Gospel Story Finder

I love this story of two young men who had been schooled in a monastery. One morning as they sought adventure, they passed a cathedral. The more righteous of the two remembered that they had not prayed that morning and said, “How can [we] hope for [God’s] blessing upon the day?”
The less righteous one responded, “My friend, I have prayed so much during the last two months … that I feel that I have [somewhat] over-prayed myself.”
“How can a man have too much religion?” asked the first. “It is the one thing that availeth. A man is but a beast as he lives from day to day, eating and drinking, breathing and sleeping. It is only when he raises himself, and concerns himself with the immortal spirit within him, that he becomes in [very] truth a man. Bethink ye how sad a thing it would be that the blood of the Redeemer should be spilled to no purpose” (Works of A. Conan Doyle [New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1988], pp. 58–59; italics added).

Over the years I have had problems that I have not been able to overcome by myself. Once when I had such a problem, I remembered President Benson’s challenge to read the Book of Mormon. I took the book from the shelf and began to read. I was surprised! The answers to my problems were there in the scriptures.
From that time on, the scriptures have become very special to me, and I have learned to consult the scriptures whenever I have a problem. The Lord gave us the scriptures for our instruction and to comfort us when we are feeling low. They guide us along the right path.
Gilbert F. Ceniza, 19Tetuan Ward, Zamboanga StakePhilippines

“Venez, venez,” sings Sister Jeanne Gueu as she sits on the white sand under a forty-foot palm tree and watches the surf pound the beach. She is singing her favorite hymn, “Come, Come, Ye Saints.” As she sings, eleven young women from two branches in the Abidjan Ivory Coast District in Africa gather for a testimony meeting. Nine of the eleven, along with Sister Gueu, were baptized during the past year.
The girls join in, and the singing becomes the opening hymn for the meeting. Testimony bearing is a time of reflection for them. Gisele Kalongo, Laurel class president of the Cocody Branch, stands and leads off with her testimony. “I know the Church is true,” she says. “It has made big changes in my life.” The oldest of nine children and the only girl in the family, she had waited to be baptized until her mother and brothers were ready to join the Church, too. Gisele went to camp last year as one of two nonmembers among a group of five girls. After camp, she and the other nonmember joined the Church. To Gisele, this year’s group of eleven seems like a lot to camp with.

Tragedy continued to follow Joseph F. in his childhood. Before his sixth birthday his father Hyrum and the Prophet Joseph were martyred in Carthage Jail. After his father’s death, Joseph F. helped his mother prepare for the trek west. Not yet ten years old, the boy drove two yoke of oxen from Winter Quarters to the Salt Lake Valley in the summer of 1848, a distance of over 1,000 miles. The journey was made even more difficult for the family since the captain of the train disapproved of Mary traveling without a husband, fearing that she would be a burden. But Mary was determined to ask for no special favors and promised that she would make the trip without his help and be the first to arrive in the valley. With fervent prayer and with the help of her young son, she kept that promise.

The bane of my first-grade teacher’s life was my friend Louie. He had what psychologists today might call some kind of an obsessive fixation. He would sit in class and chew his tie until it became wet and stringy. The teacher would scold him.

Louie eventually became a man of substance, and I have learned never to underestimate the potential of a boy to make something of his life, even if he chews his tie.

As a young man living in Kirtland, Ohio, Lorenzo Snow, fifth president of the Church, was converted and baptized in 1836. He had studiously and conscientiously compared the teachings of the missionaries with the teachings of the Savior. Becoming convinced of the truths of the gospel, he had sought baptism by immersion.

Following confirmation, he constantly anticipated an assurance that he had received the Holy Ghost. Two or three weeks following his baptism, he reflected that he had not yet received a testimony of the truth. Being uneasy, and laying aside his books, he left the house and wandered through the fields. A gloomy spirit and indescribable cloud of darkness seemed to envelop him. It was his custom, near the close of day, to retire to a nearby secluded grove and engage in secret prayer. This night he had no inclination to do so. The spirit of prayer had departed, and the heavens seemed like brass over his head. But, determined not to forgo his evening practice, he sought his accustomed place and knelt in solemn prayer.

