Wonderful blessings come by doing temple and family history work.  Sometimes we may think this work only helps and blesses those on the other side of the veil.  Not true– we also receive blessings for ourselves and for our families right here and now as we do family history and temple work.  Here are just a few of the many, many blessings promised by our church leaders to those doing temple and family history work.

In his first message as President of the Church, President Russell M. Nelson declared, “Your worship in the temple and your service there for your ancestors will bless you with increased personal revelation and peace and will fortify your commitment to stay on the covenant path.”

Earlier at the April 2010 General Conference, Russell M. Nelson stated, “While temple and family history work has the power to bless those beyond the veil, it has equal power to bless the living.  It has a refining influence on those who are engaged in it.  They are literally helping to exalt their families.”

Boyd K. Packer taught “family history work has the power to do something for the dead. It has an equal power to do something to the living.  Family history work…has a refining, spiritualizing, tempering influence on those who are engaged in it.”²   He also stated in his book  The Holy Temple that those who seek to help those on the other side receive help in return in all affairs of life.

Just this past April General Conference, Dale Renlund, stated, “When we gather our family histories and go to the temple on behalf of our ancestors, God fulfills many of these promised blessings simultaneously on both sides of the veil.”  Earlier in his talk, he listed multiple blessings:

• Increased understanding of the Savior and His atoning sacrifice
• Increased influence of the Holy Ghost to feel strength and direction for our own lives
• Increased faith, so that conversion to the Savior becomes deep and abiding
• Increased joy through an increased ability to feel the love of the Lord
• Increased family blessings, no matter our current, past, or future family situation or how imperfect our family tree may be
• Increased love and appreciation for ancestors and living relatives, so we no longer feel alone
• Increase power to discern that which needs healing and thus, with the Lord’s help, serve others
• Increased protection from temptations and the intensifying influence of the adversary
• Increased assistance to mend troubled, broken, or anxious hearts and make the wounded whole

WOW–I’m thinking these wonderful promises and blessings should provide plenty of motivation and inspire us to begin or continue forward in our family history and temple work efforts.!!!

¹ Remarks delivered by PresidentRussell M. Nelson on January 16, 2018, during a live broadcast, later printed in the April 2018 Ensign

² Boyd K. Packer, Your Family History: Getting Started,” Ensign, Aug 2003, 17