Pioneers, we be!!!

On July 24th, we celebrate Pioneer Day, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I remember being so confused when I first joined the church, it felt like a Mormon Independence Day.  It quickly became clear to me, not through study, but by listening and sensing, that this was the day that the pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.

It wasn't only the arrival that explains Pioneer Day...rather, it is not the arrival; it is the journey.  They traveled across the nation--women, children, and men.  They suffered hunger, thirst, and had to bury their loved ones--children, wives, husbands, grandparents; sometimes they were unable to even bury a body and just pioneered on, I can't imagine the gut wrenching sorrow.  They sacrificed their lives for their faith.  They weren't the only ones to sacrifice their lives.  

There was a certain experience that touches me still to this day...and it is the story of three young men who heard that saints were coming in extremely terrible and torturous conditions.  Some never made it because they were frozen to death, or died of hunger.  These three young men, waded in freezing water to rescue saints who were struggling to make their way to Martin's Cove, a place along their journey to Salt Lake.  They went and did what their hearts told them what was right.  They saved many, and in saving many, they sacrificed their own lives.  These three young men died of effects related to their heroic and certainly unselfish acts of love for their fellow saints.  In a 1992 Conference address, President Faust quoted the prophet at the time of this event, Brigham Young, to saying, as he bowed his head and wept, "That act alone will ensure C. Allen Huntington, George W. Grant and David P. Kimball an everlasting salvation in the Celestial Kingdom of God, worlds without end."

That brings me to tears...it always has, and it always will.

When you are a pioneer...you are tried.  It is true, it always will be, and I say that knowing that we all are pioneers of our own faith at all times in our lives because we all have to find faith in Jesus Christ for ourselves--it cannot be borrowed, sold, or taken.  I have found that my journey has a pioneer has been filled with hardship that increases in intensity with each passing year despite our efforts to change things and progress, and as I spoke with my sister today...whose journey has been hard as well, she pointed out so many truths to me.  Satan attacks so hard because I am the first, and as she said, "There are symbols in patterns in all things...the first being , the Son."  Not only was I the first born into our family, but the first born into the church.  I felt alive and full of life when the waters of baptism fell over me.  I felt a burning of the Spirit more often than not. It lasted for years...literal years!

And then life set in.

 Yet, of all of my losses, I am finding reason to rejoice.  I am seeing that my "curses", per say are guaranteed to mold me if I don't use them to turn away from God.  In The Book of Mormon, Enos communes with God over many desires of his heart, of which he is granted because of his faith.  One thing God tells him is that he has not cursed the world for iniquity.

Adam and Eve had to come to a cursed land where they worked by the sweat of their brow for all things, but they had to have a "cursed" land if they were ever to know and understand the attributes of godliness. Ultimately, I can cry, I can even scream, and I can turn an ear to the mouth which claims, "You have brought this on yourself" because surely, I know better.  I can still love and be loved by my Father in Heaven and by my Savior in my darkest moments because I KNOW why my "curses", or heartaches and trials, have come upon me--sometimes it takes some reminding, sometimes it is innately there. They are only there to make me better...in every way!!! 

I love what President Faust continues to say:

"I cannot help wondering why these intrepid pioneers had to pay for their faith with such a terrible price in agony and suffering.  Why were no the elements tempered to spare them from their profound agony?  I believe their lives were consecrated to a higher purpose through their suffering.  Their love for the Savior was burned deep in their souls, and into the souls of their children, and their children's children.  The motivation in their lives came from a true conversion in the center of their souls.  As President Gordon B. Hinckley has said, "When there are throbs in the heart of an individual Latter-day Saints great and vital testimony of the truth of this work, he will be found doing his duty in the Church."

There is a hefty price to pay if we are ever to know God, but I would rather suffer my entire life to know Him and abide with him over living in comfort and ease to find that He is nowhere to be seen.  I have felt the spirit of peace come over me and whisper to me in the still of the night, I have seen many things which testify to me that He LOVES me beyond what I can even imagine, He loves me enough to show me my worth.

Here are a few pics from the day:

Daddy had just finished his 4th night shift of the week.  Ugh!!!

Maya was hesitant, as I would expect!

And on the way home from the magic show, our vehicle stalled in the beginning of a flash flood.  Steve had to push it into a parking space and we hitched a ride from a gracious and wonderful friend; we sat 10 in a 5 passenger car!

We still managed to laugh the entire way home!!!