A friend of mine shared some thoughts that have gotten me thinking.

She talked about how much she loves nature. She and her husband love to take walks outside (when they were younger, they hiked a lot). As for so many of us, she finds being in nature soothing to her soul.

For those of us who believe in Jesus Christ, He is found in nature. He is the Creator of the earth. He is the Creator and source of light in sun, moon, and stars. The peace we can find among His creations is His peace.

My friend built on this idea and made a spiritual connection to the notion of the tree of life. She explored the idea of staying at the tree — like the one mentioned in the Book of Mormon in Lehi’s vision of the tree of life.

The tree there represents Jesus Christ. To stay at the tree — to be a tree-hugger spiritually — is to stay by Jesus. That vision given to Lehi has many elements to it, and staying at the tree is one of the key protections against things like mocking voices and the shame that can come from listening to them. (I think about how easy it is to listen to shame from hamster-wheel thoughts in my own mind; I don’t need external mocking voices to feel toxic shame. Keeping Jesus close in my thoughts can help, especially when I remember that His voice is one of love and care and gentleness.)

Reflecting on my friend’s thoughts made me think of John 15 (see also Isaiah 27) about Jesus being the true vine. To truly stay by the tree is to be connected to Him as the Source of life (both now and forever). He is the Source of breath for our bodies. He is the One who makes resurrection possible for us all. His life as the True Vine showed us the Way, and His death (on a tree, as it is sometimes said) and resurrection made the Way for us to be forgiven and someday to return back to our Heavenly Parents.

My friend also talked about her love of family history. More trees to hug! I, too, love doing family history and discovering more about my family tree, and helping use the wonders of technology to build family trees in tools like FamilySearch and Ancestry. When I do family history, I feel like I sometimes can get a glimpse of how personally each of us is known to God. Even in a few records, I can learn more about a person — what they looked like, what their profession might have been, perhaps where they lived and how they died. When I find someone in the records who hasn’t yet been represented on a family tree, sometimes I stop and just say their name out loud. “I see you.” I sometimes wish I could give them a hug! But helping their stories be told feels like a way to show love for them. These people are not dead to God, and building family trees in records helps me remember that. Like in the Disney movie Coco (about el Día de los Muertos — a movie about family history!), they need not be dead to us. We benefit when we remember them and tell their stories (and let records help us do that).

For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, building family trees in records also connects us to the temple. My friend talked about this, too — about the peace she finds in the rootedness of the temple. In the temple, sacred ordinances are performed to bind families together. The crowning ordinance performed therein is called the sealing ordinance — where husband and wife can be married for time and eternity — not just “until death do us part.” The authority to bind families together in this way was committed to Joseph Smith shortly after the dedication of the Kirtland temple when Elijah the prophet — the one who spoke anciently of hearts of fathers turning to children and children to fathers — came (just as other ancient leaders had done earlier to restore the power to baptize (John the Baptist) and to confirm the Holy Ghost (Peter, James, and John).

Once people receive temple ordinances for themselves (some of them symbolic of ordinances received in ancient times), then we can act as “proxies” for those who have passed on. In a favorite film of mine, called “The Mountain of the Lord,” President Wilford Woodruff is portrayed speaking to a newspaper reporter, who scoffed a bit at this idea of doing proxy work for the dead. I like how President Woodruff’s response to the reporter was represented.

“Many people believe in some form of vicarious work for the dead. The Atonement of Jesus Christ was a vicarious work. Whoever accepts Jesus as the Savior also accepts the principle of vicarious proxy.”

Since these ordinances require a physical body, we who have physical bodies act as proxy for those who do not have bodies anymore, as death separates body and spirit until the time of resurrection. And then those who have had ordinances performed on their behalf have the opportunity to choose to accept or reject them.

You can learn more about Jesus’ visit to the spirit world after His death (as referred to in 1 Peter 3:18-19), in Doctrine and Covenants 138.)

I love patterns and symbols, and appreciated my friend’s invitation to think about trees today, and all the many ways I can be a tree hugger.

