Happy Pioneer Day

Pioneer Day celebration at our stake center, what a great evening they planned! Yummy food, pioneer games and activities, and what Jonathon liked best of all, horsey rides!! Jake wanted me to saw wood with him with a huge two person saw but I didn't think that would be good for a pregnant girl to do, he agreed :) Great evening followed by baskin robbin's ice cream, so needed after such a hot day!

What a great day today is, so often I have taken this day for granted. This year above all others has touched me the most, not so much it what we did to celebrate today, but because of the way I feel. I feel closer to the pioneers for all that Jake and I have been through this last year. I feel as though I am a modern day pioneer, we all are, in our own ways. I was looking through all my genealogy today on my side and Jake's and through putting some names and dates together found my mom's paternal line, the Ferguson's, were part of the Moses Thurston Company and the James D. Ross Company. I found my maternal Grandmother's lineage, the Malmstrom's and the Bateman's, and they were in the Robert F. Neslen Company and the Livingston and Kinkead Freight Train Company. The Tracy paternal line were part of the Benjamin Hawkins Company and the Joseph Outhouse Company. That is six pioneer companies who traveled across the plains! And I didn't even get to finish, I didn't look for extended family and Jake's grandmother's side, which I know were pioneers as well.

Looking at all the children they had and brought on the trek, some infants, all the way up to teenagers touched me, how hard I thought! I also saw dates of babies who must not have lived long or died before age three. These are my ancestors, women who I now feel so closely bonded too. I feel now more than ever that I can relate with my ancestors, these strong and faithful pioneer women, who suffered like me, both in our different ways. But as I have trudged through this last year, been exhausted by grief as I know they must have been, I feel there is a golden thread woven through generations of time to unite us all. These women had to bury their children in the snow and keep the faith and move along. The Ferguson's are from Scotland, the Malmstrom's from Sweden, the Tracy's from Scotland, the Bateman's from England, and the list goes on. I have heard stories of families who had lost babies aboard ships on there trek to Zion that had to lay their babies in the sea and say good bye, they didn't lose their faith and their goal. How much strength and faith is that?! I look up to these women so dearly and now consider myself a part of them.

I will never lose the faith, I don't know the outcome of my tomorrow's but I know I will always trust in the Lord and in His will for me. He is molding me, like he molded the pioneers, into exactly what kind of woman I need to become. My heart and thoughts are turned to the pioneers today, I am so grateful for them. I know that these great grandmother's of mine have held me up during the times when I had no strength, I know that they comforted me from the other side, knowing how from their own mortal experience of loss. I can't wait to meet them, and I know they love Ryan and are taking great care of him for me until I can.