Close your eyes for a moment and try to visualize the land of Israel. What do you see? Do you see a land that is mostly flat and arid? Do you see trees? There is a Christmas hymn that goes "Far, far away on Judeas Plains, shepherds of old heard the joyous strains. . . ."
We arrived in Tel Aviv on the afternoon of April 12, 1999. After going through customs we met other members of our tour group and got on a tour bus for the trip up to Jerusalem.
Up is right. Ben Gurion Airport and Tel Aviv are on the coastal plain and Jerusalem is about 2,000 feet above sea level. As we drive across this coastal plain I see farmland and trees everywhere. I saw more trees than I had anticipated. Oh, what a beautiful country!
The previous night was spent over the Atlantic ocean, and try as I might, I could not sleep; now, as I desire to see as much of the countryside as I can the lack of sleep is catching up to me. I fight it all I can, I nod off but spring awake trying to see as much as I can. I keep nodding off and forcing myself awake as we begin the climb from the coastal plain. As we enter Judea the landscape is changing. It is no longer flat, and there are fewer trees, as we find ourselves among the seven hills that make up the modern city of Jerusalem.
After fifty-five minutes we arrive at the Hyatt Regency, on a hill north of the Old City. From windows in the expansive lobby we can see the Dome of the Rock and and the temple mount. I am really here! Dinner at seven, followed by journal writing, and then my twenty-eight hour day is done. Early to bed, for early we were to rise the next day.
The land of Israel is very small; about sixty-five miles wide and about 200 miles long. If you get out a map of the United States, go the the western part of the country and find the state of Utah; you can imagine three lands of Israel sitting comfortably inside its borders.
There are virtually no natural resources, no gold or silver. The feisty Golda Meir, one time Prime Minister of Israel, once chided Moses, "He traveled the wilderness for forty years and then settled the one spot that had no oil!" Yet the land has been conquered many, many times -- almost thirty different times by at least nineteen different peoples. Why, if there are no natural resources? Because the land was the crossroads of the East.
Meanwhile the Jews and Arabs, who have experienced these various conquests are still there, having survived, submitted to, or eventually overthrown the conquerors. The Jews and Arabs view this land as their home. Yet no legitimate Jewish or Arab government has called it exclusively their own. For the most part they have coexisted for centuries.
Contrary to popular perception the majority of Jews and Arabs desire to live peacefully with each other. Perhaps it is like the colonists during the American Revolution -- one third in favor, one third opposed, and one third indifferent -- one third knowing and peacefully living amongst each other, one third bitterly opposed to living amongst each other, and one third pulled between the other two thirds.
The geography also provides many contrasts. Israel is a land of ocean, seas, plains, forests, deserts and mountains. It is green and there is water. It is a good land, where Jews, Moslems, and Christians raise their families. Most of them agree the land is ripe with a feeling of peace and youthful energy.
This was in 1999, before the peace process fell apart, before the violence rose to take center stage. The modern state of Israel has had to contend with terrorism for most of its seventy year history. Even so, in 1995 Israel had less violence (crime) than Salt Lake City, Utah, did. Until the collapse of the peace process the terrorism and violence were but isolated incidents.
At least, this was the perspective of our tour guide. He was born of Jewish parents in Haifa in 1941. After a divorce his father took him to the United States. While there father and son joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - not converted, mind you, for they still had their Jewish heritage. In the 1970s our guide returned to live in Israel and start a tour company. Over the years he has developed friendships and business relationships with Arabs, Jews and Christians.
In December 1998, my mother invited my wife and I to a Christmas concert at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Before the concert, over dinner, my mother talked to us about her desire to go back to Israel for another tour vacation. It is said that when you visit the Holy Land you have a desire to visit again; my mother had visited Israel a few years previously, and her desire to return again was indeed strong.
However, based on that trip and on another she had made to the British Isles, she knew that she would need some travel companions. She had some health concerns did not want to be a burden on other travelers in the tour group. My mother then invited my wife and I to accompany her to Israel in the coming spring.
We were stunned. Neither of us had expected such an opportunity to tour the Holy Land at that point in our lives. Many desire to go to Israel yet never have the opportunity, and here one was being handed to us on a silver platter. We eagerly accepted my mother's offer.
