By James E. Kerns

I thought that this collection of ancestors' stories and this book would be complete when I'd inserted the pertinent pictures.  Yesterday, however, as I was praying, I was told by the Spirit that the book would not be complete until I'd told my own story and explained why these people are important to us.  This book was written about our progenitors, but is written for my siblings, my wife's siblings, and all of our posterity.  My purpose in telling my own story is to bear testimony to our posterity so that they may begin to understand who they are and where they fit in this grand plan of life.

The following article is one of the most insightful and thought-provoking things I've ever read anywhere.  It was written by my own grandfather.  He asked a question which he could not answer.  It is an inspired question.  It has played upon my mind and has been turned over therein again and again ever since I first read it as a boy.  I am now a 70-year-old man.  It is my privilege in the following pages to be able to answer what was to him an unanswerable question.  I do it for the benefit of our posterity.

MY FATHER'S DAY AND MINE

by Elwin A. McCornack

"When my father was a young lad on the farm out west of Eugene he followed his father and four older brothers around the wheat field.  Each carried a short steel sickle, and as the wheat fell from the blade, it fell onto the reaper's left arm; and when a sizable bundle had accumulated, the reaper bound it together with a wisp of the newly cut straw, dropped it in the stubble and swung his blade to start another bundle.  Around and around the field, each reaper cutting right at the heels of the man next before him.

"Grandfather and his boys were harvesting the grain they had planted that the family might be fed.  They knew of no other way of getting the harvest in.  All men harvested just as they were doing.  There was no other way.  Looking back from where we stand today we see that they were practicing the identical method used by the reapers who labored in the field of Boaz where Ruth the Moabitess gleaned.  The picture was the same.  Thirty one hundred years had passed without any change in this most essential and much used process.

"When these bundles of wheat had lain out in the sun a sufficient time to cure and harden, Grandfather and the boys were again in the field, this time with oxen and wagons and hauled the bundles to the barnyard where they were piled in great weather proof stacks.  Then when thrashing day came, the bundles were pitched down on the hard-beaten ground of the yard, and horses and oxen were driven around and around over the ground until the straw was separated from the wheat.  Again we see the picture as no different than that of the Children of Israel thrashing out the grain on the thrashing floors of Pharaoh thirty five hundred years before.

"And Grandfather had told his sons of the trip to America from Scotland just a few years before.  How they had made the crossing in a wind-driven sailing ship.  Just such a ship as had bourn the venturesome Phoenicians on their voyages into the unknown world of two thousand B.C.

"Since those remote days the world had stood still with little change.  Gunpowder, the printing press, yes, and a few of man's new ideas had come on the scene, but the progress of mankind and of the world was largely unchanged.  It can truly be said that at the time my people came to the Oregon country the forward progress of man was still geared to the slow, measured tread of the oxen.

"Note now the things which have happened in my father's day and mine.  Things which were unknown to an earlier generation.  The new things which have come about.  The list is limitless.  The harnessing and uses of electricity.  An understanding of the world of bacteriology and its uses in protecting human life.  The telephone, the radio, television, radar.  The use of steam and the railways.  Petroleum and its thousand uses.  The airplane and its world-wide service.  Each one of these innovations and a hundred more has stepped up the pace at which the world is moving from the four miles an hour tread of the ox to a fantastic speed much faster than that of sound.  Why has all this come to pass in our time?  Why was it that God in his infinite wisdom did permit the world to stand still for three thousand years and then in your time and mine pull the plug as it were and permit the world to rush to its full and final destiny?  That is truly the sixty-four dollar question of our day."

Tom and Janet Kerns

I was born into a very remarkable family of common people.  What's remarkable is that they were all good people striving to do their best with what they had.  And they succeeded marvelously.

