2019-09 Sep - Persevering in Family History When it Seems Hard

Sep 8, 2019 family history

Hello from your Ward Temple & Family History Consultants:

WHY?

• If not us, who? Church members are ~2% of the world population and God has asked for our help like Joshua and his band of 300 soldiers.

##WHEN?

• Today, it is a great sabbath activity. Try a little each Sunday this month rather than wearing yourself out all at once.

WHAT?

This month is not a how-to message.

For September, we invite adults to remember the rewards of family history efforts. Imagine you are in the temple performing an ordinance for one of your own. How might that person feel about your efforts on their behalf? I have sometimes felt the presence of those I have served during their work in the House of the Lord. Some of you have too. It is wonderful. How can pondering this source of joy motivate us in the sometimes challenging work of family history?

Ask for help from Heaven. This is the Lord’s work. Traveling through an information desert (not finding anything on person A) can feel defeating. Rather than focusing on how hard it has been, we can look optimistically forward in faith. Remember that with people around the world indexing more and more records, some bit of information may come up in the future. Do you have ancestors from Australia 🇦🇺, Brazil 🇧🇷, Canada 🇨🇦, Denmark 🇩🇰, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, Germany 🇩🇪, Honduras 🇭🇳, or Peru 🇵🇪? FamilySearch has added new records. Yay!

Our willingness to persevere in Family History challenges and faith in the Lord’s purposes & timing can help us push onward even when it seems hard.

By so doing, each of us may recommit to tithe an amount of our time to finding enough information on our missing ancestors or branch lines. The end goal is to take their name to the temple and do the work on their behalf and there are other small successes we can have along the way.

For youth, this month try again to find more paper photos of relatives. We can help you digitize, edit and post them to familysearch.org so they are not lost forever.

Those beyond the veil will appreciate our service.

Recap:

• April - Post audio recorded memories to familysearch.org.
• May - Post photographs of your ancestors to familysearch.org.
• June - Type a brief memory of your own experience with a deceased ancestor or relative into the memories section of familysearch.org.
• Aug - Perhaps write your own history for those that come after you.

HERE A LITTLE, THERE A LITTLE - We can help you succeed little by little, one thing at a time. Feel better by doing small & simple things. Great things come to pass over time, so don’t give up. We can help you start! Contact one of us.

If you need help over a bump doing this or any of the prior invitations, or with preparing names to take to the temple we are happy to serve you as we all gradually improve our desires and skills in family history & temple service.

Your Ward Temple & Family History Consultants