The Pioneer Spirit

P.D. Laws

Combined 3 Ward Meeting,

Mothers Day 1997

11 May 1997

 

I would like to take a moment to talk to you about two great women. The first I have not met yet, and the second I know personally. On April 6th, 1830 the "Church of Christ" was incorporated at the Peter Whitmer Sr. Home in Fayette, N.Y. Six brethren constituted the gathering on that fateful first day. Exactly 10 years and one month later (on May 6, 1840) Elder Wilford Woodruff baptized my third great grandmother on my father's side at Nightengale Bower, England. I'm grateful that he did it!

 

Ann Jewell Rowley was a mother of seven children. Her husband John was baptized several weeks after Ann but died before they were to leave for the United States. Ann made the entire journey across the Great Plains as a widow with faith and determination to succeed in spite of all odds. As a member of the Willie Handcart Company she was called upon to suffer mightily. The comments of an aged Handcart veteran are characteristic of the travails through which these Saints traveled:

I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, "I will go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it..." I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.

As a 46-year-old widow with seven young children, Ann Jewell Rowley made the long, arduous trip to the valley of the everlasting hills, the basin that we today call the Great Salt Lake. To Ann Jewell Rowley I owe a great debt. I feel gratitude to have descended from such great pioneer stock.

 

The second woman is my mother Carol Anne Boulware. She was born and raised in Winnsboro, South Carolina. Her desire to serve the Lord led her to serve a full time mission concurrently with her sweetheart David Laws. She served in the Northern States Mission. Shortly after their return from their missions my parents were married in the Manti Temple. I was the first of six children in our family (4 boys & 2 girls). When I was 13 years old my father passed away suddenly and left my mother with 6 children ranging in age from 6 weeks to 13 years. What a pioneer she became in that fiery furnace of affliction!

 

I witnessed her challenges and tried to understand her needs the best way that I could. On this Mother's day I salute these two valiant widows and all mothers everywhere!

 

Latter-Day Saints whoever they are, are pioneers. Each of us has within him of her the opportunity to guide our posterity in paths of truth and righteousness. You and I may feel that there are no seas to sail, no plains to cross, and thus no need for pioneers in our day. I think this is far from the truth. Many of the qualities that were required of the pioneers of yester-year are needed today to insure our spiritual well being and survival. Faith, then and now, is a key ingredient "a knowledge of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb 11:1) (The headlight story in Price Canyon) We must trust in the Lord and in those whom He has appointed to lead and guide His church. We live in "perilous times" when warnings have been, and continue to be issued from the apostles and prophets, which God has called and chosen and appointed to be His spokesmen. As Latter-Day Saints we are a covenant people. With this added responsibility comes the burden too of additional blessings. Yes, a burden because I fear that we don't always bear our blessings so well. We begin to take them for granted and that is when we are led away from our upward progression. We begin to settle for less than we are capable of.

 

The 2,000 warriors that Helaman had the privilege to command exemplified and magnified the teachings of their mothers.

Alma 56:47-48:

47 Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

48 And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.

 

Alma 57:21

21 Yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness; yea, and even according to their faith it was done unto them; and I did remember the words which they said unto me that their mothers had taught them.

 

Perdido the Branch will become Perdido the Ward when the Saints of this area have sufficient faith and dedication to bear this blessing. Thankfully, until then, we have a core of pioneer saints no different from these faithful women. You must forge new paths; inviting those sheep who have strayed to return to the fold. On the whole, when the covenants and the blessings associated with them are truly understood most every person will sincerely desire to live them. We have got to find a way to touch the lives of our brothers and sisters who are not with us. Elder Hartman Rector Jr. of the Seventy, who was once the Mission President in the Florida Tallahassee Mission, shares a story about a missionary couple from Idaho named the Clawsons and their remarkable success as missionaries. They informed President Rector that they had come into the mission field to baptize 100 people, to which President Rector smilingly agreed. Then they set out to do it. They were stationed in Bonifay Florida where there was a small branch of the church. In the first month they baptized 26 people. They worked almost exclusively with part-member families. The goal of Elder Clawson was to make the patriarch of the home feel more of the church in his home so that he could feel more at home at church. He tutored these non-member brethren on how to be a leader and patriarch in their home and the power of three things.

    1) Family Home Evening

    2) Family Prayer

    3) Church Attendance

At the end of twelve months (having to go home early because of Elder Clawson's poor health) they had baptized 94 people! Nor can we under estimate the power of example. (The Roy Canonizado story)

 

We have a God-given responsibility to "Reach out" to those around us who are in the Church and out. This too is one of our covenants. We have promised to do it and the Lord has promised:

 

And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up (D&C 84:88)