UTAH: Will a Zion be built in Utah? What role will Utah play in the last days destructions, gathering and preparation for the Second Coming?

Prophetic Statements

Joseph Smith

#1:

“There will be tens of thousands of Latter-days Saints who will be gathered in the Rocky Mountains, and there they will open the door for the establishing of the Gospel among the Lamanites, who will receive the Gospel and their endowments and the blessings of God. This people will go into the Rocky Mountains; they will there build temples to the Most High. They will raise up a posterity there, and the Latter-day Saints who dwell in these mountains will stand in the flesh until the coming of the Son of Man. The Son of Man will come to them while in the Rocky Mountains.”¹

#2:

Rachel Ridgeway Grant recorded:

“It tried a great many people when the Prophet gave out the word that there was to be no more gathering at Nauvoo, as the people thought that was the place. He first told them to gather there, but later told them the Rocky Mountains would be the gathering place. It was his thought that they would come to the Rocky Mountains.”²

#3:

Bathsheba W. Smith recounted:

“Joseph, the Prophet, said we would come to the Rocky Mountains, and he had a company of young men selected to hunt a location for a home for the Saints.”³

Brigham Young

#1:

I did not devise the great scheme of the Lord’s opening the way to send this people to these mountains. Joseph Smith contemplated the move for years before it took place, but he could not get here …⁴

#3:

I am thankful that we live to see this day, and have the privilege of assembling ourselves in these valleys. We are not now mingling in the turmoils of strife, warring, and contention, that we would have been obliged to have mingled in, had not the Lord suffered us to have been driven to these mountains—one of the greatest blessings that could have been visited upon us. It has been designed for many generations to hide up the Saints in the last days until the indignation of the Al-mighty be over. His wrath will be poured out upon the nations of the earth. We see the nations steadily driving along to the precipice. The Lord has spoken from the heavens, and he is about to fulfil the prophecies of his ancient and modern Prophets. He will bring the nations into judgment, and deal with them and make a full end of them. Do you wish to see it done to-day? Are you prepared for the crisis that will eventually come? No. . . .

We are blessed in these mountains. This is the best place on the earth for the Latter-day Saints. Search the history of all the nations, and every geographical position on the face of the earth, and you cannot find another situation so well adapted for the Saints as are these mountains. Here is the place in which the Lord designed to hide his people. Be thankful for it; be true to your covenants; be faithful, each and every one.⁵

#4:

We are here hid up in the chambers of the Lord; if these are not the chambers of the Lord I am sure I do not know where they are”. Showed that the people are sent there to accomplish a great and good work, in order that this people may, as the nations decline in power, wisdom and strength, and finally crumble to pieces, the Latter Day Saints may increase and grow stronger, learning to sustain themselves, and thus become an independent people.⁶

#5:

. . . my heart leaps with joy to think that the Lord has held in reserve a country and territory for his people to be hid up in the chambers of Mountains till his indignation be over passed, a country that no people will dare to dwell in except for the sake of the religion of Jesus Christ; none except the Latter Day Saints will venture to dwell here.⁷

#6:

Remarks have been made as to our staying here. I will tell you how long we shall stay here. If we live our religion, we shall stay here in these mountains forever and forever, worlds without end, and a portion of the Priesthood will go and redeem and build up the centre Stake of Zion. If we leave here, where shall we go to? Has any one discovered where we can again pitch our tents, when we leave this country? In the days of Joseph we have sat many hours at a time conversing about this very country. Joseph has often said, “If I were only in the Rocky Mountains with a hundred faithful men, I would then be happy, and ask no odds of mobocrats.” And neither do I. Who are going to pull up stakes and leave here? If we forsake our God and our religion, then woe to us; for then we shall be all apostates together, and under such circumstances we have no promise of God for our protection; but, if we live in the faith of the Son of God, we have the heavens, the power of God and of angels on our side. I can tell you, as truly as Elisha said to his servant, “fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them,” (our enemies.) For, “the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire around about Elisha.”⁸

#7:

An inland Empire will be established in these valleys of the mountains, which will be a place of refuge for millions of people to gather to, when the great day of the judgments of God comes upon the earth, and the righteous come here for safety. Our people will go East, West, North and South, but the day will come, when they will be glad to come back. We will be shut out from the rest of the world.⁹

#8:

President Young was in Provo and pointing to Springville, Utah said, “Some day one of the largest steel and iron plants in the United States will be constructed on the shore of Utah Lake, beginning between Provo and Springville, coal will be brought from the large coal deposits In the mountains and the iron will come from the immense iron deposits in Southern Utah. Railroad facilities will come and everything needed is in abundance in Utah.”¹⁰

