Pioneer Ancestors: An Example of Being All In

Sadly, I have not been active in family history research.  I have recently done some indexing, but I have left the hard research work to others.  Like my aunts, and cousins, who have indeed researched family stories and compiled them in books.  Because of the work of one of these cousins, I was made aware of the story of John and Maria Linford, one of our ancestors on my mother's patriarchal line. In honor of Pioneer Day tomorrow, I'd like to share some of their story. Some parts of this story are taken from the history.lds.org site; other parts I remember from my cousin's family history efforts:

Maria Bentley Linford Rich

Maria was born on April 10, 1813, to William Christian and Mary Bentley. She grew up in a large family in the parish of Graveley, Cambridgeshire, England.  By age 20, she had fallen in love with John Linford, the owner of a shoemaking business in the area, and they made plans to marry.

Their wedding took place on June 24, 1833, in their home parish of Graveley.  They were still living there several years later when Mormon missionaries came to preach.  One Sunday the couple attended a meeting, accompanied by Maria's father, William.  They were surprised and inspired by what they heard.  William exclaimed, "Why, it is the old gospel come to earth again!"  But the missionaries left, and William died before they returned several years later.  Maria and John were both baptized in 1842.

The Linfords were persecuted for their newfound faith by relatives and others in the community.  One of their tactics was to stop patronizing John's shoemaking business, which eventually forced him to let his workers go.  Yet the Linfords never wavered.  They were one of the stalwart couples of the small unit of the Church in Graveley, England.

In the spring of 1856, they responded to the call from leaders of the Church to gather to Zion. They took with them three of their four sons, leaving behind their oldest son, James, who was 19 and serving a mission at the time; their extended family; and most of their belongings.  

After arriving in New York in June 1856, they made their way to Iowa City to meet the Saints bound for Zion.  After a series of delays, they left in mid-July with the James G. Willie handcart company.

The trek west was difficult under the best of circumstances, but it became perilous for the Willie company as food ran out and an early winter set in.  John worked tirelessly to help his family and others, but the rigors and privations of the journey took their toll.  He became so ill that he was unable to walk, and Maria and their sons pulled him in their handcart along with their supplies and belongings.

As his final moments approached, Maria asked John if he was sorry he had come.  He told her, "No, Maria.  I am glad we came.  I shall not live to reach Salt Lake, but you and the boys will, and I do not regret all we have gone through if our boys can grow up and raise their families in Zion."  John died in the early morning of October 21, 1856, having given his all for his family and the gospel.

The rescuers arrived later that same day, just hours after John's passing.  As John had predicted, Maria and their sons all reached the Salt Lake Valley safely, though it took them some time to regain their health.  

According to my cousin's account, the boys were taken in by a family that was better established in the valley, but the family could not also take Maria into their home.  She provided for herself by doing cleaning and sewing jobs for other families, but the separation of mother and sons was difficult for them all.

In the summer after they first arrived in the valley, Maria became the second wife of Joseph Rich, who was the father of apostle Charles Coulson Rich.   Her marriage to Joseph Rich allowed her to be reunited with her sons at last.  Maria cared for Joseph Rich's first wife, who was ill, until her death.   Joseph was a kind-hearted man, who recognized the deep love Maria still had for John.  Joseph stood as proxy when Maria was sealed to John in the Salt Lake Temple.

Maria lived a life of faithfulness and service, serving as president of her ward Relief Society and as a counselor in the stake Relief Society presidency.  She also gave her time and talents to furthering the work of the newly created Primary Association.  She died in 1885 at the age of 72.

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The river the pioneers had to cross

When Denise and I drove across the country to North Carolina, we stopped in Nauvoo, Illinois.  If you leave Nauvoo and follow the road the pioneers took down to the river when they were being forced from their homes by the mobs, you find a small building which is a memorial to the pioneers who lost their lives before reaching the Salt Lake Valley.  Though John and Maria Linford never lived in Nauvoo, John Linford's name is found among the numerous names memorialized on the walls.  

John Linford's name appears on the Pioneer Memorial

I owe such a debt of gratitude to my great-great grandparents, John
and Maria Linford, and many other pioneer ancestors who, like them, were not deterred by the difficulty of the way; who followed their hearts and exercised their faith in doing what prophets and the Holy Spirit told them to do.  I only hope that we in our family can, in some small measure, emulate their faithfulness in the way we live our lives, raise our families, and fulfill our callings in the Church.  As Vanessa reminded us in her talk, we do need to follow the example of our ancestors and be All In.  

