Talk in Duncan: Seeking Unity through Temple and Family History Work

6 minute read

Good morning. Today I will speak on how Temple and Family History work can help us to be more united with one another, our family across the veil, and with our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Seeking Unity with Others through Temple and Family History Work

I was blessed to be supported in going to study first at the University of Victoria and then to Brigham Young University (BYU) Provo, a college owned by the Church. A friend told me I should go to BYU because “while the University of Victoria is great, there’s one thing there you won’t get here: your eternal companion.” While I had lots of fun at BYU, and my experiences there helped form part of who I am, that part was wrong. I met my eternal companion, Amanda, on summer holiday here at Duncan Lanes at a YSA activity. We had actually been around each other quite a bit before, but I felt like I had a veil over my eyes and was strangely never aware of her. But at that activity the veil was lifted from my eyes; I saw her and thought “Huh, I should ask her out on a date.” It was the beginning of the rest of my life.

But rewinding back to BYU. I didn’t find my eternal companion there. What I did find was a part-time job. I landed a job as a research assistant in the Computer Science department working on a project Relative Finder. It was a website where you can find how you’re related to famous individuals and other groups of users. When I applied for the job I pitched an idea to make a “Facebook App”: to also help users find how they’re related to their Facebook friends.

Professor Tom Sederberg liked the idea and paid me about $7.25 an hour to work on it. I remember asking friends from my apartment building/ward to join but mostly got glazed-over stares. It got me some experience, helped pay some bills, and I managed to use it as a capstone project.

Once Amanda and I got engaged, I hurried back to Canda, finished my last course at BYU, and then got informed that that the Relative Finder Facebook App was featured in college’s newspaper and folks actually started to use it. And it actually worked! For a while. Actually it was so poorly designed that the sudden influx of users crashed our servers repeatedly. Actually, it was so bad that they discontinued the Facebook App I had made soon after I left. But the Relative Finder website still exists.

What it helped folks realize is just how related we all are. There in Utah, it was unusual to not discover that you were 4th or 5th cousins with everyone in your ward.

Here in Duncan Ward a few years ago we tried it out and I, whose English family history doesn’t go back very far, found I was 6th or 7th cousins with quite a few ward members.

Understanding that I had a lot more family close by changed my perspective. Instead of seeing Jayden Kutanzi as just some stranger, I saw him as a cousin. That helped me feel like I had even more of a place here.

“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” — Ephesians 2:19

Discovering who we are through Family History can help us see how we belong with those around us.

Likewise, attending the temple also helps us see each other not only as temporal cousins, but as spiritual sisters and brothers. While at BYU, I was about a 30 minute bike ride from the temple (up hill, mind you). Attending the temple frequently, especially with friends and ward members, was a joyous occasion. Attending in Vancouver is likewise a blessing whenever we can.

The Church is aware of the potential of Family History and Template work to help us feel united. That’s why there’s a special meeting that can be held called “Temple and Family History Coordination Meeting”, at which organization representatives discuss how to help members learn about their families and do temple work.

Seeking Unity with our Ancestors Through Temple and Family History Work

That brings up how Family History and Temple Work can help us feel more united with our family who have passed on. In order to illustrate that, I’d like to tell the story of Taj Rolland.

Taj Rolland grew up in the US midwest and stood out like a sore thumb. He was a foster child from India, but remembered nothing of his homeland and his foster parent’s couldn’t find anything about his original family. He was the only dark-skinned boy in his high school and was immensely popular. Despite looking different, he felt American through-and-through, and had no plans of rediscovering his impossible-to-find heritage.

At university, he went on an exchange to London. To his surprise, his host family was Indian. Actually, the entire neighbourhood was. Coincidentally, he found himself in the largest community of Indians in the world outside of India.

As he attended the quintessential huge Indian parties with ornate colours, ate curry from a banana leaf, and heard the Indian accents, he started to remember bits and pieces about who he was.

Upon returning to the USA, having acquired a taste for Indian food, he went to eat the local Indian restaurant Bombay House. The friendly owner had a picture of his family on the wall. Despite having dated many local girls in the USA, he saw a picture of the owner’s sister, with her matching complexion, and was enamoured (I know that feeling). What he had wanted in life had changed dramatically as he learned who he was.

There were challenges though: the fact that the owner’s sister, Priya, lived in Sri Lanka, was betrothed for an arranged marriage, and had a very traditional father, were all challenges. Somehow they overcame that and were married in the USA. That’s a pretty long story.

Within a few weeks, Priya’s other brother in India was getting married, and so Taj and her spent their little savings on making the trip. While there, Taj sought out his family. The search was fairly hopeless, as he didn’t know the name of any of his home town or anyone. But eventually, a day before their flight back to the USA, he had found his family.

Taj’s learned his real name: Challamotto. He had been abducted when he was four. His mother had been seeking him out for years and was without words at learning her son was alive and found.

Taj’s Father had not fared so well. After his son’s disappearance he had become a drunkard living on the streets. But upon Taj’s return, his father finally was able to recover enough to leave the streets and return to live with the family. Not only had Taj found who he was, he had also helped redeem his father.

Taj and Priya ended up using their knowledge of both worlds to start several businesses in India and USA. They also started a family with homes in both countries.

When we learn about where we came from and our family who came before, it gives us a new appreciation for who we are and how we fit in. And the blessing of knowing our family who came before isn’t just limited to knowledge, we can also serve them. Like how Taj redeemed his father and helped him to return home, in the Temple we can serve our ancestors who passed on: we can perform ordinances like baptism for those who never did.

Seeking Unity with Christ Through Temple and Family History Work

Which brings me to the final point: Temple and Family History work can help us feel more united with our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

That’s because Temple and Family History work is part of his work of redeeming souls and gathering Israel.

Anytime you do anything that helps anyone—on either side of the veil—take a step toward making covenants with God and receiving their essential baptismal and temple ordinances, you are helping to gather Israel.

Russel M Nelson

Christ told his disciples to go throughout the world baptizing people, by which they enter in a covenant with Christ to serve him and to be redeemed by him from their mistakes. But many people never had the opportunity to be baptized in this life. In the temple, we are able to be baptized on their behalves, so they too can be bound to Christ through covenant.

We come unto Christ and actively join Him in His great work. And when we do His work together with Him, we come to know and love Him more.

Sister Bonnie H. Cordon

The prophet Malachi foretold

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Malachi 4:6

Turning our hearts to our “fathers”, or those who came before us, and are united with them in sacred temples, we are fulfilling Christ’s purpose.

Conclusion

I hope we can each take advantage of opportunities to do Family History and Temple work, to increase our unity with one another, our family who have gone before, and with Christ.