Rosetta Leonora Pettibone Snow

 I decided in January that I would discover the dates of when my and my husband's ancestors first joined the church. Both of us have ancestors who joined the church during the time period covered in the Doctrine and Covenants.  I wanted to tie in the baptisms of our ancestors with what was happening in the church and in the Doctrine and Covenants.  In the sections we read in Come Follow Me this week there is a passage that I think leads directly to the first person in our genealogy to join the church, Rosetta Leonora Pettibone Snow, wife of Oliver III and mother of Lorenzo and Eliza Snow. The passage is 37:1-2 "Behold, I say unto you (Joseph Smith and Sydney Rigdon) that it is not expedient in me that you should translate any more until you shall go to the Ohio, and this because of the enemy and for your sakes. And again, I say unto you that ye shall not go until you preached the gospel in those parts."  I believe Joseph and Sydney were following this directive when they visited and baptized Rosetta.

There is a lot of information about Rosetta on Family Search.  I can't include it all here but here is a mini-biographical sketch:

When Rosetta Leonora Pettibone was born on 22 October 1778, in Simsbury, Connecticut, her father, Captain Jacob Pettibone Jr, was 25 and her mother, Rosetta Amanda Barber, was 20. Captain Pettibone and his wife, Rosetta, both claimed to be descendants of the original pilgrim settlers of 1620. Captain Pettibone served in the Revolutionary war. 

Rosetta was raised to be a wife and mother and was accomplished in the homely arts.  Her daughter Eliza said in her biography, that Rosetta “considered a practical knowledge of housekeeping the best, most efficient foundation on which to build a magnificent structure of womanly accomplishments-that useful knowledge was the most reliable basis of independence”. 

Rosetta L married Oliver Snow III on 6 May 1800, in Becket, Berkshire, Massachusetts, United States. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 4 daughters. 

Eliza said her parents were “free of bigotry and intolerance” and made their home a “welcome resort for the honorable of all denominations.”

In the early months of 1831 the Snow family was living in Mantua, Ohio when a family friend, Sidney Rigdon, introduced them to the prophet, Joseph Smith. Rosetta responded immediately to the message of the restored gospel and was baptized by Joseph Smith himself” (Eliza, the life and faith of Eliza R. Snow, by Karen Lynn Davidson and Jill Mulvay Derr)

She later moved with the saints to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1839. She died on 12 October 1846, in Walnut Grove,  Illinois, at the age of 67, before the saints migrated to Utah.

One of the things that impressed me about Rosetta is that she joined the church long before anyone else in her family. Eliza R. Snow joined in 1835 and Rosetta's husband, Oliver, and son Lorenzo didn't join until 1836.  I have to ask myself, if Rosetta had not joined in 1831, would any of her family ever joined? If she had not joined it would have been easy for other members to forget about Joseph Smith and his church.  Her brave and faithful decision to be baptized ensured that the rest of the family would be in contact with other members over and over again. Unfortunately, I could not find a picture of Rosetta, but here is memorial marker at the site of her home in Mantua, Ohio.

Jesus on the Cross

 Last week was Holy Week.  David and I read through the account of Jesus' last week from the book of Matthew. There is so much you can write about Easter, but many people have said everything better than I can.  

I just wanted to point out one thing I noticed while reading Matthew 27, the account of when Jesus was up on the cross. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints people often emphasize Jesus' suffering in Gethsemane.  That is because we have extra information about that part of Jesus' suffering found in the Doctrine and Covenants 19.  Many other Christian, however, focus on his suffering on the cross, and rightfully so.  There is no reason to believe that the weight of sin Jesus took on in Gethsemane was at all lessened when he was on the cross. Add to all that spiritual weight of sin, the physical torture of being on the cross, and psychological attacks from onlookers.  

As I was reading Matthew 27 I noticed that the challenges hurled at Jesus while on the cross, were reiterations of his temptations from the beginning of his ministry.  Here is a chart.

Temptation 1: And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. (v.3) 

Challenge while on the Cross: They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. (v. 34)

Essence of the temptation: Break his resolve to meet a physical need.  In the Temptation Jesus was fasting and was tempted to break his fast.  On the Cross Jesus had told his disciples he wouldn't drink the fruit of the vine until he drank it with them in the Kingdom of heaven. 

Temptation 2: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. (v.6)

Challenge on the Cross: He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. (v. 42)

Essence of the temptation: Satan was tempting Jesus to flaunt his divine power to save himself. 

Temptation 3: Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. (v. 8-9)

Challenge from the Cross: And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.

Essence of the temptation: Satan was tempting him to seek the glory of the world.  If Jesus had rebuilt the temple in three days, it would have been proof of his power that would have brought him fame and glory.

In the end Jesus was able to resist these final temptations just as he did the initial ones. Did resisting the first temptations help him be better prepared to resist the last?  Applying this idea to ourselves, I wonder if sometime we are given little temptations first that, if we can resist them, give us greater power to resist temptation when it comes at our more vulnerable times. 

The Lamanite Mission

 This week I was asked to be the Sunday School teacher for teens age 17-18.  This new calling has made me begin to think about how I would present sections of the Doctrine and Covenants to that age group.  When I was given the assignment the bishop of our ward suggested that the focus in our congregation for teaching youth is to help them learn how to find answers to their questions, instead of just answering their questions. So what questions might teenagers ask about the reading this week?

