Now for those of you who look at this blog only to admire our beautiful kid, you may stop reading. The rest of you may continue for a little more insight into our lives. :)
A week ago, Ross and I spoke in our new ward and well, not to be pretentious, but I found my own talk inspiring and thought I would share it with y'all. Ross gave an excellent talk as well, but I don't have a copy of it so he will have to share it if he wants.
I was asked to speak on Pioneers and a lot of it came from Elder Holland's article in the Ensign this month. Enjoy!
Faith to Answer the Call – July 10, 2011
This month we celebrate the arrival of the Mormon Pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley. It is a time to reflect upon their lives and examples and to “liken them unto ourselves.”
In 1879, 250 people accepted the call by President John Taylor to establish the San Juan Mission. With 80 wagons they began to cut their way toward and through imposing, unexplored territory of snow-capped mountains and towering stone pinnacles.
Seeking the shortest route to San Juan, those first explorers overcame one obstacle after another but soon faced the largest and most intimidating barrier of all: the impassable gulf of the Colorado River gorge. Miraculously their weary scouts found a narrow slit in the canyon—a crevice running 2,000 feet down the red cliffs to the Colorado River below. This lone, near-lethal “hole in the rock” seemed to offer the only possible passage to the eastern side.
For the most part, the slice in the sandstone was too narrow for horses and in some places too narrow even for a man or woman to pass through. Sheer drops of as much as 75 feet would seem to have made it impossible for a mountain sheep, let alone loaded wagons. But the hardy Saints were not going to turn back, so with blasting powder and tools, they cut a precarious, primitive road into the face of the canyon precipice.
With this roadbed finished, such as it was, the task was now to get the first 40 wagons down the “hole.” The other wagons would follow later.
They organized themselves in such a way “that a dozen or more men could hang on behind the wagon” with long ropes to slow its descent. Then the wheels were brake-locked with chains, allowing them to slide but avoiding the catastrophe of the wheels actually rolling.
In one of the great moments of pioneer history, one by one the company took the wagons down the treacherous precipice. When they reached the canyon floor, they eagerly started to ferry across the river with a flatbed boat they had fashioned for that purpose. As it turned out, the Joseph Stanford Smith family was in the last wagon to descend that day.
Stanford Smith had systematically helped the preceding wagons down, but somehow the company apparently forgot that Brother Smith’s family would still need help as the tailenders. Deeply disturbed that he and his family seemed abandoned, Stanford moved his team, wagon, and family to the edge of the precipice. The team was placed in front and a third horse was hitched behind the wagon to the rear axle. The Smiths stood for a moment and looked down the treacherous hole. Stanford turned to his wife, Arabella, and said, “I am afraid we can’t make it.”
She replied, “But we’ve got to make it.”
He said, “If we only had a few men to hold the wagon back, we might make it.”
Replied his wife, “I’ll do the holding back.”
She laid a quilt on the ground, and there she placed her infant son in the care of her three-year-old and five-year-old. “Hold little brother ’til papa comes for you,” she said. Then positioning herself behind the wagon, Belle Smith grasped the reins of the horse hitched to the back of the rig. Stanford started the team down the hole. The wagon lurched downward. With the first jolt the rear horse fell. Sister Smith raced after him and the wagon, pulling on the lines with all her strength and courage. She soon fell too, and as she was dragged along with the horse, a jagged rock cut a cruel gash in her leg from heel to hip. That gallant woman, with clothes torn and a grievous wound, hung on to those lines with all her might and faith the full length of the incline all the way to the river’s edge.
On reaching the bottom and almost in disbelief at their accomplishment, Stanford immediately raced the 2,000 feet back up to the top of the cliff, fearful for the welfare of the children. When he climbed over the rim, there he saw them literally unmoved from their position. Carrying the baby, with the other two children clinging to him and to each other, he led them down the rocky crack to their anxious mother below. In the distance they saw five men moving toward them carrying chains and ropes. Realizing the plight the Smiths were in, these men were coming to help. Stanford called out, “Forget it, fellows. We managed fine. Belle here is all the help a fellow needs [to make this journey].” (Faith to Answer the Call, Jeffrey R. Holland, Ensign July 2011)
We need not travel thousands of miles against impassible wilderness to be like the pioneers. I would like to share the story of another modern pioneer, one who is still a living example to us today. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland shares this experience from his own life:
[As newlyweds Sister Holland and I] were starstruck—and fearful. We had absolutely no money. Zero. For a variety of reasons, neither of our families was able to help finance our education. We had a small apartment just south of [BYU’s] campus—the smallest we could find: two rooms and a half bath. We were both working too many hours trying to stay afloat financially, but we had no other choice.