“I had no sooner opened my lips in an effort to pray,” recalled President Snow, “than I heard a sound, just above my head, like the rustling of silken robes, and immediately the Spirit of God descended upon me, completely enveloping my whole person, filling me, from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, and O, the joy and happiness I felt! No language can describe the almost instantaneous transition from a dense cloud of mental and spiritual darkness into a refulgence of light and knowledge. … I then received a perfect knowledge that God lives, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and of the restoration of the holy Priesthood, and the fulness of the Gospel. It was a complete baptism—a tangible immersion in the heavenly principle or element, the Holy Ghost; and even more real and physical in its effects upon every part of my system than the immersion by water.” (Eliza R. Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, p. 8.)

In this manner Brother Snow received comforting assurance as the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and the Holy Ghost blessed him with a testimony that remained with him to the close of his earthly existence.

And a woman said this of her experience in the class: “I think I was a real frustration to my neighbor, even though she didn’t say so. I sat through eight lessons without feeling like there was anything there that I could or should really commit myself to. But I kept going back with her. One Sunday when I got home, though, I sat down and thought for a while, and I suddenly realized that I had learned a lot more than I had thought. I was surprised at how much my views about life had changed little by little, and how hopeful things now seemed. She was really surprised when I called and said, ‘Well, what do I do now?’” Her member friend introduced her to the missionaries, and she was baptized in just a few weeks.

Ryan started learning about music when he was two years old. His parents put a set of stereo headphones on him and, instead of pulling them off, he was fascinated. He started piano lessons at seven years old, but like most people, he didn’t like to practice. As he learned to play, he and his mother discovered his talent. “I never did like the endings of pieces of music in books. I would just start making up new endings.” Several years later they discovered that Ryan had perfect pitch. Then he started writing music and performing on a variety of keyboard instruments. He has won numerous awards for his musical talent—composing, performing, and singing. He was voted the most talented student in his ninth-grade class.

I confess that when I left on my mission, my testimony was limited to knowledge about the plan of salvation and the Book of Mormon. I recognized that my testimony lacked the depth I wanted it to have, and as a result, I felt inadequate as a missionary.
Like most French members of the Church at the time, I had never attended a broadcast of general conference. We had always attended rebroadcasts, where we listened to conference in French through an interpreter. Now, as a missionary serving in Wales and speaking English, I was going to hear the voice of the prophet, President Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994), firsthand.
When the session started, the local congregation sang with the members present in the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. I also sang and was quickly taken aback by an overwhelming feeling of joy and belonging. These feelings testified that I was a member of Jesus Christ’s Church.
While I was sitting there, an idea came to mind: “What if I asked the Lord to confirm to me that President Benson is His prophet?”
I knew that I could “ask God” (Moroni 10:4), but I was afraid that somehow I would offend Him with my questions. After a minute of reflection, I decided to try anyway. I bowed my head and asked the Lord to testify to me that the man who was going to speak was His prophet, seer, and revelator. Before long an intense feeling of peace and happiness entered my heart. I raised my head, opened my eyes, and listened to President Benson testify of the Book of Mormon.
From that moment on, I knew for myself that the Lord leads the Church through a chosen prophet. As a result of that testimony, I left conference with new goals, and I knew that it was up to me to reach them. I changed the focus of my mission and looked forward to attending future general conferences. I also eagerly awaited the arrival of the Church magazines so that I could read the sacred words of the Lord’s servants.
Thierry Hotz, France

Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shares a great lesson he learned when he and his wife went to visit his ailing father-in-law. As they arrived, they found the bishop leaving his father-in-law’s home. Elder Rasband discovered that his father-in-law had invited the bishop over because he wanted a temple recommend interview, because, in his own words, “l want to go recommended to the Lord”.3

And, says Elder Rasband, he did.

Now, from the life of another brave believer. On December 27, 2013, Alicia Schroeder joyfully welcomed her dear friends Sean and Sharla Chilcote, who unexpectedly showed up on her doorstep. Sean, who was also Alicia’s bishop, handed her his cell phone and solemnly said, “Alicia, we love you. You need to take this call.”

Alicia’s husband, Mario, was on the phone. He was in a remote area with some of their children on a long-anticipated snowmobile trip. There had been a terrible accident. Mario was seriously injured, and their 10-year-old son, Kaleb, was gone. When Mario tearfully told Alicia of Kaleb’s death, she was overcome with a shock and horror few of us will ever know. It dropped her. Paralyzed with unspeakable anguish, Alicia could neither move nor speak.

Bishop and Sister Chilcote quickly lifted her up and held her. They wept and deeply grieved together for some time. Then Bishop Chilcote offered to give Alicia a blessing.

