By Steve Fidel
Deseret News staff writer

The Tabernacle Choir's rendition of "Come, Come, Ye Saints" was a poignant crescendo to the pioneer theme church leaders presented to a general conference audience in talks and in a unique video presentation Sunday morning.
"Whether you are among the posterity of the pioneers or whether you were baptized only yesterday, each is the beneficiary of their great undertaking," said President Gordon B. Hinckley, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
For the present and future, "let us be good citizens of the nations in which we live. Let us be good neighbors in our communities. Let us acknowledge the diversity of our society recognizing the good in all people. We need not make any surrender of our theology. But we can set aside any element of provincialism and parochialism," he said Sunday afternoon.
President Hinckley and his two counselors, President Thomas S. Monson and President James E. Faust, narrated a video presentation shown in the Tabernacle and broadcast to a worldwide television audience.
President Monson's talk in the morning session broadened the pioneer heritage back through biblical times to include Moses, Ruth, Abraham, John the Baptist, the apostle Peter and others who fit the definition of the word pioneer: "One who goes before, showing others the way to follow."
"Joseph Smith was a pioneer indeed. Turning the pages of scriptural history from beginning to end, we learn of the ultimate pioneer — even Jesus Christ. His birth was foretold by the prophets of old; his entry upon the stage of life was announced by an angel. His life and his ministry have transformed the world," President Monson said. "He has gone before, showing all others the way to follow."
Between the morning and afternoon conference sessions, the church-commissioned movie "Legacy" was broadcast via satellite. The broadcasts are the first time "Legacy," a 53-minute drama of the first 63 years of the church's history, was shown outside its home theater in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building next to Temple Square. KSL-TV broadcast the film locally.
"What a wonderful thing it is to have behind us a great and noble body of progenitors. What a marvelous thing to be the recipients of a magnificent heritage that speaks of the guiding hand of the Lord, of the listening ear of his prophets, of the total dedication of a vast congregation of saints who loved this cause more than life itself," President Hinckley said Sunday morning.
Exactly 150 years ago Sunday, Brigham Young was sustained as president of the church among a group of pioneer saints at Winter Quarters, Neb. Church history records the weather had been foul the day before but that the sun shone brightly and the heavens smiled during the church's 17th annual conference on April 6, 1847.
Similar wet-then-sunny weather greeted church members attending the 167th Annual General Conference in Salt Lake City this weekend, though the meetings were convened in a time of much less hardship.
"The covered wagons of long ago have been replaced by airplanes that today thread the skies. The horse and buggy have been replaced by air-conditioned automobiles that speed over ribbons of highway. We have great institutions of learning. We have vast treasures of family history. We have houses of worship by the thousands. Governments of the earth look upon us with respect and favor. The media treat us well. This, I submit, is our great season of opportunity," President Hinckley said.
Units of the church have already initiated activities to commemorate the sesquicentennial of Brigham Young and his party's arrival in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. And enthusiasm for the sesquicentennial is not an American-only celebration.
Russian church members, where missionary work is young and who only recently had all church scriptures translated into their language, are embarking on a commemorative pioneering handcart trek. "The handcart built in Siberia and presently moving through the missions of Russia and the Ukraine is a wonderful example of the worldwide effort to honor our pioneers," said Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve. "Plans are for the handcart to be pulled down Emigration Canyon on thefinal leg of its journey, arriving at This Is the Place State Park on July 22."
President Hinckley said it is a "small wonder that so many hundreds of thousands of us, yea even millions, will pause this coming July to remember them, to celebrate their wondrous accomplishments and to rejoice in the miraculous thing that has grown from the foundation they laid.
"Our forebearers laid a solid and wonderful foundation. Now ours is the great opportunity to build a superstructure, all fitly framed together with Christ as the chief cornerstone," he urged Sunday morning.
"God is at the helm. We will seek his direction," he said.
General authorities and general auxiliary leaders gave particular admonition to members regarding individual, family and church responsibilities.
Talks focused on repentance and forgiveness; relying on the Holy Ghost to overcome trials and be at peace; the importance of temple worship; the joys and responsibilities of parenthood; receiving and valuing counsel — and supporting local church leaders; lending support and encouragement to new members of the church; being honest; keeping priorities in a gospel focus; and developing and expressing convictions to follow the Savior.
"We speak unabashedly of the living reality of the Lord Jesus Christ. We declare without equivocation the fact of his great act of atonement for all mankind. That act brought assurance of universal resurrection and opened the way to exaltation in our Father's kingdom.
"This is the burden of our declaration to the world. It is the substance of our theology. It is the wellspring of our faith. Let no one ever say that we are not Christians," President Hinckley said as he concluded the conference.