Beyond Dogmatism

Religion is sometimes attacked as a source of ignorance and conflict. While, as human beings, all of us are subject to confirmation bias, perhaps the real danger is dogmatism, or the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others, especially when it leads to prejudice or violence. That condition may affect both the religious and the nonreligious. Militants in any ideology can become destructive.

Is Snoopy being "dog”matic?

As this article points out, people who dogmatically hold to any topic without being able to consider other perspectives "typically pay a high price for their dogmatism. Not only do they alienate many people, but they actually imprison their own egos inside their figurative fortress of conviction."

The solution is keeping an open mind. Higher thinking allows us to see beyond simple black and white categories and to see the full, multicolored spectrum of human experience.

Option B

After diagnosis of a serious medical condition in a beloved family member, I began reading Option B, by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. This book shares stories of people who’ve dealt with a traumatic event, helping us face adversity, become more resilient, and find joy again after life punches us in the face.

When she was 45 years old, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO and mother of two, found her husband collapsed on the floor of the gym. He never woke again. Sheryl was devastated. Why him? Why so young? How could she have avoided this?

Two weeks later, as she prepared for what would have been a father-child activity, she cried in front of a friend, “But I want Dave!” Her friend replied: “Option A is not available. So let’s make the most out of Option B.” Sooner or later in our lives, we all lose Option A. This book is about learning to thrive with Option B. We can develop our resilience muscles, or “strength and speed of our resistance to adversity” (10). 

Here are two main lessons:

1. Trauma leads to three P’s to deal with: personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence.
2. “Grounded hope” speeds up the healing process, which is aided by spending time with others.

Lesson 1: Deal with the three P’s.

1. Personalization. It’s natural to blame ourselves, but let’s not blame ourselves for trauma (16).
2. Pervasiveness. Instead of the song “Everything is awesome,” we can stuck on “Everything is awful” (16). It’s important to accept feelings and embrace grief: “Lean into the suck” (23). It is also helpful to remember that “all life involves suffering” (24). And it’s OK to take “cry breaks” (24).
3. Permanence. Watch out for exaggerations such as “Everything is awful” and “I can never be happy again.” Substitute minimizing language such as “I sometimes struggle with this” and “Lately I feel sad” (21). Counterintuitively, ponder how things could be worse, then how grateful we are (25). Journaling can become a powerful tool for reinforcing gratitude and creating goals (67).

Lesson 2: Spend time in groups to develop "grounded hope," which helps us move on.

Often, people assume grieving folks want to be left alone, but isolation usually leads to despair.  Being among friends after trauma is helpful but can be awkward. If people feel awkward about talking with you, remind that that you want to be connected (38). Sheryl talked a lot with friends one-on-one, but spending time in groups is beneficial too, especially when it leads to something called "grounded hope" (hope with action). In 1972, the Uruguayan rugby team’s plane crashed in the Andes (128). Of the 33 people on board, 16 survived, thanks to being a group, not alone. They were stuck in the freezing mountains for 72 days, facing starvation, freezing temperatures and avalanches. These individuals had resilience within them, but also between them. When their broken radio received a message that the search was called off, they shared their dreams of what they’d do when they get back to civilization, keeping hope alive. On top of this psychological boost, they took practical next steps to improve their immediate future. These included locating the tail end of the plane to sleep in and sending small groups to get food. These are examples of hope grounded in action, which can turn trauma into triumph.

What Is the Atonement of Jesus Christ?

The Atonement is the sacrifice Jesus Christ offered to help humankind overcome sin and death—to make us “at one” with God. This redeeming sacrifice occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross at Golgotha. Jesus Christ atoned for our sins, died, and was resurrected. The Atonement is the supreme expression of the love of Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, “for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Christians around the world gratefully acknowledge the matchless gift of God’s Only Begotten Son. We rejoice that the Life and Light of the World descended from His throne divine to be born in humble circumstances in a stable in Bethlehem.

As the young Jesus learned lessons under the tutelage of Joseph and Mary, He increased in favor with God and man, growing to maturity until fully prepared to work His mortal ministry. We note with gratitude that He experienced all the challenges of mortality, becoming hungry, thirsty, and fatigued so that He might know how to succor us in our afflictions (see Mosiah 3:7).

