Ezra T. Benson and the Unexplained Prompting Westward That Led Him to the Gospel (1837-1840)

Ezra Taft Benson (1811-1869) was born in Mendon, Massachusetts. As a young man he was impressed by an unexplained feeling that he should move westward, though he had every reason to remain where his family and his wife Pamela Andrus's family lived, and though he had been successful as a farmer, postmaster, hotel keeper, and cotton miller. In 1837 he went as far west as Pennsylvania, but still felt prompted to go farther; he moved to St. Louis and later to Quincy, Illinois. There, among the beleaguered Saints recently expelled from Missouri, he was touched first with sympathy, then with respect, and finally with a conviction of the truth of their gospel. He and Pamela were baptized on July 19, 1840. A few months later Hyrum Smith appointed him second counselor in the Quincy Stake presidency. He later moved to Nauvoo, worked on the temple by day and guarded it by night, and accepted the first of a half-dozen mission calls to the eastern states. His prompting westward is a faith-promoting witness that the Lord, by the still, small promptings of the Spirit, leads His children to the very place and people where He can reveal Himself to them.