Pioneer Day, which commemorates Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers entering into the Salt Lake Valley on 24 July 1847, is an official holiday that is celebrated each year on 24 July in the state of Utah. The early Mormon pioneers settled in the Salt Lake Valley after being forced from their homes in Nauvoo, Illinois, and other locations in the eastern United States. There are celebrations with parades, fireworks, rodeos, and other festivities in Utah as well as other regions of surrounding states which were originally settled by Mormon Pioneers. Most governmental offices and many businesses close in honor of the day of celebration. In addition, some Latter-day Saints walk portions of the Mormon Trail or reenact entering the Salt Lake Valley by handcart.
Remembering Their Pioneer Heritage in Light of Their Service
As many people gathered to participate in the festivities of Pioneer Day this year, there are other Utahns who are currently serving their country in the faraway place of Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, who took some time out from their demanding mission to remember their pioneer heritage and its significance to their devoted and dedicated service to their country. One soldier, Sgt. Mike Smith, stated, “As I think about spending this time of year away from family and home, I realize once more how much I have been blessed. I think of the pioneers, and know that their struggles were far greater than mine have been.” Sgt. Smith, a member of Dakota Troop, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, is spending his second Pioneer Day in Afghanistan.
The National Guard unit of which Smith is a part of is based in Draper, Utah. The unit deployed in March for mobilization training on the East Coast, and by early May they had arrived in Kandahar. Many of the soldiers in the unit are fourth and fifth generation Utahns whose ancestors helped settle the state of Utah when it was known as Deseret.
For many of the service members from Utah, Pioneer Day has a special meaning as they reflect upon the faith and sacrifices of the early Mormon pioneers in comparison to the things that they have to endure while away from their families serving in Afghanistan. Smith further commented, “My heart ached for families who lost loved ones and rejoiced for those who made it to the Salt Lake Valley alive.” Another soldier, from Pleasant Grove, on her first deployment, commented that she draws strength from thinking about the Pioneers.
When I’m going through a hard time, I realize that it doesn’t compare to the suffering that (Utah) pioneers experienced. They traveled through really rough conditions, but they kept going,” said Sgt. Chloe Card, broadcast NCO from the 128th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment.
Maj. Choli Ence, the commander of the Utah National Guard’s 128th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment, believes that “the pioneer spirit is about working hard to make a better life.” Her great-grandparents emigrated from Switzerland and were among the original settlers of Ivins, in Utah Washington County. She recalls the stories that she heard while growing up:
You always heard stories — my grandpa, you know, his parents were the founding generation. I’d always hear about how he and his grandfather would farm, about how tough it was. They had a hard time growing things,” she said. “But they persevered and prospered.”
They didn’t have a lot of the luxuries that are available to us now. They were industrious people, and despite all the challenges, they put forth effort to survive, to flourish.
The early pioneers were also on a mission. Their mission was to find the place that God had prepared. With faith in every footstep, they gave their all, some even their lives, to fulfill their mission. Even in spite of sometimes daunting circumstances, they never faltered, but continued to press forward by faith.
Senior Airman Austin Aitken, a North Ogden native who joined the military in January 2012, envisions military life as an opportunity to put the pioneer spirit into action. His first assignment was at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, but a few months after he was married, his unit was deployed to Afghanistan. Comparing the deployment to the pioneer spirit, Aitken commented,
The pioneer spirit is stepping out of your comfort zone,” he said. “It’s going out and doing something that normally you wouldn’t do or others haven’t done but being willing to do it. Not a whole lot of Americans get the opportunity to deploy, especially to a combat zone.
It was similar for us in Iraq, in the sense that we lived in austere conditions and had to do hard things. But we just did it,” he said. “The spirit of being a pioneer is having to do something that people haven’t done before, and figuring out how to do it.
Hard work, dedication, and perseverance are not foreign words to these Utah military members. The mission that they are currently serving demands a great deal of their time and complete focus. They are also accustomed to making sacrifices as they leave their families behind to serve the country that they love and to protect its freedoms.
Leopold Anthony Stokowski, one of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th Century who is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra, said, “A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.” And the famous German composer and pianist, Ludwig van Beethoven, stated, “Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.”
These acute statements without question could be used to accurately describe the delightful music that people the world over experience whenever they hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square perform. Through their melodious sound, a listener is transformed into a virtual Picasso as he is able to paint beautiful pictures on the canvas of his mind which gives vitality to what he hears.
