Pioneer Stories - The Margery Smith Family

The Margery Smith Family

Margery Smith was a 51-year-old widow from Dundee, Scotland, who was emigrating with five children and a close friend of the family, Euphemia Mitchell. Margery’s first husband had been lost at sea, and her second husband had died in 1850. Neither of them had joined the Church.

Margery’s oldest son, Robert Bain, had emigrated in 1854, working as a cook on a ship for his passage and then driving an ox team across the plains. Soon after arriving in Salt Lake City, he went to Lehi, where he farmed as a sharecropper. In a letter to his mother, Robert encouraged the rest of the family to emigrate. “He says he is trying to raise as much [money] as he can for our comfort,” Margery told her other children. “He bids us exert ourselves to emigrate, next season, and says he will pray while we work.”

Betsey and the other girls laughed at that, saying Robert had the easier job. They would soon learn that in addition to praying for them, he would work on their behalf in ways they never imagined would be necessary.

Yearning to join the Saints in Zion, Margery and her daughters began working and saving to emigrate. “The spirit of gathering to Zion was strong upon us,” Betsey wrote, “and we worked at our looms by day, our fancy work by night, and saved the proceeds. By this means, we gathered enough in six months to pay our passage across the sea; and in many ways we realized that God helps those who help themselves.”

Betsey recalled that when the family told their Uncle Thomas good-bye, “he went white to the lips. He called mother a fanatic. He prophesied mother would die on the plains."

Betsey Smith was only 13 when she left Scotland, but the memory of her departure was still vivid when she wrote about it 60 years later: “We finally took a last farewell of the sacred graves of our dead ... and the heather hills of Scotland. [We left] the steam loom mills, the shores of Great Britain, our beloved native land, and dear old Scotland, for the gospel’s sake.”

After six weeks on the ocean to New York, ten days on trains and steamboats to Iowa City, and three weeks camped in Iowa City, the Willie Saints began the handcart portion of their journey on July 16, 1856. 

In Iowa City, 13-year-old Betsey Smith came down with scarlet fever. Unable to open her eyes as she lay sick in camp, she overheard a conversation that made her fear for her life. "I am sorry she is dying,” Betsey heard a woman say. Betsey knew that a baby had just died, and four other children had also passed away while the Willie company was in Iowa City preparing for the handcart journey. “Another death in camp soon,” the woman continued. Hearing this, Betsey thought her own death was inevitable and began to cry.

Betsey’s mother, Margery, soon brought her daughter some broth. Seeing Betsey’s tears, she asked, “Are you worse?”

“Mother, they think I am dying,” Betsey answered. “I want to live and go to the Valley.”

Betsey’s mother acted decisively and with faith. “My dear mother ... went and brought the elders,” Betsey later wrote. “[They] administered to me and rebuked the disease, commanding it to leave both me and the camp. My recovery was rapid. I was able to travel.”

Betsey had recovered sufficiently from her illness to help pull the cart and care for her six-year-old brother, Alexander. Some days they walked more than 20 miles, and when Alexander’s legs got weary, Betsey kept him going by “taking his hand to encourage him, and by telling him stories of the future and the good things in store for us.”

“While fair weather and full rations lasted, we were all right,” Betsey wrote. But twice in October the Willie company had to reduce their daily flour rations, trying to conserve their dwindling provisions until resupply wagons from Salt Lake City could reach them. On October 19 they ate the last of their flour, still nearly 300 miles short of their destination. Their only remaining food was a one-day supply of crackers. Seven people had died during the previous week, and many others were at the point of collapse. If help didn’t come soon, they would all perish.

When the Willie company broke camp on October 19, they didn’t know that their predicament would soon become even worse. Within an hour they were hit by the first snowstorm. Howling winds blew the snow in fitful gusts, forcing them to stop for a time. Then, with hope fading by the hour, they finally found reason to renew their courage. Four men rode up from the west, two on horseback and two in a light wagon. “Such a shout as was raised in camp I never before heard,” wrote Joseph Elder. Five days earlier, these men had hurried ahead as an express from the rescue company. Betsey recalled that one of them, Joseph Young, asked her, “Have you any provisions?”

“All gone but some crackers,” Betsey replied.

“Well, cheer up,” Joseph said. “Help is coming!”

Betsey turned to her sister Jane and asked, “What ailed that man? I saw him wiping his eyes.”

“It may be that he is sorry for us,” Jane said. “Let us hurry to camp and hear him speak.”

Joseph Young and Cyrus Wheelock delivered the cheering news that many wagons loaded with supplies were not far behind them. Despite the good news they bore, both men were overcome with emotion. Euphemia Mitchell recalled that Cyrus Wheelock “said how he never expected to see brethren and sisters in such a condition as we were. Tears ran down his cheeks as he spoke to us and encouraged us.”

The rescue wagons arrived two days later, and Betsey said the famished people rejoiced and “thanked the Lord in prayer.” Several men and six wagons stayed with the Willie company. The rest hurried east to search for the Martin company.

Margery Smith and her family had to pull their handcart another 10 days through the snow. One day, perhaps when they crossed Rocky Ridge, Margery carried six-year-old Alexander on her back for 15 miles because the snow was too deep for him to walk. Betsey recalled that through all these trials, “we never forgot to pray, and we sang ‘Come, Come, Ye Saints’ with great zeal and fervor. We realized that we needed the help of God to see us through.”

Margery became very sick, and Betsey was burdened with worry. “Many are dying; mother may die, and what a dark world it would be without our dear mother!” she thought. While gathering sagebrush for a fire, Betsey couldn’t keep from crying. Margery saw her tears and asked what was the matter. When Betsey explained, her mother said, “Do not feel like that; pray for me. I have been out yonder in the snow praying to the Lord to spare our lives, that we might get through to the Valley.”

On October 30 the Willie company reached the Green River crossing, still 169 miles from the Salt Lake Valley. As she had done from Iowa City, that day Betsey led young Alexander by the hand and encouraged him forward with stories about their future. With the innocence and impatience of a six-year-old, Alex said, “When we get to that creek, I wish we could see our brother Rob”—the brother who had encouraged them to emigrate and had promised to pray for them.

