Wilford Woodruff’s Vision of the Last Days and the Resurrection (1835)

“I became wrapped in vision. I was like Paul; I did not know whether I was in the body or out of the body. A personage appeared to me and showed me the great scenes that should take place in the last days. One scene after another passed before me. I saw the sun darkened; I saw the moon become as blood; I saw the stars fall from heaven; I saw seven golden lamps set in the heavens, representing the various dispensations of God to man—a sign that would appear before the coming of Christ. I saw the resurrection of the dead. In the first resurrection those that came forth from their graves seemed to be all dressed alike, but in the second resurrection they were as diverse in their dress as this congregation is before me today, and if I had been an artist I could have painted the whole scene as it was impressed upon my mind, more indelibly fixed than anything I had ever seen with the natural eye.”

— Wilford Woodruff, recounting the vision he received in 1835 while serving a mission in Tennessee, after a letter from Joseph and Hyrum Smith asked him to remain rather than return to Kirtland for the temple endowment, in an address at General Conference, Salt Lake City, October 8, 1881 (Journal of Discourses, 22:43; also Discourse 1881-10-08 [D-168], Wilford Woodruff Papers)