The Time Has Come

It seems that interest in my blog has waned to nothing, as evinced by the lack of comments for the past few months. It has been a great experience sharing with you my faith and beliefs. But since this blog was about you, and not me, there doesn't seem to be a reason for maintaining it any longer.

As always, you can contact me if you have questions about Mormonism. If I get enough, I may reconsider re-starting the blog.

Until then, it's been a blast.

-Craig

The Dance

THE DANCE

The night envelopes us as we make our way back to the apartment. Every few minutes, lights cut through the blackness; each set brings hope of a ride back to Otavalo. We try to thumb them down, but most of our gestures are ignored. We are forced to continue along the dirt road that would take us to the highway. There, we might catch a bus which will carry us the remaining five miles to the city.

Fireflies flicker around us as random thoughts flash and fizzle in my mind. As the ideas fire, I catch hold of one: The past five months have been difficult. I had worked my heart out, and yet, the fruits were minimal.

My mind is clouded, and I can not see past its dark negativity. Initially, I was excited to serve. As a child I had dreamed of being like Ammon. But here I am in my own land of Ishmael, but I had yet to find a Lamoni.

I can’t help but feel guilty. I’m missing something; I’m coming up short somewhere. What lack I yet? Becoming emotional, I let my thoughts be drowned out by the heavy "clump, clump" of my feet on the uneven ground.

"Could today have been any worse?" I ask my companion, hoping that he would see behind the mask of the question and find the words to soothe my troubled soul.

"It wasn’t so bad. We were able to do a little of what we planned."

A troubled sigh escapes me; he had failed to hear my cry for help. Elder Rekoutis is a good missionary and a good friend, but perhaps I need to go to Someone greater. I ache to go home and pray.

Lights behind us signal new hope. Instead of passing by and hurrying along, a truck splashes through a puddle and stops. The driver’s shoulder rotates as his window descends into the door, and a broad smile greets us. Two gold inlayed stars in his front teeth dominate his grin. He wears an Al Capone style hat backward with the brim flipped up. It almost looks like a natural part of the long, jet black hair pulled into a loose pony tail behind his head.

"You going to Otavalo?" His Spanish sounds perfect, no trace of a Quichua accent. Quichua was slowly dying out, and he is typical of a new generation.

"Sí, can you give us a ride?"

"Sure, hop in," he responds, motioning us to climb into the truck bed. My companion and I step onto the bumper and into the back. Squatting, we brace ourselves for the ride. We sit quietly as the wind whips past us. I allow it to push back the feelings and thoughts that come all too easily. Looking up, I stare into the void of the night sky, ignoring the glimmering stars that look down on me.

The ride is short, and we soon are within the municipality of Otavalo, nestled in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. Two and three story buildings dominate the streets. The joints of each structure come together in perfect right angles, creating cinder block, rectangular faces and flat roofed losas.

In minutes, we’re back at the apartment. My companion and I study together, but fatigue overpowers us, and we get little out of it. Afterwards, I shower, waiting secretly for the time that I can commune with the Lord. The time comes, and I kneel. I begin, but my words are robotic, almost recorded. I continue, but I feel that each word hits the ceiling; I receive no comfort. The question still remaines: What lack I yet? I finish and struggled into bed.

I’m not excited for morning, especially because morning brings a holiday. Holidays mean a lot of walking with little contact with people, and most appointments fall through. Just what I need. Tomorrow morning’s holiday holds even less promise because it is El Dia de los Fallecidos, The Day of the Dead. Morning looms ominously ahead, like the sky right before a thunderstorm. Wrapping myself in that darkness, I close my eyes.

The morning is typical. It is time to study personally and the scriptures bring little comfort. I still cannot understand how the prophets of old could do it. I am doing exactly as they did but the results are so drastically different. Discouraged, I angrily close The Book of Mormon. It is time to go, and I reluctantly step out onto the street.

The first few hours pass just as I had suspected. "What’s the deal?" I blurt out to my companion. "We walk and walk and it doesn’t do any good to talk to people. They just stare at us with that glazed over a look, like our words are bouncing off their ears."

"Relax, Pankratz!" Elder Rekoutis’ face is tight. His forehead wrinkles as he looks at me. His glare does little to help me obey his command. "Look, it’s not my fault that Luis couldn’t translate for us. We’ll just have to do our best. WON’T WE?"

Flinging his proselyting bag over his shoulder, he turns and tromps away. The conversation was over. Rolling my eyes, I follow. It’s time for English class. Brooding, I walk grudgingly behind my companion the entire way to the church.

I have to check my day planner to make sure what day it is when we arrive at the chapel. The grounds are full. "What’s going on?" I ask, the tension from before giving way temporarily to curiosity. I cannot help but speculate about what is happening, and honestly, my speculation is not too favorable for the members.