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Before I get into answering this question, there’s a holiday coming tomorrow, Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos), that the Church has created some official content around Día de los Muertos this year, and FamilySearch has shared content over the years (see, for example, https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/day-of-the-dead-traditions, https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/day-of-the-dead-fun-activities-to-honor-our-ancestors, https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/celebrating-dia-de-los-muertos).

Why is there more official attention around Día de los Muertos? Because members of The Church of Jesus Christ believe strongly in connecting with the stories and lives of those who have gone before. We believe life continues beyond the grave, and that because of Jesus Christ, family relationships can continue after death. Incidentally, some research shows that family history can help with mental and emotional health, including self-esteem and resilience. But that is all a topic for another day.

But Halloween also can reflect our belief that wholesome fun is important to have in our lives, and Halloween can be a vehicle for such fun for families, congregations, and communities.

My babies are all grown and gone now, but we enjoyed Halloween during their growing-up years.

Halloween got even more fun as my children started to take responsibility for their own costumes. This was the year my children decided to be skunks. I don’t remember why I didn’t join in the theme. Perhaps we used up our supply of black fabric that was lying around? I chose to be a newspaper.

One of my favorite Halloween memories before I became an empty-nester is helping my daughter turn our car into Minnie Mouse for a trunk-or-treat with her friends. That daughter is now serving as a missionary for our church.

Over the years, I’ve dressed up as things such as as the aforementioned newspaper, a baker (my husband was Cookie Monster, wearing an aluminum foil tray of cookies), and a banana tree (that one embarrassed my family for some reason, but I had to do something with the yellow monkey toy my sister had left behind when she’d lived with us all those years before; it made such a fun ooo-ooo-ooo monkey noise…and I had plastic bananas from my banana neighbor… might…a story for another day).

If you were to ask individual members of our church, they might give you different answers, but on the whole, members of the Church enjoy this holiday and some make many days of it. I’ve seen friends doing dinner in a pumpkin, spending all week working on costumes for school parades, and posting pictures of local congregational events that occurred during the week.

With COVID, the “trunk-or-treat” seems even more common this year. I was delighted with the fun that people in my ward (local congregation) had with our trunk-or-treat. Some went all-out with how they decided to decorate their trunks, hatchbacks, or the space around their cars…or themselves. And others kept it simple, just showing up to support the younger generations. The idea was to have fun, together, and to offer a non-Sunday opportunity for the children and youth in our ward to get some Halloween fun courtesy of the adults. (More on the question about what happens when Halloween falls on a Sunday below.)

Many wards have Halloween parties around this time of (sometimes called by different names). Costumes are common, and so are treats, and fun activities for children. Below are some pictures from years past when COVID wasn’t a thing. What I’m observing is more are option for outside activities, since we have been asked by our worldwide church leaders to wear masks when we gather indoors.

This article at LDS Living addresses some of the wide range of ways members of the Church might individually choose to celebrate Halloween or not). They address how some are uncomfortable with the gore that can sometimes be associated with the holiday, and we are definitely against Satan worship. But there is much about this holiday that has just become about creativity, fun, and play.

I like LDS Living’s simple conclusion:

“Just as with many other holidays and traditions, the Church does not dictate how Latter-day Saints should celebrate Halloween. Instead, our Church leaders leave it up to each of us to seek inspiration, ponder, and decide how we should celebrate this holiday with our families. Each family is unique and the traditions that bring each family together will be equally unique, meaning not every Latter-day Saint will agree on what Halloween means and how it should be celebrated. So give each family room to decide what is best for them, respect their individuality, withhold judgment, and celebrate the fact that there are many ways to have [wholesome] fun.”

What do Latter-day Saints do Halloween falls on a Sunday?

Because today is Sunday, the chance of finding members of the Church out and about trick-or-treating will be lower, since for us, Sundays are our Sabbath, our day of rest. (There won’t be any Church-sponsored congregational activities, that you can count on.) We are encouraged to make this a day to focus on changine from our usual routines to focus more on spiritual things, attending church to partake of the sacrament, and talking about the scriptures and other faith-promoting content, and celebrating the restored gospel of Jesus Christ together with our church families and at home.

