2025-01 Jan - Can One Person Make a Difference?

Jan 12, 2025 family history make a difference Ruth Nils Bohlin

Read time: Summary 0.1 minutes | Expanded section: 6.9 minutes | Entire message 7.0 minutes

Summary

• Can one person really make a difference?
• Story Time (about one person making a difference)
• Workflow for Family History

Expanded Message

Can one person really make a difference?

In answer to the question, “Can one person really make a difference?” I answer “Yes!”

Each of us is a child of God.

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God

~ Romans 8:16, New Testament

Each of us can make a difference with how we choose to spend our lives.

Thank you to each of you who spent time in 2024 helping the souls of those who have passed on, and their posterity’s families know them better. Your Temple & Family History efforts make a difference for those children of God.

NOTE: A special thanks to the youth for also getting involved and helping in Temple & Family History efforts. When we start younger, we can make a significant impact over a longer period of time.

Thank all of you for choosing to spend a few minutes, or hours on a regular or even periodic basis to do this important work in the Kingdom of God. Every contribution helps the work proceed. Every contribution makes a difference. You did that. Thank you.

At the rate Temples are now being built, the need for Family History data will continue to accelerate. With God’s help we can accomplish his errands.

It is only when we try to do everything ourselves that we feel burdened or even despair that it is too much and can’t be done. When we work in God’s Kingdom as directed by the Holy Ghost, we can rest well knowing we made a difference in the priority order that the Spirit prompted. Our savior, Jesus Christ, lived in mortality too and knows only so much can be done in one day.

There are many scientific studies that show that people consistently underestimate what is possible over a 10 year time span. God knows how this will play out.

As we continue to be willing to be led by Him, we can make a much larger impact on others than we can alone.

So thank you for being willing in 2024, and for the good work each of you did:

• Many new people added to familysearch.org
• Many people linked to their other family members in family search
• Tens of thousands of new sources linked to people’s pages to validate who they are
• Discovery of cousins we didn’t realize we had (from first cousins out to seventh cousins or more)
• Better knowing your own people and how they lived their lives (turn your hearts to them)
  • If you have children, blessing them with knowing their people, so they too may be better grounded
• Indexing of digitized records to help others find those people and sources and to link them together
• Adding of memories (text stories, information, audio recordings of memories, and digitized photographs)
• Temple work done on behalf of others, which will be offered to them to accept or decline
• Outreach to our local community to raise awareness of the need for this work, and its impact

May the Lord bless you for your efforts by:

• Helping you know your work and time spent matters to Him in the Gathering
• Helping you and your loved ones feel grounded by better knowing where you all came from
• Helping you see your life as a part of your relatives lives, and how the challenges of life apply to all of us
• And that you are not alone

“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

~ Isaiah 40:31

I testify that our Father in heaven is pleased by any and all of the work you helped accomplish in the building of His Kingdom last year. He will help us in His work during 2025. Thank you for joining in this great collaborative work.

“We receive the gift of such majestic might and sanctifying renewal through the redeeming grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has overcome the world, and if we will take upon us His name and ‘walk in His paths’ [Isaiah 2:3] and keep our covenants with Him, we shall, ere long, have peace. Such a reward is not only possible; it is certain.”

~ Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Ensign, Nov. 1996

And we are blessed with continuing revelation.

“You are a child of God. He is the father of your spirit. Spiritually you are of noble birth, the offspring of the King of Heaven. Fix that truth in your mind and hold to it. However many generations in your mortal ancestry, no matter what race or people you represent, the pedigree of your spirit can be written on a single line. You are a child of God!”

~ Boyd K. Packer, “To Young Women and Men,” Ensign, May 1989

Story Time

(a spiritual story) And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

Thank you for your dedication to the Gathering on both sides of the veil. Like Ruth, your efforts made a difference for others during 2024.

(a secular story) Nils Bohlin was a Swedish mechanical engineer who invented the three-point seat belt. His invention has saved hundreds of thousands (probably millions though no worldwide data is available) of lives since he first unveiled it in 1959 to colleagues working at Volvo.

Prior to his work at Volvo, Bohlin helped to design the ejection seat for pilots while working at Saab. He would later use many of the things he learned on his assignment at Saab to develop the three-point seat belt at Volvo. He even helped scientifically demonstrate the seat belt’s effectiveness in a study of 28,000 car crashes in Sweden (a task not usually required of an engineer).

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that in 2016 the seat belt saved about 15,000 lives in the U.S. alone. According to the CDC, the seat belt saved over 255,000 lives in the U.S between 1975 and 2008. Of course, the impact worldwide is much greater, but no official data is available. (source)

Although Nils' story is of saving physical lives, your efforts in Temple & Family History saves spiritual lives. Also even without worldly recognition, our contributions in the work of the Lord are recognized by him. He blesses us with internal peace, knowing we contributed to His work.

Reminder. Current Workflow for Family History:

Think Inputs and Outputs.

1. Historical people’s information first has to be digitized (others do this).
2. We index people’s digitized information so the image can be associated with text, which can be found in computer searches. AI is still not good enough to do this by itself.
3. We link families' data together in FamilySearch.org (each member’s initial target is 4-Generations found and linked. Later we work cousin lines too.)
4. We attach people’s information (source data) to the right person to help us and others to get to know them better. Attaching more sources also shows our hypotheses about individuals more likely true than not true as we build a clear picture of who they were.
5. Then, we can get names to take to the temple and offer them the choice of being linked to their families for eternity.
6. By delving deeper, finding and attaching sources and their small bits of information about our ancestor’s experiences, we get to know our people (both direct lines and cousin lines), and our hearts turn to them. As more original sources are digitized and indexed, more puzzle pieces become available. It’s an ongoing and accelerating effort. When are we “done” knowing someone? We can all go beyond the dates of their birth and death and get to know our people.
7. We can bless others by sharing with our immediate family and cousins what we’ve learned about our shared ancestors or kin, helping all of us feel more grounded, knowing where we came from. Potentially helping them to turn their hearts to their fathers too.

As Ward Temple & Family History Consultants we are called to help you with HOW to do these things, the Lord has asked that we all do.

Sincerely, Your Ward Temple & Family History Consultants,

During Stake Family Search Center posted hours, our staffing assignments are posted in the Family Search Center for Tues or Wed evenings.

(our contact info is in the tools app, the Church website, or see us in church)

Older versions of this Ward Message (without names or places), with some how-to instructions, are at familyhistorystuff.com for your reference. This site is not profit oriented. The .com was a mistake when .org was intended, and would have doubled the cost to fix the mistake.