2025-08 Aug - Gratitude
Aug 10, 2025
Gratitude
Kurt Russell
Read time: Summary 0.1 minutes | Expanded section: 7.8 minutes | Entire message 7.9 minutes
Summary
- The Spiritual Side of Gratitude
- 18th-Century Americans Were Just as Obsessed With Their Genealogy as We Are Today
- Story Time
- Workflow for Family History
Expanded Message
The Spiritual Side of Gratitude
NOTE: Unless otherwise stated, the quotes in this section are from Bonnie D. Parkin, Relief Society General President, 2007 (to save repeating it each time)
Gratitude requires awareness and effort, not only to feel it but to express it.
In like manner, Temple & Family History also requires effort. That effort bears awareness as its fruits. For that awareness, I am grateful.
Gratitude is a Spirit-filled principle. It opens our minds to a universe permeated with the richness of a living God. Through it, we become spiritually aware of the wonder of the smallest things, which gladden our hearts with their messages of God’s love.
Temple & Family History provides blessings to those who choose to serve in this way.
When we communicate gratitude, we can be filled with the Spirit and connected to those around us and the Lord. Gratitude inspires happiness and carries divine influence.
Feeling more connected to the Lord is a blessing. If we allow it, connected could also mean connected to both the living around us and connected to our ancestors who have passed away. As we turn our hearts to our fathers, we feel connected to them. I testify of that.
Mercies and blessings come in different forms—sometimes as hard things. Yet the Lord said, “Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things.” All things means just that: good things, difficult things—not just some things. He has commanded us to be grateful because He knows being grateful will make us happy.
Simply feeling gratitude makes me happier. It inoculates me for the trials of the day. Was Christ perhaps asking us to worry less when he said “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matt 6:34) Would a bit of gratitude aid our spirit more abundantly? Do we choose a diet of anxiety or gratitude? Which diet is more spiritually healthy?
Changing tack, how do you feel when someone expresses gratitude to you? If we express gratitude to God for one of our forbearers, might that person become aware of it on the other side of the veil?
Going to the bigger picture, what does the Lord want? In a search, I again came across the 20 January 2025 Come Follow Me lesson. It has these quotes:
- The Lord sent Elijah to turn my heart to my ancestors.
- What do words like “plant,” “hearts,” and “turn” in this section teach you about the mission of Elijah and the blessings of the priesthood keys he restored?
- How have you felt your heart turn toward your ancestors?
- Think of ways you can experience such feelings more often.
How can expressing gratitude turn our hearts to our fathers? It may take less awareness and effort to express gratitude to our fathers than it does to find out more about them through records that remain (or seemingly don’t). I am grateful for the sources I have found for my people, for the knowledge of part of their lives. The resulting partial picture does not mean I fully know them yet, but like a candle in the darkness, it sheds more light on my fathers than I had before. It helps turn my heart towards them, to appreciate them, to see the Lord’s hand in their lives too.
Luke chapter 17 records the experience of the Savior when He healed 10 lepers. As you recall, only one of the cleansed lepers returned to express his appreciation. Isn’t it interesting that the Lord did not say, “Your gratitude has made you whole”? Instead, He said, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” The leper’s expression of gratitude was recognized by the Savior as an expression of his faith. As we pray and express gratitude to a loving but unseen Heavenly Father, we are also expressing our faith in Him.
I have faith in Jesus Christ. I am profoundly grateful for a temple that is closer than before. I am grateful to our God for my ancestor’s lives and what I have gained for turning my heart towards them.
In 1832 the Lord saw the need to prepare the Church for coming tribulations. Tribulations are frightening. And yet the Lord said: “Be of good cheer, for I will lead you along.
Our generation also has tribulations. Sometimes they seem to be accelerating. Tribulations are hard, and sometimes scary. To some of you, learning how to perform family history may seem a trial or a tribulation. Yet in the Lord’s house, the temple, through the Holy Spirit, we can feel peace. We can ponder in gratitude our ancestors. We can wonder at the newly discovered cousins. Holding on to the rod of iron (scriptures, revelation from living prophets and apostles) can help us move through the mists seen in Lehi’s vision. The temple clears our view of the mists. God wants us to succeed. He invites us to do things that help us succeed. His living prophet implores us and pleads with us. I am grateful for these things too.
After the temple ceremonial ground breaking, the “trial” phase could be thought of as the temple construction process. Back in the days when church members helped construct temples, this actually required significant personal sacrifice. Hmmm. So how would the Lord have us do our part today, when others construct the temple? How prepared are we with family history information? If you need help, Ward Temple & Family History Consultants are happy to help the 40+% of our ward that does not yet have their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents each having a page in familysearch.org. Getting these first few generations in is much easier than you may worry. Let us show you that it is a mole hill rather than a mountain. Enjoy the blessings of knowing more about your recent ancestors. Come and see. Either get the posted hours on the bulletin board next to the Family Search Center at the Stake Center, or contact one of us and arrange help over zoom or in-person.
I am grateful to no longer have to use a typewriter and whiteout on physical forms. I am grateful for how much easier familysearch.org is to use than the paper forms of the past. Any of the Ward Temple & Family History Consultants are happy to show you how easy it is to use once they get you past learning the user interface.
“And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious.” The kind of gratitude that receives even tribulations with thanksgiving requires a broken heart and a contrite spirit; humility to accept that which we cannot change; willingness to turn everything over to the Lord, even when we do not understand; thankfulness for hidden opportunities yet to be revealed. Then comes a sense of peace.
Becoming aware of the tribulations my forbearers went through helps me see that I can get through similar trials and tribulations too.
“We find in the bitter chill of adversity the real test of our gratitude … , which … goes beneath the surface of life, whether sad or joyous.”
~ President David O. McKay
We are willing to help when you are willing to do Temple & Family History service.
18th-Century Americans Were Just as Obsessed With Their Genealogy as We Are Today
Story Time
How a Actor Kurt Russell feels more connected to his ancestors and their role in early American history.
“That’s what I’m being struck by,” Russell added, “Is how connected — it’s not that long ago. It’s only seven men ago before me."
An the natural reaction he feels that we all can feel is revealed in the following quote.
It’s something he wants to share with his siblings and other family members.
“We are not the beginning. We are not the end. We are just a conduit through time through which all this information gets passed. The founders felt the same way, and that’s the connection we need people to make.”
Reminder. Current Workflow for Family History:
Think Inputs and Outputs.
- Historical people’s information first has to be digitized (others do this).
- 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.
- 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.)
- 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.
- Then, we can get names to take to the temple and offer them the choice of being linked to their families for eternity.
- 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.
- 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
(our contact info is in the tools app, or see us in church)
P.S. - Older versions of this Ward Message (without names), with some how-to instructions, are at familyhistorystuff.com for your reference. This site is not for profit. The .com was a mistake when .org was intended, and would have doubled the cost to fix the mistake.