Temples & Tents

Cody and I were able to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple today.  It was his first time going there since he was on his mission when they did the Open House and it was my first time being in there since it was dedicated.  Our experience today was different from the other times when we've gone in the past seven months.  We didn't realize we'd barely missed the previous session by three minutes, so we waited for another 57 minutes until the next session started.

As I sat there contemplating, my thoughts turned toward our stake's Pioneer Trek tomorrow.  It will be at Martin's Cove, a place I've never been, but that has a lot of significance when talking about the pioneers, especially those that came west by handcart. We won't be sleeping next to the handcarts for the next three days--we'll be in tents (that I just hauled over from our Bishop's house)--but the purpose of the three day activity is to help the youth feel the Spirit that those pioneers had over 150 years ago.  We won't ever know exactly what it was like, however much we study the stories of those that crossed the plains or however many pioneer treks we go on or however many books we read about it.  Then what's the point?  The point is that we'll be standing in a holy place, we'll be learning about people who left everything--who left wealth, comfort, families--to trudge across dusty, muddy, snowy, frostbitten ground to make it to a place they called Zion.  Why on Earth would anyone do that? Because they believed, because they had made a covenant to "stand as a witness of God at all times, in all things, in all places," and because they loved God. I think that's what the point of all pioneer treks is: to help us understand the love, the willingness to sacrifice, and the consecration of those early Latter-day Saints had and that we can do them same.