Missouri Impressions (Adversity)

I suppose it is difficult to see the Missouri Church history sites without thinking about adversity in one form or another.  Everywhere we stopped if the feeling of adversity wasn't right in my face (Liberty Jail and Independence), a subtle undercurrent hovered nearby (Far West temple lot).  None of us are immune to adversity and suffering.  As Paul wrote to the Hebrews, even Jesus "though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered" (Hebrews 5:8).  Lest we wonder why Jesus had adversity, Paul also explains that because He "suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted" (Hebrews 2:18; emphasis added).  Alma took this concept further when he explained to the people in Gideon that "the Son of God" would suffer "pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and . . . will take upon him . . . the sicknesses of his people . . . that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities" (Alma 7:10-12; emphasis added).  Webster's dictionary defines "succor" as "relief, aid, help".  When applying this definition to Paul and Alma's words, one can see how important it was for Jesus to not only be tempted as we are tempted, but to suffer pain, affliction, and sickness while He lived on the earth.  If Jesus were shielded from any of these things, how could He have perfect empathy for us?  It is difficult to relate to someone when you do not truly understand what they are suffering.

My oldest son, Ben, can serve as a case in point for this concept.  This is a still shot of Ben, Isaac and me at the base of the Hill Cumorah.  The boys wanted to "recreate" a moment 13 years ago when I chased Ben around in this same area.  Originally, I had Isaac on my back in a carrier.  This time they wanted me to chase both of them.  They tired me out, but I caught them . . . eventually. :)  Upon returning home, Ben resumed high school football practice.  He played in a scrimmage and got his first tackle during the game (he was very excited about it).  But not long afterward (about a week or so before the team’s actual first game), he was participating in a drill where the tackler was supposed to find an angle and tackle the ball carrier.  Ben was the ball carrier and he was hit at an angle in just the right/wrong place in his side and back area.  After that, his back began to hurt.  The pain became progressively worse until it reached a point where he had difficulty standing and walking (even sitting wasn't easy).  In order for us to take our yearly trip to the LA County Fair this year, we had to rent a wheelchair and push him everywhere.  We all had a good time, but it was a different experience.  In the meantime, the hoops we had to jump through just to get him help through our medical insurance was an odyssey at times.  It took about a month before we finally found out that his lower lumbar joints appeared to have received some damage.  The nerve test he took came back negative (which was good) and a bone scan showed no fractures.  Still, everyone was stumped as to why he continued to feel pain.  He had been given two steroid shots in his lower back and these should have helped, yet he was still experiencing spasms and dealing with nearly debilitating pain.

Watching Ben go through this patch of adversity has been a very difficult experience for me because I have no frame of reference in which to process it.  I have never had back pain like Ben is currently going through.  I definitely feel sympathy for his plight, but I have no empathy because I have had no similar feelings.  At times, I've felt completely helpless.  As much as I would like to, I cannot grab a Harry Potter wand and make Ben's pain go away.  Neither can I put a bandage on his back to make the boo-boo all better.  All I have been able to do is give Ben his pain medication (there are days when the meds haven’t helped much) and to sit with him and hold his hand as his back spasms while he tries to go to sleep.  This has helped me to understand, in a small way, the importance of the Savior's Atonement.  While my offering of help to Ben is limited (although he has told me on many occasions that he is thankful for what I can offer), Jesus' "succor" is all encompassing.  As He explained to the Prophet Joseph Smith: "I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent" (D&C 19:16).  His suffering on our behalf allows Him to understand us perfectly.  With that perfect understanding, He knows what we need when we need it, but we still have to come to Him to ask--to humble ourselves to petition Him through the Father for His help (click this link for a video by Elder Holland).

The other aspect of adversity is the personalized lessons we can be taught from our experiences.  In Section 122 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Prophet Joseph Smith was told that his adversity “shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good” (D&C 122:7).  Many times, the knowledge I have gained from adversity comes after I have completed the difficult experience.  However, there have been a few things learned so far.  One of the things Ben has learned is the importance of consistently going to church.  He missed two weeks in a row because of the pain and then a third week because of General Conference—three weeks of not partaking of the sacrament.  A few days before Conference, he asked me for a blessing as was told that reading scriptures and saying prayers were not enough—attending meetings was of vital spiritual importance as well.  In the Sunday afternoon session of Conference, Elder Kevin Hamilton of the Seventy gave a talk about Sunday worship that hammered this lesson home to Ben (for the full talk, click this link).  He has attended Sacrament meeting in our ward since then.  The pain makes it so Sacrament meeting is all he can physically attend, but he has been able to partake the sacrament and listen to the talks and we hope he will soon be able to attend the full block.  As for me, I have been given a small inkling of what it could have been like for Father in Heaven to watch His Son suffer and not be able to remove the pain from Him.  How I can complain and whine at Father for what we’re going through when He has dealt with a situation far greater than mine?  Also, because of the support through contact, prayers and fasting we’ve been given by family and ward members during this time, I have also been reminded that “Inasmuch as ye have [served] one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40).  At times when we feel “the least” we are given the most.

