13 Generations, revised

Since posting the image of my 13-generation chart previously, I've since found one more link to some ancestors I didn't have then (through my wife's father's parents). One link, two generations above us, and we've now added almost 1,000 ancestors. WOW! So here's the new picture, showing 2,063 ancestors on record. So cool!

Promise made to the fathers

I've been reading about
the visitation made by the Lord to the Kirtland temple in 1836, and the visions presented to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdry, namely, Moses, Elias, and Elijah.

Moses committed the keys of the gathering of Israel.

Elias committed the dispensation of the Gospel of Abraham (??).

Elijah said, "Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that he should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come — To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse— Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors."

Both Malachi and 3rd Nephi say "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."

When Moroni was visiting Joseph Smith as a young boy, he quoted this scripture, but did it differently enough that Joseph remarked at the change: "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."

He shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers. The hearts of the children shall turn to the fathers.

No mention of the father's hearts turning to the children. And what is the promise made to the fathers?

I could be wrong here, but this is what I think the promise is (if you know more, please share with me); All who are of the faith, and baptized into Christ, become Abraham’s seed. This is the promise--if you are of the faith and baptized with authority, you become heir to the blessings of Abraham. If your fathers are not so baptized (ordinances), they are not heirs, and the great chain of the family is broken. If your fathers died without this baptism, it has been planted in your heart to attend to your fathers and see that the work is done.

I want to go one step beyond the baptism referenced in Galations (above), and reference President Joseph F. Smith in D&C 138, where he goes on to say the redemption of the dead includes the sealing of the children to their parents. So not only having 'our fathers' baptized, but also being sure the family chain is sealed together, with sealing being the last and highest ordinance of the temple.

The next question is how is the promise planted? A future blog post.

Looks like we might have to wait

I've been instructed that the new system won't be made available to our stake until each ward has at least one qualified consultant. Qualification is proved through an online orientation.

So...we need more consultants to make this blessing available. The blessing is ready, but the stake isn't. Feels like that is our responsibility, doesn't it? The Lord has facilitated the blessing, provided it, and has it on deck to lite upon us.

Truly, we want to have around 10 consultants per ward. But only one per is the number we need to have the roll-out.

This is such a great blessing!! I can't wait to share it.

Oh yeah, that's the other thing. I can't start training individuals in the stake until the general populous has it already. I can train consultants, and priesthood leaders who have access right now. Other than that, I can only tease you. :)

13 Generations

So this is a picture of me and my wife, and the 12 generations behind us. I knew of maybe 6 generations behind me before using new.familysearch. My mother-in-law knew of a lot of family, but didn't know what work had been done. Here we have 1,075 individuals on this chart. Isn't this amazing??

A specialist

So I misunderstood what my calling was to be. I thought I was a stake family history consultant. Nope. The calling I've been given is the Stake Family History Specialist. Not a big difference, I think.

I recently helped my step-mother add two relatives to her family file. She had done a fair bit of research and found that two ancestors weren't on the church's records. We were able to easily add the research from her gedcom file, waited a few minutes, and the names were then on the records. No work had been done for the individuals, and she elected to do the work herself. We printed out the FOR (Family Ordinance Request) sheet, and she's ready to go to the temple. Just like that. The entire process took less than 15 minutes, and that includes the 5 minutes we had to wait for the church records to be updated. All online, done from the comfort of her study. Can it get more simple? I think not.

I'm prepared to answer any questions, help in any way, and if you're interested in becoming a consultant, please let me know and I'll see that the opportunity is availed to you.

The importance of balance

It's easy to spend more time than is healthy doing a new hobby. I was up WAY too late last night, copying my pedigree out of FamilySearch onto paper to keep track of everyone. This morning came like an angry wind, rattling my sleep addled mind. All day I'm thinking about those pedigrees, and I'm reading up on training. Balance. must. have. balance.

Some quick hands-on training

I just hosted my cousin's son from Australia for a mere 24 hours as he was preparing to enter the MTC. He's serving a mission in Japan. I told him of my new calling, and he was thrilled as he's been a Ward Family History consultant for a year now, using the new system. He was very excited to train me, and we proceeded to spend hours going over the system, how it works, how to do due diligence (can't do enough), and how to find the work to be done. I'm already finding some work in my family lines. Already! Within 24 hours!!! This system is so elegant. There are clearly some improvements that can be made, and I'll see what I can do about getting feedback going up the pipe. And I can see why they were rolling it out in Utah and Idaho last. We're going to kill the system! All the active members who are going to be using the system! And the pioneer families!! The children!!! (The wives!!) I've tried to merge a few stray records already, and the system can't handle the size of the files, so it won't merge. That's going to have to change.

This is exciting stuff. I'm giddy with the yearning to get the work done. Here's the wheel. Put your shoulder to it!