In the late 1850's, thousand of poverty-stricken Scandinavians were lured to America by missionaries of the Latter-day Saints with promises of great prosperity. Ingrid Thirkelsen was assigned to the Martin Party of immigrants, and for the first time she encounters the horrors of polygamy, blood atonement and blind obedience to cult leaders. As she makes the handcart trek across the Plains and Rocky Mountains, a locket she has promised to deliver in Zion and her Ma's Bible giver her comfort and the strength to endure the unendurable.