A REMARKABLE EXPERIENCE ON OUR MONTANA RANCH - REVISITED

Well, I am way too slammed with our Montana move to be able to type this in - and I am desperate enough to take any help I can get if you would like to print these three pages out and type them up for me. Use the comments section to get a hold of me. I would love to see this experience widely distributed (a kind reader was able to complete this for me and it is electronically added below for copying and sharing with others - and I believe the jpg images below of the original type-written letter can be copied/printed, as well!). This has been almost 10 years in the making - since I first laid eyes on it and thought it was worthy of some attention.

So far, we have had many little miracles as we have made the effort to go over there that lets us know this is right. My wife, in talking to the Bishop's wife - over there (mentioned in previous blog post about Kalispell as a gathering spot), said there are 13 families who have suddenly and for no apparent reason other than a feeling to get out of their existing locations, have moved into the ward. That is just one ward in the Stake - and there are a total of nine wards in that general area. Makes me wonder what the other adjacent wards are experiencing. It was this good woman who was pivotal in getting my wife 100% on board with this whole thing. I have always felt God's hand in this plan - my wife just moves more cautiously, I guess. Not a bad combination - me more impulsive and she more cautious. Just sometimes a little unnerving when you have to be yoked together and you feel the urgency to move quickly....

CLICK ON THE PICTURE AND THEN, ONCE IT OPENS, HOVER AGAIN WITH THE LITTLE MAGNIFYING GLASS AND THEN CLICK ONCE MORE TO MAGNIFY IT. CLICK AGAIN TO REDUCE IT. HOPE YOU ENJOY IT AS MUCH AS I DID.








I really feel this is one of the crown jewels of the blog because of its sincerity and simplicity in bearing principle of the basics of life and how God wants us to operate here on this earth - well above our means and striving to our full God-centered potential. God doesn't care what kind of car we drove, the size of the house we lived in, or even the positions we held in the church. He just wants us to recognize Him, our dependence on Him and to show our gratitude to Him by serving our fellow man. Here is that experience typed out (thank you again for doing that kind act of service!):

We were trailing 600 head of cattle from the upper Little Bighorn valley
to our Wolf Mountain ranch, a distance of 65 miles. The drive lasted
four days.

At the outset, I became very despondent. A gloom settled over me like I
had never known before. Try as I would, I could not get relief from it
nor could I determine it's cause. There was no known reason for it. It
seemed that prayer was of little consequence. On the fourth day, we
were neraing our South range where the cattle would enter the ranch. I
was not too well acquainted with the country so I went on ahead of the
herd to scout out the best route. I pondered my feelings all the way
and without hardly knowing it I came to the gate where we would enter
the ranch with the herd. Not feeling inclined to dismount, and to open
the gate, I sat thinking over the situation. I had prayed earnestly
while riding along to get an answer to this problem, when to my
astonishment a voice said to me, "What are you doing with your
Priesthood? Why don't you use your Priesthood and bless your ranch?" I,
therefore, dismounted and obedient to the voice, I blessed by the
authority I held, the grass, the vegetation of all varieties, the air
and sky above, the water resources, the springs, the wells, the
reservoirs; I blessed the cattle and all else pertaining to our
property. Then I rebuked each and every agency of destruction that
would in any way harm the property. Having done this, I mounted and
headed back to the herd.

As I rode along, a peace came over me of such a heavenly nature, and a
happiness that I had scarecely ever felt, causing the tears to run down
my face, and a serge of gratitude to the Lord for his Goodness.

During the subequent days and years things happened on the ranch that
one could scarecely believe. The previous year had been a very dry one.
The neighboring ranchers drilled new wells and deepened existing wells,
and since the years following were very dry, this practice continued,
while my springs increased their flow, likewise my wells. The neighbor
on the North and West lost his springs and his well dried up, leaving
his cattle solid against my line fence bawling their heads off while my
well a hundred yards away pumped large volumes of water, keeping two one
thousand gallon tanks running over into the canyon below. I was getting
ready to build a corridor into my tanks for his cattle when he moved
them.

My neighbor on the Southwest lost his water and watered his stock from
my spring surplus runoff. Rain fell on my property from clouds which
seemed to form without any incoming clouds. For an example, I was in
the meadow one day and a little black cloud began to form just over my
head. It grew blacker until the rain fell in torrents, the cloud not
extending beyond my fence line. I was on my South range one day and the
same thing took place. A neighbor said to me one day, "Jim, we are
going to burn up!" "No, Oscar," I said, "it is going to rain." In a
day or two a long beautiful rain came. I was riding with a neighbor on
our North range one day, I was pasturing some of his cattle, his range
had dried up, when he said to me, "This is a cow heaven." My grain
cut-produced that of my neighbor year after year, even though I believe
he was the best farmer.

The neighbors were constantly telling me that they could see the hand of
Providence in my affairs. I met a neighbor on the road one day and he
startled me with this request, "We want you to go home and do whatever
you have to do to get US some rain." This from a man whom we always
thought to be far from anything Heavenly.

