Programs Honor Brigham Young, Mormon Battalion

Church leaders recently spoke at separate programs honoring Brigham Young and the Mormon Battalion.

Speaking at a lecture series observing the 200th anniversary of Brigham Young’s birth, Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Presidency of the Seventy called President Young “the quintessential man of action.”

The lecture series, “Brigham Young, Prophet, Colonizer, Patriarch: The 200th Anniversary of His Birth,” was held in June at Brigham Young University.

“If he felt something to be right, Brigham Young had no hesitation in pursuing it, even where he could not see his way through to the end or did not at the moment possess means to finish,” said Elder Christofferson. “He was convinced that the Lord would provide whatever he legitimately could not.”

President Young knew from experience that faith comes from working hard and accepting responsibility, Elder Christofferson concluded. “Both Brigham Young’s words and actions bore testimony that if he applied all the resources at his command and asked God in the name of Christ to bless his application of those resources, he could then rely implicitly on God for anything yet lacking.”

During a program in Salt Lake City on 16 June, Elder Lance B. Wickman of the Seventy praised the Mormon Battalion for “their abject willingness to suffer unspeakable privations; their vibrant faith in their God, their prophet, and eventually, in their tough and austere commander.”

Elder Wickman was the main speaker at an annual Mormon Battalion Heritage Day program held at the Mormon Battalion Monument on the Utah State Capitol grounds.

During the program, plans for a Mormon Battalion memorial building at This Is the Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City were announced.

Elder Lance B. Wickman praised the Mormon Battalion for “their vibrant faith” in God at a program honoring the battalion in June. (Photo by R. Scott Lloyd, Church News.)