"I don’t know." Rekoutis responds. His countenance has relaxed since our last discussion. Forgetting the contention, he looks at the grounds with eyes suddenly full of wonderment and excitement. "Let’s go find out."

"¡Guokis! ¿Ima nasha tac cangichi?" Greet the members as we enter the chain link gate of the chapel’s grounds. Puzzled, we weave through the throngs of people to find the Bishop. Spotting him near the back of the yard, we dodge our way to him. The bishop salutes us, joy beaming from his face. "Elderes, ¿cómo están?" His eyes glow with kindness as I listen to him. It takes little effort to discern what is happening. Today is the day of La Compania’s ward party for The Day of the Dead, and we are invited to participate with a special invitation. English class immediately loses importance. Even the pupils are invited to take part in the celebrations.

I look out on the throngs of people. Here is the fountain of my problems, ignorance, apathy, and misunderstanding. If these people were not so backward, maybe I would have the success that I want. I am so tired of members who refuse to help us. I have had enough of evangelical congregations’ persecutions, of their lies about the church. If only they knew who they were. If only they were like the people of Ammon, then I would be happy.

Despite my mind’s justifications, I still do not feel comfortable about placing the blame solely on them. I try to reevaluate my thinking. It’s difficult to see past the present hurt, the longings of a young missionary, but I try. Perhaps they merit another chance. Perhaps another look will reveal something. Elder Rekoutis seems to appreciate them. I watch for a moment as he laughs and plays with them. He is smiling.

I place my thoughts in the back of my mind when the Bishop calls us to attention. There is to be a special presentation by the sisters of the ward. They will perform several traditional dances. Finding our place on a hill that overlooks the dance floor, my companion and I sit. For the first time in a long time, I am full of anticipation. In five months on this mountainside I have yet to see a dance or a ceremony that links these people to their past, to who they are.

The dancers stand ready next to the sports court, a cement slab, that will be their dance floor. I scan through the dancers, and in the front of all of them stands Janet, the Bishop’s daughter. Of all the children that I know in the La Compania, she is my favorite. As I look at her, memories of her and her brothers pleading to be thrown into the air flow into my mind. Janet is a special little girl, naive and energetic. Secretly, I have adopted her as one of my nieces.

A 6/8 indigenous Andean rhythm begins to play, and the dancers take their places. Janet is blushing and her embarrassment shows in her eyes as well. The collar of her blouse bounces as she moves to the simple step, bounce, step choreography of the dance. Catching her glance I cannot help but smile. She sees me and rolls her eyes as if trying to escape my attention. For a moment, I turn away my attention to observe the people of the ward.

The cheery music still plays as brightly embroidered blossoms shine brilliantly against a multitude of gleaming white trousers and shirts, like May flowers defying a late snowstorm. Beautiful children closely trail their mothers. An occasional blue poncho and the women’s dark skirts brake the simple white pattern that runs throughout the crowd. Babies with fat, round faces are strapped snugly to their mother’s backs. Men and women smile as they observe the dance, gold lined teeth shining in the sunlight. They are glowing.

The music continues, and my attention is drawn back to Janet. She is glowing like the rest, but her glow is contagious, flowing out from her, and bathing all in her radiance. I am caught up in Janet’s warmth, and in an instant, the scales of darkness that cover my eyes fall to the floor. The light of Christ illuminates them. I see the ward members as they are, my brothers and sisters, a beautiful and a chosen people. The dance now done, I am somehow different. Something has changed. I feel complete.

To the west the sun sinks and begins to set. The colors of the countryside are crisper as the sun makes its descent. Long shadows stretch from the adobe houses and across the grass of the church’s lawn. The shadows mark that it is time to go. We bid our friends farewell, as the sun sinks completely behind the hills to the west. A new feeling overcomes me as we walk away from the party.

Stepping beside my companion, I feel ashamed for my earlier actions. I think of ways to apologize. Searching, I turn to him and say, "Today was awesome. Wasn’t it, Rekoutis?"
He looks at me and smiles, understanding exactly what I’m saying, and answers, "Yep, it sure was, Pankratz. It sure was."

Night is upon us, but the moon and stars cast silvery shadows on the mountainside as we walk the dirt road to the highway. My feet move to the 6/8 beat of the music in my head. Tears quietly stream down my cheeks. I am filled with emotion as the clouds of negativity give way to the bright celestial lights above us.

Fireflies flicker around us as thoughts glow warmly in my head. As the ideas fill my mind, one prevails and catches hold of me: How grateful I am to my Heavenly Father for sending me here. Even though I have not found a Lamoni, I have been with the people of Ammon.

Worthy of Our Parentage

We are who we are in a very large part because of our ancestors. Their choices have shaped our opportunities and our circumstances, for better or for worse. Thankfully, I am descended from a long line of noble ancestry. And I owe everything to them.

