Will You Be the Welding Link?

Liz Kennington

President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote in Doctrines of Salvation, 2:121-22: “If Elijah had not come, we are led to believe that all the work of past ages would been of little avail, for the Lord said the whole earth, under such conditions, would be utterly wasted at his coming (D&C 2:1-3). Therefore, his mission was of vast importance to the world. It is not the question of baptism for the dead alone, but also the sealing of parents and children to parents, so that there should be a ‘whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories,’ from the beginning down to the end of time (D&C 128:18).”

Will you be the welding link for your family? This past month I was privileged to meet and learn the story of the newest welding link in my extended family. Peter Endler is the step son-in-law of my brother Craig. Peter is married to my sister-in-law Gail’s daughter, Heather. Gail is my brother’s second wife. So, while there is no blood relation to her children, they are still part of my extended family.

Twenty years ago, Heather and Peter met in Sweden where Heather was living at the time. Over the next couple of years, the two corresponded and visited with each other, both in Sweden and the US. They fell in love and eventually married.

Heather was a member of the LDS Church but not active at the time. Peter was a confessed atheist, which Heather had a hard time understanding. As time passed, they met with missionaries (One was the nephew of President Monson who still maintains contact with this family) and had discussions about the gospel. Heather returned to activity, and Peter began going to church with Heather and their daughter.

Over a year ago, Peter emailed my brother and asked him if he would come to Sweden and baptize him. He was baptized, had his patriarchal blessing, and received his endowment in the Stockholm, Sweden temple. Fast forward to this past July and the family, now including 4 children, came to Salt Lake City to be sealed in the Draper temple. This is when the story of this welding link becomes truly amazing, as Peter shared with me and my husband his father’s story. The following are Peter’s words:

“My mother is from Poland with German ancestry and is Catholic. She married my father, who is Jewish, also from Poland with Austrian ancestry. My paternal grandfather died from appendicitis two weeks before World War II broke out. My father and grandmother were taken to the ghetto in Warsaw where a curfew was enforced. My father had an errand and didn’t make it home in time for the curfew. He was caught by the German military who threw him in the back of a truck with other Jewish prisoners.

“They drove them off to a part of Warsaw where they were forced off the truck and lined up against the wall. German soldiers then shot at them. My father woke up covered in blood. He didn’t know if they accidentally missed him, if he fainted, or if they were just playing a game with him because all the others were dead. He later found out that his mother had been taken to a train, thinking she was going to a better place (since the ghetto was so poor), and was gassed to death. He then realized that he had to escape.

“He managed to get out of Poland to Odessa, Russia. He hid on top of a brothel. He saw the German troops invading Russia and spotted his best friend from Poland who had blond hair and blue eyes and did not look Jewish. They couldn’t acknowledge each because that would have gotten both of them killed.”

Peter’s father was forced to join the Russian army where he became an officer. At the end of the war, he was looked on as a traitor by Poland but was eventually accepted. Circumstances over the next couple of years found Peter’s father and mother wanting to leave Poland, and they made their way to Sweden where they became the first political refugees in Sweden.

Most of us do not have this dramatic a story to share but we do have the of Poland to on top of a opportunity like Peter to become the welding link that brings families into the kingdom. Peter has caught the vision of family history. I worked with him for a short time this past month, preparing names to take to the temple, particularly his father’s, while his family was in Salt Lake, and others to do further research on before taking those names to the temple in Sweden. I had the privilege to witness the sealing of this family.

It is important to remember that our Father in Heaven has a plan in place for his children and for each of us individually. It was no coincidence that Heather and Peter met and that the gospel was taught to Peter. We know that Heavenly Father is always in the details of our lives, directing us in the right paths if we but listen and do. “… if there is not a welding link between the fathers and the children—which is the work for the dead—then we will all stand rejected; the whole work of God will fail and be utterly wasted. Such a condition, of course, shall not be.” (President Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 2:122) Will you be the welding link for your family?