There are two days throughout the whole year that I truly enjoy being on social media: Mother's Day and Father's Day.  I love being able to read all the warm feelings and funny memories people share of their parents, especially their fathers. 

But I know from personal experience that Father's Day can be a day full of conflicting, complicated feelings. As I read through everyone's touching stories about their dads, I try to keep a mental list of who hasn't had anything to say.  Regardless of the circumstances (divorce, an unknown, death, or simply little engagement on social media), I can't help but feel a little sadness, but also solidarity knowing I'm not the only one who's choosing to keep that relationship private. 

I have very fond memories of my dad.  I remember him coaching my soccer team all throughout elementary school and what an involved father he was. I remember him lifting me up to the display window at the grocery store bakery to pick out my congratulatory doughnut for behaving myself at mass on Sundays.  I remember the ground-level play house my parents built for me and the tree house they built for my brother. I remember countless "horsey-rides" on his back; 'airplane-rides' on his long, long legs; and blanket tosses in his strong arms. I remember how we'd watch Fiddler on the Roof and he'd always cry when Tevya said goodbye to his daughter, Hodel, when she leaves for Kiev. I remember how special that made me feel. 

I truly want to share these stories and memories, but there's also a part of me that feels I'd have to add a big asterisk to avoid any "false advertising."       

I have a complicated relationship with my father. His struggle with mental health challenges and how he chooses to medicate challenged my view of a father's role.  He was also not supportive of my decision to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has also strained our relationship. I knew the Bible taught that fatherhood was a righteous and divine calling, but oftentimes I felt like I'd be better off without him, so I prayed he'd disappear.  Then I'd pray for forgiveness, scared he actually would disappear.  Although our relationship is worlds better than it was 5 years ago when his struggles were reaching critical mass, forgiveness and kindness are still decisions I have to consciously make every day.  And on the days when he lashes out in anger and resentment-- for reasons we can't predict or rationalize-- it can be painfully difficult to choose the better part.  With every angry/threatening email, text, and voicemail I receive, I can't help but think that if I'd just lash out in the same way, he'd stop or at least leave me alone for a while.  

I know, however, that that's not how things work-- at least from an eternal perspective.  Matthew 6:14-15 reads: "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." I won't be held accountable for the sins of my father, but I will be held accountable for withholding forgiveness from him, and that's still a hard, bitter pill for me to swallow. But when we withhold forgiveness, we are essentially holding the Atonement of Jesus Christ ransom, which is not something we have the authority to do.  

Still, it's a challenge.  As I've studied this out in my heart and mind, though, and put it to practice, I have found some ways to make choosing forgiveness easier.  

1. I work on my father's family history 
I will admit that on hard days, I have very little desire to be sealed to my dad. I'm not proud of that, but it's true. It's hard to want to be with someone who, at least on this earth, can be a constant source of contention of grief.  I want to be sealed to someone who is honorable and kind, not self-pittying and mean-spirited. 

​Many know that family history has a very special place in my heart.  I know what peace and happiness the ordinances of the temple have brought me, and I want my ancestors to have that as well.  As I've researched my father's line specifically, I've found something remarkable.  Although my father struggles here on earth, he comes from a long line of incredible people.  Through countless records and stories, I've found grandparents who are brave and intelligent and compassionate, who have made sacrifices for their family, and who have shown remarkable dedication to their children. The power of Elijah has worked wonders in my life, but this miracle is the most miraculous of all to me. Even though my father struggles, I know that I have loving ancestors beyond the veil who know I am worthy of love and who have helped soften my heart toward my father so we can ALL be together in harmony, free from our weaknesses and shortcomings. 

2. I show an abundance of kindness when it's easy 
Contrary to my best efforts, I know I sometimes illustrate my father as someone who is always rotten and mean and who is never good-- but that is most certainly not the case.  Even though the past several years have been difficult, there are times when we've made good memories together and we've gotten closer to understanding one another.  I've come to appreciate how much he loves his Catholic faith and how that played a huge role in my relationship with God today. I also admire how industrious he is repairing his mother's home and tending her garden.  In these moments of clarity and sobriety, the choice to be kind is much, much easier and so I pounce on it.  When I make a habit of this when it's easy, it makes thing far easier in the heat of the moment to take a deep breath and not deepen any emotional wounds between the two of us.      