What happened next is incomprehensible without some understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the immediate goodness of God. Bishop Chilcote gently placed his hands on Alicia’s head and, with quivering voice, began to speak. Alicia heard two things as though spoken by God Himself. First, she heard her name, Alicia Susan Schroeder. Then she heard the bishop invoke the authority of Almighty God. In that instant—at the mere utterance of her name and God’s power—Alicia was filled with an indescribable peace, love, comfort, and somehow joy. And it has continued with her.

Now, of course, Alicia, Mario, and their family still mourn for and miss Kaleb. It is hard! Whenever I speak with her, Alicia’s eyes well up with tears as she tells how much she loves and misses her little boy. And her eyes remain moist as she tells how the Great Deliverer has sustained her through every bit of her ordeal, beginning with His immediate goodness during her deepest despair and continuing now with the bright hope of a sweet reunion that is “not many days hence.”

A man I knew—one of the great men I have known—was in a bunch of roustabout boys. They were always where they should not be and never where they should be. Finally, a wise, resourceful leader got them into a Sunday School class. The teacher was this old man—just an ordinary, homely old man. More than that, he was a convert from Europe, and he did not speak English very well. They giggled, “Our teacher? Him?” These boys, I suppose, had the reputation of running any teacher out.
Then my friend said that something happened. The teacher started to speak, and they all began to listen. This friend said, “You could warm your hands by the fire of his faith.” That meant that in that older, worn-out body that did not seem to be able to erase an accent, there was a powerful spirit.
In the Resurrection the body—the dust of the earth, the carnal part of us—can be renewed and made powerful if it is to equal the spirit.
If you can understand how the Spirit operates, you will be all right. There is not enough evil put together—if it was all brought together as some kind of a dark, ugly laser beam and focused on you, it could not destroy you, unless somehow you consented to it.
In the course of your learning, “wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding” (Proverbs 4:7).
Make sure you learn the things that you are not taught overtly. If all you know is what you read or what you can hear, you will not know very much. Moments of reverence are so precious when you think and feel. That is why temples are so important. You can go to the temple and be out of the world.
The promise from the Lord is that when you receive the Holy Ghost, “he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26).
You will be doing some things automatically, almost unwittingly. Without thinking, you will find you have been prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit. That is why this young elder, without knowing why, took a 20-mark note out of his wallet as he was trotting alongside the train and handed it to me as the train was pulling out. He saved us from great danger.
That is how you will do things and then later look back and know that you were guided. And also that is how you will be warned. You will be warned, “Don’t go there! Don’t do that!” You will be warned, “Don’t go with him! Don’t go with her! Don’t be with them!” And then, “Do be in this company!” You will be guided, and the Lord will watch over you.
I know that the gospel is true, that Jesus is the Christ, that He lives, that this is His Church. Find a place in the world where you can, without embarrassment, without any hesitancy, declare to yourself: first, that you accept the gospel of Jesus Christ and, second, that what you are is more important than what you do. What you do, if it is guided, will make you what you are and what you can be.

I recently met a young woman in the Philippines whose family became less active in the Church when she was only 7 years old, leaving her alone to walk a dangerous road to church week after week. She told how at age 14 she decided that she would stay true to her covenants so she would be worthy to raise her future family in a home “blessed by the strength of priesthood pow’r.”12 The best way to strengthen a home, current or future, is to keep covenants, promises we’ve made to each other and to God.

1. One talk I heard over twenty years ago illustrates how effective a talk can be when the speaker chooses the proper subject material and is personally familiar with that subject.
While living in New Jersey, I owned and operated a business that sold kitchen cabinets; and since I had built and installed kitchen cabinets for many years, I was well aware of quality construction and proud of our own custom woodwork. When I was approached by a large cabinet manufacturing firm from Pennsylvania who wanted us to sell their cabinets, I responded that I would decide after I had visited their factory and had seen their product.
While visiting the factory with other prospective dealers, I heard a man deliver a talk on how he was responsible for the shipping crates the cabinets were delivered in. This man’s vocabulary was not very broad, nor did he expound on any profound subject. But he was familiar with his subject material; it fit his speech capabilities and certainly fit the occasion; and it was very enlightening and interesting.
When the man was through talking, he took a regular cabinet directly from the factory and crated it. Then he took that cabinet and a second cabinet crated by a competitor and dropped both out of a second-story window. The cabinet our speaker had crated survived with hardly a scratch, while the other was damaged beyond repair. Words and demonstration combined to give an unforgettable impression—and convinced me that the product was good. A prime example of how words and a visual aid can motivate!

