[MUSIC PLAYING]
Our Father's plan is about families,
symbolized by a great tree.
In order for a tree to live and grow,
it needs both roots and branches.
We likewise need to be connected both to our roots--our parents,
grandparents, and other ancestors--and
to our branches--our children, grandchildren,
and other descendants.
Several poignant scriptures use the analogy
of a tree with roots and branches
representing the family.
The prophet Malachi, in the last book of the Old Testament,
prophesied of a time when Elijah the prophet would return
to the earth before the "great and dreadful day of the Lord
...
[to] turn the heart of the fathers to the children,
and the heart of the children to their fathers,
lest [He] come and smite the earth with a curse."
Only through modern revelation is Elijah's complete role
revealed.
He was the last prophet to hold the sealing power
of the Melchizedek Priesthood before the time of Jesus
Christ.
With Moses, he appeared to Jesus Christ
and Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration
in the meridian of time.
As a seminal element of the Restoration,
Elijah again appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery
in 1836 in the Kirtland Temple.
He restored the keys of the sealing power
once again for the sealing of families
in this dispensation in fulfillment
of Malachi's prophecy.
Because Elijah was sent in this dispensation,
the fullness of salvation is available to both the living
and the dead.
Elijah's mission is facilitated by what is sometimes
called the spirit of Elijah, which, as Elder Russell M.
Nelson has taught, is "a manifestation of the Holy Ghost
bearing witness of the divine nature of the family."
That is why we often call the manifestations
of the Holy Ghost associated with family history and temple
work the spirit of Elijah.
We read in Doctrine and Covenants 128:18 of those who
have passed on before us, that "we without them cannot be made
perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect."
What does this mean?
We find this answer in scripture:
"And now, my dearly beloved brethren and sisters,
let me assure you that these are principles in relation
to the dead and the living that cannot be lightly passed over,
as pertaining to our salvation.
For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation,
as Paul says concerning the fathers--that they without us
cannot be made perfect--neither can we without our dead be made
perfect."
"Their salvation is necessary and essential
to our salvation."
This means that the salvation of the whole human family is
interdependent and interconnected--like the roots
and branches of a great tree.