Lesson 29: Building the Kingdom of God in Nauvoo, Illinois

There wasn't a lot of extra material to bring into this lesson because it relied very heavily on historical accounts.  A good two-thirds of which we have already talked about in other lessons.  This is one of the problems with the D&C manual.  Because it's arranged by topic, it leaps all over the Doctrine and Covenants, and we wind up hitting on some of the same stories over and over again.

Of course, I'm pretty positive I'm the only person in my class who realizes I'm repeating myself since most of the time people don't retain what they hear in Sunday School.  I knew I didn't when I was just a student.  So I suppose it doesn't matter too much.

As I was prepping my lesson Saturday, I was in the middle of getting sick and losing my voice, so I decided that we would be doing group work in Sunday School.  Frankly, I had already been leaning in that direction because there was a lot of text in Our Heritage to read, and there's nothing more boring than reading from a book as a group.  Unless you're in 1st grade and everyone is learning to read.  Then it's exciting.  (Or was that just my nerdy six year-old self?)

So I broke everyone into 7 small groups and had them each read about an historical event and then report to the class on it.  Less talking for me, more interaction for them.  Win win.

I started out, though, with a long list of dates written on the chalkboard, starting with Joseph Smith's first vision, the founding of the Church, and ending up with the dates of the key events in Nauvoo that we were talking about in class (sending the 12 on missions, baptisms for the dead, endowment, founding of the Relief Society)  I told them what each date stood for up to Joseph Smith's imprisonment in Liberty Jail, and then referred back to the relevant date on the board as we discussed each of the Nauvoo events.

One man told me afterward that he really liked seeing the dates on the board and understanding the historical context of what we were talking about.  That's nice.  I guess I'll use that tool again in the future to keep everyone historically grounded.

I handed out the historical readings and told the groups they would be responsible for answering 2 questions: 1) What happened?  2) What were the experiences/roles of individual members?

Because even though we were talking about history, what struck me as I read through the key sections of Our Heritage was how the text shared so many individual stories, naming individual members by name.  Some of them we are very familiar with, like Brigham Young and John Taylor, but others are not as familiar, yet they were important to building the kingdom of God too.  I noticed the same thing while reading D&C 124 in preparation for the lesson.  Individual members are mentioned, and their roles in building the kingdom are discussed  (we'll just ignore for the the moment the problem inherent in Joseph Smith receiving a "revelation" that tells someone to build him a house.  We're not talking about the temple here, which is also discussed in section 124, but an actual house for Joseph Smith.  D&C 124:115)

Liberal feminist me thought maybe some discussion might get started from the following story, but I was wrong:

Not long after Addison’s departure, his young daughter contracted smallpox. The disease was so contagious that there was real danger to any priesthood brother who might come to the Pratts, so Louisa [Addison's wife] prayed with faith and “rebuked the fever.” Eleven little pimples came out on her daughter’s body, but the disease never developed. In a few days the fever was gone. Louisa wrote, “I showed the child to one acquainted with that disease; he said it was an attack; that I had conquered it by faith.”

After sharing this story, the Liberian man who related the story to the group told his own story in his limited English about the time he had chicken pox and his roommate called the hospital and he got help and he only had a few pox on his back.  Just like this story!

Ummm, okay.  Not exactly the point I was hoping would be gleaned from the story, but, you know, a nice story for him.  Not spiritual or anything.  Nothing to do with blessings or Priesthood or women giving blessings.  But, nice story for him...

This is what I mean when I say that our ward is pretty apolitical and the majority of the members aren't aware on any level of the potential political and historical issues that could come up in class.  In some ways it's a blessing because there are a lot of different perspectives coming in, and more often than not we talk a lot about God and Jesus and very basic principles of goodness and service.  We don't get caught up in conservative politics that might make teaching very difficult for me.  Nobody spouting John Birch Society propaganda here. 

At the same time, the potential import of a story about a woman giving a blessing showing up in Our Heritage, the church-sanctioned companion book to this year's Gospel Doctrine class, is completely lost on the majority of my class.  Unfortunately, we were running out of time by the time we got to that story, and I didn't want to make a bigger deal out of it without sufficient time to talk about it.  Also, I'm not sure if the meaning still wouldn't have gotten lost in translation...

After we had shared all of the historical and individual stories, I wrapped up the lesson by pointing out how individual members played an important role in building the kingdom of God in Nauvoo.  Today, we each have our own role to play in building the kingdom of God, no matter how small.  The service we give to other people helps to bring a bit of God to those around us.  ITNOJC, Amen.