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Little Scandinavia 157 O n e time my great-grandfather was away, and great-grandmother was home watching the kids, and it happened at t h a t time the M a n t i temple was to be dedicated. And my great-grandmother wanted very much to go, but she could find no one to watch the children because everyone in the area was going to the M a n t i temple dedication. O n the morning of the dedication she met an old m a n at the front gate, and he said, "Sister, I see that you'd like to go to the temple dedication. I'm just passing through; let me watch your kids and they'll be all right as long as you're gone. D o n ' t worry." My great-grandmother did not know the m a n , had never seen him before; but somehow she felt that he was a kindly old m a n and agreed. And she went to the temple dedication. When she came home from the temple dedication, she met the old m a n just coming out of the front gate, and he said, "Well, Sister, you have nothing to worry about," and he walked down the street. And she watched him go, and it seemed that as he just about turned down the path out of sight he met two other old men. And it was felt in the family tradition that these were the T h r e e Nephites and one of them had stopped to help my great-grandmother with the children so she could go to the temple dedication. 2 5 Since its dedication, the Manti Temple has continued to generate a large body of stories that testify to the importance of the work carried on there. One of these stories tells of a man on his way to the temple from Mount Pleasant. As he passed by the Ephraim cemetery he saw a large number of people who claimed to be his deceased relatives and who asked that he do their temple work for them. When he arrived at the temple, the recorder told him: "I have just received records from England and they all belong to you." The names were those of the people he had met on his way to the temple. 20 Another story tells of a lady who had come to an impasse in her genealogical research. Leaving the temple one day she was met by an old man who handed her some papers, told her these contained the names she was looking for, and then disappeared. She assumed he was one of the Three Nephites, come to help her seek out and do the necessary work for her dead ancestors. 27 One of the most recent, and certainly one of the most widespread, of the stories tells of people on the way to the temple who pick up an old man hitchhiking along the road. He engages them in religious conversation, w7arns them that they are living in the last days, and then strongly urges them to get in the year's supply of food Mormons are encouraged to store in preparation for the dreadful days to precede the Second Coming of Christ. H e then disappears miraculously from the back seat of 2 " William A. Wilson, Bloomington, Indiana, 1964; Hargis, "Folk History of the Manti Temple," p. 68. 20 Shirley Green, Manti, Utah, 1961. 27 Ibid.