Service a reminder of faith

While paradegoers jockeyed for good spots out on the sidewalk, about a thousand Utahns and tourists slipped into the Salt Lake Tabernacle early Thursday morning to contemplate why the Days of '47 are celebrated in the first place.

Famine, handcarts, crickets, ostracism — the pioneers endured these hardships for the gospel they believed in, and people today are the beneficiaries of their courage and sacrifice, Elder Merrill C. Oaks reminded his audience at the Pioneer Day Sunrise Service at the Tabernacle.

The first company of pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847, via what is now known as Emigration Canyon.

"This most unusual migration of our people" reflected their willingness to sacrifice and be obedient, "their feeling of responsibility to the group and not just to their own needs and desires," and their "profound faith in God and the restoration of the gospel," said Elder Oaks, of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Elder Oaks detailed the trials of the state's original Mormon pioneers beginning with selections from the accounts of pioneer children. Laura Swenson Fowers, at age 8, watched her father die in a wagon accident and her mother die a week later in childbirth, leaving Laura and four younger sisters to proceed on the trek as orphans. Peter Howard McBride, who crossed with a handcart company in 1856, faced the wrath of relatives as his family departed Scotland for Utah.

"If you should write, your letters will be burned before we read them," Peter's grandfather said. "I hope you will all be swallowed up in the ocean before you land on that American shore. You bring disgrace to the family name by joining such a cursed church."

To understand why people would make such a journey, it's important to understand the beginnings of the church, Elder Oaks said.

"Most people who made the trek to settle other parts of the West made their decision based on their own desires to receive something better, or adventure, or gold, but the Mormon pioneers were basically expelled from their homes, and many were not optimally prepared for the journey," Elder Oaks said. "If any opportunity had been available to remain and freely practice their religion, they would not have left their homes."