Baptized in order to fulfill all righteousness, the Messiah received the gift of the Holy Ghost in its fullness and went about doing good, preaching the gospel, healing the sick and afflicted, and preparing His disciples to lead the Church after He was gone. When His mortal ministry reached its climax, He taught His disciples in the Upper Room, blessed and broke bread and offered wine as a symbol of His sacrifice, and then suffered for our sins in Gethsemane. Then on Golgotha, He cared for us enough to die for us. And on the third day, He broke the bands of death, rising from the Garden Tomb and making the gift of Resurrection available for all.

Christ Kneels in the Garden of Gethsemane. Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

Gethsemane

After Jesus completed His tutoring of the Apostles in the Upper Room, He took the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, a place they frequently visited to pray and listen to their Master. We can picture the gnarled and twisted trunks of the olive trees in the moonlight, an image that suggests the suffering of the Savior for our sins.

Jesus then invited His beloved disciples Peter, James, and John to sit and watch with Him, seeking comfort and strength from His friends. He commanded them to watch and pray lest they enter into temptation. Moving away from them a short distance, He began to be pressed down by the weight of our sins, feeling “sore amazed,” “very heavy,” and “exceeding sorrowful unto death” (Mark 14:33–34). There He experienced all the problems of humanity, or “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind” (Alma 7:11; emphasis added).

Regarding this experience, President Joseph Fielding Smith writes: “He carried, in some way that I cannot understand and you cannot understand, the burden of the combined sins of the world. It is hard enough for me to carry my own transgressions, and it is hard enough for you to carry yours. . . . I have seen [people] cry out in anguish because of their transgressions—just one individual’s sins. Can you comprehend the suffering of Jesus when he carried, not merely by physical manifestation but in some spiritual and mental condition or manner, the combined weight of sin?”[1]

Under this tremendous weight of our sins and afflictions, our beloved Savior fell to the ground and prayed, saying, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). From unknown eons before the foundations of the earth were laid, the Firstborn Son had volunteered to become our Savior, saying, “Thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever” (Moses 4:2). Jesus had always put the Father before His own, and the welfare of His siblings before His own. But now the awful weight of the combined sins and anguish of all mankind caused Him to shrink and wish that He might not partake of the bitter cup.

“Our finite mortal minds cannot grasp the tremendous load borne by the Savior in Gethsemane,” writes Andrew C. Skinner. “But we begin to comprehend what this means in practical terms by remembering that this earth alone has had some 60 to 70 billion people live upon it during its temporal history. Each one of these 60 to 70 billion people has committed sin. . . . Multiply the sins, sorrows, heartaches, and injustices of these 60 to 70 billion souls by the millions of earths that the Savior created and redeemed, and we may begin to view the term ‘infinite atonement’ in a different light.”[2] The glorious news of the gospel is that the Atonement is not only infinite but also intimate in its personal reach—all of us are within the embrace of God’s love.

Stephen E. Robinson offers this perspective: “All the negative aspects of human existence brought about by the Fall, Jesus Christ absorbed into himself. He experienced vicariously in Gethsemane all the private griefs and heartaches, all the physical pains and handicaps, all the emotional burdens and depressions of the human family. He knows the loneliness of those who don’t fit in, or who aren’t handsome or pretty. . . . He knows the anguish of parents whose children go wrong. He knows these things personally and intimately because he lived them in the Gethsemane experience. Having personally lived a perfect life, he then chose to experience our imperfect lives. In that infinite Gethsemane experience, in the meridian of time, the center of eternity, he lived a billion billion lifetimes of sin, pain, disease, and sorrow.”[3]

Though Jesus was willing to bear our burdens from before the foundations of the world, the agony of that moment caused Him, “the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore” (D&C 19:18). The word Gethsemane means “olive press.” In the garden, olives were pressed under a great stone wheel to release their precious oil, which initially comes out a blood-red color, then later turns clear. In a similar manner, our Savior “was literally pressed under the weight of the sins of the world,” writes Elder Russell M. Nelson. “He sweated great drops of blood—his life’s ‘oil’—which issued from every pore.”[4] Today when we are anointed with consecrated oil, we remember the symbolism of the oil press of Gethsemane.

