Some Latter-day Saints have pioneer ancestors going back almost 200 years. Other Church members are themselves the pioneers in their families. In the weeks surrounding Pioneer Day July 24 — the annual celebration of the first wagon company entering the Salt Lake Valley — Church News staff members share stories of pioneers in their families, some from the 1800s and some from the 1900s. This is the 14th in the series.

When I married Kenny Walton, I was blessed to have married into a family of living pioneers. My parents-in-law, Kevin and Susan Walton, have blazed a trail to follow the truth and God, leaving an example of faithfulness for me and my posterity to follow.

At 20 years old, Kevin “was on a pretty bad trajectory,” he told me. His home life and lifestyle were tumultuous.

His sister had just returned to California after living with cousins in Colorado and joining the Church. She attended meetings at a “steak house” that only served punch, which confused him. To answer this question and more, his sister introduced him to missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As the missionaries taught him about the Church, they helped him learn how to recognize the Holy Ghost and invited him to take Moroni’s challenge.

He did just that. The answer he received “was undeniable to me, in a way that only could come through Heavenly Father,” he said.

“I was in this really awkward spot. I didn’t want to join the Church, but I knew it was true.” Now knowing what God would want him to do, he was baptized.

Looking back decades later, he noted that many of the people he knew before joining the Church “are either dead or in prison.” The gospel “basically saved my life,” he said.

Kevin married Susan Steck, who’d grown up in a “wholesome, good environment” in Colorado and moved to California with her family at 14 years old.

Some years into their marriage, Kevin and Susan renewed friendships he had established with members soon after his baptism. These friends began talking to Susan about the Church.

“We’d get into some pretty deep conversations,” she said. “And next thing you know, it’d be 3 o’clock in the morning, and we’re talking about the Book of Mormon.”

The missionaries who taught Susan also invited her to pray about the Book of Mormon. She received a strong impression of the truthfulness of the Church and was baptized.

“Once I became a member of the Church, it was like, that’s what was missing in my life. That’s what I needed and that just completed me,” she said.