3 Nauvoo Senior Missionaries With the Same Name Arrive the Same Day, Find Out They Are Related

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By Mary Richards, Church News

Visitors to historic Nauvoo, Illinois, are used to seeing missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But lately they might do a double take when they look at those missionaries’ name badges.

Right now, there are three senior missionary couples in Nauvoo all with the last name Hunt, and they are all related — though they did not know each other before their missions and had never met until this year.

Elder Kevin Hunt and his wife, Sister Lou Hunt, from Maricopa, Arizona; Elder Jake Hunt and his wife, Sister Sandy Hunt, from Centerville, Utah; and Elder Brad Hunt and his wife, Sister Tammy Hunt, from Diamond Valley, Utah, all arrived at the Provo Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, on April 1.

The MTC was buzzing about all the Hunts. When the men got together, they opened the FamilySearch app on their phones, selected “Relatives Near Me” and found out they all had the same common ancestor, Amos Hunt.

Elder Jake Hunt and Elder Kevin Hunt are third cousins once removed, and Elder Jake Hunt and Elder Brad Hunt are also third cousins once removed, while Elder Kevin Hunt and Elder Brad Hunt are fourth cousins. Amos Hunt is Elder Jake Hunt’s great-great-grandfather, and the great-great-great-grandfather of the other two.

“It was fun to see that,” Elder Jake Hunt said. “I mean, we had no idea who each other was, and it was fun to meet and find out that we were actually related.”

Elder Jake Hunt and Elder Brad Hunt are both teamsters, meaning they drive the horse-drawn wagons on tours around Nauvoo’s streets. Elder Kevin Hunt is a site missionary, and all the women serve in the different sites and buildings as well.

Sister Sandy Hunt said, “Every once in a while, someone will get on a wagon and say, ‘Oh, you are Elder Hunt. I just saw your wife.’ And they will answer, ‘Which one?’”

Or visitors will go into one of the buildings and say, “We just met your cousin on the wagon.”

Amos Hunt, Their Common Ancestor

Elder Kevin Hunt shared Amos Hunt’s story with the Church News. He was born on February 28, 1819, in Greenville, Kentucky. His father, John Hunt Jr., was one of the first settlers in the area, moving to the state with a land grant for Revolutionary War service.

He built a home, a church and a cemetery. The church building still exists today, having been purchased by the Hunt Family Foundation around the year 1960. A branch of the Hunt family from Indiana and Kentucky still gathers in the area around once a year.

After Amos Hunt and his wife and many extended family members joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they traveled west in 1852 as part of the Benjamin Gardner Company to be with the Saints in the Intermountain West. One of Amos Hunt’s sons died on the trail of cholera.

After arriving in Utah, Amos Hunt settled in the Ogden area in the northern part of the state, and then his name was read over the pulpit during October general conference of 1861 to settle the southern part of the state. He had 15 children.

Amos Hunt later moved to be with a daughter in Teasdale, Wayne County, Utah, where he died on September 6, 1904.

Elder Brad Hunt said he grew up hearing stories about “old Amos,” because his great-grandfather was also named Amos Hunt and he was the newer Amos. And Elder Jake Hunt said many years ago, his father and uncles traveled to Kentucky to meet with the other Hunts there and came home to talk about what they had learned about Amos.

While no children in the next generation are named Amos in their particular family lines, one of the draft horses that they drive in Nauvoo is named Amos, which Elder Brad Hunt joked was “close enough.”

He said finding out they are related and being called to the same mission has been a beautiful experience.

“One day that we all came together, Elder Jake Hunt and I were working on the wagon, and the other Elder Hunt had a tour,” he said. “When they got on the wagon with us with their tour, we were all fulfilling our callings and responsibilities on the same wagon on the same day in Nauvoo. And I thought, ‘I bet the buttons are popping off our great-great-great-grandfather’s angel vest to see this.’”

Connections to Nauvoo

When they filled out their mission papers, Elder Brad Hunt and Elder Jake Hunt requested to serve in Nauvoo. Elder Kevin Hunt and his wife did not write down a preference, but he was thrilled to get the call — because he served for about six months in Nauvoo as a young missionary 50 years before. He was in what was then the Southern States Mission and sent to Nauvoo with a few others on a special assignment.

Meanwhile his wife, Sister Lou Hunt, had a connection because her parents — Everett and Verna Belcher — served in the Lucy Mack Smith home 1979-1981 and built the brick kiln that still makes souvenir bricks today.

Elder Brad Hunt can trace many ancestors to the Nauvoo time period in Church history. And his wife, Sister Tammy Hunt, joined the Church at age 17, and her musical group put on performances in Nauvoo.

“So she actually was in Nauvoo as a new, new convert, and she had some amazing experiences,” he said. When he returned from his mission, “I talked her into marrying me, and she said I owe her a mission then.”

When they brought their family to Nauvoo, they rode around in a wagon and looked at each other and said, “Here is our mission.”

Elder Jake Hunt visited Nauvoo around 1979 or 1980 when his parents were serving in the Independence Missouri Visitors’ Center.

“Of course, it was quite a bit different than it is now, but it was a very spiritual place. It still is,” he said. “It’s an honor to be here. It is interesting to meet the people that come here and hear their stories and a little bit about them. It’s really been a pleasure.”

Being in Nauvoo

All of the Hunt missionaries say they feel a deeper connection to Church history from serving in Nauvoo.

Elder Brad Hunt said that was one of the things that was so powerful to him when he arrived.

“Lucy Mack Smith — she lost her sons and her husband, and you think those were losses,” he said. “But then when you get the opportunity to tell people about those losses as we travel down the streets that are named after her boys that she lost, it is powerful. You feel the loss, and you begin to know Lucy Mack Smith.”

Elder Kevin Hunt says it is a privilege to tell the stories of the early Saints using their own words and their own testimonies while in their homes.

Elder Jake Hunt said the Spirit can be really strong at the sites. “There are occasions when people start asking questions that we can open up and talk and testify and teach, and that’s pretty special.”

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