#39 "The Hearts of the Children Shall Turn to Their Fathers"

D&C 2; 110:13-16; 138; JSH-1:37-39; Our Heritage p. 98-107


To start, let’s write on the board some suggestions, ways or opportunities we have to share the gospel?
Share my testimony, participate in class, visit/home teaching, attend church mtgs., attend church activities, invite friends and neighbors to any or all of these activities, service, FHE, family/individual scripture study and prayer, etc.

I know every one in this room knows someone who has died, so I want you to think of that person. (hopefully, someone you loved or at least liked quite a bit) Now that you have thought of that person, ask yourself if they died with 1-all of their ordinances done, and 2-if they died with a perfect knowledge of the gospel.

If you answered yes, to both, think of someone else, (which I doubt, because as good as people are there is too much about the gospel that we can learn to be perfect in every area) if you answered no to both, or no to even 1 of those questions, keep them in mind throughout this lesson. One thing I know that when I have thought of a loved one strongly, I have felt their spirit with me. This can happen to you, even if you don’t feel them specifically, know that they can and do come to us when they are able. I have a testimony of that.

I would like to share a story with you that my mom related to me that has always stuck with me and strengthened my testimony in this area. She and my dad had gone on a trip to Arizona they had been sight seeing and enjoying themselves, when one morning my mom was starting to wake up and felt strongly the presence of my grandpa (her dad). He had just died a few months before. He was a good man and died with all his ordinances done, however he and my grandma were not active in the church most of their lives. So I know that his knowledge of the gospel was weak. Anyway, she felt him strongly and thought, “this is a funny place for me to feel him, clear down here in Arizona”. Then she remembered that he and my grandma loved Arizona and were snowbirds close to there. As she lay there thinking about him she wondered what he was doing there, she immediately got the impression that he told her that he was just observing her, and enjoying the scenery they were enjoying. She thought this was a neat thought and feeling and wished he would stay, he couldn’t of course and soon left. This experience taught me that spirits can and do observe us here on earth, it has made me more aware of my own actions.