My own parents were not outwardly religious, but they both came from long lines of highly religious people who left Europe to find religious freedom.  That was the case with every one of them.  My mother was a praying person; and both of my parents were good, honest, hard-working, very moral people.  They passed these virtues to their children, but we never went to church.  They took us to the little Methodist Church in Haines just twice when I was a young boy.  I was glad that they didn't make it a practice because I had no idea what was going on there, and couldn't even find the page numbers of the hymns we were supposed to be singing.  I remember sitting on the front row and being very embarrassed.

Nevertheless I did a lot of thinking about a Man named Jesus Christ that my mother told me about.  I didn't understand what it was that He'd done, but I knew that He'd changed the world.  I spent a lot of time wandering through the fields of our farm as a small boy wondering who Jesus Christ was, what He'd done, if He was a living person, and if He and God were one and the same being, or if they were separate beings, or if they were beings at all.  And I wondered why, if God had called prophets anciently, why He didn't do so today?

These were deep questions for a little boy.  They are deep questions for adults.  I didn't understand anything at all about religion or about Jesus Christ, but I knew that I wanted to do what He said.  All I knew was that He preached kindness and morality and clean living, and that He had died a cruel death and had suffered for my sins so that I wouldn't have to if I'd be good.

My father told me that cigarettes were a bad thing.  He told me that he had smoked.  He rolled his own cigarettes.  One day as he was going to the barn he automatically reached in his pocket for his tobacco so that he could roll another cigarette.  He looked at the packet with disgust, threw it as far as he could, and said, "I'll be darned if I'm going to be a slave to you!"  He never smoked another cigarette, and I determined that I would never smoke one, either.

My mother told me to never take the name of the Lord in vain.  In elementary school I acquired the habit of using the words "gosh" and "golly."  She patiently explained that those words were derived from the word "God," and that they were thus near misses for taking the name of God in vain.  I was shocked, and dropped the habit.

My mother had an alcoholic brother.  She made many disparaging remarks about alcohol and its effects on individuals and families.  She left no doubt in my mind about where she stood in the matter, so I resolved to never let any of the stuff pass my lips.

Neither of my parents had any patience with immorality of any sort.  Sex was not a topic for conversation, and was something to be engaged in only by married couples.  Mom and Dad attended my high school choir's rendition of the play "Oklahoma."  My straight-laced mother did a good deal of snorting about all the "innuendo" contained therein, and didn't think the play was appropriate for young people.

I mention these things to point out the standards of my parents, which standards were the background that enabled me to embrace the Savior's restored gospel when it was offered to me.

My Story

Following high school I attended one year of college at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon.  I was an honor student, but I was miserable.  My misery compounded as I returned in the fall of 1966 to begin my second year.  I was so depressed that I found myself unable to open a book.  Weeks went by, and I never once managed to open a single book.  I was incredibly low.  On the last day possible to drop classes without penalty I withdrew from school, called my parents, and told them that I was coming home.

I packed up, got in my car, and headed home.  As my car climbed the Cascades to go through central Oregon I found myself in an October snow storm.  The flakes were huge, and were incredibly beautiful against the backdrop of evergreen trees.  I was so overcome with the sight that I pulled over into a wide spot in the road where I could sit and watch.  This triggered something inside me, and I found myself doing a thing I'd never done before:

I prayed.  I prayed out loud.  I poured out all of my problems.  There was nowhere else to turn for help.  If there was a God in heaven I needed Him.  I needed comfort.  I needed direction.  I had quit school, disappointed my family, was a worry to my parents, would lose my draft deferral, would be drafted into the army, would be sent to Vietnam, and would be killed in battle.  I didn't know if God really existed, but if He did, I needed help.  I told Him all about my sins, my troubles, and my misery.  I unloaded it all.

It felt good to unburden myself in that manner.  I knew I was being patiently listened to.  I resumed my journey up the mountain, and my out-loud prayer continued.

At the summit the snow storm turned into a gentle rain.  The sun shone, and a beautiful rainbow appeared before me.  I thanked the Lord for this sign that He was listening.  I'd never before seen anything like that rainbow.  It was spectacular.  As the road twisted and turned, the rainbow was sometimes on my right, sometimes on the left, and sometimes made a perfect arch over the road.  It looked like I should be able to drive right under it.