3. I set boundaries 
This principle is by far the most important. I've tried to study forgiveness from all kinds of perspectives-- spiritual, mental, physical etc.-- and one thing that has been consistent is that forgiveness without accountability is entirely lost. Setting boundaries not only keeps us healthy and safe, but it helps the other person feel loved but also accountable for their actions.  But sometimes it can feel a little conflicting-- are these boundaries too harsh, to the point where I'm inhibiting our relationship from ever growing into something warm and healthy?

Elder Larry J Echo Hawk recently gave a talk at the 2018 April conference titled "Even as Christ Forgives You, So Also Do Ye" that has granted me a lot of peace.  In his address, he tells the story of when his youngest brother and his wife were killed by a young drunk driver.  Although Elder Echo Hawk felt anger and resentment towards this young man, his parents showed compassion and forgiveness to the young man's family at the sentencing-- for they, too, were losing a son. He then says "I am not suggesting that we condone unlawful conduct. We know full well that individuals are to be held accountable for their criminal acts and civil wrongdoings. However, we also know that, as sons and daughters of God, we follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. We are to be forgiving even when it seems others may not warrant our forgiveness."   

For me, with help from some truly incredible mental healthcare professionals and religious leaders, I limit my interactions with my dad to one phone call per week and one visit per year and I never ride in the car with him, to name a few.  When both of us honor and respect these boundaries, we are able to have great conversations, we get closer to understanding one another, and we make positive memories that can overshadow negative past experiences.  

The holiday season has always been my favorite time of year.  Between coming up with funny halloween costumes (and then convincing my husband to go along with them) and gathering with friends and family during the Christmas season, I feel more excited and edified than any other time of year.  It's also special because I get to celebrate the anniversary of my baptism on December 21st.  

But one thing has always lingered around this time of year just as it did the year I got baptized.  Leading up to my baptismal date, I was overwhelmed with feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy. As I drove to the chapel on the date of my baptism, I was overcome with feelings of not being worthy enough or ready enough or informed enough.  At every light I battled with whether or not I should pull a u-turn and run back home to hide (because they'd never look for me there).  But I made it to the chapel and I got baptized and I thought I'd never have those feelings ever again.

Despite the joy, relief, and spiritual cleanliness I felt, every year since has been just the same.  I haven't questioned the decision to get baptized, but rather if I'm even worth the trouble.  It's during this time of year that I feel keenly how I've let friends down, how I have fallen short at work, how I'm positively failing at my calling, and how truly unworthy I am of the Savior's grace.  I think another year has come and gone since my baptism and I still don't feel like I'm in "first place" yet.   

Lucky for me, the Savior doesn't particularly care if I feel worthy, rather if I am worthy, but the feeling persists.  I feel it with especial force when I think of all the people in the world who are far more noble and kind and influential than I am.  Wouldn't it be more effective to have them accept the gospel of Jesus Christ? And then use their influence to share it's restored message with the world?  Why in the world would our Father in Heaven pick me and my sin-sick soul to accept baptism and be confirmed by the Holy Ghost?  I'm a nobody... 

Now that I've been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for four years (plus a few days), I can hardly consider myself a "recent convert." My joke that since I got baptized at 18, I'm the spiritual equivalent of a 12-year-old is starting to not be so funny, and I'm starting to really stress when I'm in Gospel Doctrine class on Sunday and I have only a vague idea of what's going on. 

Like many of you, I easily fall into the trap of getting after myself for not being perfect, especially spiritual things.  Common thoughts include:

• "You've been around for four years. Why aren't you a scriptorian yet?" 
• "You're the temple and family history consultant.  If you don't provide a heart-turning experience for everyone in the ward every week you're not actually fulfilling your calling." 
• "When are you going to get around to having children?" 
• "Why aren't you in a graduate program? You must have peaked early. Dummy." 

