Remembering the Pioneers

Yesterday was Pioneer Day when we commemorate the arrival of the first pioneers into the valley on July 24, 1847. It was a very different Pioneer Day, though, with no parade or tabernacle choir performance and few get togethers in general because of the current pandemic. At our home, my children put a box on top of a radio flyer wagon and pulled each other around for rides in our basement, and that was about the extent of our celebration. But I do not think those parades and gatherings are necessary for us to do what is most important and what the holiday is meant for: to remember. We remember those Saints who were kicked out of Nauvoo in February 1846, forced into the freezing cold often with far too few provisions. We remember their devotion to the temple and the fire of the covenant that urged them to spend day and night there receiving their temple endowment before abandoning the Nauvoo temple forever. We remember William Phelps call to them and us all in the great hymn he wrote to celebrate the birth of his baby and stir the Saints to continue onward: “Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear.” We remember their perseverance during their arduous journey west in 1846 with setback after setback that finally forced them to settle at Winter Quarters. We remember the faith of those who saw the miracle of quails that fall as the Lord miraculously provided food to some of the destitute Saints trying to make their way west in Iowa. And we remember Brigham Young’s determination to care for the poor and the covenant the Saints made to not leave anyone behind who wanted to go west.

               On Pioneer Day we remember the faith and devotion of so many Saints who sacrificed to be obedient to God and the gospel they loved. We remember the great determination of Mary Fielding Smith, the wife of Hyrum Smith, who crossed the plains as a widow and nearly destitute, and when she was advised to turn back by a man she declared, “I will beat you to the valley and ask for no help either”—which she did. We remember other faithful women like Mary Murdoch, who as she died on the trail declared, “Tell John I died with my face toward Zion.” We remember the incredible sacrifices of those five hundred Mormon Battalion men who left their families on the trail to fight for a country who had failed to defend them; one of these was young William Hendricks who left a father who had been paralyzed by that government’s failure to protect them in Missouri and a mother who gave him up to go like Abraham offering Isaac with these words: “If I never see you again until the morning of the resurrection, I shall know you are my child.” And of course we remember the many who walked with the fateful Martin and Willie Handcart Companies in 1856, willing to sacrifice all to make it to Zion. We remember how they left so many of their belonging scattered along the trail as they abandoned anything that might prevent them from completing their journey. We remember the hundreds who died, starving and frozen but determined to push forward to follow God’s call to gather to Zion. We remember names like Sweetwater River and Rocky Ridge, Devil’s Gate and Martin’s Cove where such great suffering took place but where there was such faith and trust in the Lord was exhibited. We remember the incredible sacrifice of the rescuers like George D. Grant and Ephraim Hanks, Joseph Young and Daniel Jones who risked their own lives through blizzards to find them. We remember Captain Willie who set off into the storm as a final attempt to find the rescuers before his people completely starved, miraculously finding a sign in the snow that led him to the salvation of his company. We remember C. Allen Huntington, George W. Grant and David P. Kimball who carried the freezing pioneers across the Sweetwater River in an act of unforgettable love and sacrifice. And of course we remember thousands of other stories of faith and devotion, of sacrifice and commitment to the Savior Jesus Christ by the pioneers who gave up the world for the kingdom of God.

               And so, to what end do we remember? It is so that we can seek to live with more faith, to be more willing to sacrifice, to give our hearts more fully to God. In the Book of Mormon we read this of the great leader Shule: “He remembered the great things that the Lord had done for his fathers in bringing them across the great deep into the promised land; wherefore he did execute judgment in righteousness all his days” (Ether 7:27). As we remember the great things the Lord did for the pioneers, and the great things the pioneers did for the Lord, we too will hopefully be more able to better walk “in righteousness” all our days.