A Prophet’s Pledge

In the spring of 1848, my great-great-grandparents, Charles Stewart Miller and Mary McGowan Miller, left their home in Scotland and journeyed to St. Louis, Missouri, with a group of Saints, arriving there in 1849.

While the family was in St. Louis working to earn enough money to complete their journey to the Salt Lake Valley, a plague of cholera swept through the area. In the space of two weeks, four of the family members succumbed. The children who survived were left orphans, including my great-grandmother Margaret, who was 13 years old at the time.

The nine remaining Miller children continued to work and save for that journey their parents and brothers would never make. They left St. Louis in the spring of 1850 with four oxen and one wagon, arriving finally in the Salt Lake Valley that same year.

Others of my ancestors faced similar hardships. Through it all, however, their testimonies remained steadfast and firm. From all of them I received a legacy of total dedication to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

With all my heart and the fervency of my soul, I declare that God does live. Jesus is His Son, the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh. He is our Redeemer; He is our Mediator with the Father. He loves us with a love we cannot fully comprehend, and because He loves us, He gave His life for us. My gratitude to Him is beyond expression.

I pledge my life, my strength in serving Him and in directing the affairs of His Church in accordance with His will and by His inspiration.