Early Church Service
While living in Kirtland in 1837, Snow was called to serve a short mission in Ohio, traveling "without purse or scrip." He recorded that relying on the kindness of others for his meals and lodging was difficult for him, as he had always had sufficient means to care for himself. When he returned to Kirtland in 1838, Snow found Smith's followers in turmoil over the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society. Snow and the members of his extended family chose to move to Missouri in the summer of 1838 and join the Latter Day Saints settling near Far West. Snow became seriously ill with a fever, and was nursed for several weeks by his sister Eliza.
On his recovery, Snow left for a second mission to Illinois and Kentucky in the fall of 1838. He served there through February 1839, when he learned that the Latter Day Saints had been expelled from their settlements in Missouri. He traveled home by way of his former mission area in Ohio. He was again taken ill and was cared for by members of the church. He remained in Ohio, preaching and working with church members until the fall of 1839. During the school year of 1839–40, Snow taught in Shalersville, Ohio. He sent money to his family, which had by then settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. He joined them in May 1840.
Shortly after he arrived in Nauvoo, Snow was again called to serve an active mission, this time to England. After an unpleasant sea voyage from New York City, Snow met with some of the members of the Twelve Apostles who had opened the British Mission in 1839, including Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Parley P. Pratt. He worked briefly in the Manchester area, and had success in Birmingham, where he baptized people in Greet's Green and organized a branch in Wolverhampton. Snow was then assigned to preside over church members in London. During his administration, church membership in the city increased from 100 to approximately 400 members. He was released from his mission by Pratt, who by then was president of an expanding European Mission. Snow arrived home on April 12, 1843, bringing with him a shipload of 250 British converts.
After visiting with his family, Snow again secured a teaching position for the winter, teaching at Lima, Illinois, thirty miles from Nauvoo. In late spring 1844, he returned to Ohio, preaching and baptizing new converts and distributing recent church publications to members. He was working in Cincinnati, Ohio when he learned of the assassination of Joseph Smith. Snow closed his Ohio mission and promptly returned to Nauvoo.
During the period of disorganization and schism that followed Smith's death, Snow chose to follow the Quorum of the Twelve under Brigham Young. In 1845, Snow was involved in work in the Nauvoo Temple.
Read more about this topic: Lorenzo Snow
Famous quotes containing the words early, church and/or service:
“To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candour never waited to be asked for its opinion.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
““To me it seems a shocking idea. I despise and loathe myself, and yet you thrust self at me from every corner of the church as though I loved and admired it. All religion does nothing but pursue me with self even into the next world.””
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Whatever events in progress shall disgust men with cities, and infuse into them the passion for country life, and country pleasures, will render a service to the whole face of this continent, and will further the most poetic of all the occupations of real life, the bringing out by art the native but hidden graces of the landscape.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)