Funeral Message: LeLa Hansen
by Stephen Earl
The Prophet Joseph Smith counseled:
“God will feel after you. And he will take hold of you and wrench your very heart strings; and if you can not stand it, you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God.” Deseret News Weekly 8/29/1883
I know the heart strings of the family members have been wrenched to their breaking point over the past few months, as dear LeLa Hansen slipped quickly from relatively stable condition to very poor health and then last Friday passing quietly into the next life. Many tears have been shed at the passing of this noble woman.
When my wife told me on Saturday that the family would like me to speak on the program today, I was somewhat overwhelmed -- not because of the assignment to speak. Goodness knows if there is one dominant gene that has been passed down in the Earl family, it is the ability to speak. Indeed, the problem seems to be how to get us to stop talking. No, I was overwhelmed by the tenderness of the subject. When such a fine and loving woman dies, it is difficult to sift through all the things that might be said to find those things that really should be said.
LeLa Hansen was a devoted wife to Gordon for 64 years on this earth and will now be his companion in the eternities forever. She gave birth to and nurtured four wonderful children (Kenn, JaNae, Delynn and Shellee), who now have families of their own, giving LeLa 23 grandchildren and 35 great-grandchildren upon which to shower her love and attention. She stood faithfully by Gordon’s side as he served in several bishoprics and as the bishop of a BYU Ward. Many mothers here today know what a lonely challenge it is to get all the children ready for church each Sunday by yourself and then keep them reverent during Sacrament Meeting, while your husband sits on the stand with a calm smile on his face. Sacrifice in church leadership callings brings forth the blessings of heaven and much of that sacrifice is given lovingly by a faithful wife like LeLa Hansen.
On one occasion when Pres. Hugh B. Brown was walking down the aisle of the Tabernacle, he was stopped by an elderly sister who said: “Oh, Pres. Brown, I have always wanted you to speak at my funeral.” To which Pres. Brown responded: “Sister, if you want me to speak at your funeral, you’d better hurry.” My mother-in-law lived a long and productive life and since I am certainly in no hurry to leave, I am privileged to speak today.
II. PURPOSE OF A FUNERAL SERVICE:
Pres. David. O. McKay said on one occasion:
“The purpose of a funeral service is to pay tribute to our departed loved ones, and secondly, to bring solace and peace to the sorrowing hearts of the bereaved.”
The first of these purposes has been beautifully and caringly fulfilled by LeLa’s granddaughter Julie in her Life Sketch and by all of LeLa’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren as they blended their sweet voices in “Families Can Be Together Forever”, so let us therefore move for a moment to the second purpose – to bring solace and peace to sorrowing hearts.
III. FIND PEACE IN LOSS THROUGH THE PLAN OF SALVATION
To find this transcendent peace, we must go back to the beginning – before the Creation of the world, back to the Council in Heaven, when we accepted God’s Plan of Salvation – to come to earth and gain a physical body, and here to be tested to see if we could live by faith – to be obedient to God’s laws outside his presence. We knew and accepted that there would be opposition in all things – that there would be sorrows and grief amidst the joys and triumphs. On this subject, President Spencer W. Kimball has said:
"We knew before we were born that we were coming to the earth for bodies and experience and that we would have joys and sorrows, ease and pain, comforts and hard-ships, health and sickness, successes and disappointments. We knew also that after a period of life we would die. We accepted all of these eventualities with a glad heart, eager to accept both the favorable and the unfavorable. We eagerly accepted the chance to come earthward even though it might be for only a day or a year. Perhaps we were not so much concerned whether we should die of disease, or accident or of old age. We were willing to take life as it came and as we might organize and control it, and this without murmur, complaint, or unreasonable demands.
In the face of tragedy, we must put our trust in God, knowing that despite our limited view, his purposes will not fail. With all its troubles, life offers us the tremendous privilege to grow in knowledge and wisdom, faith and works, preparing to return to God’s presence."
IV. HEARTS TURN NATURALLY TO SAVIOR FOR PEACE
As we approach Spring time and the Easter Season, our hearts are naturally drawn to the Savior. Spring brings with it the promise of new life, but it is that cataclysmic event at the end of the Savior’s mortal life that fills our souls with hope and peace on a day like today, as we gather to mourn the passing of this gentle woman and yet celebrate her long and fruitful life. In your mind’s eye, let us all go back to that eventful day when Christ overcame the bonds of death.