I've also been reminded of human imperfections and the problems they can cause.  I took the day off from work to accompany Ben and Jennifer to an appointment with a second orthopedic doctor (the first was . . . shall I say, less than satisfactory and leave it at that).  During this appointment, Ben was referred to a new pain management doctor to discuss new options to deal with his pain.  Since the nerve test and bone scan showed no major problems, new options needed to be considered.  Thankfully, we were able to see this doctor that same day.  After looking over the MRI pictures and other information Jennifer has carefully collected, this doctor determined that the steroid shots should have been placed one vertebrae higher than had previously been given.  To hear this diagnosis made me livid inside!  Three weeks Ben had been in pain when he could have been recovering!  It was very difficult to let my anger go, but I realized it was unproductive and not helpful to Ben.  The new shot will be performed tomorrow and we hope it will begin the recovering we have been praying for.

Admittedly, what I have related above were not my immediate impressions of the Missouri sites we visited (honestly, these experiences have chased those impressions from me).  However, I think the trials and adversity we have had since our vacation have been tempered because of our visits to the Missouri sites.

The Great 2013 Vacation: Far West, Liberty Jail, Independence

Our final day of Church history sites began with a discounted breakfast at Grandpa John's Café (we got there in plenty of time on our second try) and us hovering around the LDS bookstore waiting for it to open.  Hmmm.  Well, that makes us sound as though we spent 30 minutes loitering in front of the door--we walked around the temple again and checked out another store across the street during those 30 minutes, but we were waiting. :)  The problem was there were no posted signs in the window or on the door stating when the store would open.  Since most of the other stores opened at 9 o'clock that morning, we figured this store would too and we wanted to try our luck at getting another Vocal Point cd and possibly an additional souvenir.  The appointed hour came and the door to the store remained closed (curses, foiled again).  Since we had several places in Missouri to visit, I told my disappointed clan we couldn't wait any longer.  Reluctantly, we piled into the Optima and bade good-bye to Nauvoo.  We traveled alongside the Mississippi River for about 12 to 15 miles before the road turned inland and the river disappeared; it did not return until we drove through a section of Quincy, Illinois and crossed over it into Missouri.

Our drive to Far West was mostly uneventful other than a stop in Macon where I bought another memory chip for the video camera while we broke out the lunch snacks and me missing the turn-off for Highway "D" because we were having a discussion about trials the Saints had in Missouri (I had been watching the descending alphabet roads, but suddenly it seemingly jumped from "G" to "C").  Far West is where most of the Missouri Saints had gathered after being driven from place to place within the state.  Caldwell County was one of the counties created for the Mormons in which to settle.  Unfortunately, it wasn't long before the bad blood existing between church members and the Missouri settlers kicked back into overdrive, leading to the Huan's Mill massacre, Joseph's imprisonment and the Saints being driven into Illinois (there is a lot more to the history than this very condensed version, but it is sufficient for the purposes of this post).  At it's peak, Far West was a large and thriving community (click this link for a short video presentation), but now Far West is mostly corn and other farm fields.  Tucked away in the middle of the sprawling farmlands, however is a monument to the temple lot dedicated in Far West with the preserved cornerstones at each corner of the lot.  A feeling of unexpected reverence came over me as I walked inside the area to take video of the cornerstones and the monuments.  As I moved from stone to stone, I wondered if the temple once planned for Far West would ever be built.  Geographically, such a building would be out in the proverbial middle of nowhere, but the monuments reminded me of the importance the Lord placed on Far West.  Consider the following verses: D&C 115:7-8.  It may not be practical to build a temple here at the moment, but that is a powerful declaration and the Lord, as far as I've been able to figure out with my finite mind, doesn't make pronouncements of this type for no reason.  Also interesting to me was a sign stating Joseph F. Smith was born not far to the west of the lot.  Again it made me ponder upon the thousands of people who had once lived in the vicinity and how hardly any trace existed of the former town.

 

One of the cornerstones of the Far West Temple

 

Before continuing on our journey, we backtracked a bit to visit the Far West Country Store located about a mile or so north of the temple lot site.  The store turned out to be a LDS bookstore with some minor food items.  As soon as we found it to be a bookstore, we tried again to find a Vocal Point cd--they had one, but it was the one we already had (I guess we were just meant to buy our cds at our local bookstore--well, local in the sense that its 10 to 15 miles from where I work :p).  We bought drinks for lunch so as not to leave completely empty handed and started toward our next destination.  Our next stop was the Liberty Jail where Joseph Smith, along with his brother Hyrum and Sidney Rigdon, Lyman Wight, Alexander McCrea and Caleb Baldwin were incarcerated and spent a little over 4 months while the Saints were driven from Missouri into Illinois.  Our tour guide was senior Elder who described himself as an "old farm-boy from Idaho" (unfortunately, I don't recall his name).  We very much enjoyed the tour he gave us.  He encouraged us to read the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants revealed to the Prophet while he was imprisoned in the jail (Sections 121, 122 & 123).  We focused on the 121 and 122 for Family Home Evening about a week after returning home.  To see the jail again and to be reminded visually and through the stories the Elder told us of what those months may have been like for the Prophet and his companions was sobering and humbling.  I also appreciated the time we were allowed to remain after the formal tour was over to take pictures and ask additional questions until a subsequent tour was ready to come into the room.

