No Zombies in the Temple

 I recently taught my little guys about what it means to go to the temple. I was able to teach them about being married forever and ever, about moms and dads getting to be moms and dads forever and ever, and also about baptism for the dead. I left the conversation feeling like I had really taught them something. 

What I did not take into account was our close proximity to Halloween. "Baptism for the dead," gave a completely different picture for my little man, Tucker, than that spiritual fire I was shooting for! While I appreciate his festive attitude for the "zombies in the temple," I was given the perfect opportunity to break things down to tiny little levels. I had to start over with the basics and constantly double check with him that "there are no dead people in the temple, right Tucker?" 

These little repetitive baby steps I found myself teaching are so much like  the baby steps I am taking in my classes. In my 111 class, I am constantly referring to my chart on "Classification of Evidence," to make sure that I am doing things properly. In my 120 class, I feel like every assignment and activity should be such an easy thing for me to understand, but in reality, it is a struggle sometimes. In my 130 class, I feel like I take one step forward, and two steps back. Handwriting is hard! Talk about baby steps!

It is very easy for me to get down on myself for being so behind in my family history efforts. I am almost thirty years old and I am just this year starting. There are so many terms that I just don't know yet. It is easy to entertain thoughts of wondering if "I am enough." 

I use that phrase, "wondering if 'I am enough,'" because of my own "baby steps" experience this week. My wonderful Visiting Teacher came over and talked to me for a while about my life. After listening to me tell her about my poor children and how terrible a mom I feel sometimes for having to do so much homework instead of playing with them, she was inspired to talk straight to my heart. She reminded me that feelings of "not being enough" or wondering all the time if "I am enough," are not feelings from Deity. Those are thoughts and feelings that come from someone who wants me to feel bad about myself and angry with where I am at in life. I know those are not thoughts my father in heaven would have me feel. 

When it comes to family history, the effort is what makes things happen. It isn't about numbers or names, as much as it is about love and work. I need to remember to not get discouraged. I need to remember that my effort is the best tool that I have. I can't know everything and I will never get everything right. But I can try! I may need be the brightest crayon in the box, but I know that I am enough.

Click right here for a wonderful video on "trying." It is less that thirty seconds, and very inspiring!

Have a great Halloween everyone!

Side note: I am grateful for the resources that we have to get things explained and re-explained to us. I love the ability I have to login to the FamilySearch or Ancestry websites and spend time learning how to research. This week during my research and discussion board work, I found an interesting resource that I am very excited about! It is found here. I am amazed that when I am stuck on a Dutch word in my family history searches, that there is a great chance that that old word might be right there for me. Aren't we so blessed?

The Opposite of Helpless

 "After you find few generations, the road will become more difficult...You will be tempted to stop and leave the hard work of finding to others who are more expert or to another time in your life. But you will also feel a tug on your heart to go on in the work, hard as it will be. as you decide, remember that the names which will be so difficult to find are of real people to whom you owe your existence in this world and whom you will meet again in the spirit world...Their hearts are bound to you. Their hope is in your hands. You will have more than your own strength as you choose to labor on to find them."

-Henry B. Eyring

Conference Report, Apr. 2005, 1982

I only really have memory of being completely helpless a few times in my life.  One specific time I remember very clearly was the night we came home with my newborn baby, Tucker. I was so exhausted from my C-Section that I fell asleep without taking my pain medicine. As babies tend to do, Tucker woke up after a few hours needing to eat. As I reached over to pick him up, I was overwhelmed with pain. I could not move, much less pick up a tiny baby or even walk to get my medicine. I could not wake up Joe, who was sleeping on the couch with a cold, trying to avoid the baby and me.  I yelled and prayed and pleaded for help to be able to get my medicine, for Joe to hear me and for the baby to be watched over! Little baby Tucker was only about six feet away from me, and there was nothing I could do! It was a brutal experience of being absolutely helpless.

