In June, I was called to be the new Lead Family History Consultant, which I was excited about, but also more than a little intimidated: my family has been members of the
Church of Jesus Christ for a
very long time; I count both early leaders and a number of faithful genealogists among my ancestors, and the easy research is long since done and gone. I've been poking my family tree for the past twenty years or so, trying to persuade it to produce temple names, but only once in all that time did I find a few names for a handful of sealings for one family. It was, as people say, a very special experience to take my own family names to the temple, but mostly, when people would talk about needing to go and do work for family members at the temple, I just felt left out: I
knew there was people there to find, but I didn't know how to find them.
Between reading
Find Names for the Temple: A Step-by-Step Method for Success by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder, and some training from the Stake, things have changed: I have what I am confident will be the first of many temple cards printed out and ready to go, and I'll be making the trip to the temple (it's 3 hours from here) sometime in the next month or so. I can't even say how excited I am to finally have the skills to be able to find these people that have been hiding in my tree!
