Spiritual Conversion

Unnamed Salt Lake City family's conversion through long-lost tracts

Published October 24, 2026 at 6:11 AM

Contributed by

Millennial Star Research

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A man and his wife, initially unimpressed by two missionaries at an open-air meeting in England, later experienced a spiritual change and desired something more than their current church could provide. Remembering the tracts they had received three years prior, they searched for them and found them in an old discarded tea-pot. Upon reading them, they were convinced of the truth of the Gospel, sought out the Church, and eventually joined with their entire family.

In Their Own Words

“One Sunday evening, as my wife and I were returning from church, we saw a crowd of people assembled at a street corner. We went over to see what was going on, and found that an open-air meeting was being held, and that the preachers were two young missionaries from Utah. We remained till the close of the service, but were not at all impressed with what we had heard. We felt perfectly satisfied with the teachings of the church of which we were at that time members. Our hour had not yet come. When the benediction had been pronounced, the missionaries began to distribute tracts among the people. I received two, which I handed to my wife, saying: 'You can have them.' She folded them up and put them in her handbag. 'About three years later a change came over my wife and I. We became dissatisfied with the faith of our fathers; the church services no longer satisfied us, and we felt the necessity of seeking for something better, something with less form and more life. While sitting thinking the matter over one evening, I was reminded of the two Gospel tracts that were given to me at the 'Mormon' open-air service. I asked my wife what had become of them. She answered that she did not know, but felt confident they had not been destroyed. I requested her to search for them, which she did, and found them in an old discarded tea-pot. We read them, and found in them just what we were seeking for—glorious principles of truth. We felt as if we were tasting samples of fruit from the tree of life. We made enquiries and found out where the saints were holding their Sunday services. We attended the meetings, investigated the doctrines of the Church, became convinced of the truth of 'Mormonism': that it is the Gospel of Christ restored to earth, and in the course of time the whole family joined the Church. — Millennial Star 84:36”

Sources & References

The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star (Manchester, later Liverpool, England, May 1840–1970), Vol. 84, No. 36 (1922). https://archive.org/details/millennialstar8436eng (account extracted verbatim from the issue's Internet Archive OCR text; research confidence: high)

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