We booked a tour with a company called Israel Revealed and our tour guide would be none other than Daniel Rona, who at the time was the only licensed LDS guide in Israel. A few months before the trip, we attended an orientation meeting at Israel Revealed's Utah offices where we were given tips and materials with which to prepare for the trip. We were counseled to take daily walks in order to prepare physically.
On April 11, 1999, a Sunday, we flew out of Salt Lake International Airport on the first leg of an 18 hour journey to the Holy Land. It seems so hard to believe, but 20 years have passed since that trip of a lifetime. Like my mother, my wife and I have desired to return, but there are times when I am not sure we will ever have that opportunity. To mark the this anniversary, I will be sharing some stories from the trip.
My wife had never been on a big jet airliner before, and she took some motion sickness tablets and hour before our scheduled departure. She squeezed my hand as we taxied, took off and banked onto an eastern course. I talked her through it, and she found that it was not bad at all.
Our first layover was in Cincinnati, Ohio, where we landed at 6:00 pm eastern time. We were on our way to the gate for the next flight -- at the other end of the terminal -- when I realized that I had left my camera bag on the plane. I ran back to the gate we had just exited, and I was allowed back on the aircraft, but my camera was gone. At the desk by the gate they told me that a flight attendant had found my bag in the overhead and had someone take it to the gate for our next flight.
They found my wife and gave her my camera, and she had them page me. I heard the page when I was about halfway back to the gate. After a ten minute wait, we boarded our next flight. We had a longer wait on the taxiway as we were slated as number four for takeoff.
We spent the night flying over the Atlantic. After watching a couple of movies, I found that I could not sleep. It was after 10:00 pm back home, and dark outside, but sleep was elusive. Not long after sunrise we flew over the beaches at Normandy and then south of Paris.
When we landed in Zurch, we had just enough time to walk from one end of the terminal to the other and board our flight for Tel Aviv. We were rushed, yet there seemed to be time as we waited to board for a quick trip to the restroom. I was wrong, though, as I found them holding the flight for me when I made it back to the gate -- mind you, they had already been holding the plane because our flight from Cincinnati had been stacked for twenty minutes before landing. Even so, we were the last three passengers to board.
This leg would be on a Swiss Air flight, and we were jammed in like sardines. I heard rather than saw the in-flight movie. I asked for the lasagna for lunch but got the turkey dish instead. It was not a pleasant flight. The man sitting next to me was a little inpatient when I asked him how to fill out a customs form -- I was the dumb American who was responsible for delaying departure a few extra minutes just so I could use the restroom, after all.
As a little history lesson, this was April of 1999, when NATO was conducting a bombing campaign of Yugoslavia over a humanitarian crisis in Kosovo. Because of this, we had to fly further east before proceeding south to the Mediterranean Sea, adding many miles and an extra hour to the trip.
After the movie, we were soon on our final approach to David Ben-Gurion International Airport. The arrival terminal was not very modern, leaving us to exit down the stairs to board a shuttle to the terminal itself. There we found several long lines for the gates where we would present our passports.
My mother was a little confused about which line to stand in; suddenly she walked off to one side of the room and disappeared behind the passport booths. By the time I got to where I last saw her, she was nowhere to be seen. I was dumbfounded. The only thing I could think to do was to pick a line and wait our turn. I think my mother must have had the right idea, though, because once we finally got through, we found everyone from the tour group, including my mother, waiting for us.
We blew right through customs -- nothing to declare -- and boarded a tour group bus for the ride up to Jerusalem. Once more, though, we had to wait form group members flying in from London. After twenty minutes we were on our way into the unexpected.
Over a year ago I wrote a post cataloging the difficulties I had experienced in the 2016 and 2017. I wrote that I felt at times that I was forsaken and alone, yet as I recounted the challenges I had experienced, I found that I had received needed help.
See: There is Always Hope
It might have been reasonable to expect, then, that 2018 should have been better, yet it was not.
After a few years of unemployment or underemployment, I still had a steady job, which was good, and that job had previously given me the opportunity to be a trainer, which was awesome. Trainer was a great thing to put on the resume, and I wondered if I should not try to find a better job. But I wanted to be a trainer again -- because, again, it was a blast, and also to beef up that part of the resume -- so I stayed.
In the spring I interviewed for a promotion to permanent trainer. Part of the interview process involved giving a presentation, to demonstrate skills in front of a classroom. I thought I gave a great presentation, but they didn't think it was hands-on enough. There were three spots open, and I finished fourth in the running -- and the margin between three and four was paper thin.
