Sacrament Meeting,
Sharon 4th Ward, Orem, Utah
26 June 2022
I am so very grateful for Annie! A former missionary in France commented in a note to me recently that he remembered very well attending Gospel Doctrine lessons that she taught in the Bordeaux Branch. This was in the mid-60’s and she had only been a member for a short time. He recalls that they were the best lessons he heard during his entire mission.
I appreciate how Annie has helped us understand what resilience is and how it can increase through our activity in the Church. I would like to take a slightly different tack from that and relate resilience to the notion of finding and staying on the Covenant Path, and then reflect on how we can return when we lose our way.
Chief among President Nelson’s accomplishments as our prophet is perhaps the emphasis and the focus he has placed on our belief in Jesus Christ and His divine mission. Significant also has been the prophet’s call to, ”Stay on the Covenant Path,” a path made possible by our Savior. He not only paid the price for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane, but he also opened made resurrection possible by being the first to conquer death by rising from the dead after his death on the cross. As we read in 1 Corinthians 15:20-22, “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” As Christ also said, “I am the away, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14: 6. Christ is the author of the Covenant Path. He is our support to remain there, and He is our guide and means to return when we lose our way.
To mix my metaphors a bit, I would like to say a few words about the construction of my personal on-ramp to the Covenant Path. The way was initiated by our Savior, and it was facilitated by missionaries long ago. Missionaries taught my great-grandparents and baptized them in the waning days of 1900, in what was known as the South Alabama Conference of the Southern States Mission. The two missionaries who baptized and confirmed them were from Utah, Elder Wilford McGavin McKendrick from Provo, and Elder Amasa Lyman Mecham from Lindon. It’s interesting to note the geographic proximity of where they were from and where my family lives today.
Elder Mecham had received his call to serve on 10 October 1899 and departed for the mission field a few days later. He had married the previous February, and he lived with his wife on a farm in Lindon. She was seven months pregnant when he left, and their first child was born in December, barely two months later.
From Family Search I learned that Elder McKendrick and his wife had been married on 20 July 1891 in Manti and were sealed exactly one year later in the Manti Temple. Following his call, he left behind his wife Lydia, and two daughters, Milas Cleone, age four, and Calista Hale, age five.
From Elder McKendrick’s journal, I learned that he boarded the train in Provo at 10 pm on the 18th of October 1900, and arrived at Grand Junction, Colorado, the next morning at 7 am. After taking 15 minutes to eat, he departed for Pueblo. Later that evening, at midnight, he departed Colorado for points east via the Missouri Pacific Railroad on his way to Kansas City and Saint Louis in Missouri, traveling on to Nashville, Tennessee, where he changed trains once again for Chattanooga the location of the mission headquarters.
I was able to fill in likely details of his journey from the journal of Harold Redd’s grandfather, Wayne Hardison Redd, who I learned had served in Glenwood, Crenshaw County, Alabama, where my grandmother was born about five years later. Elder Redd was there about two years before my great-grandparents were baptized. How amazing would it be if Elder Redd were the missionary who first contacted my great-grandparents? I will likely never know, but it is a fun thought!
From the journals of Elder Redd and Elder McKendrick I have learned a great deal about missionary service in those days in the South. From Elder McKendrick’s writing, I have also learned things I never knew about my great-grandparents. I was especially excited to learn the details that he recorded regarding their baptism.
On Wednesday, November the 28th in 1900, hardly a month after his arrival, he wrote that he and Elder Mecham were preparing to travel the nine miles from their regular lodging down to Crenshaw County. Their purpose was, “to visit some people who are friendly to us, Mr. & Mrs. Chesser.” It seems the Chessers had previously written the missionaries to ask them to come and see them. Elder McKendrick went on, “They are very poor, but are investigating our faith very earnestly.”
The next morning, the missionaries arrived by foot at 10 am. They answered questions about the Gospel and taught the doctrine of Baptism for the Dead. Then came dinner (or lunch as we would call it today), which consisted of corn bread, sweet potatoes, greens and syrup. I don’t know if those were turnip greens or collard greens, either way, it was good, down-home, Alabama eating! 😊 Afterwards, Great-Grandpa Chesser went to notify some of the neighbors that there would be preaching that night at his house. About ten people came to hear the missionaries teach and sing as well as to ask questions about what they had heard.
The next day was Thanksgiving. After breakfast, the missionaries taught the Law of Tithing, then left to visit another family 5 miles away. The journey took them three hours, causing them to arrive after the noon meal, which caused them to not have dinner on Thanksgiving Day.
