Trek

The Hurst Texas Stake Youth Pioneer Trek

 This last week was spring break.  On Thursday, I drove up to the Lyndon B. Johnson Grasslands, a national reserve close to Decatur Texas, for my stake's Pioneer Trek.  Now you should probably understand that I have been skeptical and even a little critical of the pioneer trek in the past.  I have always struggled with the fact that at times this activity has jeopardized the health of some of the youth through heat exhaustion and other potential dangers.  But being a part of my stake's trek committee has changed my mind about this activity in a lot of ways.  I'm still not comfortable with courses and challenges that put people in danger, but on Thursday I got to experience some of the blessings that can come from this activity.

My Pioneer Costume (if there is ever a production of Fiddler on the Roof, or
an activity commemorating Communist Revolutionaries, I can use the same costume)

My role in the Youth Trek was to tell stories about the Sweetwater river.  I was the very last experience that the kids had before they were able to pull their carts the last half mile and set up camp.  So by the time they got to me, they were tired and worn out and ready to set up camp and have some dinner.  I think we all know how hard the pioneer experience was, particularly for those who pulled handcarts, but this gave me a new understanding of just how exhausting the pioneer trail was.  There were hills to climb and, perhaps even more dangerously, hills to descend.  And it was day after day.

When the kids arrived at my station, I had ten minutes to tell them about the Sweetwater.  I had prepared journal entries and a lot of information.  But as the first company was approaching, I had the impression that I should just talk to them and shouldn't read a single journal entry.  I knew enough that I could tell the story without needing to read it.  So that's what I did.  I asked them to imagine that the lake in the background was a river, about 50 feet wide and 3 to 4 feet deep.  I asked them to imagine that there was 18 inches of snow on the ground and slush and ice in the river.  I reminded them that there were no boats and no bridges and they had to cross that river.  I then spoke of Brigham Young, who in 1848 waited at the river all day until each and every wagon in his company had made it safely across.  I told them about the Martin crossing of the Platte River on October 19, 1856, where mothers crossed several times with their children, and some men made 75 trips across the river to help those who were weak.  I then told them that two weeks later, those same pioneers wept as they looked at the Sweetwater, knowing they would have to cross it, and again rescuers and other pioneers stepped forward to help others across.

After sharing these details, I asked them to think about the question "Why?"  "Why would they do this?"  I shared a brief testimony of the Savior and of the covenants we make when we are baptized into this Church and then sent them on their way.

Each of the four times I shared this message, I was overcome with the feeling that it was a far better message than I was capable of preparing on my own.  The kids were worn out and tired and dirty, but I could tell they felt the spirit during this message and I knew that I felt it myself and learned from it myself.  It was one of those precious occasions where I knew that the right words had been spoken and that they had had nothing to do with my abilities as a speaker, a teacher, or a historian.  The Lord wanted those kids to know those things, and I was blessed to be a part of how He taught them.  It was a special experience and one that taught me more than I could have imagined.

Brett

Reasons to Believe

Perhaps it is the fact that flowers are starting to pop up again and the trees are beginning to blossom--or perhaps it the fact that Spring Break is this week--but things feel really good today.  I've been alive long enough to know that these moments will inevitably be replaced by stressful challenges, which will, in turn, be replaced by more happy moments.  In order to help us progress and grow, our Heavenly Father has wisely allowed us to experience a wide range of emotions and experiences, each allowing us opportunities to grow closer to Him.  One thing that made a difference for me this week was a short day trip on Friday down to Austin.  The chance to see a new place and have new experiences was exciting, even if it was just for the day.  It was nice to get out and drive through country that I hadn't seen before.  For a person who seldom travels, I realized there is a lot of value in going someplace new and trying something new, even if it is just for a day.

