At this time of the year, we speak a lot about our heritage, as well we should. We owe much — perhaps more than we can ever express — to those who have gone before.

The walkways of the present are paved with the rocks of hardship of the past, and for that we should never forget those who smoothed the way for what we enjoy today.

Consider those who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor (see Declaration of Independence) that freedom might ring in a land the Lord said was choice above all lands (see 1 Ne. 2:20), a land where certain freedoms are guaranteed, a land where the soil was fertile for the gospel seed to be nourished. Whether these valiant forefathers of liberty were our ancestors or not, we today are certainly the benefactors — no matter where we live in the world — of the price they paid in proclaiming that "all men are created equal [and] endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights."

The heritage of freedom is something that must ever be remembered and guarded.

"As precious as life itself is our heritage of individual freedom," President David O. McKay said. (Gospel Ideals, p. 316.)

Consider further those who had the courage to accept the gospel after it was restored, who faced persecution and even death for their new-found religion; those who crammed into creaking ocean vessels and comfortless wagons or pulled heavy handcarts a thousand miles across a barren wilderness to come to their Zion where they could worship as they desired. Consider the fruits of their trials and tribulations.

"Whether you have pioneer ancestry or came into the Church only yesterday, you are a part of this whole grand picture of which those men dreamed," President Gordon B. Hinckley told a Church Educational System Young Adult Fireside in 1997. (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, p. 450.)

Consider those who joined the Church in later years, who did not cross mountains and plains to come to Zion, but who surely gave up much in their homelands to be numbered among the Saints.

Certainly, our spiritual heritage is a priceless possession and must never be taken for granted.

Consider further the heritage of a good home, of a good family; the heritage of honesty, of integrity; the heritage of righteous living, of moral agency whereby we are able to choose for ourselves.

"A noble heritage has always been regarded as one of life's greatest treasures," Elder Ezra Taft Benson said at the dedication of the Ogden Utah Temple in 1972. (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 161.)

President Hinckley has added: "What a marvelous thing it is to have a great heritage. What a grand thing to know that there are those who have gone before and laid out the way we should walk, teaching those great eternal principles which must be the guiding stars of our lives and of those who come after us. We today can follow their example." (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, p. 451.)

The noble heritage bequeathed to us by our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and on down the line, however, carries with it a responsibility. "We are the trustees to whom their heritage shall pass," President Hugh B. Brown once said. (The Abundant Life, p. 332.) If that heritage is to continue to future generations, we must live our lives in such a way that the principles upon which it is based are perpetuated. We must live worthy of our glorious heritage. We must be "pioneers" — in the sense of one who goes before — to the generations that follow us.

"There should be no doubt what our task is today," said Elder Benson. "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." (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 293.)

President Hinckley, as he spoke in 1997 of the pioneers, said of our responsibility:

"Theirs was a tremendous undertaking. Ours is a great continuing responsibility. They laid the foundation. Ours is the duty to build on it. They marked the path and led the way. Ours is the obligation to enlarge and broaden and strengthen that path until it encompasses the whole earth. "(Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, p. 450-451.)

Truly, our heritage defines who we are, but what we do with that heritage defines what we are.