Joseph Toronto's Prophetic Dream — Donates $2,600 in Gold to Save the Nauvoo Temple

Joseph Toronto's story is one of the most dramatic accounts of prophetic dreams and miraculous financial provision in Church history.

Born Giuseppe Efisio Taranto in Sardinia (raised in Palermo, Sicily), he worked as a sailor and merchant seaman. In 1843, while sailing to the United States, he had a dream in which he was instructed to take his money — saved carefully over years of seafaring — to 'Mormon Brigham.' He arrived in Boston, where he heard the gospel preached by missionary George B. Wallace and was converted and baptized, adopting the anglicized name Joseph Toronto.

Though counseled to gather with the Saints in Nauvoo, he remained in Boston as a shipping merchant. Then his boat collided with another vessel and capsized — he nearly drowned. This brush with death convinced him to finally follow the elders' counsel. He moved to Nauvoo, arriving July 7, 1845.

At that very moment, Brigham Young was in crisis. The Nauvoo Temple was nearly complete, but funds had run out. Workers were going without food. Brigham Young had just instructed the Temple Committee to distribute all remaining flour in faith, declaring: 'God would give them more.'

That same day, a complete stranger walked in. Toronto went directly to Brigham Young carrying several metal cans filled with gold coins. He rolled them across the table to President Young. When opened, they contained over $2,600 in twenty-dollar gold pieces — his entire life savings. He told President Young he wanted to give himself and all he had for the upbuilding of the Church.

Brigham Young blessed him, promising 'that he should stand at the head of his race, and that he and his family would never want for bread.'

The following day, Young scattered the gold across the floor at the feet of the bishop, declaring: 'Go and buy flour for the workmen on that temple and don't distrust the Lord any more — we will have what we need.'

The money kept construction moving forward. The temple was completed in 1846, allowing thousands of Saints to receive their endowments before the forced exodus. Toronto's dream-directed donation, arriving on the very day Brigham Young had emptied the store in faith, is one of the most precisely timed financial miracles in Restoration history.

Toronto later served as one of the first missionaries to Italy — becoming a messenger of salvation to his native land, just as Brigham Young had promised.

Recording note: No verbatim first-person text of Toronto's dreams survives in a public archival source. The account of his 1843 dream — in which he was instructed to take his savings to "Mormon Brigham" — is preserved in Church history publications, including the Church's global history of Italy and Matthew S. McBride's study of the Nauvoo Temple story. The historic fact of the donation was recorded at the time in Heber C. Kimball's journal (July 7, 1845) and in William Clayton's contemporary temple history. Toronto (1820–1883), born Giuseppe Efisio Taranto near Cagliari, Sardinia, and raised in Palermo, Sicily, was the first known Italian convert to the restored Church; after giving his life savings he remained in Nauvoo, later crossed the plains as one of the first pioneers to enter the Salt Lake Valley, and served for years as a faithful associate of Brigham Young.