"They Pray unto Me in Much Faith"

By Brother Powell

Road sign marking location of Joseph Knight Sr. home in present day Nineveh, Pennsylvania.

In September, my wife and I took our 20th anniversary trip (delayed by a year because of Covid) to upstate New York, where we were able to tour many church history sites.​  It was interesting and fun to see where a lot of the things we have been studying this year took place.  We toured the Sacred Grove, the Hill Cumorah, the Grandin Building where the Book of Mormon was first published, the Whitmer Farm, and the priesthood restoration site in Pennsylvania.

While we were in Pennsylvania, my wife called up the docents of the Joseph Knight Sr. Ancestral Farm, which was the meeting place for the Colesville Branch – the first branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  They were available and took us through both the Joseph Knight Sr. home as well as Josiah Stowell's home.

We were reminded of several church history stories.  Emma had once related that she and Joseph eloped at the urging of Mr. Stowell.  Emma's baptism had occurred nearby the Knight home in a stream that had been dammed for the baptism but then destroyed by a mob.  The Knight family had aided Joseph and Emma numerous times as they were translating the plates by providing food, paper, and transportation.  And yet, our docents reminded us, none of the Colesville members were official witnesses of the golden plates and the Book of Mormon.  None were made apostles, nor did they hold other early prominent leadership positions.

Even so, the Colesville branch was a strong, unified branch of the church.  When called upon to gather, they sold homes and moved as a group – first to Ohio, then to Missouri, and eventually to Nauvoo.  God was aware of them and their needs, noting in D&C 37:2 that they needed to be strengthened before gathering.  God also mentioned that they prayed with great faith for that strengthening.

In many ways, we are like the Colesville branch.  We are a ward in a stake of Zion, doing our best to "lift where we stand."  We continue to meet and pray every week while general church leadership continues to receive revelation for us to follow.  I pray that we (my family and I included) do our best to follow the counsel given so that we are strengthened and made ready for the sacrifices that will be asked of us.

I know that God will stand by us and help us to meet the challenges of the day.  I've recognized how He prepared us for the lockdowns that came with a pandemic by focusing the entire family's study with Come, Follow Me resources.  I've seen Him temper the pandemic and the weather this spring so our youth could participate in an uplifting trek.  And I've seen how the adjustment from home and visiting teaching to ministering came at just the right time to help us focus on each other rather than on a standard of measurement.  May we continue to pray for strength and act on church guidance to prepare for things yet to come.