Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Year polygamy podcast. I'm your host, Lindsay,

bringing you another episode of the history of Mormon plural marriage. Now, I'm going to give you

a version of a talk that I gave on Pioneer Day to the Oasis group in Salt Lake City, but it's going to have a lot

added to it. Pioneer Day, for those who don't know, is the celebration of the day, July 24th, 1847, when the first Mormon wagon train

arrives in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah. Brigham Young stands from a high hill, overlooks

the valley, even though he's been sick with fever, and says, this is the right place. And then, of course, all the Mormon pioneers

come into this valley. And every year, the Mormons recreate this event. They recreate the pioneers

coming into the valley on Pioneer Day, July 24th. And of course, we have in Utah still what we call

the Days of 47 parade, which is one of the

biggest parades in Utah. I think the LGBT Pride parade is the only parade now that rivals

that parade because it's sort of counterculture. But I grew up as a girl walking in that parade, our ward. We would dress

as pioneers. I remember dressing as a pioneer girl. And in the few short time that Howard W. Hunter

was the prophet, he was there. And we got to sort of see him in our procession. And we just felt really

proud to walk down the streets of Salt

Lake as if we were pioneers walking in the footsteps of our ancestors. Of course, the celebration has

gone on for a long time. It's one of the biggest celebrations in Utah. It rivals the 4th of July.

People get off work here. It's a state holiday. And of course, if you live outside of Utah,

southern Idaho and parts of Nevada and Arizona celebrate the day almost as largely as Utah does.

And of course, even European countries, I've heard of them doing, you know,

recreations of the pioneer journey. And Mormons do the trek. It's a big deal when the when the

pioneers come into Salt Lake. It's it's something that really sort of solidifies Mormon heritage.

And as a church it becomes more global, it becomes sort of a problem to focus on this one event.

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