This year's Pioneer Day celebrations - held in scores of communities in the West and in many branches, wards and stakes of the Church - have ended. The last colorful float in the parade down Main Street has passed by; the last note of the brass band in the park concert has been played; the last word in the sunrise service has been uttered. This year's Pioneer Day celebrations are now recorded on the pages of history.

Each year, and rightfully so, we pause to pay honor and tribute to our pioneer ancestors. We keep alive the memory of what they accomplished in carving from the hostile wilderness a place of beauty and refuge where they were free to worship God as they desired. We remember the hardships and adversities they suffered as they became homeless, hungry and cold refugees on the plains and in the mountains of America. Tens of thousands trekked westward, following their prophet-leader halfway across the continent.The names and places along the way are indelibly etched in our minds - Sugar Creek, Garden Grove, Mount Pisgah, Council Bluffs, Kanesville, Winter Quarters, Independence Rock, Rocky Ridge, Emigration Canyon and all the other places as they wearily trod from Nauvoo, Ill., to their promised land in the Great Basin.

In our celebrations, we honor the unwavering faith and tremendous courage of the men, women and children who braved piercing winds, bitter cold and gnawing pangs of hunger. We remember their sacrifices, but particularly we remember their allegiance to God and their steadfast loyalty to their religion. We pay tribute to the some 6,000 who so eagerly began their journey but failed to reach the trail's end and perished along the way. So many paid a heavy price in terms of life and health for what they believed.

"I wish to remind everyone within my hearing," President Gordon B. Hinckley said in the October 1991 general conference, "that the comforts we have, the peace we have, and, most important, the faith and knowledge of the things of God that we have, were bought with a terrible price by those who have gone before us."

Celebrating Pioneer Day is a great tradition. May we never stop doing it. May the memory of these noble and great souls never fade from our minds. As we keep alive our heritage through our celebrations, there is a question we need to ask ourselves:

Are we preserving that for which they paid such a heavy price?

Those who came before us laid the foundation for what we cherish and hold dear in this Church. Are we preserving that for those who will come after us?

At the dedication of "This Is the Place Monument" near the mouth of Emigration Canyon in Salt Lake City in July 1947, President J. Rueben Clark Jr., first counselor in the First Presidency, spoke of the pioneers and asked:

"Can we keep and preserve what they wrought? Shall we pass on to our children the heritage they left us, or shall we lightly fritter it away? Have we their faith, their bravery, their courage; could we endure their hardships and suffering, make their sacrifices, bear up under their trials, their sorrows, their tragedies, believe the simple things they knew were true, have the simple faith that worked miracles for them. . . . Can we do the thousands of little and big things that made them the heroic builders of a great commonwealth." (Church News, Aug. 2, 1947, p.9.)

President Ezra Taft Benson, in the October 1976 general conference, said:

"There should be no doubt what our task is today. If we truly cherish the heritage we have received, we must maintain the same virtues and the same character of our stalwart forebears - faith in God, courage, industry, frugality, self-reliance and integrity."

Recently, a man was telling his friend about one of his pioneer ancestors. He spoke of his ancestor's accomplishments in terms of praise and gratitude. It was obvious that the man was proud of his ancestor for the legacy he left and held him in high esteem.

His friend quietly asked, "Is your pioneer ancestor as proud of you as you are of him?"

Certainly that question could be asked of each of us.

Are we living the type of lives that would make our ancestors proud of us? Are we doing the things that would bring honor to the name of those who paid such a dear price for the blessings we now enjoy? Are we preserving what they cherished and held sacred?

How we answer these questions could well determine what legacy we leave for our own children and grandchildren.