Elder Orson F. Whitney shares a dream that he had of Gethsemane: “I seemed to be in the Garden of Gethsemane, a witness of the Savior’s agony. I saw Him as plainly as ever I have seen anyone. Standing behind a tree in the foreground, I beheld Jesus, with Peter, James and John, as they came through a little wicket gate at my right. Leaving the three Apostles there, after telling them to kneel and pray, the Son of God passed over to the other side, where He also knelt and prayed. It was the same prayer with which all Bible readers are familiar: ‘Oh my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.’

“As He prayed the tears streamed down his face, which was toward me. I was so moved at the sight that I also wept, out of pure sympathy. My whole heart went out to him; I loved him with all my soul, and longed to be with him as I longed for nothing else.   

“Presently He arose and walked to where those Apostles were kneeling—fast asleep! He shook them gently, awoke them, and in a tone of tender reproach, untinctured by the least show of anger or impatience, asked them plaintively if they could not watch with him one hour. There He was, with the awful weight of the world's sin upon his shoulders, with the pangs of every man, woman and child shooting through his sensitive soul—and they could not watch with him one poor hour!”[5] Applying this to our own lives, may we never fall asleep at our post but serve faithfully always.

As Christ suffered, the Father sent an angel to comfort and strengthen Him in His hour of need (see Luke 22:43). If heaven offered help for the Savior of the world in His hour of need, surely mercy is available for us, who are much weaker. In this light, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland says, “I testify of angels, both the heavenly and the mortal kind. In doing so I am testifying that God never leaves us alone, never leaves us unaided in the challenges that we face. ‘[N]or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man [or woman or child] upon the face thereof to be saved.’ On occasions, global or personal, we may feel we are distanced from God, shut out from heaven, lost, alone in dark and dreary places. Often enough that distress can be of our own making, but even then the Father of us all is watching and assisting. And always there are those angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal.”[6]

After the Savior finished praying the third time, He woke the Apostles, saying that the betrayer was on his way. Judas immediately came to betray our Lord for thirty pieces of silver.

Golgotha

Late that night and into the next day, our Lord and Savior was accused by Annas and Caiaphas, arraigned before Pilate, mocked by Herod, and finally sentenced to die at Golgotha, the place of the skull.

President Spencer W. Kimball writes movingly of the Savior’s patience: “He who created the world and all that is in it, he who made the silver from which the pieces were stamped which bought him, he who could command defenders on both sides of the veil—stood and suffered.”

Then he adds:

Unworthy men lashed him, the pure and the Holy One, the Son of God. One word from his lips and all his enemies would have fallen to the earth, helpless. All would have perished, all could have been as dust and ashes. Yet, in calmness, he suffered. . . .

How he must have suffered when they violated his privacy by stripping off his clothes and then putting on him the scarlet robe!

Then, the crown of thorns. How painful and excruciating! And yet, such equanimity! Such strength! Such control! It is beyond imagination.[7]

Soldiers forced Jesus in His drained and weakened condition to carry the cross, the instrument of His death. On the hill of Golgotha, they pounded nails into His hands and feet, and then, fearing the weight of His body would tear the flesh, they pounded nails into His wrists as well.

To imagine our Savior hanging on the cross is almost too painful to visualize, but this is one of the most important things we can do as we partake of the sacrament. Each week when we partake of the Bread of Life, we remember His body, which was broken for us. Each week when we partake of the Living Water, we remember His blood, which was shed for us.

The eternal message of the Atonement is that He cared for us enough to die for us:

I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me,

Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me.

I tremble to know that for me he was crucified,

That for me, a sinner, he suffered, he bled and died. . . .

I think of his hands pierced and bleeding to pay the debt!

Such mercy, such love, and devotion can I forget?

No, no, I will praise and adore at the mercy seat,

Until at the glorified throne I kneel at his feet.

Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me

Enough to die for me!

Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me![8]

Even as Christ hung on the cross, He showed compassion to all around Him. Regarding His oppressors, He cried, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Later, in what is one of the most magnificent displays of love in all recorded scripture, the dying Christ invited John to care for Mary as his own mother (see John 19:26). There is perhaps no more moving testimony of His love and compassion as He looked to help others in the midst of the violence being done to Him.

