On February 24, 1834, Parley P. Pratt and Lyman Wight told a somber story to the Kirtland high council. Hundreds of Saints in Clay County, Missouri, were suffering after being driven from their homes in Jackson County by mob violence. They now found themselves impoverished and wondering what the Lord wanted them to do. How would the lost property in Jackson County be regained? When would the Saints be able to return to their beloved city of Zion? Pratt and Wight posed such questions to the high council, telling them that “the idea of being driven away from the land of Zion pained their very souls and they desired of God, by earnest prayer, to return with songs of everlasting joy.”