I am the product of hundreds of years of searching for Eternal Truth. My ancestors, without exception (at least that I know of), came to the United States of America seeking religious freedom. On my mother's side, many of my ancestors were Puritans and Pilgrims. In fact, one of my great-grandfathers, Richard Warren, was on the Mayflower and was part of the scouting party that eventually chose Plymouth as a place of settlement.

The rest of my ancestors on my mother's side came to America to establish Zion. They were from the British Isles and the Netherlands. Mormon missionaries came to their countries and taught them in their homes, streets, and churches. My ancestors recognized that the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ had been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

One of them was named Mary Soar Taylor. Mary lived in Nottingham, England and was widowed when she was still a young woman, leaving her alone to care for her two sons, Jesse and William. Missionaries came and taught her that the True Church of Jesus Christ had been restored, and she accepted their message with all her heart.

She and her children wanted to join the Saints in Utah, but they were poor and had to wait several years until the opportunity came for them to come to Zion. In 1856, they left England and arrived in the Midwest where they would continue their trek. They couldn’t afford a wagon, let alone a team of oxen, so they pulled their belongings and supplies in a handcart in the Martin Handcart Company. But they left for Utah late in the summer, and an early snow storm caught their company on the high plains of Wyoming.

They were stranded.

Providentially, Elder Franklin D. Richards of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles had found them before the snow storm as he was returning from a mission in Europe. He had a fast team of horses and a carriage and made it to Salt Lake City on October 4 to report that there were still two companies on the plains.

Even though Brigham Young immediately sent help, Mary, her children, and their company didn’t arrive in the Salt Lake Valley until late November. Many died, and those who didn’t lost toes, feet, fingers, and legs. William eventually died from the effects of the experience. (For more information about the Martin Handcart Company, see James E. Faust, "Go Bring Them Home from the Plains," Liahona, Nov. 1997, 3; James E. Faust, "A Priceless Heritage," Ensign, July 2002, 2; "Remembering the Rescue," Ensign, Aug. 1997, 38; Paul H. Peterson, "They Came by Handcart," Ensign, Aug. 1997, 30.

Of all people, I think the members of the Martin Handcart Company were justified in complaining and criticizing Brigham Young and the other leaders of the Church. But they didn’t; other members of the Church did. The following is an account of one survivor of the Martin Handcart Company as he responded to criticism:

Some sharp criticism of the Church and its leaders was being indulged in for permitting any company of converts to venture across the plains with no more supplies or protection than a handcart caravan afforded.

An old man in the corner … sat silent and listened as long as he could stand it, then he arose and said things that no person who heard him will ever forget. His face was white with emotion, yet he spoke calmly, deliberately, but with great earnestness and sincerity.

In substance [he] said, "I ask you to stop this criticism. You are discussing a matter you know nothing about. Cold historic facts mean nothing here, for they give no proper interpretation of the questions involved. Mistake to send the Handcart Company out so late in the season? Yes. But I was in that company and my wife was in it and Sister Nellie Unthank whom you have cited was there, too. We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? …

"I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it."

He continued: "I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.

"Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company." (James E. Faust, "The Refiner’s Fire," Ensign, May 1979, 53).

I know that Mary, Jesse, and William felt the same way.

In fact, Mary wrote a brief history of her life and closed it with her testimony. She said:

I have written this sketch of my life as stated for the benefit of my grandchildren and others and I also add my testimony of the divinity of this work. I know that it is the work of God and hope and trust that any of my posterity that may come in possession of this may be strengthened in their faith by it, and be worthy of such parentage for truly we suffered much for the truth's sake, but the reward of the faithful is sure.

It's hard to hold back the tears when I read my grandmother's words. She gave everything because she knew that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the restored Church of Jesus Christ, containing the Fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I strive to be "worthy of such parentage." I will be faithful to the end to this Gospel and to this Church. It is the least I can do for Mary and for Jesse and my other ancestors on my mother's side who gave everything to come to Zion.

And I am equally beholden to my father's ancestors. They were Mennonites. The Mennonites were part of the Anabaptist movement of the Reformation. During the Reformation, several men in Switzerland decided their infant baptisms were invalid because they did not have the option to choose for themselves. They were rebaptised, and thus the Anabaptist movement was born.

Among all the sects which emerged in Reformation Europe, the Anabaptists were the most radical. They sought to Restore the ancient Church of Jesus Christ. They actively proselytized their neighbors, and many rejected the authority of their secular leaders. As a result, the Anabaptists suffered severe persecution. Among the most radical of the Anabaptists were those living in the city of Munster, Germany. There, one Anabaptist leader claimed to be the prophet Enoch and Munster the city of Zion. They drove all non-believers from the city, but their neighbors retaliated and slaughtered the Munster Anabaptists.