As I thought about what I could have done differently, and not being able to think of anything that involved actual hands, I decided that next time I would repackage it as a minds-on presentation, selling it as an exercise in analyzing verbal and visual information -- which happens to be a useful skill in a call center.
It was either the same day I heard I didn't get the promotion or the day following when I went for a walk on main street in my smallish town. I was trying to listen to an audio book on my earbuds, but was distracted by the not getting a promotion thing. Suddenly I saw an old high school friend up ahead, walking toward me.
This friend and I had had a falling out of sorts a few years ago. She showed up at a social media site I had been at for a few years and when I sent a friend request, she unexpectedly blocked me. But it took a few months for me to realize it. I didn't know if there was a problem, I didn't understand why, but I tried to find a way to communicate with her and apologize for anything I might have done. Eventually I was able to do that through a mutual friend: the only response I got back was that I was forgiven, but that she did not want to talk. She also said that I should just move on. Move on from what? Frankly, this didn't really feel like forgiveness.
A couple of years later, the father of a different mutual friend passed away. I knew there was a very good chance I would see her at the funeral, and I did! I found a place to sit, looked up, and there she was sitting two rows in front of me. The person she was sitting with saw me, but she never turned around to look, and after the service she got up and walked out without ever turning her head. It was surreal!
I saw her next at our 30th high school reunion in 2017. As the reunion was approaching, I felt like I was becoming a basket case, stressing about how she was going to react if and when she saw me. At the reunion, most of the evening passed without our being in close proximity, though I was very aware of her presence on the other side of the large room. Finally, before leaving, I maneuvered into a position where she would be sure to see me -- because I had to know what she would do. We just looked at each other for a moment, no words were exchanged, and then she turned and walked away.
The next day, I talked with the same mutual friend who had acted as go-between before, wondering if I should try to make a peace offering. She talked me out of it, but then got a call from our friend, and on her own initiative broached the idea of a peace offering. The answer from my old friend was that the offering was not necessary, that there were no hard feelings. I decided that this would have to be enough to give me peace, and I figured I probably would not see her for another ten years, anyway, until the next reunion.
But now, several months later, here we were on Main Street, approaching each other. She must have seen me first, because she had her hand up by her eye -- like you do when you don't want someone to see you. It all happened so fast, and I was so distracted by not getting the promotion at work, that at first I told myself it might not have been her. I tried to tell myself it was only 50-50, but as time passed, and I thought less about not getting the promotion, the more certain I became that it was her -- there had been no wind, and we were in the shade -- the only thing that made sense was that she was trying to hide from me.
By small and simple things, great things can be brought to pass, but also not so great things. We have no idea how much good we can do with a kind word or a smile. At the same time, we have no idea how a much damage we can do with a careless word or a simple joke, even a simple act of omission.
The promotion, this encounter on Main Street, were like a one-two punch; I have felt as though I were torn asunder. It has been a battle ever since, sticking it out at a job that is often frustrating, and feeling rejected by someone I thought of as a best friend in high school. I started, again, to question everything about myself and about friendship. Yes, I was hurt, and I didn't understand why she did what she did. But I was trying not to hold a grudge, and so I turned the anger onto myself.
I felt so much shame, what could I have done that led my old friend to cut me out of her life? This person I admire so much has, it seems, a smile for everyone but me. I wondered, what small and simple thing had caused her so much pain that after several years she still could not acknowledge me; wondering brought more shame.
This became a struggle of many months; I could find no solace, no peace, even when turning to the scriptures or attending church meetings. One day I read one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon, Moroni 7, but instead of finding serenity, I felt my heart break.
Then I saw a quote from President Thomas S. Monson: "Blame keeps wounds open. Only forgiveness heals."
This was distressing. I didn't think I needed to forgive because, I told myself, I was not carrying a grudge. I was not thinking angry thoughts about my old friend, I was not hoping for bad things to happen to her. I had prayed for my friend, that she might have peace -- I had even prayed that God would send her ministering angels. Yet there I was, where I had been for a long time, in the depths of despair.
Finally I said, "[My friend], I forgive you." And peace gradually enveloped my soul.
Rather than this being the end, it was only a beginning. I found that I had to keep forgiving; as time wore on, the doubts and the frustration would return, so again I would say "[My friend], I forgive you."