“When I was in junior high school, some of my friends made fun of me because I was a member of the Church. I tried to tell them about my testimony, but I was kind of ashamed. I decided to pray about it, and after my prayer I was able to express my testimony to them. Later one of my friends asked me questions about the Church, and others started to listen. From that day on, my friends have shown more respect to me and to the Church.”—Andrés Navarro

Many years ago when I was practicing law in California, a friend and client who was not a member of our faith came in to see me and with great enthusiasm showed me a letter he had received from an LDS bishop of a nearby ward. The bishop wrote that a member of his congregation, a former employee of my client, had taken materials from my client’s work site and had rationalized that they were surplus. But after becoming a committed Latter-day Saint and attempting to follow Jesus Christ, this employee recognized that what he had done was dishonest. Enclosed in the letter was a sum of money from the man to cover not only the cost of the materials but also interest. My client was impressed that the Church through lay leadership would assist this man in his effort to be reconciled to God.
Think about the light and truth that the shared value of honesty has in the Judeo-Christian world. Think about the impact on society if youth didn’t cheat in school, if adults were honest in the workplace and were faithful to their marriage vows. For us the concept of basic honesty is grounded in the life and teachings of the Savior. Honesty is also a valued attribute in many other faiths and in historic literature. The poet Robert Burns said, “An honest man’s the noblest work of God.”21 In almost every instance, people of faith feel accountable to God for being honest. This was the reason the man in California was repenting from his earlier act of dishonesty.

