Go West: The Great Plains

The strains of travel had long begun to tell on the travelers. Drenched blankets, cold breakfasts after rainy nights, long hours without water, exhaustion from the labor of double-teaming through a swamp or across quicksands or up a slope, from ferrying a swollen river until midnight, from being roused to chase a strayed ox across the prairie two hours before dawn, and from constant shifting of the load to make the going better. Add the ordinary hazards of the day's march like a sick ox, a balky mule, the snapping of a wagon tongue, capsizing at a ford or overturning on a slope, and the endless necessity of helping others who had fallen into the pits which by intelligence or luck others had avoided.

Add the endless apprehension about the stock, the ox which might die, every day's threat that the animals on which your travel depended might by killed by disease or accident or Indians, leaving you stranded in the middle of nowhere. These things worked constantly on the nerves, and even God seemed hostile when a storm piled on.

Even the sunniest grew surly and any pinprick could be a mortal insult. The enforced companionship of the trail began to breed the hatred that is commonplace in the barracks. A fellow traveler's drawl, or even an innocent tic suddenly became intolerable.

Beyond even this, was the strangeness. This was not the pastureland they had known. The very width and openness of the country brought a certain anxiety. It had no bound; the long heave of the continent never found a limit, and in the middle of nowhere the strongest personality diminished. There was no place to hide in, and always there was sun to hide from, further shrinking the cowering soul. Consciousness was reduced to the little line of wagons.

The trail bred a genuine pathology, a true Angst, and proper material for psychiatry to explore. The elements of human personality were under pressure to come undone. There was a drive to phobia or compulsion or fugue or dissociation. Some survived it unchanged or strengthened in their identity; others suffered from it, inflicting it on their families, for the rest of their lives. And it grew as the trip went on. Worse country lay ahead and the drained mind was less able to meet it.

-- 

As the strain began to tell, the emigrants entered the sagebrush and alkali country. Jessy Thornton observed "a remarkable peculiarity in the atmosphere, which made it impossible for me to judge with any tolerable degree of accuracy as to the distance of objects."

The sun and the thin air made distances deceptive. Thornton wrote about the "white efflorescence of salts," but did not mention how it makes a person squint, how it glares like snowfields under the sun, how it glimmers and quivers in the snaky heat waves and fills the plain with lakes that quench no thirst. The sage smelled like turpentine to Thornton; but he might have mentioned its rich, aromatic perfume in the dawn wind, the pungency it gives to campfires, and the tang that grilled meat picks up from it. Mirages flickered across the plain in that terrible sun. They were another strangeness in a country that grew increasingly to look like Hell. On the horizon they thrust up peaks or pinewoods or blue New England ponds, where there were no mountains and no lakes or forests, either.

For some time now the emigrants had been making their fires with Buffalo chips. The children ranged out from the plodding train to collect it in gunnysacks, and it made red coals for cooking in long, shallow pits. Moreover, they were well into the arid country, and for those traveling in 1846, it was drier than usual. The never-ending wind of the plains blew up dust from the wheels in twisting columns that merged and overspread the whole column in a fog and canopy that moved with it. It "filled the lungs, mouth, nose, ears, and hair, and so covered the face that it was sometimes difficult to recognize each other," and "we suffered from this almost insupportable flying sand or dust for weeks if not for months together."

Thornton had neglected to supply himself with goggles which "can be purchased in the United States for thirty-seven and a half cents"; near Independence Rock he would have paid fifty dollars for a pair. The tortured eyes tortured the brain. The immense sun, the endless wind, and the gritty, smothering, inescapable dust reddened and swelled the eyes, granulated the lids, inflamed the sockets.

The excited nerves make horrible shadows and produce illusions of color and shape. The illusions are no less disturbing in that the heat mirage distorts size and pattern so that a healthy eye may see a jack rabbit as a buffalo at a hundred yards or a clump of sage at half a mile as mounted Indians charging. Trachoma was endemic among the Indians, a number of emigrants went blind, and few came through this country without eye trouble of some sort. The medicine chests held solutions of zinc sulphate, which was good, but simple boric would have been better for it was alkali that made the dust corrosive. It was also driven into the skin by the daily wind. Most of the emigrants were burned black; the rest were burned a less comfortable, fiery red; their cheeks peeled and their lips were deeply cracked by what is, after all, simple lye.

The hundredth meridian of west longitude, a geographer's symbol of the true beginning of the West -- meaning the point beyond which the annual rainfall is less than twenty inches -- strikes the Platte near the present town of Cozad, Nebraska, well east of the Forks. The trail up the North Platte moved mainly west or a little north of west to a point opposite the present town of Ogallala, Nebraska, where it took the due northwest bearing it would maintain for hundreds of miles. And between the sites of the present towns of Broadwater and Bridgeport, Nebraska, it struck the Wildcat Range. Here the scattered buttes and bluffs which had been growing common place for a considerable distance became a true badlands.

The scenery was spectacular, but spectacle was only a momentary solace to the emigrants, who had now reached truly tough going -- with cumulative fatigue, anxiety, and mental conflict piling up. In early June, the desert still had the miraculous brief carpeting of flowers that delights travelers to this day, but it was late June when the emigrants got there, a wholly different season, and 1846 was a drought year.

The slow pitch of the continent which they had been climbing toward the ridgepole so slowly that they seldom felt the grade here lost its monotony. The gentle hills that bordered the valley of the Platte, known as the Coast of the Nebraska, suddenly became eroded monstrosities. Jail Rock, Courthouse Rock, Chimney Rock, Scott's Bluff, were individual items in creation's slag heap that had got named, but the whole formation was fantastic. Thornton called it Tadmor of the Desert and sketched a gift-book description of ruined cities, defeated armies, and ancient peoples put to the sword. But then, opposite Chimney Rock, one of his hubs locked for want of grease and he had to interrupt his poetry.

Even such prosy diarists as Joel Palmer and Overton Johnson were startled into rhetoric. The realistic Edwin Bryant saw Scott's Bluff against the green and purple murk of an oncoming storm and wrote phrases like "ruins of some vast city erected by a race of giants, contemporaries of the Megatherii and the Icthyosaurii." Trail marker and future politician and general John C. Fremont composed a resounding passage about "The City of the Desert."

--

The grade was steep now, and once they were in the badlands the trail narrowed and was frequently precipitous. Crazy gullies and canyons cut every which way, and whoever gave up in anger and tried to find better going elsewhere only found worse troubles. The ropes came out and wagons had to be lowered by manpower down a steep pitch or hauled up over the vertical side of a gully or between immense boulders -- while those not working sat and swore in level dust and intolerable sun, far from water.

When they moved, the dry axles added a torturing shriek to the split-reed soprano of the wheels and the scrapes of tires on stone or rubble. Dry air had shrunk the wheels, too, and without warning tires rolled off or spokes pulled out and the wagon stalled. The same brittleness might make a wagon tongue break, which was disastrous unless a spare pole had been slung beneath the bed, and the violent stresses sometimes snapped the metal hounds, the side bars which connected tongue and fore-carriage. Sometimes the ropes broke at a cliff or pulled off the snubbing post, and a wagon crashed. Or crazed oxen capsized one, or defective workmanship or cheap material could stand no more and the thing went to pieces.

