These past three months as I prepared to participate on our Stake Youth Trek, I took the opportunity to review my pioneer heritage.  For me, 30 of my 32 great-great-great-grandparents crossed the plains as early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as pioneers.  Fifteen of my 16 great-great-grandparents also came as pioneers.  It was a wonderful experience to read from their own biographies or autobiographies the legacy of faith they left for me. 

If you want to learn more about your family, you can go to www.familysearch.org and read your ancestors stories from their own person pages and even look them up on “pioneer overland travel” on the www.churchofjesuschrist.org.  It will be a thrill to learn of their powerful faith and courage that led them to join a new Church and push on to live lives of faith.  I feel a tremendous accountability for what they have handed me, their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Many of you have modern day pioneers like my husband and his parents who joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in more recent times.  And for others, it may be YOU who is the pioneer in your family. It is so important to record those histories and share them so that future generations can learn from you what I learned from my pioneer ancestors.  I hope that it can be said of me what was recorded of my ancestor Levi Jackman, “He died firm in his faith and was a friend to God and humanity.”  This was his legacy of faith along with many others that I must carry on! –Janet Helland