And a lot more, because I have a mind that never suffers from "how-has-Sarah-screwed-up-today"-block.  But I don't want this post to be all about how mopey I feel sometimes.  When I first started writing and building this blog, I wanted it to be a source of inspiration, edification, and information for all people-- member or not, convert or not.  I also happen to have a very strong testimony that even in our deepest, mopiest, whiniest moments, our Father is aware of us and sends the sweetest relief if we are receptive to it. 

I was reading my scriptures a few weeks ago and I was in Alma 9, where  Alma is preaching repentance to the people of Ammonihah with Amulek... and I was feeling a whole lot like a citizen in the city of Ammonihah at the time-- disobedient, prideful, and far away from where God expected me to be.  But then I came to verse 30, where Alma says "And now, my beloved brethren, for ye are my brethren, and ye ought to be beloved, and ye ought to bring forth works which are meet for repentance, seeing that your hearts have been grossly hardened against the word of God, and seeing that ye are a lost and a fallen people."

The words "and ye ought to be beloved" truly touched my heart.  Alma is preaching to his brethren who scorn, mock, and humiliate him, "happy" in their state of sin and disobedience, and still he teaches them that they don't have to be that way.  Sometimes when we're feeling a bit sin-sick and far away from God, it's easy to convince ourselves that we're happy in our disobedience and we're too far gone to be any use to Him anyway. 

BUT THAT IS NOT THE CASE AT. ALL.  

As children of God, we all fulfill divine purposes in His mighty work.  Amidst all the scary, overwhelming, confusing things that go on in this world, we are all called to comfort, serve, and teach our fellow brothers and sisters using our most Christlike attributes.  There's only one person who could have done it alone: our Savior, Jesus Christ, who died to wipe us clean of our sins and to make it possible to become like Him someday.  But the world keeps turning and there are still people in need, and we all must use our littlest part to make the world a better place. 

That also means that the welfare of the entire planet does not rest on you being perfect. It's not worth throwing in the towel just because you're not in "first place."  No matter where you are in life-- unemployed, unmarried, unendowed, or feeling unneeded-- there is someone to serve, teach, and comfort.  

If my words are falling flat, I'd recommend reading Elder Jeffery R. Holland's most recent conference address, "Be Ye Therefore Perfect-- Eventually" most especially the passage: 

"What I now say in no way denies or diminishes any commandment God has ever given us. I believe in His perfection, and I know we are His spiritual sons and daughters with divine potential to become as He is. I also know that, as children of God, we should not demean or vilify ourselves, as if beating up on ourselves is somehow going to make us the person God wants us to become. No! With a willingness to repent and a desire for increased righteousness always in our hearts, I would hope we could pursue personal improvement in a way that doesn’t include getting ulcers or anorexia, feeling depressed or demolishing our self-esteem. That is not what the Lord wants for Primary children or anyone else who honestly sings, 'I’m trying to be like Jesus.'”

Regardless of if you've been a member your whole life, if you're a recent convert, or if you're just rejoining the party, you have a place in the church, and you have a personalized mission to build the kingdom. So if you're like me and you feel continually plagued with feelings of inadequacy, remember that it is never worth throwing in the towel. Our Heavenly Parents trust you to make your contributions at every season in life to the best of our God-given abilities, and guess what: 

I received my patriarchal blessing about two months after I was baptized.  It was a transformative, almost overwhelming experience that has guided my life and molded my character.  My patriarchal blessing is sacred to me, and therefore private, but one portion of it that I'm always willing to share is it's clarity that my mission in life is temple and family history work.  ​Shortly after I received my patriarchal blessing, I took a family history class and from there I really took off.  I found a new passion for finding my family members and gathering them all in on place.  Within my first year, I qualified over 1600 people for temple ordinance work.  At first, I only reserved and printed the baptisms and confirmations, because that was all I could do.  But eventually I started reserving and printing all ordinances because, you know, I'd get to them eventually.  

