Wijayas World: Families are Forever

I have always wanted to do my own genealogy but I never really had the time to do it. After watching general conference last Sunday, I was moved by the talk by one of the apostles that I have to do my own genealogy. So, yesterday at church I went to the genealogy class. I was so excited to search for my ancestors and to find out what the class has for me. I was so ready and excited to get started on my own genealogy. I got my laptop, some information about my families,and our membership records. But to my disappointment, the website for the family search was down. Hendra and I kept trying to log in but to no avail. When we got home from church, we kept trying and trying to log in. After trying for so many hours, I finally could log in at about 8 pm ( I could have just waited the next day to check back in the site, but I just couldn't wait. I was too excited to start searching for my ancestors).

As soon as I got in, I entered my membership record number. And to my surprise, the site already had all my information including all the temple works that I've done in the past for my deceased families. It recorded all the information about the baptisms and the endowments that we did back in Hawaii for our deceased families. My hearts pounding so hard as I saw the names of my deceased families, especially when I saw my dad's name. I knew at that moment that my dad was watching over me because I could feel his presence so strongly. As I was going through my ancestors' names, tears running down my cheeks. Besides the fact that I miss my dad so badly, I also just realized that my grandfather is not sealed to my grandmother and that some of the names are not endowed yet. I got very emotional knowing and realizing that all these names are related to me and that they are waiting for me to do the temple work for them. My brother, Bobby, had done lots of names and we were able to baptize them. Now we have to do their endowments and seal all those names to their parents. I could only imagine how much they want to be endowed and sealed to their parents. I could only imagine how long they have been waiting for us to do this ordinances for their behalf.

As I was doing the research, my love for these deceased people have grown in my heart. I felt so connected to those names even though we have never even met. I felt so close to these people and I just could feel their presence so strongly as I was learning about their lives. I just knew that I was doing the right thing and that I could feel their happiness knowing that I will do their temple work for them. I know without a doubt that Families are forever and that we all can take a little bit of our time to remember those who didn't have the chance to perform temple ordinances during their time on earth. I am so grateful for the Temple and its work. Through the Temple I can help my deceased family to have the chance to be sealed to their families. I am so excited to have all my deceased ancestors sealed together.

So.....in excitement of searching for our ancestors, We called our families back home in Indonesia. We looked for all papers and documents to find names that can trace us back all the way to our ancestors. We are very excited to do their Temple ordinances for their behalf.

While searching for our ancestors, we got some very interesting facts. We found some of these cool stuff. We have no idea what it means since it is all written in Chinese characters, but enough to know that Hendra's ancestors has taken him all the way back to Netherlands and China. pretty cool stuff I think!!

I found this document written in Chinese characters. Beside the year was 1986 and it has a picture of Hendra on it, I don't understand any of it. Hopefully it'll give us some clues.