The Gathering of Zion


Book Description

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Wallace Stegner tells about a thousand-mile migration marked by hardship and sudden death—but unique in American history for its purpose, discipline, and solidarity. Other Bison Books by Wallace Stegner include Mormon Country, Recapitulation, Second Growth, and Women on the Wall.




Mormon Country


Book Description

Where others saw only sage, a salt lake, and a great desert, the Mormons saw their ?lovely Deseret,? a land of lilacs, honeycombs, poplars, and fruit trees. Unwelcome in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, they migrated to the dry lands between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada to establish Mormon country, a wasteland made green. Like the land the Mormons settled, their habits stood in stark contrast to the frenzied recklessness of the American West. Opposed to the often prodigal individualism of the West, Mormons lived in closely knit ?øsome say ironclad ?øcommunities. The story of Mormon country is one of self-sacrifice and labor spent in the search for an ideal in the most forbidding territory of the American West. Richard W. Etulain provides a new introduction to this edition.




Handcarts to Zion


Book Description

It is unparalleled in history, the procession of Latter-Day Saints pushing handcarts from Iowa City and Florence (Omaha) to their promised Zion by the Great Salt Lake. Many of the three thousand hardy souls who trudged across thirteen hundred miles of prairie, desert, and mountain from 1856 to 1860 were European converts to the Mormon faith. Without funds for wagons and oxen, they carried their possessions in two-wheeled carts powered and aided by their own muscle and blood. Some of the weary travelers would finally be welcomed by their brethren in Salt Lake City; others would go to wayside graves or get caught in early winter storms in the Rockies and hope to be rescued by the parties sent out by Brigham Young. The migration is described in Handcarts to Zion, which draws on diaries and reports of the participants, rosters of the ten companies, and a collection of the songs sung on the trail and at "The Gathering." LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen dedicated the book to his mother, Mary Ann Hafen, who wrote about the long journey in Recollections of a Handcart Pioneer of 1860: A Woman’s Life on the Mormon Frontier, also a Bison Book.




The Gathering Storm


Book Description

As Nazi forces tighten the noose, Loralei Kepler, daughter of a missionary family, flees Brussels ahead of the Blitzkrieg. But is any place safe from Adolf Hitler's evil grasp? Loralei's harrowing flight leads her into the arms of needy child refugees who have sacrificed everything in exchange for their lives, and toward a mysterious figure who closely guards an age-old secret.Explore the romance, the passion, and the danger of the most anticipated series of the last twenty years. Born from the bestselling Zion Covenant and Zion Chronicles series, Zion Diaries ventures into the lives of the inspiring and intriguing characters who stood up for what was right, and fought boldly during Hitler's rise to power and the dark days of World War II. In The Gathering Storm, fans will be treated to a desperate escape, a love ignited, and an ancient secret revealed.




Out of Zion


Book Description

Imagine what might happen if the solid foundation of what you believe suddenly begins to shake... That’s exactly what happened to Lisa Brockman, a six-generation Mormon with lineage tracing back to the early church. In college, Lisa found herself challenged to defend her faith, and the beliefs she knew to be true began to unravel. In Out of Zion, Lisa shares her journey of discovering the biblical Jesus and the key conversations that led her from the faith of her ancestors to conversion to Christianity. If you have reached a place of questioning what you believe, or you long for confidence to share your faith with others, Lisa provides the framework you need to… understand the nuances of the history and evolution of Mormon culture learn to identify the vital differences between the Mormon and biblical plans of salvation compassionately engage in conversation with your Mormon friends and neighbors As you follow the evolution of Lisa’s faith, you will face the same challenge to defend what you believe and, ultimately, learn to share the gospel effectively with others.




The Women on the Wall


Book Description

Written during World War II and its immediate aftermath, the eighteen stories of The Women on the Wall move from women to war and back again, but it is the women who remain central. There are Alma, a war bride who runs a farm better than the neighbor men; Lucy, a former WAAF, working through college; Tamsen, who keeps her husband drunk so she can do as she pleases; and the women on the wall, who, with nothing to do but wait for their husbands to return from the war, find their private consolations. To these stories Wallace Stegner brings the same skill and thoughtfulness that won him the National Book Award for The Spectator Bird




True Sisters


Book Description

Four women seeking the promise of salvation and prosperity in a new land.




