The Talk I Gave in Sacrament

I was asked to choose a topic from this months focus on "Marriage and Family". I chose to speak on Family History because I think it is important to learn about our ancestors and to make sure they have their temple work done. My grandma and grandpa have worked in the family history library for the past few years helping people research their ancestors. They tell me lots of stories about my ancestors. These stories are important to me because they help me get to know my family members that have gone before me. Their stories help me understand who I am, where I came from and where I am going. I would like to share with you, a story that my grandma tells which has influenced my life.

-My great great great great grandparents were poor quarry workers, they joined the church with a large family and made a commitment to move to Utah with the Saints without any knowledge of how they would be able to do it. They joined the church in Horsley,  Glouschester England, but moved to Bristol by the sea so when the time came to go with the Saints, they would be ready. But there was never any extra money. Finally, after spending five or six years in Bristol, they realized this was going to be harder than they had thought and they would need to make a new plan.

If there wasnt enough money to send the whole family, perhaps they could send a few at a time. In a giant leap of faith, they sent the oldest son and daughter, then ages 17 and 15 on a boat to America and the Saints. Months and months went by. They hoped and prayed that the Lord would protect their precious children. Each day they waited for some word from America to tell them their children had arrived safely in the valley of the Saints.

When they finally received word about what had happened, they couldn't have imagined a harder journey.

When Joseph Laban and Sarah Emily arrived at the Missouri River Crossing, they didn't have time or money to outfit themselves for the long trip. Faced with the dilemma of finding work in a strange country among strangers and saving money for a trip the following year, or taking the advice of those who seemed to know how to solve their problem quickly, they joined the willie handcart company.

On the way Joseph Laban became so ill with pneumonia that Capt. Willie insisted his sister leave him in the snow in that little valley in Wyoming so at least she would have the strength to make it over the mountain. She refused and when she went to wake him up the next morning she found that he had been sleeping between two dead men all night and hadn't the strength to get up.

Without waiting to determine whether or not she deserved the fate, this 15-year-old girl from England who missed her mother and father and little brothers and sister so much that she cried herself to sleep at night, found a friend who would help her, and lifted her brother from between two dead men and placed him in the handcart where her own clothes had been. Beginning that morning until the wagons came to rescue them, she pushed her big brother to the mountains toward the Salt Lake Valley.

Sarah Emily was about my age and she had to do some scary and hard things.  Sometimes when I am faced with a hard situation I like to think that with heavenly fathers help I can have the same strength that she did.

This year at youth conference we focused on standing in holy places.  One of the activities that we did was to learn how to use the family search website to learn about our ancestors and search for those who might still need temple work done. I hope to be able to go and do some baptisms for people in my family.

One of the most special things about this gospel is being able to participate in the ordinances that tie us to our families forever. Searching for our relatives, learning about their lives and their stories and then helping them to get their temple work done can bring us closer to them and to our Heavenly Father.

I know that some day I will be able to meet Sarah Emily and thank her for her example of stregth and faith. I hope I can be like her.  I hope we can all make time in our lives to get to know those family members that have gone before us and help them to have the blessings of the gospel.