I could find peace, for awhile, but my heart was not healing. Even so, though I felt alone and forgotten, I was not. Even in 2018, there were moments when I experienced genuine friendship from others. Such moments have seemingly become more common in 2019.
I have truly been blessed in recent months by friends both old and new. I felt forgotten for so long, but not anymore. Genuine compliments and genuine kindness have managed to counter rather effectively the many doubts I had over previous months and years.
I may even have had a breakthrough recently when I realized that, while everything might not be perfect, there are good things happening. I have had worse jobs than the one I currently have --
which has been a steady job for approaching four years -- and I am getting by financially.
Perhaps more importantly, the friends I do have matter much more than any friends I might not have or not have any longer. All that negative stuff I have been spending so much time thinking about, I don't have to keep doing that. It is time to let go and be happy.
By looking to the lighthouse of the Lord, by counting my blessings, by forgiving, but also importantly, by the blessing of true friendship, I have found peace and, finally, my heart is beginning to heal.
Throughout 2017 I made a series of posts here regarding the my high school years. The stories centered around the junior prom and the three girls I asked to each of the dances during that period. Some day I might put those stories in a book, but for now, here are the links to those posts collected all in one place:
Series 1: A Prom Story
Past is Prologue
The story actually begins almost two years before the first Junior Prom, when I went to a stake dance and tripped the light fantastic for the first time with Julie. Over the next 18 months there were more dances, and soon I was experiencing feelings of attraction.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-prom-story-past-is-prologue.html
A Natural Thing
I was now a sophomore in high school, and Julie sat in front of me everyday in one of my classes. These were magical days, when everything was wonderful, and I believed I was falling in love.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-prom-story-natural-thing.html
"We've Got Tonight"
After finally turning sixteen I asked Julie to the Junior Prom. Julie was radiant that night, and for me it was an enchanted evening.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-prom-story-weve-got-tonight.html
After the Fall
In the months after the prom I bounced around between hope and despair. I asked Julie out a few times, only to be rebuffed. I would try to forget about her, but then a brief encounter would suggest the possibility that she might still like me.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-prom-story-after-fall.html
Series 2: Prom Story
New Beginnings
With my love for Julie unrequited, I met a new girl, a sweet angel. But this time I would be more careful, this time I would build a solid friendship before I asked her out. As my junior year began, I had a plan to be more outgoing, and this led to meeting many new friends.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/06/prom-story-new-beginnings.html
The More Things Change
This is the one where I win the award for overthinking. Over the Christmas break I asked Mary to the junior prom, but on New Year's Eve I was strangely flooded with thoughts about Julie.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/06/prom-story-more-things-change.html
She First Said Yes
Mary waited several weeks before finally saying yes, but the next night she called to cancel. My heart was broken, but I accepted her choice. This would lead me to make a major life decision.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/06/prom-story.html
The Winter of My Discontent
In the aftermath of the prom I didn't go to, I had to find a way to deal with my feelings for Julie, and my heartbreak over Mary's decision to cancel our date. I talked with both girls, and in one case we became better friends.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/07/prom-story-winter-of-my-discontent.html
Series 3: Prom
The Third Girl
I had met Evelyn during the fall of my junior year, and by the next spring our friendship had progressed to point where I could have fallen for her. But I had made a decision to wait until after my mission to have a girlfriend. Even so, Evelyn would become one of my best friends.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/07/prom-third-girl.html
It Could Have Been You
Meanwhile, just being friends with Julie proved to be a challenge. This time we were both stirred up, and as winter approached, the storm broke.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/07/prom-it-could-have-been-you.html
"Just For a Moment"
Even as the storm raged, I asked Evelyn to the junior prom. The evening started out well enough, at least until we walked into Symphony Hall, the same venue for the prom two years earlier.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/07/prom-just-for-moment.html
"No Man Is An Island"
While Julie and I debated what a friend was supposed to be, I began to wonder at the very meaning of friendship. At times, I may have expected too much from my friends, but at other times I doubted that I had a right to any expectations at all.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/07/prom-no-man-is-island.html
A Two Part Interlude: The Ball
New Perspectives
Even as I struggled with feelings of loneliness during the winter of my senior year, my perspective began to change. Somehow, things got better.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-ball-new-perspectives.html
Creating Memories
I asked Gabrielle to the Senior Ball, and we both had a wonderful time.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-ball-creating-memories.html
Series 4: After Prom
The Unicorn
The summer after I graduated from high school, Julie's family moved away, and only then did I find peace. Years later someone suggested that Julie had been my unicorn.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/08/after-prom-unicorn.html
Angels
If Julie was my unicorn, Mary was my angel. As it turned out, however, there were other angels in my life.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/08/after-prom-angels.html
Paragon
I had made a mistake in high school when I put my new found friends up on pedestals. Evelyn had become one of my best friends, and her pedestal became the tallest.
