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The pioneer trek to the Rocky Mountains was a defining event in LDS history.
It has become part of the story that Latter-day Saints worldwide identify
as their heritage. The trek solidified the early Saints' sense of themselves
as a covenant people and reinforced
their commitment to making God's
kingdom a tangible reality. Even while it was happening, the Saints
understood their trek to be a reenactment of Israel's migration to the
promised land. They faced adversity in the faith that Israel's God was
their God. The God who freed Israel from Egypt was working for their liberation
as well, leading them toward a better future (D&C
103:17-20; 136:21-22).
We keep our pioneer heritage alive by living the values to which the
pioneers were called. Those values include caring for the vulnerable among
us and using our individual means for the benefit of the whole (D&C
136:8, 10). Like the pioneers, we are commanded to be wise stewards,
planning for those who will come after us (D&C
136:9, 27). The pioneer experience teaches the importance of cultivating
strong community and harmonious relationships (D&C
136:23-24). The persecution that drove the pioneers to seek refuge
in the Intermountain West should inspire us to speak out against persecution
of others.
| O God, Our Help in Ages
Past (Hymns 31) |
The Nation has but recently passed and
is now passing through trying times brought on largely by the anti-Christian
spirit of profit and of greed. We need now to be new Pioneers who
can lead the way across the plains of selfishness, doubt, greed, and
social injustice to the mountains of love which will bring once again
the blessings of neighborliness, social justice, and faith in God.
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From a Pioneer Day program
for the Church's young men's/young women's organization
Improvement Era, June 1934
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Harold B. Lee: There
is no room for discrimination in the Church. . . . We in the Church
must remember that we have a history of persecution, discrimination
against our civil rights, and our constitutional privileges being
withheld from us.
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| The Teachings of Harold
B. Lee (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996), 384 |
Alexander B. Morrison:
They were ordinary men and women, plain spoken, hard working, but
made noble because they shared a vision, a vision of a different
world, a world where injustice and oppression, poverty and ignorance
would be dispelled and a world where men and women would be brothers
and sisters. . . . They wore out their lives in the pursuit of that
dream and they blessed us by their example.
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| LDS Church News,
October 14, 1995, 4 |
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