Why I Am An L.D.S.
By Maude Lois Ashenfelter Ravenscraft Champion, 1957
The various
events in a persons life pile up like building blocks to complete a whole
structure. So in studying how it was
that I ever became a Mormon I have thought that many incidents have helped to
bring this about. “God moves in a
mysterious way his wonders to perform”- was written a good many years ago.
In Kansas
where I was born and raised one never heard anything but criticism of
Mormons. Missionaries who came through
there trying to teach were given no courtesy and very little hospitality.
One of the
first blocks [building] toward my conversion was probably made by my
grandparents- an uncle of mine- Uncle Raleigh Joseph told not many years ago a
story of something that happened when he was a child. Two missionaries came to their neighborhood
and my grandparents who never turned away a stranger- allowed them to stay in
their home. They held meetings every
night in the school house a mile away.
They had no congregation but my uncle- he went every night, who was nine
or ten years old. He liked the
missionaries very much because they did a good many of his chores. The last night of their stay on the way home
from the meeting they told him, “Your folks haven’t listened to our message but
have been so kind that we promise that some time someone in the family will be
brought into the church and work will be done for them”. I feel like it was this promise that helped
to cast my life in places and situations where I would be brought into the
church. Through Fern, my oldest, a good
deal of genealogy has been gathered for the Joseph families, my mother’s
people.
When I grew
up and married I went to Montana to live for nine years. I had three children, Fern, Earl and Sam and
was expecting a 4th child when my husband was stricken with a
nervous condition that caused complete mental breakdown and loss of his
job. We went to a homestead my father
had thirty-five miles out of Idaho Falls- that was in 1914. A number of our neighbors were Mormon
refugees from Mexico. They had taken up
homesteads here in [the] Mud Lake area and were making a new start. They were so cheerful and happy and so
industrious and very friendly I begun to think I had surely made a mistake in
my estimation of Mormon people.
Later we
moved to Acequia, Idaho. Sam had grown
worse and couldn’t be cared for at home- so we thought it best to take the
family there closer to his people and closer to towns and doctors, etc. – At
Mud Lake it was thirty-five miles to town and no good roads, only trails. Sam passed away at Blackfoot in the fall 1915. By that time the money we had saved was gone
and I had to do something to make a living.
I had four children, two of them babies- a one year old and one
two-and-a-half- so I must do something at home.
I was playing the piano for dances one or two nights a week and I had a
few music pupils- but that wasn’t enough so I decided to take in boarders. I did pretty well but it was surely hard
work. Here is where I found the actual
help and kindness of Relief Society and Mutual.
One of the girls would iron for me every week to help fill her BeeHive
cells. Some of the women would come in
and help me with the dish washing. They
gave me all the jobs playing for the church dances. Then I married Fay- He was a Mormon but had
never been active. His mother visited us
and I liked her so much that by now I had lost most of my prejudice.
We moved again to a farm four miles from
Rupert and here most of our neighbors were L.D.S. Fern was about fourteen then
and she and I both played the piano and as musicians were scarce we were asked
to help out in Mutual. Then she and
Clyde started going together and she started to study the gospel in earnest and
I read a great deal too. The Ward
teachers and Relief Society teachers became regular visitors in our home. In
1922 she was baptized- but I still hadn’t decided to join- but in July
1923 the rest of the children and I were baptized in the canal at Pioneer by
Rosel P. Hyde.
It seems
that it is in time of trouble and hardship that our thoughts turn to spirited
things. I had been raised to go to
church- study the Bible and be prayerful- yet- it’s really when we are in deep
trouble that we want to have something divine to help us out and these
teachings really mean something.
I have
always been glad I had the opportunity to know and understand what Mormonism really
is. I have been very thankful for the
opportunities I have had of using what talent I had in helping to put over
programs of work in Mutual, Primary and Relief Society where I have lived. I fall far short of being what a good Latter
Day Saint should be- but I’ve been helped more than I can ever tell in being a
better person than I would have been otherwise.
