“Cyrena’s Choice,” Liahona, June 2021
Early Women of the Restoration
Cyrena’s Choice
Cyrena Dustin Merrill had to choose between her family and the gospel.
Illustration by Toni Oka
Taking the step to leave her family and gather to Zion was a profound choice for 20-year-old Cyrena Dustin. Baptized in Portage, Ohio, in March 1837, she was the only member of her family to accept the message of the restored gospel. Joining the Church brought opposition from her family, but rather than abandon her faith, Cyrena held fast to her testimony.
In the summer of 1837, she traveled to Kirtland, Ohio, and visited the recently dedicated temple. She described that meaningful experience: “Truly I felt like thanking God that my mind had been enlightened and that I had been permitted to embrace the gospel and partake of its blessings.”
The next year she felt the desire to gather to Zion and join her fellow Latter-day Saints in Missouri. This decision not only separated her from her family but required her to, in her words, “start out alone in the world to fight the battle of life among strangers.”
Cyrena trusted in the promises of her patriarchal blessing, which brought her comfort and gave her the “necessary faith, courage, and fortitude to make the sacrifice of leaving home and friends.” She wrote of her determination: “I went forth trusting in the Lord in full faith that he would give me grace sufficient to overcome all obstacles and difficulties which might be thrown in my way, and that I might endure to the end.”
Her final farewell with her parents and siblings before leaving for Far West, Missouri, was filled with tears, pleas for her to stay, and even threats to have her forcibly returned home. Despite the sadness, Cyrena left holding firm to the conviction that she had heard the voice of the Lord.
“As I was leaving the house,” she recalled, “I turned back at the door and bore a faithful testimony to the truth of the gospel, and that was the last time I ever saw any of my father’s family.”