Temple and Family History Work – Page 2

Trembath

Thursday is when I try to spend an hour doing family history. This week, I read a personal history about the Trembaths, written by this grandfather, pictured above. The Trembaths are my dad’s ancestors, and they came from Cornwall, England. They were miners and farmers.

The first Trembath to arrive in America came in rebellion against his controlling father. One day, while farming the poor land, he decided he would not stay another day. He abruptly left home, found passage to America, and he continued mining here. Funny detail: the bossy dad and the rest of the family ended up following him to America. 😂 There was no shaking this father.

They mined in the Great Lakes area, then they made their way to California, where they mined for gold in the early 1850s. They found a good gold mine, and it is too bad that they were swindled out of that. So much for riches.

This week’s story reminded me that our Trembath ancestor had hopes for riches through mining, but his family found them in different ways, including growing almonds. What he didn’t know is that America’s greatest riches weren’t in mines or almond groves, but in the Restored Church of Jesus Christ, and the sealing keys. These blessings were possible because of the inspired religious liberty of the land, guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

The gold that would sustain his posterity wasn’t in the seams of rocks, but in buried gold plates. It wasn’t a goldsmith who would work the gold, but a “Smith,” just the same, who translated the words found in the Book of Mormon. Their great-great-grandchildren would be the first to benefit spiritually from the Restored Church of Jesus Christ, founded in this land.

Our ancestors sought a better life in America, but Heavenly Father had bigger plans than riches or even religious liberty. He had plans to seal this family together through all generations, for eternity, through the atonement of Christ and temple covenants. He wants to give them all He has. It is a blessing to do temple work for these ancestors!

Workspace

I have a temporary workspace set up in Paige’s empty bedroom where I am sorting through family history documents and photos. I have two main goals: identify individuals in the photos so we can attach them on the FamilySearch website, and assemble a family tree of Great-grandmother Cerie’s Swedish relatives.

I have found a lot of incidental treasures in the process:

A collection of squares of toilet paper from various countries throughout Europe from 1957. These vary in quality and composition, ranging from waxed paper to gritty and rough-ridged. Strange souvenirs.
A lengthy journal which described a long journey from California to Sweden, only to be almost silent about the relatives they visited there.
A photograph of a great-great-great grandmother that I do not recognize. She is merely labeled, “Mormor,” which means maternal grandmother.
Menus from the Swedish American Line from 1957 with artwork so beautiful that I framed them to display in my house.
Hair samples of loved ones.
A scrapbook of sensational stories and pictures from newspapers from 100 years ago, highlighting the cute, macabre, and cultural. I think of this book as “Cerie’s Pinterest boards.”

It is a big puzzle, and I have spent many hours studying, reading, and cataloguing these things. It is incredibly slow work. I have learned that in 100 years, when your great-grandchild is sorting through your photos, she will not know the identities of your close loved ones. Please, label your photos with care, including first and last names and locations.

Journals

I discovered a list of journals that Joseph Smith kept for different purposes. Knowing this about him makes me feel some companionship in my quirky habit of keeping several journals at once.

He kept a journal of observations. He kept a personal history and kept track of his letters. He made sure that the things discussed in Church councils were recorded. He kept a record of the names of the faithful and wrote tributes about many people.

This is my current stack of journals, and each has its own topic. I think that they’re important in my process of becoming, whether or not anyone else benefits from them.

There is a place for you here.

We tend to find what we seek, especially in the temple. Today, I took spiritual shelter there, and I lingered for a long time. I was seeking rest in the midst of some concerns, and I noticed there was a comfortable chair waiting for me in the celestial room.

If you need some shelter, there is a chair waiting for you at the temple, even in the waiting area or on the grounds. The Spirit feels the same, wherever you are within the gates. Perhaps you could find your own comfortable spot under the shelter of a temple spire. It’s not about the building, though. Just like a grandmother’s house, the feeling stems from the one who lives there.

For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.
Isaiah 25:4, KJV

Finishing

I am having one of those weeks where almost everything I planned to do has slipped off the list. For some reason, I have been drawn to finishing things that have been on the long term list: Forgotten things, procrastinated things, things that require the kind of attention only a person trapped inside on a winter day can give. That is this week’s story.

I finished a book I started reading 10 years ago. It was a difficult book, despite its short length, but worth reading. It was a 17th century text of religious meditations. In case you are wondering, I don’t know why I get myself into these things.
I finished a huge Shutterfly photo book project that I have been working on for 15 months.
Today, Thursday, is my family history day, and I hope to finish transcribing dates to a spreadsheet from an old birthday book kept by my great grandmother. I have had this book for either 2 or 5 years (I forget) with the intent to do this.

I hope I am not the only one who has projects that have been put off for years. To celebrate the week, I am erasing the original to do list and giving myself a star for facing some of those monsters under the bed.