I think they would probably ask the same thing I ask myself every time I read the Doctrine and Covenants.  Why does the Lord tell the Saints to do something, knowing they will not actually be able to accomplish it?  

In section 32 the Lord calls Parley P. Pratt and Ziba Peterson to go with "Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer, Jun., into the wilderness among the Lamanites" (v. 2).  History shows that these four men traveled in December and January through severe winter weather. After a very difficult journey, they were only able to talk with native people a couple of times before an agent for the US Indian Affairs gave them an order to stop proselyting. No native peoples joined the church through their efforts. 

Historians are quick to point out that on the way they stopped in to visit Sidney Rigdon who was the paster of a small Methodist congregation in Kirkland Ohio.  Sidney Rigdon was converted as were eventually 300 from the region.  The mission therefore tripled the numbers of members in the church and laid the foundation for the gathering of the saints in Kirkland and the building of the Kirkland Temple. 

So, why did the Lord tell Oliver Cowdery and the others to go find Sydney Rigdon, instead of telling them to go and preach to the Lamanites?  And what does that tactic tell us about God?

In other words, can we even have faith in God?  When he tells us to do something, can we believe what he says? 

I never answered this kind of complex question when I was 18.  I wasn't even mature enough in my theology to even ask it.  My faith at 18 was simple and fervent. I knew that if I kept the commandments the Lord would bless me and I would progress and eventually inherit eternal life. At 18 this seemed like a fairly easy and straight forward task to me.  I was already pretty good at keeping commandments. I kept the word of wisdom strictly.  I kept the 10 commandments.  I served a mission and applied to and attended BYU.  I was doing everything I knew how to do be an obedient daughter. 

Now at age 60, I look back on my life and see times when the Lord told me to metaphorically go to preach to the Indians, not so I could actually preach to the Indians, but meet up with and preach to Sidney Rigdon instead.  Going on and staying true under those kinds of circumstances, takes real faith. It is not only trusting the Lord, but trusting in the Lord.  It is believing that not matter what snow storms the Lord drags you through, it will all be for the best and for his greater glory. I think I am just getting to that place in my life, 43 years after I was the age of my new students. 

If you look at this section and section 29:6 the Lord doesn't actually say they are going to have success converting native peoples.  He said that Oliver had the power to "build up my church among the Lamanites."  Did Oliver have the power? I assume yes, since the Lord said he did.  Did he have the opportunity to exercise that power?  No. Where Oliver and Peter promised that they would have success among the native peopled? No.  They were told to go, and that as they went Jesus would be their advocate with the Father, and nothing would prevail against them (v. 3). You can argue that that happened.  None of them died, and many felt the Spirit of the Lord and were converted.  The outcome was just as God wanted, It blessed the missionaries and the Church, but it wasn't what they expected. 

The take-away from this lesson is that we can't become so tied down to our own expectations of what is going to happen, that we miss the miracles in our life that come unexpectedly from God. 

Did someone teach me this when I was 18?  They probably tried to, but I wasn't ready and humble enough to understand. I think the youth of today are more sophisticated than I was at 18. Maybe they will get it. 

One more thing. My family had a personal stake in this mission. Sidney Rigdon was a friend of the Oliver Snow family and first told them about Joseph Smith. Rosetta Pettibone Snow was the first member on either my or my husband's family line to join the church, and that happened as a result of the Lamanite Mission.

Section 29: Foreshadowing the Exodus

 Section 29 is the first eschatological section in the Doctrine & Covenants. Eschatology is the study of the end times. This section is often compared to the book of Ezekiel or the Book of Revelation because they also deal with the end times and have some of the same symbolic images.  One of the podcasts I listened to this week (I think it was Scott and Casey on Scripture Central) pointed out that there is also a lot of imagery here from the book of Exodus. This fascinated me since one of the things I am discovering this year is that the modern church was as much a restoration of the Old Testament worship as it is of the New Testament gospel.  

In the Exodus story, before the people leave Egypt, Moses calls down 10 plagues onto the Egyptians.  They are:, water into blood, frogs, lice, flies, livestock dying, boils, hail that turns into fire, locust, darkness, and the death of the firstborn.  Once they left Egypt, the Hebrews were lead by a pillar of fire/smoke to Mount Sinai where they received the law. Let's see how many of these images we can find in D&C 29.

Hail: 29:16 (also and stars falling v. 14)
Flies: 29:18

Lice: (here maggots) 29:18
Darkness: 29:14
Pillar of Fire: 29:12
Mount Sinai: 29:13

It doesn't include all the images, but there is definitely enough that someone familiar with the Exodus story might notice the tie in, especially because of the mention of the Pillar of Fire and the Mount Sinai. Those images are exclusively related to the Moses story.

At this time Joseph Smith was working on the "translation" of the Bible, so maybe these ideas were already in his head when he received the revelation. The thing he didn't know, and nobody knew at that point except God, was that within 20 years the Saints would be making their own exodus from the United States, lead by a modern Moses, Brigham Young, to establish a new home/nation in the American West. As the Old Testament Exodus is the foundation story of the People of Israel, the Doctrine and Covenants is the foundation story of the modern church. Was the Lord intentionally foreshadowing?  Probably.  He loves to do that. Did anyone pick up on it at the time? Probably not.