“The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead.” (Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 475)
Temple and family history is not a task. It’s a journey, one that begins in the home, where we learn—perhaps for the first time—the stories of our ancestors, and ends in the temple, where we perform the ordinances of salvation in their behalf. (Family Search quote)
President Russell M Nelson has said the following: "Consider the spiritual connections that are formed when a young woman helps her grandmother enter family information into a computer or when a young man sees the name of his great-grandfather on a census record. When our hearts turn to our ancestors, something changes inside us. We feel part of something greater than ourselves. Our inborn yearnings for family connections are fulfilled when we are linked to our ancestors through sacred ordinances of the temple."
He goes on to say: "While temple and family history work has the power to bless those beyond the veil, it has an equal power to bless the living. It has a refining influence on those who are engaged in it. They are literally helping to exalt their families.
Those links, welded through sacred ordinances, lead to the exaltation of our families. That this sacred goal may be realized for each of us is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, amen." (Generations Linked in Love, April 2010 General Conference)
I'm closing with a quote from Joseph Smith in D&C 128:24: “The great day of the Lord is at hand …, ” he said. “Let us, therefore, as a church and a people, and as Latter‑day Saints, offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness; and let us present in his holy temple … a book containing the records of our dead, which shall be worthy of all acceptation.”
President Nelson has also said we are preparing the world for the second coming of the Lord. I testify that as we will engage in this work of Salvation, we will see the heavens open in our lives, and we will experience as much a fulness of joy as we can in this life, and in the life to come, our joy will be full as we dwell together with those whose work we have done in the Celestial courts on high.
This is the work of God, and it's made available to us by the Atonement of his only Begotten Son, who stands at the head of this work and this church. We will come closer to him as we engage in this work. Of that I know.
Start today on the Family Tree Mobile App or on the Family Search Website. You can also find other resources on this blog. Family History and Temple work will change your life and the lives of others.
Picture is the Colonia Juarez Temple, courtesy of the Media Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
No comments:
Post a Comment