The president of the Corydon 2 branch recently asked me to speak in his sacrament meeting on family history work. The following is a reconstruction of my talk.
leer este artículo en castillano/español
We've got to go into the family business!
During this Christmas season, I saw once again with my kids the movie "Santa Claus". In the movie, Santa Claus falls down from on top of the house. Dad puts his coat on and becomes the new Santa Claus. Seeing this, his son said he wanted to "go into the family business", which was being be Santa Claus.
Our Savior Jesus Christ came to do for us something we can't do for ourselves. He wanted to do this because we are His family, and because He loves us. He wanted to be like His dad - our Heavenly Father - and enter the family business, which for him was saving us.
I think the best way that we can return this great favor and follow the example of our Savior, showing our Heavenly Father that we want to go into in the family business, is by doing family history work, which is to find and perform ordinances in behalf of our family members - something they cannot do for themselves.
A desire to do baptisms at the temple
While I was on my mission in Venezuela, I found out that my grandmother had paid a genealogist to search for a bunch of our ancestors. She was a convert to the church, so not much work had been done on that lineage. She sent all that work to the temple so their ordinances could be completed. That day for me, I gained the hope that someday I could find enough members of my family to take some living members - my father, my mother, my brothers and sisters - to the temple to do baptisms.
That desire never left me.
A week in institute
While I was studying in college, I took a church institute class. As part of that class, I participated in a week of training in the family history lab. During that week, I felt many times the presence of a large group of people behind me, as if they were watching me. I could not see them, but I knew they were there and I knew who they were, because I felt they were very interested in what I was doing, with their names all over my computer screen.
However, at the end of that week , I did not feel I had learned enough to prepare someone's name to go to the temple. All too soon, I gave up.
A small family reunion
A few years passed, and my younger brother married a family historian. Since she was a descendant of pioneers, and her family had been members of the church since then, the family history and ordinances of her family had been done long ago. So, she was very happy to have married into a family that needed so much work.
One night we had a small family reunion with my grandparents, uncles and aunts, dome of my Dada's cousins, and some of my brothers and sisters and our families. This sister-in-law of mine brought some pictures of a grandfather of mine, many back. She told us about his life, his blacksmith shop, his wife, son and daughter, the neighborhood where he had lived. As she spoke, I could feel the presence of this grandfather. He seemed to have a strong desire to be there to tell me these things himself. He wanted to share his life with me, and I realized that the only way he could do that was that I had to looking for him.
That night, for the first time I fully realized that my ancestors, even though they are dead, still exist and are still real human beings - human beings who have feelings, hopes, dreams and fears... human beings who have a great need they cannot meet themselves. I realized that I had to help them with that need.
The problem was, I didn't know how.
We want you to find us!
A short time later, I attended a special lesson on how to index records in FamilySearch. Hearing how easy it was to download a few records, copy them into the computer and then upload them, I decided to give it a try .
I was able to index a lot of records, and I could feel the gratitude of the people I had helped. As I was uploading one project, I felt again the presence of a large group of people - the same group whose presence I had felt in my institute class. They seemed to say how great a thing it was that I had indexed so many records, but they begged me; they pleaded with me, saying, "We want you to find us!"
At that point, I decided I needed to try again. I decided to ask my sister and my sister-in-law to help me. They taught me a lot of things. They gave me information they already had about my family, and they helped me set up my account in Ancestry and FamilySearch. In the course of learning how to use Ancestry, I found quite a few members of my family - never realizing how many of them had enough information and could have gone to the temple.
But, not knowing how to take that step to submit the names to the temple, I gave up once again. What I needed most was someone to sit next to me, to help me from beginning to end, from finding a new person to having an ordinance card in my hands.
An hour and a half with Brother Celaya
More years went by; my wife and I and our children moved to another house, in another neighborhood where there was an excellent family historian named Brother Celaya. One day after sacrament meeting, this brother Celaya grabbed me by the arm, pulled me into his office, sat me in front of the computer, and told me to do this and click here, and then do that... Inside of an hour and a half, I saw for the first time that little temple icon indicating that we had succeeded in preparing my grandfather's uncle whose name was "Mervin" to be baptized in the temple.
