Genealogy theyll be doing it, their genealogy.

One Saturday night I was driving in Salt Lake. A lot of times Saturday nights are wasted, driving drunk people just gets you nowhere. You don’t even get good tips because they are too drunk to remember but it is kind of needed to make sure everyone gets home and no one gets killed on the roads. I think that’s what Jesus would do.

I got a husband and wife in my car from a restaurant downtown. They’d just finished having a good dinner. They told me that they had recently begun traveling to Salt Lake and that they were going to be traveling here together very often going forward.

We started driving north of the Temple towards their Airbnb. As we drove north on West Temple we passed the Family History library and I heard the wife whisper to her husband. That’s the genealogy building you told me about. They have so much more accurate information there than anyone else.

He said, I wonder why they keep such accurate genealogy records. I’d like to find that out someday. Well that was more of an invitation that I could possibly stand.

I jumped right in the conversation and said, I can tell you why we keep such accurate geneological records if you’re interested. He said absolutely and she said that she would like to hear it as well. They said it with excitement in their voice and it was a really neat feeling.

By this time we had turned right onto North Temple and were driving by the temple that is under construction. He said to me, how long will it be before this temple is being used again ? I said I think it’ll be about a year. I asked, do you know what we do in temples? He said no.

I told him it’s totally related to their other question about why we keep search good genealogical records. I told them that we believe that God is a God of all of the people who have ever lived everywhere in the world.

I told him that we believe that God is a perfect God and an all knowing God and that he is a father who loves every one of his children not just the ones who had the fortunate circumstance to be born and raised in areas where the gospel was available to them.

I talked to them about the book of Peter in the New Testament where Jesus went to the spirit world after he was crucified and set up the teaching and preaching of the gospel to those who died without the opportunity to hear it. He said that he had heard about that scripture but hadn’t understood it, he thanked me.

These spirits are taught the gospel and have the opportunity to accept it. I told them that I believe that many of these people who have passed on work hard to make sure that we find them.

I told him that every person that had ever died was being taught the gospel. We also know that because of the fact that Jesus taught that every person needs to be baptized to be able to live with God, a perfect father would make a way for this to happen.

I told them, “that’s how all of this comes together.” We do our genealogy and genealogy from people all over the world. We take our family names and the names of the people we find and go to the temples. In the temple we stand in the baptismal font and are baptized for and in behalf of the person whose name we represent.

I told them at that time those who we represent who have passed on have the opportunity to accept or reject that teaching they have received and then they have the opportunity to accept or reject that baptism. They then will have the opportunity to have the fullness gospel of Jesus Christ and return and live with their father in heaven.

I said that we Believe and I believe that when God restored his church on the earth is intent was to provide a way to save all of his children and no matter where they lived or no matter when they lived. I felt the power of the spirit accompany those words and I could tell they fell it too.

They were stunned, they said that was beautiful. There was a spirit of joy and an energy in the car that was palpable and they could feel it. I asked do you feel that and they said yes. I asked them, what do you think about the things I had said and they said, it’s great!

I said, normally if someone you never met said something like that to you wouldn’t you think it was weird? They said yes. I said why don’t you feel like it’s weird right now? They said that this feeling they felt was so profound that there’s no way this could not be God’s work.

They asked me if they would let them in the building to do genealogy and I said absolutely. I told them about when I was 12 and my mom and dad dropped us off at the genealogy library to do our four generations. We spent all day!

I told them that there are people in there who’s job it is to help you do your genealogy. I told them that they would love to have you come by. They told me that with their job, they would be coming to Salt Lake almost every month and planned on stopping by the Family History library the very next time they’re in town. (Which will be in two weeks.)

They said that they were touched by the things I taught them and they told me it just made a lot of sense. The spirit of Elijah was working in these people’s hearts and it was a beautiful thing to see.

So the reasons why they are doing it are very clear to them…..now.

As an aside. During the conversation I used the word genealogy because they did. I know that we now call it Family history but you go to where they are to teach them. This includes the use of familiar vocabulary like the word genealogy.