The Great Gathering


Book Description

"Verily this is the word of the Lord, that the city New Jerusalem shall be built by the gathering of the saints . . .? (D&C 84:4)In the near future, Tad and Emma North and their children live in a United States that is growing increasingly wicked. The Norths and their extended family notice that many Latter-day Saints are being deceived by alluring temptations, and they wonder how much longer the Lord will allow American society to continue its downward spiral.Then comes an invitation from Church leaders for the Saints to gather together. This invitation isn?t well-accepted?and even openly mocked?but those faithful Church members who trust in the Lord soon find themselves accomplishing monumental tasks. Join these humble yet heroic Saints as they embark on an unprecedented journey to build New Jerusalem.The Great Gathering, the first novel in the Standing in Holy Places series, paints a vivid picture of exciting prophesied events that still must occur before the Second Coming. If you have an interest in what awaits the members of the LDS Church, this series should definitely be on your reading list!




Second Witness


Book Description

"This volume, the first of six, devotes serious attention to the foundational questions: (1) What is a useful approach to Book of Mormon geography? (2) What contributions can archaeology, anthropology, and ethnohistory make to Book of Mormon questions? (3) What constituted Nephite theology in these first generations? (4) What were Mormon's sources and how did he organize his work? One of the most exciting insights of this volume is its reconstruction of the politics behind the Deuteronomic reforms of King Josiah. These reforms deemphasized an earlier Messiah-centered theology that more fully acknowledged the council of the gods, the war in heaven, Yahweh's feminine consort, originally worshipped in the temple, and Isaiah, the poet-prophet who foretold the Messiah's coming. Did Lehi's acceptance of this earlier, Christ-centered religion explain the death threats against him in Jerusalem? If Laman and Lemuel accepted those reforms, did this intrafamily disagreement produce a thousand years of hostility between Nephites and Lamanites in the New World? Other contributions of this volume are a fresh look at what the Book of Mormon actually says about skin color, the pressures of local polytheistic culture on Nephite theology, and the Isaiah-based egalitarian ideal of Nephite culture."--Bk. jkt.




Champions for Zion


Book Description

What did Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, Joseph F. Smith, George Q. Cannon, and seventeen other early LDS leaders know about building Zion that we today have forgotten? Quite a bit, it turns out! Multiple quotes by multiple Church leaders on multiple occasions show that: a) Our early missionaries were teaching prospects that the Church was building the long-prophesied latter-day Zion in Utah and inviting them to participate, b) Building Zion was a core LDS doctrine, c) Zion-building was central to the Church's mission during the 1800s, d) Establishing Zion was central to God's plan to prepare the world for Christ's return, and that e) Building Zion was a primary focus of LDS leaders who also encouraged the members to focus there as well. And that's just from Chapter One! The author gathered well over 700 quotes by LDS apostles and prophets during Utah's territorial years. He then categorized and subcategories all the quotes according to what they teach us. The chapter and section headings in the first twelve chapters represent those categorizations. Concepts that were "one-offs" were generally excluded so that mainstream doctrines about establishing Zion could be identified. Here are the first twelve chapter titles, revealing remarkable teachings about establishing Zion in the Last Days: 1) Building Zion Was Central to the Gospel and LDS Church, 2) What IS Zion, exactly? 3) It's God's Will That the Saints Build Zion. 4) Prophecies About Zion, 5) Our Obligations Regarding Zion, 6) The Saints were actively building a Zion in Utah. 7) What is required of us to establish Zion?8) Building Zion is not just a spiritual activity, it's temporal too! 9) Babylon, Zion's Opposite, 10) Building Zion includes achieving economic independence from Babylon. 11) Zion Requires Economic Unity, and 12) Cooperation is a Stepping Stone to Zion. After gathering and classifying all 700+ quotes, the author is convinced that: a) God intended a Zion society to be established in the Rocky Mountains before the New Jerusalem is built. b) Though it is not a central focus today in the LDS Church, it will likely have to become so before Christ can return. c) God has not revoked his desire for his children to enjoy that kind of society, and that d) There is plenty we can do today to prepare ourselves and our families to qualify to live in Zion.