1310. The Hail Storm, as told by descendants of George Deliverance Wilson, my great grandfather.

  I am 86 years old, and in about 6 weeks I will have a right hip replacement. I have been quite sedentary for a few weeks, and haven't kept up well with writing blogs.  But I've listened to and watched many inspiring videos recently.

Today I have had a most interesting morning. I was looking on my tablet in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints site, and at the "Come With Me" section.  I checked it out, and watched a video telling about Oliver Cowdery coming to help the Prophet Joseph Smith, and be his scribe.  I was really touched while seeing the video.  I must check out much more on various places in the information there!  I encourage any of you to check several of those sections, on the Gospel Library site, and you'll be very thrilled, and it will increase your testimony, and also your family's testimonies.

My son who lives in Oceanside, California texted me this morning, with a video of some hail they were receiving this morning.  It is so rare there!  It brought to mind a family history story of my great grandfather, George Deliverance Wilson.  This story was told once a few months ago by Glenn Rawson on TV.  If you haven't heard of his firesides which are held on Sunday and Wednesday evenings at 8 P.M., Mountain Daylight time, you would love them.  He is especially knowledgeable about Church History, which goes with this year's "Come Follow Me".  You go to "History of the Saints" in the search field on Facebook, and you'll see a red "Live" written when it comes on.  Also you can find them at Glenn Rawson's stories, or History of the Saints.org.  They are on Youtube after the video is done also, and you can go back and watch past ones.  He told this story which follows:  -- This is written in our family history book. (They were then living in Hillsdale, near Panguitch, Utah.)

The following story of this early Hillsdale period was first heard by the grandchildren very many years after it occurred. It was then told to them by other people who had lived in that vicinity at that early time. 

First of all -- the story before this event:

Oliver Cowdery baptized George Deliverance Wilson

 At the age of 23 George Deliverance was stricken with consumption, (tuberculosis) a much dreaded disease, which at that time, was taking a heavy toll in that neighborhood. His condition became very serious, and he was told by the doctors that he could not live very long. He decided to leave home and travel for his health, in hopes of relief. 

While traveling, he heard of a strange new religion being preached by Joseph Smith and his associates, and so he decided to investigate. He found the Prophet in Kirtland, Ohio, and made inquiries about the new religion. The Prophet gave him the Book of Mormon and told him to read it and if he was not satisfied to read it again.

 He took the book and as he said, never ate or slept until he had finished reading it. He then returned to the prophet and asked for baptism, thoroughly convinced that he had found the truth in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

He was baptized in 1834 by Oliver Cowdrey; and through the power of the Priesthood and his faith in God, he was instantly healed and never again felt a symptom of that dread disease.

 After he had received the Gospel and the wonderful blessing of health, he returned to his family in Vermont; and most of them came to Kirtland, where on February 2nd, 1836, his parents and some other members of the family were baptized.

They lived in several towns, as George built sawmills, and they would be called to a new town when the sawmill was working well in the town they were then in.  Their children were born in 7 different towns.  The last town they moved to, they stayed, Hillsdale, Utah, in about 1873. Years later this story was told:

When George and Martha, the oldest children then living, were questioned about the truth of the story, and asked why it had never been told, they replied that they had always considered it too sacred to be talked about. We too consider it very sacred but feel that it should be recorded for the faith of future generations. This is the story from the words of George Hyrum and Martha. 

 

"During the winter just passed, the family had been having a very hard time. Food was very scarce. In the summer the crops were planted and doing nicely. One day a severe storm came up. Aunt Martha said she rushed to gather some clothes from the line before the storm broke. She saw her father down by the brow of the hill by the lumber mill. He seemed to be moving his arms in a strange fashion and the thought passed through her mind, “What on earth is father doing?”, but being in a hurry she paid very little attention.

 When the storm was over her father yoked up the oxen and took the entire family to see the results. He drove to the bottom of the field and they all saw that a hail storm had traveled to the edge of their farm, and then split and gone out on the hills on either side of the narrow valley of the Sevier River, where their home was located. They marveled at the great size of the hail stones. Their father took them along the hills on either side of the valley. They could see that the storm had been so severe that the hail stones lay in great heaps. Even the limbs on the pine trees were broken. Their field and its crops were perfectly safe. Their father said nothing at the time.  

   At a later date, one evening when the family were all seated around the fireplace, their father told them that he had seen the storm coming and he knew that if the crops failed that summer it would mean starvation for them. He had walked down to the mill and rebuked the storm by the power of the Priesthood. The Lord had recognized that power, and the storm had been swept aside from their field.

 Sextus Johnson, a boy who was present at that time wrote the following regarding this event. He told of seeing and hearing George Deliverance rebuke the storm, then, to quote from his words, “I was inside the shed with his (George Deliverance’s) son David, a boy about my age. The storm lasted for about half an hour. When it passed it left the whole valley white with hail.

 David and I started out from the shed but turned back. Hail two to six inches deep was too much for bare feet. Suddenly we became aware that there was bare ground just through George Deliverance’s fence. We crawled through. There was no hail on the ground in the wheat field, but plenty of hail was piled along the fence, which extended about half a mile. It was as if the fence was an impassable barrier beyond which the hail could not go. 

 I was surprised then and puzzled, but may times since I have stood on the ground, almost in awe as I fully realized that there a miracle had happened and I had been a witness.”