Anson Call Sees Joseph Smith Transfigured as He Prophesies the Saints' Exodus to the Rocky Mountains (August 6, 1842)

On August 6, 1842, Joseph Smith crossed the Mississippi River to Montrose, Iowa, to attend the installation of the Rising Sun Masonic Lodge. While the lodge officers were being instructed, the Prophet conversed with a number of the brethren in the shade of the block schoolhouse, speaking of the Missouri persecutions. His own history records the prophecy he then uttered: 'I prophesied that the Saints would continue to suffer much affliction and would be driven to the Rocky Mountains, many would apostatize, others would be put to death by our persecutors or lose their lives in consequence of exposure to disease, and some of you will live to go and assist in making settlements and build cities and see the Saints become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains' (Joseph Smith Papers, History, 1838-1856, vol. D-1, p. 1362).

Anson Call, who was present, recorded the fuller scene in his autobiography: a barrel of ice water had been set under the shade, and with the tumbler still in his hand the Prophet prophesied that the Saints would yet go to the Rocky Mountains, remarking, 'This water tastes much like that of the crystal streams that are running from the snow capped mountains.' Call, who had before seen Joseph in a vision, saw the Prophet's countenance change to a living, brilliant white — not the deadly white of a bloodless face — as he became absorbed in gazing at something at a great distance: 'I am gazing upon the valleys of those mountains.' He followed with a vivid description of the mountain scenery; then, pointing to Shadrach Roundy and others, he said, 'There are some men here who shall do a great work in that land,' and, pointing to Call, 'There is Anson, he shall go and shall assist in building cities from one end of that country to the other, and you shall perform as great a work as has been done by man, so that the nations of the earth shall be astonished and many of them will be gathered in that land and assist in building cities and temples, and Israel shall be made to rejoice.' Gazing in other directions as if the scenes were changing, he lamented 'the scenes that this people will pass through' and 'the dead that will lay between here and there,' and foretold 'the apostasy that will take place before my brethren reach that land' — yet promised that 'the Priesthood shall prevail over all its enemies, triumph over the devil, and be established upon the earth never more to be thrown down.'

The prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. Driven from Nauvoo in 1846, the Saints crossed the plains and entered the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847, there becoming a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains and building cities and temples — and Anson Call himself assisted in settling Fillmore and other communities across that land, exactly as the Prophet had pointed to him and foretold.