: 3 Nephi Chapter11: 1  And now it came to pass that there were a great m
Read more

3 Curious Legends Of Other Nations Visited By Christ

Image
OK these are pretty weird – and not doctrinal in the slightest. But they are interesting. They are interesting because of what Jesus said here – after his resurrection and just before his old-world ascension: John 10:16: “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” The people in the Book of Mormon were those other sheep – Christ said so himself . And then he said he had yet other sheep to visit: 3 Nephi 16:1: “ And verily, verily, I say unto you that I have other sheep, which are not of this land, neither of the land of Jerusalem, neither in any parts of that land round about whither I have been to minister.” Of these other sheep we have no record. Yet. We certainly know they were visited, but do we know who they were? No way no how. But here are some interesting legends of Christ visitations. To be sure there are scores of accounts of a ‘
Read more

11 Times People Glowed Like Jesus/Moses Outside of Scripture

Image
Occasionally throughout history – when the moment is spiritually profound enough, people have been recorded as emitting light through their own skin. “Glowing” is another way to describe it. For a baseline – here’s a smattering of scriptural references: Exodus 34: 29   ¶   And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the   two   tables   of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses   wist   not that the skin of his face   shone   while he talked with him. 30   And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him. That’s Moses lighting up. It happened when he spoke to Jehovah. Jesus lit up too, ironically, when he spoke to an angelic-messenger Moses (and Elias): Matthew 17: 1   And after six days Jesus taketh   Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, 2   And was   transfigured   before them:
Read more

A Big Huge List of Tons of People Who Used Seer Stones

Image
Joseph Smith staring into the bottom of a hat to translate a book is a funny picture to some. Perhaps ‘to most’ would have been a better way to end that sentence. This was definitely left out of all my primary classes – but I learned about it in books readily available in the church-owned Deseret Book. It’s not really the secret angrier-corners of the internet would have you believe. Not only that – but Joseph Smith didn’t invent seer stones. He wasn’t the first one to throw a stone into a dark place to better see its stories. No, no – hippies love them too. Hippies and Joseph Smith. That’s the complete list of everyone who cares about seer stones. No more no less. Oh – except Io, the god of the Maoris. And boatloads of other Americans. And according to ancient Jewish lore, Adam, Abraham, Noah, Joseph of Egypt, etc… The list really goes on. It goes on long enough, in fact, that Joseph Smith goes from being a lonely stone-starer to one of alleged dozens. It’s actually a huge
Read more

The Guy Who Watched A Girl Resurrect, A Guy Who Saw the SLC Temple in A Dream, A 3 Nephite-ish Visitor...etc...etc

Image
Oh boy I’ve got 7 good ones for you here. They are 7 stories that don’t have much in common except for their little-known status and their faith promoting possibilities. It also kind of shows that God will go after the one. But sometimes he will also go after the entire tribe:   1) A Dream Leads to the Conversion of the Shoshone Indians "Ten years after the Bear River Massacre of 1863, in which more than 300 Shoshone men, women, and children were killed by U.S. troops, a Shoshone elder had a dream. Chief Sagwitch, a survivor of the 1863 massacre, and other tribal elders felt the dream was inspired and was instructing the tribe to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After discussing the matter in great detail, the went looking for a Latter-day Saint (“Mormon”) man whom they trusted, George Washington Hill, who lived in Ogden, Utah. "After obtaining permission from Church president Brigham Young, Hill travelled to the tribal land
Read more

Some of Joseph Smith’s (Lesser Known) Big, Beautiful Bullseyes

Image
To make a list of Joseph Smith’s greatest prophetic hits isn’t hard. There are a lot of pretty commonly known ones like: ·       The eye popping alters of Nahom ·       The pleasing symmetry of Chiasmus ·       Startlingly accurate predictionsof the civil war ·       Indisputably undeniable proof of horsesin Nephite times Those things are all relatively well known in a lot of Latter-day Saint- circles. They’ve probably been listed on a lot of blogs. A list of Joseph Smith’s best hits isn’t as interesting if you already knew it’s contents. Joseph got loads of shocking things right. These things weren't readily available information in his place or time. These ones below aren’t too well known, by all I can tell. But each one lends incredible strength to Joseph Smith's prophetic claims. It a varied list. It's an unlikely list. It's a surprising list.  Even the most ardent critic would have to at least say ol' JS got really lucky a
Read more

8 Different Miracle-Stuffed Temple Dedications

Image
Eight or nine months ago I was sitting in a fast & testimony meeting. An older woman was up there at the podium. She said something that surprised me. She said it almost as an after thought, and then moved on to the next sentence in less time than it takes an arthritic to pop a knuckle. What she said so matter-of-factly was that she’d seen angels at the Draper Temple Dedication. That’s a powerful comment. I looked around for reactions and although I saw eyes affixed - I heard no gasp. If ever there was a time to gasp that would have been it! The whole congregation took it in stride, though. That could be because angels play such a large part in our history. Joseph Smith used to accurately tell people exactly when they’d see an angel . The two testimonies closing out this piece included full blown angel sightings too. I actually know a handful of people that have angel stories. You probably do, too. Someone you know may share such a story if they think the
Read more

Glowing Stones in the Book Of Mormon and Elsewhere (Lots of Elsewheres!)

Image
We've had stones on here before – seer stones. Everybody should have one. A billion people used them just like Joseph Smith and I have thoroughly chronicled every single one according to name, date, size and whether or not they taste at all salty. They do taste salty, FYI. All of them. Salty like the bottom corner of a bag of Rold Gold . I actually have no insight into the flavor of seer stones. I didn’t categorize anything either, just to clear things up. The previous stone-topic was about using the stones like a seer – gazing into them and seeing whatever you need to see OR want to see. You really should read that post.  It covers so much more. This post, though, is about stones as a source of light. It’s a super strange thing that only Mormons believe can exist - except not only Mormons believe it. There are loads of examples in Jewish Lore where mighty prophets use light-emitting stones to accomplish great works - I found a Chinese reference too. Most
Read more