I knew from a childhood experience precipitated by my father that you can't catch rainbows.  He'd told me that if I'd dig at the end of the rainbow that I'd find a pot of gold.  I put a shovel by our back door and waited all summer for a rainbow to appear.  After many weeks one finally appeared in the field east of our house.  I grabbed my shovel and ran to find the pot of gold.  I was about to become a hero and solve all of my family's problems.

As I ran I learned something about rainbows:  You can't catch them.  That rainbow stayed a certain distance ahead of me and jumped the fence into the Yankee Place where I was not allowed to trespass.  I had no idea where to dig.  I was a very disappointed and embarrassed little boy as I returned to the house and put my shovel away.  I was so embarrassed that I never told anyone what I'd done.

Now here I was a dozen years later, driving along praying, watching a rainbow, remembering my previous experience, and wondering if I could catch this brilliant successor to the rainbow of my childhood.

In order for a rainbow to exist several conditions must come together.  There must be moisture in the air, the sun must be shining, and the observer needs to be between the rainbow and the light source.  Nothing is more ephemeral than a rainbow.  They don't last long.

I calculated later that this rainbow and I kept company for four hours!  It went before me.  It never once dimmed.  The gentle rain continued to fall.  The patch of sunlight in which I was driving acted like a spotlight following me all the way from the summit of the Cascade Mountains to the border of Baker County.  My fervent, out-loud prayer lasted all that way, too.  I knew that I was being listened to, and I held nothing back.

Somewhere in the vicinity of Unity Reservoir it suddenly began raining very hard.  The sun still shone.  I rounded a curve, and in that moment I caught the rainbow!   Also at that moment a voice announced, "Everything is going to be all right."

I don't know whether the voice was audible or just in my head, but it was real.  It shook me.  I was trembling.  I was trembling so much that I again had to pull to the side of the road and stop.  But it was only for a moment because as soon as I'd stopped, I realized that the rainbow was leaving me.  I quickly got back on the road, but the rainbow was gone.  The message had been delivered.

Two weeks later a Book of Mormon was placed in my hands.  Because of my LDS friends, I had long been curious about the Book of Mormon; but no one had ever offered me one, and I'd been afraid to ask for one.  I thought that it was possibly a secret book that only the properly-initiated could have.  Nevertheless, because of my acquaintances I had made a mental note in high school that if religion should ever become important to me that I would first look at their church because they were the most Christian of any people that I knew.

So when I was given that Book of Mormon following the hearing of the voice that had reassured me everything would be all right, I knew that something was about to happen.

I took the book home and stood it upright in the center of the desk in my room.  It stood there untouched for two weeks.  It was the first thing I saw in the morning when I awoke and the last thing I saw at night before I went to sleep.  I was savoring the moments.  I knew that my life was about to change.  I was probably also building up the courage to actually open a book.

I did not know what to expect.  Maybe the Book of Mormon was the story of Brigham Young crossing the plains.  Or maybe it would be hard to understand like the Bible.  I'd attempted several times to read the Bible, but it was beyond my comprehension, and I had quit after struggling through several pages.

I was taken completely off guard when I began reading.  I found that it was another book of ancient scripture like the Bible.  It had a story line, and was completely plain and understandable.  It was captivating.  It was December, and I had to help Dad feed the cattle.  Having to go to work was a pain.  All I wanted to do was to shut myself in my cold December bedroom and read that book.  As I'd read I could literally feel light coming into my head.  I hadn't known that my head was filled with darkness, but as I read I could feel light pushing the darkness out.  I was filled with joy and hope.

