Elder Tyson Dawson: Week 47 in the Field - Cousins, Eating Flowers, Trio, and Genealogy

Weekly Letter 14 September
2015

Hey guys, I hope everyone's had a great week.

This week on P-Day Elder Jepson and I discovered something really cool. We decided to print out some family history information after we finished writing, so we did so and at night started to read a little bit of it. Elder Jepson shared with me that his 5th great grandfather wrote the hymn "High On the Mountain Top" and was named Joel Hills Johnson. I said, "Hey I have family members that are also Johnsons" and picked up my thrice great grandfather Benjamin Franklin Johnson's book "My Life's Review" and began to thum through. I came across a picture of Benjamin and his brothers and lo and behold one of his brothers is Elder Jepson's ancestors Joel Hills Johnson. Turns out, we share a common ancestor, Benjamin and Joel's dad Ezekiel Johnson. This makes Elder Jepson my fifth cousin twice removed. Since discovering this, we've been sharing this story with everybody in the ward and getting people excited about family history. Truly it is a blessing to know so much about my family history and to have great lessons to learn from the stories of my faithful ancestors.

This week we had a baptism planned but it fell through due to some temptations with coffee. Telma Chacon was not baptized this Saturday but we have plans for this upcoming Saturday.

One weird sidenote about Guatemalan food culture is that people here eat flowers. They dip them in eggs and fry them and they turn out bitter but edible. This week a member received a flower boquet as a gift and told us basically, "These flowers are pretty and all, but they're also expensive so of course I'm going to eat them". Anyways, decorations are food here...

Anyways, we got the information about changes yesterday and Elder Jepson and I are both staying here in Lo de Fuentes. Interestingly, we wil be receiving a third companion who is not a Zone Leader like us but rather is a junior companion. This will be my third time in a trio and I'm interested to see what will happen.

This week, as Elder Jepson and I have been teaching a lot about family history work, my mind has reflected often on the relationship between Genealogy and the temple. President Brigham Young taught that "The ordinance of sealing must be performed here son to father and woman to man and children to parents, etc. until the chain of generations is made perfect in the sealing ordinances back to Adam." President Benson emphasized this point, saying "Our members need to be taught that it is not sufficient for a husband and a wife to be sealed in the temple to guarantee their exaltation - they must also be eternally linked with their progenitors and see that the work is done for those ancestors."

Joseph Fielding Smith solidified the importance of Family History Work with the following teaching: "Some may feel that if they pay their tithing attend their regular meetings and other duties, give of their substance to the poor, perchance spend one, two, or more years preaching in the world, that they are absolved from further duty. But the greatest and grandest duty of all is to labor for the dead."

How grateful I am for the priesthood keys restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith that open the doors to the redemption of our dead. Truly our responsibilities as members of the Lord's church expand beyond beyond this generation. Temples become the link between heaven and earth as hearts are turned, spirits are lifted, and perspectives widen.

The Hymn "High on the Mountain Top" teaches it well:

For there we shall be taught the law that will go forth,

With truth and wisdom fraught, To govern all the earth.

Forever there his ways we'll tread,

And save ourselves with all our dead.

Hope everyone has a great week.

- Elder Dawson