Temple and Family History Work – Page 2

Just the Baby

Here we are at Hale Center Theater to see A Christmas Carol. It was wonderful.

To celebrate Tim’s birthday, Richard and I made a temple appointment. As I finished our temple session and entered the celestial room, I was greeted by a temple worker as I never have before. He simply said “Hi,” not a more formal “hello” or reverent nod, but a joyful “Hi!” It made me think of the welcome I hope for in heaven, just a familiar “Hi.”

Last Sunday at dinner, I gave a simple baby in a manger to each of our children for Christmas, a reminder that Christmas takes different forms during our lives, and sometimes it feels incomplete, with a loss or absence of a loved one. I have learned that Christmas can still be celebrated without the full scene. The simplest Nativity, without any of the other characters surrounding Christ, is still complete because of the Baby in the manger. Christ is the only essential, and he is always there. I also believe He wants a familiarity with us, a relationship that will continue forever. I believe he also wants to greet us with a familiar, “Hi,” someday.

Behind the scenes

This is just a portion of the cookies we decorated.

It has been a busy few months preparing for a stake Primary training about temple and family history work. On the day of the training, Paige and I decorated 70 temple cookies, and that was a big job. Thank you, Paige!

Most of the effort to prepare for this evening can’t be shown. Truly, it was not about the pretty cookies. There was a lot of personal and collaborative work. It was a spiritual journey. By the end, I realized this wasn’t “my” training at all. My original ideas for the evening slowly changed to something better, thanks to counseling with my presidency and an enthusiastic high councilor. Answers to prayers came. My small hope for some help from a few temple and family history consultants resulted in around 16 people showing up to teach.

It’s my birthday weekend, and as I look back on my last week of being 47, I can say that it was one of the best weeks. I was with my Sanchez family in the temple, along with Richard, Paige, Daniel, and McKenna. I got to see ordinances performed for people from my own labors in family history research. And towards the end of the week, I believe miracles happened at our training.

We gathered at the grave for my grandparents the morning after we completed their temple ordinances.

Modern apostles, including David A. Bednar, Quentin L. Cook, Neil L. Andersen and Dale G. Renlund have promised many powerful blessings to those who participate in Family History and Temple Service.

Dressing up

Happy Halloween! It’s not my favorite holiday, but I have always enjoyed the costumes. Mark dressed up with his friend to go to a Halloween dance with church friends. Cuties.

This wasn’t for Halloween, but I asked Daniel to try on my grandpa’s US Army uniform from WWII this weekend. Wow!

Here is a picture of my grandfather in his uniform.

Did I ever tell you that my grandpa and I got along really well? He had a tough and intimidating exterior, but he also gave me the nickname, Angelina Magdalena and talked to me like a pal. He took me places, Hawaii, Hearst Castle, San Francisco, and good restaurants. I have so many memories, but one favorite was when he picked me up from the Oakland airport and drove me to his house. We listened to his Andrews Sisters cassette and we talked about what his life was like when he was my age. I loved him so much.

Important to me

This week, I took an hour to upload a few photos to the Family Search website and tag the names of my ancestors. One of the pictures I uploaded is shown above. It is small, just 2×3″, and sits in a frame in my kitchen. It is special because it shows my great-grandmother Alli, on the right, seated with the children, smiling. Since discovering this photo in 2013, we have found more photos of Alli smiling, but this was the first. Alli died 3 1/2 years after this photo was taken.

The photo is well-labeled on the back, and the label identifies the two children are who are celebrating birthdays, plus one other name, Ellen. She sits above the party on the right. As I tagged her in the photo, I realized that this is the only photo on Family Search for this woman, who is my great-great aunt. Then I noticed that her temple work has not been done. As I continued tagging, I saw that there are temple ordinances waiting to be done for the birthday children, specifically for the birthday boy, second from the left on the bottom row. He was killed in WWII and left no descendants.

This photo now holds even more importance for me. If I hadn’t decided to share and tag this photo, how would I have known there are handfuls of temple ordinances to be done for these people? There are no coincidences in temple and family history work.

summation

I am maintaining my goal to work on temple and family history work for a short time each week. One project this month is to go through old mail and cards that I have kept throughout my life. I am letting go of a lot of it. For scale, I would say I have one banker’s box left, and still plan to say goodbye to much more.

I haven’t been reading every letter, just sorting them by sender. Even without reading, I am amazed at what I learn about my grandmothers as I do this. I thought that I had already gathered their writing, but I have found so much more. Perhaps I am coming to know them better after they are gone, when the sum of their words and kindness is laid bare on the sorting table. I always knew they were good to me, but seeing their words from every stage of my life is an incredible gift.

I visualize my Grandma Ruth standing in the grocery store next to the greeting cards, finding just the words and images she wanted to convey. I picture my Grandma Stewart at her writing desk, penning her brief notes, often ending with “Take care–,” which of course meant, “I love you.” I see them, clearly in my mind, and know they are still with me.

Daniel and McKenna’s Wedding Day Snapshots

I asked my sister Susan to take photos with my phone so we could have some candid shots of the wedding day. I think these photos can be more fun and can tell a story better than professional photos.

Eventually we will see the professional photos, but the day after a wedding, I am anxious to relive the day in my mind. These candid snapshots are a blessing to me. Thank you, Susan!

Another reality about the day after a wedding is that I awoke this morning on the couch where I had collapsed the night before. But look! My hairstyle was still intact!

Happy Memorial Day

My great-grandfather, Joseph Sanchez, WWI

Making Progress

These are screenshots that illustrate some of my personal goals. The above screenshot is from the Gospel Library app. I am working to electronically mark my favorite quotes from church leaders at the last general conference, tagging quotes so can search them by topic. I began by reading a talk each day, starting sometime in January and ending last week. I marked favorite passages as I read. Now, each day I go back through the marked passages and add some topic tags. It is a drop by drop kind of project.

The next image is a screenshot from the Family Tree app, showing that my short, set appointments each Thursday to work on family history are yielding results. In two months, I have been able to contribute more than any year recorded here.

It is not my intention to brag, but to illustrate how tiny daily and weekly efforts are making a difference in my life!

anytime you do anything that helps anyone…

One of the sweetest experiences happened recently when I was feeling sorry that I wasn’t better at family history work. I have a goal to work on family history research each Thursday for a certain amount of time, but perfectionism paralysis keeps happening when I search for family names. So, lately I have been indexing records on Family Search to fill my goal quota of time. It feels mostly like a defeat when I turn to indexing instead of working on my own family line. Fear of entering my family names wrong has really been chasing me.

So, I prayed about it, and said I was sorry I wasn’t more brave. I expected some direction from the Lord about how to fix my paralysis, but instead, I felt unreserved love. Also, I felt assured that I am doing family history work that I hadn’t thought to claim. I may need a guide to help me with my Finnish family line, but there is plenty I can do without assistance, and lots of things that I AM doing to help.

“Anytime you do anything that helps anyone—on either side of the veil—take a step toward making covenants with God and receiving their essential baptismal and temple ordinances, you are helping to gather Israel. It is as simple as that.”
Russell M. Nelson, “Hope of Israel,” worldwide devotional for youth, June 3, 2018.

Category: Temple and Family History Work