While Jesus hung on the cross, He felt the agony of Gethsemane return. In Gethsemane, Christ drank from the bitter cup so that we might not have to, but Gethsemane “was not the end of the bitter cup. At Golgotha the bitter cup was refilled and drunk again.”[9] Overcome by grief, Jesus felt that the end was near. At this hour, He felt a final agony—the loss of His Father’s companionship. We picture the Father in His courts on high, grieving at the death of His dearly beloved Son and finally turning away in anguish. Unlike Abraham and Isaac, this time there was no ram in the thicket. This time the sacrifice must go on.

Feeling the loss of His Father’s companionship, Jesus cried aloud, “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). At last, He prayed submissively, “Father, it is finished; thy will is done!” (Joseph Smith Translation, Matthew 27:50, footnote a).

These words place finality on His earlier prayer in Gethsemane. Now the Father’s will had been done.

Having completed all He was sent on earth to do, Jesus then cried with a loud voice, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Yielding up His life, our great high priest then parted the veil of eternity. There he entered the world of spirits and preached to the assembled multitude the joyous message of “the resurrection and the redemption of mankind from the fall, and from individual sins on conditions of repentance” (D&C 138:19). While His body was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, His spirit continued to be about His Father’s business. In the spirit world, Christ organized His great missionary force to preach the good news of the gospel to the wicked and disobedient, fulfilling the prophecy that Messiah would “proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1; see D&C 138:18).

Garden Tomb

Jesus rose from the tomb on the third day, unlocking the gates of death and making resurrection possible for all mankind. This was the crowning moment of the Atonement. Jesus had opened for all of us the gateway to immortality and eternal life. No wonder all Christendom joins in singing the Easter hymn,

He is risen! He is risen!

Tell it out with joyful voice.

He has burst his three days' prison;

Let the whole wide earth rejoice.

Death is conquered, man is free.

Christ has won the victory.[10]

Just as death entered the world in the Garden of Eden, the Atonement was wrought in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the firstfruits of the Resurrection rose from the Garden Tomb. How appropriate it was that Mary Magdalene supposed that Jesus was a gardener, for these transcendent events had all been accomplished in gardens!

Trees are recurring themes in these locations: the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Eden, the olive trees in Gethsemane, the dead tree of the cross of Calvary, and ultimately the tree of life. These events are linked together in Christ.

Long ago, within a garden,

Mother Eve ate of a tree.

Death would be our awful burden;

Only one could set us free.

Humbly suff’ring in a garden,

Kneeling near an olive tree,

Pressed beneath sin’s awful burden,

Jesus prayed to set us free.

In a tomb within a garden,

People went to where He lay,

Angels told them, “He is risen,”

On that glorious Easter day.

Come to Christ and be forgiven,

Taste the fruit of Father’s tree,

Sweetest fruit of all His garden,

Come to him and be set free.

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Jesus came to set us free.

Son of God and true Messiah,

Songs of joy we raise to thee.[11]

Accepting the Gift

At Easter, we celebrate the Atonement of Jesus Christ as “the greatest of all gifts.”[12] Through the Atonement, Jesus made salvation free to all those who come unto Him and forsake their sins (a conditional gift). Through His death and Resurrection, Jesus freed all of us from the bonds of death (an unconditional gift). As Latter-day Saints, we rejoice in the Atonement as “the central fact, the crucial foundation, the chief doctrine, and the greatest expression of divine love in the plan of salvation.”[13]

R. Devan Jensen is the author of God’s Greatest Gifts: 10 Reasons to Rejoice.

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[1] Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:129–30; quoted in Andrew C. Skinner, Golgotha (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004), 8.

[2] Andrew C. Skinner, Gethsemane (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002), 57.

[3] Stephen E. Robinson, Religious Education prayer meeting, February 12, 1992.

[4] Russell M. Nelson, “Why This Holy Land?” Ensign, December 1989, 17–18.

[5] Orson F. Whitney, Through Memory’s Halls: The Life Story of Orson F. Whitney (Independence, MO: Zion’s Printing and Publishing, 1930), 82–83.

[6] Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Ministry of Angels,” Ensign, November 2008, 31.

[7] Spencer W. Kimball, “Jesus of Nazareth,” Ensign, December 1980, 6–7.

[8] Charles H. Gabriel, “I Stand All Amazed,” Hymns, no. 193.

[9] Skinner, Golgotha, 1.

[10] Cecil Frances Alexander, “He Is Risen,” Hymns, no. 199.

[11] Poem by author, “Long Ago within a Garden.”

