There's a unique way you can honor your own gospel pioneer legacy.

The Church's Pioneer Sesquicentennial Committee is encouraging families and individuals to pay tribute to their pioneer forebears through a Memorial Day project for 1996 or 1997. A centerpiece of the effort is a special Sesquicentennial Pioneer Gravestone Marker made expressly for the event and available to all who wish to so honor their pioneer ancestors.Quoting the First Presidency from a letter of Jan. 29, 1995, E. LaMar Buckner, service project coordinator for the committee, defined pioneers as "those individuals who help establish the Church all over the world. Furthermore, everyone who advances the work of the Lord now and in the future emulates pioneer virtues."

Brother Buckner suggested the project could include the following activities for Memorial Day this year or next year:

- Seek the names of ancestors in your family who would qualify as pioneers.

- Write a history of these pioneers, including photographs, as part of the sesquicentennial celebration.

- Identify, if possible, the graves or cemeteries of those pioneers.

- Organize family members into a work project to clean up and enhance those burial spots.

- Straighten, repair, restore and replace gravestones that are damaged or missing. (Cemetery sextons might assist with information as to how to correctly do this work.)

- Purchase the Pioneer Gravestone Markers, which are to be applied to the head stones. Available for $8 from the Salt Lake Distribution Center after conference.The marker is an anodized, weather-resistant bronze plaque. The number is 80935. To order, call (801) 240-5274 in Utah or (800) 537-5950 outside Utah, or write the Distribution Center, 1999 W. 1700 South, SLC, Utah 84104.

- Identify all uncompleted temple ordinances for your pioneers and their ancestors. Arrange for extended family members to perform their ordinance work in the temple.

Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve is chairman of the committee. At the Salt Lake City Cemetery, he recently exemplified the project by applying the gravestone marker to the graves of two of his ancestors, Joseph F. Smith and Mary Fielding Smith. President Smith is his great-grandfather and Mary Fielding Smith is his great-great grandmother and the wife of Hyrum Smith, the brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith.

With Elder Ballard was his cousin, Janet Nilson, who is also descended from Joseph F. Smith and Mary Fielding Smith.

"We're hoping to celebrate pioneering around the world," Elder Ballard said. "The great celebration in Utah, of course, will be 150 years since the pioneers entered into the valley. But we are anxious that pioneering be celebrated in every place where the Church is, because wherever the Church is there was a pioneer that was the first to be a member of the Church. Wherever in the world, there's a pioneer that began the work of establishing the Church."

He said the committee hopes people will designate those who were truly pioneers and honor them with one of the gravestone markers.

Elder Robert L. Backman, General Authority emeritus and vice chairman of the committee, said: "We've made the definition of a pioneer as broad as we could so anyone could feel that they have a pioneer legacy. Every ward and branch in our worldwide Church is supported by faithful Saints who are committed to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. These Saints are latter-day pioneers."

Elder Ballard added that the committee would welcome all people, members or non-members of the Church, to participate in the spirit of the sesquicentennial celebration honoring their pioneers by identifying them with a gravestone marker.