Paisley: Hey everybody, welcome back. Paisley, imperfect here
and today we are going to talk about the gathering of Israel.
We are barely going to scratch the surface, though, like just
barely. I've been wanting to talk about this for a long time.
It's something that you could say I'm passionate about, but I
haven't been able to figure out the right way to do it. But then
today, I was thinking about an episode topic for Thursday, and
my brain just automatically goes to holidays. And with Thursday
being Halloween, I was trying to think, is there some way that I
could tie this to Halloween. And I just, I just couldn't think of
a way to tie it to Halloween. But then I remembered, Dia de
los Muertos is actually on Saturday, technically the 31st
through the second and I, I got super excited. I love that. I
love that holiday. I can't say that like we don't have an
ofrenda, and we don't do all of those things, but I love what it
all represents, our family, our ancestors, the people who came
before us, right? I love working on family history. I didn't
always, but I've always felt like I should. My grandma and my
aunt really liked it. My grandma, both of my grandmas,
both of my grandmas, worked on family history. I got like a
giant floppy disk file years ago from one of my grandmas. Kept
trying to figure it out. I just, I could not, I couldn't wrap my
head around what needed to be done, what didn't need to be
done. But I'm also getting a little bit ahead of myself, so
let me just slow down for a second. Um, you may have heard
this talk. You may not have. I'm only going to use one quote from
this one particular talk. Um, back in 2018 President Nelson in
a worldwide devotional to the youth, he said that the
gathering is, quote, The greatest challenge, the greatest
cause and the greatest work on earth today, trying to get the
youth motivated to work on the gathering of Israel, through
missionary work, through temple work, what, whatever, however,
He could get them motivated to work on it. And my, my heart
skipped a little beat, and I got a little excited, and I looked
at all the young women sitting there watching it, and they were
all just kind of like, I was like, Oh, I hope they get it
anyway. So I've, I've always really loved it, but I could
never figure out how to do it. I couldn't figure out my I am as
American as they come, like my people came over early, and
we've been here ever since. I don't have any like I don't have
any grandparents or great grandparents who were
immigrants. We have been American since Columbus. Anyway,
I so I couldn't figure out what to do. I couldn't figure out
where to start, and so I just was kind of like, it was always
this thing in my head, but I couldn't figure out where to
start. And then fast forward a few years, and indexing came
out, and I was like, Oh, that I can do. I can type super fast,
and I can use that. I can do that and help other people find
their answers, ancestors, because I don't have a clue what
to do with my own so I did. I started indexing, and I indexed
and indexed and indexed until I couldn't find anything left to
index. I am not bilingual. I speak English, and that's it. I
and I needed stuff that I could work on fast, because by this
time I also was a parent, and so I needed stuff that I needed a
batch that I could sit down and I could quickly finish and turn
in, and there aren't any left in English. And so I indexed until
I couldn't index anymore. And then I was like, Okay, what am I
going to do now? And then I found there are so many
different activities that you can do on Family Search. Go to
familysearch.org and just start clicking. There are so many
different things that you can do on there. I found, for me, I
found sourcing. They call it hints in the app. You can do it
on the website, you can do it on your phone, but they call it
hints, and you go through and I mean, long story short, AI is
doing our family history for us. They're matching names and
matching dates. It. Is matching names and matching dates and
providing suggestions, saying, Hey, we think that this record
matches your ancestor. Does it match? And then you get to go in
and say, Yes, it does. Thank you for finding that for me and
attach it to your own family record anyway. So I found that,
and I don't know that that will ever end, because as long as
people are indexing things, which people still are in
different countries, and harder records, as long as people are
indexing things, we will have sources, new sources to attach
to our family records anyway. So I'm still doing that, and I
just, I love the idea of gathering Israel. I love the
idea of us all coming together again, and about Abraham's
covenant being fulfilled, if anybody deserves that, that poor
man and his wife do, and anyway, so all of that is what brought
me to the article that I found today, or that I'm going to
share today. It's not the one that we were just talking about.
Maybe we'll come back to that one another time. This article
is actually from the July 2019, new era. It's called for the
Strength of Youth now, but it was called for era for it was
called the New Era back then, and it's called 12 facts about
the gathering of Israel. We do not have time to go into all 12
facts in one episode. Each one of these episodes could take its
own or, sorry, each one of these facts could take its own full
episode or more. So I'm just going to, I'm going to run
through them kind of quickly, and then hopefully we'll have
time. We'll have time. We have forever, right? We'll have time
to come back to each one of them at a later date. Okay, some of
them I'm going to paraphrase, and some of them I'm going to
quote, but you can find the full listing on the church's website.
12 facts about the gathering of Israel, July 2019, new era. And
as always, I will make sure that it is linked in the in the
description. Okay, so, number one, God made a covenant with
Abraham, promising him three things. Number one, he would
have numerous posterity. Number two, his seed would have the
gospel and the priesthood. And number three, all of the earth
would be blessed through his seed. He made those three
covenant. Those three promises were part of that covenant that
he made with Abraham. Number two, that covenant was passed
down through Abraham's son Isaac, and then Isaac's son,
Jacob, who, whose name you may remember, was later changed to
Israel. Israel had 12 sons. Those sons moved to Egypt and
eventually became enslaved. And were the 12 tribes, or were the
Israelites that Moses freed and led into the wilderness. Those
12 sons, in case you're interested, their names were
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan Naphtali,
Gad Asher, Joseph and Benjamin. Those were the 12 sons, the 12
tribes that Moses freed from Egypt. Fact. Number three,
ultimately, the Abrahamic Covenant also includes temple
ordinances which allow us to inherit eternal life with
Heavenly Father and be sealed to our families forever. That's
going to come up again a little bit later. Number four, ancient
prophets, including Moses, foretold of the scattering of
Israel. Number five, because the tribes became unrighteous,
rebelled and killed prophets. They were punished and
scattered, which then placed Abraham's seed throughout the
earth. Now there's a bit more detail. There are some
additional bullets for this particular one in the article.