[12] Packer, Mine Errand from the Lord, 46.

[13] Jeffrey R. Holland, in Jesus Christ and His Gospel: Selections from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 23–24.

Long Ago, Within a Garden (A Hymn of Hope in Christ)

Just two weeks before Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles died, he gave a classic talk on three gardens of God, which inspired me to write the lyrics to "Long Ago, Within a Garden," gorgeously set to music by fellow Caldwell, Idaho, composer Daniel Carter. 
The first three verses discuss the three gardens of God, moving from the Garden of Eden to the Garden of Gethsemane to the Garden of the Empty Tomb. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve became subject to death after they partook of the forbidden fruit.
1. Long ago, within a garden, Adam tasted fruit with Eve,

Death would be our awful burden—Only One could set us free.

Adam and Eve Leaving the Garden of Eden, by Joseph Brickey.

In Gethsemane and Calvary our Savior paid the penalty for their transgression (and ours).

2. Jesus came to win a pardon, praying in Gethsemane,

Humbly suff'ring in a garden, crucified on Calvary.

On the third day, Christ rose from the tomb in another garden, freeing us from physical death.

3. In a tomb within a garden, women went where Jesus lay;

Angels told them, "He is risen" on that glorious Easter day.

Because He rose from the tomb, so shall we! The Apostle Paul very succinctly summarized this doctrine: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22). 

Verse 4 invites listeners to come to Christ and be forgiven, partaking of the sweet fruit of the tree of life.

4. Come to Christ and be forgiven. Taste the fruit of Father’s tree,
Sweetest fruit of all His garden. Dwell with Him eternally.

Over the years, more than a hundred thousand members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have performed and enjoyed this Christ-centered song. Now I'm glad to see that Christians of other denominations are performing it. It was performed at Easter Mass on Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016, at the Cathedral Chapel of St. Mark (Episcopal). Update: In 2026 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints added this hymn to its planned Hymns—For Home and Church. May we join as fellow Christians in raising this song of joy to the Lamb of God!

Chorus: Alleluia, alleluia! Jesus came to set us free!

Lamb of God and true Messiah, songs of joy we raise to Thee!

Christian Hans Monson: Norwegian Mormon Convert, Handcart Pioneer, Temple Builder

Christian Hans Monson Compiled by Devan Jensen Born: June 16, 1837; Fredrikstad, Norway Died: September 23, 1896; Richmond, Cache, Utah Immigration Date: 1857, Christian Christiansen Handcart Company

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A Narrative of the Life of Christian Hans Monson

Source: History by Hazel Kofoed, a granddaughter of Christian Hans Monson.

Christian Hansen (son of Hans) was born June 16, 1837, in Fredrikstad, Norway. He was the son of Hans Monsen and Berthe Nilsdatter (or Bertha Nielson), whose family consisted of two sons, Niels and Christian, and three daughters, Ann, Elizabeth, and Maren.

Hans Monsen was at one time warden of the old state prison at Frederikstad. During his term of office in the year of 1851, there were three Mormon missionaries imprisoned for preaching the gospel in Norway. These missionaries remained so long that the warden became indifferent regarding them and in due time became a little careless in his duty and allowed his son Christian to carry food into the cells for the missionaries.

It seems that young Christian was by nature rather inquisitive, and due to his frequent visits, he soon became rather intimate with the missionaries and was finally converted by them to the divine mission of Joseph Smith, the Prophet. So strongly was he impressed with the testimonies borne by the servants of God to him, and the testimony he had received through diligent prayer to the Lord, that he finally requested the elders to baptize him.

Obviously, this could not be done while they were in prison. They requested their young convert to be patient until their prison term had expired, but this did not satisfy him. Finally he suggested that he get the keys some night and let them out long enough to perform the ordinance of baptism and the laying on of hands for the reception of the gift of the Holy Ghost, and thus confirm him a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When this was done, they returned to their cells and he locked them in again.

Some time later, the missionaries, having served out their sentence, were released from prison. But the conversion of the boy, who was only fourteen years of age, still remained a secret, at least as far as his parents were concerned. However, he soon told them the news, he was so happy in the fact that he firmly believed, that God in answer to his prayers, had opened the way for him to hear God’s servants proclaim the everlasting gospel as revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith. He confided to his father the story of the knowledge he had received, and the consequent ordinance which had been performed for and in his behalf by the elders.

