Ancestors and such...

This week I received a wedding notice and a funeral notice, both from cousins I have not met or knew only as a child. Neither are having LDS ceremonies which made me contemplate how many descendants are in or out of the Church and why.

For instance, in my mother's and dad's families, they were the only ones who had all of their children stay in the Church. Since they raised them as the only LDS family (most of the time) in their community, that is quite remarkable.

My newest great granddaughter Kate is a 8, or 9th generation Mormon on her mother's side depending on which line you follow back to the first ones to join the Church. Every one of her lines had early roots in the Church.

Most of her ancestors joined in the 1840-1850 era with one line joining in the 1890 era. This means her ancestors have been in the Church for over 150 years.

So what happened and why to those who are not. I can only speak for the lines I know, I cannot speak for the others. But I can see that in the first generation a couple of the boys and one of the daughters married out of the Church. Their children did not stay in the church even if they were baptized originally. None of their descendants that I know are in the Church.

There was also at least one of the children of the second generation who became caught up in alcohol. She had no children. Next generation a few more marry out of the Church and then some of their children marry out of the Church and a few get caught up in alcohol. And it appears that there is an addictive strain in the blood line so none of the descendants should take that first drink and take the chance.

And so it goes--descendants are not in the church either because 1--They were not taught by their parents and never gained a testimony of the Gospel (like the Lamanites) I call this the Lamanite Predicament or 2-they got caught up in the worldly things and teachings of the world and strayed away. I call this the Nehor Aspect. It is the problems of the original followers of Christ all over again.

The problem is that one person leaving the church leads to all their descendants being out of the Church as well and never having the choice to know for themselves whether the gospel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true.

When I think of all that our ancestors went through to join the true Church, against family and friends, and giving up all they had to get to America and join the Saints and the great testimonies that have been born by them in the way they lived, it makes me very sad generations of descendants will never know what they knew.

On a positive note, I have never heard of any that are anything but upstanding citizens, educated, living noble and christian lives and that is a real blessing and shows the strength and goodness of the original ancestors coming through. It is just sad that they never knew the joy of the fullness of the Gospel in their lives.