July 29,2018
Dear Great, Great, Great Grandchildren,
This week you will commemorate our families journey to Zion as you dress up as pioneers and reenact the sacrifices and trials of our westward trail. Please remember that although your experience will be hard, it will be impossible for you to fail. Food will be plentiful and you will have resources for medicine or other things should you need them. Our journey on the other hand was not so guaranteed. We didn’t have the Twitchell’s providing our food. We were hopeful that the price we would pay would not require our lives. Alas the price was our four small children. Our first babies were twins and they were only 4 years old when we left Denmark to follow the saints to Zion where we hoped we would find the religious freedom our hearts longed for after we were converted through testimony born by the Holy Spirit to our souls that we could not deny no matter the cost. We knew that God knew and he would hold us accountable to him for our fulfilling of his commandments.
Please remember as you are cold, my sweet barefooted babies. Please remember as you are hungry, our limited rations to get to the valley. Please remember as you sing and dance that that was one of the ways we too found joy on our journey. Please remember as you find opportunities to serve and love those around you that Saints in all generations are called to “bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;” Mosiah 18: 8
Please remember that although this will be an “act” for you. It was all too real for us. Leaving our home country and traveling across America was for you!! We did it for you. Our children died to give you the freedom and friends in the faith that only Zion could provide for you. Opportunities such as young women’s, EFY, temple attendance, and young men’s were made possible by our sacrifice in 1867 to leave all that we knew including our language and home to bring our family to Zion. Your blessings now are the inheritance more priceless than any wealth we could give you, please never forget it came with a high price for us.
Please like us, hold fast to your faith even when the shadow of death takes your loved ones from you. Endure with peace in Christ your trials, knowing he will never leave you comfortless, and know that Angels attend you. We watch you from the other side and as Angels helped us push handcarts when we could go no farther on our own, we and many others will be there to help you push whatever burdens you are called upon to carry in this life. We loved you then more than ourselves and we love you no less now.
Your Pioneer Grandparents,
Jacob and Maria Bischoff
Maria had a prayer, which was kind of a motto by which she lived that she would always share with her family. It read:
“Lord help me to be true to myself and faithful unto Thee. I ask not for fame nor wealth. I ask wisdom and goodness. I ask Thee to inspire me with truth, enlighten me with love. Guard me from my greatest dangers, and make me useful to thee. Help me to overcome evil and live the example I would teach. May I be true, faithful, holy of heart and life. Make me equal to my duty, never above it. May my hope by an absolute trust in Thee.”
