Chapter 5: Personal Background

As a little personal background, I was born of good, strong, aggressive and honorable people. My Erickson name comes from Eric the Red, down through Leif Erickson. My great grandfather, while living in Iceland, heard that L.D.S. missionaries were coming to Iceland. He let it be known, being of a different true faith, he wanted to be one of the first to meet them. He was going to set them straight. He and his family were baptized into the L.D.S. church and came to America, settling in Springville, Utah. He served two L.D.S. missions for the church to Iceland. His son, my grandfather, accompanied him on his second mission, as he was quite elderly.

My father's mother's side goes back through the Cox's, DeMill's, and Winget's. Grandmother Winget listened to young Joseph Smith relates his story in her home several times as a child. According to her record she had heard him preach the Sunday after the Mob had tarred, feathered and beaten him and Sidney Rigdon so badly. Young Joseph ended up with the gold record and with help translated it pretty much as it stands today. Joseph used one of my relative's wagons to transport the gold record.

Fredrick Walter Cox and his sons made thirteen trips back and forth taking people to the Salt Lake Valley from Nauvoo, Illinois. He set a corner stone for the Manti Temple in Manti, Utah, one of the first temples built in the West. The spot is said to have previously been dedicated as a temple site by one of the historians of the gold record. His signature, along with other writings, is said to be on the rocks behind the temple.

My mother's family crossed the plains to the Salt Lake Valley in a handcart party.

So you can see, without much choice on my part, I was destined to be a member of the L.D.S. Church.

My understanding is that young Joseph was shown where the gold record was by an angel. Through my earlier years, it was somewhat hard to completely accept someone actually seeing and speaking with an angel. So I just allowed myself to ride on the faith of others.

I was in my late twenties when I finally decided I owed it to my mother, my grandfather and my ancestors to actually read the record that had so much to do with their lives. I began to read it daily and pray about it, as the record suggests. I felt I needed to do this out of respect for what they had all gone through to bring me to where I was at the time. It took me a year, reading a little every night before going to sleep, to finally finish the record. It still brings tears to my eyes as I read the final happenings at the close of the record.

As time went on and I continued to reread the record and to pray about it, truths become evident to me that I could not deny, I had no alternative but to believe young Joseph must have actually conversed with angels or people who had lived before.

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