136I give unto him Amasa Lyman and Noah Packard for counselors, that they may preside over the quorum of high priests of my church, saith the Lord.
Today in church one of his descendants spoke and told his story. Noah moved to Utah and was asked to live in Springville, Utah, which is just south of Provo. While there he got into a dispute with the local Bishop and criticized him in public. He continued attending church, but his children didn't attend much and only one of his grandchildren ended up attending church. The one who did attend church did so because his mom and dad died, so he was sent to live with his mom's parents in Ogden where he grew up a faithful member of the church. Literally hundreds of descendants from that one boy are faithful church members. So much so that the Ensign had an article on one of those boys' descendants in 1984. http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=180&sourceId=bb0a05481ae6b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRDAmazingly, this article shows that of 400 descendants of Floyd Packard, only 8 were not active members of the church. Compare that to the hundreds of descendants of Noah who are not.
It is not fair to criticize local leaders or to fail to instill the desire in children to know that the church is true. It takes effort to build a testimony as God does not hand them out cheaply. It was very great to hear about someone mentioned in the D.C. and how his family turned out. Unfortunately, much of the story is a disappointment due to his criticism of a church leader that helped rob his children and grandchildren of their enthusiasm for the church.
Great Sunday again.
3 comments:
My name is Richard Packard and I’m a descendant of Noah Packard through one of his children who went inactive. My great grandfather Milan didn’t have any of his children baptized into the church. He was, however, one of the rescuers of the Willie & Martin Handcart companies. My grandfather Jacob was the only one of his children who was baptized during his lifetime. Jacob’s oldest daughter, my aunt Alice married a grandson of the Bishop mentioned in your blog.
So far I’ve been able to track down over 3700 of Noah’s descendants. Even though most of his children and grandchildren went inactive in the church, by far the majority of his great grandchildren somehow managed to find their way back into it. Not only them, but countless other Packards from all across the country who are not Noah’s descendants have also joined the church. Not all of Noah’s children became inactive. Nephi was always active and later became the Bishop of the four wards in town. Henry was active most of his life. Orren was active all of his life, but he died fairly young.
There is much more to this story than meets the eye at first blush. To sum up the family’s problems as simply the folly of criticizing local leaders would be a huge mistake. Even most of Noah’s own descendants don’t have all the facts surrounding the family’s problems. A cousin and I have been doing extensive research on the family, trying to leave no stone unturned. Hopefully in the not too distant future we’ll be publishing an extensive biography on the family that will answer many of the questions about them. Until then, all I would say is, don’t judge the family too harshly until you know all the facts.
I apologize for focusing too much on one issue. It sounds like there have been many miracles in the family. Certainly Noah's family has been very blessed for making the trek to Utah as that has kept them closer to church members and it sounds like that's helped lead many descendants back into the church.
Thank you for explaining. I will delete whatever you want.
I am a Packard, a descendant of Noah Packard --> Orrin Packard --> William Packard --> Forest Packard --> Bernard Packard.
I like this article. It is unfortunate that criticizing leaders still continues to draw good LDS members away. I like Azpack's comment, in that despite Noah Packard's folly, he still provided years of valiant service, and it is good to know that many of his descendants have found their way back.
Clarification: The 1984 Ensign article was about the Forest and Esther Packard family, not Floyd. Floyd Packard is the son of Forest. Both have quite an impressive posterity.
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