THE FOUNDATION OF SACRIFICE

"The question was asked, how Brigham Young was able to colonize a desert.  The answer came simply that by the time he said "This Is the Right Place" most of the physically weak had died and all of the spiritually weak had been left behind...(The Lord) was out to forge steel so hard it could become an instrument for his purposes.  And if the metal was flawed, sometimes it must go back into the forge." (Jerry Lund: "A Stone Cut Out", CES Symposium, August 1989)

It was this kind of commitment that the Lord needed to lay the foundation for the church and this foundation was built and secured by the amazing sacrifices of the pioneers who not only suffered greatly crossing the plains but sacrificed so much more in settling the Great Basin.  The Lord spoke of the foundation of the Church in D&C 1:30:

"And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually".

Between 1847 and 1877, Church members established 349 communities under the direction of the Prophet.  People were called to such places as Colonia Dublan in Mexico, Raymond and Cardston in Canada, Snowflake in Arixona and Las Vegan in Nevada, Lovell in Wyoming, Rupert in Idaho, San Bernardino in California, Legrande in Washington and Kirtland in New Mexico.  I cannot imagine what it would have been like to sacrifice so much to arrive in Salt Lake, my sacrifice over, the reward of gathering with the saints finally within my reach, only to be asked to leave and settle an area I have never heard of and so far away from the headquarters of the Church, the Zion I so wanted to be a part of.  Perhaps those that were obedient to this directive understood by then that the foundation of the Church would rest upon the sacrifices of its' saints and that for the Church to prosper, it could not be insular, that it had to be taken to other communities to flourish. 

Ted Gibbons, a Gospel Doctrine teacher from Arizona, recounts how his great-great grandfather and a brother moved to Payson, Utah, shortly after their arrival in the Valley.  They built homes and established farms or ranches in the area.  One day Brigham called the two of them to leave Utah Valley and settle on the Muddy in what was then thought to be Arizona.   With the call came a promise, phrased something like this: "If you accept the call, your posterity will be as numerous as the sands of the seashore, and they will rise up and call you blessed".  One of them, recently married, found his wife and himself unwilling to follow prophetic counsel.  They remained in Payson.  He later took a second wife.  This marriage produced 2 daughters.  One died in infancy, the other never married.  The other brother's line has had a different experience.  He responded to the direction of the prophet and travelled south.  This past summer a group of his descendants met in a reunion in Utah Valley.  Genealogists in the family told them that through the first six generations, this brother now has over twenty thousand descendants. (Ted L Gibbons, D&C Lesson 36)

Something else worthy of note is that the saints were led to the desert in the west to establish the Church and its community where it's a struggle to grow crops because of lack of rainfall as opposed to the east where farms flourish without irrigation.  Just getting water and food would have been an amazing challenge for the Mormon pioneers.  All that they had been through up to that time would have prepared them for this challenge and sifted the wheat from the tares.  The Lord needed a strong people to be the foundation of His Church and those who were the strongest remained to face this challenge.  Many saints were tempted to go on to other, less demanding places and there was pressure on Brigham Young to settle California with its richer soil, its mild climate and its gold fields but Brigham Young was more concerned about the saints' spiritual welfare than their comfort.  President Gordon B. Hinckley observed of the Saints in the Great Basin: "Notwithstanding the temptation to go to the California goldfields, where the entire world seemed to be rushing, the people accepted their leader's words.  They stayed here and grubbed the sagebrush and made their way.  Brigham Young's prophecy has been fulfilled.  This is now a great and beautiful and fertile area."