I read about a prophet named Lehi who was commanded by the Lord to take his family and to flee into the wilderness to escape the pending destruction of Jerusalem.  This was in 600 B.C.  Jerusalem was subsequently destroyed by Babylon, but Lehi wasn't there.  He and his family endured their own hardships as the Lord led them to their promised land.  Their promised land was the Americas where their descendants built a civilization that was contemporaneous to, and probably superior to, the Roman civilization.

Halfway through my reading of the Book of Mormon my girl friend (Marjorie) sent me a copy of Joseph Smith's testimony.  As a young boy he had a burning desire to know which church was right.  As he was reading the Bible he came across James 1:5 which says, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."

Joseph was so powerfully affected by this scripture that he went out into the woods, knelt, and asked God which church was true.  Two glorious Beings appeared in a pillar of light.  One pointed to the other and said, "Joseph, this is my Beloved Son:  Hear Him."

This went like lightning through my soul.  There was no question but that what Joseph related was true.  I knew it.  My multiple questions were instantly answered.  God and Jesus were real.  They were alive.  They were men.  They were two separate Beings.  I was made in Their image.  They had called a modern prophet.  Through him they had reestablished Christ's Church as it had been organized in the Savior's day.

The ninth of January 1967 became a day whose anniversary I have privately commemorated ever since.  It was on that day that I knelt in the middle of my bedroom and told my Father in heaven that I knew that Joseph Smith's story, the Book of Mormon, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were true, and that I wanted to be baptized.

I immediately started preparing.  I repented of all my sins.  I abandoned every improper thought and practice as quickly as I could identify them.  I found where the missionaries lived, knocked on their door, and asked them to teach me their lessons.

The missionaries taught me in our living room.  Mom and Dad graciously received them, but would then shut themselves in the kitchen while the missionaries and I occupied the living room.  I was impatient to be baptized, but had to endure the missionaries' six discussions as a necessary prelude.  I could have insisted on being baptized right away, but in actuality I needed the time to repent of my sins and to show myself and God that I was capable of being a new and different person.

To avoid being drafted into the army and being sent to Vietnam, back in November I had signed up to join the Navy.  I had a 120-day deferment before having to report to boot camp in San Diego on 17 March.  I was baptized on 4 March 1967, and was off to boot camp 13 days later.

The military is tough.  The training is rigorous, the men are coarse, drill instructors are mean and even more coarse, comforts are non-existent, and every enlistee asks himself, "How did I get myself into this?"

I was in a company of 60 men.  We lived in a long barracks having a long row of two-tiered bunk beds on either side with a long table and benches running down the center.  During any down time that we had in our training the men would sit around the table, tell profane stories, smoke their cigarettes, and gripe about the "hole" they were in.  The bunks had to all be made perfectly in the morning, and were not to be laid in during the day.  I purposely selected the top bunk in a corner.  During down times I could avoid the profanity and griping by unobtrusively standing by my bunk where I read the Bible.

I had finished reading the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants before my baptism.  I began reading the New Testament and, wonder of wonders, it was now perfectly plain and understandable.  I read the entire New Testament while standing beside my corner bunk in the 11 weeks that I was in boot camp.

Out on the grinder, as we marched up and down in the hot sun, everyone was miserable--everyone but me.  I was on cloud nine.  I was happier than I'd ever been in my life.  I was having prayers answered daily.  A miracle had taken place in my life.  I was a new person.  I had purpose and a future.  I was being sustained.  I was being strengthened.  I could keep up with anybody and do anything.  Life was a joy.

I was a squad leader.  I marched at the head of eight other men who were my responsibility.  If one of them messed up, I got punished, too, and would have to do pushups along with them.  I don't know how many pushups I had to do with Charlie Burgess who was punished every day for not scrubbing out the yellow mark that had been placed in his newly-issued white uniform.  When I finally discovered that he was color-blind, and couldn't see the mark, I scrubbed his uniform myself.

I was an oddity among those men.  I'm sure that I was the topic of many of the conversations that took place around the center table.  I was asked many pointed questions about why I was the way that I was.  Everyone knew that I was a Mormon because every Sunday I marched off to church with three LDS men from the neighboring company.