John Taylor

#1:

We are gathered here for the express purpose of carrying out the purposes of God; the world, however, do not understand it. But I tell you what they will do, by-and-by. You will see them flocking to Zion by thousands and tens of thousands; and they will say, “We don’t know anything about your religion, we don’t care much about religious matters, but you are honest and honorable, and upright and just, and you have a good, just and secure government, and we want to put ourselves under your protection, for we cannot feel safe anywhere else.” There is a scripture which says, the time will come “when he that will not take up his sword to fight against his neighbor must needs flee to Zion for safety.” And they will come. But we must prepare ourselves;¹¹

Wilford Woodruff

#1:

Wilford Woodruff quotes Joseph Smith as saying:

“There will be tens of thousands of Latter-days Saints who will be gathered in the Rocky Mountains, and there they will open the door for the establishing of the Gospel among the Lamanites, who will receive the Gospel and their endowments and the blessings of God. This people will go into the Rocky Mountains; they will there build temples to the Most High. They will raise up a posterity there, and the Latter-day Saints who dwell in these mountains will stand in the flesh until the coming of the Son of Man. The Son of Man will come to them while in the Rocky Mountains.”

Wilford then adds:

“I believe many [Latter-day Saint children] will stand in the flesh when the Lord Jesus Christ visits the Zion of God here in the mountains of Israel.”¹²

#2:

These things are before us; we are here in these valleys of the mountains, as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, established by the hand of God—by revelation from heaven. This Church has been established by raising up prophets, unto whom have been given the keys of the kingdom of God—the keys of the holy Priesthood and Apostleship of the Son of God, with power to organize the Church and kingdom of God on the earth, with all its gifts, graces, ordinances, and orders, as proclaimed by all the Apostles and prophets who have lived since the world began. It is because of this that we are here today. In fulfillment of prophecy and revelation we have established a kingdom, as it were, a state, a nation, a people here in the deserts of North America.¹³

Lorenzo Snow

#1:

We have received revelation and, accordingly, we are here in these mountain valleys, and we are going to stay here. We shall cultivate our farms, and lay foundation for a time when the nations shall be broken up. Multitudes will then flee to these valleys of the mountains for safety, and we shall extend protection to them.¹⁴

George A. Smith

#1:

. . . it becomes the Saints to store up food for themselves, and for the hosts who will come here for sustenance and protection, for as the Lord lives they will flow here by thousands and millions, and seek bread and protection at the hands of this people.”¹⁵

Supporting Statements

Mosiah Hancock

The next day the Prophet [Joseph Smith] came to our home and stopped in our carpenter shop and stood by the turning lathe. I went and got my map for him. “Now”, he said, “I will show you the travels of this people”. He then showed our travels through Iowa, and said, “Here you will make a place for the winter; and here you will travel west until you come to the valley of the Great Salt Lake! You will build cities to the North and to the South, and to the East and to the West; and you will become a great and wealthy people in that land. But, the United States will not receive you with the laws which God desires you to live, and you will have to go to where the Nephites lost their power. They worked in the United Order for 166 years, and the Saints have got to become proficient in the laws of God before they can meet the Lord Jesus Christ, or even the city of Enoch“. He said we will not travel the shape of the horse shoe for there we will await the action of the government. Placing his finger on the map, I should think about where Snowflake, Arizona is situated, or it could have been Mexico, he said, “The government will not receive you with the laws that God designed you to live, and those who are desirous to live the laws of God will have to go South. You will live to see men arise in power in the Church who will seek to put down your friends and the friends of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Many will be hoisted because of their money and the worldly learning which they seem to be in possession of; and many who are the true followers of our Lord and Savior will be cast down because of their poverty. There will be two great political parties in this country. One will be called the Republican, and the other the Democrat party. These two parties will go to war and out of these two parties will spring another party which will be the Independent American Party. The United States will spend her strength and means warring in foreign lands until other nations will say, “Let’s divide up the lands of the United States”, then the people of the U. S. will unite and swear by the blood of their fore-fathers, that the land shall not be divided. Then the country will go to war, and they will fight until one half of the U. S. army will give up, and the rest will continue to struggle. They will keep on until they are very ragged and discouraged, and almost ready to give up–when the boys from the mountains will rush forth in time to save the American Army from defeat and ruin. And they will say, ‘Brethren, we are glad you have come; give us men, henceforth, who can talk with God’. Then you will have friends, but you will save the country when it’s liberty hangs by a hair, as it were.¹⁶

