(talk given in church 7/26/05)

Pioneer Day


I was surprised when Brother Keeler offer the assignment to talk, again, he told me it was one of the fun things the ward counsel got to do in promoting the Stake Vision.

I would like to touch on the part of the vision that reads. The Lord sees and has shown us the day when the Tempe Stake is spiritually and temporally Self reliant, when all youth prepare to make and keep temple covenants and when every child, youth and adult is participating in the liberation of prisoners on the other side of the veil.

My attempt is to tie that part of the vision in with pioneers, not just the ones who we honor today and are familiar with, but also those that came before and those since.

I may not be who you expected to see on pioneer day. I don’t have ancestors who crossed the plains but I do have some ancestors, 3 that I will tell you about who were and are pioneers.

My first lesson about my ancestors was given one day after school. You see I had been asked by some of the kids at school what I was. I told them I was a girl, I had short hair and I wasn’t sure they knew. That wasn’t what they meant. They wanted to know where I was from. That afternoon I received my first genealogy lesson, my first lesson about the pioneers in my family. This same quick lesson was taught to an unexpecting sister at a stake genealogy fair when my mom came upon her display of the “Daughters of the Revolution”. The sister told my mom that she probably wouldn’t find any of her ancestors in those records. Without missing a beat my mom said something to the effect “you are probably right, because my ancestors had already set up their bread and breakfasts waiting for yours to arrive.” She went on to tell her of her pioneer ancestors that hailed from Spain as one of the first 7 conquistidor families and set up camp in 1598 in what is now New Mexico. I think that the traveling or gotta get away- gene must have been a strong one as now I work and fly with Southwest Air. The family spent many generations in New Mexico and one of my family lines did not leave until 1927. It was great grandpa Lucero one of the great pioneers in my family. What I am about to read to you is a talk that I was lead to that was given by my mother while serving a mission with my father at the Mesa FHC. She continues to help and influence even beyond the veil. So these are her words.

“Without a doubt I know that my life was planned in the pre existence as I suspect yours was I know that I knew my heavenly parents and I made some significant choices with them regarding my turn on earth. By way of blessings, dreams and personal revelation the Lord has confirmed this to me.

As the years have passed these truths have become even more self evident in my life. Ever since I was a small child I have always known of the love that my Heavenly Father and my older brother have for me. They know me as an individual, they care about me. Because of their love and mercy: I have never felt alone. They have always been there.

My story is the work of the master’s hand. It was He who decided in what dispensation of time I would come and to which nation and lineage. Who would be my ancestors, my parents, my spouse, my children and how each would influence my life with the use of the agency he gave me. I am the product of some very significant choices my ancestors made. In Acts 17: 26 it says

My mother told me that in 1918 she had turned 10 years old. She was living in Bernalillo New Mexico, about 18 miles north of Albuquerque. She said that at that time she did not know that she was a descendant of Spanish Colonist that in 1598 had established the oldest and farthest continually inhabited colony of Spain in the New World. All she knew was that all her relatives had inhabited these northern New Mexico mesas for years and years. This was just their homeland. They knew no other. She just knew that she would grow up there, marry raise her children, teach them the traditions, customs, religion, dichos (sayings) and stories she had learned. They would learn to work and become self reliant and honest. To love God, family and country and to die honorably as her ancestors had.
Well, as the story goes, the fall of the same year her parents decide to move to Albuquerque. Her father had a certificate as a school teacher and one in horticulture. He taught school in the winter and ran a successful produce ranch in the summer, shipping fruit, vegetables to established markets by rail. Their ranch was on the fertile lands of the Rio Grande, a Spanish land grant that had always been in their family. She said the family was known to be “well off”. By 1921 her father had become a successful business man. He owned 2 clothing stores in downtown ABQ and one in Gallup NM. They had a nice home and there were now 7 children. My mother had 2 older brothers and she was the oldest daughter. There were five others who had died. During the fall of that same year her parents had been reading the Bible, when her father commented to her mother. “Josephine, I do not think we belong to the true church that Christ established upon the earth.” He continued. “I believe we are in an apostate church. Look what it says in the scriptures.”

