From the most ancient times, water has held a particular significance to men who are tuned to the Spirit. It was a connection taught the early LDS pioneers through hard, backbreaking effort, and the lessons they learned benefit the worldwide Church to this day.

When the pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley in that hot July of 1847 they knew they had to get crops planted quickly. But, recalled President Wilford Woodruff 51 years later, nearly all of them had been born and raised in the New England states and had no experience in irrigation. "We pitched our camp, put some teams onto our ploughs . . . and undertook to plough the earth, but we found neither wood nor iron was strong enough to make furrows here in this soil. It was like stone."The pioneers dammed the small streams to moisten the earth. And, he told the first Irrigation Congress in 1891, "without this water, this irrigation for which you have met here today, this country would be as barren as it was in 1847 . . . we have had to learn by experience." (Address, Sept. 16, 1891.)

In another discourse, President Woodruff noted that if others "had seen Utah as we saw it, they would never have desired a habitation here, but they would have got out as soon as they could. It was barren, desolate, abounding with grasshoppers, crickets, coyotes and wolves. . . . We went to work by faith, not much by sight, to cultivate the earth." (Journal of Discourses 15:79, April 8, 1872.)

That July the pioneers launched the concept of modern irrigation, for which the Church was to become famous in later years. The noted historian Arnold Toynbee once told a writer that Brigham Young was a genius to have figured out how to save the snows of winter to grow crops in the summer. But, as Wilford Woodruff also said, no one else would have lived in Utah and endured the trials the Saints had to go through. (Journal of Discourses 24:242, July 20, 1883.)

Generations later, a noted scientist who was a lifelong student of irrigation and who became an apostle of the Church, John A. Widtsoe, pointed out the great symbolism in irrigation. The dry desert soil, he said, contains nearly all the elements of fertility. All it needs is the power of a stream of water to bring it to life. The same happens spiritually to people, who have all the elements to bring them back to their Father in Heaven, to blossom into a new life when touched by the power of the Holy Spirit.

From what we know about water, it's difficult not to draw parallels between it and the gospel. Life cannot exist without it. Water endures forever, virtually indestructible. Its eternal cycle through the ground, streams, oceans and clouds means we may be drinking the water the early disciples drank, or even that existed at the dawn of the Earth.

By commandment, water is incorporated in the ordinance of the Church to symbolize our acceptance of a new life and a commitment to follow the teachings of Christ. Jesus preached that we had to be born again: asked how that could happen, He simply said, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John 3:5.) He Himself went under the water in baptism to demonstrate its importance.

While the scriptures are full of allusions to the cleansing and refreshing nature of water, it was Christ who drew the great parallel between it and the gospel. As He sat thirsty on the edge of Jacob's well in Samaria, He asked a woman to draw Him some water. She asked why He, a Jew, would ask a favor of a Samaritan. He responded that if she only knew who it was that was asking her for a drink, she would have asked of Him, and He would have given her living water.

And, He said, referring to the well, "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." (John 4:7-14.)

The pioneers, digging in the dusty and parched ground to create a network of canals and reservoirs that would ensure the survival of the Church, would surely appreciate the symbolism of living waters. But in the meantime, they went about their business, fulfilling the prophecy of Joseph Smith made a decade and a half earlier in the green valleys of Ohio.

"And in the barren deserts there shall come forth pools of living water; and the parched ground shall no longer be a thirsty land." (D&C 133:29.)