Discovering our Kindred Dead

President Howard W. Hunter is quoted as saying the following:

I have learned that those who engage in family history research and then perform the temple ordinance work for those whose names they have found will know the additional joy of receiving both halves of the blessing.

Furthermore, the dead are anxiously waiting for the Latter-day Saints to search out their names and then go into the temples to officiate in their behalf, that they may be liberated from their prison house in the spirit world. All of us should find joy in this magnificent labor of love.

The objective of family history work is to make the blessings of the temple available to all people, both living and dead. As we attend the temple and perform work for the dead, we accomplish a deep sense of alliance with God and a better understanding of his plan for the salvation of the human race. We learn to love our neighbors as ourselves. Truly there is no work equal to that done in the temple. "We All Have a Work to Do," Ensign, 1995, p. 65.

The two halves of the blessings are attending the Temple and seeking out our ancestors and other relatives. We have been given a great gift today of the technology to accomplish this work to some extent from our homes. However, the simplicity of the task has made us complacent. We are like the Children of Israel in the wilderness who only had to look to be saved from the poisonous snakes. We fail to look at what we have been given. Today is the day to go to FamilySearch.org and get to work learning what you need to do and then doing it.