Very excited, I went home and found his wife Hallie. Often, while I was looking for more information about them, I could feel the presence of my aunt Hallie, grateful to see her name once again on my computer screen.
Since they were recently deceased, I had to get permission from the church to do their ordinances. When they gave it, I felt a joy too great to describe! I went to the family history center to print cards for the temple. When I went to the printer to get them, I was not alone. Waiting for the cards to come out, felt the presence of that same group of people again, overjoyed at what we had accomplished! I could feel the excitement of Mervin and Hallie, knowing that they were going to be receiving their ordinances.
Baptism and Great Joy
Finally, the day came to take Hallie and Mervin to the temple to be baptized. I will never be able to forget the great joy I felt as I baptized my mother-in-law in behalf of my Aunt Hallie! After the baptism, we left the water, and I went to the locker room to change my clothes. Luckily, I found myself alone, because immediately, I began to cry for of the great joy I felt. It was a joy that filled me completely and then just kept coming, like an unending flood! I could feel how clean and how free my Uncle Mervin and Aunt Hallie felt, almost as if I myself had been baptized that day.
Sealed for all eternity
After a few weeks, we completed the initiatories and endowments for my Uncle Mervin and my Aunt Hallie. At the end of Mervin's endowment, I could see in my mind and feel and know that the two had reunited, rejoicing that they had received so many ordinances. Now the only thing left was to be sealed!
One day, my wife and I decided to go to the temple. At the very moment when my wife said she wanted to do some sealings, I felt the presence of my Aunt Hallie, overjoyed, because she knew that today was the day she would be sealed to her husband for time and all eternity!
In that room, kneeling at the altar across from my wife, the tears flowed, and I felt yet another flood of great joy. As he finished with the ordinance, the sealer's voice was trembling, and he also had tears in his eyes. He thanked us for having shared that experience with him.
Family history work is missionary work
Quite often, when I find a new person in my family, I can sense through the Spirit how that person feels about the fact that I have found him or her. Some immediately rejoice because they know they will not wait much longer to receive their ordinances. Many don't seem to know what I'm doing at that moment. But after I have performed some ordinances, I have felt that some come to accept them anyway. In other words, I believe that in doing this work, I am teaching my ancestors the importance of it. I believe they are able to ask questions on the other side, and I believe there are those who teach them, and so they come to accept their ordinances.
What I am saying is that temple work is missionary work. In doing family history work, we are missionaries, and our ancestors are our investigators! We've got to teach them the gospel!
Imagine how it must feel to those who learn and accept the gospel first, and then have to wait for their living descendants to find them and carry out their ordinances! Let us not allow them to wait any longer than they already have!
This work makes temple attendance a personal thing
Before I started doing this work, for me, attending the temple was something I did because I needed to. It was something I did because I had let too much time go by between visits to the temple. It was something I did because I needed to counsel with my Heavenly Father about something important in my life.
But now that I am a historian in my family, attendance at the temple has become an opportunity to serve my ancestors. I no longer do the ordinances I want to do, but rather the ones they need most. I can't let so much time go by between trips to the temple because, every night before I go to bed, I see the pile of cards containing the names of so many members of my family who still have great need of my help.
When I go to the temple, I go for someone I know. When I go to the temple I see that card and I know when he was born, when he died, where he lived, who his wife and parents were, what he did for work, the names of his children. Often when I go to the temple, I know how these people feel about the opportunity to receive the ordinance I am doing for them. I cannot count how many times I have felt the great joy of the person for whom I have done ordinances. I cannot count how many times I have felt the great joy of a certain group of people behind me, as if they were watching me, rejoicing once again at what we have accomplished!
