August 2024

Family History

Home centered, and church supported - that's the theme of President Nelson's conference address from October, 2018. To sum up the new direction described in the printed talk which followed, the Ensign posted this header: "It is time for a home-centered Church, supported by what takes place inside our branch, ward, and stake buildings."

The change in our approach to family history work, along with the new priesthood calling, the new plan, and the new meeting, came pretty quickly after President Nelson's talk. 

It has been interesting to see over the last five years how difficult it is to embrace this "new" direction of home-centered instruction after so many years of dependence on local leadership. It's not like we haven't been taught the principle of self-reliance from the very beginning (work out your own salvation!), but maybe sometimes we let our disciple-ish diligence wane just a bit by taking a slightly more traditional path instead of a way more effective one.

Here is a case in point. A ward family history consultant wrote the following in 2015. I think you can call it a case study on the best way to approach family history work from a "marketing" standpoint (please forgive the business school reference, but I think it applies), concerning a scatter-gun approach versus a directed approach. The fact that it predates the announcement from President Nelson by three years speaks as much to plain pragmatics as it does to revelation.

A year ago I was asked to serve as a family history consultant in our ward. My bishop asked me to focus my attention on making family history a meaningful experience for our youth.

I started working with our 11 years olds who were about to leave Primary and go into the Young Men’s and Young Women’s program. I wanted to help them find their own family names that they could bring to the temple once they turned 12.

At first I thought this wouldn’t be that difficult because I know how much the young people enjoy working with technology. So, I started by teaching some classes to the youth during their week night mutual activities. I quickly found that this approach did not work. It took all night to create accounts for each person in the class. I also learned that most of the parents and grandparents of these young people were still alive. In most cases, these kids couldn’t remember names of their ancestors back far enough to find a deceased ancestor so they didn’t have success using the FamilySearch database. Because of that, the experience was not very meaningful.

My next step was to work with the youth individually in their homes with their parents. With mom and dad present, we were able to:

• Set up an account quickly and easily for the child.

• Use the information that their parents remembered about their grandparents who had died so we were able to connect up the “dead people”.

• Show them pictures and share stories if someone had added them to an ancestor’s page.

• Played some fun family history oriented games with the family.

• Make and enjoy family history treats using old family recipes.

I also got permission from the bishop to create a lesson plan for a 2 week course which I taught during the Sunday School hour to the entire family of each young man and young woman. I asked their parents to bring whatever electronic devises they had to connect to the internet. If they didn’t have enough I brought some “extras” that I had around my house.

I first scheduled the 11 year olds, their older siblings and their parents for 2 consecutive weeks. My goal was to help the family support their 11 year old in finding a name to take to the temple. In our ward, when a young boy or girl turns 12 they typically recited an Article of Faith in front of the congregation. I asked our bishop to give them the opportunity to instead, share a story about an ancestor they found and prepared to take to the temple.

So far, we’ve seen a 100% success rate with each one of our youth finding at least 1 name using descendant research techniques. The kids get so excited when they see that green temple icons on their line! In addition to names, dates and places, we often find some additional information about the person to make them real (occupation, where they lived, what was happening to them around that time, etc.) We now have regularly scheduled temple trips where our ward youth get to print out their cards and take their own family names to the temple.

During our class, we brainstorm ideas about connecting our family using social media. We go to the Relative Finder website and join a group created for our ward. This allows them to see if any of them are related to someone else in our ward. It is fun to hear the youth calling each other “Cousin!” in the hall.

The key to making family history meaningful to young people is to make it fun and engaging. There is so much you can do to expose them to the history their ancestors lived; to show them old family photos they may never have seen and to do things that helps them understand what life was like for their ancestor. It’s activities like this that helps our youth have their hearts turned to their ancestors.

Below is a copy of a  handout I use when I work with the young people of our ward/stake. It shows some of the alternate family history activities they can get involved with instead of or in addition to researching a family line or clearing names for the temple.

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Temple Reminders

Dates

When submitting forms for temple work, please remember to use a standard genealogy date format. The easiest way to do that is to look at the format used on your FamilySearch records (dd/mon/yyyy)and then adopt that as your standard. Why? The church is a worldwide organization, with temples in many different countries. The U.S. standard date format is mm/dd/yyyy, but the standard in many other countries not that, but something else. To do our part to keep the temple  a house of order, we have been asked to use the FamilySearch standard. It is also okay to use the month abbreviation, for example, FEB instead of February.

Temple advance scheduling

When scheduling an ordinance in advance, remember that the online system allows only dates occurring in the current month +1. For example, as I write this, it is Sunday July 28,  I can schedule an appointment today for Tuesday, July 30, Wednesday, July 31, or any of the Tuesday-Saturday dates in August but none of the dates in September. But next Thursday, August 1, I can schedule any of the Tuesday-Saturday in August, and also any of the Tuesday-Saturday dates in September. If you have a need to secure a special date that lies outside of those provided by the system, please contact a member of the temple presidency.

