Bridging the Gap

This Sunday, I'm going to give my Primary class the first lesson they'll have had in about a month. We skipped two weeks to practice for our Primary presentation and one to actually perform it. Now, instead of picking up right where we left off, the plan (at least on paper) is to jump ahead to the lesson we'd have been on had we not skipped those three weeks. This means that we'd jump from their last lesson about Joseph and Hyrum Smith's martyrdom to a lesson about the saints settling in Salt Lake. A lot happens between those two lessons, and I'd like to at least touch on most of it to help the children get caught up to where the lesson schedule says we should be now.

First, I'll want to talk about succession. I might mention that Sidney Rigdon, who had been the Joseph Smith's First Counsellor, thought that he should be the next president of the church, but that the Quorum of the Twelve lead the church instead for the next three and a half years until Brigham Young was set apart as the President of the Church, he having been the President of the Quorum of the Twelve. Whether or not I mention Ridgon, I'll certainly teach that the leadership of the church falls to the Quorum of the Twelve and then to the President of the Quorum of the Twelve after a Prophet's death.

The lesson that teaches about Brigham Young's succession of Joseph Smith concludes by talking about the saints preparing to move West. Enemies of the church had killed Joseph Smith in hopes that the church would simply fall apart without him. When the discovered that the church wasn't falling apart and that a successor had been chosen, they attacked again, hoping to destroy the church by force. Instead, the Saints left Nauvoo and headed for the Rocky Mountains. The next lesson after Brigham Young's succession focusses on Winter Quarters. I might skip that one in the interest of time because I'm not sure how important Winter Quarters really was.

Of course, I will have to talk about the travels and troubles of the Saints, whether that includes a lengthy description of Winter Quarters or not. The bottom line is that the journey was very difficult. As long as I can drive that point home (preferably without spending too much time on it), I should be alright. The lesson after Winter Quarters, being about the pioneers crossing the plains, should have more than enough information to help it hold up its section of the narrative.

And finally, I will have to teach at least parts of the lesson I'm supposed to teach this week, which is about the Saints settling the Salt Lake Valley. This starts an era of unprecedented stability for the Saints. With a clear line of succession established and a permanent headquarters, the Saints' future seemed far less uncertain than it had only a few years before. This basically establishes the order and headquarters of the church from then until the present.

The last several lessons of the year, including the three or four lessons I'll cover this Sunday, will be the "falling action" and the "epilogue" of the story we've spent all year telling, with the martyrdom of Joseph Smith having been the climax. These lessons will help make the transition from the days of early church history to today. The death of Joseph Smith marked the end of an era for the church, and the settling of the Salt Lake Valley could be said to mark the beginning of the current era. My lesson this Sunday will bridge the gap between them.