Angelic Visitation to a Young Boy

Eleven-year-old George Monk of Payson, Utah County, attended the Salt Lake Temple dedication with his mother and grandmother. During the services he saw angels — eight personages in all — in the great assembly hall, and his account was recorded by John Nicholson, editor of The Contributor, in December 1894.

Nicholson related: "Another remarkable manifestation was related to me by a lad named George Monk of Payson, Utah County. He was at the time eleven years old." The boy said he saw a man appear at the south-east circular window of the assembly hall of the Temple, looking into the interior. He drew his mother's attention to the visitor, but she could not see him. Then he asked her to look at two others "flying or floating across the upper part of the hall from south to north," and stated that five others had entered the large compartment "and were ranged upon the wide ledge which runs along the wall under the row of circular windows." The lad was astonished to learn that his mother was unable to see any of those glorious personages, whom he described as the "prettiest men" he ever saw in his life.

At the conclusion of the services, as Elder John Henry Smith arose to pronounce the benediction, the boy said in ecstasy: "Mamma, look at that one under the clock, he is the prettiest of them all. See! he is holding up both his hands like this," at the same time holding up his own hands. He gave details of their clothing: they were dressed in loose, flowing white robes, and "most, if not all, had long and somewhat wavy hair." He was particularly struck with the great beauty of the one who stood over the canopy of the Melchizedek stand during the benediction, at the close of which that personage suddenly vanished from view.

The boy, who had the reputation of being "a well-behaved and religiously inclined lad," told his story by request to several persons, "it being each time similar in every detail," and on a subsequent visit to the Temple pointed out the positions and movements of the eight personages as he had seen them. Sister Monk corroborated her son's statements as far as she could, given that she was unable to see the angels herself.

His testimony stands beside Hans Jensen Hals's journal record of angels entering by the south-east window during the dedication, and President Wilford Woodruff's testimony that the heavenly host attended the services.