Our Area Plan encourages members to more actively participate in Family History work and in Temple Ordinances as part of the process to develop a deeper faith in the Savior.
This objective is based on the invitation of President Russel M. Nelson:
'Now, to each member of the Church I say, keep on the covenant path. Your commitment to follow the Savior by making covenants with Him and then keeping those covenants will open the door to every spiritual blessing and privilege available to men, women, and children everywhere.
“As a new Presidency, we want to begin with the end in mind. For this reason, we’re speaking to you today from a temple. The end for which each of us strives is to be endowed with power in a house of the Lord, sealed as families, faithful to covenants made in a temple that qualify us for the greatest gift of God—that of eternal life. The ordinances of the temple and the covenants you make there are key to strengthening your life, your marriage and family, and your ability to resist the attacks of the adversary. Your worship in the temple and your service there for your ancestors will bless you with increased personal revelation and peace and will fortify your commitment to stay on the covenant path. '1
I would like to tell you of an experience that strengthened my understanding of temple worship and the benefits it brings to us and our ancestors.
It was Holy Week. The traditional activities commemorating the last week of the Savior were present everywhere. The Christian world joined the celebration, more motivated by tradition than by understanding.
At one point on that Good Friday, I stopped to reflect on the words that Christ expressed to Martha at Lazarus’ tomb. With deep attention and hope, she listened as “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
“And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?'2
As the words of hope and faith nested in her heart, the reality of the miracle followed. Lazarus was called to life and to be among his own again.
'If I believe,' I told myself, 'we will all live again after we die.'
Immediately my thoughts turned to my ancestors and the words revealed to the prophet Joseph F. Smith, just weeks before his death, came to my mind in connection with the experience of Martha and Maria.
'While this vast multitude waited and conversed, rejoicing in the hour of their deliverance from the chains of death, the Son of God appeared, declaring liberty to the captives who had been faithful;
“And there he preached to them the everlasting gospel, the doctrine of the resurrection and the redemption of mankind from the fall, and from individual sins on conditions of repentance.”3
I thought about some of my family members I knew before they left this life. 'Could it be that they accepted the gospel?' I wondered.
Reflection was followed by the impulse to go to the FamilySearch site and look in my family tree, as if there I could find the answer I was looking for.
When I opened the site and saw that I could also search for information about my ancestors in other sites such as MyHeritage, Ancestry, Findmypast, which are related to FamilySearch, I decided to try one of them.
When I checked it, I saw a family name on the site. Yes, it was the same name as my great-uncle, married to the sister of my maternal grandmother. It was not a common surname and it was not easy to pronounce.
The person with that last name was the administrator of a family tree. Upon entering that tree I found a family treasure. Before my eyes appeared more than 50 names with photos, names, dates, professions, and even with the nicknames by which some of them were known.
The time passed very quickly. I did not want to stop recording the information that had miraculously appeared before me.
Until that moment, that surname and that branch of the family, were not on my agenda because I did not have enough information.
At the end of the day, my thoughts returned to the question: “And my ancestors, have they accepted the gospel?'
Tears ran down my cheeks as I said to myself, 'Yes,' and again Martha's words to the Savior came to my mind as an echo, 'Yes, I believe.'
As our family began to perform the ordinances for that family line, the tree began to bloom. There were no longer only 50 names as many more were found when the desire to know and do came to my mind and heart.
'Behold, the field was ripe, and blessed are ye, for ye did thrust in the sickle, and did reap with your might, yea, all the day long did ye labor; and behold the number of your sheaves! And they shall be gathered into the garners, that they are not wasted.'4
I invite you to make temple worship and service a priority, to discover your ancestors, to register their names, to remember them, and to gather them in safety in the 'barn' or temple of the Lord through the ordinances of salvation.
1.- We Go Forward Together- Liahona Abril, 2018
2.- John 11:25,26
3.- D&C 138:18-19
4.- Alma 26:5
