After wandering in the wilderness 40 years, the Israelites, now under the leadership of Joshua, were prepared to enter the promised land. As recounted in Joshua 3 and 4, the Lord miraculously parted the waters of the river Jordan so the people could pass through on dry ground.

It was reminiscent of the episode 40 years earlier in which Jehovah facilitated the Israelites' escape from the Egyptians by parting the Red Sea. Not only did it show forth the Lord's might and mercy, it demonstrated that He was with His anointed servant Joshua just as surely as he had been with Moses.

Thereafter, the Israelites were commanded to take 12 stones from the river bed and place them where they could be prominently and perpetually seen. Why did the Lord command this? The reason could be summed up in a single word: remembrance.

"That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones?

"Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever" (Joshua 4:6-7).

And so it goes in our latter-day gospel dispensation. We teach and learn of the goodness and power of God by recording, recalling, re-telling and re-enacting incidents from Church history, thereby reconnecting with our heritage and legacy.

We have placed a monument on Temple Square in Salt Lake City to remind us of what happened in June 1848 when the pioneers, newly arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, were saved from starvation after fervent prayers when flocks of seagulls descended upon and devoured destructive hordes of crickets.

We speak of the lesser-known but just as miraculous occurrence two years earlier on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River across from Nauvoo. Some of the Latter-day Saints, driven from the city but too destitute and sick to immediately undertake the journey west, avoided starvation when flocks of easily captured quail descended upon their camp in a remarkable parallel to an Old Testament event (see Numbers 11:31).

This year, we observe 150 years since the inauguration of the handcart chapter in the 19th century migration of our people to the Rocky Mountains. In June, major celebrations were held in Iowa City, Iowa; and Kearney, Neb.; two main locations along the handcart trail.

At the Iowa City celebration, President Gordon B. Hinckley remarked in a June 11 Handcart Pioneer Commemoration Fireside: "God bless their memories to those of us who live in comfort and ease. . . . We have become a power for good in the world. But we must ever look back to those who paid so terrible a price in laying the foundations of this great latter-day work."

Like the great wagon-train trek that commenced 10 years ago commemorating our Pioneer Sesquicentennial, these recent handcart observances in Iowa and Nebraska were largely organized and executed by friends who are not members of our faith but who nevertheless appreciate the example of courage and dedication set by our pioneer forebears.

We welcome and are grateful for these expressions and efforts by our friends, but it is primarily our responsibility to preserve the memory of our pioneer progenitors' acts of fortitude, heroism and obedience to divine mandate, and the benevolence and blessings of the Almighty to them. This is true whether or not we as individuals have Mormon pioneer ancestry.

We have now entered July, the month when we traditionally remember the trek of the 1847 pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley, which began the modern-day gathering of Israel to the "mountain of the Lord's house" (see Isaiah 2:2-3) preparatory to establishment of the kingdom of God throughout the world. If our children, in effect, should ask us, "What mean ye by these celebrations?" let us be prepared to answer eloquently from scripture, from Church history and from our own family history.