478. Family History, and Work for the dead -- OUR GREATEST RESPONSIBILITY! I'll be starting some mini-lessons of what I'm learning! LOVE IT!

Family History!  I have mentioned before my great interest in Genealogy -- as I first called it.  Now we refer to it as Family History, and I love the history part as much as the pedigree and family group charts.  One quote I read in my teen age years really stuck with me -- from the Prophet Joseph Smith:

"The greatest responsibility in the world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead."  In D & C 128:15 is says: "Let me assure you that these are principles in relation to the dead and the living that cannot be lightly passed over, as pertaining to our salvation.  For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as ... they without us cannot be made perfect---neither can we without our dead be made perfect."  Each prophet since him have made many statements that say the same things.  

 "President Gordon B. Hinclkey stated that those who wait beyond the veil for the irdinances of the gospel are in desperate circumstances analogous to the handcart pioneers.  They need our help.  Those who labor in the temples of the Lord are their rescuers, he said.  We need to wake up the whole church to their plight."  (by Elder D. Todd Christofferson.

Dear President Gordon B. Hinkley 

 In the next few days I will post each day a mini-lesson on how to start, or continue in your quest to do this important work!  I am taking the training course for Family History Missionaries here in St. George, and I'm learning so many fascinating things!  I'll just give you a taste of it!


Work for the Dead

This was on Latter Daily Devotion --

SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY:

Malachi 4:5-6
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."


QUOTE OF THE DAY:  

George Albert Smith
  George Albert Smith
"Many people do not understand the seriousness and the sacredness of life . . . There are some of our people who have no interest in their genealogy. They care nothing about their forebears; at least you would think so by the way they behave. They do not go into the temple to do work for their dead. . . .

". . . After we have been to the House of the Lord for our own blessings, let us think of our responsibility to our forebears. What will be your reception when you go on the other side?" (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: George Albert Smith, p. 86-87).

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