1857 Mormon guerrillas, aided by the local Paiute Indians, murdered 120 emigrants at Mountain Meadows, Utah. These men were not guerrillas. They were farmers, sons of farmers and a people who'd survived an extermination order by a corrupt governor of Missouri, Lilburn Boggs, who stated in that order, to kill the Mormons regardless of gender or age.

My Great great Grandparents were there at Hahn's mill when the Missouri guerrillas attacked and murdered 18 innocent people. Many more were maimed and died later. My Great grandma told about being lifted high above a mounted horseman, with shouts of "Kill her--from nits come lice!" when she was 11. The man set her down and turned his horse and rode away, saying, "I won't kill a child."

I hadn't heard of the Mountain Meadows Massacre until long after I was married. I've looked into it; the children of those Missourians were spared. They were raised to adulthood, fed and clothed and treated as if they were born there. I'm not sticking up for the killers. I can't imagine being taunted by "we ran you out before, we'll do it again" being something smart to tell someone as you traverse their land.

The Paiute people were kind to the starving Mormons when they came to that dry arid desert. They showed them how to shelter from the harsh winters. They taught them the herbs and things they could subsist on. We're all human. In a perfect world, we'd live and worship as we see fit.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I know there will be a Judgement day and then, both the Missouri people who killed 'Mormons' and the Paiute and Mormon people who killed the people from Missouri traveling through Utah territory, will be judged and sentenced according to the feelings of their hearts. Jesus died to pay for all God's children...all they have to do is accept Him...and repent of their sins.