Doing the Work of a Man

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Why did Maria Bohn take the work of the farm away from her husband?

a.                  He was called on a mission to Denmark

b.                  So that he could paint in the Salt Lake Temple

c.                   So that he could fulfil his calling as a traveling Bishop

d.                  So that he could fulfill his calling as a soldier during the Walker War

Yesterday’s answer:

D   Discouraged them from being baptized

A little over ten weeks after their arrival (1877), [Daniel Webster]Jones found success as a missionary among the Pima and Maricopa. Events leading up to these first baptisms, however, proved the need for effective communication and reliable translators. An unnamed interpreter unexpectedly brought word to Jones that leading Pima elders living along the Salt River wished to be baptized. Puzzled at this request, Jones refused, as the Native Americans had not properly been taught the gospel; constructing the ditch had prevented him from presenting Mormonism’s basic principles to the prospective converts. A few days later, the same interpreter found Jones at work and once again informed him that a large number of Native Americans were ready and waiting at his camp to be baptized. Jones recorded:

“On arriving at camp there were Indians in every place and direction: there were between three and four hundred, all looking pleasant and smiling. The chiefs were grouped, sitting quietly and sedately.

I commenced to talk to and question them, repeating what I had formerly said and added more, and in every way endeavored to fasten upon their mind the responsibility of being baptized. I really desired to deter them, if possible, for I had no faith in the reality of the situation. But my interpreter, who talked at length to them, professing to explain all my words, insisted that they fully understood and wanted to be baptized–the whole tribe included.”

Despite Jones’s attempts to convey the seriousness of these requests through the interpreter, the Native Americans persisted, stating that they fully grasped the significance of the ordinance and were prepared to convert. Suspecting a miscommunication, Jones conversed in Spanish with Huilkil, a sub-chief from the Gila River reservation, and learned that the interpreter had informed Chief Chue-uch-kum and the others that the Mormons would provide new shirts and land to all those who agreed to be baptized. Now communicating through Huilkil, Jones clarified the situation to the gathering. Despite this misunderstanding, Jones records that the Pima chief, Chue-uch-kum, still desired baptism, declaring” “[I] will listen to your talk, for I believe it is good. I will seek to be a better man and try to learn more about God. Now here are three of us who are willing to do this.  . . . We do not want any shirts; we will then try to learn and teach your words to our people and when they are easy we will tell you and you can baptize them.” Jones was relieved at this declaration and on Sunday, May 20, he baptized Chueuch-kum, age forty-five (also Chinurich-kim and Che-uh-kim), George R. Hoornarz, age unknown, and two thirty-five-year-olds” William Scorats and Chi-ra-quis.

D. L. Turner, Akimel Au-Authm, Xalychidom Piipaash, and the LDS Papago Ward, Journal of Mormon History, Winter 2013, 164-165.