The Field is White on Both Sides of the Veil
Edited by Laurie Williams Sowby

Editor's note: This article was written by Adele Austin. If you have any inspirational missionary stories you would like to contribute to Meridian Magazine, please write to Laurie Williams Sowby by clicking here.

Would you happily attend a three-hour meeting on genealogy on a Sunday afternoon when you would rather be home with your family?

As area advisors to Family History in Chile, my husband Victor and I smilingly greet and welcome priesthood leaders to our training meetings, even though at times we sense they are entering the chapel dutifully as opposed to willingly. We understand. We are patient because we know that you only love family history if you do family history. And we know that the Spirit will speak, and when it does, it changes hearts.

Such was the case with Antonio Melo, a young elders quorum president in Los Cerillos Stake. He came to us at the conclusion of our training and handed me a note. He told me he had written it in English because he wanted to try to be perfectly clear. Then he said those magic words that confirm to a missionary that all he has been trying to do is worth it: "You changed my eternity."

He then proceeded to explain to us that on two other occasions in his life something had happened inside him so that he knew he was changed forever. This night was the third time, when the Spirit had spoken that this magnificent saving work we do is sacred and important and rewarding. He said, "I will go home to my wife a different man from the one who came."

On numerous family campouts, my brother-in-law has spoken to me of his conviction that the work of teaching the gospel is increasing on the other side of the veil as well as here in mortality. He has always felt great urgency to get people motivated and moving in order to help these liberating sealing ordinances take place.

We try to help our Chilean brothers and sisters understand this urgency. We can testify that their ancestors are shouting out to them. Nearly every time we hold a training session, someone will come forward to share with us experiences that drive them to do this work.

Selva Vasquez of La Reina Stake in Santiago shared one of her many experiences in the temple. She was quietly enjoying the weekly session she attends with her sister when, to her surprise, she noticed a name written on the floor of the endowment room. As her eyes tried to focus on it, she detected another appear a short way off, and then another and another, until as far as her eyes could see there were names covering the entire floor of the room. She knew these were her extended family waiting to have her help them with their ordinance work.

When we trained in her stake she said, "Hermana Austin, I am not touched by the Spirit of Elijah; I am bathed in it."

Ruby Nawrath of Valdivia could not rest because her deceased father appeared in her dreams on many nights, always conveying an urgency to finish his endowment work. He had passed away after receiving his temple recommend but before he could use it to go to the temple himself. After we prepared his name and her husband did the necessary ordinance work, her father came one last time, appearing to her dressed in his ceremonial temple clothes and with a radiant countenance.

Ruby reaffirmed what she and I had discussed over the computer: These are not dead people we are working for, but people who still live, and feel, and think, who have goals and yearnings. They are anxious to respond and help those who are willing to begin the task of linking families.

These experiences and the Sprit attest that the field on the other side of the veil is also white, all ready to harvest.

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Laurie Williams Sowby has been writing since grade school, and getting paid for it the past 30 years, with articles in LDS Church magazines, Exponent II, This People, Good Housekeeping , and Redbook as well as the Deseret News, Daily Herald and Utah County Journal . She is a graduate of BYU, taught writing at Utah Valley State College for 12 years, and has traveled to all 50 states and 36 countries (so far).  She and her husband, Steve, recently returned from serving as fulltime missionaries in the Chile Santiago West Mission. They live in American Fork, Utah. Their youngest son, Rob, is currently serving in the Germany Berlin Mission. The older four children are married and have provided 14 grandchildren so far.

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