These people are not just members of my family who dwell in a faraway place among the spirits of the dead. These are my dear friends! I believe every one of our ancestors have been promised that if their ordinances can be carried out before that great day when Christ comes again, they will be able to come with Him in the clouds, in great glory. (see Doctrine and Covenants 76:50-69)
I believe that day will be a day of great joy, a day of happy reunion. There will be tears and hugs when, once again, we meet face to face those for whom we have done so much. But this can only be if we get started in this labor of love, this labor of doing our family history!
For me, temple attendance has become a very personal thing!
Spiritual First Aid
Today, President Romney announced an activity to learn to do first aid. He said that if we wanted to learn to save a person who is about to die, we can attend this class.
Brothers and sisters, I invite you: if you want to learn to save a person who has died, both spiritually and temporally, come! Come and learn how to give them a form of spiritual first aid! Come learn how to do family history! Come and experience with me the great joy of doing for them what they cannot do for themselves!
Every third Tuesday from 6:00 to 8:00 pm I'm at the stake building, in the family history center. Come, and I'll teach you. I am willing to do a class here in this building, to make it easier for you to learn. If we don't have the opportunity to sit down together, we can do it by phone - President Romney has my phone number. Come, and I will teach you.
Not so long ago, genealogy was a very slow process that involved spending hours reviewing a whole record, looking for a single name, a single piece of information. We had to write to the First Presidency to ask permission to do the ordinances. We had to wait several weeks for a response. But not anymore! With the computer technology we have these days, it is so much faster! Records and information can be searched and found in seconds or minutes instead of hours or days. We can reserve ordinances instantly instead of waiting weeks. This work has never been easier in all of its history! It is now possible to find enough family members in need so that you and your living family members will never ever have to go to the temple without bringing with you the name of a member of your family!
After a lot of work, I have been able to find hundreds of members of my family who need me and the living members of my family to do their temple work. I do not say this to show how great a historian I am; there are those who have done ever so much more than I have. I say this because I am lazy. I prefer to procrastinate and not have to work. I prefer to spend my Sundays playing with my children or watching a spiritual movie with them. It took me many years and several attempts until I finally learned to do all of this.
If someone like me can manage to do so much work on my family history, you can do it too. I don't want to let it take you as long as it did me to get started. To the extent possible, I want to sit next to each person who wants to learn, and help you from start to finish - from finding a new person, to printing the cards to do ordinances - as Brother Celaya did for me and for my family!
Why in the valley of death should they weep?
Finally, I leave you with one thought: there is a hymn that speaks of the need we have of our Good Shepherd, who is Jesus Christ. It is a hymn that speaks of our faith that He is coming to rescue us from sin and error. But as I read these words, I can't help but think of my ancestors. I hear them expressing their confidence in my effort, telling of the great hope they feel seeing me do it, and the great desire they have to receive their temple ordinances, the great desire they have that I keep trying to find them!
Hymn #6, "Redeemer of Israel" reads:
"We know he is coming
To gather his sheep
And lead them to Zion in love,
For why in the valley
Of death should they weep
Or in the lone wilderness rove?"
"How long we have wandered
As strangers in sin
And cried in the desert for thee!
Our foes have rejoiced
When our sorrows they've seen,
But Israel will shortly be free."
"As children of Zion,
Good tidings for us.
The tokens already appear.
Fear not, and be just,
For the kingdom is ours.
The hour of redemption is near."
Let's Get Started!
We have indeed been given much, and we too must give. I cannot see another's lack and I not share. I shall divide my gifts from thee with ev'ry brother that I see who has the need of help from me. How can we enjoy the great blessings of the restored gospel, and not share them with our ancestors? Brothers and sisters, come! Let's learn! Let's do together for our ancestors what they cannot do for themselves! Let's start giving our ancestors the spiritual first aid they so badly need! Let's go into the family business together - the business of saving our families!
I leave you this invitation in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Also of Interest
My ward family history website provides tutorials and other resources to help you get started in doing family history research:
http://nastake.org/wards-and-branches/new-albany-ward/family-history-and-temple-work/
leer este artículo en castillano/español
We've got to go into the family business!