Soon they decided to visit other churches after they had asked their priest regarding the things they had read. The priest chastised them for reading the Bible, saying that the scriptures are for the clergy and not for the lay members to read and draw their own conclusions. My grandfather was an intelligent man, a free thinker and the priest said the wrong thing. No one was going to stop my grandfather from searching the scriptures. Every church grandfather attended and studied, he would come to the same conclusion that they all had some truth but not all that he was seeking. In 1922 his search continued and in February they had another set of twin boys and shortly after birth they died. A year later in March a daughter was born and lived. By 1925 grandfather was still looking for the true church, the family was healthy and happy the business was going well and grandfather had two horseless carriages. On May 4th of that year their last son was born and twelve days later my mother’s mother died. She was 41 years old. About 2 months later 2 Mormon missionaries came to my grandfather’s home. My grandfather always believed his wife, from the other side, had something to do with it.


This talk stopped there but I know the rest. The mission president decided that the work was not going well enough and pulled the missionaries from that area. Grandpa Lucero’s luck worsened, his store burned down, which caused him to loose everything including his home. In May of 1927 he decided to leave the bad memories behind, he packed up the kids and moved to Colorado to work in the beet fields. In August of that year in Ft Collins, he found the elders and entered the waters of baptism, to become the first member of his family to join the True church of God. My mom often told me stories about grandpa Lucero, how he loved the Book of Mormon and how he could make the characters come alive. He loved people and took great interest in them, people trusted and confided in him. He had an unwavering testimony and eagerness to share it with anyone that would listen.
There is a post script to this story. The missionary that had originally taught grandpa went home very sad because he did not baptize anyone. Little did he know that grandpa was the beginning of literally thousands that in both this life and the next that joined the church or that has had work done for them.

Now being a pioneer doesn’t mean that you have to give up all your worldly possessions or travel across miles. You can be a pioneer like my father who overcame a trying childhood, of attending many different schools, dictated by where the family had to go to pick crops or deciding that he would not let the evils of drinking take over his life. He is a pioneer in his family because he had the courage and faith to rise above those trials, serve a mission and to gain an education. He was the first to receive a Masters degree in the family.

The courage to take a step of faith is needed today as never before. For many of you, like my husband, the first step of faith was baptism. He then attended the temple and made sacred, eternal covenants with his Heavenly Father. That lead to a call to serve, which gave him the opportunity to learn the language of his forefathers. Just as the early pioneers sacrificed to make their way to the Rocky Mountains, modern day pioneers like Grandpa Lucero, Claudio and Clem and all of you are also on the trail to a mountain—“at the mountain of the Lords house” (Isaiah2:2) That‘s the way the prophet Isaiah referred to latter-day temples, where we make sacred covenants with our Heavenly Father. It is the most important destination we have here on the earth. It is through the ordinances of the temple that we will have the opportunity to see our families as the Lord does and enjoy eternal blessings. We must have the same character and determination that those pioneers had crossing the plains, the faith to walk away from those things that would tear us down or hold us back from our destination, which on earth is the temple and eternally with our families in His presence.

PERU

I am so thankful that my mother was passionate about her roots, that she took time to keep journals and filing cabinets full of stories, pictures of the lives of those that came before. In those files I found a quote from President Kimball that says—We urge our young people to begin today to write and keep records of al the important things in their own lives….get a notebook, my young folks, a journal that will last through all time, and maybe the angels may quote from it for eternity. Begin today and write in it your comings and going, your deepest thoughts, your achievements and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies. “Remember the Savior chastised those who fail to record sacred events.”

Find out about those who came before you. Leave record of your life. Live worthy to attend the temple and partake of the great peace and blessings found there, do the work for your ancestors so that when the time comes to meet them, the greeting will be one of thanks. Be a modern pioneer that future generations will see your example and want to follow.

I am thankful to my ancestors, that they followed the promptings of the spirit. I feel so blessed to be born at this time in history, I know I would have never have made it across those plains. I know as they did, that God lives that Jesus is the Christ and through my efforts and the saving grace of the atonement, I can be with my family forever. I am so thankful for a sweet husband and wonderful children. I am thankful that a young boy, Joseph Smith was not satisfied with part truth and sought for more. I know he was a living prophet and that great man Gordon B. Hinckley serves now as a prophet, seer and revelator in these latter days. I leave you this testimony.