Betsey knew how unlikely that was. Nevertheless, she said, “Come along, maybe we will, when we get to the top of the bank.” At the top they looked down and saw a wagon with just one yoke of oxen. “We had never seen the like before,” Betsey said, since most wagons had two or three yokes of oxen. They waited at the summit, watching the wagon advance until it came beside them. The driver stared at them briefly and then yelled for his oxen to stop. “It was then we knew him,” Betsey wrote. “He jumped off the wagon and caught his sisters in his arms as they came up with the cart. How we all wept with joy! ... Little Alex climbed in to the wagon as happy as a prince, instead of a poor, tired child.”

This joyful, improbable reunion was not yet complete. Robert asked where his mother and sister Mary were. “They are behind somewhere, Robby,” Betsey answered. Margery was still sick, and during her stops to rest, she was so weak that she had to lie down. Having seen others go to sleep this way and never awaken, Mary stayed with her mother to help her keep going. When Mary saw the wagon coming, she told her mother to get up and look.

“Never mind, Mary; don’t bother me; I am so tired,” Margery said.

“Well, mother, the man is running this way,” Mary replied. “It surely is Robert.”

“Oh, no, Mary; that would be too good to be true!” Margery answered.

But it was indeed true. Describing the reunion with his mother, Robert wrote:

I ... drove on to find Mother laying in the sagebrush nearly gone. I gathered her up in my arms and got her in the wagon. My heart overflowed with love and gratitude to God. My mother said to me, “I couldn’t be more happy and thankful to see you than if I were to be in the highest kingdom in heaven.” [God] had preserved them ... in the midst of death, and I had been able to find them. The bread and butter [in my wagon] was a sweet morsel to them. Mother gained in health every day.

Robert Bain had prayed for his family, as promised. And he had worked for them, coming to their rescue. But the work was not easy or convenient. While his family was traveling across the plains, Robert was suffering from mountain fever in Lehi. For four weeks he had to be waited on. Brigham Young’s call for rescuers came when Robert was just beginning to recover. He borrowed a yoke of oxen and a wagon from Lorenzo Hatch, who filled the wagon with supplies, and set out to find his family. “I was so weak they had to lift me into the wagon [and] put the whip in my hand,” Robert recalled. He gradually got stronger as he made his way east. Perhaps in part due to Robert’s efforts, everyone in Margery Smith’s family survived, as did their friend Euphemia Mitchell, who soon married Robert.

Throughout the rest of her long life, Betsey chose not to focus on the tribulations of the handcart journey. She chose not to second-guess, murmur, or complain. Instead she wrote, “I will not dwell on the hardships we endured, nor the hunger and cold, but I like to tell of the goodness of God unto us.”

Betsey concluded her narrative by explaining why she wrote it. Her purpose went far beyond telling a good story. Rather, she wrote it “for the benefit of the youth of Zion who may read this.” In her final words, she reinforced what she hoped the youth of Zion would learn from her experience: “I bear testimony that I know God hears and answers prayers, and the Lord will help those who help themselves.”

Have a great week!

Sister McHood

Pioneer Stories - David P. Kimball (A Rescuer)

This weeks thought is the story of one of the rescuers, David P. Kimball.

• Born: August 23, 1839 in Nauvoo, Illinois
• Age: 17
• Main Rescue Party

David P. Kimball

David Patton Kimball was the son of Heber C. and Vilate Kimball.1 He was named after David W. Patton, president of the Council of Twelve Apostles. David’s father was on his second mission to England when he was born, and his mother wrote the following poem to inform her husband of their new child:

Our darling little David P.
Is just as sweet as he can be;
He surely is the finest lad
That you and I have ever had.

His eyes are black, his skin is fair,
His features good, and brown his hair;
He’s just as fat as butter, too,
We therefore think that he will do.2

David came to Utah in September 1847, shortly after his eighth birthday, with his father as the captain of the wagon train. They had been driven from their homes in Nauvoo.

David was a member of a group known as the Minute Men. The “Nauvoo Legion” had been reorganized in Salt Lake, and many of the brethren served in it. But the ones who were the first to be called if trouble arose were the Minute Men. These were usually young single men in their late teens and early twenties. They were eager to help, full of courage and capable. Such was the case in 1856 when David left Salt Lake with the first group of rescuers on October 6 and 7. His father put his large family on short rations in order to send food to those who were destitute.

The Willie Company was reached first by rescuers on October 21.  After giving emergency relief, the rescue party was divided into two groups. A few stayed with the Willie Company to help them.  David’s brother, William H. Kimball, captained the Willie Company back to Salt Lake. The other rescuers continued east in search of the Martin, Hodgett and Hunt Companies. David Kimball went on with these to Devil’s Gate. Express riders Joseph A. Young, Abel W. Garr and Dan W. Jones were sent on from there to locate the companies. While David waited at Devil’s Gate, he cut wood and made other preparations.

On October 30, the express team reported they had found the three companies about 60 miles further east. David and the others in his group hurried forward. They helped bury the dead and led the handcart emigrants west to the Devil’s Gate area. Short supplies and severe weather soon forced them to seek shelter in a nearby cove. In order to reach the cove, the pioneers had to cross the icy Sweetwater River. The river was filled with floating ice. As the immigrants remembered their tragic and difficult crossing of the N. Platte River two weeks before, some sat down and wept. Their courage seemed to be lost with this new challenge. David and at least three other young men came to the rescue and carried many members of the Martin company across the river.

The Sweetwater River winds through the Sweetwater Valley of southern Wyoming. “Its beauty is beyond description,” wrote Solomon F. Kimball in his account of the rescue of the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies (“Belated Emigrants of 1856,” Improvement Era, Jan. 1914, 209). Devil’s Gate is the valley’s most spectacular landmark. Under most conditions, the first view of the walls of Devil’s Gate rising 400 feet above the river--with its 900-foot-long and 150-foot-wide chasm--awakens a sense of wonderment in the eyes of those who behold it.

But during the first few days of November 1856, amid the harsh winter snows, the starving and freezing survivors of the Martin Company had little strength left to react to nature’s beauty as they struggled to the site.

Rescue party leader Captain George D. Grant described the scene to President Young in a letter sent by courier on the morning of 3 November 1856: “You can imagine between five and six hundred men, women and children, worn down by drawing carts through mud and snow, fainting by the wayside, children crying with cold, their limbs stiffened, their feet bleeding, and some of them bare to the frost. The sight is too much for the stoutest of us, but we go on doing our duty, not doubting, nor despairing. Our party is too small to be of much of a help. … We have prayed without ceasing, and the blessings of the Lord have been with us” (as quoted in Improvement Era, Jan. 1914, 209).