After Munster, the Anabaptist movement needed leadership when a former Catholic priest, Menno Simons took the lead of the largest group of Anabaptists. He preached the need for the separation of Church and State, the importance of Faith and Works to gain salvation, and pacifism. The were known as the Mennonites.

The Mennonites gathered in communities and supported one another physically and spiritually. And because they were pacifists, they were driven from place to place. Finally, they were allowed to live in Prussia in the early Seventeenth Century. After one hundred years and prosperity in Prussia, the Prussian government demanded that the Mennonites give their sons to serve in the military.

Cathrine the Great of Russia, hearing of the Mennoites' prosperity in Prussia, invited them to come to the Ukraine and Crimea, which Russia had just acquired in the Crimean War. She promised that they would never have to serve in the military. But in 1871, Czar Alexander II of Russia ordered all men within the boundaries of his empire to submit themselves to military service. However, he opened a ten-year window of emigration for anyone opposed. The decree outraged the nearly forty-five thousand Mennonites, and after several failed attempts to dissuade the Russian government, the only solution was emigration.

And my ancestors ended up in the Midwest states of Kansas, Missouri, and the Dakotas. Their search for Truth and their desire to live according to the Truth they had received brought them here. Little did they know that the ancient Anabaptist desire to restore the ancient Church of Jesus Christ had been fulfilled through Joseph Smith. And little did they know that one of their descendants, my father, would find the fulness of the Gospel.

Dad was in high school working in a grocery store in Moses Lake, Washington. There were Mormons working in the store with him. And he had felt that there was something missing in his life. He approached the Mormons and asked if they had anything about their Church that he could read. They did better by bringing him to the missionaries and giving him a copy of the Book of Mormon.

Dad knew the Book of Mormon was truly Another Testament of Jesus Christ before he even finished reading it. He joined the Church and later served a mission in the Netherlands. While there, he had a mission companion named Jan. Jan's mother had just passed away, and his little sister, Diane, had to leave BYU to take care of her siblings.

Dad and Diane started writing each other. They were later married and had eleven children.

As you can see, I am who I am because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I feel an immense responsibility, more of a privilege than a responsibility, to share this Gospel with all the world. It is the Gospel that my Mennonite ancestors strove to restore, and it is the Gospel the prompted the ancestors on my mother's side to leave everything to come to Zion.

May I be worthy of such Parentage!

Christmas

The angels had good reason to sing that first Christmas night. In a vision explaining his father’s dream of the tree of life, Nephi saw the “most beautiful and fair [of] all virgins” holding the Son of God. (1 Nephi 11:15-22.) Instantly, Nephi recognized that the tree of life symbolized Christ and knew that the baby born in Bethlehem was the embodiment of God’s love for His children. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16.)

And God’s love abounded as Jesus walked among men. As Jesus healed and served, He testified that He merely did the works of the Father. (John 14:10.) That is, if Heavenly Father had been in Roman-occupied Jerusalem, He would have healed the sick, raised the dead, caused the blind to see, and lifted the sinner. For it was “God’s love [Jesus was] showing [us].” (Jeffery R. Holland, “The Grandeur of God,” Ensign, Nov. 2003, 72.) The same sorrow which filled Jesus as He lamented over Jerusalem filled Heavenly Father, as did the same compassion which Jesus showed to sinners, even to a woman caught in adultery. How can we imagine a stern and unforgiving God when He refused to condemn one guilty of the heinous sin of adultery? (See John 8:1-11.) True, God cannot “look upon sin with the least degree of tolerance,” and “no unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God.” But He wants us to repent of our sins, and when we do, immediately, He will extend the blessings of the plan of redemption to us until “He takes us on His shoulders and casts our sins behind His back.” (Alma 34:31; Holland, The Grandeur of God, 73.)

Thus the greatest manifestation of God’s love for us was the offering of His Son as the “great and last sacrifice” for sin. (Alma 34:10,13-14.) None of us compared to Christ premortally. The prophet Joseph Smith taught that many years will pass after our deaths and resurrection before any of us attain perfection. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 348.) Yet Jesus continued “from grace to grace” (D&C 93:14) until He attained Godhood many billions of years ago, enabling Him to create all things. (Moses 1:32-33.) Despite His premortal perfection, Jesus yielded Himself as a willing sacrifice to the will of the Father. No one deserved greater praise, glory, and honor. Yet no one suffered more. (D&C 19:15-18.) Still, to glorify the Father and to exalt us, Jesus “descended below all things.” (D&C 122:8).

Yes, the angels sang that first Christmas night because over Christ’s manger bed loomed the shadows of Gethsemane’s trees and of Golgotha’s cross. And the silence of that night portended the silence of the empty Garden Tomb.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”(Luke 2:14.)

Sorry

I've been sick all day. I wanted to post something, but I'm not going to be able to.