Remembering

These were my grandmother’s books. On this anniversary of her death, I have been looking at photos I took of little corners throughout her home. I can still find her wisdom and her voice folded away like a sachet that sometimes gets jostled and leaves a subtle scent. She was so good at imparting family stories, gifting us with a sense of who we came from.

In 2018, I overheard her telling my mom about her father Axel’s passing. Assigned to the shift that night was a nurse who could speak his native language, Swedish. The nurse was not just able to speak words of comfort, but do it in the language of his parents and childhood. She spoke to him, quietly and tenderly, easing his fears during his final hours.

My parents and my aunt were with my grandmother on her last night. They told me that they read to her from the book of my dad’s childhood memories. I don’t know what she heard or understood, but I am glad that there were words of comfort and memory in the room for her, too.

Just the Baby

Here we are at Hale Center Theater to see A Christmas Carol. It was wonderful.

To celebrate Tim’s birthday, Richard and I made a temple appointment. As I finished our temple session and entered the celestial room, I was greeted by a temple worker as I never have before. He simply said “Hi,” not a more formal “hello” or reverent nod, but a joyful “Hi!” It made me think of the welcome I hope for in heaven, just a familiar “Hi.”

Last Sunday at dinner, I gave a simple baby in a manger to each of our children for Christmas, a reminder that Christmas takes different forms during our lives, and sometimes it feels incomplete, with a loss or absence of a loved one. I have learned that Christmas can still be celebrated without the full scene. The simplest Nativity, without any of the other characters surrounding Christ, is still complete because of the Baby in the manger. Christ is the only essential, and he is always there. I also believe He wants a familiarity with us, a relationship that will continue forever. I believe he also wants to greet us with a familiar, “Hi,” someday.

Behind the scenes

This is just a portion of the cookies we decorated.

It has been a busy few months preparing for a stake Primary training about temple and family history work. On the day of the training, Paige and I decorated 70 temple cookies, and that was a big job. Thank you, Paige!

Most of the effort to prepare for this evening can’t be shown. Truly, it was not about the pretty cookies. There was a lot of personal and collaborative work. It was a spiritual journey. By the end, I realized this wasn’t “my” training at all. My original ideas for the evening slowly changed to something better, thanks to counseling with my presidency and an enthusiastic high councilor. Answers to prayers came. My small hope for some help from a few temple and family history consultants resulted in around 16 people showing up to teach.

It’s my birthday weekend, and as I look back on my last week of being 47, I can say that it was one of the best weeks. I was with my Sanchez family in the temple, along with Richard, Paige, Daniel, and McKenna. I got to see ordinances performed for people from my own labors in family history research. And towards the end of the week, I believe miracles happened at our training.

We gathered at the grave for my grandparents the morning after we completed their temple ordinances.

Modern apostles, including David A. Bednar, Quentin L. Cook, Neil L. Andersen and Dale G. Renlund have promised many powerful blessings to those who participate in Family History and Temple Service.

Dressing up

Happy Halloween! It’s not my favorite holiday, but I have always enjoyed the costumes. Mark dressed up with his friend to go to a Halloween dance with church friends. Cuties.

This wasn’t for Halloween, but I asked Daniel to try on my grandpa’s US Army uniform from WWII this weekend. Wow!

Here is a picture of my grandfather in his uniform.

Did I ever tell you that my grandpa and I got along really well? He had a tough and intimidating exterior, but he also gave me the nickname, Angelina Magdalena and talked to me like a pal. He took me places, Hawaii, Hearst Castle, San Francisco, and good restaurants. I have so many memories, but one favorite was when he picked me up from the Oakland airport and drove me to his house. We listened to his Andrews Sisters cassette and we talked about what his life was like when he was my age. I loved him so much.

Important to me

This week, I took an hour to upload a few photos to the Family Search website and tag the names of my ancestors. One of the pictures I uploaded is shown above. It is small, just 2×3″, and sits in a frame in my kitchen. It is special because it shows my great-grandmother Alli, on the right, seated with the children, smiling. Since discovering this photo in 2013, we have found more photos of Alli smiling, but this was the first. Alli died 3 1/2 years after this photo was taken.

The photo is well-labeled on the back, and the label identifies the two children are who are celebrating birthdays, plus one other name, Ellen. She sits above the party on the right. As I tagged her in the photo, I realized that this is the only photo on Family Search for this woman, who is my great-great aunt. Then I noticed that her temple work has not been done. As I continued tagging, I saw that there are temple ordinances waiting to be done for the birthday children, specifically for the birthday boy, second from the left on the bottom row. He was killed in WWII and left no descendants.

This photo now holds even more importance for me. If I hadn’t decided to share and tag this photo, how would I have known there are handfuls of temple ordinances to be done for these people? There are no coincidences in temple and family history work.