This week’s Come, Follow Me lesson asks, “Ponder why the Savior’s return will be a day of rejoicing for you. What can you do to prepare for His coming?”
Recently President Nelson said, “Remember that the fulness of Christ’s ministry lies in the future. The prophecies of His Second Coming have yet to be fulfilled. We are just building up to the climax of this last dispensation—when the Savior’s Second Coming becomes a reality. … A necessary prelude to that Second Coming is the long-awaited gathering of scattered Israel.”
Although we often talk of this gathering taking place all over the world, and it is—God has formed us in families, and gathering members of our own is a vital part of this work.
In “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” we are reminded how important family gathering, sometimes also called family history, is for now and the eternities. “The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.”
Whatever our home and family may look like, right now there is something we can all do to strengthen our families and gather God’s children, that is family history:
“Knowledge of family history as an index of well-being and potential for resilience and/or positive change … is related strongly to so many well-established psychometric indicators of psychological well-being and good clinical outcome, attest to the potential of family knowledge as a clinically useful marker.”
(Knowledge of family history as a clinically useful index of psychological well-being and prognosis: A brief report. By: Duke, Marshall P., Lazarus, Amber, Fivush, Robyn, Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 00333204, 20080601, Vol. 45, Issue 2)