Nourish the Tree

After his powerful discourse on faith where he compared the word to a seed, Alma gave us this invitation: “But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root….  And thus, if ye will not nourish the word, looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof, ye can never pluck of the fruit of the tree of life.  But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life” (Alma 32:38-41).  The phrase that stuck out to me as I read this recently was “nourish the tree.”  I think that we would generally understand the state of the tree here to be a kind of level for our spirituality and how much we have come unto the Savior.  But I thought about a different interpretation given the explosion of family history work in the past few decades and the incredible technological tools that we have to research, track, and perform temple ordinances for our own family line.  There is now only one place to look that contains all the information about our family lines that has been recorded on Church records and about who has received the ordinances of the temple: FamilyTree. 

                Alma’s invitation to nourish the tree can be I think an invitation to all of us to “nourish” our own “tree” that contains our ancestors.  Despite the common perception among long-time members that all the work has already been completed for their family, there is much to be done and “the harvest truly is great” (Luke 10:2).  As I spend time looking at my own ancestors on FamilyTree—which I don’t do often enough—I realize the possibilities are just about endless for me to explore and look for people who are missing or who need temple work.  For example, if every line goes back twelve generations (some don’t but some also go much further), then that is over 4000 people to explore.  And then if their descendants are added in—my “cousins”—then the opportunities to find those whose temple work needs to be done really are numerous.  In the Doctrine and Covenants we have this invitation which I think very much could apply to this topic: “Verily I say unto you, all among them who know their hearts are honest, and are broken, and their spirits contrite, and are willing to observe their covenants by sacrifice—yea, every sacrifice which I, the Lord, shall command—they are accepted of me.  For I, the Lord, will cause them to bring forth as a very fruitful tree which is planted in a goodly land, by a pure stream, that yieldeth much precious fruit” (D&C 97:8-9).  We do indeed observe our covenants with God by sacrifice, and one of the ways that we sacrifice is to though family history and temple work.  Joseph Smith taught that “the greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead” and for us today that is done in part by caring for our own family tree and making it “fruitful” or, in other words, making it produce opportunities to bring temple ordinances to our dead. 

                With the building of the Nauvoo temple, the Lord gave this call for building materials: “And send ye swift messengers, yea, chosen messengers, and say unto them: Come ye, with all your gold, and your silver, and your precious stones, and with all your antiquities; and with all who have knowledge of antiquities, that will come, may come, and bring the box tree, and the fir tree, and the pine tree, together with all the precious trees of the earth” (D&C 124:26).  Those types of trees mentioned were physical trees that the Lord asked people to gather as building materials, but today the general public does not participate in the actual temple construction.  Instead of bringing the box and fir and pine trees, we bring our own “knowledge of antiquities” and individual family “trees” to the temple to bring the ordinances of salvation to our ancestors.  And surely there is just as much need to be “swift” in that effort as there was in building the temple itself.