I saw the Room; I cannot Unsee It - It is There

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https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4265395810296354251/5033526617215630843

I saw the Room; I cannot Unsee It - It is There (I Need to Work on it, this post, Still...)

    Recently I went through the temple open house of the Washington D.C. of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was built to impress visually, but more importantly it serves as a place to perform holy ordinances for people. In our faith, of which I have been a member all my life, we perform holy sacraments and covenants within the temple that cannot be performed elsewhere. For many members it takes days or many hours for us to attend such places. We do our own covenants, high holy ceremonies that bring us closer to God, like marriage and sealings for couples and families, which links us across generations and across time and the eternities. These commitments to living family are supremely important, but there is more. Much more.

    As individuals we try to do our due diligence to compile the information about our ancestors, find out the key dates of their lives, try to know more about them on a personal basis. In a sense, commune with them, if you want to think of it that way. Not worship them, but to venerate, honor, and cherish them. And redeem them, and us, with them, all together in God and Jesus Christ. We believe that God has blessed us through them, and they are connected back to our first parents, Adam and Eve, and that all that wish to live with our Heavenly Father and Mother will do what is necessary to love and obey them, and be part of one great celestial (eternal, heavenly family).

    Admittedly, some of us are more passionate about this family history or genealogical work than others. Some have the right skills, tools, patience, focus, stamina, and very often it is doable and successfully achieved by sheer "luck"; although others might call those blessings of finding the names of our ancestors and doing their temple work choice blessings from heaven, too.

    So, is that enough context to understand some of the implications of these spiritual matters of members of the Church of Jesus Christ related to our kindred dead and the significance? Us Latter-day Saint believers, also known as Mormons, with our non-traditional Christian motivations? Some of us take part and invest in the research more than others. As Malachi proclaimed, the hearts of the fathers will return to the children, and the hearts of the children will return to the fathers. 

    This a big deal. A holy work. A huge, massive undertaking. We spend millions of hours on it, and billions of dollars expended. Perhaps by now it has added up to trillions of dollars-worth. Some of us spend years and years making it happen. Hours and days and weeks and months organizing the records, then attending the temple services, and performing the ordinances for our own ancestors or others, more distant. Often times we do it for others, that we are not related to, but in the human family sense we are all brothers and sisters, so whether I am making vicarious covenants for a deceased person from Germany, where I do have kin, or a soul from ancient China, where I do not

---I thought I finished this. I think it is another one published later. Pardon...