Christian was sorely disappointed regarding the reaction of his father. Instead of kind expressions of interest and approval of the research made by his youngest child, his father seemed to have lost sight of everything that savored parental love, and allowed the spirit of the adversary to take possession of him. While under that influence, he administered a severe punishment on his son and ordered him to leave home and never return again.

Upon leaving his home, where he left his parents, his brother and sisters, he went to the city of Drammen, Norway. He there entered the employ of a contractor as an apprentice in carpenter and joiner. He took an elementary course in architecture. In these branches he served six years as an apprentice, for which he received his food and clothing. His employer, however, permitted him to make small trinkets, such as work boxes; these he sold as best he could and from this source he made a little money, which he saved, in hope that at some future time he would be able to emigrate to Zion.

Early in the spring of 1857 he arranged to emigrate, working his passage across the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The company of emigrants with which he sailed left Liverpool, England, April 25, 1857, on the sailing ship Westmoreland. There were 544 Saints, mostly Scandinavian, under the direction of Mathias F. Cowley.

Many Scandinavians took their fathers' last name when immigrating. Christian eventually settled on the name Christian Hans Monson. The immigrants arrived in Philadelphia on May 31, 1857, and went from there to Iowa City by train, reaching there June 9, 1857. Here the emigrants were divided into two companies under the direction of Brother Cowley, the Scandinavian Saints going with a handcart company under the direction of Christian Christiansen. During their journey across the plains, they had food shortage, sickness, and hardships. Both companies arrived in Salt Lake City on September 15, 1857.

The US Army under Albert Sidney Johnston was on its way to Utah on September 15, 1857, on the Oregon route across the plains, which was on the opposite side of the Platte River from the trail used by the Mormon emigrant train. In September, Governor Brigham Young declared Utah under martial law, and forbade the army troops entering Utah. Men were enlisted to go to the mountain passes to keep them from entering the valley. Christian was sent into Echo Canyon as a guard.

After his guard duty was over, he located in Lehi, Utah.

Brigham Young met with the army officials and a satisfactory understanding was had. The army entered the valley peacefully, and Christian received some employment occasioned by the army troops coming into the Salt Lake Valley.

In 1860, when Cache Valley was being settled, Christian was called by the Church authorities to move to Logan, where he could assist with his trade in building homes and other buildings for the pioneers in the valley. Several buildings still remain that he built. Among them is the building occupied by the First National Bank of Logan, which was built for ZCMI. He purchased from the Taylor Romney Lumber Company, in Salt Lake City, a planing machine that was brought across the plains by ox team, and set it up in Logan, Utah.

In 1878, he was called to fill a mission in Sweden, and while there he went back to see his old home in Norway and visit his people, but was not received very kindly. He finished his mission in Sweden, returning home in 1880.

He was called to help build up Richmond, Utah, and Franklin, Idaho. In 1889, he built and operated a sawmill in Franklin. He lived there until his death on September 23, 1896, leaving a very large family.

He was the second man to own and operate a sawmill in Utah. He helped to build the St. George Temple, Manti, Logan, and Salt Lake Temples.

Wives’ Names	Marriage Date	No. of Children
Nielsene Krutzbach	June 29, 1858	2
Annie Catherine Peterson	April 26, 1861	4
Ellen Manson	March 16, 1867	11
Karren Marie Olsen	May 2, 1870
Ella Jensen	January 5, 1874	10
Vendla Jacobsen	March 15, 1883	3

Christian Hans Monson

(born Christen Hansen), 1837–96

Source: Susan Easton Black, Shauna C. Anderson and Ruth Ellen Maness, Legacy of Sacrifice: Missionaries to Scandinavia, 1872–94 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, 2007).