Sometimes half a wrecked wagon could be converted by desert blacksmithing into a cart; sometimes a sound wagon had to be converted because some of the oxen had died. In any event, here was where abandoned furniture and other belongings began to litter the trail.

Allocating the abandoned household goods was another stress of desert travel, for something of personality and spiritual heritage died when they had to go. Their owners were in the grip of necessity. The desert beat hammer blows, an overmastering realism, on one's soul, and something permanent came from that forging, the old confirmed forever or the new, frequently the lesser, formed forever.

In the sun and dust they went on, the daily distance shortening and no end to the country ahead. They were not yet to South Pass, not yet halfway to the Pacific! Horses and oxen bloated from foul water; many of them died. Their hooves swelled and festered. Even the soundest grew gaunt as the grass diminished. Sparse along the upper Platte in normal times, it failed quickly in the drought of 1846, and many travelers found it cropped by those who had preceded them up the trail.

Men became as gaunt as their stock, the alkali water being just as bad for them. They saw suddenly that food was limited, and there was an anxious computation of the days ahead, with the itineraries of the guidebooks to be reckoned with. Add to this the altitude which made the nerves tauter. Though the sun was hot and the dust pall breathless, there were suddenly viciously cold days too and all nights were cold. Water froze in the pails -- and the memory recalled how early snow fell in the mountains that were still so far ahead.

Edwin Bryant's mind strained toward California and chafed as the train fell steadily farther behind the schedules printed in the books. He talked it over with some friends and they decided that on reaching Fort Laramie, they would trade their wagons for a mule pack-outfit and press on by this more rapid means.

At Horse Creek the drought was broken by a short, torrential downpour which saturated their outfit and left them to a freezing night. A cold mist hung over the valley the next morning, but they got a fire going and managed coffee and bacon for breakfast. They hurried on up the Platte, narrowed by the badlands, and at about 2:00 that afternoon sighted the first building they had seen since they left Missouri. It was the half-finished trading post maintained by the Richard Brothers, in a loose association with Pratte, Cabanne & Company. Fort Laramie was just six or eight miles away.

--

The American Fur Company's Fort Laramie stood on the flat ground where Laramie Creek empties into the Platte. It was a welcome site for the pioneers -- the first sign of civilization in at least six weeks, and a unique respite from the endless wilderness. Bryant made it 642 miles from Independence, Missouri.

Fort Laramie marked the gateway to the Rocky Mountains. The emigrants were now one-third of the way to Oregon City. (For the Mormons, it was the halfway point to the Salt Lake Valley.) Here, they rested and regrouped. Some would give up the dream, turn around and go home, but most made the decision to push ahead.

The fort had humble beginnings. In 1834, fur trader William Sublette built a wooden fortification here and called it Fort William. There was no emigrant traffic then -- Sublette's goal was trade with the local tribes. He offered alcohol and tobacco in return for buffalo robes.

The fort was soon sold to the American Fur Company, and they rebuilt it as an adobe structure in 1841. The fur trade was in decline by then and fur traders would be gone from Ft. Laramie by 1849, when the army bought them out and embarked on a major expansion.

There was only one building at Fort Laramie that warranted a visit by the Oregon/California-bound emigrants -- the post trader's store. It was the only reliable post office within 300 miles. Supplies could be purchased here, too, although prices were outrageously high. Tobacco, for instance, that could be had for a nickel in St. Louis, cost a dollar here.

Luckily, only a few of the emigrants needed to purchase supplies at Ft. Laramie; most wanted to sell their excess. Their overloaded wagons had become a greater and greater burden, but most held on until Fort Laramie -- in hopes they could earn some money for their extra supplies. But the fort trader wasn't buying.

So here the emigrants underwent wholesale dumping. The Trail near Fort Laramie was littered with heirloom furniture, stoves and food. One emigrant saw ten tons of bacon by the side of the Trail. Despite the temptation, the emigrants did not pick up this valuable litter because weight was the great enemy of their wagon

Source: DeVoto, B. (1943) The Year of Decision: 1846. Little, Brown: Boston.

Go West: Starting Out

Each summer, I think about those men and women who crossed the Great American Desert by wagon train in the 1840s and 1850s. This is the first of a series of threads about the Oregon-California Trail. The primary source is Bernard Devoto's book The Year of Decision, 1846. I was trying to put things into my own words, but if I am honest a lot of what follows might well be excerpts from the book. The story of the men and women who went west in 1846 serves as a prologue to the Mormon pioneers of 1847.

The first "violent shock" for the emigrant going west was Independence, Missouri, the starting point for emigration by wagon train. There were other towns, of course, to challenge Independence for priority in the Western trade. Westport, some ten miles away (and now part of Kansas City), St. Joseph where a few wagon trains left from in 1846, Council Bluffs in Iowa, the departure point for the Mormons, and other towns that would spring up such as Leavenworth, Atchison, and Plattsmouth. But Independence was the traditional "jumping-off place, the beginning alike of New Mexico and Oregon and romance, fully as important in history as it has become in legend."

"Quite properly," wrote Bernard DeVoto in his book Year of Decision, 1846, "a son of Daniel Boone was the first white man to visit it. He named it Eden as was later confirmed by inspiration." He referred, of course, to Joseph Smith declaration that God had revealed Missouri to be the new zion in the western hemisphere. The Mormons ran into plenty of trouble in Independence, and in the rest of Missouri before evacuating to Illinois.

Independence provided a violent shock "of the strangeness which was a primary condition of the emigration. From now on the habits within whose net a man lives would be twisted apart and disrupted, and the most powerful tension of pioneering began here at the jumping-off. Here was a confusion of tongues, a multitude of strange businesses, a horde of strangers -- and beyond was the unknown hazard. For all their exuberance and expectation, doubt of that unknown fermented in the movers and they were already bewildered. They moved gaping from wheelwright's to blacksmith's, from tavern to outfitter's, harassed by drovers and merchants trying to sell them equipment, derided by freighters, oppressed by rumors of Indians and hostile Mormons, oppressed by homesickness, drinking too much forty-rod, forming combinations and breaking them up, fighting a good deal, raging at the rain and spongy earth, most of them depressed, some of them giving up and going ingloriously home."

Independence had built six miles of macadam roads to the Missouri River by 1846, in order to keep up commerce, but had not graded its own streets. It often rained in early May, bogging down wagons to the hubs, and causing people to wade through knee-deep red Missouri clay mud.

Francis Parkman in 1846 found it all to be rather strange. The Mexican language was outlandish to Parkman, the "high Tennessee whine" left him with intense distaste, the nasal Illinoisan, the Missouri cottonmouth drawl, the slurred syllables and the bad grammar, the idioms and slang of "uncouth dialects." The emigrants were loud and rowdy, carelessly dressed, and "unmistakably without breeding. They waited for no introduction before accosting a grandson of a China merchant and his cousin whose triply perfumed name was Quincy Adams Shaw -- slapping them on the back, prying into their lives and intentions. 'How are ye, boys? Are ye headed for Oregon or California?' None of their damned business: would not have been on Beacon Hill and certainly was not since they were coarse, sallow, unkempt, and dressed in homespun, which all too obviously had been tailored for them by their wives. 'New England sends but a small proportion but they are better furnished than the rest,' he wrote in his notebook -- and in his book set down that the movers were 'totally devoid of any sense of delicacy or propriety.' They would not do."

