Legacy: A Mormon Journey

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Legacy: A Mormon Journey
DVD Cover
Directed by	Kieth Merrill
Produced by	Scott Swofford
Written by	Kieth Merrill
Starring	Kathleen Beller Marcus Gilbert
Music by	Merrill Jenson
Distributed by	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Release date(s)	1990
Running time	53 min
Language	English
IMDb profile

Legacy: A Mormon Journey is a 53-minute film produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Legacy depicts the life of two recent converts from the 1830s to the 1890s. This movie was produced for the purpose of being shown in the newly constructed theatre, the Legacy Theatre, in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It was replaced in March 2000 by The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd. Legacy is currently available on VHS and DVD from Deseret Book and the LDS Church Distribution Center.

[edit] Description

“Legacy gives us the emotional dimension of Church history,” says Kieth Merrill, Legacy’s writer and director. “Our goal was to capture the spirit of sacrifice, the spirit of faith, and the spirit of the people and make them real. Through Legacy we can be totally swept away in time and space as we meet early members of the Church—trek with them across the prairies, cry with them as they bury their dead, and rejoice with them as they marry and have children. These were real people who lived and breathed, who worried and cried, and who loved and laughed.”^{[citation needed]}

In Legacy, we view history through the lives of composite characters. There is Eliza Williams, the film’s main character, a composite of several actual pioneer women. The same is true of all of the film’s leading characters. In fact, an effort was made throughout the film to be historically accurate in costumes, sets, and events. Most of the dialogue spoken by the main characters came from pioneer journals or letters. Everything Joseph Smith says in the film is quoted from something that he actually said or wrote.

Legacy begins as eight-year-old Peter Walker watches a crew hoist the statue of the Angel Moroni onto the top of the Salt Lake Temple on 6 April 1892, the day of the capstone laying. He runs home to tell his grandmother, Eliza Walker, about it. As they talk about this event and Peter’s upcoming baptism, Peter asks his grandmother about her own baptism and testimony.

Eliza begins to tell Peter of her life and we see, in flashback, Eliza as a young girl in Fayette, New York, in 1830. She meets Joseph Smith, and he gives her a copy of the Book of Mormon and tells her of the importance of establishing Zion. This sets the theme for the motion picture. Throughout the rest of the movie, we follow Eliza’s life as she strives to find Zion.

We are with her as she endures the struggles at Independence, Clay County, and Caldwell County, Missouri. “Is there no end to our suffering?” Eliza asks at one point. In Nauvoo, Illinois, Eliza meets David Walker, a young stonemason from Liverpool, England, who learned of the gospel from Eliza’s father, a former missionary in England. Eliza and David fall in love. “Remember,” says David, “that with pain, suffering, and patience, God also allows us joy.” Soon they marry and have a son.

We now follow the Walkers as they struggle to help finish the Nauvoo Temple before fleeing across the Mississippi River in the bitter cold of February 1846. “We left with the call of Zion in our ears,” says Eliza, “but the memory of Nauvoo in our hearts.” They move on to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where David joins the Mormon Battalion. As he prepares to leave, he kneels next to his son, gives him one of his masonry tools, and says, “Care for Mama. We have one more temple to build.” As David and Eliza embrace before parting, Eliza, fearing that David may be killed, says, “If we ever meet again, it will be Zion to me.”

Eliza and her family endure the bleak winter of 1846–47 at Winter Quarters, then go west with the Parley P. Pratt wagon train. We are with them as they cross the plains and when Eliza prays for the Lord to heal one of her oxen. As they reach Wyoming, some of the men from the Mormon Battalion, on a special assignment to escort General William Tecumseh Sherman back to Kansas, meet up with the wagon train. David is among them. After a joyful reunion, the Walkers continue westward and enter the Salt Lake Valley in the summer of 1847.

As the aged Eliza finishes telling this story to her grandson, Peter, she gives him the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith had given to her and poignantly says, “Make sure that this legacy of faith may never die.”

As the lights in the theater come back on, you realize that Legacy is more than a review of historical facts—it is a journey of the human heart back through time, an opportunity to figuratively walk alongside the early Saints and, with them, discover our own legacy of faith.

[edit] Dates and Times

This film used to be screened every day at the North Visitors Center on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Visitors Center at the Washington, D.C. temple, and the Visitors Center at the Mesa, AZ Temple. This film was replaced by The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepherd.