God Holds Each Of Us Responsible For Saving Our Own Kindred

Mesa Arizona Temple - © Stuart Gardner

“What is our obligation then? Each one of us—if we pretend to obey the gospel at all—must search out our dead and have these saving ordinances performed for them.

“Many suppose that they are discharging their responsibilities by simply ‘going to the temple.’ But that is not wholly true. We must go to the temple, of course, and often. If we do not as yet have the records of our own dead kindred, then while we search for them, by all means let us help others with theirs.

“But be it understood that if we go to the temple, and not for our own dead, we are performing only a part of our duty, because we are also required to go there specifically to save our own dead relatives and bind the various generations together by the power of the holy priesthood.

“We must disabuse our minds of the idea that merely ‘going to the temple’ discharges our full responsibility, because it does not. That is not enough.

“We must get down to specifics and do the work for our own dead progenitors.

“God holds each of us responsible for saving our own kindred—specifically our own.” 

– Elder Mark E. Petersen, “The Message of Elijah”, LDS General Conference, April 1976.

"Music - It Runs in the Family" - Opening Event for RootsTech 2017

Salt Lake City, Utah, November 4, 2016 - FamilySearch, a non-profit family history organization, has announced that a special concert by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square will be the opening event at RootsTech 2017, the annual global genealogy conference This unique performance entitled “Music–It Runs in the Family" will be held Thursday, February 9, 2017, at 8:00 p.m. in the Conference Center on historic Temple Square. RootsTech attendees will receive tickets with their registration, but the public is also invited. Free tickets for this one-night-only performance are required and are available now at lds.org/events.

Oscar Andy Hammerstein III

“Music–It Runs in the Family” will be an evening filled with Rodgers and Hammerstein music and stories narrated by Oscar Hammerstein III (“Andy”), grandson of Oscar Hammerstein II. Special guest artist Dallyn Vail Bayles will also perform.

Featuring music from State Fair, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, Oklahoma, and The Sound of Music, this special musical event will entertain the entire family. This presentation will tell the amazing history through story and video of the Hammersteins, one of Broadway’s most creative and productive families, and how this timeless music unites generations.

Dallyn Vail Bayles

“The beloved songs of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II will warm the hearts and lift the spirits of both old and new generations,” said Choir president Ron Jarrett. “We are thrilled to be part of this program narrated by Andy Hammerstein with insights into the life and work of his grandfather.  It will also be a treat to welcome back one of our favorite guest artists, Dallyn Vail Bayles.”

Andy Hammerstein will also be featured Sunday morning, February 12, 2017, on the Choir’s weekly Music and the Spoken Word broadcast from the Salt Lake Tabernacle as guest presenter of the Spoken Word. Dallyn Vail Bayles will also perform on that day. No tickets will be required for this broadcast.

RootsTech has become the largest genealogy and family history conference held in the world. Many attendees and vendors come from all over the globe. During the February 2016 RootsTech conference, family history enthusiasts from all 50 states and nearly 40 countries attended the RootsTech events in the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City. Conference registration for 2017 is available here.

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I am 2017 RootsTech Ambassador and will be sharing these press releases on my blog in preparation for RootsTech in February 2017. I have received a free conference registration from RootsTech.
#RootsTech

Leadership Expert Liz Wiseman to Keynote RootsTech Innovator Summit

Salt Lake City, Utah, November 8, 2016 - Do you multiply or diminish intelligence? Liz Wiseman, a leadership strategist, best-selling author, and inspiring speaker whose recent clients include Disney, Microsoft, eBay and PayPal, Google, and Facebook, is excited to share highlights of what she has learned as the keynote speaker for the 2017 Innovator Summit at RootsTech. Innovator Summit is a one-day event for developers, entrepreneurs, and innovators who want to explore business and technological opportunities in the multi-billion dollar family history industry. The Innovator Summit will be held on February 8, 2017 at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Liz Wiseman teaches leadership to executives and emerging leaders around the world. She is the founder and president of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. She has been listed on the biennial Thinkers50 ranking for 2013 and 2015 and named one of the top 10 leadership thinkers in the world.

Wiseman is the author of three best-selling books: Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work; Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter; and The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools.

She has spent years working around a lot of really smart executives in tech industries and conducted significant research in the field of leadership. She's observed how some leaders actually shut down the brain power of people around them.

"Yet, other leaders seem to amplify the intelligence of people around them," said Wiseman. "These leaders were intelligence multipliers." She said that “when these leaders walked into a room, it was as if you could see light bulbs going off over people’s heads, and ideas flowed and problems got solved.”

Wiseman has emphasized that one of the most important aspects that she learned in this research was “that when we linger too long on a plateau a little part of us dies inside. But when we step out of the space of knowing—where we are fully capable—and step into unfamiliar territory, we feel alive. I think it is actually where we feel divine, and, in some ways, I feel like it is where we see God’s hand working in our lives.”

Wiseman is a frequent lecturer at BYU, Stanford University, and the Naval Postgraduate Academy. She is a former executive at Oracle Corporation, where she worked over the course of 17 years as the vice president of Oracle University and as the global leader for human resource development. During her tenure at Oracle, she led several major global initiatives and has worked and traveled in over 40 countries. She writes for Harvard Business Review and Fortune. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Inc., and Time.

The RootsTech Innovator Summit keynote session begins at 9:00 a.m., followed by a full day of classes, the semifinal round of the RootsTech Innovator Showdown, a networking social, and other related activities.

The annual Innovator Showdown contest is designed to foster innovation in the family history industry. Ten semi-finalists will be chosen and announced, with $100,000 in cash and in-kind prizes offered by sponsors to the winners.

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I am 2017 RootsTech Ambassador and will be sharing these press releases on my blog in preparation for RootsTech in February 2017. I have received a free conference registration from RootsTech.
#RootsTech

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To learn more about Liz Wiseman, check out the following:
Facebook - Liz Wiseman
Facebook - Multipliers
Twitter - Liz Wiseman
Website - Wiseman Group

We Do For Them What They Cannot Do For Themselves

Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple - Photo From LDS Media Library

“The great vicarious work for our kindred dead in our temples demonstrates both the justice and the fairness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Prophet Joseph Smith explained the terrible dilemma which would face God’s children without temple work for our dead. Said he: 

‘One dies and is buried, having never heard the Gospel of reconciliation; to the other the message of salvation is sent, he hears and embraces it, and is made the heir of eternal life. Shall the one become the partaker of glory and the other be consigned to hopeless perdition? Is there no chance for his escape?’ (History of the Church, 4:425–26.) 

"Fortunately our ancestors will have the opportunity to receive and accept the saving ordinances as we identify them and complete these sacred ordinances for them by proxy. We do for them what they cannot do for themselves. It is a very satisfying experience.” 

- President James E. Faust, “The Phenomenon That Is You,” LDS General Conference, October 2003