Promptings

So I wanted to get this story down before I forgot it. This past December I took Tyler and Britain to the temple to do some family baptisms. While we were waiting to get started Tyler said how she wanted to do this every year as a Christmas tradition and how she wanted to do the work for my biological fathers family. I was shocked because I didn't think I had ever told them I was adopted by my father and about my birth father. I put it out of my mind and went on with the day.

A few weeks later I was giving a lesson in Relief Society. I don't remember the lesson, but I was reading a part that said we needed to honor our parents even if they were not the best parents and have hurt us. They gave us life and for that reason alone we should honor them. As I was reading it I had the very distinct feeling that I needed to do the work for my birth father and to forgive him. I had a hard time putting it into words as it happened and dealing with what was happening at that moment. I have hated my birth father for so long. I have never wanted anything to do with him, even when he was married to my mother. Why was I suddenly getting this impression?

I went home feeling very unsettled in my heart. I called my mom and she was very upset by it all. I prayed that night asking if there was someone who was ready to accept the gospel in that line and waiting for their work to be done and was given that answer that there was. My biological father was not a member of the church nor was anyone in his family. Of my sisters who are his biological daughters one of the has made lifestyle choices that won't allow her to do the temple work needed, and one struggles more than I do with what he did. I guess that left me as the only person to do this work. It has not been easy though.

For the longest time I struggled with the idea of adding his name as a father in family search. I do not consider him a father to me and it took me quite a while to add him. I made sure that it still should my dad as my father and my biological father as an additional parent (my dad adopted us and we are sealed to him so in the eyes of the law and the church he is my father not my biological father. in fact our birth certificates were even changed to reflect that).

I then decided to try to do and Internet search for his parents so I didn't have to keep bothering my mother and digging up old ghosts for her. What I found came as another major shock. I found out that my birth father passed away about 16 months ago from being electrocuted in a work related accident. I was the one who had to inform my mother and sisters that he had passed. Finding this out brought on a whole new set of emotions that I struggled dealing with and I had a hard time getting him out of my mind. I put his death information into Family Search and it came up with his ordinances being ready to be done. It was so hard to see his name linked with those ordinances. I am still trying accept it and print the cards to begin his work. My children, who have not been tarnished with the past, are eager and willing to do the work for his family. I am struggling each step of the way. Britain in all his wisdom told me that maybe this was how I was going to be able to forgive him.

This next weekend I will be getting the genealogical records my mother has to try again to start some of this work. I am not sure if it is my birth father or one of his ancestors that is ready to receive this work. Tyler (the first to be prompted) and I (the second one to be prompted) received the promptings about a year and a month after his death. Maybe in that time he has changed and is anxiously awaiting for the ordinances of the gospel. Whoever is ready, I am sorry for my personal struggles and will try to overcome.