“Lehi’s Dream And The Garden Of Eden”

The Tree of Life in the BofM — Lehi’s and Nephi’s vision of the Tree of Life, as depicted at the annual Hill Cumorah Pageant near Palmyra, New York
(Wikimedia Commons)

It being Friday, another article has appeared in the ever-faltering and surely, by now, nearly dead Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/lehis-dream-and-the-garden-of-eden/

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And another podcast is now available via the Interpreter Foundation’s nearly-defunct website:

“Walking with Dinosaurs”

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“A man and his wife, each in a different small plane, were out enjoying a flight, when the husband committed a flight error. He was able to recover, but his wife who was following him, crashed and was killed. The husband was distraught, blaming himself for the accident. One day when pleading with the Lord for forgiveness, he heard a voice saying “Jesus died, even for dumb mistakes.””

Truman G. Madsen

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My mother always told me that, when she was growing up in St. George — I have to say, in fairness, that she left for California when she was a teenager, as soon as she was able (but also that it was for private reasons; she never hated St. George, and I’ve always liked it) — she was told that Brigham Young had prophesied that the day would come when the St. George Temple, which was then out in the middle of nowhere, removed from the town, would be in the center of a significant city.

That wasn’t so, I believe, when I began traveling to and through St. George from California as a young boy. But it’s certainly so now.

Not my mother's St. George — The St. George Utah Temple glows at nightfall in the center of St. George proper. The major suburban areas of Washington and Bloomington are not shown in this photo from the Utah Chamber of Commerce.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain)

In 1960, probably very near the earliest time that I can vaguely remember being here, the entire population of Washington County — of which St. George is the county seat — was 10,261 (according to the United States Census Bureau). By the end of 2016, it’s estimated that Washington County’s population — very much centered in and around greater St. George — was 160,245.

That’s remarkable growth. And it has transformed St. George. The city proper now has very near to 75,000 residents, without taking into account those who live in its major suburbs, directly adjacent but virtually non-existent just a few decades back (within my clear memory).

And the St. George Utah Temple, the oldest continuously functioning temple in the Church — given the fact that the original Nauvoo Illinois Temple was destroyed by arsonists and mobs back in the late 1840s, after most of the Latter-day Saints had been driven from the state — is now very much in the center of a city.

I’ve never seen Brigham Young’s alleged prophecy in writing. (I must add that I also haven’t looked.) Does anyone, off hand, know where or whether it can be found?

Posted from St. George, Utah

“Lehi’s Dream and the Garden of Eden”