Out of the Mouth of Babes

Thomas Forsyth.

There are a lot of fascinating stories of the pioneers who settled Utah, early converts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Among these are many conversion stories, some of them very unique.

The following was written from the pen of Thomas Forsyth recounting his own conversion around the year 1844. He was born in Scotland in 1813 and came to the Americas as a young boy with his family where they settled in Canada. He married Isabella Donald in 1839.

While living near Lake Huron he received a letter from his Uncle James in Scotland. His uncle asked him if he knew anything about the Latter Day Saints. “You will know them. Joseph Smith is the head one of them.”

Thomas Forsyth recounts the rest of the story in his autobiography:

“I had never heard of the Latter Day Saints till he asked me that question in his letter. In order to answer his letter I began to inquire who these Latter Day Saints were and where they were. I could find out but very little about them. But all I found out I wrote to him. But the next year there was a Mormon Elder came to my Mother-in-law's place, about seven miles from my place, and gave out notice he would hold a meeting there. I was at that time very curious to find out whether there was a God or not and if there was any way to worship him, for all I had heard in that line was a mass confusion to me. So when I heard the Mormon Elder was going to preach the next day [Sunday], I said I would go and hear him.

“My wife's youngest brother was at my home that night and was going home the next morning so I made up my mind to go with him and as soon as breakfast was over I went to fix to go. My wife was in the act of putting a necktie on me. Her brother stood close by my eldest and only son [at that time he was 20 months old] who was sitting in his little chair with a piece of pasteboard in his hand. We were not talking about the Mormons, nor about what they preached for we did not know anything about them; yet he held the pasteboard in his hand and moving his head as if he was following a line of reading, he repeated these words, “The Mormons preach Jesus' Gospel.” He repeated these words some three or four times as plain as I or anyone else could say them. When we heard him we were struck with astonishment for we knew he had never heard these words by anyone. When he noticed us looking at him, he laughed and threw the pasteboard away.

“We went to the meeting and heard the Elder preach, and I knew then and there that he preached the truth and I commenced to investigate, and very soon I was convinced that there was a God and that I had found what I had been looking for and praying for, for I had truly been praying for about two years, and no one knows the joy that filled my bosom only these that have experienced the same feeling that the finding of the Gospel brings to them.” 

Thomas Forsyth remained faithful to that gospel message for the rest of his life. ♠

[Source: "Autobiography of Thomas Forsyth" at familysearch.org.] 

Grave of Thomas Forsyth in Toquerville, Utah. He died in 1898.