Worship Service Talk

Today I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting. My talk was based on Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander's (Seventy) talk on bridging the past to the future through genealogy work and Temple work. I think it turned out alright. I spoke about the importance of doing you genealogy and especially doing the Temple work for the deceased family member who have passed on to the Spirit world. I was so nervous about sharing my feelings on the subject. Several people gave me compliments.
Thank you to you all who did.


Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander's talk below.

Bridges and Eternal Keepsakes
Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander Of the Seventy
Dennis B. Neuenschwander,

“Bridges and Eternal Keepsakes,” Ensign, May 1999, 83

Genealogies, family stories, historical accounts, and traditions … form a bridge between past and future and bind generations together in ways that no other keepsake can.
Brethren and sisters, every family has keepsakes. Families collect furniture, books, porcelain, and other valuable things, then pass them on to their posterity. Such beautiful keepsakes remind us of loved ones now gone and turn our minds to loved ones unborn. They form a bridge between family past and family future.
Every family has other, more valuable, keepsakes. These include genealogies, family stories, historical accounts, and traditions. These eternal keepsakes also form a bridge between past and future and bind generations together in ways that no other keepsake can.
I would like to share a few thoughts about family history, bridges, and eternal keepsakes. Family history builds bridges between the generations of our families, builds bridges to activity in the Church, and builds bridges to the temple.
First, family history builds bridges between the generations of our families. Bridges between generations are not built by accident. Each member of this Church has the personal responsibility to be an eternal architect of this bridge for his or her own family. At one of our family gatherings this past Christmas, I watched my father, who is 89 years old, and our oldest grandchild, Ashlin, who is four and a half. They enjoyed being together. This was a bittersweet moment of realization for me. Though Ashlin will retain pleasant but fleeting memories of my father, he will have no memory of my mother, who passed away before his birth. Not one of my children has any recollection of my grandparents. If I want my children and grandchildren to know those who still live in my memory, then I must build the bridge between them. I alone am the link to the generations that stand on either side of me. It is my responsibility to knit their hearts together through love and respect, even though they may never have known each other personally. My grandchildren will have no knowledge of their family’s history if I do nothing to preserve it for them. That which I do not in some way record will be lost at my death, and that which I do not pass on to my posterity, they will never have. The work of gathering and sharing eternal family keepsakes is a personal responsibility. It cannot be passed off or given to another.
A life that is not documented is a life that within a generation or two will largely be lost to memory. What a tragedy this can be in the history of a family. Knowledge of our ancestors shapes us and instills within us values that give direction and meaning to our lives. Some years ago, I met the director of a Russian Orthodox monastery. He showed me volumes of his own extensive family research. He told me that one of the values, perhaps even the main value, of genealogy is the establishment of family tradition and the passing of these traditions on to younger generations. “Knowledge of these traditions and family history,” he said, “welds generations together.” Further, he told me: “If one knows he comes from honest ancestors, he is duty and honor bound to be honest. One cannot be dishonest without letting each member of his family down.” 1
If you are among the first to have embraced the gospel in your family, build bridges to your posterity by recording the events of your life and writing words of encouragement to them. In 1892 sisters of the Kolob Stake in Springville, Utah, wrote letters to their children and sealed them in a time capsule to be opened March 17, 1942, the centennial anniversary of the Relief Society. After recording a brief genealogy of her family reaching back to those who first joined the Church, Mariah Catherine Boyer wrote the following to her two children: “Dear children, when you read this, parents and grandparents will be sleeping in the silent tomb. Those hands that toiled so hard in love for you will toil no more, and those eyes that gazed in love and approbation on your innocent brows will see you no more, until we meet in heaven. Dear children, … may the bands of a sister and a brother’s love entwine your hearts. … Do right by your fellowmen, follow the dictates of your conscience, ask God to give you power to resist all temptations to do evil, and let it be said of you, ‘that the world is better for you having lived in it.’ Keep the commandments of God. May your paths in life be strewn with flowers, and may you at all times do right. May you never taste adversity. May the Spirit and blessings of God attend you at all times is the prayer of your mother. I will enclose the photographs of our family. Goodbye my dear children, until we meet.” 2 These tender and beautiful words have now bridged six generations of a faithful family.