Temple closing in October 

Plan ahead and help those whom you serve to be aware: A closure has been scheduled for Monday, 14 October 2024  through Monday, 28 October 2024, for cleaning and maintenance.

Make sure children are attended

The temple is a sacred place. Important work of an eternal nature is done there by those who have bound themselves to the Lord through sacred covenants. Sometimes children participate in ordinances, but we expect that, while they are here in the temple, they will need help in maintaining the reverence that should prevail in House of the Lord. According to the General Handbook of Instructions, Section 27.1.6:

Child Care

Children must have adult supervision if they are on temple grounds. Temple workers are available to supervise children only in the following circumstances:

• If they are being sealed to parents

• If they are observing the sealing of their living siblings, stepsiblings, or half siblings to their parents

Note: in Nebraska, the legal age of majority (age at which a person is considered an adult) is 19.

Temple trips 

When you have the opportunity to contribute to a conversation about ward, branch or stake temple trips, please follow this guidance offered in the General Handbook of Instructions, Section 25.1.1 and 25.1.2:

Individual Responsibility for Temple Attendance

Members determine for themselves when and how often to worship in the temple. Leaders do not establish quotas or reporting systems for temple attendance.

Ward and Stake Temple Trips

Each Church unit is assigned to a temple district. Organized ward or stake visits to temples outside the assigned temple district are not encouraged.

Individual members and families may attend any temple they desire.

The question that usually comes up though is "what about my ward temple trip to Omaha?" As you can see, these sections don't address that specifically. For guidance, we have been taught the "home-centered, church-supported" principle, and the principle of self-reliance. So for ward temple trips to local temples, the process that seems to work best is to announce the date, and let ward members sign up individually for a place on the designated session. What a wonderful opportunity to build up and encourage members by involving the ward TFH Leader, and the RS and EQ presidencies (it would be a great source for interview topics)! 

Group baptisms

Scheduling group baptisms for youth can be done online or by calling the temple office. Remember that the rules mentioned above will apply to both methods of scheduling.  If at all possible, please have sufficient numbers of Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood brothers to staff the session. If you are scheduling online,  spaces for reporting these numbers are included on the form. ( As minimum: 2-3 priests to act as baptizers;  2 MP for confirmation, 1 of which must be endowed in order to act as recorder; 2 from among the larger group to act as witnesses.)

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Think Celestial!

Knowing that no one is perfect and that we all make mistakes, we will find peace and safety as we choose to “think celestial.” This is the key to receiving spiritual power from on high. That spiritual power will not just help us avoid pitfalls; it will help us achieve greatness. To illustrate how this works, I want to show you one of my favorite photos from Papua New Guinea.

Now, pull out your phone or a pen and paper. Don’t worry, this isn’t a quiz.

Take a look at this picture and write down the first three things you see. We will take about ten seconds to do that. 

Okay, now let’s do an informal survey of what you noted:

1. How many saw the missionaries?

2. How many noticed that this was a baptismal service?

3. How many noticed the villagers standing at the top of the embankment?

4. How many noticed the men holding spears and axes?

Let me provide some context for the spears and axes. A few days prior to the baptism, a young girl had died when she was attacked by a large crocodile. The village came together to provide support and protection for this baptismal service. The people surrounded this sacred cove with boats and men with spears and axes to protect those who had made the decision to follow the Savior and be baptized.

Here are two questions to consider:

• Would you have had the faith to be baptized on that particular day?

• Would you have volunteered to hold a spear or an axe in those murky waters?

Without hesitation, these Saints made the decisions to be baptized and to hold the spears and axes.

These Saints knew what it meant to think celestial!

-- K. Brett Nattress, January 16, 2024, BYU Devotional, (https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/k-brett-nattress/choose-you-this-day-think-celestial/)

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Temple Moments

The Winter Quarters Temple has weathered its share of storms, but this season seems to be producing a profusion of an especially violent sort of storm. This last one was accompanied by gale-force winds that damaged trees and utility poles. 250,000 OPPD customers were without power directly after the winds hit. Tens of thousands are still without power four days later.  

Like all of you, I can testify to the peace that surrounds the temple. I would like to share an experience I had just yesterday. I was there to open up the building and the grounds as part of my assignment that day. Early in the morning, just before the sun appeared on the horizon, I walked through the temple grounds on the east side of that majestic building to open the gate that opens on the street by the Visitors Center. The flowers and all the plantings were so clean and fresh with dew, touched gently by the glow of the lights that marked the path.  It's hard to describe the quiet majesty that embraced that time and place. I should have taken a picture to share with you! It brought to my mind the first line from our hymn #68: "A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing."

In an increasingly violent and irrational world, my thoughts turn ever more frequently to that bulwark for refuge and hope.

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