Anthon H. Lund's Miraculous Sustenance and Protection during Early Missionary Labors

During his missionary service in Denmark between age 16 and his emigration at 18, Anthon H. Lund traveled 'without purse or scrip' and was sustained by locals. He did not recall having to purchase half a dozen meals during his four and a half years of service. On one occasion, he was chased by a woman brandishing fire-tongs who called for her husband to shoot him; he escaped safely.

Years later, while Lund was living in Ephraim, Utah, a woman approached him and recounted that she had been a neighbor to the woman who chased him with the fire-tongs. She explained that she had observed the incident, which piqued her curiosity about the Mormons; she consequently attended the meeting, heard Lund speak, and became convinced of the truth of the gospel.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in Lawrence R. Flake, Prophets and Apostles of the Last Dispensation (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2001), 191–94.):

He traveled “without purse or scrip,” and, during the four years and a half he labored as a missionary, he does not remember having bought half a dozen meals. Friends were raised up to him on every hand, and men outside of the Church told him to let them know what he needed and they would furnish him the money, and they did so. . . On one occasion, when he was out inviting people to a meeting in the evening, he came into a house and informed a woman he met that there would be a meeting that evening, and invited her to attend. “What kind of a meeting?” she asked. “A ‘Mormon’ meeting,” he replied. There came a change over her face instantly, and she became a perfect fury. She grabbed her fire-tongs and screamed, “I will give you ‘Mormon’ meeting!” and flew at him. He thought discretion the better part of valor, and ran out of the house, but the woman followed, and in the highest key called on her husband to shoot the “Mormon.” Years later, when Brother Lund was living in Ephraim, a woman came to him and asked, “Do you remember a woman who ran after you with a pair of fire-tongs?” “Yes,” he answered, “but you are not that woman, for her face I have never forgotten.” “No,” she said, “I was her neighbor, and seeing her running after you, I asked her what you had done. She told me you had invited her to a ‘Mormon’ meeting. I became curious to learn something about the Mormons and went to the meeting. I heard you speak and was convinced of the truth.”