Solomon F. Kimball continues: “Those of the handcart people who were unable to walk were crowded into the overloaded wagons, and a start was made; the balance of the company hobbling along behind with their carts as best they could.  When [they] came to the first crossing of the Sweetwater west of Devil’s Gate, they found the stream full of floating ice, making it dangerous to cross, on account of the strong current. However, the teams went over in safety. … When the people who were drawing carts came to the brink of this treacherous stream, they refused to go any further … , as the water in places was almost waist deep, and the river more than a hundred feet wide. … [They] remembered that nearly one-sixth of their number had already perished from the effects of crossing North Platte, eighteen days before. … They … cried mightily unto the Lord for help."

Patience Loader, a member of the Martin company, wrote: "Those brethren were in the water all day. We wanted to thank them but they would not listen to my dear mother who felt in her heart to bless them for their kindness. She said, “God bless you for taking me over this water,” and they said in such an awful rough way, “Oh, d–n that. We don’t want any of that. You are welcome. We have come to help you.” Mother turned to me, saying, “What do you think of that man, Patience? He is a rough fellow.” I told her, “That is Brother Kimball, I am told. They are all good men, but I dare say they are rather rough in their manners.” But we found that they all had good, kind hearts. This poor Brother David P. Kimball stayed so long in the water that he had to be taken out and packed to camp and he was a long time before he recovered as he was chilled through and in after life he was always afflicted with rheumatism."

In an oft-quoted magazine article from 1914, Solomon Kimball wrote “After … every apparent avenue of escape seemed closed, three eighteen-year-old boys belonging to the relief party came to the rescue; and to the astonishment of all who saw, carried nearly every member of that ill-fated handcart company across the snow-bound stream. The strain was so terrible, and the exposure so great, that in later years all the boys died from the effects of it. When President Brigham Young heard of this heroic act, he wept like a child, and later declared publicly, ‘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.’ ” (Kimball, “Belated Emigrants of 1856,” Improvement Era, February 1914, 288.)

Although this statement may be incomplete and have some inaccuracies, it is still inspiring to recognize the sacrifices the rescue boys made in saving lives. Andrew D. Olsen, author of The Price We Paid, clarified: “Six years before this statement was published, the same author [Solomon Kimball] reported Brigham Young’s words somewhat differently: ‘When President Brigham Young heard of this heroic act, he wept like a child, and declared that this act alone would immortalize them.’ Perhaps one explanation for the difference in these accounts is that they were written in 1908 and 1914, more than 50 years after the rescue and 30 years after Brigham Young’s death. Regardless of the differences in these statements, what is most important remains undisputed: the heroic service of these rescuers and Brigham Young’s feelings of gratitude toward them.” (Olsen, The Price We Paid, 360-61) The statues near Martin’s Cove seem to have fulfilled Brigham Young’s prediction of “immortalizing” these rescue boys.

David returned to his home in Salt Lake and recovered from his river crossing experience. He married Caroline Marian Williams in April 1857. They had 10 or 11 children. David served as a missionary to Europe, and as President of the Bear Lake Stake for five years. He later moved to Arizona and assisted in developing that area. He died on November 21, 1883, in St. David, Arizona, at the age of 44.

Sources: Esshom, Frank E., Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1913; Glazier, Stewart E., Journal of the Trail, 1997; Recollections of Past Days: The Autobiography of Patience Loader Rozsa Archer, edited by Sandra Ailey Petree, 2006; Kimball, Solomon F. “Belated Emigrants of 1856,” Improvement Era, February 1914; Olsen, Andrew D., The Price We Paid, 2006.

1. David’s large family is said to have dwelt together in “peace and unity; while [the] children, especially the males, sons of various mothers, clung together with an affection all but clannish in its intensity. Woe betide the luckless wight, who, even in childhood’s days, imposed upon a ‘Kimball boy.’ The whole family of urchins would resent the insult, and that, too, with a pluckiness surpassing even their numbers.” (Whitney, Orson F. “The Life of Heber C. Kimball,” also quoted in Esshom, Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah.)

2. As found in Glazier, Stewart, Journal of the Trail, 98.

3. Stephen W. Taylor and others are also recognized as giving this service.

Elder Quentin L. Cook said the following about the rescue: "Many of you have participated in treks to experience and appreciate the dramatic rescue of the Willie and Martin handcart companies. I first became aware of this rescue when I was a teenager. My mother gave me a book written by Orson F. Whitney, who would later be an Apostle. Elder Whitney’s book acquainted me with the heroic effort directed by Brigham Young to rescue the handcart companies. They had been overtaken by winter storms on the high plains of Wyoming. Some had died and many others were on the verge of death. Brigham Young became aware of their plight, and at the October 1856 general conference he instructed the Saints to drop everything and rescue those stranded on the plains.

The response was dramatic. Elder Whitney reported, “Brave men by their heroism--for it was at the peril of their own lives that they thus braved the wintry storms on the plains--immortalized themselves, and won the undying gratitude of hundreds who were undoubtedly saved by their timely action from perishing.”

One reason my mother had given me the book was Elder Whitney had made special mention of my great-grandfather David Patten Kimball, who had participated in the rescue when he was 17 years old. All the rescuers battled deep snow and freezing temperatures during much of the rescue of the handcart companies. At great personal sacrifice, David and his associates helped carry many of the pioneers across the freezing, ice-filled Sweetwater.

This true account greatly impressed me. I wanted to prove my devotion to the Lord through some dramatic act. However, in a visit with my grandfather, he explained that when President Brigham Young sent his father, David, and the other young men on their rescue mission, President Young instructed them to do everything they possibly could to save the handcart companies, even at the peril of their own lives. Their acts of bravery were specifically to “follow the prophet Brigham Young” and by so doing express their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. My grandfather told me that consistent, faithful dedication to the counsel of a prophet is the real lesson I should learn from my great-grandfather’s service. As heroic as it was for David and his associates to help rescue the pioneers, it is also valiant today to follow the counsel of our prophet.

I love the tie from between listening to the Prophets counsel, (and hence reaching to be rescued) to also rescuing others. As we approach General Conference I am excited to hear what counsel our prophet has for us. 

Have a great week!