I wonder if that is how my ancestors feel sometimes while they are watching me. They know what is at stake, and they know what awaits them once their work is done. Their time is ticking, and it has been for a while. They can see me, floating along in my life and wonder if today will be the day that I find them.  They are completely helpless--they cannot do this work on their own. Their whole entire future rests on people like me taking the time to find them. How hard and painful and sweet and joyful and exhausting it must be for them!

This week I had a mini-win. I found a great little record of my great-great-Grandfather, I.C. VanGorkum. I found his draft records. He temple work is already done, and sad to say, I have not spent really any time prior to this week really getting to know him. When I found this document, it brought tears to my eyes. His signature was right there in front of me and I was looking at a copy of a paper that he had written on with his own hand. It had his full name, Isaac Calvin VanGorkum. I didn't even know that was his full name until this week. I wonder if he ever wondered if I would see it?  I wonder if he ever thought, "Gee, I wonder if she will ever get to knowing me, even though my work is already done."

"...Their hope is in your hands." That is how President Eyring puts it.

There are the obvious reasons for doing family history, like taking those names to the temple and binding families together forever. It is tempting to move right up to the top of our family tree and find those missing names. It is important and those ancestors are probably thinking that is a great idea!

However, this week I learned about studying and bonding with my ancestors whose work is already done.

"And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers..." (Malachi 4:6).

It doesn't say that our hearts turn to the "fathers whose names we can take to the temple." What a humbling thought! Every one of my wonderful and incredible ancestors, with or without their temple work already done, is worthy of my thoughts. They deserve my attention and my heart. They are the reason I am here--the reason I have my family, my testimony and even my life.

My goal this week is to create relationships. I want to know each of these family members.  I commit to doing temple work, but I also commit to not being helpless. I will not forget how lucky I am to have the blessings I do. I will turn my hearts to all my fathers.

Today I am the opposite of helpless. I am the hope.

Tug: A Verb

“After you find the first few generations, the road will become more difficult. . . . You will be tempted to stop and leave the hard work of finding to others who are more expert or to another time in your life. But you will also feel a tug on your heart to go on in the work, hard as it will be. As you decide, remember that the names which will be so difficult to find are of real people to whom you owe your existence in this world and whom you will meet again in the spirit world. . . . Their hearts are bound to you. Their hope is in your hands. You will have more than your own strength as you choose to labor on to find them.”

(Henry B. Eyring, in Conference Report, Apr. 2005, 82; or Ensign, May 2005, 79–80).

The "tugging"is a real thing. It is like a throbbing in your heart, one that doesn't stop for anything. It can keep you awake, it can envelop all your thoughts. The prompting to work on family history is powerful. If you ask me, that's how you know it is important. 

Since my courses started back up this fall, I have been so busy learning how to do family history work correctly, that I have slacked very much on actually doing the work. I am taking handwriting classes, technology/computer classes (as pertaining to family history work) and an overall genealogy class. I am learning so much and even retaining a lot more family history information than I ever thought I could! However, the purpose behind the learning has been pushed to the side for a moment. Que the "tugging." 

This week I made time to apply my learning a little better and look up a family member. This person's name has been on my mind constantly, around the clock, nonstop for a week now. Up until Conference Saturday, I hadn't even seen his name before (don't judge, I am new at this!).  I have been inputting as much information as possible on my RootsMagic to try to catch up to where he is on my tree. I have looked at hundreds of other people's family trees to compare information. I have researched everywhere I can think of to find anything about this person. No answers! Nothing but tugging, tugging and more tugging.

He is waiting for me to help. I feel it in my heart. I feel like it's all so close, but I am just missing something. While I pray, I know I am being given motivation to keep looking. In my classes, I am learning to help. 

I haven't been posting on here as much as I have wanted, until this week I got a wonderful response from someone who actually reads what I write. Thank you for that. I needed you this week to help me remember to write it all down!   