http://goodtidingsforus.blogspot.com/2017/09/after-prom-paragon.html
In my last post I wrote about my great great great grandfather Frederick G. Williams, who joined the church in Kirtland, Ohio, and traveled with Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer Jr., Parley P. Pratt and Ziba Peterson on their mission to the native Americans living in the Indian territories.
Williams was later called to be the second counselor in the First Presidency, he donated land to the church for the construction of buildings to further the work of kingdom, and he saw an angel at the dedication of the Kirtland temple -- the angel was also identified as the Savior. But there were also trials; there were disagreements regarding his role as a justice of the peace, an argument with the prophet Joseph Smith regarding business affairs of the Kirtland Safety Society, and his daughter married a man who would be less than faithful to the church.
The saints had experienced difficulties in building up the Kingdom of God in Ohio and in Jackson Country, Missouri. Yet this was followed by the Pentecostal experience at the dedication of the Kirtland temple. Such a marvelous experience as this, however, failed to provide protection in the troubles that followed, and some fell away, like many of those Lehi saw in his dream, to wander off in forbidden paths. Others went through the same experiences, but remained faithful through still more trials in Missouri and Illinois.
Despite the trials he experienced, it could be said that President Williams had success, prominence and spritual fulfillment in Kirtland. When he left Kirtland, he would lose almost everything. At a conference in Missouri, members refused to sustain him as second counselor in the First Presidency and he lost this position. An invalid son, whose healing had been promised if he and his wife remained faithful, passed away. His son-in-law became involved with other members turning against the church and collaborating with its enemies. Finally, Williams would be excommunicated from the church as the saints departed for Illinois.
A descendant of Frederick G Williams would speculate that he suffered guilt by association as he tried to mediate with his son-in-law and others who were turning against the church, trying to persuade them to return to the fold. Additionally, Williams was absent when the saints were making the trek to Illinois, and many who were absent at that time were excommunicated.
Williams may, however, have been absent because of his work in settling an estate belonging to a member of the church, for which he spent three days in court in Far West in March 1839. The business of settling the estate allowed Williams to visit Joseph Smith who was then in Liberty Jail.
In later years, Brigham Young appeared to admit a mistake had been made when he would teasingly ask Frederick's wife Rebecca if she had forgiven him yet -- she would teasingly answer that she had not.
It is certainly possible that Williams had committed an offense worthy of being excommunicated, but no documentation can be found regarding what that offense might have been. Even so, when Joseph Smith arrived in Illinois, he counseled Frederick G. Williams to submit himself before the church and ask for forgiveness. Williams did so in April 1840, and was received back into the fellowship of the church.
There may have been some hard feelings following this episode, however, as Dr. Williams chose to set up his medical practice in the town of Quincy, rather than in Nauvoo. Still, Williams remained faithful until his death in October 1842, at the age of fifty-four.
Not long before his passing, he and his wife paid a visit to the Prophet Joseph in Nauvoo. On a carriage ride, Joseph took a turn too quickly and overturned the carriage. As they parted, the prophet said that he hated to see Frederick leave, for he was going home to die.
Frederick's wife, Rebecca, and his son, Ezra, would cross the plains to settle in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Ezra Williams would establish the first hospital west of the Mississippi in 1852, when the Williamses converted their spacious two-story, seven room adobe home, which stood at 44 East North Temple in Salt Lake City.
Despite everything he had lost, despite the difficulties he had experienced, Frederick G. Williams remained faithful to the end. Whatever disagreements he may have had, even emotional scars, what mattered to him was that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that the Book of Mormon was the word of God. His commitment to the gospel was deep enough that he died full in the faith.
His wife, Rebecca, experienced her own trials, on top of those she shared with Frederick. When she joined the church she was rejected by her parents, who refused to answer her attempts to communicate with them by letter. As noted, she would cross the plains with her son to gather with the saints in Zion. She then endured slanderous statements against her late husband -- some charged that he had been part of the mob at Carthage, despite proceeding his friend Joseph in death by almost two years. Like her husband, and many of their descendants, she stayed true to the faith.
