17 Miracles

Today I took the kids to see 17 Miracles. Alexander has been asking to see it, but Elisa didn’t want to. But we made a deal that we’d watch a movie Elisa wanted to see (Monte Carlo) and then we’d watch this one. I really wanted all my children to see it so they could learn about the history as well as the miracles.

As we were in line to buy tickets, Elisa asked, “Why do you want to see this?” And I started to answer, but she said, “Not you. I can tell it’s a movie you’d want to see. I meant Alex.” I thought that was a strange question since he likes to borrow my LDS books and talks on CD and he chose to watch The Work and The Glory as our family movie on Sunday.


If you’ve never heard of it, 17 Miracles is a movie about the Willie Handcart Company that uses historical accounts taken from journals of pioneers. They do merge accounts taken from members of both the Willie and the Martin Handcart Companies in the movie. If you'd like to read some of the behind the scenes accounts, read 17 Miracles--An Extra's Viewpoint. Unfortunately, we missed the first couple of minutes of the movie, but I saw online that in the beginning it says: "Some events are not in chronological order, but all of the miracles portrayed are true."



I have read and heard many accounts of the Latter-day Saint pioneers and even some of the events in the movie, but not all of them. It always makes me aware of how many conveniences and blessings I have. I don’t even like to walk from the doors of the university across the parking lot to my car in the snow. I cannot imagine trekking through blizzards uphill, through icy rivers, with very little food and then to lay down on that snow to try to sleep night after night after night. As I watched, I felt, “How dare you complain” and I do whine and cry in my heart about poor me.


I was glad that during the movie, Elisa would laugh sometimes and Sabrina asked a few questions. Sabrina really liked the character Albert

and kept asking me where he was or if he died. Don’t wanna spoil any of the movie so I won’t tell you what happened with him. When we were leaving the theater, Elisa asked me if she had black under her eyes. Yay! She was into the movie and history enough to cry even though she didn’t want to watch something so boring and educational.  *Insert evil mommy laugh here*

To see if the movie is at a theater near you, go to 17 Miracles.com.