Heavens Resound

Within a few months after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in Fayette, New York, in April 1830, missionaries were sent out to preach the message of the Restoration. Four of those missionaries traveled to the Western Reserve region of northern Ohio, where they made many converts. Over the next few years other members of the Church and new converts swelled the ranks of the Saints in Ohio, where they lived under the guidance of a modern-day prophet, Jospeh Smith. The Heavens Resound: A History of the Latter-day Saints in Ohio, 1830-1838, is the story of developments in the Church during those formative years. It is the story of a people who responded to the call of their prophet and who sold their homes and farms to be near him. It is the story of a people who, through great sacrifice, built a magnificent temple to the Lord. It is the story of a people who went willingly to the aid of their harassed and persecuted brothers and sisters in Missouri, the Church's other gathering place in the 1830s. While the Church was headquartered in Kirtland, Ohio, the heavens were opened. More than half the revelations now found in the Doctrine and Covenants were recorded, and principles were revealed that established patterns of daily conduct as well as Church government. And during the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, many of the Saints witnessed the presence of heavenly messengers. Author Milton V. Backman, Jr., has drawn upon hundreds of contemporary diaries, newspaper accounts, census and tax records, and other contemporary sources as well as considerable original research to produce, in a highly readable style, the story of this remarkable and important period of Latter-day Saint history.