We Are Going to Do Something Extraordinary

It felt like a mission call. When I first read these words from Emma Smith at the first Relief Society meeting in Nauvoo, I felt as if I could hear Emma whisper to me: “We are going to do something extraordinary. . . . we expect extraordinary occasions and pressing calls.” I knew then that I needed to find and understand these women.

I wanted to do something extraordinary.

I don’t think I really understood what extraordinary things look like to the Lord until my own brush with the miraculous years later.

I have always loved to read. Perhaps it comes from my name: Jenny Reeder.

In fact, as a child of the 1970s, with a million other Jennifers or Jennys, I was always called by my first and last name—and I still am. Though my mom would make me go outside to play in the summertime, I generally ended up finding a place to read in a tree or on a lawn chair.

I was drawn to strong female characters: Laura Ingalls, Anne of Green Gables, the March sisters, Willa Cather’s Scandinavian immigrant women in the Midwest, to name a few.

As a young adult college student, I stumbled upon a book on the clearance table at the BYU bookstore: Women’s Voices: An Untold History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830–1900 and it called to me. These Mormon women, I found, were also strong female characters. They were calling to me and it was through this gateway that I found my mission in life: to find, research, write about, and make these women accessible.

Did you know that women had authority and the organization of the Relief Society prepared them for the temple endowment? Did you know that plural marriage actually allowed women to share domestic responsibilities so some could start a woman’s newspaper, go to medical school, organize a grain storage program and a silk manufacturing program, and become involved in national women’s movements, all in the nineteenth century? Did you know that Utah Territory women were the second to be granted suffrage?

As I learn and share more about these women, I have come to understand myself better.

Let me tell you about Mary Ann Freeze. She was born in Nauvoo, where her father died four days before her birth. Her tenacious mother worked for six years before she was able to finance her family’s journey across the plains. In 1871, Mary Ann became the president of the Salt Lake City Eleventh Ward Young Women, and then in 1878, she was called as president of the first stake Young Women organization. In 1879, in a meeting for both young men and young women, Mary Ann said, “My young brothers and sisters, we were all sent here on earth for a purpose, and we all have a mission to perform. It is the duty of each of us to understand that mission.”

Mary Ann defined the idea for me. The more I read about these nineteenth-century women, the more I felt they were calling to me: Emma, Eliza, Emmeline. They all had personal missions and assignments that came at auspicious times. My own personal mission led me to graduate school where I could learn the historian’s craft and tell their stories most effectively.

In the middle of my doctoral program, on November 5, 2010, to be precise, I was diagnosed with leukemia at the Virginia Hospital Center just outside of Washington, D.C. I was confused more than anything else: I was a healthy marathon-runner and a newly-called Relief Society president. I was passionate about my life mission. This was not supposed to happen to me. I had a timeline and wanted to get through school and on to real work. I refused to let a little chemotherapy stop me.

After two years of treatment in Virginia, I was in remission. I finished my dissertation, graduated, and started my dream job as a women’s history specialist for the LDS Church History Department. We began an incredible project, collecting women’s talks from 1830 to 1920, finding their personal details and stories. But six weeks later, when I found a doctor to establish continuing care, my leukemia had returned.

Again, I did not understand the timing. It seemed as if everything had fallen into place, and now I needed a bone marrow transplant. Thankfully, a priesthood blessing from a dear friend reminded me of my mission, and that my bounds were set; I would live to complete that mission.

After a long year of treatment and recovery, I returned to my work.

With hours of research and writing, I came upon some incredible women who wanted to be found, and it has been extraordinary. They have become dear friends. It has been a pure delight—not without blood, sweat, and tears—to bring their voices and stories to light. They have stood with me as I experienced a third recurrence of leukemia and another bone marrow transplant.

At first, I said no to further treatment. I knew what it entailed and I knew the low chance of success, with an even lower chance of actual cure.

I also remembered my mission; I knew it wasn’t over; I felt a responsibility to try again.

This time was a different journey, fraught with four months of pneumonia, three weeks of a stomach bug, and all the side effects of anti-rejection meds, immune-suppressant meds, and steroids.

I’m slowly getting back at it. People, including my doctors, friends, family, ward members, and dear historical sisters, have done something extraordinary in seeing me through this. I can’t forget my mission. I look forward to the future.

As I’ve studied these women, I’ve realized they each had personal missions and assignments. And so do we. What is yours? How can you discover it and use your own struggles and opportunities to arise to your own ministry? We each have a work to do, no matter how little or big. And when we put all of that together, we, indeed, are doing something extraordinary.

Don't miss Jenny's extraordinary story of finding her ministry at a TOFW ARISE event this fall in a city near you.