We couldn’t help being a little nervous. Mrs. Hall was one of our strongest investigators. She already knew the Church was true, even though she was not a member. Other missionaries had initially contacted her, and as she had received the standard lessons and read the Book of Mormon, her inclination to believe had grown into a strong testimony. My companion and I had encouraged her continued study of the gospel.
But now her sister, Joan McArthur, was coming to visit. Mrs. Hall’s husband and all the relatives on both sides of the family were devoted to other churches, and she did not want to be baptized until her husband (who was, at least, friendly with the missionaries) would embrace the gospel with her. She was also concerned about antagonizing other family members, particularly her parents, by joining the Church before they fully understood what she was doing and why.
It was easy to imagine that Mrs. Hall’s sister was being sent to check up on her and to warn her to quit associating with Mormons. Still Joan was only 20, and it would be her first time away from home. She must have been as full of apprehension during her journey to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, as we were waiting for her to arrive.
Mrs. Hall, however, seemed unruffled. She simply invited us to dinner a few days later when Joan had had time to get settled. I think Joan was surprised when her sister greeted us at the door and ushered us into the living room. Maybe she had suspected that “missionaries” had to be middle-aged men or raving fanatics. We were happy and yet earnest; she, in turn, seemed at ease chatting with two young ladies approximately her own age. Following the meal, we showed a filmstrip. She had plenty of questions, and we promised to return.
At the next appointment, Joan came dressed almost in armor. Every argument and falsehood she had ever heard about Mormons bristled. But she didn’t fling them at us. Rather, she laid them on the table and asked for an explanation. As she described her apprehensions, we responded as best we could. Our answers seemed to satisfy her. She knew her Bible well and referred to scripture after scripture. She seemed genuinely interested in the passages we quoted, and all of us looked them up and discussed them. From that day on, I was impressed with her deep spiritual insight. At the end of the conversation we all felt a little more at ease. We explained why we were called “sisters,” talked about our homes and families, and shared the convictions that had led us to our 18-month calls of service to the Lord. She told us about the excitement of her first cross-country train trip.
The next lesson was about the Apostasy. Joan desperately fought it, finally asking us to leave and not come back. She said she didn’t want to hear any more. She was upset; we were disappointed and frustrated. She later wrote in a letter, “I remember that after you left that evening, I cried bitterly because of the words in the Joseph Smith tract that said all of the other churches were ‘an abomination in my sight.’ That really hurt because my church meant something very special to me. I had believed all my life what my parents had taught me, and a statement like that dashed my whole world. How could Joseph Smith say something like that? But he had said the Lord had said it. That was the big difficulty.
“Jessie (Mrs. Hall) didn’t force me to continue studying, but she did encourage me. I don’t think I would have continued without her. But there was too much love between us as family members for me not to.
“I was angry and felt indignant, feelings I marvel at now. I wonder how I remained teachable, but the Lord was kind to me and patient. My problem was, I thought I could believe everything the sisters were teaching me and still remain a member of my church. I clung to that idea.”
But Joan was a truth-seeker. After a week of prayer and soul-struggle, she called us back. She had changed her mind. When could we come teach her more?
I noticed as we presented the next discussion, about the restoration of the gospel, that a change came over her. She stopped resisting. She seemed to be thirsting eagerly asking questions as though the answers wouldn’t come quickly enough. She was understanding that Christ’s visit to Joseph Smith was an act of love; that the truth is on earth in its fulness not for those who want to find fault, but for those yearning to fill in missing pieces.
The same spirit prevailed at the next lesson. Topic: the plan of salvation. I knew my companion and I weren’t alone doing the teaching. Words flowed freely. Scriptures were located without trouble. Spirit communed with spirit. Overcome with excitement, Joan exclaimed, “Now, I see why Jessie wants to be baptized!”
Despite all her declaration that she would never join the Church, Joan was a different person than she had been when she first arrived to visit her sister. As we left the house, I felt inspired to turn to my companion and say, “I know that someday she will join the Church.”
We spent a few more visits with her, teaching a strong gospel lesson each time. Then I was transferred to another area in the mission. I heard no more about this sincere young lady, or about the Hall family, until after I returned home from my mission.
Then one day a letter with Canadian stamps was waiting in my mailbox. It had taken them a long time to track down my address and to write to me, the letter said, but Joan and Sister Hall wanted me to know that they had both been baptized two years before in a cold lake just outside the city!
It was the start of a string of surprise letters. Two years later one told me that Joan was on a mission in South Africa and that Sister Hall’s husband, Barry, though still not interested in studying about the Church, loved the missionaries and members as he always had and was taking the family to Sunday School. Later I received a wedding announcement from Joan. She was being married in the Salt Lake Temple to a returned missionary. Later that same year Sister Hall wrote that her husband had been baptized and loved working in the Church. The next year they brought their children with them to be sealed as a family in the Salt Lake Temple.
Since then Brother Hall has been a branch president, a member of a stake presidency, and is now a member of a stake high council. Joan’s husband, Dale J. Laub, became a bishop. Both sisters are active in their callings and have done genealogy that has allowed them to accomplish temple ordinances for several hundred ancestors.
As a young lady just out of her teens, Joan McArthur had come to Victoria determined that she would change her sister’s mind if necessary. Instead, she had the courage to change her own. Her sincerity in calling upon the Lord would not allow her to do otherwise. Her sister Jessie was wise enough to be patient while explaining the gospel, allowing the Lord’s Spirit to do the persuading.
Both of them learned to listen to their hearts, and many others will be eternally grateful that they did. Joan McArthur not only changed her opinion about the Church, she changed her life.

Photograph from iStockphoto/Thinkstock
A week after graduating high school, I moved to the other side of the country to live with my older sister’s family for the summer before I started college in the fall.
I made a few friends, most of them older and in college. One Saturday night two of my new friends picked me up to go hear a good band that was playing at a local club.
As we parked, I started feeling a little nervous, but I didn’t want to object and ruin the evening. We entered the club, and the man behind the counter looked at my driver’s license. Without warning he swiped a black permanent marker across the knuckles on both of my hands.
I looked down in surprise. I realized he had marked my hands to show that I was too young to buy alcohol at the bar.
I was immediately uncomfortable. People were drinking and smoking.
I’m sorry to say that I didn’t have the courage to leave right then. After about 30 minutes, one of my friends asked if I was feeling OK. I told him I had a headache from the music and smoke. He offered to take me home, and I gratefully accepted.
I rushed into the bathroom at my sister’s house and scrubbed at those black marks until it hurt. I would be taking the sacrament with these hands the next day, and I desperately wanted them to be clean. However, two faint black lines remained visible on my raw, pink skin.
Before I went to bed, in prayer I asked forgiveness for not having the courage to leave—and more appropriately, for not having the courage to never go inside in the first place. I promised Heavenly Father I would never allow myself to get in that kind of situation again.
The next morning I was able to remove most of the rest of the marker, and my hands were almost completely clean when I took the sacrament. I thought of how sin is like those black marks. It takes effort and can even be painful, but we can repent and have our sins removed through the power of the Atonement and be clean from the black marks in our lives.

