ARLINGTON, Va. — I frequently heard stories from the journals of my pioneer ancestors but as a child I didn't truly understand the sacrifices that those stalwarts had made in leaving their home countries and all their belongings to join with the saints in Zion.
This all changed when, in the spring of 1991, my husband, Bob, a Foreign Service officer, received his first overseas assignment: to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where we would live for two years.
Upon our arrival in Addis Ababa, I soon discovered that there weren't any members of the Church in the country. I resigned myself to the fact that our family was the Church in Ethiopia. This realization was very difficult for me as I knew how important it was for my 8-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son to receive gospel teachings. I didn't feel that my husband and I could do this alone without the help of the Primary and Sunday School organizations.
In spite of my feelings of weakness and inability, I knew I had to try my best to teach my children. We began by having a short family home evening each Sunday. We received the Friend magazine monthly and used every story, game and activity in that publication. We also read the scriptures to the children in the evenings before they went to bed.
Many times during our first year in Ethiopia I felt discouraged and wondered if all would be well. I remember sitting in the kitchen one day feeling downcast and alone because I was so far from home. At that moment my husband came home with a package from my parents. I excitedly opened it and was astonished by, and then touched, to read the documents it contained.
They had sent me a photocopy of a hand-written letter by one of my ancestors which had been placed in a time capsule to be opened on the Jubilee of the Springville (Utah) Relief Society.
Tears streamed down my face as I read the letter from my great-great-grandmother, Rhoda Wood Groesbeck. Her parents had joined the Church in Yorkshire, England, and immigrated to Utah in 1862. Her words and testimony touched my heart: "I am a firm believer in the gospel as taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I bear my testimony to my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren that its doctrines are true and that the church will remain on earth until Jesus descends in the clouds of heaven. May my relatives remain faithful to the end and obtain the crown of everlasting life is my earnest prayer. Written at Springville, Utah this 17th day of March 1892."
As I read her letter, I could feel the love and presence of this wonderful woman, who also had to leave her home for a faraway place. I knew that she was praying for me and that her letter had been written almost exactly 100 years before I received it so that I could read it and benefit from the faith and hope it contained. Her message helped me to have the strength, faith and confidence I needed to continue to teach my children the gospel and to know that we could survive in a distant land without extended family or Church auxiliaries to help us.
By the time we left Ethiopia in 1993, the Church was established, missionaries had arrived, and the first Ethiopian converts were baptized.
— Gloria DeWitt, a Young Women adviser in the Arlington Ward, McLean Virginia Stake, serves in the Washington D.C. Temple.
