How
do you eat an Elephant? Think about that
for a while.
My
name is Mary Deaton and we have lived in this ward for 2 years and 1
month. My husband Robert and I have 4
children, 2 daughters-in-law and 4 grandchildren.
I
have a condition called Complex Partial Seizures. It is a form of Epilepsy and it is brought on
by a combination of lack of sleep and stress.
I have been very blessed and have not had a seizure in three years.
Every
time I have a seizure I lose more memory.
In some ways it is like having Alzheimer’s. One day I can remember everything and the
next day I struggle with simple things like how to get home from the grocery
store. The doctors say that I need to
keep my life as stress free as possible.
Doing a Talk in very stressful, that
is why I have my talk completely written out and if I have to, I can just read
it.
With
this being Memorial Day Weekend I wanted to talk for a few minutes on
Remembering those who died in service to their country.
Captain
William Deaton died in 1781 in the Revolutionary War leaving a wife with 10
small children and big with the 11th. He was one of 4 brothers and their father who
helped out George Washington’s troops.
We
have records of 19 of the Deaton ancestors dying while serving on both sides of
the Civil war. There were over 50 family
members fighting in that war.
You
are probably thinking: WOW Mary, How do
you know all this?
18
years ago when I joined the church and moved to Utah my next door neighbor, Janice, was
the Family History Consultant for the ward.
She taught me how to do genealogy research. Over the years I have spent 15 minutes here
and there looking for information on different
family members. Since we are the first
members of the church on either side, there is a lot of research to do.
One
of the many blessing you get doing Family History work is being able to take a
family member to the Temple.
One
year after I joined the church I was able to go along with 29 of the youth and
leaders of our ward and perform baptisms for family members. There were 275 baptisms done that morning and
all 275 were mine and my husband’s family.
It was a wonderful experience sitting at the table next to the recorder
watching all those people be baptized.
It was a true blessing to sit with all the kids afterwards and listen to
the stories about what they were experiencing at the same time. It was then that I realized doing family
history work not only blessed me but it blessed all those involved as
well. How many times have you gone and
done baptisms for someone and felt the Spirit yourself?
14
months after I joined the church I was able to receive my own endowments. One
week after that Janice and myself took some of those names to do the initiatories. We did not know how many they would let us
do but we planned on being there for several hours. I began with my grandmother on my Dad’s side
and being the Polish fun loving person she was, I could feel her excitement as
we did her work. I was amazed because I
could actually feel her there with me. There was excitement in the air! The next person I did was my other
grandmother. She was a very proper
Scottish woman. The mood was totally
different as I did her name but I knew she was there as well. As I was about to do the next name a worker
came in to relieve one of the ladies there and she refused to leave. She explained to the new person that she felt
the presence of the last 4 people who came through. The other workers spoke up and said the same
thing. For each name that Janice and I
did, not only could we feel the ladies there but the temple workers could feel
them as well. We stayed there and those
three temple workers stayed with us until we did all 40 names that I had
brought. They would say things like, “oh
this is your Dad’s side, I can feel the mischief” or “This is your Mother’s
side, they are so reverent”. A few years
later I was visiting a ward for a baby blessing and one of the speakers that
day spoke about her experience at the temple that day. She said that she had no idea who I was but
she remembered that day and spoke about how blessed she felt being able to help
those people progress on their journey.
Another
blessing you can get from doing Family History work is gaining a stronger
testimony. You learn to appreciate the Love Heavenly Father has for his
children. He does not want one of his
children to get left behind, even after they have gone to the other side, so he
created a way they could get the same blessings we have. It is our duty to help them. Is your testimony lacking a bit? Dive into Family History work and see how
strong it can become.
Doing
Family History work teaches you more about your family origins and your love
for your ancestors grows and grows. How
many farmers or teachers or tobacco growers do you have in your family? What a blessing it is to be able to find out
more about those who paved the way for you.
They worked hard and gave their children more so that one day, you could
have more yourself.
President
Henry B Eyring said:
” After you find the first
few generations, the road will become more difficult … You will be tempted to
stop and leave the hard work of finding to others who are more expert or to
another time in your life. But you will also
feel a tug on your heart to go on in the work, hard as it will be. As you decide, remember that the names which
will be so difficult to find are of real people to who you owe your
existence in this world and whom you will meet again in the spirit world… Their
hearts are bound to you. Their hope is
in your hands. You will have more than
your own strength as you choose to labor on to find them.”
