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      A FAMILY HISTORY MISSIONARY'S DREAM CHRISTMAS

1/24/2015

 
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By our Director,  Elder Mickelson

Since my wife and I started our mission as Directors of the St George FamilySearch Library last August, we have been actively involved in searching out our own cousins. Over the past four months,  we have found several relatives who needed their work to be completed.  Since we knew we would be together as a family over the Christmas Holidays it was our desire to go to the temple with our grandchildren and do baptisms for those whom we had sought out.

So on the 23 of December 2014, I was able to go to the . . .  

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Draper Temple with my three grandsons of baptismal age and together we completed the baptisms and confirmations for twenty-four of our family members. I was particularly grateful to be able to perform both the baptisms and the confirmations with my grandsons.  It was truly a very memorable and rewarding experience to complete those ordinances with the assistance of three of my grandsons.

During this same time period, our oldest grandson had received his Mission Call to the California Rancho CucomandoMission. He called us and asked if he could spend a few days with us right after Christmas. We were elated that he would want to take some time to visit us in to St. George, but we wondered what he might want to do while he is with us. Finally we decided to ask him. His answer was fast and clear, “Grandpa, all I want to do is come and have time with both of you, and I would like to go to the FamilySearch Library where you and Grandma work."

PictureOur Oldest Grandson and His Grandmother. my wife
So between Christmas and New Year’s Day, our grandson and his friend drove from Durango, Colorado and stayed with us for four days. During that time he helped us to hone our computer skills and to digitize many of our family photos. Then to fulfill his other request, we took him on a tour of the St. George FamilySearch Library.  It was a joy for us to show him throughout this special facility. He wanted to see all the equipment that we have here to help our visitors do their family history research. (picture) We were also able to take him into the story booth and do some role playing of his life to this point. I so wish that we could have recorded our conversations. We took that opportunity to explain to him that if he would introduce family history to his investigators, he would find that they would be more receptive of the gospel, and they would be more invested in the gospel.

Today as I look back on those special 10 days we spent with our grandchildren and when we felt the closeness of the Spirit of Elijah, I never want to forget these events. I hope that writing about these events will help me and my grandchildren to always remember  how special these days were for each of us.




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