Latter-day Saint Alma Richards made the 1912 Olympic team.
A high jumper, Alma Richards was part of the 1912 track and field Olympic team that competed in Stockholm, Sweden. During the competition, others were eliminated one by one until only Alma and one other remained.
“As Alma prepared to jump, his mind raced. There he was, representing his country at the greatest athletic competition in the world. Yet he felt weak, as if the whole world were resting on his shoulders. He thought of Utah, his family, and his hometown. He thought of BYU and the Saints. Bowing his head, he silently asked God to give him strength. ‘If it is right that I should win,’ he prayed, ‘I will do my best to set a good example all the days of my life.’”
Drawing upon strength from the Lord, Alma jumped and cleared the high bar. When his remaining competitor failed, Alma won the gold medal.
Later, a friend “teased him about praying before his winning jump. ‘I wish you wouldn’t laugh,’ Alma quietly responded. ‘I prayed to the Lord to give me strength to go over that bar, and I went over.’”

My grandparents have had a great influence on my life. Even though they have been dead for many years, I still feel their confirming love. One grandfather, James Akerley Faust, died before I was born. I knew him only through the stories my grandmother and my parents told about him. However, I feel a strong kinship with him because I am in part what he was. Among other things, he was a cowboy, a rancher, and a postmaster in a small town in central Utah. On one occasion Grandfather took a trip in the winter to Idaho, where he met an acquaintance who had fallen on hard times. It was cold, and Grandfather’s friend had no coat. Grandfather took off his coat and gave it to him.