Fast forward approximately one year and eight months to April 2017.  I had just shy of 1200 temple cards printed that needed ordinance work done. One day I happened to find myself on FamilySearch (my go-to genealogy research site), where I found this happy little notification: 

At which point my prompt reaction was:

 So naturally, I got busy.  And I got busy FAST.  I had printed most of my cards in mid-August 2015, which gave me about 4 months until my printed temple cards expired.  I realized I could always go back and find everyone and reserve them again, but that would have been a lot of work, too, and this seemed like a fun challenge. I began first by figuring out what exactly I would be able to feasibly do in the next four months.  After a little more digging, I figured out that the 2-year policy applied not to when I last printed the card, but since the most recent ordinance had been performed, which bought me some time and narrowed down the pool considerably.  After that, I got down to close family relations-- people that I had at least a semi-clear understanding of how I was related.  Eventually, I whittled the list down from 1200 printed cards to just 582 that really needed work done quickly.  After organizing them into their families, I loaded up my temple bag and started my temple marathon. 
​
First and foremost: Why do Mormons do this? 
The principle that first attracted me to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the Plan of Happiness and the measure of fairness for all God's children therein.  Although I loved my Catholic faith, I was increasingly bothered throughout my life that in order to be saved, you had to be born in the right place, at the right time, to the right family who would have the foresight get you baptized as soon as possible. The God I knew through personal prayer and religious observance simply wasn't like that. Why would He create us in His likeness and image, knowing that by no fault of their own, most of his children wouldn't make it to paradise.   That seemed cruel or at best, indifferent, and my God simply wasn't like that.  

Thanks to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and through Priesthood keys, however, we have the ability to bring all of God's children back to our Father's presence, regardless of their circumstances in life! Although you need a physical body to receive saving ordinances, these ordinances can be performed vicariously on behalf of the dead.  These departed spirits then have the choice to accept the work that has been done for them on earth, and hopefully achieve exhalation with the Father. We also believe in something called the Spirit of Elijah (which I'll talk about later) from  Malachi 4:5-6: "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”  Elder David A. Bednar described the Spirit of Elijah best as a "distinctive influence of the Holy Ghost (that) draws people to identify, document, and cherish their ancestors and family members – both past and present.”  If you'd like to read more, click here for an AMAZING talk by Elder Bednar and click here for an equally incredible talk by President Eyring. 

My Catholic heritage is what made all this possible
As a convert, family history feels a lot more like data entry.  As a Catholic convert, it's a lot of data entry for two main reasons.  First, Catholics and Latter-day Saints share a common love for family, which is translated into having many, many children.  It isn't uncommon to find a family in my tree with children in the double-digits that lived to adulthood and had equally large families of their own.  Knowing how much these individuals must have loved their family members and how much they would want to be together in the eternities, I feel honored to complete their temple ordinances here on earth.  Second, Catholics are notoriously good at keeping really, really good records.  Some baptismal documents will not only contain the birth and christening date for the chid, but the same information for the parents, grandparents, and even the godparents (who are more often than not close family members).  

Important Side Rant: I've noticed, oftentimes, that members of our church will get after other faiths for performing infant baptisms.  As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have the privilege of knowing that infant baptisms are not necessary, and young disciples of Christ should wait until at least the age of 8 to be baptized.  Other faiths rely simply on the doctrine that an individual cannot be saved without first being baptized in life, and with the high rate of infant mortality throughout all history, infants should be baptized as soon as possible (I was first baptized less than a month after my birth).  In other words, they're working with the best they've got.  Even though this isn't patterned after Heavenly Father's wishes explicitly, He has a way of making the best out of our earthly understandings.  Hence, the meticulously kept parish records, family bibles, and-- you guessed it-- infant baptismal records with a WEALTH of knowledge that makes vicarious ordinance work possible. *drop mic*