Sister McHood

Pioneer Story - James Kirkwood

James Kirkwood Born 1845, Scotland, Age 11 when traveling with the Willie Handcart Company.

James and his family were among the first converts in Scotland in 1840. Their home was always open to the missionaries. James was baptized by Elder James MacGregor on April 28, 1856, just prior to sailing for America. James’s father and two sisters had died in 1852, but his determined mother gathered her four sons and set her sights on Zion. Margaret sold precious possessions, including her beautiful handwork to help with finances. Margaret’s prominent family were fabric designers who had disowned Margaret for joining the Church. 

Robert (age 21) and his mother pulled Thomas (age 19) in the handcart as Thomas was crippled and could not walk. James was primarily responsible for his younger brother, Joseph Smith Kirkwood (age 4). One night Margaret put their only loaf of bread in bed with them to protect it from freezing. Joseph knew not to touch it, but was so hungry he began to pinch off small pieces. “The temptation was too great for such a hungry four-year-old and by morning, Margaret and her sons’ day’s rations had disappeared.”

On October 23, the Kirkwoods made the 15-mile journey up Rocky Ridge in a storm. This 15 mile journey took up to 27 hours for some to complete. Margaret had one eye freeze and was blind in that eye the rest of her life. James and Joseph became separated from their mother and fell behind. Margaret waited for her sons by a small fire until late that night. When the pair finally arrived at the campfire that night, James set his brother down, whom he had carried most of the way up Rocky Ridge and then died from exhaustion and exposure, literally giving his life for his brother.  With determination, he had faithfully carried out his task and saved his brother. 

The biography of Joseph by his daughter, Mary, states: “Next morning when arriving in camp the brother James fell dead due to starvation and cold. He was buried on the banks of the Sweetwater in a grave with twelve others.”

James' story is a fairly familiar and commonly told story about Willie Company. But his story is oft repeated for great reasons. It is a beautiful example of love and devotion for ones own family. I ache for his mother when I think of what she must have been feeling. I cannot imagine her pulling her handcart with only her 21 year old son to help and the added weight of her 19 year old son in the handcart. Then to lose her two younger sons in the blizzard and wait for their arrival. How her heart must have warmed to see her 11 year old James carrying his 4 year old brother on his back into camp. And then her sadness when James passed away. 

Elder M. Russel Ballard said this:"We cannot begin to understand the journeys made by those who laid the foundation of this dispensation until we understand their spiritual underpinnings. Once we make that connection, however, we will begin to see how their journeys parallel our own. There are lessons for us in every footstep they took–lessons of love, courage, commitment, devotion, endurance, and, most of all, faith. Handcarts were heavily laden with faith–faith in God, faith in the restoration of His Church through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and faith that God knew where they were going and that He would see them through. We all face rocky ridges, with the wind in our face and winter coming on too soon. Always there is a Devil’s Gate, which will swing open to lure us in. Occasionally we reach the top of one summit in life, as the pioneers did, only to see more mountain peaks ahead, higher and more challenging than the one we have just traversed. And how will we feel then, as we stand shoulder to shoulder with the great pioneers of Church history? How will they feel about us? Will they see faith in our footsteps? I believe they will. We will learn, as did our pioneer ancestors, that it is only in faith–real faith, whole souled, tested and tried–that we will find safety and confidence as we walk our own perilous pathways through life. We are all bound together–19th and 20th century pioneers and more–in our great journey to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and to allow His atoning sacrifice to work its miracle in our lives. While we all can appreciate the footsteps of faith walked by Joseph Smith and his followers from Palmyra to Carthage Jail and across the Great Plains, we should ever stand in reverential awe as we contemplate the path trod by the Master. His faithful footsteps to Gethsemane and to Calvary rescued all of us and opened the way for us to return to our heavenly home. Joy will fill our hearts when we fully come to know the eternal significance of the greatest rescue–the rescue of the family of God by the Lord Jesus Christ. For it is through Him that we have promise of eternal life. Our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the source of spiritual power that will give you and me the assurance that we have nothing to fear from the Journey."

Have a great week!

Sister McHood

Pioneer Stories - Sarah Franks and George Padley

Sarah joined the Church in April 1848, when she was 16. Because her parents objected, she had to leave home. She began working in a lace factory, saving money to emigrate. When her father died in 1853, she returned to her family. Eventually Sarah helped bring her mother and sisters into the Church, though she was the only member of her family to emigrate in 1856.

Sarah Franks and George Padley were engaged to be married when they left England. Four other couples who were emigrating together had gotten married during the voyage on the Horizon. Sarah Franks and George Padley, however, were waiting to be married in Salt Lake City so they could be sealed. By the time they got to Martin's Cove, both were failing due to hunger and exposure. Sarah was taken into one of the sick wagons. George tried to care for her, but his strength waned. According to one account, he had "overexerted himself in trying to help other members of the handcart company. He had gotten wet and chilled from the winter wind." Suffering from a combination of pneumonia and hypothermia, he died in the cove. Sarah mourned not only the loss of her fiancé but also the inevitable work of the wolves on his body. Her family history relates: "Sarah took her long-fringed shawl from her almost freezing body and had the brethren wrap her sweetheart's body in it. She couldn't bear to think of his being buried with nothing to protect him." Some men then reportedly placed George's body in a tree to protect it from the wolves. 

During one of President James E. Faust's visits to Martin's Cove, President Kim W. McKinnon of the Riverton Wyoming Stake told the story of Sarah Franks and George Padley. President Faust"was very moved by the story. With a tear in his eye he said it had to be one of the great love stories of the western migration."

    

For Sarah Franks, the future seemed desolate without George. Their dream of raising a family together in Zion was over. Already close to death herself, with no family to look after her, with her hopes disappointed, she could have easily lost the will to live. Nevertheless, she persevered and would yet live a life of fulfillment.

