familysearch.org

Tonight I went to a Relief Society activity.  I was excited to go because I knew we were learning about familysearch.org, setting up an account, and getting any questions we had answered.  Caleb insisted on tagging along.  Lucky for me there was a nursery provided!  There were only 3 boys in there but hey, the kid had a blast and that's what counts.

I am super excited to say I not only got an account for familysearch.org, but I was able to link myself to Travis, each of Travis's lines and found out where the holes are!  Most of mine (well, most of the nine generations that show in the fan chart) has been completed.  A big thank you to both my grandmas who did so much work on this when PAF first came out years ago.  Travis's dad's side of the family and his mom's paternal side has been filled in quite a bit.  The excitement (for me, yes, I'm a nerd) is that there are many holes on Grandma Ingrid's side to fill in.  This is exciting to me because Grandma Ingrid is from Germany.  I love learning about different cultures, etc. and this is going to be a great opportunity for me to talk to Grandma Ingrid and learn so much about our ancestors.  Several years ago a book called In Harm's Way by Roger P Minert came out.  He was a BYU professor that was interested in knowing the numbers of LDS members in each of the German branches before and after WW2.  He contacted Grandma Ingrid and when the book was finished Grandma bought a copy.  It was at Christmas a few years ago (two maybe) that I overheard Grandma talking about the book.  I'm a weird history junkie and was thrilled to learn there was a book written that had information about some of Travis's ancestors (and pictures of his great grandma & his grandma as an infant).  I, of course, bought a copy as soon as we got home.  I haven't been able to read it yet but have referred to it on at least one other occasion (thank you Sam's 2nd grade reading group for discussing ships that had sunk & Grandma Ingrid for telling me about one such event in said book).

And in a completely random way learning what I did tonight ties in with a conversation I had with Sam a few days ago.  I can't remember what we were talking about but I said something about doing baptisms for the dead.  Sam asked me what I was talking about so I explained to her what baptisms for the dead were.  On Monday night the missionaries were here to give the first missionary lesson to Nash (yes we are working toward being baptized when he turns eight in May).  The elders had a super cool puzzle that showed the parts or pieces to the plan of salvation.  The elders would talk to Nash about one of the steps and tell him what it was called.  Nash would then find the piece (with Sam & Caleb's help of course) and put it into the puzzle.  At one point the elders were telling Nash about after you die your spirit goes to heaven to wait in one of two places - one place is for those who have learned about the gospel and accepted it and the other place is for those who haven't learned about or accepted the gospel yet.  It was at this point that I said, "Sam!  That's exactly what I was talking to you about when we were talking about baptisms for the dead!  If you do baptisms for the dead then the people who are waiting to learn about the gospel will have their church work done if/when they accept the gospel on that side!  Remember when you were little and would ask what Grandma Lea was doing in heaven and I told you I thought she was teaching people about the gospel?  Well, that's where she is!"  It was a moment of understanding for her and a light came on.  I know because she looked at me and went, "Oooh!  I get it now!"  Awesome.  I love it when it clicks.  And now, I can get Sam excited about genealogy too because there's something she can actively do to help!  Sweet.