Orson Pratt's Fervent Midnight Prayers in the Lonely Fields Lead to His Conversion

Orson Pratt (1811-1881), who would become one of the Church's foremost theological minds as an Apostle, wrote in his autobiography that he never commenced in real earnest to seek after the Lord until the autumn of 1829. In the silent shades of night, while others slumbered, the nineteen-year-old often retired to some secret place in the lonely fields or solitary wilderness and prayed for hours with a broken heart and contrite spirit, longing for the Lord to manifest His will concerning him. He continued in this fervent manner until September 1830, when two elders of the Church came into the neighborhood — one of them his brother Parley P. Pratt. Attending their meetings, Orson became convinced of the divine authenticity of the doctrine they taught and was baptized on September 19, 1830, his nineteenth birthday. He was the only person in the country who received and obeyed the message. That October he traveled over two hundred miles westward to see the Prophet Joseph Smith at Fayette, New York, and on November 4, 1830, the Prophet inquired of the Lord on his behalf and received the revelation now published as Doctrine and Covenants section 34, in which the Lord declared: "blessed are you because you have believed; and more blessed are you because you are called of me to preach my gospel." The earnest seeking of those lonely midnight prayers launched a ministry that made Orson Pratt one of the greatest expositors of doctrine in the Restoration.