During this Christmas season, I saw once again with my kids the movie "Santa Claus". In the movie, Santa Claus falls down from on top of the house. Dad puts his coat on and becomes the new Santa Claus. Seeing this, his son said he wanted to "go into the family business", which was being be Santa Claus.
Our Savior Jesus Christ came to do for us something we can't do for ourselves. He wanted to do this because we are His family, and because He loves us. He wanted to be like His dad - our Heavenly Father - and enter the family business, which for him was saving us.
I think the best way that we can return this great favor and follow the example of our Savior, showing our Heavenly Father that we want to go into in the family business, is by doing family history work, which is to find and perform ordinances in behalf of our family members - something they cannot do for themselves.
A desire to do baptisms at the temple
While I was on my mission in Venezuela, I found out that my grandmother had paid a genealogist to search for a bunch of our ancestors. She was a convert to the church, so not much work had been done on that lineage. She sent all that work to the temple so their ordinances could be completed. That day for me, I gained the hope that someday I could find enough members of my family to take some living members - my father, my mother, my brothers and sisters - to the temple to do baptisms.
That desire never left me.
A week in institute
While I was studying in college, I took a church institute class. As part of that class, I participated in a week of training in the family history lab. During that week, I felt many times the presence of a large group of people behind me, as if they were watching me. I could not see them, but I knew they were there and I knew who they were, because I felt they were very interested in what I was doing, with their names all over my computer screen.
However, at the end of that week , I did not feel I had learned enough to prepare someone's name to go to the temple. All too soon, I gave up.
A small family reunion
A few years passed, and my younger brother married a family historian. Since she was a descendant of pioneers, and her family had been members of the church since then, the family history and ordinances of her family had been done long ago. So, she was very happy to have married into a family that needed so much work.
One night we had a small family reunion with my grandparents, uncles and aunts, dome of my Dada's cousins, and some of my brothers and sisters and our families. This sister-in-law of mine brought some pictures of a grandfather of mine, many back. She told us about his life, his blacksmith shop, his wife, son and daughter, the neighborhood where he had lived. As she spoke, I could feel the presence of this grandfather. He seemed to have a strong desire to be there to tell me these things himself. He wanted to share his life with me, and I realized that the only way he could do that was that I had to looking for him.
That night, for the first time I fully realized that my ancestors, even though they are dead, still exist and are still real human beings - human beings who have feelings, hopes, dreams and fears... human beings who have a great need they cannot meet themselves. I realized that I had to help them with that need.
The problem was, I didn't know how.
We want you to find us!
A short time later, I attended a special lesson on how to index records in FamilySearch. Hearing how easy it was to download a few records, copy them into the computer and then upload them, I decided to give it a try .
I was able to index a lot of records, and I could feel the gratitude of the people I had helped. As I was uploading one project, I felt again the presence of a large group of people - the same group whose presence I had felt in my institute class. They seemed to say how great a thing it was that I had indexed so many records, but they begged me; they pleaded with me, saying, "We want you to find us!"
At that point, I decided I needed to try again. I decided to ask my sister and my sister-in-law to help me. They taught me a lot of things. They gave me information they already had about my family, and they helped me set up my account in Ancestry and FamilySearch. In the course of learning how to use Ancestry, I found quite a few members of my family - never realizing how many of them had enough information and could have gone to the temple.
But, not knowing how to take that step to submit the names to the temple, I gave up once again. What I needed most was someone to sit next to me, to help me from beginning to end, from finding a new person to having an ordinance card in my hands.
An hour and a half with Brother Celaya
More years went by; my wife and I and our children moved to another house, in another neighborhood where there was an excellent family historian named Brother Celaya. One day after sacrament meeting, this brother Celaya grabbed me by the arm, pulled me into his office, sat me in front of the computer, and told me to do this and click here, and then do that... Inside of an hour and a half, I saw for the first time that little temple icon indicating that we had succeeded in preparing my grandfather's uncle whose name was "Mervin" to be baptized in the temple.
