Probably one of the mightiest preachers the Mormon Church ever had was Apostle Melvin J. Ballard.  He had had Heavenly manifestations, and did not hesitate to declare the Word of the Lord, and with power.

Elder Ballard sat at our baptismal font one Saturday while nearly a thousand baptisms were performed for the dead.  As he sat there, he contemplated on how great the temple ceremonies were, and how we are bringing special blessings to the living and the dead.  His thoughts turned to the spirit world, and he wondered if the people there would accept the work we were doing for them.

Brother Ballard said:  "All at once a vision opened to me, and I beheld a great congregation of people gathered in the east end of the font room.  One by one, as each name was baptized for, one of these people climbed a stairway over the font to the west end of the room.  Not one soul was missing, but there was a person for every one of the thousand names done that day."

Brother Ballard said that he had never seen such happy people in all his life, and the whole congregation rejoiced at what was being done for them.

For the rest of his life, Apostle Ballard preached to the Church in all his travels, that the work we do in the temples is accepted, and that the people themselves are permitted to attend and receive the blessings personally.

This testimony has cheered the hearts of tens of thousands of faithful Latter-day Saints who have labored in the temple for their dead ancestors.  (Logan Temple, the First 100 Years by Nolan P. Olsen, pgs. 170-171.)

(Note added by JEK:  "So it will be with your fathers.  There will be very few, if any, who will not accept the Gospel."—Wilford Woodruff, as quoted by Boyd K. Packer in

The Holy Temple, pg. 203.)