Pioneer Story Quilt- Heading Out and Bringing Home

Dear Children,

Late in the fall of 1856 Brigham Young was informed that hundreds of saints, pulling handcarts and traveling slowly, were scattered across the plains.  He knew that without the help of the saints in the Salt Lake Valley most of them would die when winter hit.

The next day in church he got up and addressed the saints:

“I will tell you all that your faith, religion, and profession of religion, will never save one soul of you in the celestial kingdom of our God, unless you carry out just such principles as I am now teaching you. Go and bring in those people now on the plains”

Do you know how hard this must have been?  The saints in the Salt Lake Valley were still getting their own farms and homes ready for winter.  He was asking for the food they were storing for their own families.  Their husbands and fathers would be away for weeks in increasingly cold weather.

Of course it was hard.  But they did it anyways, because our Father in Heaven loves all of His children.  Hundreds of cold, starving saints were picked up by the men who left the comfort of their homes to follow God's command.  They were warmed, fed, and carried by wagon into the Salt Lake Valley.

Credit

In your lives God will call you to help others- to serve missions, to be a visiting or home teacher, to share your talents with the church, to sacrifice to raise a family.  There will be work only you can do.  It will be inconvenient.  It will require that you walk away from other good things you are doing.  It will be hard, but God will be with you as you do the work He asks you to do.

Can you see how the triangles in this quilt block look like they are pointing out and then back in again?  I hope you'll remember that God needs you to go out and bring others back into the safety of the gospel, even when it's inconvenient and difficult.  God and His angels will walk out and back with you.

Love you forever- Mom