This evening I encourage you young men to begin to unlock the knowledge of who you really are by learning more about your forebears. Alex Haley, the author of the book Roots, said: “In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage—to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.” We can have exciting experiences as we learn about our vibrant, dynamic ancestors. They were very real, living people with problems, hopes, and dreams like we have today.
In many ways each of us is the sum total of what our ancestors were. The virtues they had may be our virtues, their strengths our strengths, and in a way their challenges could be our challenges. Some of their traits may be our traits. I noticed a while ago that one of my great-grandsons, a toddler, seemed to have an interesting kind of a walk. My wife said, “He walks just like you do!” Now I wonder from whom I inherited this characteristic.
It is a joy to become acquainted with our forebears who died long ago. Each of us has a fascinating family history. Finding your ancestors can be one of the most interesting puzzles you young men can work on.
Each of us has to begin this work somewhere, and it can be done by young or old. This summer 170 children of the Accra Ghana Lartebiokorshie Stake worked on their four-generation family trees during a two-hour program, with more than 74 completing and displaying their trees.
As President Boyd K. Packer has said, “If you don’t know where to start, start with yourself. If you don’t know what records to get, and how to get them, start with what you have.” You will learn about the phenomenon that is you. It can be more fascinating than any movie you might see or any computer game you might play. You will need to find out who your grandparents and great-grandparents were and what temple work has been done for them. If you don’t know how to get this information, ask people in your ward who do know how.
Ask living members of your family what they know about your extended family. Look at records close at hand, such as family Bibles, to find more details about your forebears. Then you can reach out to other sources such as vital records, church records, census records, and military records. If you have access to a computer, you can put your computer skills to work and log on to the Church’s FamilySearch.org Web site. Family history has become a sophisticated activity where computers provide immense resources for your search. You can easily access a vast collection of family history records using the Internet on your home computer or at your nearest family history center.
Family history centers are now available in 88 countries. They are part of an unequaled record-keeping system that helps preserve the heritage of families all over the world. In the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, patrons are constantly corresponding and submitting information about their family histories. One person wrote, “We are sending you five children in a separate envelope.”
The great work of providing the saving ordinances for our kindred dead is a vital part of the threefold mission of the Church. We do this work for a purpose, which is to redeem our dead ancestors. Temple work is essential for both us and our kindred dead who are waiting for these saving ordinances to be done for them. It is essential because “we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect.” They need the saving ordinances, and we need to be sealed to them. For this reason it is important that we trace our family lines so that no one is left out.
Searching for our kindred dead isn’t just a hobby. It is a fundamental responsibility for all members of the Church. We believe that life continues after death and that all will be resurrected. We believe that families may continue in the next life if they have kept the special covenants made in one of the sacred temples under the authority of God. We believe that our deceased ancestors can also be eternally united with their families when we make covenants in their behalf in the temples. Our deceased forebears may accept these covenants, if they choose to do so, in the spirit world.
The great vicarious work for our kindred dead in our temples demonstrates both the justice and the fairness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Prophet Joseph Smith explained the terrible dilemma which would face God’s children without temple work for our dead. Said he: “One dies and is buried, having never heard the Gospel of reconciliation; to the other the message of salvation is sent, he hears and embraces it, and is made the heir of eternal life. Shall the one become the partaker of glory and the other be consigned to hopeless perdition? Is there no chance for his escape?” Fortunately our ancestors will have the opportunity to receive and accept the saving ordinances as we identify them and complete these sacred ordinances for them by proxy. We do for them what they cannot do for themselves. It is a very satisfying experience.
In the great vision in the Kirtland Temple, Elijah the prophet appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and committed the keys of temple work and the sealing power into Joseph Smith’s hands. This fulfilled Malachi’s prophecy that Elijah would be sent “to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse.”
So what does this mean? To turn our hearts to our fathers is to search out the names of our deceased ancestors and to perform the saving ordinances in the temple for them. This will forge a continuous chain between us and our forefathers eventually all the way back to Father Adam and Mother Eve.
The heart of an 11-year-old boy was turned to his fathers during a family home evening when the children assembled personal books of remembrance. Young Jeff wanted to accompany his mother to the National Archives. She was afraid he might disturb the other researchers there. But he persisted, and she relented and took him with her. Four hours into their research, he exclaimed, “Mama, I’ve found Grandpa!” Indeed, he had found his great-great-great-grandfather. However, it doesn’t always work that way. In a letter to the Family History Department, someone wrote: “We lost our grandmother. Will you please send us a copy?”
The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us that the celestial family organization will be “one that is complete,” that is, “an organization linked from father and mother and children of one generation, to the father and mother and children of the next generation, thus expanding and spreading out down to the end of time.”
In tracing our family names, we often find them spelled differently, depending on the source. This was the case of a university student in Provo, Utah, who caught the vision of this linking of generations. He was walking through the library one evening and remembered hearing someone in the Searing family tell about a town in New York State that had been named after an ancestor. So he decided to look up the town. He stumbled across a very old copy of a gazetteer of New York and read about a man named Simon Searing who helped settle Long Island in the mid-1600s. Could Simon be his ancestor? He had to know. He began research in earnest and traced his line back several generations. But still he needed to bridge the gap between the 1800s and the 1600s. Then a miracle occurred. He unexpectedly located a history of a Syring family. The families in the Syring book ended in the same generation he had reached in his own research. Not only was he able to connect many generations, but he also linked himself to the early settler Simon Searing.
Some who are interested in family history try to enhance their own image by linking up with prominent people. In my own experience it has been quite different. I have been fascinated by learning of some of the unknown, ordinary people whose records tell of heroic lives. Arthur R. Bassett once said: “Who among us wants to throw stones at their own ancestors? I, for one, am intrigued by their battles—their victories as well as their defeats. … I am fascinated by what may seem the most commonplace of lives, because I have come to realize the excitement that is concealed in the commonplace.”
It is not likely that you will find any horse thieves in your ancestral line. But if you do, it is important that their temple work be done, because we believe in repentance for the dead also:
“The dead who repent will be redeemed, through obedience to the ordinances of the house of God,
“And after they have paid the penalty of their transgressions, and are washed clean, shall receive a reward according to their works, for they are heirs of salvation.”
The process of finding our ancestors one by one can be challenging but also exciting and rewarding. We often feel spiritual guidance as we go to the sources which identify them. Because this is a very spiritual work, we can expect help from the other side of the veil. We feel a pull from our relatives who are waiting for us to find them so their ordinance work can be done. This is a Christlike service because we are doing something for them that they cannot do for themselves.
Many of you young men have already had a taste of temple work as you have participated in baptisms for the dead. When we go early to the temple, we often see young people dressed in white, ready to take part in this satisfying experience before going to school. You are to be commended for your dedication in performing this vital work. In so doing you have already felt the peace and serenity found within the walls of our temples.
I testify that God is a just God, and He will not give privileges to us and withhold them from our forebears. But we will need to do the baptisms, the endowments, and the sealings for them by proxy here on earth in order for us and them to be linked together for eternity “and have part in the first resurrection.”
I further testify that the Lord directs and inspires President Hinckley as he leads us in this important work. May the peace that comes from faithful discharge of our priesthood duties ever be with us, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.