Wilford Woodruff's 1844 Boston Vision of the Rocky Mountains and the Temple

While serving a mission in Boston in the early 1840s, following the martyrdom of Joseph Smith in 1844, Wilford Woodruff received a vision in which the Lord showed him that the Saints would move to the Rocky Mountains and build a temple there, and that he (Woodruff) would be called upon to open it to the people and dedicate it to the Lord. During the 1893 Salt Lake Temple dedication services, Woodruff "related his vision he had in Boston some 50 years ago" before the assembled Saints. He declared, "I anticipated the dedication of that Temple for fifty years, for I attended the dedication of that Temple fifty years ago in a vision, and when I got through that work, I felt that I had arrived at the end of my work in the flesh." The vision was fulfilled a half-century later when Woodruff, preserved to age 86, dedicated the Salt Lake Temple on 6 April 1893.