Since September, I had the privilege of teaching the 14-15 year olds in Sunday School (until two weeks ago I was asked to move over to the adult gospel doctrine class).  One of the things that I realized in teaching the teens was just how useful the story of the First Vision was in teaching them.  As a missionary I loved sharing that story because the Spirit testified so deeply of its truth every single time we shared it.  And He did so with the teens.  But the more I taught them, I came to understand another reason why that story was so powerful with them.  They relate to it in a very profound way because Joseph was their age when he had that experience.  He asked questions that they have asked.  He struggled and studied and finally prayed, just as they have done.  While the visionary experiences that resulted from his efforts were unique to Joseph, the story of how he arrived at those experiences is everyone's story.

The more I have grown in the gospel, the more that story has come to resonate with me.  One of my favorite accounts of the First Vision is the 1832 account, particularly the way that he described his efforts to find the truth.  Joseph wrote (with some changes in spelling):

"At about the age of twelve years my mind became seriously impressed with regard to the all important concerns for the welfare of my immortal soul which led me to searching the scriptures, believing as I was taught, that they contained the word of God. . . . I pondered many things in my heart concerning the situation of the world of mankind, the contentions and divisions, the wickedness and abominations and the darkness which pervaded the minds of mankind.  My mind became exceedingly distressed for I became convicted of my sins . . . and I felt to mourn for my own sins and for the sins of the world for I learned in the scriptures that God was the same yesterday today and forever, that he was no respecter of persons, for he was God, for I looked upon the sun the glorious luminary of the earth and also the moon rolling in their majesty through the heavens and also the stars shining in their courses and the earth upon which I stood and the beast of the field and the fowls of heaven and the fish of the waters and also man walking upon the face of the earth in majesty and in the strength of beauty whose power and intelligence in governing the things which are so exceedingly great and marvelous even in the likeness of Him who created them, and when I considered upon these things my heart exclaimed well hath the wise man said it is a fool that saith in his heart there is no God.  My heart exclaimed all these things bear testimony and bespeak an omnipotent and omnipresent power, a being who maketh laws and decreeth and bindeth all things in their bounds, who filleth Eternity who was and is and will be from all eternity to eternity and when I considered all these things and that that being seeketh such to worship him . . . therefore I cried unto the Lord for mercy for there was none else to whom I could go . . . and the Lord heard my cry."  (Joseph Smith, History Circa Summer 1832)

For one thing, this account reminds me that Joseph could be a little wordy and loved flowery descriptions--something I understand.  But much more importantly, I love the way that the Prophet approached the questions and doubts that he had as a young boy.  Not all, but a few, who experience doubts seem ready to abandon everything that they know the second a question or doubt arises that they are unable to answer.  Joseph had doubts and questions for at least a couple of years, but he approached them in a way that strengthened rather than undermined his faith.

First, Joseph went to the scriptures and began studying.  He was no scholar, and particularly not at this point in his life.  But no matter how challenging the task of study may have been for Joseph, he studied and he studied with the faith that he would learn and then obey truth.  Second, Joseph was honest with himself not only about the conditions in the world around him, but far more importantly, he was honest about his own life and his own sins and his own need for mercy.  That kind of honesty is seldom easy, but it is the only way to find real answers because it is the only way for us to ask the real questions.  Third, Joseph found reasons to continue believing and to have faith.  If for a moment or two we struggle with this principle or that commandment, we need to do what Joseph did and find those things that we do believe, allowing those beliefs to give us reasons to believe further.  Finally, Joseph approached the Lord in mighty prayer and found answers.

What a blessing this story of the Prophet's First Vision is.  Such sacred experiences are seldom things that we share in public.  But I am grateful beyond belief that the Prophet shared this sacred vision and his efforts to discover the truth with us because his story is our story.  We can follow his example and we can receive revelations and have experiences that will change history, not only for ourselves, but for those who will come after us.

Brett

The Hands of Fathers

Dad with Rob and Maxwell

The past week was great.  Even though it was filled with grading midterms (yuck!) I had a great opportunity to prepare and teach seminary lessons on Helaman 1-2 and Helaman 5, as well as a gospel doctrine lesson on Abraham 1 and Genesis 15-17, and 21-22.  There is something unique about teaching that I love.  You learn a subject, and particularly the gospel, in a way that you can't replicate in any other manner by teaching it.  I noticed this during the summer when I was teaching at BYU.  The fact that 38 students in that classroom were expecting me to be an expert and to have some answers made to learn more quickly than I otherwise might have learned.  It made me study harder and ask better questions.  The opportunity to teach, more than anything, is the opportunity to be taught from on high.  It is a blessing.