Sarah survived the journey but had no relatives or friends to meet her and nurse her back to health. What followed is a powerful example of persevering and making the most of life when fervent hopes are disappointed. One of the wives of Thomas Mackay invited Sarah to come and live in their home. After a few months, in April 1857, Sarah married Thomas Mackay as his third wife. Years later when Sarah was a widow, one of her granddaughters who knew of her heartbreak at Martin's Cove asked if she had really loved Thomas Mackay. Implied in the question may have been a thought that the marriage was only for expedience. But Sarah replied, "Yes, he was a good man. He was good to us."  Sarah and Thomas Mackay had five sons and four daughters. In a way Sarah never had imagined, she was able to raise a family in Zion. Thomas Mackay died in 1880 when Sarah was 47 and their youngest child was 6. Sarah lived 31 years as a widow, dying in 1911 at age 78. During her last years, she lived with one of her daughters in Murray. "She was especially admired and loved for her thoughtfulness of little children," wrote one of her descendants. "She always had a surprise awaiting them when they called to see her. [She] would always bring us a little gift, such as a pretty little china cup and saucer, a little toy, or a box of lovely assorted cookies. . . . She was dearly loved by all."

I love Sarah's example of perseverance. Like many of the handcart pioneers she sacrificed everything (leaving family and the familiarity of home) to come to Zion. She endured incredible heartbreak and had her hopes of marriage and family taken away, yet she continued on in faith.  

President Monson speaking in General Conference just after the death of his wife, Francis said, "When the pathway of life takes a cruel turn, there is the temptation to ask the question “Why me?” At times there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel, no sunrise to end the night’s darkness. We feel encompassed by the disappointment of shattered dreams and the despair of vanished hopes. We join in uttering the biblical plea, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” We feel abandoned, heartbroken, alone. We are inclined to view our own personal misfortunes through the distorted prism of pessimism. We become impatient for a solution to our problems, forgetting that frequently the heavenly virtue of patience is required.

The difficulties which come to us present us with the real test of our ability to endure. A fundamental question remains to be answered by each of us: Shall I falter, or shall I finish?...

Our Heavenly Father, who gives us so much to delight in, also knows that we learn and grow and become stronger as we face and survive the trials through which we must pass. We know that there are times when we will experience heartbreaking sorrow, when we will grieve, and when we may be tested to our limits. However, such difficulties allow us to change for the better, to rebuild our lives in the way our Heavenly Father teaches us, and to become something different from what we were--better than we were, more understanding than we were, more empathetic than we were, with stronger testimonies than we had before.

This should be our purpose--to persevere and endure, yes, but also to become more spiritually refined as we make our way through sunshine and sorrow...Only the Master knows the depths of our trials, our pain, and our suffering. He alone offers us eternal peace in times of adversity...Whether it is the best of times or the worst of times, He is with us. He has promised that this will never change.  ("I Will Not Fail Thee, nor Forsake Thee”)

I hope you all are having a great week!

Sister McHood

Trek Thought

Today's trek thought is a quote from Elder Holland from October general conference in 2006

"This morning President Hinckley movingly reminded us that this is the 150th anniversary of those handcart companies that, as general conference was convening in October of 1856 here in the Salt Lake Valley, were staggering through the last freezing miles of Nebraska and were soon to be stranded in the impassable snows of the high country of Wyoming. He quoted to us President Brigham Young’s inspiring general conference message to the Saints, simply “go and bring in those people now on the plains.” 

As surely as the rescue of those in need was the general conference theme of October 1856, so too is it the theme of this conference and last conference and the one to come next spring. It may not be blizzards and frozen-earth burials that we face this conference, but the needy are still out there—the poor and the weary, the discouraged and downhearted, those “[falling] away into [the] forbidden paths” we mentioned earlier, and multitudes who are “kept from the truth because they know not where to find it.”  They are all out there with feeble knees, hands that hang down,  and bad weather setting in. They can be rescued only by those who have more and know more and can help more. And don’t worry about asking, “Where are they?” They are everywhere, on our right hand and on our left, in our neighborhoods and in the workplace, in every community and county and nation of this world. Take your team and wagon; load it with your love, your testimony, and a spiritual sack of flour; then drive in any direction. The Lord will lead you to those in need if you will but embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ that has been taught in this conference. Open your heart and your hand to those trapped in the twenty-first century’s equivalent of Martin’s Cove and Devil’s Gate. In doing so we honor the Master’s repeated plea on behalf of lost sheep and lost coins and lost souls....

To all of you who think you are lost or without hope, or who think you have done too much that was too wrong for too long, to every one of you who worry that you are stranded somewhere on the wintry plains of life and have wrecked your handcart in the process, this conference calls out Jehovah’s unrelenting refrain, “[My] hand is stretched out still.”  ^"I shall lengthen out mine arm unto them,” He said, “[and even if they] deny me; nevertheless, I will be merciful unto them, … if they will repent and come unto me; for mine arm is lengthened out all the day long, saith the Lord God of Hosts.”  His mercy endureth forever, and His hand is stretched out still. His is the pure love of Christ, the charity that never faileth, that compassion which endures even when all other strength disappears. 

I testify of this reaching, rescuing, merciful Jesus, that this is His redeeming Church based on His redeeming love..."

I loved finding this quote...loved how it so beautifully ties together our theme "Reach to Rescue" with coming unto Christ. As important as it is to rescue others by helping them to come unto Christ we also need to continually strive to be reaching to be rescued ourselves as we come unto Christ. 

Pioneer Stories - Jane Bailey

John and Jane Bailey joined the Church in 1844 and were anxious to finally be gathering to Zion. Their four sons, ages 5 though 18, accompanied them. Their only daughter had died as an infant. 
    
Before leaving England, John Bailey hired an auctioneer to sell the family's furniture. To spread word of the auction, the town crier walked through the streets ringing a bell and exclaiming, "Oh yes, oh yes, Brother and Sister Bailey are leaving for Zion. Come one, come all, and buy their goods." This public display embarrassed the Baileys' oldest son, Langley, who asked his father to stop the man. His father declined, his mother explaining that they "were not ashamed to let people know that we . . . are Latter-day Saints."  These words of Jane Bailey foreshadow her unfaltering faith and conviction that would pull her family through many trials, not only during the handcart trek but also after arriving in Zion. When two members of this family would so deeply despair that they wanted to give up and die, Jane  Bailey would keep them going. 
    
Eighteen-year-old Langley Bailey was the oldest of four sons of John and Jane Bailey. While crossing Iowa, he had become too ill to walk. He later wrote. "I was unable to walk [and] had to be hauled on Brother Isaac J. Wardle and my brother John's cart."  When the Baileys got to Florence, they consulted a doctor about Langley's illness. "[He] said I must not go another step or I would die and be buried on the roadside," Langley recalled. An elder in the company was asked to give him a blessing, but according to Langley he "said he did not have faith enough to raise the dead."Langley's mother then asked Franklin D. Richards and Cyrus Wheelock to administer to him. Although Langley was unconscious at the time, they promised that he would live to see the Salt Lake Valley.
    
