This topic is very dear and close to my heart. It truly has changed my life...FOREVER!
Anyone who knows me knows how much I love to dance! I started taking dance lessons when I was 2, and was competing on a jazz team and a ballroom team. I liked practicing and getting the workouts in, and I was known for my flexibility(always being able to do my left and right splits), but my real passion was performing! Oh how I love the feeling of people watching you perform a dance you've worked so hard on! Whether it was at basketball games, 4th of July parades, school assemblies, recitals, competitions, or even just for my other teammates...it was my time to shine! I loved going full out in my moves and entertaining the audience with my faces...I LOVED IT! Well, it was the end of my sophomore year in high school, around the time when sign ups and tryouts for next year would start. I was thinking about it one day, and the feeling hit me SO HARD that I was not supposed to do dance anymore. I was supposed to do family history work. In all honesty it just felt natural and right. So I told my mom and she was confused, but she trusted me to make the right decision. So my Junior year started, but another year in dance did not. A pretty immediate blessing for my decision was that I got a bunch of new piano students and I got an amazing nannying job that I would not be able to have fit in my dance schedule. So time went on and I realized I had followed my prompting only half way...I needed to start family history work. My main line had been researched and had the temple work done has far back as it could go. (Here's a little bit about why we do family history work and TEMPLE WORK for our dead in LDS temples). So I went to the local family history center, but the sweet elderly lady didn't quite help me with what I was looking for. So I started doing indexing, which was a lot of fun. (Information about indexing HERE) . But I wanted the experience of doing temple work for MY family that I found. So, my neighbor said that she could teach me how to find my "cousins" and do their work. That day changed my life and thousands of others. That was March of 2015, and of right now in September of 2016 I have found over 2,000 names to take to the temple!!! I am addicted. I have stayed up past midnight multiple times because I found a whole family starting in the 1700's that need their temple work done! Their isn't quite anything like taking ordinances in the temple for YOUR own family. My addiction has sort of gone out of control, but luckily we have many friends and family that help do some of the names each week. I have also taught a friend how to do it for his family. I can not wait for the day when I get to meet these people taht I have found that need their saving ordinances done. This quote about family history has been fulfilled in my life:
“I promise you will be protected against the intensifying influence of the adversary. As you participate in and love this holy work, you will be safeguarded in your youth and throughout your lives”
My prayer is that these people accept the true gospel and these ordinances that are done for them here on earth. I've been promised that they will. This gospel is amazing! So even if you aren't LDS, FAMILYSEARCH.ORG has so many resources that you can use for your family, it's unbelievable and amazing! Spend time with your family. Write down a story your grandma tells you. Write down your own story. Do family history work...the blessings are worth it!!!!
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