I've been blessed to have examples of many superb teachers in my life.  Each of my mentors throughout my undergraduate and graduate degrees has been a gifted teacher. I've spent hours sitting captivated as men like Robert Millet and Terry Warner have taught me.  I've been blessed with wonderful bishops and stake presidents who have taught me.  In their own ways, each of my grandparents was a superb teacher.  My Grandpa Dowdle, who died 29 years ago today, was an English teacher, while my Grandma Dowdle taught elementary school.  My Mom, my sister Stephanie, and my sister Jeni have each been teachers by profession.  And then there is my Dad, a master teacher and principal by profession.  There aren't many lessons I remember vividly after two decades, but I remember lessons he taught me.

I thought about one of these lessons today as I took the sacrament.  When I was a boy, I remember being quite restless when it came to sacrament meeting.  With two parents who were anxious to teach their children reverence and respect, I'm sure this was a challenge.  But my Dad had a way of teaching me during the sacrament that I have always remembered.  As I normally sat next to him when I was a boy, he would lean over and whisper in my ear while the sacrament was being passed.  He would tell me about how the Savior had died for me, and he would point out the places in my hands and wrist where the soldiers had driven nails through the body of the Savior at Golgotha.  He would tell me about how he loved the Savior and how the sacrament reminded us of Him and what He had done for us.  I don't remember anything that any speaker ever said in any of those meetings, but I remember that.

In the most critical moments of their lives, Enos and Alma the Younger both remembered the words and testimonies of their fathers about the Savior.  At a crossroads when it was possible to give up, Nephi and Lehi remembered the words of their father Helaman, as set out to preach the gospel with power amongst both Nephites and Lamanites.  At a time when young Joseph Smith needed someone to believe him, Moroni instructed him to "go to [his] father and tell him of the vision and commandments which [he] had received" (JS-H 1:50), and there he found a worthy confidant who believed him and encouraged him in his ministry.  The not yet spiritually mature Gordon B. Hinckley found faith and the ability to press forward in a letter from his believing father.  And, in the most challenging, painful, and sacred event of human history, our Savior "sought Him whom He had always sought—His Father. 'Abba' (Mark 14:36) He cried, 'Papa,' or from the lips of a younger child, 'Daddy'" (Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Hands of Fathers").  With a knowledge of His Father's love and His Father's plan, and with desires for His Father's glory, the Savior was able to endure and secure the blessings of His Father's children who were willing to believe and obey Him.

In a world where fatherhood is sometimes deemed optional, the Lord declares that "great things [are] required at the hand[s] of . . . fathers" (D&C 29:48).  I know that many have not been as blessed as I have been, but I take great joy in the fact that I have been blessed with a father who takes this calling seriously.  I am blessed with a father who is a patriarch in very deed.  I am grateful beyond measure for him.

Happy birthday Dad!  I love you!

Brett

Twenty Years

The Grandkids with Nana and Papa, Bountiful, Utah, 1986

Perhaps you all will forgive a very brief post today.  This is shaping up to be a very busy week.  In addition to having 55 midterms to grade, I agreed to substitute for seminary on Wednesday and Friday and the following Monday.  So I am planning on spending the day doing my reading for Seminary and trying to plan out my lesson for Wednesday on Helaman 1-2.  To be honest, even though it will be busy, it is wonderful to be able to be of service in the Church.  I'm sure that I have often overlooked the great blessing that it is to serve in the Kingdom of God, but I am convinced that the blessings are far greater to those who serve than to those they are privileged to serve.

Nana and Papa Haycock with Elder and Sister Hinckley and a very tall man, circa 1957

This week is a special anniversary for me.  Twenty years ago this Tuesday, I heard my dad showering extra early in the morning.  When I woke up an hour and a half later, I found that my dad had left home to rush to Salt Lake to be with my Mom at the LDS Hospital where my Papa Haycock had passed away at the age of 77.  I don't envy my sisters Stephanie and Jeni, who had the difficult assignment of informing their three younger siblings that our Papa had died.  But despite the difficulty of the assignment, they performed it.

