{Guest Post by Whitney} The Blessings of Family History

Hello Blog World! I am so excited to introduce you to my dear friend Whitney from Feel my Sunlight! I love her blog so much and recently did a guest post for her too! I posted about good things to come, keeping your goals, and not giving up.  In return she is doing a post for me about Family History. My ward is doing a Family History Challenge between the Young Men and Young Women, so I thought it would be awesome to have a post from someone who knows a little bit more about it than I do. 
Enjoy! 
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Hi guys!

I’m Whitney and I blog over at feelmysunlight.blogspot.com and I am so excited that Shelby asked me to guest post on her blog.

Shelby asked me to write about my experience with family history work. This is a topic that two years ago I would have gagged at. If someone had asked me to write about family history I would have face palmed. Nobody wants to hear about family history work… right?! That’s for old people!

I want you to imagine you are a little kid and on your way to soccer practice or dance lessons and instead of continuing along your regular route your mom pulls into the parking lot and tells you to hop out of the car because you are making a quick stop. You grumble because you want to get to practice and don’t want to be late and because you hate running errands with mom, but as you get out of the car you realize you are at a doughnut shop. You walk in and your mom tells you that you can pick out any doughnut you want. You can smell the hot doughnuts as you point to one of your favorites. The nice lady at the cash register pulls it out from behind the counter and places it into your little hands. And at that moment you realize you love running errands with mom.
This my friends, is how I feel about family history work.

About a year ago I was sitting in a Stake Conference as the Stake President stood up and began his talk about family history work. He relayed the importance of it and then began to speak about the spirit of Elijah. The Spirit of Elijah is spoken about in Malachi 4 and states that “he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.”

Now what in the world does that mean?

This scripture, for me means that the children will begin to experience the joys that come from doing family history work, and will begin to work with their parents to accomplish this great work.

My Stake President then told the bishops of the wards to call youth go serve as youth family history consultants and that the youth consultants would do a great work in hastening the work. He also said that if you are a youth and you are interested in participating, to let your bishop know that you are the one for the job.
I must have been compelled by the Holy Ghost, because being a family history consultant was not something I really wanted to do. But for whatever reason I immediately sent my bishop a text saying “I’m the one. Pick me.” He then replied saying “I already had your name on the list.”

I was called as a Youth Family History Consultant for my ward along with seven other youth. With four girls and four boys, my neighbor Spencer and I were put in charge. Me over the girls, and Spencer over the boys. And with little instruction we were told to ignite a desire in the ward to participate in and love family history.

Flash forward to now and I can’t believe how much this calling has blessed my life.

Because of this calling I was able to gain experience in public speaking. Soon after receiving my calling I was asked to teach a fifth Sunday lesson to all the adults in my ward about family history work, and on an even larger level I later asked to speak at Stake Conference. For those of you who are not familiar with the LDS church, a ward consists of a couple hundred people that meet together on a regular basis. A stake consists of several wards, and every six months all of the wards meet together at a Stake Conference. This particular conference was held at the Ogden Tabernacle that is right next to the temple. This tabernacle holds about a thousand people and just about every seat was filled that day, making it the biggest crowd I ever have, and probably ever will speak to.

This calling also taught me how to use my time wisely. Several years ago we were over at my grandma’s house and my mom noticed that my grandma had all of her scrapbooking stuff spread out over the kitchen table. My grandma had decided to create a scrapbook for each of the grandkids. My mom asked her how in the world she planned to accomplish such a huge task. My grandma said something that has stuck with me ever since then. She said that “you can accomplish anything 15 minutes at a time.” This is something I carried with me into this calling. Being a busy high school student it is hard to find time to sit down for hours and work on family history work. But by using the 15 minutes you have in between work, and school, and practice, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.

This calling helped me spend less time on social media. Because of the above tactic, I have been able to spend more of my free time accomplishing great things, and less of it scrolling through meaningless tweets on twitter, and pictures of food on Pinterest.

 It has motivated me to attend the temple more often. I have been able to find 137 names of my own family that need temple work done. So subsequently I have been more motivated to set aside time to attend the temple to accomplish this work. Attending the temple has given me greater strength to resist temptation and I have also been able to bring along many friends with me to the temple, and together we have been able to become better friends as we work in serving the Lord.

