Who Is Ready Now?

By Leisa Wimpee

Nevada, USA

magnifying glass over family history screen

One Sunday following the final session of a general conference, I felt a very specific prompting to sign into my FamilySearch account and do some family history. I was reluctant to work on my family history because I had never had much success with my other attempts. My family is quite vigilant in family history, and I just had a thought in the back of my mind that there was nothing left to do.

I sat back and sighed with frustration as I looked at the dead end I had tried working on for years, hoping that this would finally be the day where I would find some information. I began my regular searches through census, marriage, and birth records, and after an hour I found nothing. Then the Spirit that had been whispering to me all weekend through the conference sessions prompted me to pray and find out who was ready for their work to be done now.

As I finished my prayer, I went back to my own name and moved forward through the line. I distinctly felt the Spirit guide me from one line to another until I ended up on my grandfather’s side of the family. Over the next hour the Spirit flourished in the room, and I came away with six names to take to the temple. As I finished requesting the names for the temple, I glanced down at some of the records I had received information from. My eyes swelled with tears and my heart was full of joy—the information had come from indexers who had volunteered their time to enter records for my ancestors. In gratitude, I indexed names for others for the next hour.

That day my testimony swelled with thankfulness for two reasons. One, that during general conference, the Spirit had led me to do family history work and to know which names to search for. Second, for Church members all over the world who index names so that people like me can find our ancestors clearly and quickly and hasten their work. It was a clear and powerful testimony to me of God’s work spreading forth upon the whole earth.