What Genealogy and Temple Work for the Dead Means to Me

My daughter spent a semester at Nauvoo a while back, and while she was there, we helped her to research ancestors who lived there. As we learned about some of my ancestors being acquainted with some of my wife's ancestors, and about the stories of their lives, I became more and more interested in finding out more. I am realizing more and more how much I owe these ancestors, and what strong and wonderful people they were.

I am still learning more about them. For example, just this morning my wife found some information on my great great uncle, William Page, that I do not remember having heard before - he was a Pony Express rider, and at one time carried a copy of President Lincoln's inaugural address on its way to the West.

According to D&C 128:18, we cannot be made perfect without our ancestors. We need them as much as they need us. And they do need us. So many lived without the restored gospel in their lives, and had no opportunity to participate in the saving ordinances of baptism, priesthood ordination, endowments, and sealings. We believe that these ordinances are not optional, but required to enter into God's Celestial Kingdom. We also believe that they are required to be performed by mortals, and that if someone has no opportunity during mortality to perform the ordinances for themselves, they must be performed for them by mortal proxies. We have a responsibility to these ancestors, and we will be held accountable for our efforts, or our lack thereof, when we see them again after we finish this life.

Some accuse the Mormons of trying to get the dead into the Mormon church without regard to their wishes. We do not see it that way at all. Freedom of choice is essential to the plan of salvation. Those for whom we perform vicarious ordinances in the temple are free to reject or accept them. But unless we perform those ordinances, they do not have the choice. They have no way to enter into God's kingdom, or to decline the invitation to His kingdom, until the ordinances are performed in their behalf.

During the coming millennium after Christ's second coming, much of the work of that time will be in the completion of this work in behalf of all who desire it. It will bring about the salvation of the majority of our Heavenly Father's children. Otherwise, the time and effort and everything that the Lord has invested in the creation and peopling of this earth would be wasted, because His one goal with all of this is the immortality and eternal life of his children.