Will we be able to say the same thing? We live in a world, it seems, where personal attacks are okay, but standing up for your beliefs is not. In the church, "he said/she said" disagreements or other actions by imperfect people drive others from the church because they are offended. Others, despite such wounds, choose to remain faithful, to continue holding fast to the rod of iron.
Others find the price of enduring to the end to be too high. Some may sacrifice their principles to avoid a life of loneliness. Some may decide that the standards are too exacting.
"People have never failed to follow Jesus Christ because His standards were imprecise or insufficiently high," said President Russell M. Nelson in 1995. "Quite to the contrary. Some have disregarded His teachings because they were viewed as being too precise or impractically high! Yet such lofty standards, when earnestly pursued, produce great inner peace and incomparable joy."
What will we do? Will we hold to the iron rod and endure what trials may come, or will we lose heart and let go? Will we become dismayed or discontent? Will we wander off in the darkness? How deep is our commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Sources:
Williams, F. G. (2012). The Life of Dr. Frederick G. Williams: Counselor to the Prophet Joseph Smith. Provo, Utah: BYU Studies.
Nelson, R. M. (1995) "Perfection Pending." Ensign, November, accessed at: https://www.lds.org/ensign/1995/11/perfection-pending?lang=eng&_r=1
The prophet Joseph Smith received revelations in the fall 1830 calling Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer Jr., Parley P. Pratt and Ziba Peterson on a mission to the Lamanites -- the native Americans then living in the Indian territories bordering the state of Missouri. Just four months earlier, President Andrew Jackson had signed the Indian Removal Act. Even before the act became law, the Shawnee and Delaware Indians had begun moving from Ohio to the territories in 1828-29; both tribes would settle near the Kansas River, just west of the Missouri border.
Leaving in late October, the four missionaries soon arrived in northern Ohio; this was an area popularly known as the Western Reserve because during the colonial period it had been allotted to Connecticut as a "western reserve." Parley Pratt was already familiar with the area, having lived in Amherst. In fact, Parley had studied under Sidney Rigdon, then a prominent minister in the area.
While in the area, Parley persuaded his companions to visit Rigdon in Mentor, Ohio ere they would stay for four weeks, baptizing some one hundred converts, before continuing on to Missouri. Pratt and Cowdery bore testimony of the truthfulness of the restored gospel; while Rigdon was not immediately converted, he did allow the missionaries to preach their message in his church.
Many members of Rigdon's congregation live in Kirtland, a village five miles away from Mentor. The elders went door-knocking in the village and over a period of four weeks they baptized about 127 converts. These efforts more than doubled the membership of the church.
Among those baptized in Kirtland were Frederick and Rebecca Williams. Frederick Granger Williams, a doctor and a prominent member of the community, at first had some reservations about the restored gospel as taught by the four elders. "The Elders presented him a book of Mormon which he was determined not to read," wrote Lucy Ellen Williams Godfrey, Frederick's granddaughter, many years later. "He would read a little would lay it away but soon was reading it again. He became converted and was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."
Once converted, Dr. Williams was ready to give his all to the work. "When the Elders were going on they desired F. G. Williams to accompany them," wrote Lucy Godfrey, "which he did furnishing part of the outfit which left his wife alone with four small children to get a long as best she could. He was gone ten months on this mission to the Indians."
Another descendent of Dr. Williams, his biographer who also happens to share his name, has written: "By accepting the invitation to serve, Williams in effect became the first 'senior' missionary in this dispensation, as well as one of the first married missionaries of the restored Church to leave his family for an extended period. His willingness to sacrifice the comforts of home and family for a season in order to serve the Lord -- while paying his own way and at the same time supporting the missions of others -- would be a pattern that thousands more would emulate over the years."
The missionaries traveled south to the Ohio River, and along the way, the elders continued to preach to all who would listen. "Some wished to learn and obey the fullness of the gospel," wrote Parley P. Pratt. "Others were filled with envy, rage and lying."
On his return to Amherst, Parley would be arrested, tried and convicted on a frivolous charge. Lacking the money to pay the fine, the missionary had to spend the night locked in public inn. The next morning he was allowed to go his way when he challenged his surprised jailer to a race.