So here is to re-commitment to the application of what I am learning. Here is to making time to help! And here is to Michael Greenawalt- I will find you!

It's All About the Collaboration!

“There are millions across the world who are working on family history records. Why? Why are they doing it? I believe it is because they have been touched by the spirit of this work, a thing which we call the spirit of Elijah. It is a turning of the hearts of the children to their fathers. Most of them do not understand any real purpose in this, other than perhaps a strong and motivating curiosity.”

(Gordon B. Hinckley, “A Century of Family History Service,” Ensign, Mar 1995, 61).

This week I read and learned a lot about how technology can help me pull my family together in the work. I was asked to make a couple of research documents for myself and one that is specifically for sharing research with my other family members. What an idea!

Just in case you are interested in what I have been up to, here are the links to those two documents.

The first is a research log example in GoogleDocs. Having this will allow my family to communicate with each other on what their family history projects are, what questions they have and where we could all be helping. This group document will ensure that we have no unnecessary overlap. It will also help us avoid time being wasted while we are all circling around the same thing.

The second one is an example of a homemade family group sheet. It will serve as a document that I can keep up so that I have tabs on all of the people I am working on. It will benefit me when I need to have a quick reference off a family layout. It will also be something that I can access to write down information when I am not able to get to my FamilySearch or RootsMagic accounts. It can also serve as a sort of scratchpad for all my research before I post it permanently. This document is very exciting for me!

I cannot wait to talk to my family and get everyone involved. It will be so awesome to focus our research and be able to see what everyone is working on. What an exciting thing!

ISO: Tech Prayers

In our home, we pray for a lot of things. We teach our children to pray for safety, for the Spirit to guide us, and for our family who is away. We pray over food. We pray to start the day out well. We pray when we hurt, when we are sad and to give thanks. That is a lot of prayers, and yet still, there is room for much improvement. There are prayers that I haven't even considered saying, but could change my whole world if I would take time to think about them! 

This week in our class, we were blessed to read a page of quotes about technology and the role that it plays in Family History work. On this page of quotes was one quote that I have been pondering about since. 

“Let us think over these things, and pray to the Lord to open the way, and the way will be opened by which we will learn about our ancestors. And when the time comes that we have done all we can in a natural way, the veil will be drawn aside, and the Priesthood behind the veil will minister to the Priesthood in the flesh, and reveal many things that we could not ordinarily obtain knowledge of here; but we will get them by this kind of revelation.” 

President Charles W. Penrose, 1913

(Charles W. Penrose, “Salvation for the Dead,” The Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine 4, January 1913, 18)

The quote itself is remarkable and very inspiring. However, the part that stood out to me was the year that President Penrose said it. 1913! That is more than 100 years ago and long before any of the technology advances we enjoy today were even imagined. This part: "...and pray to the Lord to open the way...," isn't that amazing? We are living in days that are the literal answers to prayers. This laptop I am typing on? Someone prayed for this technology. They knew it would help us find them and our other family members. 

To those earlier saints, I tip my computer screen. Thank you for your prayers! 

Which leads me to question: they prayed for this technology, knowing that it would bless the entire world with the ability to progress the work of salvation. Am I taking their prayers, hopes and dreams for granted? Do I use the blessings of technology like they imagined I would? Have I taken the time to learn and use the programs that were made for people like me to link our families together? These are answered prayers- what am I doing with them? 

Also:  what technology advancements do I pray for? 

When I was asked that in my study material, I didn't have an answer. Actually, I did. None. I have never once prayed for a technology advancement in any area, let alone an area that is gospel related. But why not? There is so much work to be done and so many areas where the work has reached a "brick wall." Why have I not even once considered praying for some advancement to help me? 

(click for lds.org)

I am grateful for this introduction week of my Family History classes. I am grateful for the blessings of technology and also for the prayers of those righteous people who knew better than I. I look forward to a wonderful term and to my new understanding of what to pray for!