Hard at Work

I usually don't use my blog to expound thoughts about myself - but here goes. After recieving the December Ensign over a month late, I started at the first article about " These, our little ones" and had an epiphany. President Hinkley mentioned some words which seemed to really speak to me. He was speaking about teaching and training our children and quoted E.T. Sullivan " When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn't stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother's heart, and she puts it into the baby's mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies." After reading this, it seemed to match my hard work endeavours at the moment - which is Family History. I have been working on Dan's family history for years, but I have spent the last few weeks working extra hard at tracing down missing peope, dates and families with a lot of success. I find it exciting and even strenthened when I finally piece a family together. It was while reading this quote that I realised where I developed such a strong love and drive for this work. It was from my parents and grandmother. All those years that we spent going(often dragged!) to visit another grave, another old house that someone had once lived in and dare I say it - Another train station that our family had worked at - the seeds were planted in my heart. And now all these years later - I have developed a great love for the work. At times, I have even felt that my place in the Phillips family has also been helped by those of Dan's family who are waiting on the other side. Well, I'd better get back to work!