Families

I was reading a book about temples this morning by President Packer. I am preparing to give a talk tomorrow on the same subject. In this book, President Packer identified some of our responsibilities that we each have regarding family history. I thought i would share them with the family:

1- We are to each write our own personal history. He suggests we divide it into 3 areas- childhood, youth and adulthood. He said that we should collect our personal records and as a starting point, outline key components of our lives and write them up. Writing as we go will make it easier.

2- Make a Book of Remembrance. This can be as simple as taking our records we gathered and putting them in a special book along with photographs, etc. Doing this for children as they grow up makes it much easier.

3- DO our family research. I have done some over the years. I am hoping that other family members will in time catch the Spirit of Elijah to help move this work forward. One of my favorite memories in doing this work was when I went to the former Czechoslovakia. I went to a little town, which was the county seat in the area where they kept records. I was able to see a man responsible for those records. he was kind enough to sit down with me, pull out his old books of county records and identify about 4 generations of Kacher's. It was inspiring and a testimony to me that the Lord is in charge of this work.

4- Attend the temple as regularly as we can. This is easier for some of us than others and we commend you for your efforts.

5- Start/ continue a family organization. We can all see the great blessing that the Miller family reunions have been in our lives. Any suggestions for our Kacher family reunions would be welcomed. We know how busy you all are. We are so grateful for you and love to be with you as much as we can.

I also wanted to mention something about President Faust. As you know, he passed away this week. In addition to being a wonderful man and Church leader, Mom and I have the special experience of being called by him to serve as mission president. I will never forget the day we got home from doing something and finding a message on the phone from "Margaret", secretary to President Faust. She wanted to know if we would have time that afternoon to talk to him. We returned the call and set up a phone appointment.

When the time came he called us and was very casual. He said something like, "How are you folks doing". He conducted a fairly informal interview and then all of a sudden go very serious. He said something like, "In a meeting of the Council of the 12 and the First Presidency, the name of Larry S. Kacher was presented and approved to serve as mission president." He then extended a formal calling to Mom and me to preside over a French speaking mission. It was one of the most special moments of our lives to have that opportunity to be called by President Faust. He will always hold a spec ail place in our hearts.

Hope you are all well- Love, Dad