Salt Lake Cemetery Tour

You are knocking the door and opened it to find two friendly representatives from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormon church. So what you say will you send them away without a Christian witness or will you engage them in a meaningful and Christ honoring conversation if you desire. The latter, we suggest the book, answering moments questions by Romanism research ministries Bill McKeever and Darren Johnson answering woman's questions is available wherever you find quality Christian books viewpoint on Mormonism.

The program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint: Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Romanism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism where in Salt Lake City can you find a wealth of history. Welcome to this edition of viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director of Mormonism research ministry and with me today is Eric Johnson.

My colleague at MRM if you're looking for more than history, I would probably suggest the Salt Lake City Cemetery and we are going to be having a nether tour of the Salt Lake Cemetery coming up in October. October 23, 2021. And if you're interested in attending that tour.

I will be leaving it as I have in the past we are going to be visiting the graves of a number of Mormon leaders and other colorful characters that have anything to do with LDS history. The Salt Lake City Cemetery is quite large, about 120 acres so there's no way that were going to see the entire cemetery, but we are going to follow a route that I have put down that we can see a lot of prominent people having to do with LDS history.

If you'd like to sign up for that. What you can do is to write us at contact@mrm.org and in the subject line put the words Cemetery tour Cemetery tour. I'm not looking for a large group.

If we do get a large group will probably have to divided up somehow. If we don't get enough.

Maybe we'll have to just do this on another day, but October 23, 2021 is when we plan on doing our cemetery tour until what time is that going to take place it will be in the morning. I did not exactly sure what time but we will be conducting this within about a two hour timeframe and the reason why we like to keep the participants limited is if you get too many people involved in this, it becomes a long line and try to get everybody back in their cars and drive to the next area than jumping out and getting back and occurs it becomes very time-consuming. I want thing I have to say about this tour is that even if you don't like history but you know a little bit about Mormonism and you've heard of some of the people who are major players of the presidents.

In fact, 12 of the 16 deceased LDS presidents are buried here. You have to go on this because Bill will tell stories where he goes where and whenever he gets to a marker. He will tell you a little bit about that person how that person lived. He'll even talk about some of the men who were polygamist, and there's all kinds of interest when you're talking about polygamy and having the wise buried near this man the children is just a fascinating time, especially when you take a case like Joseph Fielding Smith the 10th prism of the church is buried among a lot of these other women about Joseph Fielding Smith, of course, in the 10th prism, the church is born after the polygamy era yet. A lot of those women that you see buried next to him are going to be married to him. If Mormonism is true they are going to be Joseph Fielding Smith wives in the hereafter.

Because they were not sealed to another man and were all sealed for time and eternity to Joseph Fielding Smith.

So even though polygamy in the traditional understanding of plural marriage is not practiced today in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is most certainly thought to be a practice that will go on into eternity know you been looking at gravesites for many many years. What got you interested in looking at where people are buried, they most people say will maybe your morbid then and maybe that is it is a little bit macabre but I find the history behind all these individuals to be fascinating, and I've of course been interested in more than history for much of my Christian life were much of my adult life I became a Christian. Around the age of 18. So my interest in Mormonism goes clear back to that conversion that I had when I put my trust in Jesus as my Savior. I find that there's a lot of people that are buried in the Salt Lake Cemetery that even though they really had no prominence as leaders in the LDS church. They did play an important role in the history one of the markers that were going to be seen is or importer. Rockwell's grave or importer. Rockwell was of course the bodyguard of Joseph Smith as well as the bodyguard of Brigham Young and I've often kidded around tongue firmly planted in cheek, that you might also say that or importer. Rockwell was Brigham Young's assassin, depending on what side of the fence you are as far as your loyalties to Brigham Young and the LDS church you would mention plural wise a number of Joseph Smith's plural wives are buried in the Salt Lake Cemetery after Joseph Smith was killed in 1844 and Brigham Young move the church out West. A lot of those women were.

I hate to use the term farmed out but I don't know of another term that really explains what's going on here because that's exactly what happened a lot of Joseph Smith's plural wives were given over to other leaders in the church such as Brigham Young and Heber C.

Kimball that Heber C. Kimball is not buried in the Salt Lake Cemetery. He's buried more downtown in a kind of a hidden, obscured Cemetery that surrounded by a bunch of apartment buildings, but Brigham Young though he's not buried in the Salt Lake Cemetery. A number of his plural wives are buried there. Brigham Young is buried on first Avenue, just east of the church headquarters building and the Liza Roxie snow is buried there, as well as a couple of other of Brigham Young's wives, but there are some of his plural wives that are buried in the Salt Lake Cemetery.

