A Mormon Woman's Reflections on Life and the Gospel of Jesus Christ

LDS General Conference Session Notes:  Mormon April 2010 Conference

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  Russell M. Nelson Speaks on Mormon Genealogy,  & Undergirding Mormon Doctrine

When our hearts turn to our ancestors, our inborn yearnings are filled when we are linked to our families beyond the veil, said Elder Russell M. Nelson, Mormon apostle, referring to the doctrines of Mormonism.

For those new to this gathering or to this site, “LDS” or “Mormon” are nicknames for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Savior’s restored Church. Mormonism is the name associated with the doctrines and teachings of Christ that are held by those members; more accurately Mormonism represents, to Church adherents, the fulness of the doctrines of Jesus Christ’s gospel and its full authority, restored in our day through the Savior and Father’s own literal re-appearance and divine direction. The message of Mormons, of Mormonism, is a message of import; a message every onlooker should investigate personally and directly and prayerfully (site author).

Methods to find and prepare names for ordinances are becoming easier. Procedures have been simplified so that virtually every member of the Church can participate. No matter your situation, you can participate in this work right now,  

Elder Nelson continued, enumerating ways that each member can become involved in family history (friends of all faiths are welcome in Mormon family history centers worldwide, see familysearch dot org for more details:

• Children can draw family trees.
• Parents can find their ancestors through New Family Search and perform temple work (Mormons build temples today as the Lord’s followers did under His direction anciently. They are beautiful Houses of the Lord, dedicated to His ordinances or initiations into His kingdom on earth, and containing powers and principles by which we can access increasingly the Holy Ghost and grow up in our knowledge of Jesus Christ.)
• Individuals can hold a temple recommend (Mormons, Christian disciples of Christ, are invited to the House of the Lord according to His standards of worthiness and moral cleanliness, and before entering these sacred edifices of peace and purity, they are interviewed and determined to be worthy of that blessing. They need not be perfect, for none of us are, but striving and in keeping with the commandments and teachings of the Church.)
• Older individuals can learn how to use the computer with help to do this saving work.

“New technology makes it easier than ever to fulfill that responsibility; the New Family Search helps identify ancestors, the work done for them, and ways to prepare those individuals’ temple ordinances,” indicated Elder Russell M. Nelson, LDS (Mormon) apostle.

In the past, people worked separately. Now we can work together in building each other’s family tree, shares Elder Nelson.

There’s more work ahead, he averred. “New Family Search may expose duplicate entries or errors previously unrecognized, especially in the case of those with pioneer ancestry.”

Mormon Doctrine Undergirds This  Mormon Temple and Mormon Genealogy Work

We are helping in the exaltation of others as we do this work, testified the LDS apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Elder Nelson.  Joseph Smith asked us to “offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness” and present in the holy temple a “book worthy of all acceptation.”  As we work together, we can accomplish this record, and makes it possible for those ancestors to receive those ordinances if and as they choose, and makes liberty of captives, and links us to others of our ancestors in love. This leads to the exaltation of our families.

Pietraroia: Naples Italy

I’m a former Catholic with ancestors in Italia… bella Italia..   I just saw an article, clipped below, that touched my heartstrings and reached that longing to make more ties in family lines.  Had that feeling?  Do you know what it is? Well, Mormons call it the “spirit of Elijah.”  Elijah actually came to restore the gaps and mess-ups in the human family by restoring the keys to bind worthy families together–in other words to  seal together us and others to our ancestors who are worthy or will become worthy of eternal life in the highest kingdom of God.  Well, that’s the source of that feeling that is sweeping the earth–to trace their family lines.  And it is the backbone of much of Mormon temple work.

Anyway, I’d love to find Mormons, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who are in the Napoli branch in Italy. Love this article, Laurie. Thank you!  And thanks, Bianca, for sharing it.

I have roots in the Pietraroia area, including the Bello line.  If anyone out there has contacts in that branch, I’d love to connect with them.  Hoping to bop over there with my girls a year from Christmas.  My sister went over to Italy to visit relatives, the Trifilettis, in Sicily, and said it was surreal.  Saw the house my grandfather built for my grandmother, still there amid the cobblestones and groves.

I’ll shower you soon with pics of my two girls..

NAPLES, ITALY

Laurie Sowby, Church news writer

Mario Manzella was a young husband and father looking for answers.

But, he says, it wasn’t until he began praying to God, asking why he felt nothing when he attended the church he’d been raised in, that he began to notice the name tags worn by the young men who frequently dropped in to his bakery.

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” he read.

He invited the elders to his home, and his wife, Anna, accepted their invitation to join the discussion. “As soon as they started using the scriptures, I recognized that what they were teaching was true,” recalls Sister Manzella 39 years later.

She was baptized April 4, 1970, in Napoli (Naples in English), the city where she’s lived all her life. Her husband followed soon after, and in 1976, they traveled to the Bern Switzerland Temple to be sealed to their four children.

Photo by Laurie Williams Sowby

Anna and Mario Manzella, far right, joined the Church in 1970. Also pictured are daughter Angela, son-in-law Aldo Ariante, and their three children ages 9-13. All seven members attend the Napoli Branch in Italy.

We, as Mormons and Mormon Women (LDS women) support those of you who are defending the marriage definition as between a man and a woman, in your own Presbyterian-splintering debate. How did the world get here? Where’s here? Well, …. where what is clearly a violation of God’s laws is being embraced not just in secular circles but in clerical appointments. Your comments are welcome.

If you would like to share what you are doing as a woman of any faith, and particularly as a Mormon woman, to share your voice in opposing gay marriage, we’d love to hear and post.

Karen

Local Presbyterians voted overwhelmingly Tuesday night to approve an amendment to their church constitution to allow gay clergy.

The vote, announced just after 8 p.m. at a crowded meeting at National Presbyterian Church in Northwest, was 222-102 with one abstention. The voters represented 34,000 Presbyterians in the District, Northern Virginia and five Maryland counties who belong to the National Capital Presbytery. (more…)

Here’s a place where you can join the fray, have a say, while sharing your faith-infused lives globally online. If you don’t have a blog, if the word scares you and you think, “I can’t do that,” think again. If you visit Mormonbloggers.com, click on Start a Blog, you will be led to a site where you can follow a few easy steps and be up and running in minutes, as long as you can read and type. Then, to learn how to continue to upload content and add things to your blog, there are helpful screencasts for those sites. Email us if you need help. Join the conversation, as Elder Ballard, apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has asked us to do. Your voice can change someone’s life. I testify of that.