Family History - I am Doing It*

Go to this link in another browser and play this song while you read

Preferably with the music and vocals

At the end of July, my son Camden went with the Deacons Quorum to visit the Family History Library. Sister V was there and taught the young men about Family Search and the Finding Our Cousins program. Sister V and Camden looked for names for him, but had little success. 

The next day, knowing that we had some names reserved on Camden's paternal line, we got on familysearch.org and went looking. While there we printed off the pedigree chart and family group record that Camden needed for the Genealogy merit badge. We also dug around in our paper files and uploaded copies of US Civil War Service Records onto the entry for a man on Camden's maternal line. Finally we printed the names that we had reserved for the temple. There were two female names and five male names.

A week or two later Camden, Marleise, Egan, Dreyton, and I went to the temple on a Tuesday morning with Sister W and her daughters, M & S. Dreyton was able to baptize Camden and Marleise as proxy for the family names. Then I was able to go in and sit as the confirmations were done. During the confirmation for one of the women, May, I felt a warm, almost burning, sensation in my chest. When the officiators finished the confirmations, one of them turned to me and said, "That first female name. That was strong." I felt sure that she had been there.

When we were finished in the baptistry, Sister W took all of the younger kids home. Dreyton and I went upstairs where we continued to do work for those names. We had appointments to do all the initiatories and then we attended an endowment session. I decided to take May's name. Dreyton took her father George.

I didn't really feel anything during the endowment session, but I had a reoccurring thought that I needed to go home and find May's husband.

When Dreyton and I finished, we had mission prep errands to run. It was 4 or 5 o'clock before I got to the computer, but I felt like I really needed to do that so I went in to our office, sat down, and typed in May's father's name. I don't know why I chose him. It was partially because I had no idea what her married name was. But mostly it was because that is what popped into my head/fingers when I sat down.

Immediately a USGenWeb entry written in 1910 came up for George. It was a bio written about him in a book about the families of Grundy County Illinois. The article listed him, his first and second wife, his children and their spouses. May's husband Thomas was there.

I have more to do before we can take Thomas and the other names found in that article to the temple, but this sweet experience was a blessing during a busy time in our lives. It reminded me that God is mindful of all of His children living and dead. He wants us to take those few moments on a Sunday afternoon or a quite evening or even a crazy busy Tuesday afternoon and look at our family history. Maybe we will only find out that our family and our spouse's family crossed the plains in the same wagon company (true experience). Or maybe we can help our children upload the life sketches that came from our grandma's bureau drawer (a project yet to be done - but waiting). But just maybe if we take that few minutes, we will find a cousin who is excitedly waiting for us to find her, print her name, and take her to the temple.

*The title for this post came from and LDS Primary song. If you know your Primary songs or followed the link, you figured that out.

Variations on the Theme of Water

The inspiration that began this musing came from my husband. He spoke of the water cycle. How drops come to earth as rain and snow. They percolate through the earth and rock making their way to small streams and creeks. From there they join in rivers that become larger and larger until they reach the seas. Then the water evaporates and returns ro the heavens.

He commented that we are like the drops of rain or snow coming to earth going through a cycle of our own. The cycle of life.

I have thought about those comments. I see wisdom in that analogy. We could be liken to indivdual flakes and drops coming to the earth. We each have different characteristics and composition, but essentially we are the same. Millions of us have come and likely will come. Each doing many of the same things living and dying, but in our own indivdual ways.

Yet we don't always feel all that individual. As the water drops join a big river or the ocean they seem to lose their individual identity. We often feel that way too in a large school or a job or sometimes as just another random face living in a community doing essentially the same things our neighbors are doing.

We feel as if we have lost our uniqueness. We are just one of the crowd and nobody notices or cares about is. It can be disheartening.

But I am sure that while we see many who seem just like us or perhaps more than us -- more interesting, attention grabbing, sparkly and amazing -- we are known. We are known to the God who created us and placed us here now on this patch of earth or sea. He has a plan and intends us to eventually return individually to report all that we have accomplished here on earth.

Yet for so many it is easy to lose touch with that truth. The truth that we have a purpose on earth. It is easy to join the rushing river or roaring sea and find ourselves tumbling out of control.

It is easy to join the crowd and follow their path. Sometimes that path may create beauty, the Grand Canyon. Sometimes it leaves destruction, the mud and water damage of a flash flood. In either case it affects other things.

We affect other people and things. We affect for good and bad. It behooves us to be mindful and watchful. We are a force that changes other elements. We have power beyond our understanding even when we are wallowing and only making mud to dirty ourselves.

We are children of God. He loves us. He sent us to learn and grow and affect other things. Regardless of where we are in life, whether on our own or part of the crowd, He knows us. He loves us. And He wants us to do good.