52 Weeks of Blessings- week 30-- pioneer day and freedoms

I like to go against the grain sometimes, ya know not do the same things as everyone around me.... So with July almost over and it being the month we Americans celebrate our freedoms and the month we Latter-day Saints celebrate our freedom in the form of pioneer day, I have chosen this the last Monday of the month to express my thankfulness for the blessing of Freedom.  I am ever so grateful for those who have gone before me to fight and pay for my freedoms.  Freedoms that most of us take for granted.  I am thankful for the soldiers who currently fight for freedom round the world and fight to preserve those freedoms.  I have family members who have worn and currently wear those uniforms and put their lives out on the line to uphold freedom.  

As for those pioneers who fought, in another sense, for their freedoms by heading to the deserts of the west, I didn't personally have family that crossed the plains in those wagon trains or handcarts,  but my husbands family did.  They truly were fighting for their freedoms and rights.  What a sense of relief that must have been felt as that first wagon train crested the mountains and they looked out over the valley and the peace of religious freedom as Brigham Young declared, "This is the right place!"  I am thankful for the blessing of freedom!