17. Remembering the Past

A bishopric message written on Monday, June 23, 1997, for publication in the August 1997 issue of the Newsette, the monthly newsletter of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward. Some of our children, 18-year-old Anna, almost-16-year-old Camilla, and 14-year-old Eliza, represented our family June 11–14 in the stake Pioneer Trek referred to in the second paragraph. (Michael and Rebecca had participated in a similar trek experience six years earlier, when they were 17 and 16.) Our family visited the Wyoming handcart sites mentioned in the third paragraph in mid-July, just a week before the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first pioneer company into the Salt Lake Valley. And all of us participated in the 150 hours of service our ward donated on July 19 (my 48th birthday) at Bountiful Elementary School, paying back in very small measure for the twenty years the school has benefited the children of our family.

This sesquicentennial year has been a wonderful season of remembrance for us. We have been enriched, strengthened, and inspired by the examples of faith, courage, and perseverance of those who have gone before.

The youth who participated in the stake Pioneer Trek in early June had life-changing experiences that will, if they keep them in remembrance, forever alter the way they think about themselves, their families, their ancestors, and (most important of all) the long-suffering goodness and tender mercies of their God.

Others have had the privilege of standing on the desolate and windswept highlands of Wyoming—at places like Martin’s Cove and Devil’s Gate and Rocky Ridge, places that are hallowed because of what the Martin and Willie handcart companies experienced there in late 1856. Many gave their lives for the cause they had espoused, while the survivors in the hour of their extremity came to know their God.

Many of us also participated two weeks ago, in concert with fellow Saints across the face of the earth, in giving community service as a part of the worldwide Pioneer Heritage Service Day. In the words of the First Presidency, inviting us to this effort, “As modern-day beneficiaries of the sacrifices made by pioneers who have gone before, we [were able to] show our gratitude by unitedly rendering charitable service to others in our community.”

A common theme in all the Lord’s dealings with His people in every age of the world’s history has been the importance of remembering the past and, in particular, remembering Him and His doings.

• For example, from the beginning of time a book of remembrance was kept among those who called upon the name of the Lord (see Moses 6:4–5).

• The scriptures help enlarge the memory of the people (see Alma 37:8).

• From the days from Moses until the coming of Christ the children of Israel were to keep the Passover and the other revealed feasts as a two-way remembrance: The types and shadows and signs, the ordinances and commandments and performances were all designed to remind them, first, of their past deliverance from Egypt, and second, of their future deliverance at Gethsemane and Golgotha.

• In the meridian of time, at the hour of that promised deliverance, the Savior instituted the sacrament as a memorial—in remembrance of His body and His blood—to help us “always remember him” (D&C 20:77, 79).

• Alma posed challenging questions to the church in his day: “And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, you that belong to this church, have you sufficiently retained in remembrance the captivity of your fathers? Yea, and have you sufficiently retained in remembrance his mercy and long-suffering towards them? And moreover, have ye sufficiently retained in remembrance that he has delivered their souls from hell?” (Alma 5:6).

• Helaman gave his sons the names of their ancestors, telling them “that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works” (Helaman 5:6).

And so in that same pattern of remembrance, stretching from the very beginning of recorded time, we in 1997 have been remembering our pioneer forebears.

“We have been reminded that ours is a great inheritance,” said President Gordon B. Hinckley at the April general conference. “The past is behind us. It is the future with which we must be concerned. We face great opportunities and great challenges. . . . We have nothing to fear and everything to gain. God is at the helm. We will seek His direction. We will listen to the still, small voice of revelation. And we will go forward as He directs” (Ensign, May 1997, 83).

Seventeen years ago—as we celebrated another sesquicentennial, the 150th anniversary of the organization of the Church—another prophet, President Spencer W. Kimball, declared in similar fashion concerning the future, “One of the best ways to celebrate righteous history is to make more of it, make more righteous history!” (Ensign, May 1980, 4).

In a spirit of love and appreciation for all that you already do, that would be our invitation to each of you: Look to the future, go forward, and make even more righteous history.