Dreams and Visions After the Bear River Massacre | Darren Parry on the Shoshone Conversion (LDS)

Send us Fan MailHow did a people who survived the largest massacre of Native Americans in U.S. history come to be baptized — in the same river where it happened — through dreams and visions from the other side of the veil? Darren Parry, sixth-generation Shoshone Latter-day Saint, former tribal chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, and direct descendant of Chief Sagwich, shares the conversion story of his people. On January 29, 1863, more than 450 Shoshone men, women, and children were massacred by the U.S. Army at the Bear River. Ten years later, Chief Sagwich began having dreams: three men appeared and told him of a God among the Mormon people and that he was to send for missionaries. He went three days in a row to the home of George Washington Hill, a former missionary who spoke fluent Shoshone, asking him to come teach. Three times George said no — there is order in the Lord's church. On the fourth day, George received a telegram from Brigham Young summoning him to Salt Lake City: "George, I have a heavy burden on my shoulders, and that burden is now going to be yours. I am calling you to be a missionary again to the Shoshone people." When George returned home, Sagwich was sitting on his porch. George promised to come, but said it would take time. That night George's train derailed and he was sent home — instead, he jumped a freight train north. The next morning, walking toward the Shoshone camp without knowing the exact location, he saw a man riding toward him leading a second horse. It was Sagwich, who said: "I had another dream last night. The Great Spirit said you would be coming this morning. I am here to pick you up." George's journal records: "After eating the best breakfast that ever was, I commenced to teaching them the gospel of Christ. And three hours later, I baptized 102 Shoshone's in the Bear River." The same river. Ten years after the massacre. Most of those baptized were survivors. Darren also shares how Sagwich and his people helped build the Logan Temple — on a hill the Shoshone had considered sacred healing ground long before the temple was announced — and how a temple ledger found in a basement room contained 80 Shoshone names with the death date January 29, 1863: Sagwich had done their temple work himself. The episode closes with a miracle in the Logan Temple archive: a book, already open to the exact page, with the exact name Darren's great-grandmother and grandmother had come searching for. (Darren Parry is the author of "The Bear River Massacre" and "Tending the Sacred: How Indigenous Wisdom Will Save the World.")Q: How were the Shoshone people converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?A: Ten years after the Bear River Massacre of 1863, Chief Sagwich began having dreams in which three men appeared and told him of a God among the Mormon people and that he was to send for missionaries. After Sagwich visited George Washington Hill three days in a row — and was turned away each time — Brigham Young, without knowing of Sagwich's visits, sent George a telegram calling him on a mission to the Shoshone. On the morning George arrived, Sagwich was already riding toward him with a second horse, having dreamed the night before that George would be coming. Three hours after their meeting, George baptized 102 Shoshone in the Bear River — the same river where the massacre had occurred.Q: Did Chief Sagwich help build the Logan Temple?A: Yes — Sagwich and men from the Shoshone community of Washakie were among the largest groups to donate labor to the building of the Logan Temple, carrying rocks and mortar. The temple sits on a hill the Shoshone had considered sacred healing ground long before the Church announced its construction. Sagwich later performed temple work for his people in that same temple, including work for at least 80 individuals who died in the 1863 massacre — their names preserved in a ledger discovered in a basement room of the Logan Temple.Q: What miracle happened in the Logan Temple archive?A: Darren Parry's great-grandmother Amy Hoo Chu Timbimboo and his grandmother went to the Logan Temple to search for a name in the archive — a room filled with books floor to ceiling. The temple recorder told them he didn't know where to begin. But one book was already open on the table, turned to a page containing the exact name they had come to find. As Darren tells it: "Somebody had opened that book for them and left it there so they could find it."YouTube: Dreams and Visions After the Bear River Massacre Video: https://youtu.be/9H7MVEvDpQwYouTube Thinning of the Veil Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thinningoftheveilBook: "The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History" by Darren Parry: https://www.amazon.com/Bear-River-Massacre-Shoshone-History/dp/1948218208Book: "Tending the Sacred: How Indigenous Wisdom will Save the World": https://www.amazon.com/Tending-Sacred-Indigenous-Wisdom-World/dp/1961471248 SUPPORT THE SHOW: Website: Thinning of the Veil: https://www.thinningoftheveil.com/Venmo:  https://account.venmo.com/u/thinningoftheveilPayPal: https://paypal.me/thinningoftheveil?country.x=US&locale.x=en_USBook: "Patterns of Revelation":  https://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Revelation-Spiritual-Foundations-Hearing-ebook/dp/B0BWGLZ8VXEmail: [email protected]: https://www.instagram.com/thinning.of.the.veil/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thinning.of.the.veil/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thinning.of.the.veilSupport the show