Very excited, I went home and found his wife Hallie. Often, while I was looking for more information about them, I could feel the presence of my aunt Hallie, grateful to see her name once again on my computer screen.
Since they were recently deceased, I had to get permission from the church to do their ordinances. When they gave it, I felt a joy too great to describe! I went to the family history center to print cards for the temple. When I went to the printer to get them, I was not alone. Waiting for the cards to come out, felt the presence of that same group of people again, overjoyed at what we had accomplished! I could feel the excitement of Mervin and Hallie, knowing that they were going to be receiving their ordinances.
Baptism and Great Joy
Finally, the day came to take Hallie and Mervin to the temple to be baptized. I will never be able to forget the great joy I felt as I baptized my mother-in-law in behalf of my Aunt Hallie! After the baptism, we left the water, and I went to the locker room to change my clothes. Luckily, I found myself alone, because immediately, I began to cry for of the great joy I felt. It was a joy that filled me completely and then just kept coming, like an unending flood! I could feel how clean and how free my Uncle Mervin and Aunt Hallie felt, almost as if I myself had been baptized that day.
Sealed for all eternity
After a few weeks, we completed the initiatories and endowments for my Uncle Mervin and my Aunt Hallie. At the end of Mervin's endowment, I could see in my mind and feel and know that the two had reunited, rejoicing that they had received so many ordinances. Now the only thing left was to be sealed!
One day, my wife and I decided to go to the temple. At the very moment when my wife said she wanted to do some sealings, I felt the presence of my Aunt Hallie, overjoyed, because she knew that today was the day she would be sealed to her husband for time and all eternity!
In that room, kneeling at the altar across from my wife, the tears flowed, and I felt yet another flood of great joy. As he finished with the ordinance, the sealer's voice was trembling, and he also had tears in his eyes. He thanked us for having shared that experience with him.
Family history work is missionary work
Quite often, when I find a new person in my family, I can sense through the Spirit how that person feels about the fact that I have found him or her. Some immediately rejoice because they know they will not wait much longer to receive their ordinances. Many don't seem to know what I'm doing at that moment. But after I have performed some ordinances, I have felt that some come to accept them anyway. In other words, I believe that in doing this work, I am teaching my ancestors the importance of it. I believe they are able to ask questions on the other side, and I believe there are those who teach them, and so they come to accept their ordinances.
What I am saying is that temple work is missionary work. In doing family history work, we are missionaries, and our ancestors are our investigators! We've got to teach them the gospel!
Imagine how it must feel to those who learn and accept the gospel first, and then have to wait for their living descendants to find them and carry out their ordinances! Let us not allow them to wait any longer than they already have!
This work makes temple attendance a personal thing
Before I started doing this work, for me, attending the temple was something I did because I needed to. It was something I did because I had let too much time go by between visits to the temple. It was something I did because I needed to counsel with my Heavenly Father about something important in my life.
But now that I am a historian in my family, attendance at the temple has become an opportunity to serve my ancestors. I no longer do the ordinances I want to do, but rather the ones they need most. I can't let so much time go by between trips to the temple because, every night before I go to bed, I see the pile of cards containing the names of so many members of my family who still have great need of my help.
When I go to the temple, I go for someone I know. When I go to the temple I see that card and I know when he was born, when he died, where he lived, who his wife and parents were, what he did for work, the names of his children. Often when I go to the temple, I know how these people feel about the opportunity to receive the ordinance I am doing for them. I cannot count how many times I have felt the great joy of the person for whom I have done ordinances. I cannot count how many times I have felt the great joy of a certain group of people behind me, as if they were watching me, rejoicing once again at what we have accomplished!