Parkman was from Boston, and in 1846 he traveled west on a hunting expedition, where he spent a number of weeks living with the Sioux tribe. The following year his book The Oregon Trail was published. Parkman is one of several that DeVoto follows in their travels west.

Parkman was perplexed by "this strange migration" and wondered whether it really was just "restlessness" that prompted it. Or was it "a desire of shaking off restraints of law and society," or "an insane hope of a better condition of life." But that is where Parkman's interest in these emigrants stopped. "Manifest Destiny was taking flesh under his eyes," wrote Devoto, "his countrymen were pulling the map into accord with the logic of geography, but they were of the wrong caste and the historian wanted to see some Indians." Parkman could not suffer "the Pukes or the Suckers", so he joined with three Englishmen whom he had met in St. Louis, preparing for a summer on the plains, and who also "wanted no truck with the 'Kentucky fellows.'"

Early May was the time to start the journey, for it was a long one, and certain mountain passes had to be reached before the snows closed them. Mormons could leave later because their Journey was shorter, ending in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Even those leaving early in May could run into trouble in the mountains, if they took a bad cutoff, such as did the Donner-Reed Party.

--

It was two thousand miles from Independence to Oregon City. Emigrants leaving the several departure places met near Fort Kearny, 325 miles from Independence. When the movement to Oregon began there were no military posts beyond Fort Leavenworth, but in 1848 the Army built For Kearny on the Platte near Grand Island to protect travelers from the Pawnees. The following year the government bought the American Fur Company post of Fort Laramie and sent troops to garrison it and to patrol the trail along the Platte. One farmer noted that the river Platte was too thick to drink and too wet to plow.

On the 335-mile journey from Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie, emigrants saw several prominent landmarks. Many carved their names on Courthouse Rock, Chimney Rock, or Scott's Bluff. They usually rested for a day or two at Fort Laramie to wash clothes and make repairs before heading toward the mountains, where travel was slower and more difficult

Near Independence Rock the trail met and then followed the Sweetwater River. Here the going got rougher. Alkali in the water poisoned the cattle and the river had to be crosses and then recrossed -- occasionally, several times in one day. South Pass was a rather unspectacular place, except that now the streams flowed westward, and the emigrants realized they had crossed the Continental Divide.

It was near Fort Bridger that the Mormons -- and the Donner-Reed Party -- would turn off to head for the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake. Near Fort Hall (just north of present day Pocatello, Idaho) the California-bound emigrants left the trail and headed south.

The mountains and valleys of the Snake, Green, and Bear rivers exhausted the teams and caused many of the wagons to break down. Some emigrants used rafts for the last part of the trip down the Columbia River to Oregon City.

In time the Oregon trail developed numerous cutoffs, feeders, and outlets. In many places the trail might be fifteen or twenty miles wide, as wagon trains detoured to avoid the ruts and dust of the wagons ahead of them. In other places deep ruts are still visible today where travel was limited to a single-file route through a mountain pass or a river crossing. Lakes and swamps were skirted, but rivers and steep mountains had to be crossed, and they proved a challenge to the emigrant's courage and ingenuity.

The trip to Oregon by wagon took four or five months. To avoid delays on the trail the welfare of the animals was paramount. As one traveler put it, "Our lives depend on our animals." Forage was the main consideration in selecting camp sites. One emigrant told of staying at places without wood --which meant a cold supper -- if forage and water were available. "Our practice is first to look for a good place for the cattle, and then think of our own convenience." A popular expression of the day was, "Care for your draft animals rather than your men, for men can always take care of themselves."

--

Francis Parkman described the land west of Independence as the Great American Desert. However, at least in May, there was much rain. It buffeted Parkman, the Mormons, the Sante Fe traders, and the emigrants with a violent succession of deluges, thunderstorms, northers, freezes, and heat waves. 1846 would be a drought summer, but it sure didn't start that way.

Oxen might die of heat beside streams made impassable by yesterday's rain, while their owners sniffed with the colds produced by the norther the day before yesterday. Sudden gales blowing out of nowhere flattened the tents, barrages of thunder that lasted for many hours might stampede the stock, and Parkman remarked that his bed was soft for he sank into it. Nevertheless, the life was enchanting at once. It was wild, free and rewarding. Parkman quickly learned the knacks of prairie travel, pitching camp, hitching a pack, finding wood or water, tracking a strayed horse, extricating a cart mired in mud.

June brought routine travel, exciting only as climate. They got through the Pawnee country without the pillage to which their defenselessness exposed them. There was little game at first, but the prairies were populous. They met parties on their way back from the mountains, trappers with furs. Nearly everyday there were companies of emigrants. Parkman still viewed them with distaste, except for one group that came from "one of the least barbarous of the frontier counties" and were "fine looking fellows with an air of frankness, generosity and even courtesy." Soon Parkman would accept the presence of a small band of emigrants who joined his party -- four wagons, ten men, one woman, and a child. The group traveled with or just ahead of them for two weeks, and though Parkman fumed he spent part of the night with one of them on guard duty and found him not too bad.

Good fun, good food, the nightly ritual of camp and fire. The rains ended, though there was a vicious sleet storm in June. Vegetation grew sparse, the land sloped and broke up. Traveling became monotonous but had a pleasant languor. Parkman had some symptoms of illness but did not realize how ominous they were.

By June 10 Parkman and Quincy Shaw had all they could stand of the British. "The folly of Romaine -- the old womanism of the Capt. combine to disgust us," wrote Parkman. So he and Shaw decided to go it alone. They were now at the Lower California Crossing of the Platte. Pretty soon they would find some Indians.

The emigration moved beside Parkman, ahead of him, and behind him. Edwin Bryant left Independence with two companions on May 5. They had hired a sub-mountain-man named Brownell to drive for them, had bought and outfitted an emigrant wagon, and had provided it with three yoke of oxen at $21.67 per span. Jessy Quinn Thornton had been "nominated a colonel, probably because he used such beautiful language," when he left Independence with his wife Nancy and two hired drivers on May 12. He would join the party of Lilburn Bogg's -- who as governor of Missouri almost ten years earlier had signed the extermination order against the Mormons -- and increased the party to 72 wagons, 130 men, 65 women, and 125 children.

Not long after May 15, James Reed and George Donner came up. They had been joined by the populous Breen party. The Reeds were probably the most luxuriously equipped emigrants on the plains that summer, and an undercurrent of resentment had already taken root. One of Reed's wagons was not only outsized, but had been filled with bunks, cushions, a stove, and other contrivances for comfort. Virginia Reed's blooded riding mare was envied. The Donners had three spare yoke of oxen, more milk cows than seemed necessary, some yearlings for beef, and five saddle horses. But they had nothing on J. Baker and David Butterfield who undertook to make the trip with a heard of 140 cattle. After a few days they were required to leave the Bogg party on the formal verdict that so large a herd would be a danger when they reached desert country, but more likely because they refused to butcher their calves.

Thornton, originally from Virginia, would describe those he saw traveling west that year. "The majority were plain, honest, substantial, intelligent, enterprising, and virtuous," he said. "They were indeed much superior to those who usually settle in a new country."

