I think of my heritage all year long, but am most grateful during this month. As I enjoy the comforts of my home and the beauty that surrounds me. When I go to church in our comfortable buildings, when I go downtown and see the Temple, the conference center, the beautiful gardens that surround them..I am reminded again of how it all began. I have relatives who were there in the beginning. Who suffered, sacrificed and died so that I might enjoy the blessings that I have. In this modern world it is easy to forget, but I think it is good to remember. It keeps me grounded and also grateful for what I have. Here are a few entries in some of my family's journals as they settled the Salt Lake Valley and came across the plains.
"When we got inside the valley I think if there were ever a glad people it was us. And when we got located the next thing was for us to get some wheat in the ground. The land were very dry and I did not know what to do for the best. So we sowed some wheat, the land being so dry it did not grow up til the spring."
~Andrew Jackson Allen
Edward and Julia Ann Bagley were travelling with their children and another family across the plains. "Cholera hit the wagon on June 20, Julia Anne got up in the morning and cooked breakfast for the family. She came down with Cholera, which is a contagious infection of the intestines, and by sundown she had died and was buried about 40 miles from Mormon Grove. This left the little band motherless and both men without wives. Men of less faith would have turned back, but they continued on.
By Saturday, two more Bagley children died."
"Seventy five years later Julia Anne and Edward's son, Alma, was 82 years old and he could still describe her death. He said that the wolves howled and the morning doves mourned, and then he cried just as he had when he was a 7 year old boy."
"Julia Anne and Edward left a large family who had a great impact on the early Mormon settlements."
May 20, 1848
"There was a cold snap that froze the vines, and things in the ground were easily killed. Now the fall wheat we had got was just beginning to put the head out of the ground and the frost killed it. This was a trying time. Those crickets also were eating at the fall wheat. Many of us were out of bread . Just now the seagulls came in flocks by the thousands and began to eat the crickets. They would cover the fields and fill themselves and then they would fly to the water and drink, then they would vomit them up and go again and fill up again. They seemed to repeat this time after time after time, and soon they destroyed the crickets in measure. We contributed this to the hand of the Lord in our behalf. If those gulls had not destroyed them, they would have destroyed all of our growing crops. And that would have brought great suffering among the people."
~Andrew Jackson Allen
As I think about these people and many more, and all the hardships they went through. Then I think about the difficulties and adversity that we go through today. Would I trade with them? I don't know. Their adversities were different. Their hardships seemed only to make them stronger, more determine to move forward. Their families were of utmost importance. I would like to meet these people, to listen to their stories from their mouths, to learn from them.
Will I measure up?
Will I measure up?
I am grateful to them for leading the way in my own family.
Because of the gospel, they came together and taught their children.
Who became my grandparents and parents.
They taught me.
And it continues.
"Blessed honored Pioneer."
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