The work begins...

After months and months of family history work, I finally made it to the temple to get my names all printed and ready for their temple work.  I had so many I had to print them in multiple batches because the new familysearch program will only do 50 at a time.  (The biggest drag about it was that I had to put on a dress just to run in and get the cards made...)  I was feeling some pressure to hurry because my kids were going with the youth to do baptisms and I wanted them to have family names to take, not to mention with 84 names we have a lot of work to do!

So, last Tuesday I took the kids to drop them off over at the church and I gave each of them ten names to take with them.  Naturally I got some grumbling from them before we left the house (because when do you EVER go to the temple without a big family fight right before you walk out the door?) because they were worried that having their own personal names would slow them down (they tend to take the kids to do confirmations first and then baptisms second--meaning they wouldn't get to do both ordinances unless they reversed it.  They assumed it would send them to the back of the line, of course.)  I was a little mad at them for being snarky about it... and I got a little testy when I told them they should be happy about being able to do work for our very own family members--not just people out there, but our actual ancestors (not like the other people aren't important or anything...you know what I mean...) And I reminded them that these people whose names I had given them have been waiting a long time--some as long as 200 years--for someone to find them and get this work done.  As I dropped them off,  I finally conceded and said "Fine, don't do it yourself then...just make sure it gets done by someone."  I wasn't mad...I just sorta gave up.

But as I drove away from the church, the sweetest, most peaceful feeling came over me as I contemplated what I had told them about these people... that they really HAD been waiting a long time...and here was one small group of them, finally on their way to the temple.  I even had a brief glimpse of what they might have looked like as they got ready to go, knowing that somewhere in the spirit world they knew what was happening. This sweet spirit was so strong and overwhelming I don't even remember driving home...I just know that by the time I got here I was crying like a big baby.

Needless to say, my kids did the names and were glad they had (they even admitted that they got done faster because of it...they also said it was pretty fun watching the temple workers try to pronounce the dutch names).  They have expressed an interest in going again soon to do more.  I wondered that night if those people were present there in the temple with them...and I'm pretty sure they were, watching the whole thing.