“A blind person asked St. Anthony: “Can there be anything worse than losing one’s eyesight?” He replied: “Yes, losing your vision.” In this brief thought, I’m going to try to give readers a vision of family history as a blessing of the Priesthood.
“Peter was one of the greatest of men. It is true that the New Testament recounts some mortal weaknesses, but it also describes how he overcame them and was made strong by his faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord honored Peter by selecting him to be given the Keys of the Priesthood and the power of Elijah. The power of Elijah is the sealing power of the priesthood. (D&C 128:8–18) The Lord said unto Peter, “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)
Peter was the chief apostle of his day, and after the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Savior, it was Peter who called the followers(Church) together and acted in the office of his calling as the one who possessed the keys of the priesthood.”(Acts 1:2) (Bible Dictionary) —essentially the President and Prophet of the early church.
Now fast forwarding to the latter days, when Joseph Smith was an 18-year-old youth, the Angel Moroni woke him from his sleep and delivered the following message to him in his room…(not just once but three times). Moroni quoted a passage from Malachi, only his quote was a little different than the way it reads here in Malachi: “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.” (Malachi 4:5 & 6) Following are the words of Moroni: “Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.” (D&C 2:1–3) The following points should be noted: 1) The sealing power of the priesthood was to be restored, 2) The promises made to the Fathers (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) shall be planted in the hearts of their seed after them. What are the promises made to the Fathers??? Because Abraham was such a faithful man, the Lord blessed him and his seed as follows (paraphrased): I give unto thee Abraham, a promise “…I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in…thy Priesthood and in thy seed…shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal. (Abraham 2:8–11)
The promise of salvation and eternal life has been extended to (72 +) billions of people. Those people who have lived and died on this earth, without having had an opportunity to receive or even hear of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, will be given that blessing. That promise will be given through the sealing and binding power of the priesthood. Those very same keys given to Peter have been restored to the earth through the Latter-day Prophet, Joseph Smith, They were restored with the power to bind families together here on earth and loose them as spirit prisoners in the spirit world. When we go to the temple we might say that “Today I am going to the temple to loose Aunt Sally.”
It was nearly twenty years after Moroni’s visit before the young Prophet, Joseph, had matured spiritually enough to begin to really understand what Moroni’s message was all about.
Lehi, the first prophet of the Book of Mormon, truly saw our day from nearly 600 years B.C. His son, Nephi, quoting his father, Lehi, as saying, “Wherefore, our father hath not spoken of our seed alone, but also of all the house of Israel, pointing to the covenant which should be fulfilled in the latter days; which covenant the Lord made to our father Abraham, saying: ‘In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.’” (1 Nephi 15:18)
Why did Lehi say that “this work would be fulfilled in the latter days”?? Because they didn’t have the technology nor the wherewithal to do it in their day. They didn’t even have the technology to do it in Joseph Smith’s day
The internet has changed family history forever, making research faster, more affordable and more rewarding. In the next five to ten years, that progress will only accelerate more. FamilySearch is digitizing all the records in its granite vaults. Millions of rolls of microfilm, captured in more than 100 countries since 1939, will be digitized and then indexed by a massive volunteer force (over 120,000 indexers).
Other for-profit companies, including Ancestry.com, are moving rapidly forward, as well, as if they too, had been given a mission call by the Lord. Google and other similar search engines are becoming more sophisticated and accurate all the time. If anyone in your family tree was ever mentioned, it won’t be hard to find exactly where they are mentioned. (Source: “Family History in the Future,” by Paul Allen, co-founder and former CEO of Ancestry.com)
John A. Widtsoe said that “In our pre-existent state…we made a certain agreement with the Almighty. …We agreed…to be not only saviors for ourselves but measurably, saviors for the whole human family. We went into a partnership with the Lord. The working out of the plan became then not merely the Father’s work, and the Savior’s work, but also our work.” —Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, Oct. 1934. Many of us complain about not having enough time, with work, family, etc., etc. It is true, time is always a problem, but somehow we have to work in a few hours a week for this important work.
My thoughts on time:
Story about the guy who went for a stroll in the foothills near his home one evening: He was walking along thinking about his life and not really watching where he was going, and he got too close to the edge of a cliff and fell over. As he was falling, he was fortunate to be able to catch onto a branch that was growing out from the side of the cliff. As he hung there he looked up and yelled, “Is there anyone up there that can help me?” A voice came down from above, almost like it came from heaven, saying, “Yes, I can help you. Do you have faith in me? The guy quickly replied, “Yes, I have faith in you.” The voice came back from above and said, “Let go of the branch.” The guy thought about it for a minute and said, “Is there anyone else up there that can help me?” The moral of the story is that we hang onto things in life as if they were important, things that we have to let go of in order to have time to do the most important things. We fill our lives with so many unimportant things, unimportant when looked at from the eternal scheme of things. The only way that we can find time for family history is to let go of some of the lesser things. Can’t you just hear the voice from above saying, “If you have faith in me, you will let go of the branch.” The branch representing everything in your life that you are hanging onto that has no eternal value and yet takes hours of your time each week. Besides time, there is a matter of energy; people come home from work tired out and would prefer resting rather than doing family history.
My thoughts on energy:
Most of us, if asked where we get our energy, would say, “from the food we eat.” I am going to suggest, what I believe to be, a more important source. I have known men, now deceased, who were of retirement age who did nothing but sit on their couch all day watching TV and stuffing their faces. Yet, when it got late, they didn’t have the energy to get up off the couch to go to bed. Energy comes from goals and purposes. For the things we want to do, we always have enough energy. Purpose, that’s where our energy comes from. We should all adopt the Fukuoka Mission’s motto. This Japanese mission’s motto is: “Obedience is the price, faith is the power, love is the motive, the Spirit is the key, and Christ is the reason.”