The Mission Call -- and Being All In

July 2, 2017 was a Sunday. The day before, on Saturday, I drove to Beaverdam Recreation Area, found some flat rocks, and skipped (mostly splooshed, but TRIED to skip) rocks in his memory.  You see, July 2 was the second anniversary of the day Graham Ambrose got his mission call.

It was a little nervy of him to accept the call and leave this earth without me, I must say.  But because of it, my family and I have seen many tender mercies, too numerous to enumerate here.  But here's a small summary:

The six children, their spouses (and girlfriend) and children learned how to cope with the death of a father and injury to a mother and be strengthened by it.  

We all learned to recognize that Graham had experienced progression from one plane of existence to a superior one, and to be grateful that he did not survive the accident with multiple injuries that would have been disabling to him, perhaps permanently.  He would have hated that.  Instead, we believe that he is now busy learning and growing, serving others.  We have had experiences that validate the reality of vibrant life after death, and are confident that when we pass through the veil he will be standing there vibrating with energy, with a bright smile on his face, saying, "Come with me -- you just HAVE to see THIS!"

Graham was/IS a good man: a good and loving husband and father, and an excellent grandfather! Those of us still working our way through the earthly trials have pondered and appreciated the lessons we learned from Graham during his life.  

The effect of his life on our lives is expressed with great honesty, feeling and wisdom by Vanessa, who gave me permission to post this talk she gave in Sacrament Meeting a week ago.  Grab some tissues before settling in to read her thoughts.  

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Stand up Inside and be all in : Elder Gary Sabin of the Seventy

Good afternoon, we are the Eborns. I am Vanessa, you will hear later from my husband Brian, and we have 2 beautiful girls, Morgan (in Sunbeams this year) and Gray, who is excited to join nursery in 6 weeks....ok....I'm the excited one.

·   This weekend we will be celebrating our 8th wedding anniversary.  We met at work, I was his trainer and technical guru when he came into the company, and when he first started asking me out, I was adamant that I would not date anyone from work.  I turned him down time after time because he had an encouraging friend who loved seeing him crash and burn.  Finally he tricked me into a "friend date" and due to my fear of commitment, has had to trick me into this relationship ever since.

·   We have been in our current house for 4.5 years, and came to the ward when it was created about 3 years ago.

·   I have been teaching in primary from Day 1 of this ward until very recently. 

·   My husband has had a Sunday shift for the longest time because it gave us what we wanted in terms of balancing work and family. 

Bishop Olsen gave us a few conference talks to choose from and speak on.  I chose Stand Up and be All In by Elder Gary Sabin of the Seventy.  In my decision process, I downloaded all 3 talks and found all of them to hit a very personal note with me.  This one though made me laugh more, and also spoke the most towards what I am striving towards.  I would like to share a bit of my flawed background before I go into the points of this talk.

·   I grew up in a large, strong and amazing LDS family.  It was a family that made believing in and following the teachings of the church easy.  Growing up, I never questioned my faith.  I was All In.

·   I moved out of my parents house and went to college at 18. I maintained my strength and faith through college, but I started to notice that my commitment started wavering...I was Chin Deep In.

·   After college, I got roommates, and a career, and I started getting tired of my time in the singles ward. For no real reason...I became Waist Deep In.  My faith and love of the church was still as strong as it was, but I was not as committed to the practice of attending.

·   This decline of commitment continued to the point where I never thought I would find myself, I was officially Inactive.  I met my husband around this time, and he saved me from sinking further into my inactive state.  We found comfort in our similar faults, but we also strengthened each other.  

·   When marriage became a reality in our future, we knew we wanted to be married in the temple.  We recommitted to the church, and through repentance and love, we achieved our goal and became sealed in the temple on July 17th, 2009.  We maintained our All In commitment in the church for a time into our marriage. 

·   Gradually our lives started to become difficult and at times traumatic.  Through struggling with infertility and battling an unknown chronic disease, we found ourselves wondering why we weren't receiving blessings.  For a couple of years, we returned to our inactivity.

·   Upon the birth of my first IVF baby, we agreed that we wanted to raise her in this Church. With the support of an amazing Relief Society presidency, I started attending church again....but, sporadically, and often only when I was asked to teach Relief Society.  I was about Knee-Deep In. 

·   Trying to balance job and family, Brian took a shift at work that required him to work on Sundays, but allowed us to minimize the time we had to use a nanny.  We felt the sacrifice was a noble one, and was worth it. We stayed knee deep.

