I remember picking through bug-infested rice on my mission to find enough edible rice to eat. The stores were closed that day and we didn’t have a lot of food to eat. I remember how excited I was the following day to have P-day and stores that were open. I can only imagine the difficulty of eating raw corn.

(By the way, are we sure he meant maize or was he referring to what the British call “corn”–almost any grain. That kind of “corn” would have been harder to eat than maize, whatever the variety. Imagine “threshing” the grain between your molars, spitting out the chaff, and then chewing the kernels. That would be a lot of work for your supper.)

Researcher, most likely it was field corn, not sweet. While sweet corn existed back then, unlike the sweet corn today, it didn’t stay sweet for very long after it has been picked. So planting large swaths of it wasn’t particularly feasible. Also, like today, the vast majority of all corn (over 99%) planted then was field corn. So unless it was really early in the season, it would have been very difficult to eat.

And this wicked priest, who would not give us a piece of bread, lied to us about the road, and sent us across the swamp

Not nice! A “wicked” priest, indeed.

I loved this:

I dared not tell any of the authorities of the Church that I wanted to preach, lest they might think I was seeking for an office.

Wilford Woodruff — he’s the man!