When Elder Llewellen Harris stopped at a Zuni village in New Mexico, in 1878, he was on his way to visit the Mexican settlements.  But his stop was more than an opportunity to rest.  He was a Mormon missionary and he was there “to preach the gospel.”  He stayed among them for eight days and whilst staying, he learned what he could about them.

According to Elder Harris, the Zuni Indians used to live in Mexico – “some of them still claim to be the descendants of Montezuma.”  Conquest drove them north.  Ruins throughout the New Mexico and Arizona areas mark them as once a very powerful tribe.  In their traditional religion, they worshipped the sun.  At the time Llewellen Harris wrote his narrative, they were nearly all Catholic, but a small number had been baptized into the Mormon Church and nearly all the tribe expressed a desire to be baptized.

The remainder of the narrative, another bit of Mormon history, may show why.

Elder Harris stayed with a Zuni Indian, Captain Lochee, “who had three children sick with the smallpox.”  He had not slept a night before cries awoke him.  When he asked Captain Lochee the cause, he learned that Lochee’s daughter was dying.  Elder Harris would’ve administered to her, with the priesthood power restored to earth through Joseph Smith, then, “but the Spirit of the Lord prompted me to wait a little longer.”   When Lochee’s daughter stopped gasping and seemed to have stopped breathing altogether, “the Spirit of the Lord moved upon me very strongly to administer to her, which I did; she revived and slept well the remainder of the night.”  Then, he administered to the other two.  “All was quiet the remainder of the night, and all seemed much better in the morning.”

Captain Lochee’s family was far from the only one afflicted with smallpox.  That Elder Harris had healed the smallpox from Lochee’s family spread quickly throughout the village.  The next morning, he “was called to visit about twenty-five families, all of whom had one or more sick with the smallpox.”  For the next four days, he “was called upon to visit from ten to twenty families a day for four days after my arrival, and administered to their sick.”  Elder Harris reports that “the power of the Lord was made manifest to such a degree that nearly all I administered to recovered,” but that “the disease was spreading so rapidly that I was unable to visit all the houses.”

The Zuni village had a solution for that.  A Zuni woman brought Elder Harris to a house with a large room.  Inside this room, “they had gathered the sick from all parts of the village, till they had completely filled the house.”  They’d brought a Spaniard, further, as an interpreter, “who told me they wanted me to administer to so many.”  Elder Harris “called on the Lord to strengthen” him – after which he began to administer and “as I administered to them they were removed, but other sick ones were continually being brought in.”  He did not finish until “the sun had set.”  The Spaniard, as translator, was still there.  He told Elder Harrish he had “prayed for” 406 villagers.  Elder Harris says that “the next morning my arms were so sore that I could hardly move them.”

A nearby Presbyterian minister “became jealous of the influence I was gaining with the Indians.  He persuaded two Spaniards, one Navajo Indian, one albino Zuni, and one of the Zuni medicine men to circulate lies and frighten the Zunis, telling them that those who were healed were healed by the power of the devil.” 

But Elder Harris was in no position to wrangle.  He felt weak, still, from the day of administering and left for a settlement in the Savoia valley.  No sooner had he arrived, but he became very ill for a week and was cared for by a member of the Mormons.  When he had recovered and rested, he proceeded to the Mexican settlements.

When he returned to Savoia, the Mormon brethren told him that the Presbyterian minister had nearly died of consumption.  After he returned, further, to the Zuni village, a number of the villagers told him “that all to whom I had administered recovered, excepting five or six that the minister gave medicine to, and four or five that the medicine man had tried to cure by magic.”  Further, “the medicine man that opposed me had died during my absence, and the Navajo who opposed me, on returning home, was killed by his people to keep the smallpox from spreading among them.”

The miracle among the Zuni people convinced a number of the power of God and His mercy unto healing.  Elder Harris testifies himself “as one of the weakest of my brethren.”  He acted with the Lord’s power “manifest through” him – and the Lord granted him this through prayer and faith and priesthood.

– This story is taken and paraphrased from Preston Nibley’s Missionary Experiences, published in 1942 by Deseret Book.  Llewellen Harris is the author of this story.  You may want to check out the book and read the complete story in Llewellen’s own words.