Zeke Johnson Witnesses the Miraculous Resurrection of an Ancient Child (1908)

“I have been requested to relate an experience I had in 1908-9 in San Juan Co. I was just making a home in Blanding, Utah. I was clearing land and preparing to plant a few acres of corn. We had five acres cleared and started to plant the corn. My little boy, Roy, was with me. He was about 7 or 8 years old. He was dropping the corn in the furrow as I plowed. I was plowing the ground where there had been ancient dwellings. As I was plowing, my plow turned out the skeleton of a small child. The skull and backbone were visible, with most other bones decayed. I stopped immediately and noticed the skeleton lying in the furrow. Then, as I gazed upon the bones, all of a sudden, to my surprise, I saw the bones begin to wiggle and they began to change position and to take different color and within a minute there lay a beautiful little skeleton. It was a perfect little skeleton. I saw the inner parts of the natural body coming in the entrails, etc. I saw the flesh coming on, and I saw the skin come on the body when the inner parts of the body were complete. A beautiful head of hair adorned the top of the head, and in about a half second after the hair was on the head, it had a beautiful crystal decoration in the hair. It was combed beautifully and parted on one side. About half a minute after the hair was complete, the child stood up and was clothed in a beautiful robe. The child, a girl about 5 to 7 years old, looked at me and smiled for about a quarter minute. When I reached out to embrace her, saying 'Oh you beautiful child,' she disappeared. I couldn’t feature a human being in such a condition as to accidentally plow that little body out and see it come alive. I just couldn’t tell that story to anyone until finally, one day I met a dear friend of mine, Stake Patriarch, Wayne H. Redd of Blanding. He stopped me on the street, and said, 'Zeke, you have had an experience on this mesa you won’t tell, and I want you to tell me.' Well, I told it to him. Why was I, just a common man, allowed to see such a miraculous manifestation of God's power? I have been told that the child had been buried in a shallow grave. The grieving mother had cried out that the first beast would scatter her daughter's bones. A man holding the Priesthood present at that burial had promised the mother: 'Whenever that little body is disturbed or uncovered, the Lord will call her up and she will live.' Since that time I have taken great comfort, great cheer, consolation, and satisfaction with praise in my heart and soul, until I haven't the words to express it, that it was I that uncovered that little body. Thank you for listening to me. I just can’t tell this without crying.”

— Ezekiel Johnson, as recorded in the Johnson Bulletin (September 1973)