COMPLETION OF SALT LAKE TEMPLE--HIS WORK THEREIN--SISTER CORRADI
INSPIRED TO APPLY TO HIM--DEVOTED WORK FOR HER KINDRED--HIS SEVERE
AFFLICTIONS--SAVING WORK FOR 2200--GRACEFUL OLD AGE.
Niels looked forward with fond anticipation to the completion of
the Salt Lake Temple. He felt that now, that he had found his true
vocation, he would like to devote all the time to Temple work that his
health and means would permit, and he could do this to much better
advantage in his home city than if he had to travel a long distance to
reach a Temple, and then make special arrangements for his board and
lodging. He commenced his labors three weeks after the Temple opened
for ordinance work. He not only found great comfort and satisfaction in
the work, (which he scrupulously devoted his time to whenever able to
do so,) but, through the acquaintances he formed there, he obtained a
considerable amount of employment in the sewing line, especially in the
making of temple clothing, at which he became quite an expert. He was
not able to work continuously; indeed, he had many spells of illness
that confined him to the house and occasionally to his bed for days and
weeks at a time, but he has long been known as one of the most earnest
and devoted workers in the Temple. When he had officiated for all his
dead kindred and friends concerning whom he had sufficiently definite
information, he found others who were anxious to have him officiate
for their dead kindred on the usual terms when men are so employed,
(seventy-five cents per day,) and he so labored whenever able to do
so. He has, however, officiated gratuitously for hundreds of people at
the instance of friends or relatives who were unable to pay therefor.
A case in point was that of a poor Scandinavian sister who died a few
years since in this city. She left a list of fifty dead relatives for
whom she had been unable to officiate, and he took up the work for the
males and hunted up women acquaintances who were willing to officiate
for the females.
A few years since he was called upon by a Sister Corradi, whom he only
knew by sight, who desired to employ him to officiate for her male
kindred dead, saying the Spirit had manifested to her that he was the
person to whom she should apply. He consented, and has worked almost
exclusively for her list since, and has enough names left to keep
him occupied for about another year. Having a spell of illness some
time since, he told Sister Corradi she had better find some one else
to finish her work, as he feared he might not be able to do so. She,
however, refused to believe that he was going to die soon, or fail
to finish her work, and said she knew he was going to live to do it.
She may be right. Now that he has lived so long (he was seventy-eight
years old in May) there is reason to hope that he has several years
yet to remain in mortality. It will soon be forty-eight years since
he arrived in Utah, notwithstanding the predictions that he would not
live to make the journey. It is nearly sixty-eight years since he met
with the accident that left him deformed and crippled for life, and
during that time he has never been free from pain, though it has varied
in degree, being much more intense at some times than others. For many
years hernia was added to his other afflictions, but he was healed
of that in answer to prayer. About four years ago he lost the use of
his voice, and has not since been able to speak above a whisper. In
spite, however, of all these handicaps he has accomplished a work of
self-sacrifice for the salvation of others that any able-bodied man
of his age, desiring the welfare of his fellows, might well be proud
of. He has officiated for fully twenty-two hundred persons in all the
temple ordinances necessary to place them on a par with the living
who have received these ordinances in their own behalf. All this in
addition to the work he has had done in behalf of numerous female dead.
Truly he has earned for himself the distinction of being a "Savior
upon Mount Zion." The crucible of suffering to which he has been so
long subjected has had a sanctifying and exalting effect upon him, and
eliminated from his character all semblance of sordidness. His struggle
for existence has developed the strong traits of his character that
otherwise might have remained dormant, and his beneficent concern for
others has helped him to bear with equanimity, if not to forget his
own troubles. Even age seems to sit lightly upon him. Few who see him
ever suspect his advanced age. The peevish, crabbed disposition that so
frequently characterizes old age is never manifested by him. Instead,
he wears the patient, serene expression of one who lives for a noble
purpose, and indulges only in clean and wholesome thoughts.