Winter Quarters Nebraska

I recently returned from my trip to West Virginia. We picked up my brother after he finished his service as an LDS Missionary. On our way back we decided to stop at the Mormon Pioneer Winter Quarters Cemetery in Omaha, Nebraska. Next to this cemetery is a Mormon (LDS) Temple. We had stopped at this historic site to see the temple, but it was a monument in the cemetery that touched me the most.

This monument had a list of names of those who had died during the winter of 1846-47 when the Mormon Pioneers had lived there on the banks of the Missouri River. Around the edges of these names were the words of the song "Come, Come ye Saints". I read the words from that song, "And should we die before our journey's through, happy day, all is well." I have always known and loved this song. But, the words had never reached me like they did just then.

The faith of these Mormon Pioneers had carried them twice across the Mississippi River and the Missouri River and would carry those who survived on across the plains of Nebraska and the Continental Divide in Wyoming. They left their beloved Nauvoo in a mass exidous because of brutal persecution. But they never wavered in that faith. They knew that should they die they would be well with God. They felt in the depths of their hearts that Brigham Young was a Prophet of God and that Joseph Smith had been called of God.

Death was not the end of their journey nor is it the end of ours.