2012 Mormon Pioneer Trek

This past weekend, April 6 and 7, the teenage members of the from congregations , Lakeside, northern El Cajon (Bostonia) and San Carlos were invited to participate in a small reenactment of a handcart journey that many thousands of Mormon pioneers in the 1850s and 1860s embarked upon to settle in Utah.  

Many thousands of people had listened to Mormon missionaries in the eastern United States, the British Isles, and the Scandanavian countries and were baptized.  During that time period, members were encouraged to gather in Utah and nearby territories.  

To reduce the cost of the cross-country journey from frontier posts in Iowa, a program was instituted to finance this journey.  As the numbers grew and to keep costs down, these pioneers were outfitted with small handcarts instead of more expensive full size wagons and teams of horses or oxen.  

They left Iowa in the spring and traveled with the few possessions they had across the plains and through the Rocky Mountains, with few trading outposts or assistance, to try to reach Salt Lake City by the fall.  Pioneers traveled by wagon or handcart in for over two decades until the transcontinental railroad was completed.

The young men and young women were invited to this reenactment to get a sense of what their spiritual, or in some cases actual, ancestors endured for their faith in times much more difficult than those we live in today.  We live with so many modern conveniences, excellent medicines, and amazing technology, that it can be easy to forget how hard life can be with no place to call home, no contact with long distant love ones except by unreliable post, and very little in the way of conveniences we enjoy today.  

These pioneers were driven by their faith, leaving their homes, their livelihoods, and sometimes family to engage in this physical and spiritual journey to reach a new home, a new sanctuary, and to start a new life with others who share their faith.  There were dangers, hazards, sickness, and death along this journey.   Because of their example and sacrifice, many Mormons today can be profoundly grateful for their homes, their families, and their way of life.  

For the next couple of weeks, we will be posting on this blog some of the experiences from the adult leaders who volunteered to lead these teenagers through the desert and from the youth in order that you, the reader, may be uplifted by their experiences.  

The pioneer story continues to resonate with us over 150 years later.  As stated by a Mormon leader:

"What then did the pioneers bring? They brought industry in a measure that has seldom been equaled. They taught and practiced the gospel of work as the foundation for success and happiness.…They brought education and a love for the artistic and beautiful.…They brought with them a high order of loyalty and a great capacity for firm devotion to the cause they espoused.…I come now to the greatest thing of all which the pioneers brought with them, and that I characterize as wisdom, wisdom about the important things in life..."  -Stephen L. Richards

We hope by sharing that you will also reflect upon those who were your pioneers-- those who came before, sacrificing for a dream that made your life better.  

I have attached a map of where the reenactment took place out in the desert along S-2.