Those profane men of my company respected me.  To my surprise they elected me as the outstanding recruit of the company.  That made me a candidate for outstanding recruit of the brigade.  I had to do double time and run clear across the base to be interviewed by the base commander and three other officers who all had "scrambled eggs" on their caps.  All of their questions zeroed in on the fact that I was a farm boy, and that I had recently joined the LDS Church all on my own.  To my surprise they selected me as the man to be honored at graduation as the outstanding recruit of the 1,500 men graduating that day.

On our last Sunday in boot camp the company commander announced that everyone had the choice of either going to church or giving the barracks a thorough cleaning.  Twenty-seven men came up to me one after the other, and asked if they could go to church with me.  It was a great pleasure for me to march those 27 men to the bleachers where we held our open-air meeting every Sunday.

I went from San Diego to the Army's Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, California where I spent 37 weeks learning the Russian language.  It was there that I received my first calling in the Church.  Just as in former times, the Church has no paid ministry.  Local units of the Church are called wards.  They are presided over by a bishop, who receives no pay for what often adds up to the equivalent of a full-time job.  One of the bishop's duties is to keep his ward staffed with the 150-200 people that it takes to fill all of the positions necessary for a smooth-running ward.

In the Pacific Grove Ward that I attended, I received my first calling.  I was asked to serve as the Guide Patrol leader in Primary.  I was to be the teacher every Wednesday afternoon of seven rowdy eleven-year-old boys, and to also be their Blazer Scout leader.  They had run off several previous teachers.  I was terrified.  But I was coming to realize that with the Lord's help I could do anything.

I learned right along with the boys.  I loved them, and they loved me.  It was a tearful thing when we had to part at the end of my 37 weeks there.

There are several other highlights in my memory of DLI.  I remember being severely depressed at Corvallis where a new record was set when it rained for 120 days straight.  I should have been similarly depressed in Monterey.  Monterey is on the coast where it's constantly foggy.  I never once saw the sun from June to September.  But my spirits were buoyant.  I enjoyed everything and everyone.

An LDS buddy of mine and I started a weekly Wednesday night devotional to which we invited our friends.  We showed the film "Man's Search for Happiness," and taught them the gospel.  We baptized 27, including my friends Merrill and Mike.

The real highlight of my time in Monterey was being ordained an elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood on 10 March 1968, and going to the Oakland Temple to receive my endowment on the 16th.  I remember the excitement I felt as the car I was riding in wound its way up the hill to the temple as that magnificent building appeared and reappeared through the surrounding houses and trees.

The atmosphere inside the temple was palpably peaceful.  I don't know that I retained much of what I learned that day, but I've never forgotten the feelings that I had there.  Several times I had to mentally shake myself to remind myself that there was a busy, noisy world outside.  It was unbelievable that there could be a place of such perfect peace in the midst of turmoil and chaos.

A few weeks after my temple experience I found myself in San Angelo, Texas on Goodfellow Air Force Base where I attended four months of security school.  As a Russian linguist I possessed a top-secret, cryptographic security clearance, and was to soon be assigned to spy on Soviet communications.

One of our instructors was a Naval petty officer who began every class with a dirty joke.  It was offensive to me.  I did everything I could to block out his words so that they wouldn't lodge in my mind.  I looked down at my desk and found something else to do.  This continued for several weeks, when suddenly the jokes stopped.  It was a blessed relief.

Sometime later a classmate said to me, "Do you know why Garrison doesn't tell jokes any more?"

"No, why?"

"It's because you wouldn't laugh."

I learned something there about the power of the individual to change circumstances and even the world.

San Angelo had a branch of the Church comprising about 200 members.  Up to that time I was still terrified to speak in front of a group, but I was asked to give a talk in front of the whole congregation.  I had committed to do anything the Lord asked me to do, so I accepted the assignment, prepared diligently, and went to the meeting fasting and praying.  To my great surprise and relief I was completely composed and at ease as I spoke.  The Lord had made me capable, and had removed a debilitating impediment from my life.

