Edward Payne GGGG Grandpa through Priscilla Payne

Edward Payne: Click here for Family Search link
Born: 31 May 1832 Warminster, Wiltshire, England
Baptized: 27 May 1854
Died: 27 March 1918 Glenwood, Sevier, Utah, United States
Burial: Click here for Find-A-Grave

Conversion Story:
At the age of eleven years he was apprenticed to a gardener and worked about the neighborhood from place to place. He received no more schooling after this age. He worked at the St. Johns Episcopal church where the family went to worship. The Rector often talked with him about the salvation of his soul and the beauties of the Church. Edward asked him why the church was not like the Church he read of in the New Testament, and because the minister could not give him a satisfactory answer he became somewhat skeptical. When about sixteen years of age he went to work in a drug store as a clerk and obtained quite a knowledge of drugs and their uses. As he obtained his maturity he became restless and started out to see the world and soon found himself in the city of London seeking work, but with poor success. While at a rooming house he got into a conversation with a roommate about religion and expressed himself as a skeptic as he could not find any church to correspond with the one the Savior organized. His roommate asked him if he had ever investigated the doctrine as taught by the Latter-day Saints or Mormons. He replied that he never met any of these people. "Well," said his roommate, "if you ever have the opportunity find out what they teach, for they not only teach the doctrine of Christ, but they have the authority to administer in it's ordinances. I know whereof I speak for I was once a member of their church but lost my standing through transgression, but they are the true church." In the early part of 1854 he was working in the coal pits of Staffordshire, and learning that there was a branch of the Latter-day Saints church in the place, he attended their meeting and was convinced of the truth which they taught. He was converted with this first sermon and was baptized within a few weeks. His baptism occurred the 27th of May of that year, and on the 20th of June he was ordained to the office of an elder and began to labor as a local missionary. This first sermon was preached by George Powell, who later became his father-in-law. At the time Edward joined the church he was accompanied by his brother Charles who also joined but did not take an active part and after he married he drifted away from it's influence and his family was never taught the gospel. Edward was left the only representative of his family in the church, and after leaving home, never saw any other member of his family. After joining the church he went to live with the family of George and Maria (Mousley) Powell, their four daughters and one son.