These people are not just members of my family who dwell in a faraway place among the spirits of the dead. These are my dear friends! I believe every one of our ancestors have been promised that if their ordinances can be carried out before that great day when Christ comes again, they will be able to come with Him in the clouds, in great glory. (see Doctrine and Covenants 76:50-69)
I believe that day will be a day of great joy, a day of happy reunion. There will be tears and hugs when, once again, we meet face to face those for whom we have done so much. But this can only be if we get started in this labor of love, this labor of doing our family history!
For me, temple attendance has become a very personal thing!
Spiritual First Aid
Today, President Romney announced an activity to learn to do first aid. He said that if we wanted to learn to save a person who is about to die, we can attend this class.
Brothers and sisters, I invite you: if you want to learn to save a person who has died, both spiritually and temporally, come! Come and learn how to give them a form of spiritual first aid! Come learn how to do family history! Come and experience with me the great joy of doing for them what they cannot do for themselves!
Every third Tuesday from 6:00 to 8:00 pm I'm at the stake building, in the family history center. Come, and I'll teach you. I am willing to do a class here in this building, to make it easier for you to learn. If we don't have the opportunity to sit down together, we can do it by phone - President Romney has my phone number. Come, and I will teach you.
Not so long ago, genealogy was a very slow process that involved spending hours reviewing a whole record, looking for a single name, a single piece of information. We had to write to the First Presidency to ask permission to do the ordinances. We had to wait several weeks for a response. But not anymore! With the computer technology we have these days, it is so much faster! Records and information can be searched and found in seconds or minutes instead of hours or days. We can reserve ordinances instantly instead of waiting weeks. This work has never been easier in all of its history! It is now possible to find enough family members in need so that you and your living family members will never ever have to go to the temple without bringing with you the name of a member of your family!
After a lot of work, I have been able to find hundreds of members of my family who need me and the living members of my family to do their temple work. I do not say this to show how great a historian I am; there are those who have done ever so much more than I have. I say this because I am lazy. I prefer to procrastinate and not have to work. I prefer to spend my Sundays playing with my children or watching a spiritual movie with them. It took me many years and several attempts until I finally learned to do all of this.
If someone like me can manage to do so much work on my family history, you can do it too. I don't want to let it take you as long as it did me to get started. To the extent possible, I want to sit next to each person who wants to learn, and help you from start to finish - from finding a new person, to printing the cards to do ordinances - as Brother Celaya did for me and for my family!
Why in the valley of death should they weep?
Finally, I leave you with one thought: there is a hymn that speaks of the need we have of our Good Shepherd, who is Jesus Christ. It is a hymn that speaks of our faith that He is coming to rescue us from sin and error. But as I read these words, I can't help but think of my ancestors. I hear them expressing their confidence in my effort, telling of the great hope they feel seeing me do it, and the great desire they have to receive their temple ordinances, the great desire they have that I keep trying to find them!
Hymn #6, "Redeemer of Israel" reads:
"We know he is coming
To gather his sheep
And lead them to Zion in love,
For why in the valley
Of death should they weep
Or in the lone wilderness rove?"
"How long we have wandered
As strangers in sin
And cried in the desert for thee!
Our foes have rejoiced
When our sorrows they've seen,
But Israel will shortly be free."
"As children of Zion,
Good tidings for us.
The tokens already appear.
Fear not, and be just,
For the kingdom is ours.
The hour of redemption is near."
Let's Get Started!
We have indeed been given much, and we too must give. I cannot see another's lack and I not share. I shall divide my gifts from thee with ev'ry brother that I see who has the need of help from me. How can we enjoy the great blessings of the restored gospel, and not share them with our ancestors? Brothers and sisters, come! Let's learn! Let's do together for our ancestors what they cannot do for themselves! Let's start giving our ancestors the spiritual first aid they so badly need! Let's go into the family business together - the business of saving our families!
I leave you this invitation in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Also of Interest
My ward family history website provides tutorials and other resources to help you get started in doing family history research:
http://nastake.org/wards-and-branches/new-albany-ward/family-history-and-temple-work/
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