You have a number of as you mentioned LDS presidents a lot of apostles are buried in the Salt Lake Cemetery.

One of the apostles grave markers that I like to take people to see is Orson Pratt's Orson Pratt was a very outspoken leader in the 19th century. He got himself into a little bit of trouble with Brigham Young when he started criticizing some of Brigham Young's heretical teachings, such as Adam God in such Orson Pratt has this big huge marker out there and some of his plural wives are listed on the back summer.

Not one of his wives. That is not listed on Orson Pratt's marker is Sarah Pratt his first wife how you might ask yourself why isn't Sarah Pratt listed among some of these otherwise. As she was the primary wife will is because Sarah Pratt when they came out to Utah.

She was an anti-polygamy activist and she had had just about enough of her husband, especially when he went on a mission and ended up marrying a Scottish girl by the name of Margaret Dickman, Margaret Dickman was born in 1852. She was 41 years younger than Orson Pratt for a lot of people. They look at Brigham Young marrying a lot of these younger women that even Joseph Smith who married a 14-year-old by the name of Helen Mark Kimball. We will be seeing Helen Mark Kimball's grave. She's buried next to her husband, Horace Whitney and also one of Horace Whitney's plural wives is also buried near Helen Mark Kimball as well. The Smith plot, Ida Smith, can you tell us live it about. I dismiss plot. She was related to the Smith family. She ended up giving her plot to a man by the name of Christopher Malka Christopher in the milk.

It was a security guard in the Salt Lake City temple. He claimed that he is the reincarnated Hiram Smith. Somehow he was able to convince Ida Smith to give him her plot and there is a marker there for Christopher and the Malka even though he is still alive.

It's one of the more colorful markers in the whole Cemetery Christopher in the milk of believing he is the reincarnated. Hiram Smith has a marker there, even though he is not deceased but in that area you will find a lot of relatives to Joseph and Hiram Smith and really the only way you can be buried in that particular plot is if you are related so you can understand the Christopher and the Malka having a headstone already there when he still alive.

Plus the fact that the Malka is not related to the Smith that all that certainly caused a lot of controversy when that transaction took place many years ago and Ida Smith has since died. As I said that the cemetery is about 120 acres in size and there's about 125,000 people currently buried there. I think there's room for maybe another 5000 to be buried there but it's it's a fascinating tour and unfortunately we don't have the time to go visit everybody of prominence, but we are going to look at some of the bigger names so people are going to need to do a lot of walking or is a lot of it is driving to the sites and then being able to just get out and walk a little bit. I would say that it's going to be both because when we park on the roads and we get out of our cars. We are going to have to walk across a number of various grave sites to get to where we want to go. Many of them are right near the road but not all of them but what we will do is when we park will go in hit as many as we can in that particular area to use our time wisely and that might take a little bit of walking. So if you have a problem walking.

I don't know if this is going to be something that would be good for you, but certainly if you have no problem with walking in the amount of distance, then by all means we would love to have you come the first burial that took place in the Salt Lake Cemetery was in 1848. This is really before it became an official entity. You might say a man by the name of George Wallace. His nine month old daughter Mary passed away in 1848 and so there is a marker there commemorating not only George Wallace but also his children.

Bill a lot of your pictures that you've taken over the years of different Mormon graves and markers can be found on our website and encourage anybody who's interested in this. This kind of hobby that Bill has gone to MRM.org/graves and markers with hyphens between graves and markers. There are literally over 100 different pictures of different grades including all the presidents of the church.

Many of the apostles of the church. Many of them, of course, buried here at the Salt Lake City Cemetery again that's going to be out October 23, 20, 21, it will be in the morning. It's going going to be about two hours or so long and if you want to sign up for that would encourage you to just merely contact us at MRM and you can do that at contact@mrm.org contact@mrm.org and in the subject line put cemetery tour you might want to also include a phone number if I might need to contact you but I will have your email address.

If you contact me at contact@mrm.org and that's where our cemetery tour that's going to be taking place on October 23, 20, 21, and Bill is there any cost. There is no cost whatsoever. I think you're gonna find it to be a very fun morning.

Lots of information. A lot of fascinating history. Hopefully I hopefully I can keep you interested during that two-hour. But people that have attended it before said that they really enjoyed it and it is supposed to be a morning that we can have a bit of fun while looking at the graves of a lot of dead people. October 23, 2021. Thank you for listening. If you would like more information regarding his research ministry. We encourage you to visit our website at www.mrm.org you can request our free newsletter is a research we hope you will join us again as we look at another viewpoint on Mormonism when sharing your faith with the latter-day St. It helps to know what their church is taught in several basic topics.

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