Moses Thatcher

#1:

. . . I will say when this nation, having sown to the wind, reaps the whirlwind; when brother takes up sword against brother; when father contends against son, and son against father; when he who will not take up his sword against his neighbor must needs flee to Zion for safety—then I would say to my friends come to Utah; for the judgments of God, commencing at the house of the Lord, will have passed away, and Utah, undisturbed, will be the most delightful place in all the Union. When war and desolation and bloodshed, and the ripping up of society come upon the nation, I have said to such, “Come to Utah and we will divide our morsel of food with you, we will divide our clothing with you, and we will offer you protection.” I will tell you, my brethren and sisters, the day will come, and it is not far distant, when he who will not take up his sword against his neighbor, will have to flee to Zion for safety; and it is presupposed in this prediction that Zion will have power to give them protection. . . They will maintain the Consti-tution of this country inviolate, and although it may have been torn to shreds they will tie it together again, and maintain every principle of it, holding it up to the downtrodden of every nation, kindred, tongue and people, and they will do it, too, under the Stars and Stripes. They will stand with their feet firmly upon the backbone of the American continent and maintain the principles which cost their fathers so much, and those principles cannot be taken away by men who violate their oath of office, and betray their trust. I tell you that there are boys growing up in these mountains who have the principles of human liberty grounded deep in their hearts, and they will maintain them, not only for themselves, but for others.“¹⁷

Orson Pratt

#1:

The Latter-day Saints that are now sitting before me, and those who inhabit this Territory, are here in fulfillment of prophecy. We inhabit these mountains because the ancient Prophets have predicted that such an event should take place, and we are fulfilling their predictions in this respect.¹⁸

1. Talk given by Wilford Woodruff on the third day. Conference Report, 6 April 1898. See Conference reports of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1898 April, p. 57, Church History Library).
2. Rachel Ridgeway Grant, “Joseph Smith, the Prophet,” Young Woman’s Journal 16 (December 12, 1905): 549-558.
3. Bathsheba W. Smith, “Joseph Smith, the Prophet,” Young Woman’s Journal 16 (December 12, 1905): 549.
4. Brigham Young, “Testimony to the Divinity of Joseph Smith’s Mission,” in Journal of Discourses, vol. 4 (Liverpool: F. D. and S. W. Richards, 1854), 41.
5. Brigham Young, The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, vol. 3, ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, [year]), 1787-1788.
6. Brigham Young, The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, vol. 4, ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, [year]), 2057.
7. Brigham Young, The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, vol. 3, ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, [year]), 1837.
8. Brigham Young, The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, vol. 4, ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, [year]), 2247.
9. Brigham Young, The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, vol. 5, ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, [year]), 3160.
10. “Miscellaneous undated statements by Brigham Young as witnessed by Benjamin Kimball Bullock of Provo, Utah and related by Ben H. Bullock. The Last Days, Robert Smith. 1931.” Brigham Young, The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, vol. 5, ed. Richard S. Van Wagoner (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, [year]), 3159-3160.
11. John Taylor, “All Things Governed By Law,” in Journal of Discourses, vol. 20 (Liverpool: F. D. and S. W. Richards, 1854), 135-136.
12. Talk given by Wilford Woodruff on the third day. Conference Report, 6 April 1898. See Conference reports of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1898 April, p. 57, Church History Library).
13. Wilford Woodruff, “Eventful Times,” in Journal of Discourses, vol. 14 (Liverpool: F. D. and S. W. Richards, 1854), 2-3.
14. Lorenzo Snow, “Progression—The Fatherhood of God—The Perfect Man—The Gifts of the Spirit—His Testimony,” in Journal of Discourses, vol. 14 (Liverpool: F. D. and S. W. Richards, 1854), 309.
15. George A. Smith, “The Leaven of the Gospel,” in Journal of Discourses, vol. 3 (Liverpool: F. D. and S. W. Richards, 1854), 289.
16. Mosiah Hancock Autobiography. See pages 31-32 of the PDF viewer, and pages 28-29 of the actual biography. Church History Library.
17. Moses Thatcher, “The Lord is Teaching Us Valuable Lessons in Our Present Experience,” in Journal of Discourses, vol. 26 (Liverpool: F. D. and S. W. Richards, 1854), 334-335.
18. Orson Pratt, “The Ancient Prophecies,” in Journal of Discourses, vol. 2 (Liverpool: F. D. and S. W. Richards, 1854), 285.