As a Home Teacher I once gave a blessing to a single sister with three teenage children just before school began. I sensed she was somewhat discouraged at the challenges she faced. In the blessing I said that, like a Mormon Pioneer in 1848, when in the middle of Wyoming while en route to the Salt Lake Valley was not the time to look around and wonder if the journey was a good idea.

We may at times feel like those of the last wagon. But if we want to stand with others in positions of glory in the world to come, we must work our our own salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12, Mormon 9:27)

“In living our lives let us never forget that the deeds of our fathers and mothers are theirs, not ours; that their works cannot be counted to our glory; that we can claim no excellence and no place because of what they did, that we must rise by our own labor, and that labor failing, we shall fall. We may claim no honor, no reward, no respect, nor special position or recognition, no credit because of what our fathers were or what they wrought. We stand upon our own feet in our own shoes. ”