Come to the Knowledge of Your Fathers

In some of the final words that Mormon wrote in the Book of Mormon, he addressed the descendants of the Lamanites.  He wrote unto “the remnant of this people who are spared… that they may know of the things of their fathers.”  Mormon told them that they are of the house of Israel, and he gave them this invitation: “Know ye that ye must come to the knowledge of your fathers, and repent of all your sins and iniquities” (Mormon 7:1-5).  We can interpret that invitation two ways.  First, the descendants of the Lamanites should come to the same knowledge that their fathers had in righteous times, namely of the gospel of Jesus Christ, “that he is the Son of God, and that he was slain by the Jews, and by the power of the Father he hath risen again.”  That is the knowledge that all Book of Mormon writers hoped would be passed down and one day given to the descendants of the Lamanites so they could be saved; for example, Enos prayed that “by the power of his holy arm, that [the Nephite record] might be brought forth at some future day unto the Lamanites, that, perhaps, they might be brought unto salvation” (Enos 1:13).  The modern day Lamanites, wherever they are, can come unto salvation through the words of the Book of Mormon as they come unto that same knowledge that their fathers had when the Savior ministered in person among them. 

               The second way we can interpret this invitation from Mormon is that he desired the descendants of the Lamanites to come to a knowledge about their fathers.  In other words, through the Book of Mormon they could learn who their fathers were and where they came from.  With the spirit of Elijah they are invited to come to know their fathers.  While the invitation was directed specifically at the descendants of the Book of Mormon people, surely the words of Mormon can be applied to all of us: we are to come to know our fathers so that the great work of the temples in the latter-days can be accomplished.  And yet, I was reminded this morning, that I just might be able to literally apply the words of Mormon to myself.  I am in fact 1/128^th Iroquois, for my fifth-great grandfather named Tekororens was an Indian of the Tuscarora, the southernmost tribe of the Iroquois nation.  He married a lady named Sarah Johnson who had run away from an imposed marriage and lived with the Iroquois in or around New Jersey for about eight years.  They had a daughter named Wahayenna who married Thomas Conk and who would later record her story and ancestry, and their son John Thomas Conk joined the Church and died in Utah in 1896.  While of course we don’t know if all American Indians are descendants of the Lamanites, but the Lord suggested in Doctrine and Covenants 32:2 that at least those in the Missouri wilderness were Book of Mormon peoples.  My guess is that though the Nephites and Lamanites may not have been the only ancestors to the natives in North and South America when the Europeans arrived, after more than a millennium likely the Lamanite blood was spread all over the two continents.  So I’d like to think that my Iroquois ancestors come, at least in part, from the Lamanites so that at least one small branch of my own lineage goes back to Lehi.  Whether or not that’s true, Mormon’s invitation is a potent reminder for all of us to keep seeking to understand and know who our fathers and mothers are of the generations past so that we can, with all the Saints, one day “offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness; and… present in his holy temple… a book containing the records of our dead” (Doctrine and Covenants 128:24).