When Latter-day Saints were called to establish and settle the San Juan Mission beginning in 1880, they were admonished to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to Native American inhabitants in the area.
Today, the original mission boundaries are covered by several stakes in the four-corners region of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Though the mission no longer formally exists, its spirit still pervades the hearts of long-time residents here."A main reason the Church sent our people here is to help the Navajo and the Ute people, and those of us who honor that heritage take that very seriously," said Scott Hurst, who served as a bishop in Blanding for nearly a decade from 1956-66. He said several General Authorities have visited the area in recent years and reiterated that the original directive is still in force. "We haven't been released from it; we are still to take the gospel to the Indians."
It is a substantial responsibility, considering the geography and demographics. The Navajo Reservation, located mostly in northern Arizona, sprawls over an area the size of West Virginia. Just south of Blanding is the White Mesa Ute community, part of southwestern Colorado's Ute Mountain Tribe.
"Geographically, the Indian reservations are about one-fourth of our [San Juan] county, and the Native American population is about one-half of our county population," said Cleal Bradford, a high councilor in the Blanding Utah Stake and a lifelong resident. "Most of them live farther south, but Blanding itself is about one-third Native American."
Brother Bradford is among Anglo Latter-day Saints called by the stake leadership to work closely with Native American people. Though he lives in the Blanding 1st Ward, he and his wife have their membership records in the Bluff Branch, where they provide leadership support, and where about 60 percent of the 200 members are Native American.
Other predominantly Native American Church units are the Montezuma Creek Ward and the Mexican Hat Branch on the Navajo Reservation, and the White Mesa Branch on the Ute Reservation.
"I don't know whether you'll get me back in the Monticello 1st Ward or not," Brother Bradford jokingly said to Fred Halliday, former stake president. "You get a spirit in a small branch you don't generally find in larger wards. We get about 50 percent Native American attendance. They've got a spirit about them that's special. It comes out. When they stand and bear their testimony, there's no question how they feel."
Probably at least one-third of the total Ute and Navajo population in the area are Church members, Brother Bradford said, "but their activity is a different story."
Notwithstanding, one must look beyond present attendance statistics to properly assess progress, according to Brother Hurst.
"President George Albert Smith came here in about 1950 and really started to emphasize work with the Indian people," he remembered. "It wasn't until 1953 that Navajos were allowed in Utah public schools, and they generally did not speak English before then. In 1956, when I was made bishop over a big area encompassing everything in Utah south of Blanding, there were two Navajo members of the Church in the ward. By the time they divided the Blanding Stake in 1981, two thirds of the population of both stakes were Navajos."
Brother Hurst contrasts the scene on the reservation in the early 1950s - widespread poverty and squalor - with the situation today.
"We have Navajos in stake presidencies, bishops, doctors, school principals, most every known profession, and doing them well. If you go to the hospital here, you're going to have a Navajo nurse. They make more LPNs in our little college in Blanding [a campus of the College of Eastern Utah] than at any school in the state.
"Over at Montezuma Creek there is a big, thriving all-Navajo ward and a nice meetinghouse. When I was made bishop, there wasn't even a settlement there. I started a little home Sunday School in an Anglo home where the oil field was. It's evolved into that nice, thriving ward, fully staffed with the bishop and his counselors all Navajo.
"What I'm saying is that when you look at it from my perspective, having served in leadership positions, our experience here will compare with any story in the Book of Mormon of conversion of the Lamanites. They have become a `pure and delightsome people.' " (See 2 Ne. 30:6.)
He cites the example of Clayton Long, a public school administrator who has helped translate the Book of Mormon and temple ceremonies into Navajo. (Please see accompanying article about the Long family.)
It is Sunday morning on the Ute Reservation south of Blanding, the day before ground is to be broken for a temple to the north in Monticello. A couple dozen members of the White Mesa Branch gather for services at a tiny, phase-one meetinghouse.
Aldean Ketchum, second counselor in the branch presidency and a Ute, conducts sacrament meeting and helps a young Aaronic Priesthood bearer administer the sacrament. Lewis Black of the Blanding West Stake high council and his wife, Claudia, are the speakers.
Later, the children attend Primary, while Branch Pres. Stanley Warren Bronson teaches a special gospel doctrine lesson on the purpose of temples and the blessings the new temple will bring to the area. "Only the home can compare with the temple in sacredness," he reads from the Bible Dictionary, then adds, "The temple is to support the home and the union wherein a man, a woman and children are sealed together as a family."
"We are very excited about the coming of a temple," he says, and vows, "There are about 20 endowed people in the White Mesa Branch, and we will be utilizing this temple."
Pres. Bronson, an Anglo from Blanding called by the stake president to provide leadership in the branch, takes his guitar in hand and performs a hymn he composed in 1986 under assignment from the stake president. At that time it was proposed that the first Native American stake be created from portions of stakes in Blanding and Page, Ariz. The hymn was taught to a choir of 120 Native American people to be sung when the stake was created. Though the stake creation as proposed never occurred, the hymn remains today, its words a yearning prayer for the coming of a temple where Lehi's descendants can receive their blessings. The song is even more appropriate today in light of recent events:
Let mine eyes behold the temple on the hill before I die.
Let my fingers touch the stone upon the walls.
Let me see the towers reaching toward His majesty on high.
Let mine eyes behold the temple before I die.
Witness Ephraim pass the scepter to his brother Manasseh
And the Mountain of the Lord flow down to Sidon.
Hear the children of Joseph shout, "Hosannah, Hosannah!"
Let mine eyes behold the temple before I die.