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Show Page 38 spiritual gifts. Briefly separated from Johnson, he attracted great attention when approached by a boy named Winslow Farr, who had heard rumors of Mormon healing powers, with a plea to come and cure his mother's chronic consumption. Although the twenty-year-old Orson was "inexperienced in the ordinance of administering to the sick," he accompanied the boy to his mother's sickbed, where he found a weak and emaciated woman "to all appearance in the last stages of human existence." Orson asked her if she believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, to which she nodded assent. After kneeling in prayer with the family members, Orson placed his hands on the woman's head and blessed her, promising her by the Holy Spirit of Promise that "she would be healed and live until she was satisfied with life." The woman's husband, Levi Farr, jumped from his bed the next morning to find that his wife had disappeared. After searching the house, he glimpsed her outside carrying a small bucket of water from the spring. Weeping, 23 she exclaimed to her husband, "I'm healed! Thank God, I'm healed!" This incident electrified Orleans County, where Mrs. Farr and her condition were well-known. The Farr family, with their two sons, Winslow and Lorin, joined the Church immediately, accompanied by neighbors William and Zerubbabel Snow. In later years, Orson would write about the miracle of healing as one of the threefold pillars of the Restoration Movement's divine authenticity. The missionaries would visit a town, push on, and then return to ordain men to the priesthood and set the branches in order. This pattern continued throughout the summer - after visiting Benson, Vermont, near the Champlain Canal, and holding a conference, the two elders made a long trek to southern Connecticut, only to return to Vermont in the autumn. As winter came on, they tramped from northern Vermont through Onondago and Saratoga Counties, |