Some members may choose to answer their doors today for their friends in their neighborhoods, as previous articles have explored. Or some may leave treats on their doorsteps. But please don’t be offended if some choose not to. Some of us are even still having to be careful because of health issues (that is the case for me…I was sad to not be able to answer my door last night). I actually love answering my door on Halloween, usually, and plan to continue the tradition in future years when we aren’t still battling full hospitals and such as we are where I live.

So, yes, the short answer is Latter-day Saints celebrate Halloween, but you will find a variety of approaches among our membership.

But if you want to find us today, please consider joining us at one of our worship services in locations around the world. (Please do wear a mask, not of the Halloween sort (if you can) when you come. We all look forward to when this won’t be an important piece of trying to reduce spread of COVID but for now this is part of how we collectively have been asked to help reduce the spread.)

Or we invite you take a minute to learn about what we believe in the comfort of your own home. But we do hope to see you sometime at one of our worship services. Or if you know a member of the Church, ask about service or social activities that might be happening in your area.

– – – – –

**You can read other posts we’ve had about Halloween by following this link. This site has been around for nearly a decade, so some of the photos are in posts when we used to be called Mormon Women: Who We Are (mormonwoman.org). Because many would never get to the understanding that “Mormons” believe in Jesus Christ — that He is central to our faith — our website name and content has shifted to highlight that more.

***This post has been edited from its original to include a little about Día de los Muertos (which is tomorrow, November 1), and to add a few other minor edits.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org

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We realized we had a draft buried about the “world’s largest family celebration” (for genealogists, family history hobbyist, and anyone interested in learning more about connecting more to your roots). It’s called RootsTech and it’s going on free right now.

Learning about our roots can help us as humans.

“We can find peace and understanding by learning from our ancestors. The resilience our forbears developed can inspire us to overcome challenges and avoid mistakes that others have made. Everyone has scoundrels and heroes in their family tree. Discovering information about ancestors can bring understanding and compassion for them and ourselves.” (Robin Olsen Worthlin)

I really don’t like COVID-19, but I do appreciate the way it’s inviting people to think about how to make amazing resources more freely available.

You can register for RootsTech here.

Here’s the RootsTech Mainstage schedule. And a schedule of sessions.

Many RootsTech sessions exist in a wide variety of languages. Instructions also exist within the content about how to translate content.

Find RootsTech session archives here.

You can also see highlights from the conference using the hashtag #RootsTechConnect or on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

The post RootsTech is FREE and happening right now! appeared first on Women in The Church of Jesus Christ.

Wendy Watson Nelson, the wife of the prophet and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a big fan of family history. She talks about doing family history as one way to open the heavens.

I was impressed as I listened to some of her experiences that she has recorded specific family history miracles.

So I wanted to record a recent experience.

Elmer C. Mathews and his wife, Addie Ostrander Mathews, distant relatives of mine, had a child listed in FamilySearch, but the program flagged this child as being born before the mother was able to have children (birth years were only 8 years apart). Also, the last name of the child was different (Rae). So I dug deeper.

I love looking for the original records (not indexes, if possible). There was a census record available. I looked at it and at first, couldn’t make sense of it. I asked questions in my mind about what could have been possible. Could this be a child from another marriage? Could the dates have been recorded incorrectly? Then I noticed that James Rae’s name was not indented in the census as children usually are. His name was recorded as though he was a head of a new household.

That led me to look at the address section of the census record. It said “See page 8A4.” I was on page 13 of the census. So I went back a few pages…and sure enough, on page 8A, line 4, there were James M. Rae and Harriet P. Rae.

I was so excited to be able to update the records in FamilySearch (each record represents real people!).

I worked then on merging the records that already existed for this family (and finding more original records to verify that James Rae is indeed James N (not James F as originally indexed…hard-to-read handwriting sometimes means errors in indexing).