Miraculously, Langley was able to resume the journey, but he still had great difficulties. When he got discouraged, his mother would remind him of the promise given in his blessing and tell him, in effect, that he had to do his part for it to be fulfilled. One morning when Langley was particularly discouraged, he started out early so he could "get away, lay down under a sagebrush, and die."While stretched out to die, he saw his parents pass by with their cart. He later recalled:  "Just then, a voice said, 'Your mother is hunting you, jump up.' I saw mother in haste coming towards me, wanting to know what had gone wrong with me. I told her I had planned to lay down and die. I felt it was too much to pull me on the cart [when they] had as much luggage as they could manage. [She] scolded me a little. She reminded [me] what I was promised by Apostle F. D. Richards. I rode on the cart until the teams from the Valley met us." 

At Martin's Cove, Jane also had to persuade her husband to keep going when he felt that death would be a welcome relief. Langley recalled:  "My father went to gather some brush, willows, etc., there being no wood, to keep me warm. His hands became very benumbed. He laid down by my side [and] told mother he was going to die (it was not any trouble to die). Mother took hold of him and gave him a shaking up, and told him she was going on to the Valley. He then gave up dying."

Langley Bailey said that when he first saw the Salt Lake Valley, "it was like the Israelites of old in beholding the promised land." Impressions soon changed, however. After a week in Salt Lake City, the Baileys were taken to Nephi. Langley describes the living conditions there: "We [were] taken to an empty one-room house, no furniture. Some sagebrush had been placed by the door. A fire was made, [and I] watched the smoke go up the chimney. I said to my parents, 'Is this [the] Zion we have been praying and singing about?' The surrounding was very uninviting. We made our beds on the hard floor. . . . [I] was pleased to find a resting place, though very humble indeed. I looked around and saw little adobe houses, roofs made of willows covered with dirt." 
 
Indeed Zion was no gleaming city. But what about the people? Langley's first impressions of some of the young men also fell far short of his expectations of Zion: "Opposite our window nearby [was] a corral. [It was] Sunday morning. Some young men were roping some wild steers. The language [they] used fairly shocked me. I said to my mother, 'Is this Zion?'"
    
These negative first impressions were reinforced the following week. What some boys thought was harmless fun instead felt like hypocrisy to Langley, who expected to join a community of the pure in heart: "Sunday I asked the privilege to go outside the house and see what kind of people
 attended meeting. As some boys passed by me, they knocked me down with snowballs. I crawled back to the house. Mother helped me in. She saw how I had been treated. She got the snow out of my neck and back. I said to mother, 'Is this Zion where the pure in heart lives?'"
 
The Baileys lived on charity that first winter. "Sometimes we had food, sometimes we were short. . . . I was always hungry," Langley wrote. Having been so ill and weak that he had ridden in a handcart most of the way, Langley was fortunate to survive a winter of scant food. The next spring, when he was nearly 19 years old, he weighed only 60 pounds. As a result, he became something of a curiosity. "I was so thin people came to see me," he wrote. "Mother took off my shirt. There was nothing but skin and bones."

Less than two years after arriving in Nephi, the Baileys' 14-year-old son, Thomas, froze to death when his mule team was caught in a snowstorm. According to Jane's life history, "Tom's body was returned to the sorrowing parents in Nephi and laid on the dirt floor." This time it was John Bailey who asked his wife, "'Jane, is this Zion? Is this all worthwhile?' And once again this strong woman nodded and spoke a firm 'yes.'"

 
Zion sometimes failed to meet people's expectations, and some people never got over the disappointment. Others, like the Baileys, soon realized that Zion was not a static utopia but rather a work in progress—and went to work.
 
In 1859, John, Jane, and their two youngest sons moved about 20 miles away to Moroni, Sanpete County. They were some of the first settlers in that area and remained there throughout their lives. Jane was the first schoolteacher in Moroni and also the first Relief Society president, serving for 25 years. With the exception of 14-year-old Thomas, the Baileys all had long lives. John lived to be 83, Jane 85, Langley 91, John Jr. 88, and David 87.
    

Margaret Nadauld, who served as Young Women general president and is a descendant of the Baileys, feels gratitude for the perseverance of both Langley and his mother: 

 
"Jane Allgood Bailey wasn't about to give up the light of her new religion. She would not be defeated by  the cold, starvation, and sickness on the plains of Wyoming...On the trek, her 18-year-old son, Langley, became ill and was so weak that he had to be pushed on the handcart much of the way. One morning he rose from his bed on the cart [and] went ahead of the company and lay down under a sagebrush to die, feeling that he was too much of a burden. When his faithful mother found him, she scolded him and told him: 'Get on the cart. I'll help you, but you're not giving up!'  Then the family moved on with what was left of he Martin...Handcart Company.  Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, Langley was still alive! He was 18 years old and he weighed only 60 pounds. That 18-year-old boy was my great-grandfather. I'm grateful for the preservation of his young life and for the fortitude and stamina of his noble, courageous mother, who was a light to her family and kept her son going in spite of deathly odds." 
 
Margaret Nadauld saw in her great-grandfather's experience a modern-day application for young women: "You probably will not have to push a handcart in a blizzard over the plains, sisters, or run away from a mob, but you may have to walk away from friends and fashions and invitations which would compromise your standards of goodness. And that takes courage. Soon you will be Relief Society sisters and one day mothers who must lend strength and testimony to future generations. Now in your preparing years, you can't afford to say: 'I'm going to give up. The Church standards are too high. It's too hard to live the standards of personal purity with exactness. I'm too weak.' You can do it! For the sake of your future, you must do it!  You can live in the world and not be of the world.  The Lord invites us to come out of the cold danger of worldliness and into the warmth of His light. This requires integrity, strength of character, and faith - faith in the truths taught by the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life"

As I read Jane's story I was struck by what Sister Naudald called her "strength of character". She is an amazing example of how strength of character, coupled with faith, can have a life altering impact on our daily choices and therefore our lives. She could easily have given up and allowed her children and husband to do so too, but she did not. In fact her strength of character blessed the lives of her children and husband as well. She was able to give them the courage to continue at several turns along the trek and indeed later in their lives, after they reached Zion. 

Have a great week!

