Yesterday was a long day for us. A small group of senior missionaries got together to move furniture, a lot of heavy furniture. Moving furniture is always hard work no matter how you look at it. But moving it in two hundred year old structures is just a bit harder. Narrow, steep stairways in old buildings are fascinating and have a nostalgic appeal to them, but with king size mattresses and double dressers in tow, nostalgic feelings quickly fade. It was a long day of service, plain and simple.

     Amidst all the work and some silent mutterings on my part, there were several brief moments of wonder that gave me pause to reflect. One example occurred as I walked down the creaking stairway of a home where the family of a man named, John Young, once resided. Near the bottom of the stairs, an exposed beam that framed the top of the doorway caught my attention. It was rough hewn and covered with chisel marks, and at one end where it intersected with a vertical post, was a wooden peg tying the two aged pieces of lumber together. This was the original framing and joinery: no screws, no nails, no metal hardware, just wood to wood with mortise and tenon joints and pegs to hold everything in place. I touched the beam and then wondered about the carpenter who had built this home. Would he have imagined it still being lived in after 200 years?  

     A second moment of reflection occurred a short time later when Elder Staker, another physical facilities missionary in our group, grabbed me by the arm and said he wanted to show me something. He led me out the front door of the John Young home and then pointed to a line of trees bordering an open field about a 1/2 mile away. Just behind that line of trees was a creek that wound its way to the base of a small hill where it once pooled before continuing its way across the fields. Now, before going any further with this story, I need to provide some context. This area of New York is of great historical importance to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was here that our church was first organized and where Joseph Smith, our first president and prophet, received revelations that serve as the foundation for all of our beliefs, teachings, and practices. When we walk this land and visit the buildings and sites where the early saints lived—where they worshipped and suffered and where miraculous events occurred—we feel as if we are walking with them. Here, in a very visceral way, our appreciation and gratitude for their faith and sacrifices and for our shared history and beliefs is heightened.

     As Elder Staker pointed in the direction of the creek, he explained that it was the location where Brigham Young, who later became the second president and prophet of our church, was baptized in 1832. That creek served as the millstream for his carpenter shop where he sawed, planed, and chiseled the lumber for his projects. And then I knew the name of the carpenter who crafted that stairway framing in the John Young home I described earlier. It was Brigham Young, a son who literally and figurativily built his father’s house. In retrospect, it certainly was a long day of moving, but, as with all acts of service, God’s blessings await. Thankfully, they endure while the aches and pains of long days, in one way or the other, eventually fade and are soon forgotten.