Those who love this music will be pleased to know that the world-renowned, 360-voice Mormon Tabernacle Choir has announced their summer 2015 concert tour. Accompanying the choir on the tour will be 68 members of the Orchestra at Temple Square. Their repertoire will include everything from Bach and Broadway to American folk hymns and spirituals. Ron Jarrett, president of the choir, has commented, “There is nothing quite like hearing the choir live in concert. We love going on the road to connect with our audiences on the Eastern seaboard who will experience the pure joy music can bring to the hearts and minds of its listeners.”
The tour begins on 24 June 2015 and concludes on 7 July 2015 with stops in Bethesda, Maryland; New York City, Saratoga Springs, Bethel Woods, New York and Boston, Massachusetts. Tickets are now on sale for the concert to be held in Bethesda. More information about specific dates, venues, and ticket prices can be found by visiting the choir’s website.
The word “bilingualism” may be defined as the ability to speak two languages fluently, or the habitual use of two languages. Being able to speak more than one language, or to at least be conversational in a language other than the one learned in childhood, can prove to be advantageous in several ways.
The Advantages of Being Bilingual
Henri Delacroix, a French psychologist stated, “The individual’s whole experience is built upon the plan of his language.” The ability to converse in a different language opens up many windows and doors of opportunity for an individual not only in an economic sense as The Economist emphasizes by stating that “being at least bi-lingual could increase the average American’s retirement fund somewhere in the ballpark of $67,000 over the course of a career,” [1] but as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof so adequately pointed out, it also allows a person to have extraordinary cultural experiences.
Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist, brilliantly stated, “In the lives of individuals and societies, language is a factor of greater importance than any other. For the study of language to remain solely the business of a handful of specialists would be a quite unacceptable state of affairs.” And Frank Smith, Psycholinguist, Professor of Education and author, stated, “One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.”
The State of Utah Sets a Precedent in Bilingualism
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof stated,
Utah’s capital, Salt Lake City, is an example of a city mixing together with different languages — largely because of the high concentration of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who served missions abroad — and it’s something young people should pursue. [1]
He also points out that language diversity alone is not what sets Utah apart from most other states, but rather, it is language diversity intermingled with a “wealth of international experience,” which he notes is in short supply in the American higher educational system. He further stated,
One of the aims of higher education is to broaden perspectives, and what better way than by a home stay in a really different country, like Bangladesh or Senegal? Time abroad also leaves one more aware of the complex prism of suspicion through which the United States is often viewed. If more Americans had overseas experience, our foreign policy might be wiser. [2]
According to the University of Utah, there are more than 130 languages spoken in commerce in Utah on a daily basis, making Utah a center for both trade and global companies. Thus, it is not uncommon to find the state listed at the top of Forbes list as one of the best states in which to conduct business.
Perhaps it was Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language who stated it best when he said, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world. If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.”
A new, fresh sound has arrived on the music scene. The music group consists of four vocal artists from the Rocky Mountains – McKay Crockett (Sandy Utah), Keith Evans (originally of San Francisco, California), Joseph Moore (Littleton, Colorado), and Ross Welch (Cody, Wyoming) – who are collectively known as Hudson Lights. Together they create “a fresh fusion of contemporary pop and jazz like you’ve never heard before.” [1] Their self-titled CD “Hudson Lights” containing 11 songs debuted in November 2013 and features “classic covers of legends like Frank Sinatra and The Beatles along with two original songs.” [1] Their single “Good to Me” was released on iTunes in September.
A new study by the Pew Research Center shows that Utah is still the place to go if you’re looking for Mormons. Just under 40 percent of the Mormons in the United States live there. If you can’t make it to Utah, almost anywhere in the west will do. Three-fourths of America’s Mormons live in the western United States.
Worldwide, there are more Mormons outside the United States than there are inside it. There are about 14.7 million Mormons in the world and approximately 6.3 million of them live in the United States. Membership in other countries is rising steadily—but then again, so is membership in the United States. The population is moving into other portions of the country as members move or are converted. (more…)
As many people gathered to participate in the festivities of Pioneer Day this year, there are other Utahns who are currently serving their country in the faraway place of Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, who took some time out from their demanding mission to remember their pioneer heritage and its significance to their devoted and dedicated service to their country. One soldier, Sgt. Mike Smith, stated, “As I think about spending this time of year away from family and home, I realize once more how much I have been blessed. I think of the pioneers, and know that their struggles were far greater than mine have been.” Sgt. Smith, a member of Dakota Troop, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, is spending his second Pioneer Day in Afghanistan.
The early pioneers were also on a mission. Their mission was to find the place that God had prepared. With faith in every footstep, they gave their all, some even their lives, to fulfill their mission. Even in spite of sometimes daunting circumstances, they never faltered, but continued to press forward by faith.
