The first heroes of my young life were surely the early Latter-Day Saint Pioneers. My parents read to us. A lot! I grew up on stories of faith and inspiration. Many stories recounted the courage of those seemingly average folks who crossed an American wilderness on foot in the 1840s.

I marvel at the faith and fortitude that enabled the Pioneers to leave established homes and communities, to strike out westward for a land unknown. How I admire their devotion and sacrifice!

The achievements of those Pioneers are celebrated every year on the 24^th of July. It is an established holiday in Utah and commemorates the arrival of the first pioneer company in the Great Salt Lake Valley. We celebrate with picnics and barbecues, watermelon and lemonade, festivities and fireworks.

But the Pioneers themselves didn’t party. They halted their oxen teams, dropped their handcarts, and picked up shovels. In 1847, no man-made resources awaited the travelers—no market, no pump, no hitching post.

In mid-summer, they broke ground to plant gardens. Surely winter would come to this unknown land, but how soon? They prayed over unsprouted seeds for an adequate harvest of edible crops.

There are hardships that threaten dire outcomes. The Pioneers had no choice but to act. Starvation was the consequence if they failed.

I wonder and ponder. How would I have managed under those meager circumstances? Could I have borne a challenge so severe? I’ve never faced the reality of life-and-death that way.

The Pioneers did. And they managed to rise to the occasion.

They were ordinary people with an extraordinary pursuit. An assortment of leaders and followers, dreamers and doubters, strivers and slackers—these all must have dug in together in the uncultivated “Promised Land.”

Was it also promised to us?

The Pioneers paved the impossible way. Today, these seventeen decades later, the once isolated Salt Lake Valley is paved from side-to-side, front-to-back, top-to-bottom. The Sanctuary of the Saints is no longer remote and sheltered.

And neither are we. As individuals and as a society, we too face a wilderness of sorts—not weather, terrain and privation, but the newly-opened floodgates of information and influence.

I wonder sometimes, would the Pioneers have wanted to stand in our shoes? They did without much of what we discard daily. Their physical environment exacted constant toil and energy.

And us? We suffer a surplus!

We are engulfed by uncountable ideologies, temptations, even possessions. The digital landscape has become inextricable from our lives, our homes, even our pockets. It is both boon of advantage and sinkhole of distraction. Our wilderness holds immense promise. But it is not without serious pitfalls.

That is a blessing of rare proportions! We, too, must rise to the occasion, and discipline ourselves against dire outcomes.

The Pioneers accomplished wonders. They lived and died reaching a new home, building a new world. They labored to make the desert “blossom as the rose.” (Isaiah 35:1) Their achievements have won the admiration of all the ages since.

In ages to come, will future generations look on us and admire our fortitude and faith? Will we live worthy of the example set by the devoted Pioneers?

They planted their seeds too late for a harvest, that first summer. But they were blessed with success and survival. Let’s not forget that they sought the Lord’s guidance and protection. They cultivated their wilderness with prayer and faith in God.

May we do the same with our wildernesses, and blossom the deserts-within-us as the rose.

And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst.     Alma 32:42