Family History

The three fold mission of the church is to perfect the saints, do missionary work and to redeem the dead…I’d like to talk about redeeming the dead.

When I was 16 years old, I had a series of dreams that disturbed me so much that I would wake up crying.  On the third night after this same dream, I knelt down to pray and ask Heavenly Father what the dream meant. Here is the dream and the interpretation:

In the dream I would wake up in the middle of the night and walk down our hallway. There I would come to a door with many chains and locks on it. I searched to find a large set of many keys on an enormous key ring in my dresser drawer. I would try one key after another to find the right key to the right lock. Finally I had unlocked them all until the chains came off.  When the door opened I found a set of stairs. There at the bottom of the stairs, I found many animals crammed into a tiny room crying to get out. As I walked down I discovered that I knew these animals, they were my beloved pets that I had cared for as a small child. There was my rabbit Jungle Bunny and his family, Toby our Great Dane, Mike our Cocker Spaniel and many others with their families. They were so malnourished that you could see their ribs.  I hurried up the stairs to find them some food. In the kitchen were mounds and mounds of pet food. I ran back to let my beloved pets free to partake of all the food in the kitchen. Before I could reach them, I would wake up over come with guilt that I hadn’t helped them sooner to relieve their suffering.

Upon asking the Lord what the dream meant, I received the following interpretation:

The dresser in the Library represented doing Family Research where I had to find the right keys to unlock the door to my beloved ancestors that I knew and loved in the Pre-
Existence before this life.  We were close and cared for each other. We made promises to help each other here on Earth.  They would lay a firm foundation of faith and freedom and since I was coming in the latter days I could unlock their keys of bondage by doing family research and performing their eternal life saving ordinances. The mounds of food were the blessings of exaltation of which they are spiritually starving for right now.

I believe that we need to search out our family members who have gone before us and help them to further their light and knowledge and make sacred covenants to the Lord.

I was able to do the Family History work for my Uncle who was the only member of the church in his family.

It took several years of submitting the family names to the temple, printing cards and asking friends and family to help me complete the work. One year I  gave the completed book with all his family lines,  as far as I could go, to my Uncle Dad Darel for Christmas. He was overcome cried with such a tender joy. He died two months later and I know he went back as a hero for his family.

One of my Genealogy Stories is in the book "True Miracles With Genealogy" compiled by Anne Bradshaw...You can buy her books on Amazon.