Through scriptures and revelation, we believe that the spirits who leave this life go on and spend time with others who have also passed on. They teach, they talk, they share, they help, and I believe that Gideon is on a mission there, to help others gain faith and strength. He only needed a short time on earth to get a body here, and to give us some quick hellos and hugs, and then off he went to help others with all his strength.
I have felt a pull that while he is doing what he can do there, I need to be doing my part here. He can teach, he can help, but he has no ability to help those who are hoping for baptism and temple ordinances to be performed, as his spirit and his body are no longer together. I have the awesome privilege of being here on earth, with a body, and living close to many temples, where I can help seal families together, if they want it and accept it. I have felt strongly that as I do family history work, we will be working together to help our family members to be happier.
I have NEVER done family history before January 2015. (I was an "eye roller" remember?) Scott and I took a family history course at the beginning of this year. I learned lots, but still feel like a beginner. I was surprised to see that almost nobody has found sources to back up the names and dates in existence, tying them to census, records of births/marriages/deaths, or pictures of gravestones. My quest seemed to be to add sources to what is there already, and I have tied quite a few sources to my ancestors. I have lots of family members who are interested in family history, and I have absolutely been guilty of being an "eye roller" in the past, when people talk about geneology and family history and how exciting it is, and how important it is, and etc. I have always assumed that those who were excited about it (like my grandmothers) would take care of it all for me, and I wouldn't need to worry about it.
Until Gideon. Since his death, whenever I am in the temple, I feel the connection more between heaven and earth. As I help seal families together, I feel a sense of joy that I am connecting mothers to their children, as I know I am so grateful to be connected to mine. I shed a lot more tears there now, as the moments spent there are more tender and precious to me. I am so glad that families can be glued together forever, as I know how much it hurts to feel the separation from my son, and I am glad it is temporary.
I truly have felt that he wants my help here so that the work he does there will not be in vain, and I have felt like he is encouraging me to help.
Today, I got on familysearch.org because a friend of mine is taking a family history class at BYU and needed to help someone with Scandinavian ancestry. (I have quite a bit of family from Norway.) I pulled up a few names, and gave them to him for his help, as Norwegian family history can be difficult, I'm very grateful for his offer, and I hope he's able to help find some sources and more information.
What I didn't expect is that I'd feel a pull to look at names who weren't of Scandinavian ancestry. I went to one of my great grandmother's lines (that I hadn't looked at before), and started trying to find sources to back up existing information. After tying a census record to my 4th great grandmother (Martha), I added her siblings to her record, as she was the only child listed, but not according to the census. After working for an hour, I figured I'd better stop.
I was surprised to feel the spirit strongly prompt me to keep going. (I am God knows that I'm not very good at getting around to things, and that it's better done while I'm already at it, or I may not get to it again. Based on today's promptings, I bet Gideon and my ancestors know too.) I was able to fix a few dates and merge a few records that were duplicates. Hyrum was being so good, playing learning games on the kindle right by me, so I kept going, figuring the spirit probably wasn't prompting me to keep going just so I could merge duplicate records. So I started working on finding the last name of her mother. We had hit a wall--no work could be done, as we had no birthday, death date, and without her last name, I wasn't sure what to do. I found a record someone had typed up in a genealogical index which showed a last name, but I wasn't sure how accurate it would be. Feeling not sure what to do, I stopped (hungry, and so was Hyrum by this time) and promised that I'd get back to it TODAY. The spirit left me alone and let me go eat and pick up kids from school and do what I needed.
After kids were in bed, I sent my friend (the family history consultant) a message, and she helped set me up on ancestry.com and within an hour I now have the last name I needed, and all the names for the generation behind--all of which were missing. I can't believe it, I did it! Tomorrow (so the kids can be involved), I'll move all the information over so they can see our tree go back more, and hopefully will reserve some of the temple work to be done, so we can seal their family together. I can't know if Gideon has them ready, or if they were already ready, or where exactly that prompting came from, but I can't question that I truly felt a pull to keep going, and because of the pull, people have been found that were lost.
I am happy to be a helper on this end, and pleased to have an angel son who is teaching people on the other side. I feel closer to him as I look for our ancestors and plan to visit the temple with their names, knowing that we can work together in this special way. There aren't too many other angels I'd rather team up with than Gideon.
That's wonderful Katie!
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