Thoughts and stories, by Pal

    This is an article in Meridian Magazine, and also Deseret News.  It is very touching, and a bit long to read but I didn't want to condense it.   It is an important part of history. The  Deseret News   had an hour-long interview with President Uchtdorf as he recalled his escape from East Germany. November 9th, Sunday, marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.  The LDS Church and the Berlin Wall: President Uchtdorf recalls escape from East Germany, life with the wall By  Tad Walch ,  Deseret News Published: Saturday, Nov. 8 2014 10:29 p.m. MST Seated in his office in the LDS Church Administration Building, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint, looks at a piece of the Berlin Wall. Tad Walch, Deseret News President Dieter F. Uchtdorf made a harrowing escape from East Germany as an 11-year-old before...

Group celebrates 25 years of Mormon missionaries crossing divided Germany By Erica Palmer For the Deseret News Published: Friday, June 13 2014 3:00 p.m. MDT Updated: Monday, June 16 2014 7:58 p.m. MDT   View 18 photos » The first missionaries to serve in the German Democratic Republic stand outside the Hamburg mission home in March 1989. Craig Miles Summary It has been 25 years since the German Democratic Republic was opened to LDS missionary work. This weekend, former missionaries will once again reunite in Dresden, Germany to commemorate this momentous anniversary. Although it has been 25 years, Elder Wolfgang Paul still clearly remembers the life-changing phone call. It was 10:15 p.m. in January 1989. He was sitting in the mission home in Hamburg in the Federal Republic of Germany, where he had been the mission president for six months. On the other end of the line was President Thomas S. Monson, who wa...

I decided to make this into two entries, as it was too long.  Please check entry # 99, # 2 which follows this story.  It tells details of Zion's Camp .    Early Church history has always fascinated me.  What inspiration the Prophet Joseph received, to be the instrument for setting up the true Church in these last days.  He received "line upon line".  One of those deciding experiences was when the Prophet Joseph took men on what has been historically called "Zion's Camp", in 1834.   Thomas Colborn, my gg grandfather was one of the men who went with Zion's Camp.  He was the son of Jonathan Colborn and Hannah Hamilton Colborn, born 3 August 1801, at Genoa, Cayuga County, New York.  He was baptized on April 15, 1833, and his wife Sarah on December 26, 1834.  I wish we had more details about their conversion.   As far as we can find out he is the only one of the family who accepted Mormonism, and he was opposed by his paren...