Upon returning the five miles to the Chessers’ cabin that afternoon, they chopped down a tree for fireplace wood. After supper, they held another meeting for the ten people who came to learn about the Restored Gospel. The missionaries spoke and then sang for the group. Elder McKendrick wrote of this experience, “Mormons have established a reputation for singing in this country and Bro. Mecham and I have rather increased it than decreased, therefore we can get a meeting as often as we like in the same places, as the people here do like singing. The Elders who cannot sing must have a hard rowe to hoe.”
The next day Elder McKendrick wrote, “After dinner we went down to a small creek, dammed it up deep enough to baptize in. The neighbors, some of them quit their work to come & see the ordinance performed. It only took a few moments to baptize Chesser & his wife. I officiated, came to the house, changed clothes, and Bro. Mecham confirmed Bro. John Chesser and I confirmed Sister Elzma Chesser, for such we must now call them. While waiting for supper, we helped Bro. Chesser to husk and shell 2 bushels of corn to take to the mill. We stopped with them all night, and as they are great people for singing, we did more singing than talking.”
The love for music found in the Chesser’s little cabin has always been a big part of our family. My grandmother loved singing and music of any kind, but to my knowledge, the only music lessons she ever received were the few she asked me to give her when I was a young boy. I was 12 and had been taking piano lessons since age eight. Despite her lack of formal training, she had taught herself to play several different instruments, including the piano, guitar, Jew’s harp, and harmonica. I will return to her love of music in a moment.
In those days missionaries would work on the farms of the folks where they were staying. Elder McKendrick wrote of one experience of helping the Chesser family work off the road and poll tax that was levied by the government on the folks there. Elder Mecham was ill, so it was just Elder McKendrick and my great grandpa who set out one morning for the assignment. Two of them working meant that they were required to spend only half a day on the road. Elder McKendrick described how they worked “with only hoes—no plows, picks or shovels.” He added, “It was the funniest thing I ever saw.” When they had finished their work, the others remarked that, “those Mormons could work road as well as preach.”
We learn there of the physical resilience of the missionaries, which is integral for our Resilience in the Gospel. They had to be equal to the physical challenge of walking everywhere they went, illustrating the need we have for good health to do the Lord’s work. I even learned through my research that “miles walked” was one of the metrics on which the missionaries reported and which was tracked by the mission office, along with miles ridden and tracts distributed.
As an aside, Annie and I are working with the Service Mission Office of the Church, which promises opportunities for service for those with physical and other challenges yet desire to contribute to the building of the Kingdom.
Also important in Resilience in the Gospel is emotional resilience. I was reminded from my reading that the missionaries also faced a fair degree of emotional challenges in their service. Those could come from mobs or even from people with whom they had to interact, people who had it in for those they viewed as members of a strange cult. One day, after a visit to the post office and having received no mail, Elder McKendrick wrote, “Either the postmaster at Troy is neglecting to forward our mail to Ansley, or that ever-prejudiced postmaster at Ansley does not give us our mail.”
It was through the mail that families supported their missionaries. One of the postmasters even told a church member that McKendrick knew, “Them old Mormons run you nearly to death.” Elder McKendrick wrote that the man did not know he was “talking to a Mormon,” adding, “I intend to report to headquarters when I get enough evidence. They will find out that ‘Them old Mormons’ have as much right to the postal service of the U.S. as those bigoted, ignorant, and prejudiced [folks] who try to make people believe they are human beings.”
We better understand his strong reaction to that experience through his comments in his journal from the day before. Reading there, we come to understand to which the mail he received from his family was his lifeline. I quote, “Am sort of homesick tonight. Am raking up tender memories of home and my dear wife and darling little daughters—Cleone and Calista—those pledges of love that crown my [family]. Yet they do not come, but I see them all and fancy. I hear their little prayers asking God to Bless Papa.”
He missed the family he had left behind. On the day they worked on the road, he went later by mule to the post office, only to learn once again that he had no mail. That evening he recorded in his journal, “Tonight is the night that mamma will appear in the Provo Opera House with the Home Dramatic Club, in the ‘Lancashire Lass.’” That was the name of the play the club in Provo put on “for the benefit of the old folks.” He continues, “What I would not give to be in the front row of the first circle, with little Calista on my knee, and sweet lady-like Cleone by my side. After the play I would be perfectly willing to kiss them good-bye and take up my labors again in the South–come back to this hovel. Though absent darlings, my heart is with you. Am a little homesick tonight.”
Today we have means other than handwritten letters to buoy up our missionaries. Through E-mail messages, phone calls, and even video chats, families can help missionaries know they are loved and that they are engaged in doing the Lord’s work. We can participate by asking to be on the distribution lists of the missionaries from our ward. Also, a simple note to them from time to time will let them know that they are remembered, and that their efforts are appreciated. I know that to do so will contribute to our own spiritual and emotional resilience, buoying our own spirits.