I write about my Papa a lot and I'm sure that this is bizarre for at least a few readers of this blog.  But as his namesake (my middle name is David, which was his first name), I've always felt a special kinship to him.  He was as kind and gentle a man as I have ever known.  He was a natural story teller and could keep a room's rapt attention for hours while he spoke.  Aside from the somewhat dubious stories of trudging for miles through large drifts of snow to get to school, the most common subjects of his stories were the Prophets and Apostles that he served with, each story intended to deepen the faith of those who heard it.

It's been twenty years since I was able to sit in a room and listen to him tell stories and it will likely be a great while yet before I am so privileged again, but I anxiously await the time when I'll again be able to sit on the floor and listen to him speak.  Perhaps he didn't know how much those stories and those testimonies influenced his young grandson, but I've never been the same since.  Like him, I enjoy telling a good story; and my favorite subject is the Prophets I've come to know through my research and study.  Perhaps, in this small way, I've followed in some of the biggest footsteps ever left by a man who was only 5'6".  I miss him.

Brett

Context

Image of the Martin Handcart Company

This past week I spent some time doing some research in pioneer journals for the upcoming trek that my stake is having.  This research is also doubling for a paper that I am presenting at the Mormon History Association's Annual Conference in San Antonio this June.  For my paper I had decided to speak about the ways that American missionaries and British converts felt and wrote about the different environments that the gospel exposed them to.  When the missionaries arrived in England, many of them were shocked to see the admittedly dreary conditions of the industrializing nation.  These missionaries were, for the most part, farmers who although not wealthy, were used to people owning land and animals.  In England's cities they found industrial pollution, housing tenements, and very little private property.  They often wrote home in shock about these conditions, convinced that their own native environments were better (and in some ways making a good case).

But the second part of my paper looks at the way that the British converts of those missionaries experienced America.  We all know about the way that the environment affected the Martin and Willy Companies, but the things that I learned this week gave context to the handcart experience and reshaped my thinking on this pioneer episode.

Not living in the 1850s, we often don't think about the challenges that these converts faced beyond the exhaustion of a long trek with blazing temperatures in the Summer, and freezing temperatures and snow in the early Fall.  We don't ask questions like, "What was it like for people who had never owned oxen to learn how to drive a wagon across the prairies?"  "How did they learn how to care for those animals?"  So often we conceptualize the pioneers as "rugged frontiersmen" and forget that many of them were city dwellers not entirely unlike ourselves.  And these city dwellers had to learn how to drive wagons pulled by large, often unbroken, oxen.

One pioneer, Watkin Rees, recalled, "Driving Oxen was a new business to most of us Emigrants, many of us having never seen a pair of Oxen yoked together before we came to America."  To illustrate his point, he then recalled that "One lady, looking at a bunch of Oxen that had been brought together to be yoked up, asked how they milked them cows" as "they looked different to the cow she had seen milked [once before]" (Reminiscences of Watkin Rees, Church History Library).  A more experienced boy, Charles Bailey, noted that "Green [or inexperienced] Cattle and green drivers made it amusing" (Autobiography of Charles Ramsden Bailey, Church History Library).  Simply put, crossing the plains was not just a matter of hitching up a wagon and pulling the reins.  And inexperienced wagon drivers were not just amusing, they could be dangerous.

Having these problems in mind, as well as the high costs of wagons, Church leaders decided to experiment with handcarts.  Other than the assembly of the carts, there was no training required.  And with the exception of the Martin and Willy Companies, handcarts worked splendidly.  In fact, the handcarts generally arrived in the Valley more quickly than wagon companies.