Nearly a century later, DeVoto would conclude that Thornton's judgement was unquestionably correct. "A frontier that could be reached only by eighteen hundred miles of hard travel was not an easy recourse for brush dwellers, squatters, and butcher-knife boys. From the Connecticut and Kenawha on to the Missouri the 'new country' had always offered opportunities to the shiftless and the shifty, but this was different. The migration was drawn from the stable elements of society, if only because the stable alone could afford it. A customary family outfit had a value of from seven to fifteen hundred dollars. The only way in which a really poor man could make the passage was to hire out as a driver or helper. Most trains had a number of such young men (and sometimes, as with the Donners, young women) who were working their passage, but the bulk were, at least in a moderate degree, men of property and therefore substantial citizens. A certain fraction, of course, if not 'squatters' (generically, 'poor whites') were of the butcher-knife type, and the fraction increased as travel cheapened."

The enlarged Bogg party included lawyers, journalists, students, teachers, day laborers, two ministers, a carriage maker, a cabinet maker, a stonemason, a jeweler, a gunsmith, and several blacksmiths. It had Germans, Dutch, French and English, but was native American in the overwhelming majority.

--

The year 1846 was full of rumors. The Kansa -- also spelled Konza or Kanza, also called Kaw -- were supposed to be mobilized beside the trail, waiting to slaughter the emigration -- a degenerate tribe fluent at theft but no longer hardy enough to make trouble. Edwin Bryant heard that a party of five Englishmen were moving down the trail on Her Majesty's business, to incite all Indians between the Missouri and the Pacific "to attack [the] trains, rob, murder, and annihilate them." Other than the Brits Francis Parkman had started his journey with, their was a surprising number of British Army officers out to hunt buffalo or commune with the prairie gods while Oregon and California hung in the balance.

More immediate was the "threat" of the Mormons who were now "loose" beyond the frontier, five or ten or twenty thousand of them, with "ten brass field pieces" and every man "armed with a rifle, a bowie knife, and a brace of large revolving pistols." Their homes had been burned behind them, it seemed likely that they intended slaughter and neither mob nor police could head them off. "No one," Parkman wrote, "could predict what would be the result when large armed bodies of these fanatics would encounter the most impetuous and reckless of their old enemies on the prairie." And there were many Illini and even more Missourians. And there was Lilburn Boggs, their old tormentor.

But while Parkman and Boggs traveled west, the Mormons were stuck in the Iowa mud. Their passage across the Great American Desert would not begin for another year. Still, the emigrants kept their guns primed and their suspicions half cocked.

On May 16, the Boggs party got the last news from the States that they would hear until they reached the Pacific. A horsemen hurrying to catch up with a train ahead of them brought a copy of of the St. Louis Republican containing word of hostilities in Mexico. They next day, Mr. Webb, the editor of an Independence newspaper, rode into camp to confirm the story. On the Rio Grande a Captain Thornton of the Dragoons had been attacked and his command had been captured. The situation of Zachary Taylor was said to be extremely perilous. Excitement stirred among those bound for California, but Bryant noted that no one thought of giving up the emigration.

The emigrants were greenhorns: what the West came to call tenderfeet. Most of them were schooled in the culture that had served American pioneering up to now. But the Oregon and California emigrants had a much harder time of it than they would have if they had understood the conditions. They experienced hardships, disease, great strain, and aimless suffering of which the greater part was quite unnecessary. The mountain men had avoided it almost altogether. They had learned to live off the land, finding grass or water, managing the stock, making camp, reading buffalo sign and Indian sign. These things were a mystery to the emigrants who, tired at the end of they day, were prone to let someone else do the needful tasks. So their wagons were not kept up, horses and oxen strayed, and many hours, counting up to many days, were squandered. This added to the delay, something they could ill afford.

The passage needed to be made with the greatest possible speed in harmony with the good condition of the animals -- but the emigrants dallied, strolling afield to fish or see the country, stopping to stage a debate or a fist fight, or just wandering like vacationers. It was necessary to press forward, not only because the hardest going of the whole journey was toward the western end and would be far worse if they did not pass the mountains before the snow came, but also because every day diminished the food in the wagons, wore down the oxen by so much more and laid a further increment of strain on man and beast.

As expert as they might have been at healthy living back east, they did not know how to take care of themselves on the trail. From the first days on, the emigrants were preyed upon by colds, malaria, and dysentery, and it was their own fault. All this had its part in the stresses of emigration.

--

The Boggs party, with the Donner-Reeds and the Bryants, moved along the Oregon Trail. But the movement, argued Devoto, "must not be thought of as the orderly, almost military procession of spaced wagons in spaced platoons that Hollywood shows us, and the trail must not be thought of as a fixed avenue through the wilds. The better discipline of the freight caravans on the Sante Fe Trail did impose a military order of march. On the southern trail wagons moved in something like order; in single file where the route was narrow, in columns of twos or fours when there was room for such a formation and it was needed for quick formation of the corral in case of Indian attack. Every night they were parked in a square or circle, the stock was driven inside after feeding, guard duty was enforced on everyone in his turn. Wagons which had led a file on one day (and so escaped the dust) dropped back to the end on the next day and worked their way up again. Regular messes were appointed, with specified duties for everyone. Wood, water, herding, hunting, cooking, and all the routine of travel and camp were systematized and the system was enforced. But that was the profit motive; men with an eye on business returns managed it. And they had no problems of family travel and few of cliques.

"Every emigrant train that ever left the settlements expected to conduct itself according to this tested system," continued DeVoto. "None except the Mormons ever did. Brigham Young had a disciplined people and the considerable advantage that his orders rested on the authority of Almighty God [DeVoto was born and raised in Ogden, Utah, but was not a member of the LDS Church] -- and even so, among a submissive and believing people on the march, he had constantly to deal with quarrels, dissensions, rebellions, complaints, and ineffectiveness. Among the emigrants there was no such authority as God's or Brigham's. A captain who wanted to camp here rather than there had to make his point by parliamentary procedure and the art of oratory. It remained the precious right of a free American who could always quit his job if he didn't like his boss, to camp somewhere else at his whim or pleasure -- and to establish his priority with is fists if some other freeborn American happened to like the cottonwood where he had parked his wagon.

"Moreover, why should anyone take his appointed dust when he could turn off the trail? Why should he stand guard on the herd of loose cattle, if he had no cattle in it? . . . They combined readily but with little cohesiveness and subdued themselves to the necessities of travel only after disasters had schooled them. They strung out along the trail aimlessly, at senseless intervals and over as wide a space as the country permitted. So they traveled fewer miles in any day than they might have, traveled them with greater difficulty than they needed to, and wore themselves and the stock down more than was wise. They formed the corral badly, with too great labor and loss of time, or not at all. They quarreled over place and precedence that did not matter. They postponed decisions in order to debate and air the minority view, when they should have accepted any decision that could be acted on. Ready enough to help one another through any emergency or difficulty, they were unwilling to discipline themselves to an orderly and sensible routine."

Kit Collings, in a chapter on the Oregon Trail, which was part of a book titled Pioneer Trails West published in 1985, wrote about the importance of guidebooks.