Which reminds me of another huge blessing the Lord gave me back at DLI.  All of us there were of an age where we needed to have something done about our wisdom teeth.  One after another was scheduled to go to the dentist, have his wisdom teeth extracted, and returned to the barracks moaning, groaning, in pain, and on the pain-killer Darvon.  The men typically laid around for several days with painfully-swollen jaws.  I dreaded my time to come, and prayed fervently to be sustained through the ordeal.

Deadening was injected into my cheek.  Had the needle not hit a blood vessel, I'd have had no adverse effects at all.  As it was, I got a slight discoloration on one cheek.  Otherwise there was no pain, no swelling, and no need to take even one Darvon tablet.  I learned there that the Lord can do anything, and will respond to any request that is made in faith.

From Goodfellow Air Force Base I was sent to Yokosuka, Japan to board the USS Banner.  The Banner's sister ship was the Pueblo.  The Banner and the Pueblo were "research vessels" that took 3-week turns being out on patrol off the shorelines of Japan, Korea, and the Soviet Union.  As I was on my way to Japan, the Pueblo was captured by the North Koreans.  The crew was held captive 400 days.  That affected my life in two ways.

One was that it was deemed unsafe for the Banner to go out on patrol.  My ship was put in drydock for a complete overhaul.  Its 82 men were assigned bunks in a barracks on shore except for the nights when they were to serve watches aboard ship.  Our days were spent chipping paint and helping in the overhaul.

The other effect that the Pueblo's capture had was to compound my mother's worry about her son.  Her son had been sent to the Far East where a war raged in Vietnam, and where North Korea was trying to provoke a war with America by holding her son's sister ship and the crew hostage.  She was helpless to do anything but to worry and to pray.

And pray she did.  One night her deceased father came to her, stood by her bed, and said, "You don't have to worry about Jamie.  He'll be all right."

That was a huge comfort to her.  Her father's visit was perhaps the highlight of her life.  It was something she could not speak about without emotion.  She ceased worrying.

I arrived in Japan, found my ship, walked up the gangway, saluted the watch, and was asked point blank, "Are you the guy from Oregon that doesn't drink?"

I was shown to my bunk and was asked, "Are you the Mormon?"  Within the first 15 minutes aboard the ship I was given four such greetings.  Apparently my service record had preceded me, and someone had spread the news.  I suspected it was the medic, who had charge of the medical records.

One man was especially friendly to me, and offered to take me on a tour on my first day off so that I could see Japan.  The first available day was three days later.  He took me to Yokohama.  We went straight to the bar district that catered to American servicemen.  I suppose that my displeasure with the situation was apparent because he didn't even try to make me go inside any of the bars.  After wandering around aimlessly for a while we got back on a train and returned to Yokosuka.  That was the end of his friendliness.

It wasn't until one year later as I was leaving the ship to go to my next duty station that I learned what had really been going on that day.  As I was going down the gangway for the last time a senior petty officer named Armstrong came up to me, stuck out his hand so that we could shake, and said, "Kerns, I want to thank you!  You caused me to win a bet.  When you first came aboard they said you could be taken to Yokohama and brought back drunk.  I said you couldn't, and I won the bet!"

I left Japan and flew home to be married during the two-week leave that I had.  Marjorie and I were married for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple.  Following our honeymoon, I left for my next duty station in Morocco, North Africa.  I was to find a place to live, and then Marjorie would come a month later.  We spent 15 wonderful months living in Kenitra.  I worked in Sidi Yahia about 17 miles away.  It was an extended honeymoon.

From Morocco we went to the Brooklyn Naval Yard in New York City for a week where I received my discharge from the U.S. Navy.  That was in December 1970.

