Perhaps Forever...

I have been preparing for this talk very probably my entire life. My hometown is a tiny town in Canada called Raymond, population of about 3,000 people. It was settled in 1901-2 by a group of pioneers who'd come from a group of pioneers in Utah, who had come from a group of pioneers all over the world to settle the west.  Willa Cather  in O, Pioneers  said this: "There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years."


I had learned from staying with my grandmother over the summers about my family history. She took me all around town and showed me the little houses where my relatives lived, where Grandma Lizzie's tent had been the first winter after coming from Heber on a train that only traveled 15 miles an hour--so slow she could get off the train to pick flowers and then catch up! Her husband's parents, Ri and Briggs arrived the next year. They had been married in the Endowment House by Joseph F. Smith.


These people are still real to my grandmother. She grew up with them, and she was invited on her mission by David O. McKay. She met many of the living General Authorities of the church prior to her mission in 1944 while preparing to go on her mission and staying in Salt Lake City. She can describe the mannerisms of the Presidents of the Church back to Heber J. Grant, which is fascinating to me, because she met them, knew them personally.


My grandmother was a pioneer, accepting a call to serve a mission to the Southern California Mission from David O. McKay who was visiting Southern Alberta. In California, she met a young missionary. He'd been told he'd never have children because of the tremendous childhood illnesses he'd encountered. His grandfather was Elder McKay's best friend. Obviously, I believe Elder McKay's invitation to my grandmother was inspired. In 1994, my brother was called to serve in the same mission as my grandparents, exactly 50 years later in another piece of inspiration. To those returned California missionaries, my father was born in 1950, and 11 months later my grandfather died, leaving his little family to pioneer on. Her whole town took care of her on a tiny street in a tiny town in Canada.


My parents met and married in that town and then pioneered on, moving to the United States in 1979, where my dad opened his own family practice and they raised 5 children. It was hard being so far away from loved ones, but it was wonderful to be in the heart of Utah. We learned to find our family here, and we discovered people we weren't as familiar with who became dear to us. That's what pioneering and sacrifice is all about.


"As pioneers in latter-days" our pioneering looks different. The path isn't next to a slow train picking wild flowers along the way. However, my husband will attest that having a sick spouse in 2011 isn't much different than having one in 1949. It's just as hard. The medicine is different, but the sacrifices are about the same. It still takes a village and a ward to raise children. He'll also attest that children were every bit as miraculous in 2000, as my father was in 1950.  We feared that we'd never have children. It took 9 tries to get our 4 children. They are miraculous to us. Perhaps it's the perspective on pioneering that makes it appear so amazing... or the cost in health or sleep.


Henry David Thoreau said that the cost of something was measured by "how much life you have to give to it." The core of the Relief Society teaches us in Corinthians to be long-suffering, giving up "all that we have,"  so that we can be more Christ-like. Taking upon ourselves the manner of Christ because "Charity Never Faileth" and neither does God.


Sometimes, when we're pioneers, we want to throw in the towel. We want to wave an entirely *different* banner. We want to wave the white flag of defeat. Instead, we must rush headlong into battle remembering the sacrifices that we have already made. Why do we get up every morning? What makes it worth it? Why are we here? What is the ultimate goal? What are the promises we make ourselves when we look in the mirror? What makes it possible for you to "Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things"?


Francis Scott Key asks it in the Star Spangled Banner. "Oh, Say does that Star Spangled Banner still wave?"  Dylan Thomas urges people to "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,"  Rage, rage against the dying of the light. People speak out against the designated hitters. Will you be a pioneer in this age? In this day? Will you be as David O. McKay asked and be a pioneer? For behold, the field is white and ready to harvest and lo, the time is upon us. Choose your great work and embrace it:


Pioneers! O pioneers!
O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson,

Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


See my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!



Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious,
Pioneers! O pioneers!


Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call-hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind,
Swift! to the head of the army!-swift! spring to your places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!* (poem by Walt Whitman, extremely edited)


Be a pioneer today.