People can honor their pioneer ancestors in no better way than to espouse in their own lives the values the pioneers exhibited, Elder M. Russell Ballard declared at BYU April 20.

Elder Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve was the keynote speaker at the Utah Centennial Symposium sponsored by the BYU History and Church History departments, Division of Continuing Education and the Alumni Association.Thirteen individual presentations included such topics as the trek to Zion, the Mormon Battalion, preparation for the Nauvoo Exodus, temples in Utah, LDS colonization, and the 19th Century immigration.

Elder Ballard is chairman of next year's Church Pioneer Sesquicentennial and a member of the Utah Centennial Commission.

"If in our own lives and in our own families we will implement these basic principles of selflessness, service, integrity, hard work and discipline - all characteristics evident in the lives of those who conquered the wilderness - perhaps we would come closer to conquering the wilderness of our day found in violence, pornography and drugs that are a growing problem in nearly every community," he said.

Elder Ballard remarked that celebration of the centennial and sesquicentennial is done in the name of "the greatest Pioneer who ever was or ever will live upon the face of the earth. For no pioneer was like unto the Savior of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. To Him we owe our lives."

It was a dedication to Christ that motivated the pioneers to make the sacrifices they did, Elder Ballard noted.

"I would pray that our Father in Heaven would bless you and me as we celebrate this great pioneering movement, that we may have kindled in our hearts the same kind of love, the same kind of total, complete commitment to the Savior of the world that was manifested by those who struggled and suffered so deeply for the great cause of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

Elder Ballard said he finds it sad that many youth in the Church are not acquainted with the names of Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt and other "pioneers of yesteryear."

"We must not let them lose this," he said. "We must engender in the hearts and minds of the youth of this Church an appreciation for the pioneers and what they did for this great cause of the gospel, because in it there is strength. There is something that happens when we think, study and ponder about the great lives of those who have gone before us. So may God grant us the gift of testimony and the power to teach one another of this great leagacy that is ours."

Elder Ballard presented some "word pictures that will help us remember and more fully appreciate the struggles that forged this great state into what we now enjoy."

He said, "The seeds for the journey west were planted prior to the martyrdom

of Joseph and Hyrum SmithT but it was the forced exodus from Nauvoo that brought reality to the dream of peaceful western valleys established as a refuge from religious persecution."

Between Feb. 4 and October 1846, 20,000 Nauvoo Saints used the path to the Mississippi River known as the "trail of tears" to cross the river and begin the trek, he said. He spoke of their hardship in crossing the plains of Iowa in the bitter cold, huddling in tents, wagons and whatever temporary shelter they could erect."

In fact, the Iowa portion of the journey "is really a part of our pioneer history that needs to be spoken of more and taught more," he said.

"Unwavering faith in the cause of the Restoration, . . . courage and sheer determination made it possible for the survivors to endure the cold, hunger and deaths of loved ones," he added.

Elder Ballard said, "It is remarkable what the citizens of Iowa, not members of the Church, are doing to celebrate our pioneers who now are their pioneers. They've adopted them."

Among the "word pictures" he gave were of his great-grandparents who joined the Church in England and gathered to Zion, and of a survivor of the Martin handcart company who testified that the members of the company grew close to God by learning to rely on Him in their suffering.