Ann Elizabeth Walmesley Healed of Consumption at Her Baptism (1837)

In 1837, amidst severe financial problems, dissension among the members, apostasy, persecution, and other struggles, Joseph Smith was told by the Lord to send missionaries to Great Britain. It seemed like the most improbable of possibilities. Even though they could barely provide for their own, a few missionaries were called to take a “journey of faith.”

On June 4, 1837 the Prophet approached Heber C. Kimball in the Kirtland Temple, saying, “The Spirit of the Lord has whispered to me, ‘Let my servant Heber go to England and proclaim my gospel and open the door of salvation to that nation.’” The news astounded him. He had long thought of preaching in England, but now, with Kirtland in crisis?

Heber had expected to be part of such a mission, but he considered himself an unlikely candidate to be the leader of the group. With his lack of formal education and limited experience as a leader, the idea of leading a mission to sophisticated England “was almost more than I could bear up under.” This unlikely mission proved to be inspired. In just 9 months, a small band of missionaries led by Heber C. Kimball baptized over 2,000 people, many of which would cross the ocean and head to Zion and ultimately to Salt Lake City. In this period many miracles occurred.

One of the first miracles was in the life of a woman who was among the first to be baptized in Great Britain, Ann Elizabeth Hodgkinson Walmesley.

Elder Heber C. Kimball writes: “I had visited Thomas Walmesley, whose wife was sick of the consumption [tuberculosis], and had been so for several years. She was reduced to skin and bone, a mere skeleton, and was given up by the doctors to die. I preached the gospel to her, and promised her in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that if she would believe, repent and be baptized, she should be healed of her sickness. She was carried to the water, and after her baptism began to mend, and at her confirmation she was blessed and her disease rebuked, when she immediately recovered, and in less than one week after, she was attending to her household duties.”

The Walmesley family eventually moved to the United States and Elizabeth, who died in Idaho, lived to be 81 years old.

At the time of her conversion, Ann Elizabeth Hodgkinson Walmesley and her husband Thomas Sr were both 30 years old and they had four children: John, Francis, William, and Thomas Jr. One year after Elizabeth’s baptism, Marinda was born, but Marinda only lived for one year. That same year (1839), four-year-old Thomas Jr also died. In December of 1839, Nancy Marinda was born. Nancy Marinda lived until 1922 and died in Idaho.

When the Walmesleys immigrated to the United States, eventually moving to Nauvoo, they had five living children including Heber Chase Kimball Walmesley who was born in 1841. At age 35, Thomas, the father of the family, died in Nauvoo in 1842, leaving Elizabeth a widow with five children. But while in Nauvoo, Elizabeth married Isaac Palmer. They had three children together in this order: Journal Palmer, Isaac Hodgkinson Palmer, and Rhoda Ann Palmer. Rhoda Ann who was born in Salt Lake City in 1850 only lived four years. This new Palmer family crossed the plains with the Allen Taylor company in 1849.

This is one of many miracles, dreams, and visions which accompanied the miraculous missions of the First Missionaries to England.

Source article: “Healed at Baptism (The Miraculous Healing of Ann Elizabeth Walmesley),” November 2, 2011, citing Orson F. Whitney, The Life of Heber C. Kimball, and R. Allen Hackworth, Heber C. Kimball’s England.