 

The thickness of the outside walls of Liberty Jail

 

From there our next stop was to see the Kansas City, Missouri Temple.  In my planning, I was surprised to find the temple to only be 6 miles from the jail.  We ended up having to take a bit of an unexpected detour to get to it, but the detour was well marked and didn't cause a huge problem, adding only a few minutes extra to the trip.  The temple was dedicated last year.  One of the things I liked was the wheat motif on the front doors and on the walls.  This area of country is known for its wheat fields, making the detail a regional nod, but I also thought about the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30) and how those who prepare and qualify for a temple recommend and then use that recommend consistently are striving to be the wheat and not a tares.  A Stake center was next to the temple and it appeared as if a meeting was taking place there.  Jennifer needed to visit the facilities (yes, I asked her if I could write that) and found herself in the middle of a missionary meeting.  She was pretty excited to see all these missionaries.  I guess the meeting was coming to a close and many were in the cultural hall finishing eating and taking pictures.  When she returned to us, we took our pictures and walked around the temple grounds.

 

Jen wanted to have a picture of her touching the temple with the boys

 

The last Church history site on our makeshift tour was the Visitor's Center at Independence, Missouri.  For some reason, we didn't take any pictures of any of our visit there--I'm not sure why; we just didn't.  Anyway, it was also here that we met the final dynamic sister missionary on our tour: Sister Dietrich.  She greeted us as we first walked into the center and recognized Jennifer--I guess she saw Jen when she slipped into the Stake center while we were visiting the Kansas City Temple.  We found out that the reason so many missionaries were at the Stake center was because their mission was being split due to the influx of missionaries since the age reduction last October and the current Elders and Sisters were finding out which mission they would now be serving in.  Sister Dietrich asked us what we wanted to do at the Center.  I don't recall if I had visited the center 30 years ago (my family could have since the center was there during the time of our trip, being dedicated in 1971), so, as far as I knew, this was new territory for me and I had no specific ideas as to what to see.  Sister Dietrich gave us a couple of options depending on our time constraints and we decided to go for the full tour.  The tour consisted of an explanation of why the Mormons came to Independence and what happened between them and the "old" settlers which ended in mobs and eventually the Mormon settlers being driven from the area, eventually being driven completely from the state.  At the end of this part of the tour, Sister Dietrich asked (as we had been asked by other sisters throughout our Church history stops) if there was anyone we could think of who she could contact and share a message with over the telephone.  Jennifer, who had been struck very hard by what Sister West had said to us at the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center, had been preparing for this moment and wanted very much to give a name this time.  When Sister Dietrich asked, Jennifer was able to do so and we have been happy to find out that Sister Dietrich and another Sister has made several calls to this person since then.  Back when I wrote the post I linked above, I said maybe my calling as Ward Mission Leader was what Sister West may have meant when she made her statement to us.  Now, however, I see that there is so much more to what she said then just a calling--Jennifer is now a Ward missionary with me and this experience I have recounted also qualifies.  But there have been other experiences we have had that also qualify as a fulfillment of what Sister West said to us that day and we are trying our best to continue to make her statement a reality for our family.  After that part of the tour ended, we also viewed a display of pictures taken in the early 1900's of the Church sites we had visited over the several days of our journey.  We were fascinated to see the differences in how these place looked in the pictures to how we had viewed them during our trip.  Finally, Jennifer wanted to see the Christus statue before we left.  After the presentation finished, Sister Dietrich and another Sister sang the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee" to us, saying it was a tradition at the center to sing a hymn to those who heard the Christus presentation.  It was a very uplifting way to end our Church history tour.

 

Before we left the center, Sister Dietrich gave us a list of nearby places to eat.  We looked it over, but nothing jumped out at us.  I had directions to get us to the Independence Costco, so we drove there to get gas and some extra lunch munchies for our 2 day trip home.  As we got back onto the freeway, we started looking for signs showing us fast food places.  Suddenly, the car erupted with "Steak 'n Shake!"  I had planned to go to a Steak 'n Shake for breakfast the next morning (figured, they serve it, why not try it also), but everyone convinced me (not that it took a whole lot) that we should go there for dinner one more time.  The experience was . . . interesting.  The food was good, but the service was not so much.  I got the impression that the staff was short handed--either someone hadn't showed up for work, or someone had gotten fired on the spot and was being sent on his way, or both (I couldn't quite figure it out).  The snail's pace got us out of there later than I had anticipated.  We ended up reaching the KOA outside of Topeka, Kansas somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 o'clock that night.  We got the tent up and quickly crashed after a very full day.