The blessings of the temple are REAL 
Naturally my goal was to get as many temple ordinances done as possible, which meant I needed to spend as much time at the temple as possible.  Leading up to this point, I routinely balanced 18 credit hours, extracurricular leadership activities, a 20-hour work week, and then I had a new marriage to nurture and build.  But when it came time to get all these ordinances done, my schedule miraculously opened up. It was like Moses stepped into my life and instead of parting the Red Sea, he parted my day planner (an equally momentous feat).  I only had to take 9 credits my last semester, I was training my replacement at work so I didn't have to be in the office as much, and Grant was working in Salt Lake at the time.  All of a sudden I had all this free time and hundreds of ancestors calling my name to do their ordinances.  Did they have a hand in this? Most likely. 

In the next several weeks, Tuesday through Friday, I performed between 15-30 initiatories or 2-3 endowment sessions per day.  For my friends who are yet to be endowed, that adds up to about 3-6 hours in the temple, four days a week.  I don't share that to puff myself up.  The insecure part of me rewrote that sentence at least a dozen times, afraid you'd all think I was bragging, but I'm simply illustrating that I was in the temple a lot. And the blessings were profound. 

Almost instantly, I felt at peace.  My grades improved, I was having a much easier time at work with my remaining clients, and I enjoyed the most amazing clarity of mind.  As a woman in business, we're constantly told to find a mentor and to find a role model to pattern your life after.  While these things are important, I realized that more than anything else, I wanted to be like the women who served in the temple-- kind and patient and fun who love the Lord so much they'd devote several hours of their week to serve in the house of the Lord.  I also discovered that people are willing to serve if you're willing to ask.  Naturally I couldn't do all 582 ordinances on my own, and I had to ask many of the men in my life to help me complete the male ordinances.  Despite their busy schedules and other worthy commitments, all of the people I asked to help enthusiastically agreed and even asked for more once they were done.  It was truly a touching and edifying experience that I'll carry with me for a long time. 
​
The Spirit of Elijah is REAL 
This experience I had is probably one that I'll always hold dear. One day throughout all this madness, I came across my second-great grandmother, Ellen Harrington.  You can see her and her family here in their family photo.  If you lost count, those are her nine sons.  Nine healthy, strong boys that she raised in faith with her husband, James Keating.  But more remarkable than that was something I found years after I had entered their data.  Before she could raise any children past infancy, she lost two daughters, and lost another baby girl and a baby boy in her child-bearing years.

In a tender moment of realization, the Spirit of Elijah touched my heart.  I was looking at Ellen while I was at work (I work for a family history company, it's kosher) and I was overcome with empathy and I began to weep at my desk.  I had looked at the census records and birth certificates of this entire family and entered them into FamilySearch myself, but in my haste I hadn't taken a moment to appreciate Ellen's life. Our Heavenly Father knew the desires of her heart just as well as he knows the desires of mine, and for just a moment I was able to feel her the loss and heartache of losing four babies-- including her only daughters.  She must have ached for those children, of whom she probably thought were lost to her forever.  My resolve to have them sealed together strengthened, because if anyone should experience the joys of raising three little girls, it would be a woman who had survived raising nine boys.      

The Spirit of Elijah is a powerful force that not only encourages us to hasten the work, but also to be edified by the work.  It is vitally important that we remember our ancestors as we would like to be remembered: as individual children of God.  As the only member in my family, I often feel overwhelmed by the responsibility to help my family members return to their Father.  It can be really frustrating, and full disclosure: the biggest fight I ever got into with my husband was about him having the audacity to do his Mom's temple names instead of mine.  

BUT. THEY. ARE. NOT. JUST. NAMES. They are not just cards.  They are family members, who have children, and parents, and spouses, and siblings that they want to be sealed to just as much as I hope to be one day.  Probably the most important thing I learned throughout this experience is just that: we don't do this to keep ourselves busy or to load up our spiritual plates with one more thing to it.  It's to gather in the eternal family of God.