All too often, we find ourselves making judgments about circumstances and situations without really understanding the context.  People have criticized the handcart experiment because of the heavy losses of the Martin and Willy companies, which, yes, did leave too late in the season.  But it is always easy to point at the places where things went wrong while ignoring the places where they went right.  It is easy to say the Martin and Willy companies should have remained in Nebraska for the winter without feeling any need to then answer the question of where they were to stay, what they were to eat, what shelter they were to enjoy.  It is easy to forget that the highest death totals in the pioneer experience came between 1846 and 1850, when Saints who were not ready to journey to the Valley stayed in makeshift homes at Winter Quarters.

When we look at mistakes and other problems in our lives, we must remember that there is always a context, and often a context which we do not fully understand.  But gratefully, our Heavenly Father and His Divine Son perfectly understand every context of our lives.  The Savior suffered not only for our sins, but also for the circumstances that frequently are the impetus for those sins and mistakes.  Accordingly, what he offers us is not just a theological bandaid to cover up the scrapes, but a genuine cure that addresses the roots of our spiritual wounds.  He grasps the contexts of our imperfections and He heals the whole soul.  And when He comes to us to speak of the areas where we need to improve, it is not with rash judgments or unfeeling edicts.  Rather, He comes to us with compassion and love, a compassion and love that is borne out His perfect understanding and empathy for us.

Brett

We Owe Them Something!

As with everything I write, I am never quite sure what to write as an introduction.  This week is no exception.  Honestly all of the weeks here seem to blend together without a whole lot to distinguish them.  It's probably a good thing this isn't really a blog about what I do with my life.  Anyone who is hoping for updates on that, I sincerely apologize.  I'm not that exciting to write about, so I don't write much about myself.

I got a call this morning about an hour and a half before Church.  It was the guy that I teach with.  He had come down with the flu and wasn't going to be able to teach, so I got to teach today.  And then the teacher of the 16-17 year olds was sick, so they came into my class also, meaning that I got to teach the 14-17 year olds.  It was a lot of fun, at least it was for me.

The lesson was on how learning is a part of God's plan for us.  I'm afraid that the opportunity to teach on a subject that I devoted several years of my life and my Master's Thesis to was too tempting of an opportunity for me to avoid giving a prolonged lecture to the kids.  When I was preparing the lesson, I was reminded of one of my absolute favorite talks by Elder Holland, "Who We Are and What God Expects Us To Do" (video also available here).  Elder Holland derived his message from Tevye's famous song "Tradition," in which he reminds us that "because of our traditions, everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do."  Elder Holland then went on to relate that we too have a tradition, a tradition of faith, sacrifice, and learning.  He told of Saints holding schools in wagons or around campfires in a wickiup, sharing books around the class so that each might have an equal privilege.  He reminded the students of the long and expensive struggles to build a single school building, let alone a campus full of them.  Finally, Elder Holland stated, "We owe them something.  We who are the beneficiaries of their sacrifice and their faith--we owe them the best effort we can put forward in obtaining a truly edifying and liberating and spirit-soaring education."

I've thought a lot about that phrase, "We owe them something" and what it means for me.

I've thought about my Grandpa Dowdle, who would get up at four in the morning to hitch a ride from Springville into Provo where he worked as a janitor at BYU, and who would then go to classes and then go off to another job where he worked until late at night, again hitching a ride back to Springville where he would study and then get into be around one in the morning, to repeat the process again the next day.  I've thought about my Grandma Dowdle who helped me learn how to read "Dick and Jane" when I was a small boy, knowing that it was a skill I would need throughout my life.  I've thought about my Papa Haycock who never had the opportunity for a college education, but who was among the most profoundly learned men I have ever known, filling his house with books and a thirst for knowledge.  I've thought about my Nana Haycock who beamed with each accomplishment that her grandchildren reached.  I've thought about the many who came before them, each in their own way adding faith and learning to my heritage and struggling to make it possible for me to enjoy what I have today.  I've thought about my parents who have sacrificed comfort and means and probably more than a few dreams for each one of their children to achieve our own dreams.  And with all these thoughts, I can only conclude with Elder Holland, "I owe them something."

What do I owe?  At the very least I owe them my faith and continued diligence in the gospel cause.  I owe them my best studies, my best writing, my best work.  But more than that, I owe them a continued heritage of faith and righteousness and learning, passed onto succeeding generations with the same level of devotion with which it was passed on to me.

