“Help from Heaven,” Ensign, Feb. 2004, 68–69
Help from Heaven
The patient was tall, good-looking, and dressed in white, and he looked into my eyes without uttering a word. I had come to pick up his prescription so I could go buy his medication.
Just then a nurse, also dressed in white, appeared and held out a piece of paper to me. It seemed to be a medical history.
“Is this his file number?” I asked.
She did not reply but merely turned the sheet over. There on the back was a number: 12.830.
This incident would not be remarkable in any way if it were not for the fact that this particular patient had died more than a year before, on 7 April 1990. He was my younger brother, Carlos Hugo, and I was only dreaming.
I awoke at 4:00 A.M. and immediately wrote down the number. That same day I got up early and told my daughter Ana about the dream. I showed her the number, and she said it looked like a date, not a number on a medical file. A light went on in my mind. This dream had to have something to do with the family history information I was looking for on my paternal grandmother. For 10 years I had tried to find my father’s birth certificate. With no success, I had turned my efforts toward locating information on his mother.
When I had the dream, I had intended to return to the historical archives in the province of Mendoza, Argentina, to see if researchers had found any information that might be useful to me. I had asked them to search the years between 1925 and 1932. But before going to the archives, I felt a strong prompting to visit the Godoy Cruz cemetery.
By 8:00 A.M. that same morning, I was asking Mr. Paz, an employee at the cemetery, if he would do me the favor of using that date to look through his records for any information on the death of my grandmother, Margarita Flores. As he leafed through the old worn books, I prayed silently and fervently.
Suddenly I heard him say, “Well, are you ever lucky! This is where your grandmother is buried.” He wrote out a document so stating, signed it, affixed a seal to it, and then kindly went with me to sector H, where I saw a small brass plate that read, “Margarita Flores. Died 12/8/1930”—the same date I had seen in my dream.
I was not yet born when my grandmother died. But more than 60 years after her death, I was able to find the place where she was buried.
I next went to the archives to see if they had found anything relating to my grandmother. “Negative,” said the man who waited on me. I handed him the certificate Mr. Paz had given me at the cemetery, and five minutes later I was holding a photocopy of my grandmother’s death certificate in my hands. Using this information, I was eventually able to locate my father’s birth certificate and the names of my great-grandparents.
In His infinite mercy, our loving Heavenly Father had made it possible for necessary information to be communicated to me. I immediately sent all the data I had obtained to the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple so that vicarious ordinances could be performed.
I know I have much more to do. But I also know that when our minds and hearts are willing and when we make the effort, we receive help from heaven. One day there will be a glorious resurrection, and with all my being I desire to find myself united with my loved ones.