I remember one fall day—I think it was in the first semester after our marriage in 1963—we were walking together up the hill past the Maeser Building. Somewhere on that path we stopped and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. Life that day seemed so overwhelming, and the undergraduate plus graduate years that we still anticipated before us seemed monumental, nearly insurmountable. Our love for each other and our commitment to the gospel were strong, but most of all the other temporal things around us seemed particularly ominous.
On a spot that I could probably still mark for you today, I turned to Pat and said something like this: “Honey, should we give up? I can get a good job and carve out a good living for us. I can do some things. I’ll be okay without a degree. Should we stop trying to tackle what right now seems so difficult to face?”
I said, in effect, “Let’s go back. Let’s go home. The future holds nothing for us.”
Then my beloved little bride did what she has done for 45 years since then. She grabbed me by the lapels and said, “We are not going back. We are not going home. The future holds everything for us.”
She stood there in the sunlight that day and gave me a real talk. There was certainly plenty in her voice that said she was committed to setting aside all that was past [just as the pioneers gave all they had] in order to “press toward the mark” and seize the prize of God that lay yet ahead. It was a living demonstration of faith. It was “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). So we laughed, kept walking, and finished up sharing a root beer—one glass, two straws. (Remember Lot’s Wife, Jeffrey R. Holland, BYU Devotional Speech, January 13, 2009)
Now I would like to share one last example of young modern pioneer, who set an example to me personally. As a teenager I attended a special fireside given by President Hinkley to the youth. It was the fireside where he presented the “9 Be’s.” During that fireside, President Hinkley, reminded the youth to treat their bodies as temples, by dressing modestly and avoiding bodily décor such as tattoos and piercings. He specifically stated that young women should only pierce their ears once and wear only one pair of modest earrings. At the time having multiple ear piercings was very popular, all my friends had multiple piercing and I was extremely frustrated that my parents would not allow me to get a second pair. That night, I was grateful for my parent’s foresight, but more important to me was the example of my best friend, B... (I'm not including her name to save her some embarrassment, but I am pretty sure you know who you are). I sat between B... and another friend, J.... Each of them wore a second pair of earrings. As this counsel was given, J... leaned over to me and whispered something to the effect of “That’s ridiculous, it doesn’t matter how many earrings I wear, I’m not taking them out!” Upon hearing her response I glanced over at B..., to see what her response would be. She didn’t say a thing as she was already removing her second pair of earrings and tucking them into her scripture case. In the 12 or so years since then I have seen B... heed the call of the prophets again and again. And her life has been greatly blessed, although not free of trial, she has always been able overcome and find true happiness.
What is it that inspired the loyalty and devotion found in this 16-year-old girl? What inspired Sister Holland to carry on despite fear and poverty and remind her husband that “the future holds everything for us?” What inspired the strength in Belle Smith to do what must be done? And what of those three little children who watched their parents disappear in a wagon over the edge of the Colorado River gorge but trusted in the instruction they had been given by their mother? They sat there stalwartly, determined not to move or weep despite what must have been their tremendous fear. What are we seeing in these examples of faithful pioneers?
What we saw then and what we see now among the blessed Saints the world over is faith in God, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, faith in the Prophet Joseph Smith, faith in the reality of this work and the truthfulness of its message. The fundamental driving force in these stories is faith—rock-ribbed, furnace-refined, event-filled, spiritually girded faith that this is the very Church and kingdom of God and that when you are called, you go.
And so I issue a call for the conviction we all must have burning in our hearts that this is the work of God and that it requires the best we can give to the effort. My appeal is that you nurture your own physical and spiritual strength so that you have a deep reservoir of faith to call upon when tasks or challenges or demands of one kind or another come. Pray a little more, study a little more, shut out the noise and shut down the clamor, enjoy nature, call down personal revelation, search your soul, and search the heavens for the testimony that led the pioneers. Then, when you need to reach down inside a little deeper and a little farther to face life and do what must be done, you will be sure there is something down there to call upon.
Do not be caught unprepared. There is work to be done. The world is getting more wicked, and the times ahead will try the best of us. But if we have filled our lives with faith and strong conviction like unto the pioneers, I know we will triumph in righteousness and eternal happiness.
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