Now here is a story in the lesson that I got some great thoughts from, as I read this story I want you to think of some gospel truths that are brought out in this story about our ancestors that currently live in the spirit world.
Frederick William Hurst was working as a gold miner in Australia when he first heard Latter-day Saint missionaries preach the restored gospel. He and his brother Charles were baptized in January 1854. He tried to help his other family members become converted, but they rejected him and the truths he taught.
Fred settled in Salt Lake City four years after joining the Church, and he served faithfully as a missionary in several different countries. He also worked as a painter in the Salt Lake Temple. In one of his final journal entries, he wrote:
“Along about the 1st of March, 1893, I found myself alone in the dining room, all had gone to bed. I was sitting at the table when to my great surprise my elder brother Alfred walked in and sat down opposite me at the table and smiled. I said to him (he looked so natural): ‘When did you arrive in Utah?’
“He said: ‘I have just come from the Spirit World, this is not my body that you see, it is lying in the tomb. I want to tell you that when you were on your mission you told me many things about the Gospel, and the hereafter, and about the Spirit World being as real and tangible as the earth. I could not believe you, but when I died and went there and saw for myself I realized that you had told the truth. I attended the Mormon meetings.’ He raised his hand and said with much warmth: ‘I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart. I believe in faith, and repentance and baptism for the remission of sins, but that is as far as I can go. I look to you to do the work for me in the temple. … You are watched closely. … We are all looking to you as our head in this great work. I want to tell you that there are a great many spirits who weep and mourn because they have relatives in the Church here who are careless and are doing nothing for them” (Diary of Frederick William Hurst, comp. Samuel H. and Ida Hurst [1961], 204).
My first thought after reading this story was of guilt because I am not into doing family history quite yet. I know that I have a desire to someday, but right now in my life I really just can’t fit it in, however my next thoughts made me feel better, but I want to share yours first.
What are some of the truths you found in the story?
Teaching the gospel isn’t always fruitful on earth, but can plant the seed for people even after they die.
Our ancestors can come to us in spirit form and we can talk to them.
As spirits they can attend our meetings, our homes, anywhere they desire to go-hopefully this doesn’t freak you out, I’m sure our loved ones aren’t sick and disgusting people.
They watch us, they observe the things we observe, they can learn the things we learn as we share them with others, through all these ways we’ve mentioned.
When the story said, “there are a great many spirits who weep and mourn because they have relatives in the Church here who are careless and are doing nothing for them” I believe they don’t just mourn because we don’t do their ordinances, but that they mourn because we “do” nothing for them by way of sharing the gospel through our actions and words.
The title of this lesson is “The Hearts of the Children Shall Turn to Their Fathers” in the past as I have thought about this title, I used to just think of doing the ordinance work for my ancestors, which is the most important part about family history, but now in my life as I have learned some things I now know that this phrase also should be reflective of our actions: teaching, preaching, and living the gospel in such a way that when they observe us they will then desire to turn their hearts toward their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and come unto them, by wanting or accepting their ordinance work so they can live in their presence.
While serving in the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder Wilford Woodruff taught: “For the last eighteen hundred years, the people that have lived and passed away never heard the voice of an inspired man, never heard a Gospel sermon, until they entered the spirit-world. Somebody has got to redeem them, by performing such ordinances for them in the flesh as they cannot attend to themselves in the spirit, and in order that this work may be done, we must have Temples in which to do it” (in Journal of Discourses, 19:228–29).
I always loved the story of how Joseph F. Smith was lying in bed sick and “his eyes were opened” and he said he saw the Savior visiting the spirit world during the 3 days in the tomb, recorded in D&C138.
Because of this section what do we know about the spirits here?
D&C 138:12 The Savior visited those who “had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus while they lived in mortality”
Read 138:13-18 What a spiritual feeling this passage brings, can you imagine the spirits waiting and watching as our Savior was on his way to death and resurrection?
138:19 Then he finally comes and preaches to them the gospel.
138:20 states that He didn’t visit the wicked or ungodly but He didn’t leave them out.
138:29-30 Christ organized his righteous people into forces to teach and preach to those in prison
138:32Gospel is preached to those who died without knowledge of the truth. To me this means my grandparents. They went to church for a little while, and that learning will come back to them, but they probably didn’t learn enough, and they will continue to learn as they attend meetings and observe.
We too still have to learn line upon line and we’ve learned in D&C 50:40 That we are like children and shall always be learning grace by grace and in knowledge. And D&C42:61 receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge.
Our learning is never done. I learned something not too long ago through a dream that I had that strengthened my resolve to do better in my teaching and living the gospel.
Let me tell you first about the person I dreamed about.
I had a friend growing up. She was so awesome, we did everything together for ever, until one day. She started choosing different friends who were making harmful choices. She continued down this path and even though we were still friendly to each other, we grew apart and my friend ended up in a place that brought her so much misery that she ended up taking her own life. I truly mourned because of her choice to end her life. I was heartbroken and wondered if I had stayed close…well as we all know the “would’ve, should’ve” thoughts don’t do anything but bring us down, so I disregarded them and just prayed that the Savior would know how wonderful a friend she was to me during my childhood and that He would heal her heart.
One night a few months ago I had a dream, I remember me standing in this room teaching my lesson and as I looked over she was sitting in my class. I was surprised to see her there. I finished teaching and then class ended and I went over to her and asked her “what she was doing here”, the only thing I heard her say was ‘learning’. I remember seeing myself asking her more questions but I couldn’t remember what they were, DARN IT.
When I woke up I knew that dream was so real. It felt real, and as I wrote that dream down in my journal and questioned to myself if this experience was real, the spirit answered to me that it truly was real and she did attend my class. Since then I have tried to put things in my lesson that would testify to my grandparents and my friend of the things I know of the gospel, just in case they come to visit again.
Just as Joseph F. Smith testified in 138:57 that the “faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, will continue their labors in the preaching …of the gospel to those who are in darkness…in the great world of the spirits of the dead” So do I testify that every time we bare our testimony, have a FHE, make a simple comment in a class or perform an act of service, we are testifying to our ancestors of the gospel and the happiness it brings to our lives. We are doing our family history work by doing these things. Yes, we should also do their temple work, but I testify that preaching the gospel to them in our everyday actions is also an important part of family history work. I know that as we do this their hearts will be brought unto their Fathers, namely their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ; it is in their sacred names I close amen.