Documents Volume 3, contains a series of
correspondence between the members of
the church in Missouri and Joseph Smith
as they're going through this very
difficult time of persecution. And you
can read letters that Joseph writes to
members there as he tries to help them
understand why they're suffering and
help them understand what to do in the
face of all of this persecution and
difficulties as they've been driven from
their homes as they're suffering
violence at the hands of this angry mob
in Jackson County, one of the things that
Joseph Smith writes he says to them, it
is with difficulty that I can restrain
my feelings when I know that you my
brethren with whom I have had so many
happy hours sitting as it were in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus and also
having the witness which I feel and even
have felt of the purity of your motives
are cast out and are strangers and
pilgrims on the earth exposed to hunger,
cold, nakedness, peril, sword. I say when I
contemplate this, it is with difficulty
that I can keep from complaining and
murmuring against this dispensation but
I am sensible that that is not right and
may God grant that notwithstanding your
great afflictions and your sufferings
there may not anything separate us from
the love of Christ.
[Music]
 
