This is the talk I gave in church. The opening is different from the what I actually said and I may have added or subtracted from the content a little but the overall message remained the same.
I would like to congratulate Brother Shepard. When he call to ask me to speak today he put an end to my 20 year streak of not speaking in sacrament. I think the last time I spoke I read an entire Dr. Seuss book, Because a Little Bug Went Achoo! When he told me I needed to speak for 15 minutes, I blurted out that I had never spoken for that long in my life! Not sure how many words would account for 15 minutes I search the gospel of google. Did you know that the average person speaks around 275 words per minute? So doing the math I need to use at least 4,000 words. Hopefully I get close.
A little while ago, I followed my pedigree chart through a maze of ancestors. I found many amazing things along the journey. I ran into several dead ends. Places that I don't have the foggiest idea how to continue the line. I traced one line back to Abraham. Another to an odd pairing, a son of Seth and a daughter of Cain. Does that make me a child of Cain? That sounds like a really bad horror movie, The Children of Cain.
Needless to say, I was very excited! I ran around the house proclaiming what I found. Probably a lot like Lehi after he discovered his ancestry through the brass plates.
After returning home from his service in WW2, My grandpa, was called in to see his bishop. The bishop asked him to serve a mission. My grandpa, probably not too excited about the idea, took some time to think about it and finally agreed. He was called to serve a 2 1/2 year mission to Argentina. After arriving in Brazil there was an issue with his Visa requiring him to wait 6 months until it was cleared up. Back in those days your mission didn't start until you got to the country where you were going to serve. He ended up serving for 3 years. He said the experience taught to always answer the Lord quickly.
Later in life, after he had married and had 5 kids, he took a library on wheels, (A large bus used as a mobile library) and turned it into the first motor home. It was green and rather large so they named it the Jolly Green Giant. They drove east to follow the mormon trail. In Michigan, a car manufacturer asked for a tour. He was eager learn how a family of 7 could live comfortably in it. The DMV and tollways didn't know how to classify it. They finally came up with calling it a housecar so they got to drive at car rates.
My great grandpa Hull, had a stroke and was living on machines. His daughters were told by doctors that he would be a vegetable and they should unplug the machine. They prayed about it. Then following the Spirit they refused. He recovered and went on to serve three missions with his wife. Later, he had heart problems and was told to take it easy. He went right back to working hard and fully recovered.
My Grandma owned her own business, manufacturing drapes. She also had this amazing talent with porcelain. She made dolls and little figures. She was asked by the department store Tiffany's to make and sell one of her porcelain creations. She turned them down because she didn't think she would have the time to keep up with orders.
After the excitement I experienced, I wanted my wife to find it too. So I looked up her chart and found a heart breaking sight. She was as far back her line went. While yes I'm pretty sure my wife was created just me, I happen to know she has an amazing family.
A mother who wanted to desperately to learn to play the accordion as a little girl that her loving parents helped make that dream come true. They purchased an accordion. The same one she plays today for her family and an occasional church service.
A grandpa who grew up on a farm and became a house painter. He was a hard worker. He loved to make his kids laugh! That funny sense of humor was passed on to Tammy's dad.
Her grandma was one of 16 kids! Can you even imagine that?! Where would you go for alone time? She became a cook at a retirement home. At just 16 she became a mother for the first time. She had 5 kids; 4 girls and 1 boy. When one of her daughters died a part of her died too. Leaving a hole in her heart for the rest of her life.
Another of Tammy's grandpas, sometimes around his birthday, would want to have a what he called a shindig (party). He didn't want any presents. He just wanted to spend time with family and friends. He would entertain them by playing his guitar and sing country songs.
One Sunday in December, Tammy's Grandma packed up her son's car for a picnic. The family piled in and drove down the highway looking for a good place to setup. She took out the gas stove and made lunch. People passing by in their cars probably thought they were crazy. Just imagine this everyone was dressed in coats, gloves and winter hats sitting at the picnic table. What a sight it must've been!
These people are family. Each of them wanted the best for their loved ones. They looked forward to the rising generation and welcomed us. On the other side, they must be rejoicing with us when we have that really exciting news! Their hearts surely must ache for us as when we get to the end of our rope and we feel broken and just don't know what else to do. When we struggle I am sure they are praying for us and perhaps offer whatever assistance they can.
Elder Joseph B Wirthlin taught that:
We...have a great debt to our ancestors who have preceded us and who wait beyond the veil for those ordinances that will allow them to continue their eternal progression. This is a debt we can repay for them in our temples.
Our Heavenly Fathers plan needs us to remember and honor our ancestors. I think that is why Malachi 4:5-6 is quoted so much in our scriptures. Our Savior repeated it to the Nephites. The angel Moroni recited it to Joseph Smith not just once, but 3 times! Again to us in the Doctrine and Covenants.