"For a nation unaware of the difficulties of the trip," said Collings, "these guidebooks were extremely helpful." That is, when they were consistently consulted. As one emigrant recalled:

"All went smoothly until we crossed Bear River Mountains, when feeling some confidence in our own judgement, we had grown somewhat careless about consulting our handbook, often selecting our camp without reference to it. One of these camps we had good reason to remember. I had gone ahead to find a camp for noon, which I did on a pretty stream with abundance of grass for our horses and cattle, which greatly surprised us, as grass had been such a scarce article in many of our camps.

"Soon after dinner we noticed some of our cattle began to lag, and seem tired, and others began to vomit. We realized with horror that our cattle had been poisoned, so we camped at the first stream we came to, which was Ham's Fork of Bear Creek River, to cure if possible our poor, sick cattle. Here we were 80 miles from Salt Lake, the nearest settlement, in such a dilemma. We looked about for relief. Bacon and grease were the only antidotes for poison that our stores contained, so we cut slices of bacon and forced it down the throats of the sick oxen, who after once tasting the bacon ate it eagerly, thereby saving their lives, as those that did not eat died the next day. The cows we could spare better than the oxen. None of our horses were sick. Had we consulted our guide book before, instead of after camping at that pretty spot, we would have been spared all this trouble, as it warned travelers of the poison existing here."

There was very little known and much misinformation about the land west of the Missouri, for only crude and inaccurate maps were available. During the 1840s a few guidebooks appeared, written by men who had already made the trip. Some books drew on the writings of explorers and others, since the writer obviously could not have traveled over all the trails described.

The weather was a problem as it changed from year to year. A recommended route might be flooded the next year, and waterless stretches were even longer during dry years. The quality and quantity of grass depended on the moisture available, as well as the number of people using the trail.

Not everything written or said about the trails could be trusted. In 1846, Lansford Hastings arrived at Fort Laramie from the west and talked about a time saving cutoff for the trip to California. He then left word that he would be at Fort Bridger waiting for any party wishing to take his route. The Donner-Reed party expressed interest in Hasting's cutoff, but he had left with another party by they time they reached Jim Bridger's fort. In what would be a fateful decision, the Donner-Reeds elected to take the new route on their own.

Member Missionaries, Ministers or Culture Warriors?

Nephi, the son of Helaman, was praying on a tower in his garden one day when a crowd gathered. When he was finished with his prayer, he stood and began to preach to the people. As he preached, Nephi prophesied of a conspiracy to kill the chief judge, and messengers were sent to confirm that the political leader had been killed. But then the story takes an interesting turn.

Because Nephi prophesied of the chief judge's murder, he was arrested and accused of being part of the conspiracy. He then prophesied what would happen when the real murderer was confronted, and was eventually set free.

What does Nephi do at that point? He returns to preaching repentance and baptism. Later he prayed that the people would be afflicted by a famine instead of by a war.

We live in a period of time abounding with conspiracy theories, but here we read of a very real conspiracy with political intrigue and murder. Secret combinations have and do exist, nonetheless, I am a skeptic when it comes to conspiracy theories -- most of which are downright ridiculous.

But let's set that aside. Whether we believe in some or all of the conspiracy theories floating around, the real question is what we should do. Even if we don't believe in a conspiracy, we nonetheless find ourselves in a time when political discourse has broken down. We are also, in the United States of America, experiencing another contentious election.

Let us return to the City of Zarahemla for a moment. As noted, after being released from custody, Nephi returned to preaching the gospel. In fact, on his walk home he heard the voice of God:

"Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people.  And thou hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will and to keep my commandments.  And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will" (Helaman 10: 4-5).

We, too, have been commanded to spread the gospel, either as full time missionaries or as member missionaries. We may also have other callings which allow us to participate in furthering the three missions of the Church -- preaching the gospel, perfecting the saints and redeeming the dead. At the very least we may be assigned families to minister to. Following Nephi's example, this is probably where our efforts should be directed.

Marion G. Romney taught in 1944 that "When we pray unto the Father in the name of Jesus for specific personal things, we should feel in the very depths of our souls that we are willing to subject our petitions to the will of our Father in heaven. . . . The time will come when we shall know the will of God before we ask. Then everything for which we pray will be 'expedient.' Everything for which we ask will be 'right.' That will be when as a result of righteous living, we shall so enjoy the companionship of the spirit that he will dictate what we ask" (Conference Report, Oct. 1944, 55-56).

Forty-four years later, Neal A. Maxwell invited us to look at ourselves. "For the Church, the scriptures suggest both an accelerated sifting and accelerated spiritual numerical growth -- with all of this preceding the time when the people of God will be 'armed with righteousness' -- not weapons -- and when the Lord's glory will be poured out upon them. The Lord is determined to have a tried, pure and proven people, and 'there is nothing that the Lord thy God shall take in his heart to do but what he will do it'" (Conference Report, Apr. 1988, 8).

As Joseph Smith put it, “The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; … the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”

"Some work through political, social, and legal channels to redefine morality," noted Boyd K. Packer in October 2003. "But they never can change the design which has governed human life and happiness from the beginning."

I read a social media post not long ago which quoted Ezra Taft Benson and a book titled None Dare Call it Treason. This particular post suggested that people are afraid to fight out of fear of being judged.

But we are not called by God to fight in the culture wars; rather we are called to preach or spread the gospel, to minister and perfect the saints, and to do family history and temple work to redeem the dead. While we should participate in political processes, which we should do as informed voters, God does not need us to become culture warriors, that is not our mission.

"Church members have a special rendezvous to keep," taught Neal A. Maxwell in 1991. "Nephi [son of Lehi] saw it. One future day, he said, Jesus's covenant people, 'scattered upon all the face of the earth,' will be 'armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory.' This will happen, but only after more members become more saintly and more consecrated in conduct" (Conference Report, Oct. 1991, 43).

When we read or share quotes from President Benson regarding the dangers of Communism, we should remember that he also said, "Only the gospel will save the world from the calamity of its own self-destruction. Only the gospel will unite men of all races and nationalities in peace. Only the gospel will bring joy, happiness, and salvation to the human family."

Politics have always been rough and tumble, prompting Harry S. Truman to suggest that those who cannot handle the heat should get out of the kitchen. Fighting in the cultural wars of the 21st century suggests full on participation in contentious debate; sharing memes (photos with words) and cheap digs. The culture wars are all about bashing.

"This popular behavior is indulged in by far too many who bash a neighbor, a family member, a public servant, a community, a country, a church," said Elder Marvin J. Ashton in April 1992.  "Some think the only way to get even, to get advantage, or to win is to bash people. Often times character and reputation and almost always self-esteem are destroyed under the hammer of this vicious practice. How far adrift we have allowed ourselves to go from the simple proverb 'If you can't say something good about someone or something, don't say anything' to where we now are often involved in the bash business."

Contention and bashing are not compatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ -- which we are called to spread.

"For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another. Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away" (3 Nephi 11: 29-30).

Can we, therefore, spread the gospel and fight the culture wars at the same time? We may be tempted to put some of our principles aside in order to fight for other principles we deem to be of vital urgency. A number of years ago, Jeffrey R. Holland spoke of this idea of setting principle aside, but in the context of a sporting event, where one player was the target of vitriolic abuse pouring from the stands.

