This thought won't help everyone, but it may help SOME:

This church asked members of all ages to leave their homes and TRAVEL THE OCEANS and PRAIRIES to go to Zion. (Later, Zion would be built in their own areas and people would only be disowned, not have to leave their homelands).

Spouses left each other. Children left parents. This was an age of travel and communications when they knew they would never see each other again.

Their marriages ended. They spent all their money just for the voyage, arriving destitute to be under the absolute control of the prophet/mayor/general. They lost children en route. They lost children to his control when they got there. Threatened with destruction if they turned him down, or didn't do what he wanted done.

Why do I bring this up?

Why should they suffer all this to get in, and we not suffer anything to get out?

What I'm saying is - giving our suffering purpose.

Helping us see that sometimes, it's not avoidable to get out without damage.

It's not OUR FAULT any more than it was their fault that they sacrificed when they thought it was right. They did what they felt was right.

We must do the same.

Their folly was in deferring to authority, their willingness to believe, and quite frankly of being very poor and being promised lollypops and free land and everyone living in common and all kinds of economic and spiritual promises. (See the movie Far and Away, more or less).

This thought won't be helpful to everyone, but for some, just comparing what we have to do with what they had to do may be enlightening.