You should go check them out. Number six, both ancient and
modern prophets have foretold that the Lord's covenant people
notice the change the children of Israel, or the Israelites,
tribes of Israel to the covenant people. Remember, I said that
was going to come up again later. Both ancient and modern
prophets have foretold that the Lord's covenant people would be
gathered again in a future day, first spiritually, then
temporally. Number seven, the gathering is a prelude to the
Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Number eight, the gathering is
also part of the restoration and has actual priesthood keys
associated associated with it. Moses actually gave those keys
or delivered those keys to Joseph Smith.
Number nine, so. Sometimes people are asked to gather to a
particular place, but people today, generally are gathered
when they accept the gospel, receive ordinances and make
covenants. Making the covenants makes them the covenant people,
the covenant people being people of the Abrahamic covenant, or
the children of Israel. Us. Number 10, anyone can be
gathered. This one also ties into that anyone can be
gathered, either as a direct descendant or by adoption.
Adoption happens when you're baptized and receive the gift of
the Holy Ghost. So if you're not a direct descendant of Jacob
Isaac Abraham, you are adopted into the house of Israel when
you're baptized, when you make that covenant, when you become
part of the covenant people number 11, when you've reached
the right time in your life, you can get a patriarchal blessing
that will declare your lineage in a tribe of Israel. Number 12,
the Book of Mormon is written specifically to the remnant of
the house of Israel and to the Jew and Gentile, basically to
everybody, and is a sign that God is fulfilling His covenant
to gather Israel in the last days. It's also a major
instrument of that gathering interesting. I don't think it's
a coincidence that there are 12 facts and 12 tribes. Anyway, the
gathering has already started. Family history work is part of
it. Because, as we serve others in the temple, we are gathering
them as well. We're bringing everybody into the fold, if you
will. We're making the covenant on their behalf, which makes
them part of the covenant people. Obviously, of course,
they still have their agency, and they can still choose
whether or not to accept the covenant. So we can go and we
can do the we can do the temple work for them, and then they get
to decide. They get to choose whether or not to accept it.
Nobody will be forced to be part of the covenant people. Nobody
will be forced. Obviously, missionary work counts too.
Temple work, missionary work, both are helping to bring
Heavenly Father's children together again and helping them
make covenants that they may or may not otherwise be able to
make. Other stuff counts too. Here's what President Nelson
said about that anytime you do anything that helps anyone on
either side of the veil take a step toward making covenants
with God and receiving their essential baptism and temple
ordinances you are helping to gather Israel. So if you're
knocking on doors, that counts. If you're sharing the gospel
with your neighbor, that counts. If you're going to the temple,
that counts, if you're just developing a relationship with
your neighbor also counts. All of these things are gathering
Israel. We are all trying to help people grow closer to their
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, which hopefully,
eventually, some of us are in it for the long haul, right? Helps
them get to the temple to make those covenants that bring them
into the house of Israel, if they're not already here.
Obviously, we could go into a lot more detail on all of those
things. Who was Abraham? Why did Heavenly Father make this
covenant with him? We could talk about, I could talk about Isaac
and Jacob and Esau, and I could talk about that all day long. It
is so fascinating, um, but not in a 20 minute episode that's
like a full blown, full blown class anyway. We're gonna leave
that there for now. We'll come back to these topics later on.
For now, remember that Dia de los Muertos is this weekend, and
we have an opportunity to really, truly remember. We have
this opportunity every day, but there's a special day set aside
for us to remember our ancestors and those who came before us and
helped us become who we are. Know the things that we know
head on over to Family Search on Saturday. Sure, head on over to
Family Search on Saturday. Do one thing, index or add a source
to a family member if you think you're done, or if you don't
think you know how to do anything, just go over there and
sign in. It's the same login that you use for gospel library
or tools or any of those. Things. It's the same username
and password, and even if you think it's done, Grandma did it
all. Family history is more than just honoring our ancestors.
Family history is about the past, the present and the
future. And there are journal prompts on there. There are my
sweet little eight year old daughter, on Sunday, was like,
Mom, I want to do something for family, family history. I was
like, she she doesn't even have an account. I don't even know
where to start with this. And so what I had her do instead, there
are personal history prompts on there. So I had her start
writing her own personal history. One of the questions
was, if you had a superpower, what would it be? If you don't
think that counts, go check it out on Family Search. Just write
something. Put something in there, real quick. It's a lot
easier than you might think. Anyway, that's it for today. One
more time with this quote from President Nelson. Anytime you do
anything that helps anyone on either side of the veil take a
step toward making covenants with God and receiving their
essential baptismal and temple ordinances, you are helping
together Israel. Keep that in mind. Thank you for being here
and for hanging out with me this week. Keep learning, keep
growing, keep trying go, take somebody to the temple and be of
good cheer. Thank you, everybody until next time you.