An Angel of the Lord Appears to Mary Lightner After Her Prayer Between the Haystacks (1842)

In Nauvoo, facing a decision she dared discuss with no one but Brigham Young, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner was told by Joseph Smith that an angel had said she should have a witness if she prayed earnestly. She made the matter a subject of secret prayer, then went out alone and hid herself between three haystacks where no one could see her. Remembering how Moses prayed with his hands raised, she lifted her hands and prayed as earnestly as any mortal ever prayed. A few nights later an angel of the Lord came to her in the night: "if ever a thrill went through a mortal, it went through me. I gazed upon the clothes and figure but the eyes were like lightning. They pierced me from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet." The angel leaned over her, and the room filled with light though it was night. Her aunt, sleeping nearby, woke and independently saw a figure in white robes pass from their bed to her mother's bed and out through the window. Joseph afterward confirmed to Mary that it was an angel of the living God, told her that if she had only said "Father, help me" her mouth would have been opened, and gave her three signs of what would take place in her family while her husband was away. "Every word came true," she testified. He also promised that if she remained faithful she would see greater things than the angel — a promise fulfilled decades later when the vision of Joseph, Hyrum, and Heber C. Kimball appeared to her.

In a personal letter to Emmeline B. Wells, Mary clarified the timing and her personal requirement for validation: "It was in the early part of Feb. 1842 that he was compelled to reveal it to me personally, by the Angel threatening him. I said I would not accept it until I had seen an immortal being myself."