Our first baby, Nathan, arrived four months later while we lived in the old house on the Frank Evans place and worked for the ranch corporation.  In September we moved to Provo, Utah where I enrolled at Brigham Young University, and from which I graduated with a bachelor's degree in Agronomy and Horticulture in 1974.

I loved every minute of BYU.  Why?  Why wasn't I depressed like I had been at Oregon State University?  Having the companionship of my wife made a big difference, but the real difference was the companionship of the Holy Ghost that I'd enjoyed ever since my baptism.  Following my baptism hands were laid on my head by one who had authority to do so, and I was given the gift of the Holy Ghost.  This is an ordinance that is to follow baptism and that was done anciently, but was lost.  The Holy Ghost was the source of my peace, my hope, and my direction.  Possessing the gift of the Holy Ghost is everything.  It's a gift that anyone can have who makes himself worthy.  It is the right to the constant companionship of the third member of the Godhead.  It is a pearl of great price.

Which brings me back to my grandfather's question:  "Why was it that God in his infinite wisdom did permit the world to stand still for three thousand years and then in your time and mine pull the plug as it were and permit the world to rush to its full and final destiny?"

It's because of the Restoration of the Gospel.

My father-in-law found an article about a study made by the Union Pacific Railroad some years ago that asked the same question Grandfather McCornack asked.  The study enumerated important inventions and advances in science and technology, and pinpointed 1830 as the year that the world took off.  It is not coincidental that 1830 was also the year that the Lord's restored Church was organized.  The Lord unlocked the minds of people in every field of endeavor to bring about His purposes.  His purpose is that the gospel message must sound in every ear.

Joseph Smith prophesied that "the Church will fill North and South America.  It will fill the world."  The Church is growing exponentially.  It's the second largest church in the state of Oregon.  There are now more members of the Church outside the United States than in.  Every living person needs to hear the message.

So do the dead.  Because of the loss of knowledge during the great apostasy that followed the deaths of the Apostles, there are some scriptures in the Bible that other churches can't explain.  For instance Paul said, "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?"  (1 Corinthians 15:29).

And Peter wrote, "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison..."  (1 Peter 3:18-19).  "For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."  (1 Peter 4:6).

God is an unchangeable Being.  (Hebrews 13:8).  He is also a just God, and we are His children.  He will see to it that every one of His children has the opportunity to hear the gospel in its purity, to embrace the truth, and to be baptized by proper authority.  Many, many millions and billions of people have died without having that opportunity.  Those will have the gospel preached to them in the world of spirits.

Baptism, though, is an ordinance that belongs to the earth, and must be performed by mortals.  The Lord has provided that when an individual has accepted the gospel in the world of spirits, his mortal descendants can be baptized vicariously in his behalf.  Not only that, but they can also receive all the other ordinances in his behalf including being sealed as husbands and wives and families to live forever in the family relationship.  This is why Latter-day Saints build temples.  This work can only be done in such sacred places.

This also explains why our modern methods of transportation were invented.  It used to take missionaries months to cross the ocean to take the message to other lands.  In contrast, in 2013, Marjorie and I were at work on our mission in far-off Vanuatu the day after we left the United States.

This also explains the harnessing of electricity, and the invention of computers.  Fifty years ago when I began researching our family history, it was a long and laborious process to find and to prepare an ancestor's name so that he or she could have his temple work done.  Now it's fantastically easy.

When I was a student at Brigham Young University I prepared my grandparents' names for temple work and had their names sent to the Salt Lake Temple.  When all was ready, I cut classes one day, and went to Salt Lake where I vicariously received endowments for both of my grandfathers in one day.  It was a great privilege, and I'm perfectly satisfied that they both accepted the work.

Why did the Lord pull the plug, so to speak, and let the world rush to its full and final destiny?  It's the temple work that God wants accomplished for all of His children.  It's because we now stand at the brink of the Lord Jesus Christ's second coming.  It's close enough that it might be in my own lifetime, but certainly in the lifetimes of my grandchildren.