Tradition? Tradition!  It is in understanding and appreciating these traditions that each of us keeps our balance in this world and prepares a world of meaning for the rising generation.  It is in knowing and understanding these traditions that we truly come to see that we are a small part of something much grander, a family and a plan devised by God Himself, in a word, a "tradition."

Brett

Unfair Judgments and Labels

Maybe it is just me, but after Christmas and New Year's, I am done with the cold and I am ready for the spring.  Before Christmas and New Years, the snow and wintery weather remind me that it is time to be with family and to celebrate the holidays.  After those holidays, however, I want it to be warm again.  I feel this way now more than ever, perhaps because warm weather means a return home and a chance to be close to loved ones again.  Forgive my complaining, but February in Texas is supposed to be like late March in Utah, and this past week it has been bitter cold instead of warm, moving toward spring.  Oh well, things could be much worse.  :)

Anti-Catholic and Anti-Mormon Political Cartoon, Circa 1880

As I've been working on my dissertation, I've been struck by the language and judgments that we often make about others who are different than ourselves.  As I've been working on my dissertation, I've come across a number of letters and newspaper articles that made such claims about Mormons during the 1800s.

In 1848, as many of the Saints were starving at Winter Quarters, Colonel Thomas L. Kane a friendly non-Mormon took it upon himself to raise awareness of their plight in the East, hoping to secure funds to ease their suffering.  Kane held a meeting in New York City in early March for just such a purpose.  Reporting this meeting, the editor of the New York Herald wrote, "These Mormons have cut a great figure during the last few years; but their present destitute condition has sprung from their ignorance and fanaticism.  By the practice of common sense, and common decency, they might have continued to live in the Western United States [remember this is 1848] up to the day of judgment.  They were, however, led astray by vanity and fanaticism" ("The Mormon Meeting," New York Herald, 4 March 1848).  In Brigham Young's correspondence for 1850, I came across a letter from an anonymous citizen of California who wrote that he "did not think the civilized part of the world could produce such a mass of base, disreputable, ignorant, ill-looking, and licentious people" as the Saints.  In the political cartoon above, the cartoonist depicted Roman Catholicism and Mormonism as "foreign reptiles" that posed a grave threat to American liberty.

Consider the assumptions and meanness that these kind of statements required.  To have blamed the plight of the pioneers at Winter Quarters on themselves is hardly a fair assessment of the circumstances.    I'm a historian, and I fully acknowledge the fact that Latter-day Saints have not always been and are not always perfect.  Sometimes unwise people made bad situations worse by saying or doing things that ought not to have been said or done.  Sometimes we used labels and words that made judgments as unfair about non-Mormons as the ones they made about us.  But regardless of this, people were starving and dying at Winter Quarters.  Was that really the time to make such a statement?

For the man from California, who clearly had not enjoyed his short time traveling through Utah to California's gold fields, were those words really necessary?  Surely whatever may have been said or done did not merit the judgments he cast upon the body of the Saints.  And finally for the cartoonist who saw Catholics and Mormons as less than human, as reptiles, could he not see that these people were his brothers and sisters?

Perhaps we don't write such editorials or letters, or publish such cartoons.  But how often do we make statements about others that are utterly unfair and ungenerous toward them?  How often do we let our hatred or anger or political opinions or whatever else get in the way of our ability to see those who are different from us as our brothers and sisters?  I'm afraid that I am guilty of such thoughts far too often.  In my arrogance, I forget that other people may be going through great difficulties and may be having experiences that are beyond their control.  The things I blame them for may not be entirely their fault.  And even if I am right about the wrongness of their behavior or whatever, my being right never entitles me to make the kind of judgments that call into question their divine nature and their humanity.  Rather, I have a continued responsibility to love and serve them and to refrain from making unkind and unfair judgments about those who are different.

May we all strive to be a little kinder, a little more patient, a little more loving.  For surely, in our own struggles, we wish for others to grant us those same allowances and mercies.

Brett