With more of this work, I discovered that James’ middle name is Nathaniel (as per a typed directory that shows him living with his father, James M…at the very same address that was listed on page 8A, line 4: 367 Pennsylvania Avenue in Elmira, NY)!

After a couple of hours working on cleaning up the records, I was also able to create a new record for a different James and Harriett. I also found James Nathaniel’s baby brother who died at age 1. The census that was so strange had indicated that James and Harriett had had 4 children, 3 living. Now Charles D. Rae can be sealed to his parents, once temples are once again opened for what is called proxy ordinance work.

Family history is a true love of mine, both because it’s just such a fun challenge (a kind of data science) and because of my deep belief in the eternal nature of life, and God’s desire for families to be connected through priesthood authority beyond death’s door.

I love bringing families together through family history. Bringing their records together. Using records to tell more of their stories. Mourning with them as I learn more of their stories, as many of them had very hard lives. Rejoicing with them, too. I feel the power of family woven throughout their stories…seeing widowed parents living with their children, or siblings taking in single siblings, for example.

The power of family is as old as time (and older). I feel like these people know that I’m here trying to help them, and sometimes I feel their desire to help me do that. It usually takes a while for me to find a groove each time I open up FamilySearch, but almost every time I do family history work, something like this happens. There’s a ZING of energy as pieces of a family’s puzzle come together. I feel a little like we’re having a little bit of a family reunion through the veil.

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This story is very inspirational. A couple goes to Salt Lake City for a conference…and because of the kindness of people working at the Family History Library, eventually end up deciding to learn more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints back in their hometown. At first they weren’t sure this was a good fit for them, but Tina couldn’t stop thinking about it all. They invited the missionaries back into their home and decided to be baptized.

Tina writes: “We thought that we were going to a convention in SLC, Utah that week. The truth is, God had a better plan for our family. He wanted to show us His Church!!!”

You can read her story here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/churchofjesuschristinspirationandnews/permalink/586043468641706/

We’d love to feature your story of coming to know about The Church of Jesus Christ. Message us or comment below if you have a story to share.

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All it takes is about 30 minutes of your time to help! FamilySearch is inviting anyone who is interested to help break a record of the number of indexers working in a oine-day period.

From LDS.org:

“Our stated goal is 50,000 volunteers participating in a single day, though we think the potential exists to surpass that mark by a considerable amount,” said Mike Judson, indexing workforce manager for FamilySearch. “All it takes to be counted in the record is to submit one batch. With hundreds of thousands of past indexing volunteers and thousands more joining weekly, breaking the record won’t take much if people will commit to spend the 30 minutes or so required to finish and submit a batch.”

The 24-hour window begins at 6:00 p.m. MDT. For more information about regional start times and/or record languages available, see the LDS.org link above. (Note: Indexers are encouraged to index records in their native tongue.)

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A news station in Arizona (ABC 15) recently did a four-part special showing the inside of a Mormon temple (temples are the most sacred buildings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). The temple featured in this news story is the Gilbert, Arizona temple. [An open house for the public will be held from January 18 – February 15 (see GilbertMormonTemple.org for reservations for free public tours).]

In this story, ABC 15 reporters talk about each of the main rooms used in every temple: a baptismal font, instruction (endowment) rooms, the celestial room, and marriage (sealing) rooms. They interview members and leaders within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for insights into what temples mean to Mormons. Hear a story, for example, of a family who lost a teenage son to cancer and how the knowledge of God’s plan and the doctrine of eternal families helps them find peace.

They get thoughts from leaders of other faiths as well.

They also talk about genealogy (family history) — and the free, open-to-the-public family history libraries available to anyone who is interested. (See how the reporter was able to find records of her ancestors as part of her report!) Volunteer missionaries can help people cull through the millions of family history records, even those usually only available through paid subscriptions.

They feature youth and their involvement in temple baptisms by proxy for the dead. They also talk about the youth celebrations that take place before temple dedications. This event in Gilbert will include 12,000 youth. Celebrations include singing, dancing, and cultural and historical celebration.