I am deeply, deeply grateful for having the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life.  It has made all the difference.

I am deeply grateful for my amazing ancestors who came before me to prepare the way so that I could live in this choice time and be in a position to do things for them that they could not do for themselves.

The restoration of the gospel makes plain many vitally important truths that were lost during the great apostasy.  A critical thing that was lost is the knowledge of the true relationships that we have with God and with one another.  Those relationships began long before we were born.

I would invite the reader of this article to open his Bible and read Proverbs 8:22-31.  Those verses plainly explain that we lived as spirit sons and daughters of God before we were born into mortality.  Job 38:3-7 tells of the great pre-mortal meeting wherein the plan of salvation was explained to us.  It says there that we "shouted for joy" to learn that an earth would be created where we would go to obtain a body like that possessed by our Father.

Genesis 1:26-27 says that we would be made "in the image of God."  Note there the use of the plural pronouns "us" and "our."  God and Jesus Christ are indeed separate Beings; and since we are made in Their image, no one should wonder what They look like.

There in that pre-mortal existence we made covenants, not only with God, but with our forebears.  Our forebears agreed to go early and to prepare the way for us if we, who would be upon the earth in more propitious times, would promise to see to it that they were baptized and received all of the ordinances that would ensure that they could live together as married couples and families in the eternities.

In our pre-earth existence we made covenants with our ancestors.  We promised them that if they would take their turn on earth when times were hard and when the gospel in its fulness would not be available, and if they would go early and prepare the way for us, we would see to it that their temple work was accomplished.  This has been my great privilege.

The Old Testament ends with two verses that are arguably some of the most important in all scripture.  Jesus quoted them to the Book of Mormon people when He visited them following His resurrection.  Moroni quoted them to Joseph Smith when he visited Joseph preparatory to giving him the sacred record to translate.  Those two verses are thus found in all four of the Church's standard works.

Those two verses prophesy that the ancient prophet, Elijah, will come in the latter-days to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers.  The verses are a mystery to Christian churches, but to the Jews they're such an important prophecy that to this day they're still anticipating Elijah's coming.  They set a place for him at their Passover meals in case he should come.

The angel Moroni quoted the verses to Joseph Smith thus:  "Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

"And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers.  If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming."  (Joseph Smith-History 1:38-39).

The promises were those that we made.  We promised that if they would come and prepare the way, that we would see to it that they received the ordinances that are essential for all to receive.

What neither the world nor the Jews are aware of is that Elijah has already come as prophesied.  He appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the temple in Kirtland, Ohio on 3 April 1836.  He committed to Joseph and Oliver the keys that permit the sealings of wives to husbands, and of children to parents, so that we can live as family units in the eternities.  Nothing is more important than that.  This is the whole reason for the creation of the earth in the first place.  If Elijah hadn't conferred those keys the whole gospel plan would have been frustrated, and the whole effort would have been wasted.

The earth is indeed rushing "to its full and final destiny" as my grandfather stated.  That destiny is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which is near.  Waiting on the other side of the veil are our ancestors.  They are fully aware of us and of our activities.  They're rooting for us.  They're praying for us.  They know all about our comforts and our cars and our computers and why we have things that they never dreamed of.

They don't want to be forgotten.  Their hearts, hopes, and prayers are centered on us, their children.  They're anxious that we will use the technology with which we've been blessed to provide them with the all-important ordinances that were not available when they were upon the earth.

The day is coming when, through the process of death, we'll each go there to join them.  We'll then remember how well we knew them, how near they are to us, how dear they are to us, how real our Savior is, and how critical it is that we keep His commandments and receive these essential ordinances for ourselves and for our forebears.

Through my labors and researches in family history I have come to know and love these noble people who are my ancestors.  My heart has been turned to them.  My heart has also been turned to our posterity.  My desire is that each may come to a realization of who they really are, of the imminence of the Lord's Second Coming, and of their position and importance in this grand plan and family.