Precious Memories: Sixteenth Book of the Faith Promoting Series. Designed for the Instruction and Encouragement of Young Latter-day Saints

In Short

This volume collects true, first-person accounts of early Latter-day Saint converts and missionaries, focusing primarily on the arduous life of Thomas Briggs alongside additional missionary narratives by George L. Farrell and others. The text traces the converts' initial spiritual awakenings in nineteenth-century Great Britain, their grueling transatlantic ocean voyages, their pioneer struggles in the American Midwest and Utah, and their ongoing religious duties. Enduring as an authentic record of early Mormon frontier life, the book offers an unvarnished look at the quiet sacrifices, physical hardships, and deep personal faith that defined a generation of pioneer believers.

The Story

The book opens with an introductory call to young Latter-day Saints, framing personal history as a vital tool for teaching practical faith through real-life experience. The main narrative focuses on Thomas Briggs, beginning with his early years in England. Amid local disease outbreaks like the Hull cholera epidemic, the Briggs family embraces the faith after witnessing miraculous healings. Warned prophetically to gather with the Saints in Zion before misfortune strikes, the family delays their departure, facing immediate setback when their transatlantic ship collides with another vessel off the Welsh coast. Thomas steps up to work his passage as a sailor, eventually guiding his family up the Mississippi River to St. Louis.

In America, financial ruin, illness, and the tragic death of his mother test Thomas's resolve. Seeking stability, he moves his extended family to Wisconsin, where he endures years of backbreaking manual labor, clearing timber and battling extreme poverty while sustaining an ever-growing household. Physical suffering peaks when a severe knee injury leaves him crippled and near death, yet a spiritual vision restores his hope. Divine intervention continues to mark his path, including the miraculous preservation of his family's sole wheat crop from a destructive infestation of chinch bugs.

Driven by his desire to join the main body of the Church, Thomas leads his family across Iowa along the old Mormon pioneer trails, repairing washed-out bridges and building makeshift timber crossings over swollen streams. Upon arriving in Salt Lake City and settling in Bountiful, the family encounters generous neighbors who share scarce provisions during harsh winters. Over the following decades, Thomas establishes a permanent home, works in sawmills, and survives personal tragedies, including the death of his first wife and severe injuries to his children. Remarrying and raising a large family, he answers calls to serve a mission in the Midwest despite failing health, undertakes a genealogy expedition back to England, and endures multiple leg amputations in his later years.

The latter portion of the book transitions to complementary missionary narratives, most notably that of George L. Farrell in Victorian England. Farrell travels through the Birmingham and Nottingham conferences, preaching in barns and open-air meetings while facing anti-Mormon hostility and local skepticism. His accounts document miraculous healings of bedridden invalids, midnight cover-of-darkness baptisms in rural ponds to avoid hostile mobs, and the unexpected conversion of former critics. The volume closes with additional conversion vignettes, illustrating how individual spiritual promptings, fulfilled prophecies, and tragic warnings reshaped ordinary families across Scotland, England, and the Utah territory.

How It Unfolds

A delayed departure The Briggs family ignores prophetic counsel to leave England immediately, facing delay when their ocean vessel collides with another ship and forces a three-week repair in Wales.

Pioneering in the wilderness After reaching St. Louis and losing his mother to cholera, Thomas moves his extended family to Wisconsin, surviving harsh winters on bran, shorts, and wild game while clearing timber.

Deliverance in the fields Facing total financial ruin when chinch bugs invade his single field of wheat, Thomas follows a spiritual prompting to cradle a path through the grain, miraculously saving the entire crop.

Crossing the plains Thomas builds crude timber bridges over deep streams to guide his family across Iowa, eventually reaching Utah to set up a rudimentary home in Bountiful using packing boxes for tables.

Preaching in foreign lands Years later, Elder George L. Farrell travels through the English countryside, administering to a dying girl who miraculously recovers and defying local threats to perform late-night baptisms.

Enduring to the end Despite losing a leg and facing severe physical illness in his seventies, Thomas completes a genealogical mission to England and continues ministering to his community until his final days.

The People

• Thomas Briggs: The central figure of the primary narrative. He seeks to protect his large family, gather with the Saints in Utah, and fulfill his religious duties despite constant poverty and severe, lifelong physical ailments. He evolves from an inexperienced young laborer into a resilient community patriarch and devoted Temple worker.
• Thomas's First Wife: A pillar of quiet endurance who manages a household under extreme privation in Wisconsin and on the plains without complaint, facing early death after years of pioneer hardship.
• George L. Farrell: A energetic Patriarch and missionary presiding over English conferences. He seeks to convert seekers and heal the sick, navigating hostile mobs, local gossip, and skeptical family members to establish lasting branches of the Church.
• Mr. Clark: A skeptical English homeowner initially hostile to Mormon elders. He softens through Elder Farrell's gentle persistence, ultimately allowing his daughters to be baptized and aiding in their secret, safe passage to the baptismal pond.

In Its Own Voice

"Narratives of personal experience, especially when they relate to people familiar to the reader or the community in which he lives possess a peculiar charm to most people..." This opening note sets the book's purpose: using true personal histories rather than abstract lectures to inspire faith.

"The limb continued to swell four or five weeks until it was larger in circumference than his body, and the pain almost drove him to distraction." The narrative frankly records the agonizing physical ailments that Thomas endured without modern medical aid on the frontier.

"I have a daughter in that room who has been ill and bedfast for more than two years. We have had five doctors attending her, who have all given her up." A desperate mother describes her dying child just before missionary George L. Farrell intervenes with a promise of healing.

What It's Really About

At its heart, the book explores the tension between human frailty and supernatural conviction. It argues that spiritual faith is not an abstract theology, but a practical, daily endurance test forged in physical suffering, poverty, and isolation. The text constantly poses a question to its young readers: what makes an ordinary person abandon home, risk death on the high seas, and drag a wagon across an unforgiving continent? Through its raw focus on disease, crop failure, amputations, and local persecution, the narrative demonstrates that divine providence operates not by eliminating life's brutal obstacles, but by granting early converts the miraculous resilience required to survive them.

Why Read It Today

This book will appeal to social historians, genealogy enthusiasts, and readers fascinated by authentic 19th-century frontier history. Reading it feels like sitting beside a grandfather reading straight from a faded leather journal; the tone is plain, unvarnished, and entirely devoid of literary pretense. What stays with you long after reading is the sheer physical toll of the pioneer journey—the unglamorous, everyday struggles of building tables out of packing crates, surviving on boiled bran, and repairing rotting wooden bridges under a driving rain.

Modern readers should be prepared for the plain, unembellished prose style typical of late-Victorian instructional literature, as well as period-specific religious terminology and a strictly providential worldview that attributes every fortunate turn of events to divine intervention and every tragedy to a lack of faith or disobedience. For those willing to look past its instructional framework, the text delivers a fascinating, human-scale window into the grit, sacrifice, and absolute conviction of the early Latter-day Saint migration.