Family history and temple work have a great power, which lies in their scriptural and divine promise that the hearts of the fathers will turn to the children and those of the children will turn to their fathers. 3 Woodrow Wilson stated: “A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.” 4 Well might this be said of families also: A family “which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.”
Second, family history builds bridges to activity in the Church. Family history work solidifies converts and strengthens all members of the Church. Family history research and the preparation of names for the temple can be most valuable in the retention of new members. Faith and confidence grow as family members are included in the saving ordinances of the gospel. During a recent stake conference, I met John and Carmen Day, who were recently baptized. They told me that they had already prepared family names and were planning to enter the temple as soon as they could. Is retention a question here? A new member of the Church can be introduced to family history and temple work very quickly by missionaries, friends, neighbors, and priesthood and auxiliary leaders. Participation in temple ordinances is, after all, at the center of our gospel experience. No official call is required to participate in family history and the accompanying gospel ordinances.
Recently I read an article in the Improvement Era of August 1940. I quote: “A year ago last April Conference, Dr. John A. Widtsoe of the Council of the Twelve asked the mission presidents of the Church what single phase of the Gospel was most responsible in their respective missions for making new friends, new interests, new converts. President Frank Evans of the Eastern States Mission looked into the subject and concluded that genealogy, and its attendant Gospel ordinances and beliefs, was the greatest factor in his mission.” 5
A more recent Church study reveals that early involvement in finding and preparing family names for the temple and, where possible, participating in vicarious baptisms for them are major factors in the retention of new members. The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve have encouraged a much broader use of family history and the Family History Centers™ in the retention of new converts and the activation of those who have fallen out of regular Church activity. Priesthood leaders, missionaries, and Family History Center directors all play important roles in the expanded use of these centers.
Third, family history builds bridges to the temple. Family history work leads us to the temple. Family history and temple work are one work. The words family history should probably never be said without attaching the word temple to them. Family history research should be the primary source of names for temple ordinances, and temple ordinances are the primary reason for family history research. President Gordon B. Hinckley has said: “All of our vast family history endeavor is directed to temple work. There is no other purpose for it.” 6
Family history research provides the emotional bridge between the generations. Temple ordinances provide the priesthood bridge. Temple ordinances are the priesthood ratification of the connection that we have already established in our hearts. Mother Teresa said that “loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” 7 The thought that this poverty of loneliness—this being unwanted and separated from loved ones—could extend beyond this life is truly sad. The promise of family history and temple work is eternal connection born of both love and priesthood ordinances.
Brethren and sisters, family history and temple work are the eternal family keepsakes that build bridges. They build bridges between the generations of our families, bridges to activity in the Church, and bridges to the temple. It is my desire that each of us will recognize the great keepsakes we have received from those who preceded us and our own personal responsibility to pass them on to future generations. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
1. Dennis B. Neuenschwander, personal journal, 14 Aug. 1975.
2. Mariah Catherine Boyer, letter to her two children, Irena B. Mendenhall and Richard Lovell Mendenhall Jr.
3. See Mal. 4:5–6.
4. Quoted in The Rebirth of America (1986), 12.
5. Improvement Era, Aug. 1940, 495.
6. In Conference Report, Apr. 1998, 115–16; or Ensign, May 1998, 88.
7. Quoted in Church News, 20 June 1998, 2.

LOL

I was reading a joke web page. And the following joke was so funny to me I just had to share it. Or maybe its the hour that I am reading it. ;0

Doorbells
We had spent the day moving from our farmhouse into our new house in town.
Early the next morning, our 3- year-old ran into our bedroom to wake us up. I dressed him and told him to play in the yard and to quit bothering us.
About 20 minutes later, he came running back. "Mommy, Mommy," he exclaimed, "everybody has doorbells – and they all work."

From Elder P today

How is your missionary work this week? Good it is coming along.

