The volcanic eruption of Mt. Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa on 10 April 1815 caused devastating effects around the world.  Tens of thousands of people lost their lives, and the lives of millions of others were affected.

Beyond that, I believe that the eruption of the volcano was also a necessary precursor to the restoration of the gospel.  This is my theory.  I’ve never before heard anyone talk about these ideas, but I think they’re accurate.

Sumbawa Island is about the width of Australia west from my current location in Vanuatu.  Mt. Tambora, on that island, was formerly about 14,100 feet high.  On 5 April 1815 it began erupting.  Five days later, on the 10th, it literally blew its top.  The top one-third of the mountain, and a huge volume of material from inside the earth, was blown 25 miles into the atmosphere.  An estimated 38 cubic miles of rock and ash was thrown skyward.  Six-inch-diameter rocks rained down on neighboring islands.  A horrific wind created by the eruption blew villages, people, cows, and huge trees into the ocean.  Much of the island collapsed into the void left under the volcano.  Huge tsunamis hit neighboring islands obliterating villages and crops.  Tens of thousands of people were killed.  Crewmen on ships many miles away suffered broken eardrums.  British troops 750 miles away in Java were dispatched to rescue the next outpost from a supposed attack when they heard what they thought was cannon fire.  Darkness descended on neighboring islands, requiring the lighting of candles.

The eruption of Mt. Tambora is thought to have been the loudest sound ever generated on earth.  The eruption pumped so much material into the upper atmosphere that it caused brilliant sunsets around the world for several years.  The material in the atmosphere blocked sunlight and caused a reduction in surface temperatures on the earth.  The result was what is remembered as “the year without a summer.”  Rice crops failed in China, Korea, and Japan.  There were food shortages in Ireland, France, England, and the United States.  Famine prevailed in many areas causing tens of thousands more deaths.

Because of the lack of a worldwide communications system in 1815, few people knew about the cataclysmic event in the islands of Indonesia.  All they knew was that the weather was very abnormal.  Spring arrived the next year in the Northern Hemisphere, but the cold persisted.  The sky seemed permanently overcast.  Hard frosts occurred in every summer month.  Old farmers in Connecticut referred to 1816 as “eighteen hundred and starve to death.”  It was more than a century later before anyone understood the cause of the cold and the resulting famine.

I’m sure the Lord fulfilled many purposes in His grand plan through this event.  We can’t imagine what most of them were, but in hindsight, one seems obvious.

The year without a summer inspired a westward migration of many people from New England.  Among those who packed up and moved was the family of Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith.  The move was necessitated by the fact that their crop failure in 1816 caused them to lose the fine farm they had worked so hard to establish.  Unless the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith, Sr. the reasons for his hardships, I’m sure that neither he nor his then 10-year-old namesake ever knew what lay behind the family’s decision to move across two states and to settle near a hill named Cumorah.

Was the choice a random one?

No one who understands the workings of the Holy Spirit could possibly think so.  The Lord needed the young boy in that family to be where angels could teach, train, and tutor him in preparation for the marvelous work and a wonder that Isaiah prophesied would come upon the earth.

All Joseph Smith, Sr. could see in 1816 was one hardship coming on top of another.  He was surely unable to see any divine purpose in the hardships he had to experience.  He could not know that his afflictions were to become a blessing to all mankind.

How fascinating it is to me to be able to understand how an event on this side of the world could profoundly affect the other side of the world, and to then see the ripple effect return and affect the source even more profoundly.  I’m amazed.  I’m in awe when I see these island people stand, and with tears running down their faces, bear grateful testimony that they know the young boy in that New England family of 200 years ago became a prophet of God.