Sister McHood

(most of this story came from "The Price We Paid")

Pioneer Stories - Reddick Allred

Today's thought is about Reddick Allred, one of the rescuers. Most of this I pulled from the book, "The Price We Paid" by Andrew D. Olsen.

Brigham Young wanted the rescuers to set up stations along the trail to distribute supplies to the handcart companies as they came through. Captain Grant had established one such station on October 19 when he left a small group of men, wagons, and supplies near South Pass. He assigned Reddick Allred to be in charge of this camp and be ready to provide assistance when called upon. It was an unenviable assignment, requiring weeks of waiting while enduring the wrath of the storms at one of the highest elevations on the trail. Reddick Allred wrote:

"Capt. Grant left me in charge of the supplies of flour, beef cattle, four wagons, the weak animals, and 11 men for guard. I killed the beef cattle and let the meat lay in quarters where it froze and kept well as it was very cold and storming almost every day. We were reinforced by 3 wagons and 6 men loaded with flour."

On October 23, the day the rescuers helped the Willie company over Rocky Ridge, William Kimball sent an express to Reddick Allred, asking him to come and meet the company with assistance. The next day, Reddick Allred and some of his men traveled to Rock Creek, arriving just before the last of the stragglers came into camp. In his journal that day he wrote:

"I took 6 teams and met them 15 miles below in such a hard west wind that they could not travel facing the drifting snow even if they had been ready for duty. I found some dead and dying laying over the camp in the drifting snow that was being piled in heaps by the gale and burying their dead. We set in with the rest to make them as comfortable as possible and remained in camp till [the] next day."

After helping the Willie company get back on their way, Reddick Allred was instructed to return to his station and be ready to assist the Martin company. For three tedious, uncertain weeks he waited for any word about the company and his fellow rescuers. During that long wait, some of the men returned to Salt Lake City, presuming that members of the Martin company had died or had found a place to stay for the winter. These men tried to persuade Reddick Allred to go with them. He recorded the following exchange when John Van Cott and Claudeus Spencer arrived at his station in November and learned that there had been no word from the Martin company:

"Bro. Spencer tried to induce me to break up camp and return to the city. I declined his proposition, and he said he would return. I advised him to stay, for the lives of the company depended up[on] us. He then said that he moved that as I was president of the station, they center their faith in me, that I should get the word of the Lord to know what we must do. To this I objected as [the Lord] already said what he would [have us] do. They returned [the] next day."

Because of Reddick Allred's determination to remain at his post, he was known as the "Bulldog." 

Elder Henry B. Eyring spoke of his heroic steadfastness in a general conference:

"There are few comforts so sweet as to know that we have been an instrument in the hands of God in leading someone else to safety. That blessing generally requires the faith to follow counsel when it is hard to do. An example from Church history is that of Reddick Newton Allred. He was one of the rescue party sent out by Brigham Young to bring in the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies. When a terrible storm hit, Captain Grant, captain of the rescue party, decided to leave some of the wagons by the Sweetwater River as he pressed ahead to find the handcart companies. With the blizzards howling and the weather becoming life-threatening, two of the men left behind at the Sweetwater decided that it was foolish to stay. . . . They decided to return to the Salt Lake Valley and tried to persuade everyone else to do the same.

"Reddick Allred refused to budge. Brigham had sent them out, and his priesthood leader had told him to wait there. The others took several wagons, all filled with needed supplies, and started back. Even more tragic, each wagon they met coming out from Salt Lake they turned back as well. They turned back 77 wagons, [some of which returned] all the way to Little Mountain [before they were turned around]. . . .

"Those with the faith of Reddick Newton Allred will keep offering friendship even when it seems not to be needed or to have no effect. They will persist. When some[one] reaches the point of spiritual exhaustion, they will be there offering kind words and fellowship. They will then feel the same divine approval Brother Allred felt when he saw those handcart pioneers struggling toward him, knowing he could offer them safety because he had followed counsel when it was hard to do.  While the record does not prove it, I am confident that Brother Allred prayed while he waited. I am confident that his prayers were answered. He then knew that the counsel to stand fast was from God. We must pray to know that. I promise you answers to such prayers of faith."

Finally, more than three weeks after Reddick Allred helped the Willie company, his steadfastness would be vindicated. On November 18, Captain Grant would arrive at his station with the Martin company. Again Reddick Allred would provide life-sustaining aid. Captain Grant would be so happy to see him that he would greet him with a cheer: "Hurrah for the Bulldog. Good for hanging on."

What makes Reddick Allred's work in the rescue effort even more remarkable is that he was suffering from a severe case of pleurisy, a painful inflammation of the membrane that lines the lungs. Reddick Allred described the intensity of the pain in his journal entry for October 8: "I took cold and it gave me a severe pain in my breast that lasted one month that was almost like taking my life." After reaching Fort Bridger five days later, he wrote, "I suffered much from plurisy or a pain in my breast and side."

That Reddick Allred gave such dedicated service despite this illness reveals much about his character. But perhaps even more is revealed by considering when the illness began. If it had struck while he was at South Pass, he would have had little choice but to stay with the rescue team until their work was done. But instead, it struck the day after he left Salt Lake City. Since he was so close to home at the time, it would have been easy—and justifiable—for him to return home to protect his health. Surely he knew that rest was an important part of the remedy, yet he persisted at a pace that nearly broke the health of those who were well. Then he endured several weeks of hard winds, snows, and subzero temperatures at the crest of the continent with only a wagon cover for protection.

I love the story of his determination to be obedient. It is not always easy to do what we are asked. In his case Reddick had good men trying to persuade him that his determination was foolish. But with a faith that we can all learn from he hung on and persisted in doing what he had been asked to do. A great example of faith and obedience!

Have a great week!

