Fun Fact

I've been trying to get my Europe scrapbook done over Christmas break. I've gotten through all of my Switzerland section and am well on my way to being done with my Scotland section.

I stumbled across some interesting information today while I was working on Scotland. Long ago and far away, on my first full day in Edinburgh, we hiked Arthur's Seat, the main peak in the park a mile east of Edinburgh. I found a very interesting bit of information I did not know about it until today that puts a whole new spin on my experience there:

Arthur's Seat also has a particular significance to the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), because this is where the nation of Scotland was dedicated in 1840 "for the preaching of the gospel". The apostle Orson Pratt arrived in Scotland in early 1840, finding only eighty church members; on 18 May 1840, he travelled to Edinburgh, and the following day:

he climbed a rugged, rocky hill that rises in the middle of a natural park, commanding a magnificent view of the ancient city. Locally it was called Arthur's Seat, but it is affectionately known by the Saints as Pratt's Hill. There Orson Pratt pleaded with the Lord to give him two hundred souls to convert. The Lord heard and answered that prayer.

The name "Pratt's Hill" is almost never used in Scottish parlance, but still crops up in American writings. Pratt climbed the hill a few more times kneeling and praying, saying that "[I] lifted my desires to heaven in behalf of the people of the city [of Edinburgh]"