"The day after that game," said Elder Holland in 2012, "when there was some public reckoning and a call to repentance over the incident, one young man said, in effect: 'Listen. We are talking about basketball here, not Sunday School. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. We pay good money to see these games. We can act the way we want. We check our religion at the door.'

"'We check our religion at the door'? Lesson number one for the establishment of Zion in the 21st century: You never 'check your religion at the door.' Not ever.

"My young friends, that kind of discipleship cannot be -- it is not discipleship at all. As the prophet Alma has taught the young women of the Church to declare every week in their Young Women theme, we are 'to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in,' not just some of the time, in a few places, or when our team has a big lead."

We cannot set principles aside, or check our religion at the door, in order to participate in the contentious debates and the bashing of the culture wars. We cannot set principle aside, even if only temporarily, and then pick them up in order to spread the gospel. We cannot check our religion at the door on occasion while becoming more saintly and more consecrated in conduct. We cannot be armed with righteousness while using our tongues (keyboards, smart phones, etc.) as swords.

As David A. Bednar taught in 2006, "The Spirit of the Lord usually communicates with us in ways that are quiet, delicate, and subtle. . . . The standard is clear. If something we think, see, hear or do distances us from the Holy Ghost, then we should stop thinking, seeing, hearing, or doing that thing."

Elder Bednar used entertainment as an example. "If that which is intended to entertain . . . alienates us from the Holy Spirit, then certainly that type of entertainment is not for us. Because the spirit cannot abide that which is vulgar, crude, or immodest, then clearly such things are not for us. Because we estrange the Spirit of the Lord when we engage in activities we know we should shun, then such things definitely are not for us" (Conference Report, Apr. 2006, 29-30).

Participating in the contention and bashing of the culture wars can estrange us from the Holy Spirit. Being estranged we will not become more saintly and more consecrated in conduct, and we will not be armed with righteousness.

As I conclude, let me be clear. We are counseled to participate in the political processes of our communities; we are encouraged to be informed and to vote our consciences. But we can do that in ways that will not estrange us from the Holy Ghost. We can contribute positively to discourse; we can do research and create content that influences rather than antagonizes; and we can transcend the bitterness of the culture wars. We can participate in politics in ways that will allow us to get closer to the Holy Spirit and become more saintly, that we may be armed in righteousness as we spread the gospel.

A Well Disguised Blessing?

I have been debating whether to write about this, but if it helps anyone it might be worth it.

In June of 2019, I was offered a promotion at work to the position of trainer. A few weeks later, however, about a week before the promotion was to become effective, the site director/training manager informed me that there was going to be a four week delay to the promotion because they didn't have enough new agents for a full training class. The site director also said that he was committed to me being a trainer because I had earned it.

Four weeks later I approached the site director to get an update, and was told that everything was up in the air, but that a certain number of classes had been decided upon. Four or five weeks later, he said the same thing. A week or two later, the site director left the company -- without saying a single, solitary word to me!

A couple of weeks after that, the new training manager finally got around to telling me that the promotion offer had been withdrawn. He said it was not because of anything I did but because there was not a need for a trainer. Translation: It wasn't personal, it was business; also, they couldn't find enough trainees at the wage they were willing to pay. The thing is, I needed this promotion; I needed the experience, and I needed the increase in salary.

While this was not good news, it was better than being left in the dark, waiting and wondering. From mid-July to late October I was experiencing anxiety that seemed to be growing exponentially each week. I have been dealing with depression for most of my life, and I have certainly experienced anxiety, but nothing on the scale of what I was feeling in the fall of 2019.

I once compared depression to submarine stories that I have read. The boat is sinking, the captain gives the order "blow negative, full rise on the planes," the water is forced from the tanks and replaced by air, and yet the boat continues to sink. Yeah, that's depression.

Depression is not something where you just go cheer yourself up and you're good. It doesn't work that way. You work hard to climb out only to find something at the top that sends you spiraling back down into depression. You have righted your ship, only to be hit by another torpedo.

Frankly, I was also embarrassed. It is quite natural, after getting a promotion, to announce the news to family and friends. Having had the rug pulled out from under me, I didn't have the heart to talk about it for several weeks.

When suffering from depression we might be inclined to avoid people, yet we need someone to say "I love you. I am here for you. How can I help you? I want to understand. You are not a burden. You are not bad. You are not replaceable."

In October my wife hurt her knee; it turned out to be a partial MCL tear. She had surgery just before Thanksgiving. She had to miss six weeks of work, though she returned part time the last two weeks. At a time when I was already feeling broken, more weight was now falling on my shoulders and I was feeling overwhelmed. At a time when leaving that company would be a completely reasonable reaction to what happened with that promotion, I couldn't leave because my wife would be missing work for six weeks. On top of that, I would need to take care of her as she recovered. It was all too much.

So I stayed at my job, and I took care of my wife, and we got through it. But I was an emotional basket case, and still stunned at how things had played out at work. Whether by omission or commission, the effect is the same.

At the same time, I transitioned to working from home. While I had to stay in the short term while taking care of my wife, I wasn't certain that I could stay long term, and now I had to transition to working from home. Thankfully, that transition wasn't too difficult.

When the new training manger finally told me about the offer being withdrawn I asked him what the future looked liked as far as training. He said there was going to be one class, but it was to be by remote training via the internet. He was going to teach that class since he had experience with remote training. My experience was in a classroom setting.

Winter often seems like a time for discontent, and this year it seemed to be more of the same. I felt like an emotional basket case, but back in March I was trying to find a way forward. What happened with the promotion was in the past, and it was past time to leave it there. It was time to get rid of all expectations, to recognize that I did not need anyone's approval.

And then the pandemic arrived. The stress increased with my job as agents still working in brick and mortar offices were sent home and at home agents like me had to pick up the slack. Meanwhile, more people were calling due to the pandemic to get essential over the counter supplies like hand sanitizer, which were not available. My stress and anxiety went through the roof.

Yet, with so many stuck at home, unable to work, and worrying about how they were going to pay the bills, at least I was working and getting paid. Since my wife was working in a care center, her job was considered essential, so both of us were working. At a time like that, such a blessing should not be underappreciated.

While it didn't seem like it at the time, it was a good thing I stayed at this job, and that I transitioned to working from home. Had I done the completely reasonable and understandable thing and left that company to find another job I could very well be out of work right now.

But there is more to my story. On a Friday night in April, my lower back started hurting. I went to bed and suddenly I started shaking and I couldn't stop until I got up to take some ibuprofen. When I woke up I thought I had the flu. I tried to get a lot of rest but I wasn't getting better, and I felt like I couldn't go to the pharmacy to pick up my insulin. That's when things started spiraling. By Wednesday night I was super weak, couldn't eat, and was having trouble breathing. So we called 911.

They sent an ambulance, which took me to the hospital. The diagnosis: Ketoacidosis, which can happen if you miss even a few doses of insulin. Next time I'm sick and need to pick up an prescription, I'll ask someone to go get it for me. I can to be slow at times in asking for help. I think it is also possible that all that stress and anxiety from work at least contributed to my diabetes getting out of control enough that I landed in the hospital for a couple of days.

After an experience like that, you try to have a new lease of life, a new attitude. After two weeks I went back to work and my new attitude didn't survive even the first week. While things had calmed down at work, and I was experiencing less anxiety, my job can still be toxic with angry callers and an oblivious management. Every shift seems like a day spent at the scene of the crime.