Residence: Richmond, Cache Co., Utah

Arrival date in Copenhagen: 20 November 1878

Missionary labors: Göteborg Conference

Departure date from Copenhagen: 5 July 1880

Name of departure ship: Cato

Birth date: 16 June 1837

Birthplace: Stora Boeplads, Tune, Østfold, Norway

Father: Monsen, Hans

Mother: Nielsdatter, Berte

Spouse: Kruetzback (Kredsbank), Nielsene Olsen, Marriage date: 29 June 1858, Marriage place: Lehi, Utah Co., Utah

Spouse: Peterson, Anna Catherine, Marriage date: 26 April 1861, Marriage place: Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah

Spouse: Mansson, Ellen Persson, Marriage date: 16 March 1867, Marriage place: Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah

Spouse: Olsen, Karen Maria, Marriage date: 2 May 1870

Spouse: Jenson, Elna (Ella), Marriage date: 5 January 1874, Marriage place: Endowment House, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah

Spouse: Jacobsson, Wendla (Vendla), Marriage date: 15 March 1883, Marriage place: Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Co., Utah

Death date: 23 September 1896

Death place: Richmond, Cache Co., Utah

Burial place: Richmond, Cache Co., Utah

Christian’s father was a woodcutter by trade. He was industrious and hardworking, and he expected everyone around him to be the same. He had a violent temper, and Christian recalled being “mortally afraid” of his walking cane. However, when he was in good humor, Christian enjoyed sitting and talking to him as he smoked his long-stemmed pipe (see Skidmore, “Biographical Sketch of the Life of My Father Christian Hans Monson as I Knew Him,” 1).

Christian was baptized on 4 April 1853 by Svend Larsen. At the time, he was an employee of the Fredrikstad prison. He recalled carrying meals to the elders who were imprisoned for preaching. In this process, an elder asked him why he abused and tormented him, for “so persecuted they the Christ and his followers.” The prisoners set Christian to thinking. One night during the winter of 1852, he released his prisoners. Together they walked to the fjord, where Christian was secretly baptized, after which the elders returned to their prison cell (see Skidmore, “Biographical Sketch of the Life of My Father Christian Hans Monson as I Knew Him,” 2; Skidmore and Horne, “Immigrant Pioneers: Christian Hans Monson,” Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Lesson for October 1984, 41–53; Roberts, “Love Is Its Own Reward,” New Era, February 1978, 6–7).

Christian was whipped by his father for being baptized and told never to return. He left home and labored as a local missionary in Drammen, Buskerud County, Norway. At that time, he was five feet nine inches and weighed 190 pounds. He had blue eyes, a fair complexion, brown hair, and a beard (see Skidmore and Horne, “Immigrant Pioneers: Christian Hans Monson,” Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Lesson for October 1984, 41–44).

He was ordained an elder on 8 September 1856. He began his emigration to America on 9 August 1857. He voyaged from Liverpool to the United States aboard the Westmoreland. He crossed the plains in the Christian Christiansen handcart company to reach the Salt Lake Valley (see Jenson, History of the Scandinavian Mission, 236). Christian settled in Lehi, Utah County, before moving to Logan, Cache County, and finally Richmond, Cache County. He was called from Richmond to serve as a guard in Echo Canyon during the Utah War (see Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1042). After the threat of war passed, he was endowed on 26 October 1861 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.

He married Nielsine Kruetzback, a widow fourteen years his senior. This marriage ended in divorce. After the divorce, Christian accepted a mission call to Scandinavia in 1878. He arrived in Copenhagen on 20 November 1878 and was assigned to labor in the Göteborg Conference. After completing an honorable mission, he departed from Copenhagen on 5 July 1880 aboard the steamer Cato with 346 emigrating Latter-day Saints and other returning missionaries (see Jenson, History of the Scandinavian Mission, 243).

On 23 June 1888, the First District Court of Ogden sentenced Christian to six months’ imprisonment and a one-hundred-dollar fine for unlawful cohabitation. He was discharged from the penitentiary on 23 December 1888 (see Jenson, LDS Church Chronology, June 23, 1888; December 23, 1888).

After his discharge, he served as president of the Thirty-ninth Quorum of the Seventy and as a temple worker in St. George. He is remembered as being a pioneer builder and lumberman. He is credited with assisting in the construction of the Salt Lake, St. George, Manti, and Logan Temples (see Skidmore and Horne, “Immigrant Pioneers: Christian Hans Monson,” Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Lesson for October, 1984, 49–50).

In his later years, he moved to Franklin County, Idaho, where he set up a lumber mill. He operated the mill until his health failed. Christian died in 1896 from jaundice and gallstones in Richmond at age fifty-nine (see Skidmore and Horne, “Immigrant Pioneers: Christian Hans Monson,” Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Lesson for October 1984, 51).