From there the missionary went to Sandusky, where they preached among the Wyandot tribe, before continuing on to Cincinnati. By steamboat they proceeded to St. Louis, then, as it was late in the year and there was ice at the mouth of the river, they proceeded by foot, in deep snow -- the winter of 1830-31 was remembered as the winter of the deep snow -- across Missouri to Independence, Jackson County.
As it would happen, the elders, on their arrival in western Missouri, did not receive permission from the Indian agent of the U.S. government to preach among the native Americans. Still, Oliver Cowdery, Parley Pratt and Frederick Williams were able to cross the border into the territories to introduce the Book of Mormon to forty tribal leaders, including William Anderson, the chief of the Delawares -- his father was Scandinavian while his mother was a native American.
Despite the limited success among the indians, the mission to the Lamanites would nonetheless have a major impact on the church and its history. The Saints in New York would soon decide to move to Kirtland, Ohio and, after the prophet Joseph received a revelation declaring it to be Zion, to Independence, Missouri. Frederick G. Williams would first meet the prophet in Independence before traveling with him back to Kirtland.
The prophet Joseph once said that "Brother Frederick G. Williams is one of those men in whom I place the greatest confidence and trust, for I have found him ever full of love and brotherly kindness. He is not a man of many words, but is ever winning, because of his constant mind."
Years later, in August 1841, Parley P. Pratt would write an open letter from Manchester, England, to the authorities and members of the church, in which he would recall the mission to the Lamanites and the elders with which he served:
"It is now eleven years since I first embraced the fullness of the gospel. . . . I was one of those who took the first mission to the western states, in which the fullness of the gospel was first introduced into Ohio (commencing at Kirtland,) Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, and into the Indian territory, among the Lamanites.
"When countless millions shall throng to the courts of the New Jerusalem which is soon to be built in Jackson County, Missouri, upon the consecrated spot, then perhaps it may be remembered that in 1830, in the depth of a howling winter five men penetrated Missouri's wilds, and traveled on foot from St. Louis to Independence, Jackson County, wading in snow to the knees the greater part of the way for 300 miles; and all this as may be said, without money or friends, except as they made them. These are the first footsteps ever made in that state by Latter day Saints -- these first placed their feet upon that holy ground, where shall stand the great temple of our God, the resort of nations, and the joy of the whole earth. . . .
"Of those five men, Peter Whitmer is now in his grave, two [Oliver Cowdery and Ziba Peterson] are turned away from the fellowship of the church, and the other two, F. G. Williams and myself are yet alive, and blessed with the grace of God we are yet counted worthy of a place among you. Thus I find myself a monument of mercy, spared like an oak amid the tempest, and to God be ascribed all the glory; for were it not for his peculiar longsuffering and goodness I might now have been an outcast from the commonwealth of Israel, or cut down by untimely death without beholding in this life the establishment of Zion."
Frederick G. Williams would have a prominent place in the history of the church in the Kirtland period, and you may yet read more about him for he is my great great great grandfather.
Sources:
Williams, F. G. (2012). The Life of Dr. Frederick G. Williams: Counselor to the Prophet Joseph Smith. Provo, Utah: BYU Studies.
Church Educational System. (1989). Church History in the Fulness of Times, Student Manual. Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A few years ago, a brother in my ward stood in Sacrament Meeting to share his testimony (sharing is best, that way you don't have to decide whether to "bare" or "bear" your testimony, and you certainly don't want to "bury" it). Anyway, this gentleman shared an incredible story.
He was up in Idaho at a meeting where World War II veterans were talking about experiences they had during the war. One vet had been a prisoner of war in a Japanese POW camp, and one morning he decided that he was just too tired to get up and face the day. The Japanese had not signed the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war and, therefore, did not feel bound by its requirements for humane treatment of prisoners, including the providing of sufficient food and decent medical care.
At the same time, the Japanese forced prisoners to do manual labor under brutal task masters and guards. In Thailand, the Japanese forced prisoners of war and civilians to build a railway through the jungle and over mountains to Burma -- 250 miles from Bangkok to Rangoon. Of 180,000 civilians pressed into labor on the railroad, around 90,000 died. Of 60,000 allied prisoners of war, 16,000 perished, including 6,318 British personnel, 2,815 Australians, 2,490 Dutch, about 356 Americans and a smaller number of Canadians and New Zealanders.