I was feeling lost and alone, isolated behind the reef that seems to separate me from my friends. I felt like I didn't even know what friendship was anymore. My ideas of what I wanted friendship to be appeared to be out of touch with the world I live in. I didn't seem to fit in anywhere, to belong anywhere. There are moments even now when I still have those feelings.

In July 1945, when Winston Churchill's party lost an election and his premiership ended, his wife suggested that it could be a blessing in disguise. Winston responded with a quip about the blessing being very well disguised. I think I understand better this concept of a very well disguised blessing.

A friend recently wrote about some of the struggles they have experienced. She asked others why they did not seem to have similar things happening to them and they replied with something to the effect of "they don't allow it." I responded to this by saying I don't know what that phrase means. I can control how I react to the bad things that happen. I can control what I tell myself about what happened. I cannot control what other people do or don't do. Perhaps they are really saying "they don't allow it to control them." She answered by saying that she was learning not to internalize things.

I do not need to internalize, either. I should not internalize. Regarding an old friend that cut me out of her life, what she did says nothing about me.  I sought to make amends. Later I sought to make peace. I did what I could. She made her choice.

What my employer did also says nothing. My employer badly handled the promotion offer and withdrawal. I did nothing wrong.

Weak Things Become Strong

One summer day when I was 17, I had a little bit of a meltdown at a church softball game; and as it happened, my father was there to see it. When I went to bed that night I found a note on my pillow suggesting that I read Ether 12:27: “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”

Joseph Smith said of James 1:5 that “Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine.” I will not try to compete with Joseph on this but my experience was similar to his. I had plenty of weaknesses, but the question now was how to humble myself and have faith. To find the answer I started reading The Book of Mormon.

At times I felt that it was a struggle to exercise faith, but there were also days when the Lord answered my prayers with needed help and with needed answers to some difficult questions. Through the examples of great men such as Nephi, Alma, Captain Moroni and others, I learned how to exercise faith and humble myself. There were certain things that I stopped caring so much about, and an amazing thing happened: Some of those good things I worried about because they were not happening, started to happen. I had faith in Jesus Christ, I knew that my Heavenly Father loved me, I loved both of them, and this brought happiness.

Still, there were some lessons that I needed to go on a mission to learn. I was blessed with several good examples in the mission field.  One of my first zone leaders was a pretty amazing missionary, and at the end of my first two months in California he was called to be an assistant to the mission president. Subsequent to that, his former companion, who was still one of my zone leaders, told me about that elder’s amazing transformation. When he first arrived in San Jose, this elder was extremely shy and quiet -- he said all of five words in his first two months, but he set a goal and did a lot of soul searching. As noted, he eventually became an A.P.

One of my first few companions was also very shy when he first arrived in the mission field. He was so shy that he didn't even speak at his farewell. He had a twin brother and the meeting was for both of them, but my future companion did not show up to the meeting until the last five or ten minutes, and he sat in the back of the chapel. The bishop saw him and asked if he would like to come up and bear his testimony, but this elder just waved him off. He was probably trying to act cool, but in reality he was scared to death. 

This missionary couldn’t even order himself a hamburger at a fast food restaurant he was so shy.  But then someone explained to this elder that it was all just intimidation, and he realized that he was allowing the girl behind the counter to intimidate him, as he was other people. By the time I met him, some two years later, it was obvious that he was not intimidated by anything or anyone.

Those who go on missions have an amazing opportunity, they can humble themselves, have faith, and through the grace of their Savior, they can have their weaknesses become strengths. What is really amazing is how much they can learn in just two short years. I learned more in my two years than in all the years before or since, though I am still learning.

Yet another of my zone leaders argued that we should not measure success by leadership positions we held or even by how hard we worked, much less by the number of baptisms we had. Rather, we should measure success on a mission by the strength of our relationship with the Savior. Consider that “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God” and “how knoweth a man a master whom he hath not served.” Missionaries have a wonderful opportunity to come to know their Savior as they serve him.

Those who did not have the opportunity to serve a mission, as well as those who did serve and have returned home, still have this amazing opportunity. Whoever we are and at whatever stage in life we are at, we will still have opportunities to serve the Lord, to humble ourselves, have faith and have our weaknesses become strengths.

No matter how much adversity we have experienced, or how much one has learned, we are still human and will continue to fall short of perfection because of our weaknesses and inadequacies. The good news is that the Atonement is there for us, even if our failings are not great sins. There will always be the the opportunity to humble ourselves and have faith in Christ and to be lifted by His grace.

Everyone has down times occasionally, and everyone experiences feelings of inadequacy – though we may have experienced a mighty change of heart, we may not always feel like singing the song of redeeming love. This is in no small part due to the conditions we face here in mortality and the ideals or teachings we aspire to live by. Elder Bruce C. Hafen of the Seventy has written that there is a gap between reality and the life we strive to live in keeping the commandments and following the Savior's example. We are commanded to “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” and yet we keep falling short.

Some people respond by discarding the ideal. They say it is too hard so why even try; we will be much happier if we accept reality and do not try to live an impossible ideal. Others ignore reality and say that they have already reached the ideal, even as they continue to fall short just like the rest of us. Falling short does not mean that we are willfully rebelling against God, it only means that we are human. The Atonement is not just for sinners – though as Paul said, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” -- it is also for those striving for perfection; for those who have gone from bad to good and are trying to go from good to better.

We strive, we stretch, we reach, and still we fall short; yet by humbling ourselves and having faith in Christ we can be lifted by His grace. We stretch and struggle, but as we humble ourselves and have faith our weakness becomes strong unto us through the grace of Christ.

I sought to humble myself and have faith while on my mission, and sought my own transformation. What I found, regarding my quiet personality, is that shyness is easy to overcome but that didn't mean I was going to become a great conversationalist. I can still be very quiet, but when talking about a subject I know a lot about, like military history, or when bearing testimony, I can find the words, and even more, I can speak with power. I am not telling you this to brag, for – at least when I am discussing the gospel and bearing testimony -- it is the spirit that is giving me the words.

I experienced what seemed like a significant amount of adversity in my first six month. Then, one night I found myself on my knees pleading for witness from the spirit.  After some difficulty, as I think my faith and sincerity were being tested, I got the witness I sought.  It was as if a match had been lit in the dark of night, and the despair and doubt fled, and the light that flowed into me increased until it nigh consumed me.  And I knew, really knew, in a way I had not before.

And a few weeks later it all came together, the faith, the confidence, the humility, and the testimony.  We made a call back on a couple that we had tracted into, and as we entered their living room I saw a stack of books next to the husband's chair.  I knew right then that we were in trouble.  For the next hour he fired one challenge after another at us, and we answered as best we could, but then, guided by the spirit, I kind of took over.  I told the story of receiving that witness from the spirit and bore the most powerful testimony I could, and I withstood the challenges they both threw back at me.  The wife got so angry at one point that she almost threw her copy of the Book of Mormon at me!

After we left, my companion turned to me and said, “You are amazing.”  But it wasn't me, it was the spirit. He had strengthened me as I bore witness of the truth of the restored gospel.  He had made weak things become strong! I can testify to the truthfulness of Ether 12:27, but not just from my own experience, but because of the transformations I have seen in others.