It was on a Sunday morning, some 1977 years ago, when several women made their way, sorrowfully to the sepulcher, to minister to the slain body of the Lord and Savior, the Man known simply as Jesus of Nazareth; when a personage dressed in a white robe, as recorded in the Book of Mark (Mark 16:6) said to them, “Be not affrighted; Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified; He is risen; he is not here…..” And thus was announced to the world the greatest message ever given for the benefit of mankind, since the earth was created and made ready for the children of men.
The simple words, “He is risen” proclaimed and fulfilled the promise which God made to the entire world and all that dwelt thereon: “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)
The offering, made in pure eternal love, of a sinless perfect life to atone for the combined sins of the world and the promise that not only would the Savior rise again, but He would come again as well, with healing in his wings, to offer salvation to all and exaltation to those special souls who would not only believe on his name but spend their lives in his service seeking to live each day in accordance with his teachings. All this contained in the simple words, “He is Risen!”
V. SCRIPTURES ARE REPLETE WITH ASSURANCES OF RESURRECTION AND ATONEMENT
The scriptures are replete with divine assurances of the reality of the resurrection and the atonement of our Savior. It is at times such as this, that our hearts are open and tuned to these familiar, soul stirring words:
• 1Cor: 15:22 – For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ
shall all be made alive.”
• John 11: 25,26 – Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection,
and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me
shall never die …
• D&C 42: 46 – And it shall come to pass that those that die
in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them.
• D&C 124: 86 – If they live here, let them live unto me; and if
they die, let them die unto me; for they shall rest from all their
labors here, and shall continue their works.
• Alma 40:23 – The soul shall be restored to the body, and the
body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be
restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be
lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and
perfect frame.
VI. PERSONAL WITNESS OF REALITY OF RESURRECTION
Let me add my witness of the reality of the Resurrection. The whisperings of the Spirit have confirmed to my soul that Christ lives and loves us with an intensity beyond our understanding – it was a transcendent, perfect love of both us and his Father that motivated the Savior through the grueling ordeal of Gethsemane and Golgotha.
It is because of this abiding testimony -- that I know is shared individually and collectively by all of us here assembled – that we can both mourn the passing of dear LeLa Hansen (wife, mother, grandmother and friend), and yet glory in the knowledge that she lives still and is surrounded by those family members who have preceded her in death. She is resting from the labors of this life. But if I know my mother-in-law, she has already quietly slipped into the waiting line for a small and yet important assignment on the other side of the veil.
Benjamin Franklin, the great American statesman and philosopher, lived with a great deal of pain in his later years. Near the end of his life, he said: “Our bodies are lent to us while we are here on earth. And when they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or in doing good to our fellow creatures, it is a kind and benevolent act of God. But when they become unfit for these purposes, and afford us pain instead of pleasure, instead of aid become an encumbrance, and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which we can leave them behind for a time. Death is that way.”
The late Pres. Hugh B. Brown gave us the following comforting insight into death: “Death is not extinguishing the light, but merely putting out the lamp, because the dawn has come. Night never has the last word. The dawn is irresistible.”
Several months before his death, President Kimball was being transported from the Hotel Utah to the temple by golf cart in the underground tunnel. He saw Pres. Hale ahead of them in a white suit on his way to perform a temple sealing. President Kimball motioned for his driver to stop – But when he recognized Pres. Hale, he said: “Oh, it’s only you. I thought someone had arrived to take me home.” President Kimball is home now – encircled as it says in the Doctrine and Covenants “in the arms of the Savior’s love”. For the Lord revealed in Section 6:13: “If thou wilt do good, yea and hold our faithful to the end, thou shalt be saved in the Kingdom of God, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God, for there is no gift greater than the gift of salvation.”
And I bear witness that LeLa Hansen (devoted eternal companion of Gordon, loving mother to Ken, JaNae, DeLynn and Shellee and grandmother to scores of grandchildren and great grandchildren) has likewise arrived home – in glory, for she too was a good woman who held out faithful to the end of her mortal life. May we all live so that one day, we too, can enjoy that same glorious homecoming. I say these things in the name of the Jesus Christ, Amen.