Faced with physically demanding work, with little food and almost no medical care, many prisoners reached the point where they simply could not go on. "It was usually apparent when a man was preparing himself to die," wrote James D. Hornfischer in his book, Ship of Ghosts, about the heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) and her survivors, many of whom worked on the railway in Thailand. "Often," continued Hornfischer, "he would stop eating. Sometimes he would announce his despair to the world."
"They'd tell you, 'I'm finished. I'm gone,'" said John Wisecup, a Houston survivor. The men who died did so out of despair. "They died," wrote Hornfischer, "in a dissociating madness, protesting their circumstances then shutting themselves down like zombies."
Returning to the veteran, telling his story at a meeting somewhere in Idaho, he explained that he wished the guards would shoot him and end his misery. But, suddenly, two "wacko" Mormons came over to him and gave him a blessing. They blessed him that he would get through the day, and this man soon felt the strength to do just that. Then the two Mormons went off to give blessings to other prisoners, even going to other buildings in the camp, despite the risk of being caught by the guards. All of the prisoners who received blessings got through the day, and many survived the war to return home.
The veteran telling the story gave the name of one of the Mormons who had given him a blessing, and the brother from my ward recognized the name. As it turned out, one of the two who had given blessings to the prisoners was the uncle of this gentleman from my ward. He went to see his uncle, and there heard the rest of the story.
The uncle had not been particularly serious about his religion, yet he had received the priesthood. Because he had been less than faithful, he was surprised that morning in the POW camp to be awakened by the Spirit and given the names of men who needed blessings. He sneaked out of his building to another where he got the second Mormon. He said they were guided by the Spirit as they moved from building to building. They were not caught, and, as noted above, every man who received a blessing lived through the day.
Most, perhaps even all, of those who received blessings were not members of the LDS church, and one of the men sent to bless them had been, as we would say today, less active in the church. We are all, member and non-member alike, children of a loving Heavenly Father who is mindful of each of us and the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Anyone of us may be sent to bless the lives of others, to be an instrument in the Lord's hands.
One of the things I like about history is that I can find people who have experienced difficulties far in excess of anything I have experienced. I have a nephew who served his mission in Thailand, and I told him before he left that at those times when he might feel discouraged he should think of those men who built the railway. There are lessons that we might learn from them.
"Suffer is a dangerous word here just now," said Ray Parkin, another Houston survivor, "it can induce self-pity. Endure is a better word, it is not so negative. Enduring can give aim, a sense of mastery over circumstance. I have seen so much self-conscious suffering and men dying from self-pity."
Jim Gee told his friend, Howard Charles, "Look Charlie, your mind is like the muscle in your arm. Either you use it or it gets flabby and useless." Gee then told Charles "There are three forces at work here. Like the legs of a triangle. First, food. Either we have enough or we're dead. Second, health. That needs no explanation. Third, attitude, which is probably the best medicine. Food, health, attitude. They're interlocked, each totally dependent on the other. We have to have all three. No food, no health. Bad attitude: the triangle collapses."
Frank Fujita, also a Houston survivor, was at some point sent to Japan where, in the midst of his ordeal, he kept an unshakably positive attitude. "I find beauty in everything, even in death, you know," said Fujita. "I always find something that's worthwhile. And even when were were starved to death -- most of us down to eighty or ninety pounds or walking skeletons - then instead of me sitting around thinking how horrible a shape we were in and 'Oh, woe is me,' I thought this was an absolutely marvelous opportunity to study anatomy."
Ray Parkin added, "There is a lot to grumble about; a lot to be disappointed about; a lot to lose our tempers over; but there is also much to marvel at. For instance, the loyalty of a man's body -- to watch a sore heal itself -- to feel that pain is not so much a tragedy but a process. There is fascination in trying to help it consciously, to try to break down any internal resistance to recovery by trying to quell devastating emotions like bad temper, hatred, fear, lust, envy."
As Hornfischer put it, "There was enough of an enemy in nature. There was no need to allow a psychological fifth column to form up from within."
During the October 2010 General Conference, President Thomas S. Monson spoke on the need to endure:
"We live in a troubled world, a world of many challenges. We are here in this earth to deal with our individual challenges to the best of our ability, to learn from them, and to overcome them. Endure to the end we must, for our goal is eternal life in the presence of our Father in Heaven. He loves us and wants nothing more than for us to succeed in this goal. He will help us and bless us as we call upon Him in our prayers, as we study His words, and as we obey His commandments. Therein is found safety; therein is found peace."
