Image #1, from left to right, shows two books of equal size; image #2 shows the title of each book; image 3 shows the book on the left, The Book of Mormaon pages are completely dry; image #4 The Book of Mormon on the left could be thumbed through because it was dry while the encyclopedia pages were soaked and the pages stuck to each other making pages impossible to turn.
Teton Dam Flood and the Book of Mormon
When I was 17 years old, in June of 1976, the Teton dam had broken. Several days later, my family was up in Sugar City, Idaho helping my Aunt Isabel and Uncle Wilson Walker and cousins clean up there later-condemned home. Their house had been hit by a wall of filthy muddy water carrying logs and all sorts of debris and a dead horse. The wall of water broke open the door then ran through the front door completely through the house down the long hallway until it broke open the back door and exited the house. We can only guess how long that water flowed through the house. It deposited three feet of mud in the basement and six to eight inches of mud on the main floor. We know the water ran through the house up to four feet high because of the watermark. Cleaning up the mess was underway by the time I appeared with my family. Some of us we’re scooping the six to eight inches of mud off the floor while others of us were cleaning up belongings and pulling wet muddy books from the bookshelves in the front room. These books had sat on their bookshelves submerged in 3 to 4 feet slimy muddy mucky water which had pushed through their front door. I was working in the front room pulling books off the bookshelf with my aunt and cousin. The completely submerged books in the bookshelf were unrecognizable and warped by then and covered with a layer of mud and silt. Among all the books, two large books next to each other of the exact size we’re taken outside to see if they could be restored. My Aunt Joanne and cousin Peggy and I were looking at these books. We could tell these books were was an encyclopedias so saturated that the page were impossible to separate. The other book the exact size as one of the encyclopedias, to our astonishment did not have a warped cover and opened with ease in spite of the mud on the outside cover and edge of each leaf. The book was completely dry. Each page could be turned and could be thumbed through. I was baffled and and wondered what it meant. How could this book be completely dry while the others around it were completely soaked through and unrecognizable? As a glanced over the completely dry and readable pages, it wasn’t hard see that this was a book of scripture, because each verse was numbered. My eyes led me up to the top of the page, where I read the name Alma in the middle of the heading. I was confused and didn’t realize at which book of scripture I was looking, until my Aunt Joan said in delight, “It’s the Book of Mormon!” It took me a second to realize what she just said. When I did, I was completely blown away. Of the several dozen books in that bookshelf below the waterline, none other was completely dry.
My aunt pulled out her film camera to take pictures of the miracle.
I was in awe of what I had just witnessed! I was also embarrassed. There I was 17 years old, been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all my life and I did not recognize that the book of Alma was in the Book of Mormon.I
I did not gain a profound testimony of the Book of Mormon until I actually read it, but I knew that day that that book had Its own power, even physical power over the elements. I knew that only the power of God could do something like that with a very unordinary book.
And I sign my name to this amazing experience.
Kristine Edlefsen Day