Speaking of celebrating the local area, even the design of each temple reflects a respect for the local area and/or history. In the Gilbert temple, the agave plant is a symbolic thread throughout the temple’s design, and on the temple grounds. Hear more about why the agave plant was chosen.

Thanks to ABC 15 for the thorough and thoughtful video series.

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A key doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that families can be together forever through priesthood covenants and ordinances. When we invite people to come to Christ through baptism, we are also inviting them to begin the work of connecting their family through family history and temple work.

In the second video below, President Henry B. Eyring talks about how the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ included the fulfillment of the prophecy recorded in Malachi about the hearts of the children turning to their fathers and the fathers to the children.

Expanded resources at Family Search are available to help people do family history work, including the new Family Tree program. You can also now share photos and stories as part of creating your Family Tree. This service is available to anyone — you don’t have to be a Mormon to take advantage of the millions of free records and the resources that can help you create your own family history.

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An unprecedented genealogy/family history project is being launched today, in a joint effort between Archives.com, FamilySearch, findmypast.com, and other leading genealogy organizations. The 1940 U.S. Census Community Project involves indexing free digital images from the 1940 census that will be made available today. The indexing work will make these census records available for online searching.

You can be part of this community genealogical project. Find out more about how to get started here.

The video below explains more about the National Archives work put into digitizing the 1940 census, and how you can find people you may know in this census.

Do you know someone who is in it? Those people who were part of what has been called the “greatest generation” (those who experienced the Great Depression, World War II, and other significant historical events and developments) are in it. Find more

Find out more about the 1940 Census Community Project

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Today, Emily (from the “This is Me” Challenge family history blog) shares ideas about doing histories for children and teens. (If you didn’t see her post yesterday, take a look at her ideas for doing histories for babies and toddlers.)

• Have your child write his/her name, draw a self-portrait (or use a picture) and make handprints for one page.  You can put this in a scrapbook or a special 3-ring binder.  When they were younger I also included a picture, but now their hands are getting too big, so I have them write their name on it instead.

• Keep some of his/her artwork in a 3-ring binder.  Be sure to label anything with the date and how old s/he is.
• Write down or record the funny things your child says. You can have a specific journal or computer file for this, or do it on a blog or scrapbook page.
• Get your child a journal or diary and encourage him/her to write in it at least once a month.  You can assign a topic (Write about your favorite pet/color/chore/friend/toy/etc.) or they can choose a topic.  Do this together so you both have an excuse to record your lives and spend some quality time together!
• Measure how tall s/he is.  Mark it on a removable growth chart.  (Door frames are fine too, but you can’t take them with you if you move!)
• Take pictures.  Try to take a picture in the same place every year at the same time (birthday, first day of school, or a specific holiday) to measure growth.  You can even use the stuffed animal from babyhood if you did that.
• If you are a scrapbooker, you can let your child take over his/her pages around the time they can write, cut and glue!  Trust me, it’s kind of painful at first to see how “terrible” the layouts turn, but as I’ve let my oldest do this more often, it’s given me the chance to teach him about design skills, math concepts, spelling, handwriting, and writing skills. I’ve come to cherish the pages he has done, because they are all him—even if they’re not as pretty and good as I’d make them. Plus, it’s given me extra time to catch up on other scrapbooking or other family history work.

Teenagers

If you’ve had a chance to instill the importance of recording your own life to your children, it won’t take much more work as a teenager.  But if you haven’t, it’s never too late to start.  Most teenagers will have plenty of opportunities in school (especially in English class) to write and record all about themselves.  I think the key to helping them realize that it’s not just an assignment, is for you to be a good example to them in this area.  Show them some of the things you’ve recorded about yourself, pick a topic at dinner and have everyone talk about it, then record write what they said, indulge in their wanting to scrapbook or journal writing.  Basically anything already mentioned can be adapted to suit the needs of teenagers as well!

Overview:  When you take the time to record your child’s life (or help them), you will never be disappointed or feel that you’ve wasted your time.  Recording these moments will never be a regret that you have.

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