The anecdotes I have recounted convey a sense of commitment, sacrifice, and service, all excellent examples all of temple covenants honored. The challenges of today’s world are different, but there are important lessons we can glean from the experiences I have described. Although we don’t need to walk anywhere from five to thirty miles a day, can make sure we get exercise and retire at a reasonable hour as they did. We read in Doctrine and Covenants, Section 88, Verse 124, “Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be reinvigorated. and sleep no longer than is needful.”
To help us face challenges today, the Church has created a course entitled “Emotional Resilience.” It is easy to find on the Church Web site in the self-reliance area of the church’s materials by searching on the title.
Another key point in our lives is the music that we choose to make part of our lives. Because music can either serve to uplift or be a source of darkness, our choices in music are crucial in our lives.
I don’t usually say much about my dad, but he had a strong influence on me, despite having never joined the church. I recently learned that early in the 1900s missionaries served in the area where all my ancestors on his side lived at the time. Sadly, none chose to take heed to their message. Nevertheless, I have learned that music was a big part of their lives that my dad also helped to pass on to me. I remember him telling me about singing in a Gospel quartet. While researching his family, I have learned from old newspapers how friends and families would gather at each other’s homes for Gospel singing nights. They were religious, and their faith was passed to me by my father. As a result, I attended the Baptist Church, which played a significant role in my on-ramp to the Covenant Path.
At age ten, while attending a summer revival meeting at the First Baptist Church in Tallassee, Alabama, we sang the Protestant hymn, “Softly and Tenderly”:
| Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling Calling for you and for me See on the portals He’s waiting and watching Watching for you and for me | Come home, come home Ye who are weary come home Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling Calling, “O sinner come home” |
As we sang, I felt I was truly answering my Savior’s call that evening in deciding to be baptized a member of the Baptist Church. I am grateful for what I learned about my Savior during that time of my life. I am also so very grateful for the two missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who, barely two years later, taught the fullness of our Savior’s Gospel to my mother, my sister, and to me.
The hymn we sang that evening is not in our hymnbook, but I have been touched in recent years to hear the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square sing it as part of its radio program, Music and the Spoken Word.
Good music should be a big part of our lives, and Sister Schraedel’s efforts with our ward choir are impressive. I know that more voices will be most welcome, and I also know that Resilience in the Gospel will grow through participation in the choir.
Finally, I mentioned earlier that my grandmother loved music. She also loved to sing. Not long before she died, my mother took her into her home to care for her. Annie and I were then living in Missouri, where I was serving as a missile launch officer in the US Air Force. She was pregnant with our third child and chasing after two others, age 2 and 3. We were also preparing for our move to Colorado, so it was not easy to leave her at that point. I am grateful that I made the trip to Alabama, however, for I was able to record my grandmother talking about her life.
My great-grandparents had died when my grandmother was 13, so I have never known much about them. I had forgotten many of the things she had recounted to me during that trip to Alabama to see her in my mother’s home. Listening recently to the digitized version of one of those tapes, I heard my grandmother telling me that she wanted to get everybody together to sing a song. I then listened as she haltingly tried to recite the words, stumbling, and forgetting as she spoke, adding that she wanted us all to sing.
She then said that she or I could chord it on the guitar. When I responded that I did not know the tune, she began to sing, flawlessly, the words I have transcribed here. They are from a song written long ago by a missionary about to return home from his mission in the South:
| In a foreign southern country stands the Alabama hills, where I left my home to labor long ago. Where the birds are singing sweetly and I hear the whippoorwill, And I labored in the vineyard of the Lord. Many a day I’ve climbed the hillside, in the sunshine, and in the rain many a day I’ve lived in hunger and in thirst Just to tell them that an angel has again restored the truth with its gifts and blessings all as at the first. | I have passed through trials and hardships just to preach this precious truth that the Gospel of our Savior does contain. And if we would but obey them, and we’re faithful to the end, Up in heaven I will meet you all again. For I’ll soon be with my loved ones in my happy mountain home. Even now the thought my heart with rapture thrills. So goodbye, my friends and brethren for the time has come to go. I must leave you in the Alabama hills. |
I bear witness of the truthfulness of the Gospel those missionaries taught my great-grandparents all those years ago. I also testify of the strength that we can gain through our family history and what it teaches us about those who have gone before. I am grateful that the prophet, Joseph Smith restored the Gospel that Jesus Christ taught while on the earth and grateful that we have a prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, who stands at the heard of our church today. I leave you these words in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