I have been blessed with an increased desire to do good and to fight for what I believe. I have several ancestors that had to fight for their religion. Including one ancestor named Jacobina Wills Osborne who I like to refer to as Cinderella. She lived in Scotland and was one of the early saints who converted to the church. She badly wanted to join the saints in Utah, but her sisters didn’t want her to so they locked her in a room. She had to outwit them in order to escape. Her story, and others like hers, have inspired me to fight for what I believe in. And knowing their stories make things like speaking in front of a thousand people a little easier.

This calling has taught me that family history work can be fun! As a motivator to the ward to “get cracking on family history work” me and a few of the other consultants cracked eggs on our bishop’s head at a ward party… it can’t get more fun than that!

I have a strong testimony of the blessings that come from doing family history work. I know that as you participate in family history work, and learn about your family, you will see these blessings in your own lives and will come to love it yourself. I now know that family history work isn’t just for old people, and that everyone can benefit from family history work. 

Thanks again Shelby for letting me crash your blog! 

Until next time,







Feelmysunlight.blogspot.com

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Thanks for such an awesome post Whitney! 

Getting to the Temple- Guest Post!

I am so excited to introduce you all to Whitney from the amazing blog, Feel my Sunlight! She is such an amazing blogger and her blog is so inspiring! She has an awesome style of writing and design. Just see for yourself! Go check out her blog- you won't be disappointed!! 

So without further ado......(drumroll please!)... 

Over to Whitney! 

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I usually open my blog posts with something similar to the words "HI FRIENDS!" But being the fact that none of you know who I am calls for a different introduction.

HI STRANGERS!

I'm Whitney. People call my anything from WhitneySue, to White Rice, to Sister Reid, to WhitAnnie, but you can call me Whit.

I'm the author of the blogfeelmysunlight.blogspot.com

What I want to write about pertains greatly to this picture.

This is a picture I took of the Bountiful Temple. Now I know what you're thinking... Why would this 17 year old girl want to talk about how awesome the temple is? Well, it's because I love the temple.  

I have had 3 experiences recently that all made realize just how important the temple is.                The first was a conversation I had on Monday with a 4 year old. I always wear my Young Womens Medallion, which is a necklace with a picture of the Salt Lake Temple on it. This particular little girl loves this necklace and she always tells me how pretty it is. On Monday she was touching it while she told me about how she wanted to get one when she was bigger. She also told me about how she was so excited to go to the temple someday.

 

This little girl is only 4 and she already knows how important the temple is. My desire is to become like the 4 year old in my love for the temple.

My second experience comes from the observation of another person's testimony. I have always put "worthy priesthood holder" on my list of things that I want in a husband. This requirement was among other words like "fun", and "attractive" on those lists we always made as young women and little kids. It has always been an important thing to me, but it wasn't until I heard the testimony of a particular young man and saw his example as he lived his testimony, that I realized that I would settle for nothing less than a temple marriage.

My third experience is something much less sweet. Several months ago I was on my way to the Bountiful to do baptisms for the dead with one of my good friends. On the slick icy freeway that dark Tuesday morning we unfortunately hit black ice. 

 

You know that song by Carrie Underwood called "Jesus Take the Wheel"? This was very much a moment like that, except for the fact that when my car came to a stop it was because we had run into the cement barricade on the side of the road. This isn't one of those stories where we all walked away unhurt, but I am so happy to say that this is one of those stories where we all walked away.

Now why would I tell you this? 

Because although getting to the temple may be incredibly difficult and trying, it will bring the greatest reward we have ever known. Getting to the temple takes great preparation, It can be for some a great sacrifice of time and money. For others it may be difficult repentance that is required.

There are many icy paths that can stop us from getting to the temple that we must avoid. And if we do by chance slip on one of these paths, we must get back on the correct road as fast as we can, because the reward that comes from being worthy and attending the temple is greater than any other reward known to mankind. 

President Brigham Young spoke of the temple endowment saying that

"Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being able to give them the key words, the signals, and tokens, pertaining to the holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell."

Our reward from being worthy and attending the temple is eternal exaltation. The temple is more than advisable or desirable, it is crucial to each of us. If we do these things we get to live with God, in God's glory, forever.

And that to me that all the reason more than enough reason to avoid the patches of ice that would stop me from getting there.

-Whit