This Saturday night I was coming off the the Bighorn Mountains with a
cattle truck loaded with horses. The Aaronic Priesthood and I had been
on an outing. As we broke out of the mountains into the valley we were
startled with a sight which frightened us. Off to the Northwest
extending for many miles was this ominous black cloud. It was showing a
furry seldom seen in a cloud. We just got into Hardin, a town where we
had a home in town as the storm broke. The hail came in torrents. Over
in the Yellowstone Valley, 32 miles away, the hail piled up until the
cars were pushing it with their bumpers like a bulldozer. Billings had
a hail damage of six million dollars. Everything growing for fifty
miles North and South and one hundred miles East and West was beaten to
a pulp, not a living thing left. Roofs in our vicinity were beaten off
the houses. The hail stones were as large as hen eggs. We went to our
Sunday meetings and then headed for the ranch 40 miles away. We were
only able to get within ten miles of the ranch as Sarpy Creek was out of
it's banks and the bridge flooded. I asked a rancher at this place how
extensive the total destruction was. He said it was many miles in all
directions.

Sister Ferrell and I returned to Haqrdin and waited until Monday morning
when we set out again. We scarcely said a word as we rode the forty
miles, each possessed of the same thoughts and Oh! that question! As we
topped the rise to where we could see our grain fields, we hardly dared
breathe, bubt imagine our feelings when we viewed with tears in our eyes
those precious heads of grain standing erect, waving a welcome to us in
the gentle breeze. Our grass was not damanged, the vegetation on our
ranch was scarcely touched.

We drove down the driveway and I was still with the truck when the
neighbor came roaring in with his jeep. He leaped to the ground and
began to wave his arms in the direction of our grain fields, exlaiming,
"I have seen a miracle! If I had not seen it with my own eyes I would
never have believed it, and seeing it I scarcely believe." He then
said, "There is no question but that your Maker is watching over you."

It was in the spring the last week in April, My son Dick and I had just
finished getting ready for Priesthood meeting. I opened the front door
to leave when a feeling came over me. I turned to Dick and said to him
that I felt impressed that we should leave at once for the ranch. He
said, "Well, Dad, if you feel that way that's what we had better do."
We turned around, told my wife of my feeling in which she concured. I
gave the books and records to my daughter to take to the chapel, and
Dick and I left for the ranch.

By the time we arrived there a fierce northern blizzard was blowing in
with already four inches of snow. We were in the midst of calving out a
large herd of cows. We quickly saddled our horses and began to press
the cattle toward the barns and correls. They were scattered in all
directions within a mile or two of the home place. As is always the
case, a storm will start the calves coming thick and fast, and this was
the case. The blizzard increased in intensity until the cattle could
hardly be seen. Dick and I carried new born calves on the horses,
wrapping our sheepskin coats around them to keep them from instantly
freezing, until after midnight until we had all the stragglers houses.
Dick and I nearly perished from exposure ourselves. The storm raged for
three days and nights until we had thirty six inches of snow on the
level. All gullies and canyons up to 60 to 70 feet deep were filled to
the level. We lost just one calf and that one we bedded down in some
willows with a bale of straw. He was smothered but his mother got out.

Our neighbor, the Scott Land and Livestock, lost 80 head of big fine
heifers smothered in a canyon. One neighbor to the South and East who
could not get to his cattle for a week came back by our ranch and said
almost still in shock, "I'm not going back. I can't stand what I saw up
there."

How wonderfully blessed we have been. How good the Lord has been to us.

Stalk through the land, and if so who may abide the evil day? I think
the challenge is crying in our ears as the people of the Lord. How can
we stand as an ensign to the people, to our neighbors, when the ravages
of an earth in rebellion because of the wickedness upon her face,
ravages the people of the Lord, even as it does the wicked of the earth,
or those that know not the Lord. I am deeply convinced that the Lord of
the harvest would love us more, and smile ever so approvingly upon us if
we would arise from our lethergy, and move and have our being in the
realm in which we are called and to which we are ordained.

I have been show that in these perilous times, now that we have had the
Priesthood in our midst for about a hundred and forty years, in the
which time it ought to have been made such a part of our lives, and so
familiar with it's power and blessing, ought we to have become, that it
now, in this hour of great need the Priesthood could stay the hand of
the destroyer, calm the winds, dispell the frost, provide a spirit of
peace, gladden the earth over which we preside, make our fields blossom
as the rose, and make of our dominion a garden of Eden, and I say I have
seen that this power given us long ago, if by it's use we cannot save
ourselves, because God will not do for us what we have the power to do
for ourselves, or could have had, or ought to have.

I would pray therefore, that while it is called today, we arise with a
mighty will and put into motion these glorious forces, so that Zion may
disperse desolation so that all things over which we have jurisdiction
and control may be a holy place where we may stand and not be moved out
of this place, so that our neighbors and those not of us may be
constrained to acknowledge that the God of the Latter Day Saints is not
dead neither doth he sleep.

There will come a time that our farmers will have to unite as we have
never hitherto done. This ought to be done now, that those less
skilled, and with less machinery may get help from those endowed with
both, so that there may not be a lonliness and discouragement in the
hearts of our brethern who are toiling under heavy loads and cannot help
themselves. Would it not be a glorious thing for those thus afflicted
to know that they do not stand alone but their more able and more
fortunate brethern are instantly at hand to sustain and support them?
This I know will come, for upon this principle will Latter Day Zion be
built.

Said the Lord, this thing will be established in Zion even if it must
needs be by the things which my people suffer. It would be ever so much
better if the brethren would come into their own voluntarily.

President Baker, I have made this too long, but how could I say it
shorter. May the Lord bless and sustain you and your brethern in
happiness and peace.

Kindest personal regards.

Sincerely your brother,

Jas. A. Ferrell