This lesson explores how the women of the early LDS church sought out and were strengthened by "Gifts of the Spirit" including the Gift of Tongues and the Gift of Healing.

READINGS

“Joseph Smith’s Teachings about Priesthood, Temple and Women,” Gospel Topics Essays

“Gifts of the Spirit,” Robert D. Hales, lds.org

“A Gift Given, A Gift Taken: Washing, Anointing and Blessing the Sick,” Linda K. Newell, Sunstone Magazine,

“Female Ritual Healing in Mormonism,” Jonathan Stapley and Kristine Wright Social Science Research Network

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Are there women in your family history who were called as healers that might have given blessings?

2. If this practice was reinstated, would there be certain women you would look to as healers? Or would this work for every righteous woman? In other words, does everyone receive every gift of the spirit?

3. For the women in the room, if you were asked to give a healing blessing, how would you feel? What would you say in your prayer? For the men, how would you feel about having a woman give you a blessing? How do you prepare to give a healing blessing?

4. Why don't we practice the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation of tongues the way our pioneer foremothers did?

5. How have you experienced a gift of the spirit?

QUOTES

“Respecting the female laying on of hands,” the Nauvoo RS minutes record, Joseph said that “it is no sin for any body to do it that has faith,” and admonished, “if the sisters should have faith to heal the sick, let all hold their tongues, admonished, “if the sisters should have faith to heal the sick, let all hold their tongues, and let every thing roll. On.” Some women had performed such blessings since the early days of the Church. At that time, Latter-day Saints understood the gift of healing primarily in terms of the New Testament’s teaching that it was one of the gift son the Spirit available to believers through faith. Joseph Smith taught that the gift of healing was a sign that would follow “all that believe whether male or female.”

Brigham Young in 1869: “Why do you not live so as to rebuke disease?” he demanded. “It is your privilege to do so without sending for the Elders.” He laid down some practical advice. . . “It is the privilege of a mother to have faith and to administer to her child; this she can do herself, as well as sending for the Elders to have the benefit of their faith.”

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“In the by-no-means extensive search that I have done into nineteenth-century saints, I have been struck repeatedly by their hunger for spiritual gifts and manifestations and by their willingness to pray directly for them. . .

It has long been commonplace to admire that first generation for their endurance in suffering but assure ourselves, “We have our own trials.” I would like to suggest that instead of making facile contrasts based on widely differing circumstances that we get serious about the gospel in the same way they did. They were not seeking inappropriate signs when they prayed for the gift of prophecy, for the ministry of angels, for visions of healing, and for revelation. We would not be either if we, like them, did so “ in all holiness of heart.”

. . .there’s also the very real question that could be asked, “But why do we need them? What would we do with them?”

I think that asking that question is a confession. How could we explain the need for literacy to a person who has never seen a book and feels no need for records that extend behind his or her memory? Most of us have, however, either experienced the gift of healing in our lives or know of those who have. Let us ask those individuals if the gift is one they would dispense with.

Furthermore, as I study the scriptures, I am struck by the way in which the roles our society finds desirable shape and define what we identify as our spiritual natures. Women in the Church today are assigned to be teachers, auxiliary executives, visiting teachers, neighbors and even wives and mothers—but what of previous generations and dispensations when a woman could also be a prophetess and a priestess? Is it possible that these roles could still exist for women prepared to fill them?”

…I feel that we may have circumscribed our limits too narrowly. Our birthright is joy not weariness, courage not caution, and faith not fear. By covenant and consecration, may we claim it.” (Latina Fielding Anderson, "On Being Happy, An Exercise in Spiritual Autobiography," Exponent II)