Thursday, August 7, 2008

Meeting with Kierstin

Today we met with Kierstin at the City Creek Park. She came up with the Huntington Beach Stake Young Men and Young Women. There were three busloads of them. They have been visiting Salt Lake City for the past few days. This morning they had a tour of the Conference Center.

At about 11:40 am they arrived at the City Creek Park for lunch and we joined them there. We met with her stake president and her bishop first. Kierstin showed up in the third or fourth group of young people to come into the park.

We gave Kierstin a Salt Lake Temple book marker and an autobiographical sketch of Kierstin's 5th great grandmother, Talitha Cumi Garlick. I explained to Kierstin that the name Talitha Cumi comes from the New Testament in Mark where Jesus raises a woman from the dead. Jesus said, "Talitha cumi" which means, "Woman, come forth".

Talitha Cumi Garlick lived at the time of Joseph Smith. When she was living with her family in Pennsylvania, her mother, Elizabeth Garlick, had a dream where she saw two missionaries come up the path to their house.

The next day, two missionaries came up the path to their door. They were the same two missionaries Elizabeth saw in her dream. One of the missionaries was John Fleming Wakefield. After his mission, he went back to Pennsylvania and married Talitha Cumi's sister, Susannah Garlick. John Fleming Wakefield died before the Saints left for the Salt Lake valley. Susannah and her 7 children crossed the plains to Springville, Utah. In Springville, she married Rees William Davis (Kierstin's 4th Great Grandfather).

Talitha Cumi said she would not be baptized until she heard the prophet Joseph Smith preach. She was true to her word. They moved to Nauvoo where she heard Joseph Smith preach the gosepl and then Joseph Smith baptized her.

After the death of Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon called a meeting of the Saints. In that meeting he said he should be the guardian (leader) of the Church. Brigham Young showed up at that meeting and said that Joseph had given the keys to Brigham. Talitha said that at that time, Brigham Young looked and sounded just like Joseph Smith.

Talitha married William Howard Avery and they had one child together. Before they could move to the Salt lake Valley, William died. Talitha (age 29) and her son William (age 7), crossed the plains with a handcart company to Springville, Utah. In Springville, Talitha married Elam Cheney.

Kierstin was pleased with the gifts. After lunch, the youth were going to Raging Waters in Salt Lake City.

On Thursday, they are going to do baptisms for the dead in the Salt Lake Temple and several other things. They will be leaving for Huntington Beach Thursday night.

We were so very happy to have this meeting with Kierstin.

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