www.churchofjesuschrist.org
Here is a link to the video we talked about at our training meeting of the promised blessings of family history: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/family-history/video/the-promised-blessing-of-family-history?lang=eng
Here is a list I made. It comes in handy for talks:
The Promised Blessings of Family History
President Russell M. Nelson:
While temple and family history work has the power to bless those beyond the veil it has an equal power to bless the living. It has a refining influence in those who are engaged in it.
Elder Neil L. Anderson:
This is how you and I become Saviors on Mount Zion, there is a joy and satisfaction that is only understood through spiritual feelings. We are linked to them forever. Your own knowledge and faith in the Savior will increase and you will receive a more certain witness that life continues beyond the veil. I know that life continues beyond the veil. I know it.
Quentin L. Cook:
I leave my blessing upon you with a promise: That if you look beyond the bonds of time and mortality and help those who cannot help themselves, you will be blessed with more closeness and joy in your family and with the divine protections afforded those who are faithful in His service.
I invoke a special blessing on you parents, you youth, and you children that each of you will find joy and be blessed in every other aspect of your life as you fulfill the obligation that has been sent from heaven.
Elder David A. Bednar:
As you respond to this invitation, your heart shall turn to the fathers. The promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be implanted in your hearts. Your patriarchal blessing with its declaration of lineage will link you to these fathers and will be more meaningful to you. Your love and gratitude for your ancestors will increase. Your testimony of and conversion to the Savior will become deep and abiding.
And I promise you will be protected against the intensifying influence of the adversary. As you participate in faith and love this holy work you will be safeguarded in your youth and throughout your lives.
Elder Dale G. Renlund:
You’ll find not only protection from the temptation and ills of this world but you’ll also find personal power to change, power to repent, power to learn, power to be sanctified and power to turn the hearts of your family together and heal that which needs healing.
Elder Henry B. Eyring:
I testify that God the Father wants his children home again in families and in glory and I promise you the inspired help that you seek and need.
Elder Richard G. Scott:
Any work you do in the temple is time well spent, but receiving ordinances vicariously for one of your own ancestors will make the time in the temple more sacred, and even greater blessings will be received.
First Presidency Letter 2012:
When members of the Church find the names of their ancestors and take those names to the temple for ordinance work, the temple experience can be greatly enriched.
Elder Boyd K. Packer:
“Family history work in one sense would justify itself even if one were not successful in clearing names for temple work. The process of searching, the means of going after those names, would be worth all the effort you could invest. The reason: You cannot find names without knowing that they represent people. You begin to find out things about people. When we research our own lines we become interested in more than just names or the number of names going through the temple. Our interest turns our hearts to our fathers—we seek to find them and to know them and to serve them. In doing so we store up treasures in heaven.”
Elder Howard W. Hunter:
“We must accomplish the priesthood temple ordinance work necessary for our own exaltation; then we must do the necessary work for those who did not have the opportunity to accept the gospel in life. Doing work for others is accomplished in two steps: first, by family history research to ascertain our progenitors; and second, by performing the temple ordinances to give them the same opportunities afforded to the living.
“Yet there are many members of the Church who have only limited access to the temples. They do the best they can. They pursue family history research and have the temple ordinance work done by others. Conversely, there are some members who engage in temple work but fail to do family history research on their own family lines. Although they perform a divine service in assisting others, they lose a blessing by not seeking their own kindred dead as divinely directed by latter-day prophets. …
“I have learned that those who engage in family history research and then perform the temple ordinance work for those whose names they have found will know the additional joy of receiving both halves of the blessing.”
“Temple and family history work is one work divided into two parts. They are connected together like the ordinances of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
—Elder Richard G. Scott
“Thousands of our faithful people seldom go to the temple, and of those who do go, most are not working on their own ancestral lines. They are not saving their own dead. They seem to believe they are fulfilling their responsibilities by merely attending the temple occasionally. This is simply not so.
“We all must learn that to save our own dead we must properly identify them so that we can then perform the work for them in the temples. …
“Saints in every temple district must be taught to provide their own names. Japanese people should provide the names for their own Tokyo temple. South American people should provide the names for their own Sao Paulo temple. Likewise in Mexico and Seattle and in every other established area. If they do so, then they will save their own dead. If they do not, and depend on Salt Lake City to send names…, they do not save their own dead, but instead they work on other people’s ancestry.”
—Spencer W. Kimball, regional representatives seminar, Sept. 30, 1976
Comments
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Thank you Shanna Jones,
This should be framed & put in every single Family History Center that we have for all to see. This is glorious information and very uplifting. My copy will be framed & it is going up on my office wall.
Thank you again for sharing....
Rae Danby 🍁
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