Mom- I am speaking Sunday at our worship service. So what do you want to tell the Branch. Here is your chance to give your words.

I have nothing to say that I haven't told already.

Those bunnies are cute hope they stay alive for next year.

Love Elder P

Wild Bunnies!

Amber and her friends found some wild bunnies along the retaining wall along the driveway yesterday. We have to bottle feed the bunnies. Included are some pictures. Amber holding the bunnies, I am feeding one of them, and the last picture is of one hiding in the grass nest and the other one sitting outside the grass nest. They will probably die. They are so tiny for this time of the year.

They are so cute.

9/3/08 Weekly Letter

How is everything going? Everything is going fine.

What is your companion like? He is in the immortal words of principle skinner he is a "slacker". (He is trunkie – ready to go home)

What is Calgary like? It is rainy lately and getting colder you can compare Calgary to Kansas City in largeness.

Are you teaching anyone? No not yet.

What are you doing everyday? The usual missionary stuff.

What have you learned being there? There is all ways a work to be done.

Love Elder P

AY! Here Are Some Pictures from Canada

Elders and the host famliy in Creston, Canada.

Elders at the MTC.

Companion wearing a childs hat.

Elder P and Companion.

Elder P and companion.

Temple in Canada.

Deer in "No Hunting Zone".

Worlds of Fun?!

Howdy All~

Sorry I haven't been updating lately. Life has been crazy with canning and gardening. I'll be back posting some of those pictures.

Friday we took Amber to Worlds of Fun in Kansas City. This was a kick off for the new school year for us. I heard a really funny thing as we were leaving the park.

We were so tired. We were walking slow. We had another family behind us.

The kids were complaining that their feet hurt. The parent told the little boy to be brave. And that they were almost out of the park. The little boy then responded, "It's hard to be brave when my feet hurt so bad".

Poor kid! I am quite sure that as soon as the family's car left the parking lot the boy was asleep in the car.

I repeated to Darren what the boy said and we both chuckled and said how cute. Children can come up with the most interesting things to say. Love them!

End of Summer...bummer :(

We have had great fun this summer. Too bad that this summer is ending so soon. We had a great harvest and Darren learned how to drive a tractor.

We really love it out here even though there is so much work. At least we are teaching our children the importance of work, and how to feed themselves when they grow older.

Elder P's latest

8/13/2008

How is it going this week? This week is going well I have been moved to south Calgary to McKenzie ward and since my last companion is going home they moved me with another one going home this transfer (in 6 weeks is the end of this transfer)

How is the missionary work?I have not been here long to know here but my last area is is great the people are very receptive to the gospel.

Canadians don't even know what Dutch Ovens are. (I told him I was doing a Dutch Oven demo)

Ya It is surprising that I have been out 100 days already I have about 600 days left.
Happy Birthday I will be sending a present later for you and Dad. I love you too! Love, Elder P

8/20/08
What is your new companion like? My companion Elder Norton-Carlisle like my other companions went home last transfer is going home this transfer.Where is he from? Payson, Utah

What is your new area like? My new area is a walking mission the first week I had to ride a bike that was left from the other missionary -the mission has bikes for us missionaries.

Are you teaching the people? We are teaching a less active member who is going to the temple.

Your Aunt Melinda wants to know if you got the granola. Yes, but it was opened package but the granola was still in the bags that it was sent in they just had to make sure that it was not something else.
Love, Elder P

Awesome Birthday Suprises

Well I had one of the most awesome birthdays ever! I was planning to spend it with my hubby and Amber. I made a black forest cherry cake. Then at the door was one of my dear friends with a chocolate cake. Then another friend with a wonderful white cake made in the shape of a flower. While we were sitting down to have the cake, two more of my wonderful friends came with a cupcake and a candle. I was totally surprised! A couple of my friends sat down to watch a movie and eat cake with us.

I also had one woman I know call and sing Happy Birthday to me on the phone.

Then to my surprise 2 of my sisters in Utah called to wish me a happy birthday. Wow this makes turning 41 easier.

I now know who my dear friends are here.

Thanks!