Though he made me strong, yet I remained weak.  Were it not so, I could not have stayed humble.  When filled with the spirit, I could bear a mighty testimony, yet I continued to entertain so many doubts about myself.  I still had occasions when I felt inadequate.  I still made mistakes.

As noted, we are all human and therefore we all have weaknesses. We need not think that we are better than others for there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Some of the worst things that happen to us are the things we do to ourselves; the doubts we entertain, the grudges that we carry, the habits we pick up and the sins we commit. Nephi saw the Son of God, yet he felt to say once “O wretched man that I am” because of the sins and temptations which so easily beset him. We may sometimes feel as Nephi did; if so we should say as he did “Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul. . . . Rejoice, O my heart, and cry unto the Lord, and say: O Lord, I will praise thee forever: yea, my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation.”

And I would add, “Let me not forget, O Savior, thou didst bleed and die for me, When thy heart was stilled and broken, On the cross at Calvary.”

“He died in holy innocence, A broken law to recompense.” But he lives! "He lives who once was dead," “He lives, all glory to his name! He lives, my savior still the same. O sweet the joy this sentence gives, I know that my Redeemer lives.”

We should always strive to be humble, meek and submissive.  Only then can we have the spirit to guide us, only then can we teach with the spirit.  We should never try to rely on our own understanding, or on our own knowledge of the scriptures or of gospel principles.  We should always strive to have the spirit, and to rely on God.  When we do that amazing things can happen.

God lives, Jesus is the Christ, the Holy Messiah, this is His church, Joseph Smith was a prophet and the Book of Mormon is true, and there is no sorrow which God cannot heal.


Hymns: While of the Emblems We Partake, In Humility, Our Savior, I Know that My Redeemer Lives.

The At-One-Ment of Jesus Christ

For us the blood of Christ was shed;
For us on Calvary's cross he bled,
And thus dispelled the awful gloom
That else were this creation's doom

The law was broken; Jesus died
That justice might be satisfied,
That man might not remain a slave
Of death, of hell, or of the grave.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has written that “The central fact, the crucial foundation, the chief doctrine, and the greatest expression of divine love in the eternal plan of salvation . . . is the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Much goes before it and much comes after, but without that pivotal act, that moment of triumph whereby we are made free from the spiritual bondage of sin and the physical chains of the grave . . . there would be no meaning to the plan of life, and certainly no happiness in it or after it.”

The atonement, or at-one-ment, “is the act of unifying or bringing together what has been separated or estranged," continued Elder Holland. "The atonement of Christ was indispensable because of the separating transgression, or fall of Adam, which brought death into the world. In the words of Moroni, 'By Adam came the fall of man. And because of the fall of man came Jesus Christ. . . .; and because of Jesus Christ came the redemption of man. And because of the redemption of man, . . . they are brought back into the presence of the Lord.'”  

The Atonement includes gifts that are both conditional and unconditional. The unconditional gifts include the Savior's ransom for Adam's original transgression and the resurrection from the dead.

The conditional gifts require such effort as repentance and faith as they are predicated upon the moral agency and personal discipline of the individual before they can be fully effective. “There are principles of the gospel that [we] must follow and ordinances of the gospel that [we] must obtain" wrote Elder Holland. "Mormon stresses this commitment to fundamental requirements: 'The first fruits of repentance is baptism; and baptism cometh by faith unto the fulfilling the commandments; and the fulfilling the commandments bringeth remission of sins; and the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart, cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love, which love endureth by diligence unto prayer until the end shall come, when all the saints shall dwell with God.'” 

“Virtually all Christian churches teach some kind of doctrine regarding the atonement of Christ and the expiation of our sins that comes through it," Elder Holland continued. "But the Book of Mormon teaches that and much more. It teaches that Christ also provides relief of a more temporal sort, taking upon himself our mortal sicknesses and infirmities, our earthly trials and tribulations, our personal heartaches and loneliness and sorrows – all done in addition to taking upon himself the burden of our sins.

“Christ walked the path every mortal is called to walk so that he would know how to succor and strengthen us in our most difficult times. He knows the deepest and most personal burdens we carry. He knows the most public and poignant pains we bear. He descended below all such grief in order that he might lift us above it. There is no anguish or sorrow or sadness in life that he has not suffered in our behalf and borne away upon his own valiant and compassionate shoulders.

“That aspect of the Atonement brings an additional kind of rebirth, something of immediate renewal, help, and hope that allows us to rise above sorrows and sickness, misfortunes and mistakes of every kind. With his mighty arm around us and lifting us, we face life more joyfully even as we face death more triumphantly.”

Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish;
Come to the mercy-seat, fervently kneel;
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish,
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.

Joy of the comfortless, light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure;
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying—
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot cure.
 
Here see the Bread of Life; see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above;
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.

Saved By Grace, After All We Can Do

We sing about it and we read about it, but we don't often talk about it.

Prepare our minds that we may see
The beauties of thy grace. 

Forgiveness is a gift from thee
We seek with pure intent.

Elder Jeffery R. Holland has written that “Even though there are some conditional aspects of the Antonment that require our adherence to gospel principles for the full realization of eternal blessings, the Book of Mormon makes clear that neither the conditional nor unconditional blessings of the Atonement would be available to mankind except through the grace and goodness of Christ."

"Obviously the unconditional blessings of the Atonement are unearned," Elder Holland continued, "but the conditional ones also are not fully merited. By living faithfully and keeping the commandments of God, we can receive a fuller measure of blessings from Christ, but even these greater blessings are freely given of him and are not technically 'earned' by us. In short, good works are necessary for salvation, but they are not sufficient. And God is not obliged to make up the insufficiency. As Jacob taught, 'Remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved.'”

Aaron taught King Lamoni's father that fallen man “could not merit anything of himself.”

Lehi declared that “There is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah.”

Nephi taught that through baptism we enter the straight and narrow path that leads to eternal life, but that works are not enough to earn our way to salvation. “Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.”

Abinidi taught that “Salvation doth not come by the law alone; and were it not for the atonement, which God himself shall make for the sins and iniquities of his people . . . they must unavoidably perish, notwithstanding the law. . . .”

Jacob counseled us to "Cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves -- to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life.  Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved. Wherefore, may God raise you from death by the power of the resurrection, and also from everlasting death by the power of the atonement, that ye may be received into the eternal kingdom of God, that ye may praise him through grace divine."

Moroni would finish the Book of Mormon by giving us a reassurance of the grace of God while noting, however, that it is a grace that requires our honest effort to claim and enjoy:

“If ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; . . . then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ.”
 
Nephi, of course, gave "the most succinct and satisfying resolution ever recorded in the history of the faith vs works controversy," wrote Elder Holland. Nephi said plainly, "We know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." 

God, our Father, hear us pray;
Send thy grace this holy day.

Grant us, Father, grace divine;
May thy smile upon us shine. 


Sources: Holland, J. R. (2006). Christ and the New Covenant:  The Messianic Message of the Book of Mormon.  Salt Lake City: Deseret Book.

Hymns: While of the Emblems We Partake & Come, Ye Disconsolate, O Lord of Hosts, As Now We Take the Sacrament and God, Our Father, Hear Us Pray.