Missionary moments: At great effort
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Early missionaries suffered extreme hardships to carry the Book of Mormon to the world.
On Jan. 28, 1835, Wilford Woodruff — one of the Church's greatest missionaries who would ultimately serve as president of the Church — and Henry Brown crossed the boundary line into Benton County, Ark., becoming the first known Latter-day Saint missionaries in the Arkansas Territory.
But just reaching the territory — traveling Jackson County, Mo., and through areas with wild animals, and carrying copies of the Book of Mormon but no food or money — marked great faith on the part of both early Church missionaries.
"This is my first mission or the first commencement of my travels to preach the gospel," Elder Woodruff wrote as he set out on the journey south.
Elder Woodruff and Elder Brown managed to safely travel through Jackson County, Mo. — from which the Latter-day Saints had just been driven — but they did not dare go to houses and get food. They picked and ate raw corn and slept on the ground.
Once outside Jackson County, however, travel did not get easier.
On one particular leg of the journey the pair arose and started off without "a morsel of food of any kind." They then walked 30 miles across the prairie, where they found neither "shrub or water." At 2 p.m., they reached the welcome shade of timber.
However, "As we approached the timber, a large black bear came out towards us. We were not afraid of him, for we were on the Lord's business," Elder Woodruff wrote in his journal.
When the bear got within "eight rods" of the missionaries, he rose on his hind feet, looked at them a moment and ran away. "We went on our way rejoicing," wrote Elder Woodruff.
The missionaries also had wolves following them so close that they had a build a fire to scare them away. The pair finally made their way to an old log cabin, about 12 feet square, with no door. A father, mother and several children lay sleeping inside. The father could not offer the missionaries anything to eat, so after that long walk, they went to sleep on the floor with empty stomachs.
A short time later, Elder Woodruff's powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon led to the first two converts in Alabama. — Excerpted from "History of the Southern States Mission," a master's thesis by LaMar C. Berrett