Sister McHood

Pioneer Stories - Mary Barton

Mary Barton


Born: 13 Jan 1842 in Southport, Lancashire, England
Mary was the daughter of William and Jeannette Carr Barton, the youngest of seven children. Mary’s mother died shortly after her birth. William Barton was a plasterer and paperhanger by trade and made a fairly good living. Mary’s older sisters helped to raise her until her father remarried. Mary later wrote: “At the age of six I went to school but had to stop when I reached my tenth birthday. At twelve I went out to work for my living, and when fourteen years old I left England to come to Utah for the Gospel sake.”
Mary sailed from England in May of 1856 aboard the Horizon with her father, William (47), step-mother, Mary Ann (33), and step-sisters, Francis (3), and Elizabeth (1). Her older siblings apparently did not join the Church as they are reported to have persecuted the rest of the family for so doing. Even after coming to America, Mary was saddened many times by the unkind things said to her in letters from her relatives in England. Mary recorded many interesting things about her journey.  She wrote, "One day while on the ship, I was up in the cooking room cooking dinner. It was so crowded there was hardly standing room. The people were all cooking their dinner, one man was boiling soup in a milk can. When he took the soup from the stove, he lifted it over my head in order to carry it through the crowd. While doing so somebody knocked him and it fell out of his hand on my back. My father stood outside waiting for me to come with the dinner. I ran out to him and he said, ‘Come downstairs and let’s get some oil.’ So we ran down the steps and got one of the Elders to administer to me. It was better in a few minutes, the pain had entirely gone and I never felt any more of it. Some of the soup went on the hands of the man who had spilled it on me. He ran and put his hands in a bucket of cold water and wasn’t administered to. He, not being a convert, wouldn’t hear to having the Elders pray for him. His hands were blistered and they didn’t get better until two weeks."
The Martin Company arrived by train in Cleveland, Ohio, amidst parades and fireworks. They stayed in a large warehouse overnight, during which time there was a great rainstorm. They were also pestered by a mob with stones and bats all night. Although Mary did not write about it, her baby sister, Elizabeth, died.... Mary wrote: "We had been five weeks on the sea when we landed in Boston. We were very glad to walk on land again. We left Boston for Iowa and were eight days on the train. When we arrived in Iowa, we had three miles to walk to the camp grounds. It rained all the way, and we were soaking wet when we reached camp that night...
We had to stay on the camp grounds five weeks waiting for the handcarts to be made. When everything was ready we started. Traveling through Ohio and Council Bluffs (Nebraska), we had to cross the Missouri River which was about a mile from Florence. … So many of our company took sick that we had to camp at Florence for two weeks. Then we started on a journey of [one thousand] miles across the plains. The people began to get sick and died from drinking muddy water. We had to drink pools of rain water most of the time. While traveling, one of the wagons split and let flour out. The Indians who were nearly starved to death came along behind picking it up and eating it, dirt and all. One day while we were camped an Indian came to me and asked me to give him my shawl which I had on my shoulders. I told him it was all I had to keep me from freezing to death. He turned and walked away.
While crossing Nebraska, both William and Francis became very ill, leaving only Mary Ann and Mary to pull the handcart. Francis rode in the cart, and William hung onto the back for support as he plodded forward. Mary's historical sketch relates her father's decline:  "After dragging on the rear of the handcart for days and nights, one night came when he could only creep. A captain came along and gave him a push with his foot, telling him to get up, not to give up, and to be brave. That night, late in September... [father] died."
It was a pathetic scene in the Bartons' tent that night near Chimney Rock, Nebraska, 472 miles from Florence. Mary was doing her best to care for her father as he was dying. Nearby her stepmother was caring for little Francis, who also lay near death. How alone Mary must have felt on that vast prairie. Her mother had died when Mary was a baby, her father was dying beside her, her six older siblings had turned against her when she joined the Church, and she was far from home with so much unknown still ahead. Before the journey's end, the other three men in her tent would die. More trials were to come for this grieving young girl, her stepmother, and her only little sister.”
After reaching Devil’s Gate, the company was moved to a cove in the nearby mountain for five days. Mary wrote: "After pitching our tents we lay down on the ground to get some sleep and rest. In the night the tents all blew over. It was all ice and snow where I was laying, and when the tents blew off I didn’t wake up I was so tired. One man (Mary Barton – Page 2) came and looked at me. He called some more men over saying, “I wonder if she is dead?” He patted me on the head and just then I opened my eyes. He jumped back. I tried to raise my head but found that my hair was frozen to the ground. They chopped the ice all around my hair, and I got up and went over to the fire and melted the large pieces of ice that were clinging to my hair. The men laughed to think that I could lie there all night with my hair frozen in the ice, but were very glad that I wasn’t dead. This same night the handcarts all blew away, and some of us had to walk until we met some other wagons. Mrs. Unthanks [Ellen Pucell, then age 9, later married William Unthank] got her feet frozen and had to have them taken off, but when we met more wagons we could all ride. There were four men in our tent, and all of them died."

Mary reached the Valley on November 30, 1856. The family was taken first to the tithing yard to receive food and supplies. Mary first stayed with a King family and then with the Allen family in Spanish Fork. Mary married John Allen the next spring. She became the mother of twelve children, seven girls and five boys.
Mary derived a lot of pleasure from singing. She led the choir in her hometown of Summit for many years. Her granddaughter, Molly, remembers Mary’s later years, being confined to her sickroom, and sharing stories and singing songs to her:
She often sang to me, and one of her favorites was the ‘Handcart Song.’ She seemed proud to have lived through such harrowing experiences and that she had been strong enough to surmount so many difficulties, but in later years she would not talk of these things.


I was struck today with the thought that so many of these pioneers were like Mary in that they may have felt alone. Many left family behind, never to see them again, and others, while they may have begun their journey with their family, lost their loved ones along the way. But while they may have felt alone, they were surrounded by their brothers and sisters in the gospel, and they had the love of the Savior to comfort them. They are such stalwart examples to us of how to find peace in troubling circumstances. It reminded me of a talk that Elder Jeffery R. Holland gave at a fireside at BYU.  He said, "As we think on these things, does it strike us that spiritual experience, revelatory experience, sacred experience can come to every one of us in all the many and varied stages and circumstances of our lives if we want it, if we hold on and pray on, and if we keep our faith strong through our difficulties? ...tonight’s message is that when you have to, you can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in any situation you are in. Indeed, let me say that even a little stronger: You can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of your life—in the worst settings, while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced...every experience can become a redemptive experience if we remain bonded to our Father in Heaven through that difficulty. These difficult lessons teach us that man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, and if we will be humble and faithful, if we will be believing and not curse God for our problems, He can turn the unfair and inhumane and debilitating prisons of our lives into temples—or at least into a circumstance that can bring comfort and revelation, divine companionship and peace."
I believe that this is true. We see it over and over again in the examples of these amazing pioneers, and I have seen it in my own life as well.
Have a great week!

Sister McHood