Mormon Pioneer Reenactment in Southwest Iowa

Scores of young men and young women from ages 14-18 set out this past week on a 27 mile trek as part of their Council Bluffs Iowa Stake Youth Conference.  They started out in Imogene, Iowa and trekked west toward the Tabor area.  It was an inspiring event for all.  Memories and lessons learned will carry with them throughout their life.  Clothed in pioneer-type apparel they were organized into families and assigned hand carts to pull.  In an age of excess convenience it often takes reenactments like this to bring us back into focus.  It takes a taste of hardship to help us realize the sacrifices that were made to ensure our way of life.

The Mormon Pioneer experience extended over a 1,000 mile stretch across the Midwest into the Salt Lake Valley in the 1840s and 50s.  It was an essential product of years of persecution from other "would be" Christian factions and others just scared and paranoid of the faith and industry of the Latter-day Saints.  Joseph Smith, the translator of the Book of Mormon, was murdered in cold blood along with his brother, Hyrum, in Carthage, Illinois.  This was an addition to the scores of other Latter-day Saints murdered previous and after this time.  This escalated persecution and perpetuated the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from their homes near the Mississippi River in Nauvoo, Illinois.

After a miracle which enabled the Saints to cross the Mississippi they endured extreme hardships and immense death in their journey across Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming and into Utah.  Many families lost children, mothers and fathers especially during the winter of 1846-7 at Winter Quarters in what is now the Council Bluffs/north Omaha area.  They pulled handcarts through deep mud and relentless shoulder high grass.  They trekked across the ice and snow which barely allowed them to dig graves for their children.  Though incredible pains were endured it was apparent that it was part of the plan of God to place these select Latter-day Saint families into a Refiner's Fire that they may come forth purified and exalted to stations of respect and honor with a legacy never more to be forgotten.

These families that these youth were organized in at one point had to endure, just as their forebears in the 1800s, the loss of the men.  The men were removed as a reenactment of the calling of the Mormon Battalion.  It is fascinating to comprehend.  The Mormon Pioneers, though rejected by their government and countrymen for their faith, were fierce advocates of the Constitution of the United States and the founding principles of this great land.  When the government came and asked for volunteers to aid in the Mexican War the men were encourages to stand and be counted.  What an incredible burden these women had to bear in continuing the wagon train across the wilderness without the strength and manpower of their husbands, fathers and sons!  They were eventually returned just as when the War ended to help their wives, mothers and children continue the journey.

An interesting note is that they were all given pins each with a name of an actual Pioneer.  At the end of the journey and all were assembled to discuss their feelings it was announced that all who wore a brown pin had died on the trek.  Place yourself in that scene and feel the humbled atmosphere.  Then we can begin to appreciate the sacrifice of the Saints.

Many would ask, why?  Why would they endure such a thing?  Why wouldn't they just forsake their faith and assimilate into society?  Why would any God allow such distress to take place among any of His children?  In order to answer these questions we must look toward today and see the fruits of the hardships and labors of our Mormon Pioneers.  Without these efforts millions of hungry around the world would not have been fed.  Hundreds of thousands would not have clean water and been taught how to install well systems.  Millions would not have been equipped with essential life skills learned from the Boy Scouts of America, which program the Latter-day Saints have long since advocated.  Without these efforts you might as well have cut off most of the American West clear through Iowa.  The entire landscape and demographics today wouldn't even be recognized in comparison had the Mormon Pioneer experience not taken place.

In my humble opinion the greatest affect is on the American family.  The Mormons have always centralized the family as being the beginning and the end of all mortal and eternal existence.  As spelled out in the Proclamation to the World the traditional family as designed by God is with a mother and father rearing their children in the home.  They would be reared in righteousness and taught to not just fear God but more importantly to develop a personal relationship with Him.  Had the Pioneer experience not happened the decay of the family that we see today would have been accelerated ten fold.  Imagine where we'd be as a people today.........

I'm grateful that the Mormon Pioneer experience was granted to these modern youth.  I'm grateful that they had that taste in order to more fully appreciate their own heritage.  Through this exercise their convictions to God deepened and their association with the Pioneers strengthened.  They are now armed more fully to go out into the world as they will soon be adults, and become loving responsible parents and Constitution endearing citizens with the spirit of liberty always in their hearts.