One of the great things about reading talks from the Brethren is that besides giving us deeper understanding, they dig up some inspiring quotes from others that we either aren’t aware of, or don’t know where to find. Thanks, Elders!

From Elder D. Todd Christofferson’s talk (given at a BYU Family History Fireside, March 2002), I’m just going to list these quotes assuming you’re all talking about this important topic anyway, and could use them as you preach, teach, and demonstrate this glorious work.
Who can deny Pres. Hinckley’s inspired quest on building smaller temples to hurry the work along. From Joseph F. Smith: “We hope to see the day when we shall have temples built in the various parts of the land where they are needed for the convenience of the people: for we realize that their hearts shall be turned unto their fathers.” (Conference Report, Oct. 1902)

And from President Brigham Young: “I want to see the [Salt Lake] temple built in a manner that it will endure through the Millennium. This is not the only temple we shall build; there will be hundreds of them built and dedicated to the Lord. This temple will be known as the first temple built in the mountains by the Latter-day Saints. And when the Millennium is over, and all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve… have been redeemed in hundreds of temples through the administration of their children as proxies for them, I want that temple still to stand as a proud monument of the faith, perseverance and industry of the Saints of God in the mountains, in the nineteenth century.” (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 395)

Brigham Young once prophesied that as time goes on, assistance from the other side of the veil will become even more dramatic. He said: “You will enter into the temple of the Lord and begin to offer up ordinances before the Lord for your dead…a great many of the elders of Israel in Mount Zion will become pillars in the temple of God, to go no more out. They will eat and drink and sleep there; and they will after have occasion to say, “Somebody came to the temple last night; we did not know who he was, but he was no doubt a brother, and told us a great many things we did not before understand. He gave us the names of a great many of our forefathers that are not on record, and he gave me my true lineage and the names of my forefathers for hundreds of years back. He said to me, you and I are connected in one family; there are the names of your ancestors; take them and write them down, and be baptized and confirmed, and save such and such ones, and receive of the blessings of the eternal Priesthood for such and such an individual, as you do for yourselves. This is what we are going to do for the inhabitants of the earth. When I look at it, I do not want to rest a great deal, but be industrious all the day long; for when we come to think upon it, we have no time to lose, for it is a pretty laborious work. (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 409)

And from Boyd K. Packer: “We find provisions; information, inventions, help of various kinds, set along the way waiting for us to take them up. It is as though someone knew we would be traveling that way. We see the invisible hand of the Almighty providing for us… (Pres. Boyd K. Packer, “That They May Be Redeemed”, April 1, 1977)

With all urgency the Brethren have spoken to us. This from Joseph Smith: “I would advise all the Saints to go to with their might and gather together all their living relatives to this place, that they may be sealed and saved, that they may be prepared against the day that the destroying angel goes forth; and if the whole Church should go to with all their might to save their dead, seal their posterity, and gather their living friends, and spend none of their time in behalf of the world, they would hardly get through before night would come, when no man can work” (Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 146)

From President Wilford Woodruff: “I wish we could see and know the things of God as they do who are laboring for the salvation of the human family who are in the spirit world; for if this were so, this whole people…would lose all interest in the riches of the world, and instead thereof their whole desires and labors would be directed to redeem their dead, to perform faithfully the work and mission given us on earth.”

Elder Christofferson also quotes from Wilford Woodruff about a son who was drowned. He asked the Lord why he was taken and he received this answer: “You are doing a great deal for the redemption of your dead; but the law of redemption requires some of your own seed in the spirit world to attend to work connected with this.”

That is an interesting thought: that a young child, or a young missionary, is taken because that family needs help to preach the gospel to that particular line, so the work can move forward. Both sides of the veil have an enormous amount of work to do. May we look at Family History work as a life giving work; a living, breathing work; of eternal consequence.