President
Boyd K Packer said:
“The process of searching,
the means of going after those names, would be worth all the effort you could
invest. The reason: You cannot find
names without knowing that they represent people. You begin to find out things about people.
When we research our own lines we become interested in more than just names or
the number of names going through the temple.
Our interest turns our hearts to our fathers – we seek to find them and
to know them and to serve them. In doing
so we store up treasures in heaven.”
It
was a blessing to me to learn about my mom’s Uncle, John Hugh Howie. He lived
in Scotland. He joined the Army in WW1
and was taken prisoner by the Germans in his first battle, right after the
start of the war. He was put into the
Salt Mines to work and contracted TB. He
died a year later at the age of 18.
President
Thomas S Monson said:
“In this work, no lock
with open without the key of faith. I
testify that when we do all we can to accomplish the work that is before
us, the Lord will make available to us the sacred key needed to unlock the
treasure which we so much seek…Do not be weary in well doing. If you feel your contribution is small or
insignificant, remember that the worth of souls is precious in the sight of
God. Our opportunity is to prepare the
way, and to accomplish the ordinance work, after faithful research, that these
souls may prepare for the glory which is their divine opportunity.”
I
have been working on my genealogy for 18 years.
I have never been able to find anything on my Dad’s side farther back
than when Grandpa and his family come to the United States from Poland. I have searched and searched. I put down that line and work on another line
and then a year or two later I pick it back up and search and search again. My heart aches for them. Then 3 weeks ago I attended a Polish
Genealogy conference in Salt Lake. At
that conference I met a woman who ran across the birth record of the oldest
brother of my Grandfather. Most Polish
records are in Latin, German and Russian with those after 1918 being in Polish.
This record happened to be in Russian and one of the ladies attending
spoke Russian and was able to translate it.
FINALLY, AFTER 18 YEARS OF SEARCHING
I
am able to place my family in a parish in Warsaw Poland. I now have a starting place in Poland. After 18 years of searching I am blessed to
find a record on my Dad’s side. Now my
work on this line has finally begun.
It
is sobering to think about the fight that is still going on, linking our
fore-fathers and us together.
In
D & C 128:18 it states:
… that the earth will be
smitten with a bcurse unless there is a welding
clink of some kind or other
between the fathers and the dchildren, upon some subject or
other—and behold what is that subject? It is the ebaptism for the dead. For we
without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made
perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died in
the gospel also; for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of
the ffulness of times, which
dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and
perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and
glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the
present time. And not only this, but those things which never have been
revealed from the gfoundation of the world, but have
been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto hbabes and sucklings in this,
the dispensation of the fulness of times.
What
a blessing to know that we are the welding link between the fathers and the
children.
We
are the people who have the ability to sit
in our PJ’s and search and find the information needed to weld everyone
together.
We
are the people who can go to a Sunday School Class each week and get help.
We
are the people who have the ability to use other programs such as Ancestry.com,
My Heritage.com and Find my Past because the Church partnered up with them to
make records available for everyone.
Some
of you have already gotten emails to use these programs; other will get them
throughout the summer. Take advantage of
this. There are so many opportunities
out there for you.
No
one can say that all the work is already done.
There are many branches in your family tree. There are many cousins and Aunts and Uncles
that need their work done. Begin today
to start finding them. So many times we
find that a child has been left off the tree.
How would you feel if one of your children were not with you on the
other side? Trust me, there is plenty of
work out there for each of us. The
church as a whole section on LDS.ORG for those who feel there is nothing left
for them to do. Check it out.
So
Mary, how DO you eat an elephant? One
bite at a time.
How
do we find OUR Ancestors? One person at a time.
It
is my testimony to you that if you start right now, today, with just one
ancestor, YOU WILL
BE BLESSED.
You
will find your testimony growing.
You
will find your love for your Ancestors growing.
You
will find your understanding of God’s love for us will grow as well.
You
will find a desire to attend the temple and take a family member with you.
You
will find a desire to share what you have learned with other members of your
family.
Stop
putting it off until you have time to do it.
Make the time now.
I
say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, AMEN.
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