Elder David A Bender taught :
The Spirit of Elijah affects people inside and outside of the Church. However, as members of Christ's restored Church, we have the covenant responsibility to search out our ancestors and provide for them the saving ordinances of the gospel.
Think of the Spirt of Elijah as a seed, planted in the hearts of man. Continually fighting and pushing us to keep our covenant to our ancestors.
We honor our forebears when we "turn our hearts" towards them and help them get those ordinances and make those sacred covenants with the Lord.
Sister Carole M. Stephens reminds us that:
These priesthood ordinances and covenants provide access to the fulness of the blessings promised to us by God, which are made possible by the Savior's Atonement. They arm sons and daughters of God with power, God's power, and provide us with the opportunity to receive eternal life—to return to God's presence and live with Him in His eternal family.
Concerning what this power is Elder M. Russel Ballard said:
When men and women go to the temple, they are both endowed with the same power which by definition is priesthood power…the endowment is literally a gift of power.
When we keep our covenants we made in the temple we are endowed (a conditional gift) with this power and the ability to enter the celestial kingdom. Can we deny that blessing of our dead?
Elder Robert D Hales taught:
The opportunity to enter the temple and to take upon ourselves the sacred covenants therein is one of the greatest blessings available to us in mortality. Then, after we take upon us those covenants, our obedience in living them daily stands as a demonstration of our faith, love, devotion, and spiritual commitment to honor our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. Our obedience also prepares us to live with Them in the eternities. The temple's saving ordinances are essential to—and even the central focus of—the eternal plan of happiness.
The primary purpose of the temple is to provide the ordinances necessary for our exaltation in the celestial kingdom. Temple ordinances guide us to our Savior and give us the blessings that come to us through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Through the blessings of the temple, families can be united together for eternity. We can help our ancestors receive this same blessing by standing in for them in the temple. Linking our generations together for eternity.
First, if they need to be baptized, we can help.
Second, if they have not been endowed with "power", we can help.
Third, if they haven't been sealed to their family, we can help.
Elder Theodore M. Burton was a member of the 70 back in the 70's. One of his roles in the church was growing the family history department of the church. He said:
The promise was made [to our ancestors] that, even if they were born at a time and place where they could not hear the gospel preached in life, God would provide saviors for them from among their descendants so they could eventually receive all the blessings promised them. We are those saviors.
The prophet Joseph Smith wrote a letter to the saints concerning baptism for the dead in Doctrine and Covenants section 128
15 And now, my dearly beloved brethren and sisters, let me assure you that these are principles in relation to the dead and the living that cannot be lightly passed over, as pertaining to our salvation. For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers—that they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect.
We learn an important principle. our ancestors need us and we need them. My abruptly ending family lines need me and I need them. Tammy's ancestors need her and she needs them.
Our ancestors upon accepting our vicarious effort on their behalf shout with "glad tidings of great joy."
President Wilford Woodruff had this to say:
There is hardly any principle the Lord has revealed that I have rejoiced more in than in the redemption of our dead; that we will have our fathers, our mothers, our wives and our children with us in the family organization, in the morning of the first resurrection and in the Celestial Kingdom. These are grand principles. They are worth every sacrifice."
Elder Kent F Richards shared this experience:
…my wife and I entered the baptismal font to participate in baptisms for some of our own ancestors. As I raised my arm to begin the ordinance, I was nearly overcome by the power of the Spirit. I realized again that the real power of the temple is in the ordinances…
Our responsibility is to "receive" that which our Father offers.…everything we do in the Church—every meeting, activity, lesson, and service—is to prepare each of us to come to the temple and kneel at the altar to receive all the Father's promised blessings for eternity.
We honor our ancestors when we remember them and help them obtain these blessings.
Recorded in the 138 section of the Doctrine and Covenants is a vision Joseph F. Smith received concerning the redemption of the dead. Verse 58 reads:
The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God.
If they were unable, for whatever reason, to participate in those ordinances and make those covenants, what hope do they have of obtaining a celestial glory? We may do the work, but they must accept it and be obedient to the covenant.
Elder Quinten L Cook taught us:
The essential doctrine of uniting families came forth line upon line and precept upon precept. Vicarious ordinances are at the heart of welding together eternal families, connecting roots to branches.
The doctrine of the family in relation to family history and temple work is clear…Our doctrinal obligation is to our own ancestors. This is because the celestial organization of heaven is based on families.
I will leave you with these words from Howard W Hunter:
…there are some members who engage in temple work but fail to do family history research on their own family lines. Although they perform a divine service in assisting others, they lose a blessing by not seeking their own kindred dead as divinely directed by latter-day prophets. …those who engage in family history research and then perform the temple ordinance work for those whose names they have found will know the additional joy of receiving both halves of the blessing.
I leave this with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
