Dear Family.
You probably know that in my church our local leaders receive no pay for their services and the sermons are assigned to members of the congregation. It had been over a year since I had last been asked to speak in church, so I was not surprised by the phone call. I asked if I could talk on families and family history, as this had been on my mind a great deal. With Judy's paralytic stroke and her declining health, this was a topic in our conversations during my daily visits to her and visits with our children. And especially with her death and funeral.
I hope that some of this talk is meaningful to you. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Love,
Bill
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Dear Brothers and Sisters, my name is Bill Buchanan. I currently serve as a stake temple and family history consultant.
Firstly, I want to thank you for the out-pouring of love and support for me and my family on the recent death of my wife Judy.
This past week we celebrated Valentine's day, and I am reminded that 57 years ago Judy and I were sealed for time and eternity in the House of the Lord. We entered a covenant relationship with each other and with God. She has been my sweetheart, my friend, and a ministering angel to me and my family. We look forward to spending eternity together.
We love each other deeply and I feel at peace, knowing that we can spend eternity together.
Recently I came across a family history book created by my mother's cousin in England. I enjoyed reading the life stories of these relatives. I had met many of them. They were good people whose lives deserve to be remembered. So I shared a digital copy of the book with my family.
While sorting through our papers and things, I came across something I had written to one of my children 20 years ago:
How are things going? I have been thinking a lot about you lately. I am proud of you. And as I see you struggling to make one of life's biggest choices correctly, my heart goes out to you.
I found marriage a difficult choice. Like you, I wanted to make the right choice, knowing it was for eternity. ... I have been thinking about some general principles.
I think it is important to marry someone who you can talk to fully. One of the things I really appreciate about your mother is that I can talk to her. And I value her intelligence and her good counsel.
I think it is important to marry someone with a strong testimony and a strong commitment to the gospel. In the temple we covenant to consecrate of our time and our means to the building up of the kingdom of God. Keeping this covenant requires the support of a wife who shares that commitment.
It is also important that you share an attraction for each other. You won't remain young and beautiful for the next 50 years, but if you love each other, that doesn't matter.
It is important also to be committed to each other. Both partners need to put spouse and family ahead of other things. It involves a change in focus from "me" to "us". The apostle Paul wrote "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things" 1 Cor. 13: 11 That principle applies to marriage, too. ...
I dated your mother for several months before committing myself to her. ... Marrying her was one of the very best decisions I have ever made. We have had lots of good times and occasional bad times, and we have been there to help and bless each other through it all. When we decided to get married, we decided also that we wanted to do everything we could to build up the kingdom of God together. We may not have achieved all that we hoped for, but we have done our best. And we have enjoyed happiness as we have done so.
I pray that you will be able to find a similar relationship.
Love,
Dad
Recently I have thought a lot about eternity.
As a kid, it seemed to me that religions taught that nearly everyone was damned to eternal punishment.
One reason that I stopped attending a previous church was that the Bible taught that salvation was only possible through faith in Jesus Christ. And as a teenager, I calculated that less than 1% of people in ancient times had ever heard of Jesus Christ, so over 99% of people were automatically damned, through no fault of their own. And this made no sense at all.
But when I was 19 years old, a college classmate invited me to meet with missionaries from her church. Out of curiosity I accepted.
Imagine my surprise when the Latter-day Saint missionaries taught me the Plan of Salvation. They showed me in the Bible in 1 Peter chapters 3-4 that while Christ's body lay in the tomb, his spirit was preaching to the spirits of the dead. He was giving them the opportunity to accept Him as their Savior, repent of their sins, make covenants with him, and follow the guidance of the Holy Ghost. These are the same principles he taught to the living. These are the same principles that bless our lives as living disciples today. God is a loving father and He treats all of his children fairly. What a profound effect this message has had on my own soul.
I am grateful that I found the true gospel. I believe that God is a loving father who will ultimately save nearly all of his children in a degree of glory, through the atonement of his son Jesus Christ. That degree of glory depends upon each of us. It really is “Good News”!
Through the Holy Ghost, I gained a personal witness of this. I chose to form a personal covenant relationship with Jesus Christ through baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost.
I became a new and better version of myself, spiritually reborn. I had a desire to share the gospel. I was able to serve a mission in France and Switzerland, where I saw many small miracles.
These were evidence to me that the gospel is true. In scientific terms, it proved the hypothesis. My faith was not "blind faith" but faith proven again and again. But not always in the time and place I expected.
But what about Christ's words to Nicodemus? "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." How could spirits be baptized in water? The missionaries had an answer there as well. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15 the apostle Paul is persuading the church that the resurrection is real. In verse 29 he refers to baptism for the dead. "If the dead rise not at all, why then are they baptised for the dead?" So during New Testament time, Christians were being baptized for the dead, so that they could be "born of water and of the spirit" as Christ had taught Nicodemus. The pieces fit together.
During the great apostasy, this knowledge was lost, but restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. These ordinances can be done in a House of God, a temple. Living people can represent the dead in these ordinances.
