Pioneer People

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I find it slightly odd that so many people of my Faith can track, with pride, their family lines back to pioneer stock. Many of our ancestors, including some of my own, traversed the North American continent without much preparation, guidance, or knowledge of what awaited them. Until Brigham Young left Nauvoo, IL, in 1846, not many people had seen much of the Midwest or the West of what is now the United States, and most of those who had were solitary survivalists who advised any who considered the attempt to stay out of the West. In fact, legend has it that Jim Bridger offered Brigham Young $1000 in gold for the first bushel of wheat from the Salt Lake Valley.

Over the past several years, I have been privileged to visit several of the more fundamentally important sites along what would eventually be the overland route. I have been to Donner Pass, seen where the Hastings Cutoff meets the Pony Express Route, walked between the ruts of the Oregon Trail in central Idaho, and stood aside the Sweetwater outside Devil’s Gate. As I visit the sites, I consider the tenacity of the intrepid souls who walked thousands of miles without benefit of rest stops, restaurants, resupply, credit cards, cellular phones, cushioned seating, or even appropriate footwear, food, and firearms. They crossed thousands of miles of wilderness full of Indians, predatory animals, turbid weather, and rough terrain to eke out an existence in the barren alkali flats of the Great Basin where millions of people live and thrive today.

While we honor their memories, frequently we do not remember them. Many of the women I meet proudly talk of their pioneer progenitors while they themselves cannot sew, cook, clean, or accomplish any of the things those women did, let alone walk barefoot carrying a sick child in the August heat or October rain. Many of them would perish quickly on the prairie or plain, even the ones who have hauled an empty handcart a few hundred yards within view of the highways that now traverse the Wyoming landscape. They are frequently proud of their ancestors, not for the ancestors, but because they believe it imbues them with some inherent strengths and abilities they do not visually exhibit or offer. Some of them talk about how much they want to marry a cowboy, as long as he’s rich. Some of them talk about how they want a man who can build things and then date guys who have never built a blessed thing in their life besides an appetite.

Where are the pioneer people? Among their most noble of attributes, the pioneer people, from the time of Moses until modern day, were the kind of people who moved on the Word of God. Even though the Israelites entered the Sinai in possession of more possessions than my pioneer progenitors, my ancestors had strengths worthy of veneration, in particular their faith. Like it or not, most people prefer safety and security to the animating contest of freedom. It’s why at least in part so many people who care about me worry about me, because I won’t sell my soul for admission to any society. People who care about you, and people who think they care about you, will try to dissuade you 'for your good', but I just can't live at peace with things that are not right. God knows this, and maybe He intends to use it, because I'm certainly not someone who values a little temporary security over what is right

Pioneer people venture forth. It’s that spirit that led us into the west, into space, into the last frontier as well as what Roddenberry called the “Final Frontier”. Pioneer people go where others refuse to venture. They face the dangers, and some of them conquer them. Yet, where are the people who would get behind someone who steadfastly does what is right regardless of consequence, and where are those who would get up if God so commanded and move?

Maybe you know someone who claims they would. Maybe sometimes you are yourself one who does. How frequently you move on the word of God or in the direction of Truth determines, at least in part, the strength of your pioneer spirit.

Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear, but with joy wend your way. Though hard to you, this journey may appear, grace shall be as your day. And should we die before our journey’s through, happy day, all is well. We then are free, from toil and sorrow too. With the Just we shall dwell (Text by William Clayton in Hymns by the Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1985, Number 30, written in 1846).

I am grateful for pioneer progenitors. When I walk along the trail, I hear their voices. When I see their graves, I read their names. When I think on their lives, I remember the lessons of faith, discipline, and tenacity that they taught me. It is why a friend of mine told me in December 2009 that “your discipline is your strength”. It was also theirs.

Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the fullness of my intent is that I may persuade my brethren to come to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and be saved. That is my legacy of faith, and those prophets are my pioneer people.