·   With the creation of this ward, I was called to teach in primary.  The weekly commitment of teaching, coupled with my daughter's age allowing her to go to nursery, I was able to accept that I was more in....and I loved the weekly reminder in Primary of my youthful faith and commitment to the church.  Remembering my own youthful innocence started my healing process, and dragged me In even further.

From this talk, Elder Sabin shares how a GPS system does not correct your route with the chastisement of calling you a fool. It pleasantly states, "Recalculating route, when possible, make a legal U-turn."  Redirection helps us get to our destination.  I have too often found myself taking a different route; redirection has brought me back.  I have too often found myself not being All In, being like the anonymous man Elder Sabin shares as sending a letter to the IRS which said "Dear IRS: enclosed please find money I owe for past taxes.  P.S. If after this my conscience still bothers me, I'll send you the rest."  That shouldn't be how we do it; we can't hold back to see what the minimum is we can get by with.  The Lord requires our whole heart with a willing mind." 

In preparing this talk, I came across my Young Women's project where I collected inspirational quotes and stories into a binder.  One of these was titled "Close to, round about, or nearby." I won't read the whole thing, but it talks about a minister preaching a sermon and stating that baptism should be performed by sprinkling, and not by immersion.  The minister mis-interpreted some biblical stories where baptisms didn't happen "in" the river Jordan, but close to, round about or nearby".  A man approached the minister afterwards, saying how grateful he was for the sermon, because it cleared up confusions for him, such as Daniel wasn't IN the lions den, he was close to, round about, or nearby.  He provided a few more examples and ended with "and...next Sunday, I won't have to be "in" church; I can just be close to, round about, or nearby." 

We don't want to be close to, round about or nearby.  We baptize by immersion as a symbol of our promise to fully follow the Savior.  We want to achieve our blessings by being All In.  When we are lukewarm or only partially committed, we lose out on some of Heaven's choicest blessings.  When we are complacent with our covenants, we are complicit with the consequences.

Elder Sabin says, "In reality, it is much easier to be "All In" than Partially In.  When we are partially in or not at all, there is "a disturbance in the force."  We are out of sync with God's will, and therefore out of sync with the nature of happiness." Another symbolic story he shared was about a father and his young son who went into a toy store where there was an inflatable punching bag in the shape of a man.  The boy punched the inflatable man, who tipped over and immediately bounced back up after every punch.  The father asked his young son why the man kept bouncing back up.  The boy thought for a minute and then said, "I don't know. I guess because he is standing up on the inside." 

Through some of my trials, I was standing up on the outside, but not standing up on the inside. I was hovering in a corner begging for it to stop.  I wasn't All In.  I wasn't patiently waiting upon the Lord to remove or give me strength to endure my thorns.  I found myself in survival mode, putting on the strong face for my family, but knowing that a strong wind could blow me over. 

I was desperate for some redirection. Two years ago, I got a shocking slap in the face that gave me my redirection.  My dad, and nearly my mom, was taken from this world by a reckless driver. In preparing for his funeral, my family and I spent a lot of time focusing on how he lived his life, and where we believe he is now.  I got to revisit my childhood, and the way I was raised in my strong LDS family.  Being surrounded by my family, we didn't focus on the person who took my dad's life; we focused on how his life has led him to opportunities in the afterlife.  

My dad was All In. He taught his family to be All In.  I was reminded what it was like to be All In.  Being All In for me was happiness. We didn't have much in terms of material goods when I was growing up, but we had each other, and we had the Church. We were happy.  At the time this happened, I had happiness...but I did not consider myself to be happy.  More than ever before, I realized exactly what was missing in my life, and I started working to get it back. Happiness was not immediate, I struggled with the loss of my father, the hormones of my 2nd IVF pregnancy and my husband's worsening health.

This year has been the year that I have started seeing the blessings of being All In.  Earlier this year, my widowed mother started serving a mission, I get to see her grow and discover what her life means on her own...and she is thriving. Due to some new schedule flexibility at work, Brian has been able to start attending church every week with us.  It has allowed us to actually be All In as a whole family unit.  

We firmly believe that our change in our commitment to church has made us happier, more fulfilled and, best of all, we have enjoyed 2 months so far of being free of Brian's chronic illness that had steadily been growing worse for 7 years...an illness that, at times, had him in a wheelchair.  We don't believe it is coming back, and the only explanation we can use to explain this is Divine Intervention, nothing else can explain his symptoms disappearing, literally, overnight.  Being All In has given us our lives back.  

While we continue to be imperfect, and we have a lot more work to do, our redirection in our life has blessed us with health and happiness, and I know that redirections in our future will not need to be nearly as severe as our previous ones.

I say these things, in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

[Vanessa Eborn]