As a new member of the Church, I was taught to seek out my ancestral families and see that ordinances were completed for them. I interviewed my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins to gather information on my family. I even travelled to the town in Manitoba where Dad was born, looking for further information. Someone there suggested that I talk to Mervin Buchanan, the manager of the Windsor Salt plant. Merv was keen on family history and he invited me to stay with his family. During the day I would interview relatives who lived in town, and in the evenings we would drive to visit out-of-town relatives. After 3 days, I returned home with more family history than I could have imagined. I really see this as another small miracle.
Over the years I have met many wonderful people in my search for more information about my family. Some of them have become life-long friends.
The only temple in Canada then in the 1960s was in Cardston. And reserving temple ordinances for deceased relatives was done by mail and could take several weeks. Today, I can reserve ordinances in 10 minutes or less, by using Ordinances Ready on the Church's FamilySearch.org website or in a mobile app. And I can take the ordinance cards to a temple only half an hour away.
If you don't know how to use Ordinances Ready let me know. I can also show you how to book a place in a temple session. Let's try to spend more time in the House of the Lord.
The Church's FamilySearch.org website is the largest free website for family history. Accounts are totally free for members and non-members alike. So tell your friends.
And the biggest family history event in the world is an annual 3-day conference called RootsTech in Salt Lake City. RootsTech is spelled as one word, "roots", like a tree, and "Tech", short for technology. It is sponsored by FamilySearch and co-sponsored by companies such as Ancestry, Findmypast, and Myheritage. RootsTech will be available online to you and to me on March 5-6-7. There are over 100 presentations, so there is something for everyone to enjoy. Don't miss it. To find it, go to rootstech.org or google rootstech. On the Saturday there are always special sessions for members of the Church. This year we will hear from Elder and Sister Rasband personally.
Enough said about FamilySearch.
Our families are central to our happiness, now and forever. Families are important to God. In fact much of the scriptures are in the form of the family history of Abraham, the father of the faithful.
In the October 2025 General Conference, President Oaks taught principles that can bless us as individuals and as families. He said:
"Our doctrine and our belief in eternal families strengthen and bond us. I will never forget the promise of my maternal Grandfather Harris, when we children were living on his farm near Payson, Utah. He gave me the tragic news that my father had died in faraway Denver, Colorado. I ran into the bedroom and knelt beside the bed, crying my heart out. Grandpa followed me and went to his knees beside me and said, “I will be your father.” That tender promise is a powerful example of what grandparents can do to fill in the gaps when families lose or are missing a member.
"Parents — and others, like grandparents, who fill that role for children—are the master teachers. Their most effective teaching is by example. The family circle is the ideal place to demonstrate and learn eternal values, such as the importance of marriage and children, the purpose of life, and the true source of joy. It is also the best place to learn other essential lessons of life, such as kindness, forgiveness, self-control, and the value of education and honest work.
"Of course, many Church members have beloved family members who do not embrace gospel values and expectations. Such members need our love and patience. In relating to one another, we should remember that the perfection we seek is not limited to the stressful circumstances of mortality. The great teaching in Doctrine and Covenants 138 assures us that repentance and spiritual growth can continue in the spirit world that follows mortality. More important, as families unite to strengthen one another, we should all remember that the sins and inevitable shortcomings all of us experience in mortality can be forgiven through repentance because of the glorious and saving Atonement of Jesus Christ.
"Our Savior, Jesus Christ, is our ultimate role model. We will be blessed if we model our lives after His teachings and self-sacrifice. Following Christ and giving ourselves in service to one another is the best remedy for the selfishness and individualism that now seem to be so common.
"Parents also have a duty to teach their children practical knowledge apart from gospel principles. Families unite when they do meaningful things together. Family gardens build family relationships. Happy family experiences strengthen family ties. Camping, sports activities, and other recreation are especially valuable to bond families. Families should organize family reunions to remember ancestors, which lead to the temple.
"Parents should educate children in the basic skills of living, including working in the yard and home. Learning languages is a useful preparation for missionary service and modern life. The teachers of these subjects can be parents or grandparents or members of the extended family. Families flourish when they learn as a group and counsel together on all matters of concern to the family and its members.
"Some may say, “But we have no time for any of that.” To find time to do what is truly worthwhile, many parents will find that they can turn their family on if they all turn their technologies off. And parents, remember, what those children really want for dinner is time with you.
"Great blessings come to families if they pray together, kneeling night and morning to offer thanks for blessings and to pray over common concerns. Families are also blessed as they worship together in Church services and in other devotional settings. Family bonds are also strengthened by family stories, creating family traditions, and sharing sacred experiences. President Spencer W. Kimball reminded us that “stories of inspiration from our own lives and those of our forebears … are powerful teaching tools.” They are often the best sources of inspiration for us and our posterity.
"I testify of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Only Begotten Son of God, our Eternal Father. He invites us to follow the covenant path that leads to a heavenly family reunion. The sealing powers of the priesthood, directed by the keys restored in the Kirtland Temple, bring families together for eternity. They are currently being exercised in a growing number of temples of the Lord throughout the world. This is real. Let us be part of it, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."
My blog: http://billbuchanan.blogspot.comFamilySearch blog https://billsfamilyhistorycenter.blogspot.com/
